Maggie's Farm

The Christmas Season runs from the first day of Advent until the end of Epiphany. Joseph Bottum discusses. Advent and Epiphany are the religious, mysterious, joyful part, and Christmas is the secular, fun piece. It's all good, in my opinion.

The American people are mad as hell

Food stamps becoming normal in America. The richer our population becomes, the more people getting free food. Related: Starvation in Gaza?

NY Post: The Climate-cult con. I enjoyed this: 'Botch after botch after botch.''

Tiger:

...basically we are being asked to restructure the entire economy of the planet on the say-so of a few "scientists" whose work cannot be verified or even reconstructed. Is there any intellectually honest person who thinks that is a good idea?

Meanwhile, today from the self-satirizing BBC:

Climate change is not just an environmental problem, it is a human rights issue. In fact it's the biggest child rights problem of our time. With the potential rise of up to 160,000 child deaths a year in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia directly resulting from climate change, it is children, the most vulnerable children, who will be caught at the centre of the storm.

And similarly, this from the self-satirizing UN:

Environmentalism should be regarded on the same level with religion "as the only compelling, value-based narrative available to humanity," according to a paper written two years ago to influence the future strategy of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the world's would-be environmental watchdog.

Politico: 7 stories Obama doesn't want told

The about-face on Honduras

It's rare for me to see something worth reading by Friedman, but America vs. The Narrative  is pretty good.

Which is the bigger scandal? News-gate or Climategate? As Steyn put it:

"If you follow online analysis from obscure websites on the fringes of the map, you'll know what's going on. If you go to the convenience store and buy today's newspaper, you won't."

Heroes, from National Post:

Two of Canada's greatest and most undersung recent heroes are environmental economist Ross McKitrick and statistical minerologist Steven McIntyre, who by their tireless research in the teeth of the entire ecological establishment, proved the former IPCC claim of drastically accelerated global warming was a fraud. These men have been prominently mentioned in the hacked emails that have just revealed the outrageous lengths the scientific propagators of the Great Green Fraud have gone to to suppress the facts.

Sheer brilliance. HHS would become gigantic insurance regulator.

Related, the explanation for the lack of competition in medical insurance:'

At a recent town hall meeting, President Obama said, "Now,
the only thing that I have said is that having a public option in that
menu would provide competition for insurance companies to keep them
honest."

But it is government that is responsible for the dearth
of competition in the insurance business. That's because Congress
enacted the McCarran-Ferguson Act in 1945, which allows the states to
limit the number of players in their insurance markets, and explains
why "in 64 percent of all metropolitan areas, a single health insurer
commands a market share of at least 50 percent".

Government
created the insurance monopolies in the states, thus destroying
competition. Government is therefore responsible for the "dishonesty"
that Obama decries.

We're late to the party with this chart, but it sure is revealing, isn't it?

Via Moonbattery:

It’s Not Marriage, It’s the Woman. (Thanks to Am Digest for introducing us to that site.)

What's up with the Xanthan Gum thing?

Anglican Bishop says "Happy Christmas" is an Obscenity

While You Were Feasting: A Lot Of Crazy Stuff Happened

Strassel in WSJ: 'Cap and Trade Is Dead'

Funny but not funny: Climategate Predictions: The Aftermath

Obama Administration Approves of ACORN Funding. By the way, what happened to ACORN's internal investigation?

Lawson: Copenhagen will fail – and quite right too

Via Tim Blair:

Col. Douglas Mortimer:
“You know, when you consider that ‘We’re Saving The Planet’ is the
biggest power/money grabbing scam since ‘We’re Saving Your Souls,’
whoever leaked/released those e-mails and such is kind of like the
modern scientific equivalent of Martin Luther. This person/persons may
well have broken the backs of the Global Warming Priests who did
everything in their power to make sure that the common man, and those
who would oppose them, had no direct access to the Spoken Word of God.”

The computer codes are the real story.

I think there’s a good reason the CRU didn’t want to give their data to people trying to replicate their work.

It’s in such a mess that they can’t replicate their own results.

