Maggie's Farm

Dodd out? That's a problem for the Repubs. Dodd would have been easy to run against. We think Linda McMahon might be the best deep-pocket bet against Blumenthal. She is not a social conservative so she won't frighten the CT voters - and her past co-ownership of the WWF (now WWE) gives her some street cred.

Oh, great. Democrats Considering Health Care-Immigration Deal To Overcome Key Sticking Point. Gotta pander to that illegal immigrant vote.

Didn't Adam Smith cover this already? What makes a nation rich? One economist’s big answer

Your climate scientists at work:

If published as is, this paper could really do some damage. It is also an ugly paper to review because it is rather mathematical, with a lot of Box-Jenkins stuff in it. It won’t be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct...

Pondering and pondering David Brooks' "educated classes."

The cowboy spirit. Dr. Sanity. What gal would want a guy without some cowboy in him?

9 points. Republican Heir To The Liberal Lion?

Now they are using the redskins to block Cape Wind. What next? Of course, the whole project is a dumb scam anyway, but uncovering the elite hypocrisy is the fun part. They don't want oil, they don't want wind, they don't want nuclear - but they do want their overland SUV permits and their 10,000 square foot houses overlooking Nantucket Sound.

Another org co-opted by the long march through the culture: AALS: A Learned Society or a Bunch of Left-Liberal Busybodies? Gramsci tactics, Prof.

We should have a category for New England sites. This good one is new to us: As Maine Goes.

We posted on Sol Stern and ED Hirsch yesterday. This is about the opposite: Thoughts on the Rotenberg Letter. Isn't the notion of "institutional racism" a bit dated these days?

Getting on the Scott Brown bandwagon: Michelle, Riehl, Sissy, Fowler at NRO. It's a long shot in wacky MA. Photo is Brown. He has three weeks to make his case against the Dem machine candidate who is avoiding the press, off on vacation, and assumed to be a shoe-in as a Dem. Easy gig, big staff, dinner out every night, do as you are told.

Barone: GOP Should Push Education and Pro-Family Tax Reform. Douthat also has advice for Repubs.

Yes, they are saying that this frigid winter is due to global warming. As Legal Insurrection rightly asks, What would they say if it were a warm winter? Heads I win, tails you lose.

At Samiz on the C of E:

I have zero tolerance for a state privileged organization who claims to speak from a position of moral superiority advocating force backed restrictions on secular life. The sooner the Church of England is disestablished the better.

Call it what it is: Iran's revolution

MacDonald:

The recession of 2008-09 has undercut one of the most destructive social theories that came out of the 1960s: the idea that the root cause of crime lies in income inequality and social injustice.

Brooks:

The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

A year ago, the Obama supporters were the passionate ones. Now the tea party brigades have all the intensity.

VDH:

...over one-third of all the efforts to repeat 9/11 have occurred in 2009—just as the United States has made unprecedented efforts to renounce the prior war on terror, to demonize a prior President, to use euphemism, to bow and apologize abroad, to turn war into jurisprudence, and to reach out to the Muslim world.

Via Driscoll:

...Tim Blair writes, “New York City banned smoking in bars and nightclubs four years ago, and imposes the highest cigarette taxes in the US. But if you’re a junkie, the city will spend $32,000 teaching you how to shoot up.”

Via Wizbang:

When George W. Bush returned, bloodied and bruised, to his Texas home after eight years in the White House, 43 percent of Americans surveyed by Scott Rasmussen "strongly disapproved" of the job he had done. Today, after less than a year in office, 46 percent express the same intense level of opposition to Obama.

Dems will do health care in secret meetings. Image below from Moonbattery -

I am back from my skiing and family vacation, and trying to catch up with the past week or so of Maggie's. I'd suggest that you do so too, if you have been away. Good stuff, as always.

Like our link that reminded me that our sexagesimal system (base 60, used for angles and time) derives from the Sumerians. 

By the way, if you haven't given up hoping for global warming yet, you would have if you had spent the last couple of weeks in New England.

I believe in open government, but this is nuts: Obama Imperils Intel Briefings

Volokh: Why is it More Wrong to Attack a Person’s Religion than their Secular Moral or Political Views?

Copenhagen success (brr) continues. Related: Once in a generation cold snap forecast for NC. Related: Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years.

Related: Peru's mountain folk face extinction due to cold. We're all gonna die by freezing! We need more free Government Oil!