At Pajamas: IPCC expert reviewer Gray — whose 1,898 comments critical of the
2007 report were ignored — recently found that proof of the fraud was
public for years.

Krauthammer: Scrap the health care bill and start over

Also from Krauthammer:

I think what's interesting about Obama is he is going to be at the U.N. [conference in Copenhagen] to announce the [new] policy about climate change on the basis of — nothing. He is going to be proposing what the House has passed — that he knows is not going to pass in the Senate.
And we are actually a constitutional democracy where the president can't announce a policy unilaterally. It actually has to pass the two houses of the Congress, and our allies abroad know that, and they’re going to look at this announcement he is going to make and think it … extremely strange.

Photo: Christmas trees along the median of Park Avenue, NYC. Not yet lit.

I give thanks to God today (and every day) for being a free American - and for being free to read, write, and report whatever I want to here on Maggie's Farm. I am grateful to our Founding Fathers, for our Constitution, for all of the past and present men at arms who defend our freedoms.

I have a shoot today, then family dinner this evening in MA. A grouse and woodcock hunt on Friday in the lowlands, swamps and marshes. Image via Mr. Free Market:

The Pilgrims, Famine, and the End of Feudalism

Another good link for Thanksgiving: Malthusians wrong since the year 200. Fewer people would be better for my hunting, though. The good hunting habitat in the Northeast is being overrun with strip malls, developments of McMansions, and second and third homes.

Not American: Thought reform at the U of Minnesota

Via Lucianne, An Immigrant's Thanksgiving

Why attack Sarah? Maybe because the women love her

US lags world in nuke energy. So stupid of us.

Via Driscoll:

Skepticism about global warming is wrong because it is not supported by
scientific articles in “legitimate peer-reviewed journals.” But if a
journal actually publishes such an article, then it is by definition
not “legitimate.”

Related, Somin on the social validation of knowledge.

Related: SISU on Soylent Green Revisited

The EU has a Ten Year Plan. How could that go wrong? Central planning worked just great for the Soviet Union. Euroland is heading swiftly back towards the Feudalism they seem to love.

New Haven will promote those firefighters.

New Zealand looks at the real data. No warming.

About Le Corbusier: The architect as totalitarian

Q&O: So Where Are We On Health Care Reform?

A grandiose Pres needs to learn about the history of the US' involvement with Asia. No bows 'til now, though.

Wines for Thanksgiving. Prof B

Good for a laugh: Artists for Gaia

Norm: All about Sherlock Holmes. It's about the aesthetics of detection.

How considerate of him: Obama will give you $2,500 a year to go to school. His money, right?

It's gonna get worse with the Dem taxes: Goodbye Jobs, Hello Mom and Dad, Say Young Adults

Hawkins: Would the O have been elected if he ran on what the Dems are doing?

Did you miss Robin of Berkeley's piece on why it's nuts for women to be Liberals

Living the Liberal crack-up. Related: How far will Dem leaders go?

Does this fool you? Feds would make states collect health care taxes. The states do not want that job.

Ace: Democrats' Dilemma: Vote for ObamaCare and Be Voted Out of Office. Vote Against ObamaCare and Be Voted Out of Office.

Related via NYM:

If nothing else, watching the Democrats sacrifice so much on behalf of
this monstrosity is fascinating, appalling—and dramatic. Common sense
suggests that they shouldn’t do it. The basic laws of political physics
say they can’t do it. And yet on they march.

Fred Singer's 2007 speech: Global Warming: Man-Made or Natural?

Bishop Hill is all over Climategate

Islam Would Die Without Jihad

The truth about GM

The Arena: What would you do with Afghanistan?

Immigration: Republicans? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Republicans!

I've been slow to realize this: the O is turning out to be a dud. I did not vote for him, but I had some hope that he would try to govern as a pragmatist-moderate - against all evidence, of course. Even the thrill is gone for Chris Matthews.

Newt quoted in the Der Spiegel article:

"Carter tried weakness and the world got tougher and tougher because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators, when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead," Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker in the House of Representatives, recently said. And then he added: "This does look a lot like Jimmy Carter."

Related, at Powerline:

President Obama took office wanting to distinguish himself from President Bush. That was foolish and arrogant. Now, as Der Spiegel concludes, he is trying desperately to distinguish himself from Jimmy Carter.

More on the topic at Ace.

More evidence that tax cuts help an economy more than spending

Even Monbiot says the science now needs “reanalysing”. Has rabid warmist Monbiot become an evil skeptic? Junk Science reminds us that the opposite of skepticism is gullibility.

Related: US to propose emission reductions in Copenhagen

Rasmussen:

Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama
and congressional Democrats. That’s the lowest level of support measured for the
plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June.

Rick Moran on end of life costs.

Hysteria or rational? The debt

How does the health insurance business really work?

Attempting a Bush re-do? Immigration looms as the next test for Congress | Washington Examiner:

Changing admissions requirements from favoring extended family members to favoring high-skill immigrants could give Republicans cover from charges that they are anti-immigrant. They could argue that, in a time of high and extended unemployment, it makes sense to switch from admitting job seekers to admitting job creators.

    The 1965 and 1986 laws resulted in a large illegal immigrant population because they promised things that proved beyond the capacity of government to deliver. Now that a combination of public indignation and high-tech ingenuity have increased government's enforcement capacity, and while the inflow of immigrants is slowing and an outflow of illegals may be accelerating, we may have reached a point when we can put in place immigration laws with enforceable limits and that encourage an influx of the kind of immigrants we need most. Can Congress act?

Add to the climate list: Climate change causes Filipinos to become prostitutes. Of course it does. Everybody knows that.

Older fellow eats hottest pepper in the world

Burn the witch! Martha Stewart agrees. But who cares what she thinks?

How much oil do we have? Almost endless, it seems.

Utterly incoherent on Jihadist trials. Dino

Simon: Congress: Gov’t healthcare for thee but not for me

Phi Beta Cons: Why I'll Never Be A University President. Related: Whiny Spoiled Brats

NeW women on campus: Anchoress

Dr. Bob: It's all the Christians' fault. Darn those pesky Christians.

Get ready for the Turkey Flu! We're all gonna die!

Two Teens. h/t, Lucianne

How the Dem minimum wage bill killed jobs for teens and college kids

John at P'line: Alarmists do "science"

Yes, neoneo: Beginning Saturday, at a Senate far from you: health care disaster in the making?

Am Thinker: Let's all overwhelm the prisons with insurance-refusers

Related: Religious Leaders Call for Civil Disobedience if Laws Don’t Respect Faith

Married Couples Face Extra Tax in Healthcare Bill. Related: Dems refused to inflation-index the medical care rich tax.The joke is on us.

Related: Aromatherapy too?  Reid Health Bill Has Hidden Perks for Chiropractors. I was always told they were quacks, but I hear they can do a good massage.

Goldberg: Palinophobes Hate First, Ask Questions Later

Canadian Lefties coming to the US for medical care.

Bolton via Q&O:

Negotiation is not a policy. It is a technique. It is a way of achieving our objectives. It doesn’t tell us what the objectives are. The emphasis on negotiation as an end in itself reflects a shallowness in this administration’s approach to international affairs, and gives us little confidence that our interests will be well served.

NYS is broke.

Are poor New Yorkers healthier than the poor in other states?  Do New York children have top scores?  As far as I know, no and no.

What New York does have, like almost every other state that is in deep budget trouble, is powerful public employee unions.

A believable threat: Breitbart to AG Holder: Investigate ACORN or We’ll Release More Tapes Just Before 2010 Election

Hot Air: Shock poll - Rubio within 10 points of Crist in Florida

Imagine the uproar if Bush had done this

The pheenom has twice the O's TV viewership.

Inhofe to Boxer: Get a life (video)

Toon via Lucianne.

The Moonbats want to get rid of "Fighting Sioux." The Indians want it kept. How does "The Fighting Sue" sound instead? Or "The Pacifist Sue"? Beat us, please.