Not enough rapes to keep the academic Feminazis happy: The radical feminist empire strikes back at Duke. They were obviously heartbroken that the lacrosse players never raped anybody.

Cocky Dem Coakley Goes On Vacation 20 Days Before Senate Election in Massachusetts

This Henninger piece is worth re-linking: A Rodney Dangerfield America? America isn't dead. It's just dead in the water.

Also, more on science is too white. Racists used to say science was too Jewish. Now I think they mean that it is too Asian.

Photo below from Gateway -

This quiet Interpol decision of the O prompted Anchoress to re-post The Art of the Painless Coup

Post Copenhagen: Is Man-Made Global Warming a Dead Issue? I tend to think so, because it was such a big joke.

Change… Obama Now More Loathed Than Bush at End of His Second Term

The Saudis take a stroll down J Street

Bet you didn't read Page 148 Of Health Care Bill

Now livestock are 50% of global warming. What global warming?

An argument for bombing Iran's nuke facilities - in the NYT

"Divisive" means you don't go along with the Left. Powerline

Newt video with "red meat." Doesn't sound like red meat to me - just logical and reasonable. Too bad he never comes across like a Teddy Bear on TV.

Grinch of the Year: Mr. Sutley. What a putz.

"Huge storm"? A commenter observes "Sounds like winter to me."

Liar in Chief: If you like your insurance you can keep it. Not

One of our favorite smart dudes, David Gelernter, on a new book about Darwin. A quote:

David Berlinski, one of the most impressive Darwin dissenters, quotes (in a Commentary essay) a smugly childish pronouncement by the journal Nature: "With all deference to the sensibilities of religious people, the idea that man was created in the image of God can surely be put aside." But what makes these ignoramuses so sure they know what the Bible means by "create"? How do they know that "evolution by natural selection" is not exactly what the Bible does mean? And how do they know that man is not "in the image of God"? Yes, we all know about the Bible's famous seven days, but has Nature never heard of a parable? It's not such a difficult concept. Does Nature fault the Bible for not starting with an account of Darwinian evolution?--right after the verses dealing with the Big Bang and astrophysics, which in turn follow the verses that brush everyone up on the necessary algebra, geometry, and calculus?

"The Torah speaks in the language of man," say the rabbis, and when the Bible emerged, men did not speak Darwin's language. But they did care about right and wrong, good and evil, justice and mercy, sanctity and man and God, and these (not biology or astrophysics) are the Bible's topics. Charles Darwin was a great thinker who taught us not only about science, but about religion--specifically, about what religion does not teach, and (for that matter) does not care about. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, at England's Christian heart. Darwin rejected the church, but the church didn't reject him. What does that mean? Berra has no comment.

Toon via Theo -

Like we said yesterday, the Dem bill is just the launching pad. Yes, that's the whole point.

Trial Lawyers Win Added Clout From Democrats In Health Bill. Wonderful!

How China sabotaged the climate talks

Va. Republicans aim to take 4 Democrats' congressional seats

The happiest states in the USA

ObamaCare designed to be un-repealable

Similar message from Betsy

Nelson Says More Senators Seeking Special Treatment in Light of Nebraska Deal

It's getting hot out there. Better DRIVE TO THE HIGHER LATITUDES

Not your grandfather's England:

A millionaire businessman has been jailed for two and a half years for taking on a knife-wielding burglar who held him and his family hostage in their home. Munir Hussain, 52, was told he was wrong to take the law into his hands and attack Walid Salem, 56, after the masked intruder threatened to kill him.

That's why we refer to Europe as EuroDisney. Not a serious place. It was, for a short while in history. Now it's just a cool vacation destination.

Even the Huffpo is disenchanted with the O (h/t, Winds):Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator

Related: Would You Buy a Used Car from This Man?

Fun with Hugo! First - Was it Santa? Second: Hugo renames Angel Falls

Climate touches every white liberal's erogenous zone. Krauthammer.

The UN's Pachauri, like Gore, is getting rich off climate.

Pajamas: The Socialist Revolution Has Come to America

Ted Dalrymple revisits Calcutta

Cool rocks. Slide show of some rochers extraordinaire

Kim Peek died.

A book: From Poverty to Prosperity

C of E vicar advises parishioners to steal

Debating national identity turns dangerous?