Somebody read Sarah Palin's book

Via Gateway on the weekend healthcare voting:

Senate Dems Will Only Deliberate 10 Hours Before Vote to Nationalize Health Care

The bill will nationalize the nation’s health care industry, increase costs, ration care, tax cosmetic surgery, cut Medicare, charge a monthly abortion fee, and take away your freedom.

Please take time tomorrow and Saturday to call your US Senator.

It only will take a minute.

** HERE IS THE PHONE LIST.

Don’t let the democrats destroy our health care system.

Support for this disastrous bill is down to 40% with 52% opposing.

At Am Thinker:

According to a recent paper by Drs. June and Dave O'Neill of Baruch College, the City University of New York, two national studies--the National Health Interview Survey and the Current Population Survey--put the number of folks who don't have health insurance because they can't afford it at 21.6 million. That's almost exactly the number that Dr. Reid's big spending plan would leave uninsured.

After spending $848 billion, of course. 

Maybe it won't insure anybody, but it will achieve control of us. That's the point.

Pethokoukis does the odds on the heath care takeover.

Next on the Dem agenda: Legalizing illegals.  Pete DuPont says Congress is hard of  hearing, but they are not. They have a small window of opportunity to ram through their wish list before they are voted out next November. These are not issues that there is a national consensus about. Bad politics, bad news, bad everything.

Seven trees? Isn't the hockey stick graph dead already?

Will Osama need to be read his Miranda rights? Before some SEAL shoots him?

How times have changed. The CA students once protested for free speech. Now they protest about Gimme gimme. What pathetic, whining, entitled children this country has raised. Yes, I worked my way through UMass, and I am the better man for it. The young benefit from challenges. I did.

Big, Bigger, Biggest: Three Examples of Government-Induced Failure

The social psychology of subways 

The importance of social networking in life:

...the history of humanity is a history of social networking all the same, according to Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler, authors of Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. “Our connections affect every aspect of our daily lives,” they write.

Men often treat their friends better than women do.
Duh. h/t, Retriever

The '09 rally vs the '82 rally. I think the '09 rally is full of hopey.

Check the net for your stolen ID

Voters say what we say: To Create Jobs, Voters Say Cut Taxes and Stop Spending

Hewitt: In A Sane World, This Report Would Kill Obamacare.

Related: Harry Reid has a health care tax increase for you. Of course he does.

Some scientists puzzled: Why doesn't nature fit our computer models? Mother Nature defies your human models, sillies.

Jerry Brown and ACORN

Circling Sharks Smell American Blood

Neoneo: The liberal meme de jour: those cowardly conservatives, afraid of the US criminal justice system

Vanderleun's book: Let It Bleed

Did Holder stiff Senate on Justice Dept. lawyers who defended jihadis?

Some Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee were taken aback Wednesday by Attorney General Eric Holder's refusal to reveal conflicts of interest involving Justice Department lawyers who, before joining the Obama administration, worked on behalf of Guatanamo detainees.

This is cute, BL:

Non-elites: Joe and Carrie

Report: FOX is fair

Top Ten Reasons Black America Fears Rush Limbaugh

Kossers are angry old white men?

Is Obama planning a $3 trillion income tax increase?

Barone: A Jacksonian sweep?

China questions costs of U.S. healthcare reform. They own us now, don't they?

Al Gore, Ignoramus

Little Benefit Seen, So Far, in Electronic Patient Records

From the Dean of the Harvard Med School:

...the majority of our representatives may congratulate themselves on reducing the number of uninsured, while quietly understanding this can only be the first step of a multiyear process to more drastically change the organization and funding of health care in America. I have met many people for whom this strategy is conscious and explicit.

    We should not be making public policy in such a crucial area by keeping the electorate ignorant of the actual road ahead.

"Green fuel" destroying the rain forest

Catholics Organize Against Annual Church Drive to Fund ACORN Groups

Engineering degrees on the upswing

How the Dems got health bill thru the House:

What is the goal of the so-called conservative Democrats? We can infer from Charlie that it is merely to escape the wrath of the voters back home.