Point of Law: Impermissible Ratemaking in Health-Insurance Reform: Why the Reid Bill is Unconstitutional

Samuelson in the WaPo: A Parody of Leadership. One quote:

Even if Congress passes legislation -- a good bet -- the finished product will fall far short of Obama's extravagant promises. It will not cover everyone. It will not control costs. It will worsen the budget outlook. It will lead to higher taxes. It will disrupt how, or whether, companies provide insurance for their workers. As the real-life (as opposed to rhetorical) consequences unfold, they will rebut Obama's claim that he has "solved" the health care problem. His reputation will suffer.

Photo on loan from Moonbattery -

Pethokoukis: The political blowback from healthcare reform

Kimball via Insty:

Since it was Ben Nelson of Nebraska that finally got Harry Reid his desperately needed 60th vote for socialized medicine, I hope 1) that the next two year are unpleasant for Sen. Nelson and 2) that he loses in 2012 by a landslide.

WSJ: Change Nobody Believes In - A bill so reckless that it has to be rammed through on a partisan vote on Christmas eve.

Prepare for a new term: "climate instability"

What is "settled science"? From Global warming and the 'settled science' baloney at Am Thinker:

While not faulting journalists and politicians for their stupendous ignorance when discussing most scientific subjects, I do condemn their utter lack of coherence concerning basic scientific definitions, processes, and principles. 

Specifically, the chattering classes have no appreciation of the following truisms: settled science comes only in the form of physical laws while the causes behind specific phenomena are sometimes never definitively settled.  And the more complex the system being observed, the longer it takes to reach a consensus about the causal mechanisms.

Begin your Christmas shopping yet? I thought I'd begin today or tomorrow.

Did everybody know that Wikipedia is a non-profit? FAQs about Wikipedia

What would they do to me today if they saw the pictures I drew in Kindergarten? (h/t, Tiger)

California as a failed state

Is health care reform a gift or lump of coal?

Above the law? SEIU and the MA Senate race

From Michael Feinstein in the NYT:

If you look at a list of the most popular Christmas songs, you’ll find that the writers are disproportionately Jewish: Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” “The Christmas Song” (yes, Mel Tormé was Jewish), “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Silver Bells,” “Santa Baby,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Winter Wonderland” — perennial, beloved and, mostly, written for the sheet music publishers of Tin Pan Alley, not for a show or film. (Two notable exceptions: “White Christmas,” introduced in “Holiday Inn,” and “Silver Bells,” written for “The Lemon Drop Kid.”)

Libertarians and Conservatives, at Ace. One quote:

Barney Frank is a crusader against any efforts to impose or even encourage any sort of traditional morality by the government. He is -- as regards only traditional morality -- a libertarian.

Meanwhile, he's supporting the government's efforts to throw you in jail if you don't purchase a government-qualified health insurance plan.

Liberals -- leftists, really -- continue to "bravely" (is it brave anymore?) tweak and thwart traditional mores and taboos while simultaneously replacing them with new taboos and new Temperance Crusades even more onerous and obnoxious and freedom-destroying than the ones they're so "courageously" freeing us from.

IN: Government-permitted gambling

OUT: Government-permitted Ho-Ho's and Mountain Dew

IN: Gay "bathhouses"

OUT: Actual baths -- too much water and too much energy used!

IN: Transgenderism

OUT: Transfats

IN: Anal bulbs

OUT: Light bulbs

h/t Gateway - An interview with one of our favorites, Thaddeus McCotter, plus the Republican Policy Committee Principles (listed below on cont. page)

Q&O on Copenhagen, etc:

China is emerging as a leader among the 130 nations that make up the misnamed Group of 77. While Hugo Chavez may be the court jester, the real power of that group lays with China. And China sees a developing power vacuum with the diminished role of the US – partially due to the financial crisis and partially due to a young and inexperienced president. Again, they’re not staking out a negotiating position, they’re telling the rest of the powers the way the table is set. Demands will follow later.

Too logical? Climate Change Is Nature's Way: It's our good luck one of Earth's many ice ages ended 12,000 years ago.

Yes, He Can: President Obama’s Power to Make an International Climate Commitment Without Waiting for Congress

Meanwhile, in this insanity, billions of taxpayer's $ to Third World countries to cope with an AGW which doesn't exist.

Video of no fuel, no emissions, no brains

He lives in a different world from that of Bernie Sanders

Hot Air: Merry Christmas: Senate ObamaCare vote may come on December 24th

Americans Souring on Democrats

Real global warming, at Insty

The atmosphere is cooling. Cold as hell in the Northeast now. And to our continued amusement, Copenhagen remains in a deepening deep freeze

Yes, Al Gore caught again lying like a Polar Bear-skin rug

Also via Lucianne: President Obama’s allies try to shield him from a potential climate catastrophe

Powerline on Pawlenty in NH. Right message.

Walker: Obama the America denier

Alex Massie in Spectator: American Exceptionalism & the Decline of Limited Government

Re health care, the O says we're "on the precipice." Truth, for once. No wonder he uses a teleprompter most of the time.

DOE sends a “litigation hold notice” regarding CRU

Harry Reid, Card Shark

York: Why Democrats push health care, even if it kills them

City Journal: Teachers’ Unions vs. Progress—Again. New York resists reforms that would bring in millions and improve teacher quality.

Faster? Please. Yet another proclamation that global warming is "accelerating, much faster than we anticipated," as activists have been telling us since the late '90s.

I think that was shortly after the decade of global cooling scares.

Tiger on what Jamie Dimon should have said to the O, including this comment: "...it is hard to see how anybody smarter than a reporter would be fooled by such silliness."

Feeding the ego by going green

Terrible poll numbers for the O. Why?

Gimme money. That's what Copenhagen is all about.

WSJ: The 'Cost Control' Bill of Goods - How Peter Orszag and the White House sold a health-care illusion.

Didn't they say the polar ice would be gone in five years, three years ago? They are moving the goalpost.

Pick just one thermometer

Good political advice from Newt (video) h/t, reader

Thompson: The wrong kind of rich

30% of Dems believe in astrology. Good grief. Explains a lot.

Powerline: Are the wheels coming off healthcare?

Oopsie daisy. Story at Dr. X. Luckily, it wasn't occupied yet. Only 1 guy was killed.

Government vs. Markets: Q&O

Vanderleun defuses Gore's lethal poem

Diversity Infects Medical School. Brilliant!

Heather Mac Donald: The Bilingual Ban That Worked

Thomas Sowell dissects intellectuals

How Mossad hacked the Syrian computers for their raid on the mysterious facility

Teddy Kennedy From The Grave: Medicare As A Path To Single Payer

Jimmy Carter: Abuse of Women Including Genital Mutilation is the Fault of Catholics & Southern Baptists.Everybody knew that.

Mark Steyn: Obama goes from dazzle to drone. A quote:

Can you believe this line made it into the speech?

"I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war."

Well, there's a surprise.

David Horowitz on Better Red than Dead.

Related, from Michelle: Hollywood & Howard Zinn’s Marxist education project. Good grief.

Why docs and hospitals are wary of government medicine, via Marginal Rev:

Dynamite from Krauthammer: The new socialism

Forget CO2 - now it's nitrogen!

Dino on climategate: Something’s (probably) got to give

SISU on Scott Brown

About time: Britain, Long a Libel Mecca, Reviews Laws

More on the Minnesota Teacher Brainwashing Program

High Premiums in Senate Democrats’ Health Plan

Climategate’s Harry_Read_Me.txt: We All Really Should

Get a Government Job, Series #4,291  John Derbyshire

CNN: 61% Oppose Senate Health Care Plan

The Nobel speech is getting good reviews.

Bainbridge: Is Medicare Really "Big Government at its Best"?

Trying to rewrite history:

Reid, like most Liberals, is trying to revise the racist history of the Democratic Party, and better yet, to transfer that history to the Republican Party. You would too if you had the racist history of the Democrats. 

Study Shows Good Little Eco-Ninnies Who Buy Organic 'n Stuff More Likely to Lie and Cheat in Experiments That Test Ethics

I do not understand this: ACORN wins in federal court

15 reasons why they fell for the hoax

No Pasaran: "It's the same old leftist playbook: Approach every desired major policy change as a crisis, and demand immediate action." 

Y2Kyoto: I Say We Start By Canceling The Olympics

Take This Paradigm and Shove It: Each year, I get invited to Washington DC to serve as a pimp. (h/t, Insty)

Climategate gaining traction - even in New Jersey

Dino: From the Snail Darter to CO2

Watts: The Smoking Gun at Darwin Zero

Image via Moonbattery

More experts have second thoughts about AGW

Palin vs. Gore:

I’m putting my money on the Alaskan Mom…
It’s been nearly two years since the Goracle first announced that the arctic polar cap “will disappear in 5 years.”