Pelosi & Emanuel allow a carefully deduced number of Democratic Members from conservative districts to be untouched because, you see, that serves their ultimate goal — pass a suicidal healthcare bill as they earlier passed a job-killing cap & trade bill out of the House.

The case against the Stupak amendment. Forbes

The Importance of Being Lieberman

Union protests volunteers

Global warming: World leaders agree to hold off agreement. Related: Al Gore begins attracting protesters:

In addition to his nonprofit advocacy, Gore is a partner in a venture capital firm that finances "sustainable" and alternative energy businesses, prompting some critics to accuse Gore of promoting environmental policies that will fatten his bank account.

"Cap & Tax — Don't Be Fooled: Al Gore Will Make billions," read a sign carried by Alan Tudor, who drove from Tampa to attend Saturday's protest.

"Gore's Favorite Green Product? Your money in his pocket," said another sign.

Related: Rasmussen polls on climate hysteria and energy policy. The rationalists are winning the debate.

Is Deval Patrick an Obama leading indicator?

The bow: Japanese call it an embarrassment. I figure if "Japanese always bow," then why didn't the Emperor bow to Obama?

State Finance Directors Warn of More Trouble Ahead

New Study Says Costs Rise Under Health Bill

Althouse: Palin is dumb

On the other hand, it has often been pointed out lately that you catch the most flak when you are over the target. Via Riehl:

Amazingly, but not surprisingly, the AP somehow nabbed a copy of the
book before it was released. They're now erroneously reporting on the
book's contents and are repeating many of the same things they spewed
during the campaign and afterwards. We've heard 11 writers are engaged
in this opposition research, er, "fact checking" research! Imagine that
– 11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book,
instead of using the time and resources to "fact check" what's going on
with Sheik Mohammed's trial, Pelosi's health care takeover costs, Hasan's associations, etc. Amazing.

KSM: A staggering ego, at the center of difficult issues

Res ipsa loquitur: Repubs are just complete a-holes

Again already? The decline of the Left

Wilkinson discusses income inequality: it's all due to the top .5% and not part of a large trend. Thus can stats be abused by politicans.

Soros' closed society. Insty

Columnists Who Blamed Conservative Media for 'Right-Wing' Killings Ignoring Fort Hood. It doesn't fit the narrative of the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.

Our 'Constitutional Moment' The New York newspaperman says our founding document is especially vital today, in an age of expanding state power.

CUNY students can't do math. You would think the SAT would have made that clear.

Newt Gingrich: The job-killing president and Congress

Climate change bill to back burner. I think it's dead. Or frozen.

Jesus the Capitalist? I do not think that He spent a lot of time on politics. His agenda had to do with higher matters. I did learn the word eisegesis from the article.

I Really Need To Stop Watching The Main Stream Media Because My Face Will Freeze Like This  h/t, Riehl

England gone mad: Jail time for turning in gun to cops

Thompson: Careful, dear readers. That’s the white heat of insight.

Why Compel Young Adults to Buy Health Insurance They Don't Need and Don't Want?

The Audacity of Extremism:

The Audacity of Obama is a
front, and it's starting to crumble. America's endurance is in our
people, the tens of millions who remember our history -- not the phony
history that the vulgar Marxists are now peddling all over the schools.
The conservative media are beginning to seize the national narrative
again. All we need to do is to tell the truth over and over, every
single chance we get.

Andy McCarthy via Michelle on the notion of giving Khalid Sheik Mohammed a civilian trial:

We are now going to have a trial that never had to happen for
defendants who have no defense. And when defendants have no defense for
their own actions, there is only one thing for their lawyers to do: put
the government on trial in hopes of getting the jury (and the media)
spun up over government errors, abuses and incompetence. That is what
is going to happen in the trial of KSM et al. It will be a soapbox for
al-Qaeda’s case against America. Since that will be their “defense,”
the defendants will demand every bit of information they can get about
interrogations, renditions, secret prisons, undercover operations
targeting Muslims and mosques, etc., and — depending on what judge
catches the case — they are likely to be given a lot of it. The
administration will be able to claim that the judge, not the
administration, is responsible for the exposure of our defense secrets.
And the circus will be played out for all to see — in the middle of the
war. It will provide endless fodder for the transnational Left to press
its case that actions taken in America’s defense are violations of
international law that must be addressed by foreign courts. And the
intelligence bounty will make our enemies more efficient at killing us.