Via View from 1776:

In Copenhagen Treaty negotiations, poorer nations are demanding massive transfer payments from the United States and other developed nations.  Good luck to them in collecting promised payments.

Read More...

 

It changes every day: Government medical takeover update

Get ready for Health Care 'Sticker Shock'

Isn't this racial profiling? The NYT: Christmas gifts for people of color?!?!?!? Shades of separate water fountains.

Cute gal, to cheer us up, via Washington Rebel, who seems to compete with Theo for demure tottie and outspoken opinion -

EPA Finding Gives It Effective Control of the Economy. Suddenly, it isn't funny. Indeed, it is one reason businesses are wary of new hires. 

Democrats' war on small business and family businesses. Also, not funny. And it is why small businesses are wary of new hires.

With no functioning MSM, people like Harry Reid get away with pure BS like this. Unbelievable.

Come all Ye Warming Faithful

Pajamas on the politics of non-warming:

To date, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has never offered any evidence of a “human fingerprint” on the modest (0.5 degrees Celsius) warming that occurred between the 1850s end of the Little Ice Age and 1940. They haven’t even given us a convincing story about the 0.2 degree Celsius warming that occurred from 1940 to 1998 (part of that tiny warming has disappeared). James Hansen’s predictions of massive overheating, given to the Senate in 1988, have been overtaken by a quiet sun and a telling drop in global ocean temperatures.

The public has noticed there’s been none of the long-predicted runaway warming — or any warming at all since 1998. They’re reading the Climategate emails of the “consensus scientists” confessing they don’t know why warming stopped. That’s a huge confession.

The public cares less and less for tired scare stories of a parboiled planet.

While the MSM is preoccupied with Tiger Woods and wackos sneaking into White House parties, government health care is proceeding apace behind the scenes. Nat Hentoff on The Cold Heart of Obamacare. Jay Cost on Why Does the Public Oppose ObamaCare?

Christmas trees axed from Copenhagen conference. However, Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges. Yes, indeed, The C Students of the World Unite!

Did you read this? CRU Raw Temp Data Shows No Significant Warming Over Most Of The World. And did you catch this excellent one from Bolt? - Climategate: how the conspirators gagged on their deceptions

Krugman quotes union study to support government jobs plan. At this point, Krugman has about the same degree of credibility as Andrew Sullivan.

The NYT drank the Kool-Aid years ago - for political, not scientific reasons. They know nothing about science or math (how much stats did Pinch take in college?), but they do know that they approve of any kind of authoritarianism of the elites and the experts as long as they and their Manhattan pals are the elites and experts.

I think that it is notable that they have finally admitted that Climategate exists. They have not quite gone so far as to admit that a debate about the science - or about the hysteria in which they have participated in avidly - exists.

Their editorial concludes:

It is important that scientists behave professionally and openly. It is also important not to let one set of purloined e-mail messages undermine the science and the clear case for action, in Washington and in Copenhagen.

They did not decide to mention that those emails go to the heart of all of the hysterical pronouncements of the IPCC. The CRU is the beating, seemingly duplicitous, heart of the entire movement.

Rather than being the cynics and skeptics that we expect of hard-nosed journalists, the NYT predictably drinks the Kool-Aid because it suits their authoritarian politics. Pathetic, limp - and unprofessional.

Image via Mr. Free Market

Christmas books: The Dangerous Book for Boys

Good streaming Christmas music via FBC radio . It's not mall music.

Not being an economist, I always have to look up the exact definition of rent-seeking

A nation of Watanabes. My view? There is no such thing as predatory lenders. There is such thing as greedy, predatory, amoral borrowers and risk-takers on the bank's nickel.

Sometimes Ace gets serious and, when he does, he says wise things. As in this piece (which is not really about Palin). h/t, Villainous. One quote:

...politics is not about Simon Pure purity on questions. They are advancing the idea that politics is about coalition-building, doing what is necessary to attract 51% to your flag, and that those they consider too hardcore about conservative principles are doing the party a disservice by elevating philosophical integrity and ideological coherence above the vagueries and punts often necessary to negotiate a rough consensus.