Related, as Dino says,  "As the man said, it really is impossible to caricature this administration." (That's from a cool site which is new to us: Baseball Crank)

Photos from Cassini (as is this photo)

For history buffs, two books via Theo:

Greek And Roman Artillery, Technical Treaties
E. W. Marsden
And
Greek and Roman Artillery. Historical Development
E. W. Marsden

FBI seizes mosques in NYC

Prayer is ruining me for blogging. Anchoress. Prayer, as I have come to understand it, is a conversation with God. That is indeed more precious than writing.

A harmless moonbat, for once.

Would government medical care cover "perfect vaginas"?

More on SEIU: A civil war

Sullivan is always an easy target. Dithering is good. Not in a battle, Andrew.

Speaking of dithering, here's a Mom who did not dither.

How politically divided is America? Very. Not a bad thing.

Putting the brakes on hysteria. Lowry:

Supporters of Obamacare have their next
target for obloquy and shame. It’s the United States Senate, an
institution whose villainy will almost match that of the insurers and
Fox News if the health-care bill sinks there.

The
anti-senatorial campaign is already revving up. Liberal columnist
Harold Meyerson stamped his feet in frustration yesterday in the Washington Post at the cussed balkiness of the Senate: “Dithering Heights.” “Proceeds glacially and produces next to nothing.”

This amounts to raging at the Senate for its very nature and purpose. It’s supposed
to be slow-paced and unproductive. Everyone has their moments of
frustration at the Senate (I’ve had plenty) because it is designed to
be frustrating, especially when a majority in the House is electric
with ideological excitement. Conservatives spent most of 1995 hurling
epithets at the Senate.

So it’s not surprising that the Left
is upset at it at a time when “Iron Nancy” is using her solid majority
to muscle massive pieces of legislation through the House by a handful
of votes. Why can’t the Senate do the same, goes the
cry, entirely missing the point. It’s not just that the Senate is built
differently from the House: It won’t truly be fulfilling its role in
our constitutional scheme if doesn’t deep-six Obamacare.

From a pointed Graham post at NRO, we learn that

UMass (also) has a speech code, by the way (it bans, among other things, "staring or leering"), so figure that one out. 

Leer at will, my Yankee friends, below the fold, and indulge in a little healthy Thoreauvian civil disobedience -

What's the SEIU up to, with Stern's 22 visits so far this year to the WH?

Oh no - not another government jobs bill

What the heck is wrong with From Dixie With Love?

The Decider, or The Ditherer?

Hasan's self-serving narrative of victimhood. Related: ABC News: Nidal Hasan & Followers of Islam Are the Real Victims (Video). Unbelievable. I guess those nuts who used to shoot up abortion clinics were the real victims too.

Related, from Dr. Sanity:

The key aspects of this psychobabble include an overemphasis on "self-esteem" at the expense of self-control and personal responsibility; an attitude that practically worships "feelings" at the expense of reason and truth; a fundamental misunderstanding about stress and the role of stress in life (i.e., that "all stress is bad", for example; and failing to appreciate that stress, when it is acknowledged and dealt with in healthy ways can enhance maturity and psychological health); and finally the glorification of victimhood and the celebration of unhealthy narcissism and the narcissists who exhibit it.

How is the idea of other people not paying for your abortions an assault on women's rights?

Employer-Provided Medicine Is Completely Illogical. Yes it is. It was a fluke of history. 