An outrage indeed. The re-do of the Sunmaid girl. They made her less ethnic, and no longer a field worker.

I have heard many views on this: House Republicans Seek Reprieve For Navy SEALs. I tend to think it's like those cases where they arrest a 6 year-old girl for having a butter knife in her lunchbox.

NSFW: Obama's Safe Schools Czar. This creep would have been arrested if he came by my elementary schoool.

Is California the Dems' model for growth?

Via Pethokoukis, The chart that keeps the WH econ team up at night:

Just when it seemed as if, finally, there could be some real open discussion about the data, ClimateGate Professor Calls G-Warming Skeptic 'A**hole' on Live TV

Climate scientist: There is no smoking hot spot

The other scientists held their nose in public. Bolt - Climategate: how the conspirators gagged on their deceptions:

I’ve wondered whether Climategate scientist Tom Wigley, an Australian, finally choked on all the fraud, fiddling and coverups he was witnessing from fellow members of his Climategate cabal.

Steven Hayward points out that many other Climategate scientists privately had trouble swallowing the practices of their colleagues...

The Skeptic's Handbook

Powerline:

It is the most important scandal of our time. Climate alarmists are trying to impoverish the world, ostensibly in order to cool it down but really, in my view, to achieve the liberal holy grail of government control over everything. The scandal comes along at a critical moment to cast doubt on whether the "scientists" behind the global warming scare are doing science at all. Rather, their own words suggest that they are engaging in a combination of politics and fraud.

I agree.

Coyote on one Example of Climate Work That Needs to be Checked and Replicated. Urban heat.

Via Driscoll on the MSM:

The skeptics were regarded as cranks and shills for evil polluters, such as the oil companies. If they got coverage at all, it was negative.

Now comes Climategate. It is out of step with the media agenda. What does the media do now?

“Ignore it,” has been the first answer.

Regard it as an unimportant story ^[4]. Not nearly as important as Tiger Woods or the couple that crashed a White House party. It is just another hacker, and undoubtedly the work of one of those oil company shills.  Yes, ignore it. It will fade away.

The second answer: Write about Climategate’s general unimportance and give the parties involved a platform to dismiss the charges. Various outlets took minor steps to cover the story in a limited, dismissive way.

Insty:

SCIENTISTS BEHAVING BADLY: Steve Hayward on the ClimateGate scandal. “The behavior of the CRU circle has cast a long shadow over the entire climate science community, and many honest scientists will now undeservedly bear the stigma of Climategate unless a full airing of the issues is conducted. Other important climate research centers with close ties to the CRU–including NASA’s Goddard Institute and the Climate Change Science Program at NOAA–should not be exempt from a full-dress investigation. Such a reevaluation must begin with an understanding of the crucial role the CRU circle has played in the global warming drama.” Read the whole thing, which provides a nice summary of the issues so far.

Image: The new palms and rising balmy waters at Maggie's Farm Resort and Spa in central New England. It's about time. We bought the place for that exact purpose, cleverly anticipating the arrival of the palms and beaches.

Tiger Woods drives sales of physics book sky high

Hungarian cave-dwellers could split grandmother's $6.6 billion fortune

Gore's mountain of misinformation. Related: Global warming may require higher dams, stilts. Good grief.

Rereading the ADL’s Foolish Report on Rage

Timothy P. Carney: Jobs summit features rent-seeking CEOs

Geert Wilders summoned to trial

Media Tricks: Three Big Stories, Three Media Disappearing Acts

MSM silence on climategate: Day Fourteen and Counting

RCP: Dems Doing Liberalism Badly

Targeting Sarah: Looks like somebody has been assigned the full-time job of making Sarah seem "controversial" and tainted 

Dogs as con artists (article from 2002). A quote:

...according to a number of recently released scientific studies, dogs are not merely emotional con artists: they are also intellectual con artists. They've learned not only to fake love; they've managed to convince us that they are a lot smarter than they really are. In both cases they play us for the saps we are. 

The sound of settled science (from Bolt):

UPDATE 2

Robert Greiner demonstrates how the Climatic Research Unit’s computer codes were rigged to make almost any data look like evidence of rapid warming.

UPDATE 3

Perhaps the most dramatic fall-out in Britain so far:

The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.

The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012.

At NRO:

...from a letter Jefferson wrote in 1762: “The old-fellows say we must read to gain knowledge and gain knowledge to make us happy and admired. . . . Mere jargon! Is there any such thing as happiness in this world? No: And as for admiration I am sure the man who powders most, perfumes most, embroiders most, and talks most nonsense, is most admired.”

In Search of a Jobs Agenda: Go West young man, but stop at Texas.

It's only fair: Coburn, Vitter want to force Congress into public health plan

59% think scientists lied about global warming

Viking:

The Massachusetts model, yet again - Boston Globe "Six hospitals to sue state over payment shortfalls": "The suit charges that Massachusetts violated a law requiring adequate reimbursement to hospitals for patients insured by the government. The hospitals contend the state set repayment rates so low they do not cover the cost of such medical care." Fear not, all these issues will be ironed out in the federal plan. Paul Krugman told me so.

Towering Hypocrisy: Times Calls Swiss Intolerant for Minaret Ban

Protein: All your objective media are belong to us!

Re Climategate:

Image via Driscoll's Bowling For Afghanistan

Related: We have always said that the problem with Afghanistan is that it isn't a country - it's a place. Community Organizing in Afghanistan

Bad news for the Washington Times

Sort-of related: Murdoch Plans $15 M. N.Y.C. Edition

From I own the world:

    OK, now Obama’s presidency is becoming super embarrassing. I honestly feel like someone is going to come out and pat him on the head all patronizingly. His latest Jobs Forum, (kind of like a Summit, I think, only not as fancy pants) to be hosted on Thursday, is yet another example of how woefully unprepared and hopelessly in over his head he is.

Related: Democrats Threaten a "Jobs March on Washington," to (Seriously!) Protest Their Own Feckless Incompetence

Medicare cuts and other D.C. fairy tales: Obama's so-called 'savings' are pure political fantasy

Jim Miller: It's more complicated than warmists and deniers

Via Steyn:

Slice your average environment correspondent through the middle and you're going to find a left-leaning liberal arts graduate who is utterly out of his/her depth. Their world view is being swept from underneath them and they are being shown — in ways that they do not really and have never had to understand — that the guys they thought were the goodies are in fact "at it" and that those they have spent a decade disparaging as deniers were in fact spot on.

I would find that hard to report too.

That quote is from the post CRUdGate: Why this can't be swept under the carpet, who includes a few images of which this is one:

Reason: The Scientific Tragedy of Climategate -Can climate change science recover from the damage done by leaked emails?

Watts: Climategate: hide the decline – codified

Pajamas: The Fraud Is Everywhere: SUNY Albany and Queens University Belfast Join Climategate (PJM Exclusive)

Slate: Confused by the O's speech. I thought the speech was dull, rambling, and incoherent until he tried to wrap himself in the flag at the end.

Ace: Obama's Speech: To Keep Afghanistan from Becoming Vietnam, I Hereby Propose the Strategy of "Vietnamization"

Am Thinker: Dick Morris and the Crusade against ObamaCare

Howard Dean Declares Debate Between Capitalism and Socialism to Be Over. Isn't that nice to know.

MIT students to protest Copenhagen. h/t SDA

Dr. Sanity: EDUCATION IS A WEAPON

Green cremation:

Two hours later all that's left is some bone residue and a syrupy brown liquid that is flushed down the drain.

That almost made me barf.

Another contender for the worst medical reporting ever: "Coma man". h/t, Vanderleun

And from Vanderleun on Climategate:

Looking back it is easy to see that the emails, far from being just trivial statements exchanged between pals, partners in deceit, and collegial others, were indeed the window into the entire mind-set that drove and sustained what is looking to be the largest and most far-reaching hoax in the history of science; a hoax perpetuated across decades by dozens if not hundreds of "scientists" for the sake of "saving the planet" and money, and fame, and status, and power. Indeed, this hoax makes Bernard Madoff look like a street-corner three-card-monte hustler. Looking through the window provided by the emails you can discern, with no effort of imagination whatsoever, the much greater real-world environment in which the hoax was born, grew, took on a life of its own, and was fed and sustained until it swept the whole world into its maw.

Roger Simon: Climategate: The White House Stonewalls with Stupidity

Moonbattery: UN's Green Blueprint for World Domination

I suggest that the Swiss tell the UN to stick it

MIT professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen has a few well-chosen words on global warming.