Reid wants to muscle health care through ASAP. Will threats and bribes do the job? Related, via Vanderleun:

Yesterday 4 Deputy US Marshals were detailed to serve an arrest warrant
on Philip Gordon 63 of Carroll County in west Georgia. Mr Gordon
refused to allow the Marshals entrance to his gated property whereupon
the gate was breached using necessary force. During the process Mr
Gordon’s 2 Labrador retrievers charged the federal agents and were
dispatched. Mr Gordon refused to submit to arrest and brandished an
assault rifle accusing the Marshals of trespassing before retreating
into his home. The Marshals summoned backup from the local Carroll
County Sheriff’s office and two of the 6 responding deputies refused to
cooperate in serving the lawful warrant. They were immediately relieved
of duty. Additional backup of federal agents in the Atlanta field
offices of the FBI and BATFE surrounded the Gordon residence. Repeated
demands for Gordon to surrender went unheeded and chemical agents were
introduced into the structure. An hour later an unconscious Gordon was
taken into custody and booked into the Fulton county jail on the
warrant charging refusal to pay the $15,000.00 penalty for failure to
maintain a government approved medical insurance policy. -- Francis W. Porretto Leonidas - Eternity Road

Malaise Polls:

AP called it a "funk." The Pew Research Center describes the mood of the nation as "glum" in its new survey (2,000 Americans, 10/28-11/8, +/- 3%), which offers a significant warning for incumbents in both parties in the 2010 midterms.

Well, it's no wonder, with promises of higher taxes, bigger government, and record-making unemployment in our future.

From American Spectator:

...it REALLY REALLY REALLY grates to hear, again, especially on such an occasion, the following rhetorical trope:

"In an age of selfishness, they embody responsibility. In an era of division, they call upon us to come together. In a time of cynicism, they remind us of who we are as Americans."

What era does Obama live in? The America I know, that we all know, in 2009, is not an America that is suffering from an age of selfishness, an era of division, a time of cynicism. Mr. Obama can speak for himself. This is not a land nor an epoch of selfishness and cynicism, and the divisiveness is not extraordinary or even terribly bad -- and it often comes from Obama himself. But somebody should look the president in the eye and say "WHo are you calling selfish and cynical, Kemosabe?" I look around me and see idealism, love of country, generosity. I see the incredible outpouring of church groups and other citizens in aiding the victims of Katrina. I see people volunteering hither and yon for all sorts of good causes. And yes, I even see TEA partiers who are out there of their own free will, at their own expense, trying to defend the freedoms they love for the sake of their children, for the sake of posterity.

Are women pickier about men than men about women?

Kelo update: It's a vacant lot

How Muslim piracy changed the world

SISU, a few weeks ago: "It compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies"

Jim Carrey: Self-hating capitalist

Political arrogance:

...at the end of the day, we're the ones who reward them. Unless and until we seek out candidates who share Coolidge's modesty, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.

Trusting The Government To Take Care Of You: H1N1 Debacle

Why the O doesn't focus on the economy, at Pajamas. One quote:

Obama persuaded many small business people to pull in their horns and make plans to keep a low profile (including laying people off) in order to avoid the wealth confiscation of the populist, socialist, economic storm they saw coming with his election.

Senate Healthcare Bill: Not Until 2011?

Bolton: Foreign policy is "feeble." Feeble on purpose, Ambassador Bolton.

92% of docs want tort reform. People have no idea what it costs for docs to protect themselves from their few litigious patients and the legal piranhas.

Is government health care Constitutional in the US? We posted a bit on the Constitution yesterday.

We did a post on Mad or Bad last week, and I am happy to see David Brooks is willing to see evil, in his The Rush to Therapy:

The conversation in the first few days after the massacre was well intentioned, but it suggested a willful flight from reality. It ignored the fact that the war narrative of the struggle against Islam is the central feature of American foreign policy. It ignored the fact that this narrative can be embraced by a self-radicalizing individual in the U.S. as much as by groups in Tehran, Gaza or Kandahar.

It denied, before the evidence was in, the possibility of evil. It sought to reduce a heinous act to social maladjustment. It wasn’t the reaction of a morally or politically serious nation.

Toon via NYM on the same topic.

Via the WSJ:

Mr. Cassidy is more honest than the politicians whose dishonesty he supports. "The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment," he writes. "Let's not pretend that it isn't a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won't. What is really unfolding, I suspect, is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama Administration . . . is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind."

Why are they doing it? Because, according to Mr. Cassidy, ObamaCare serves the twin goals of "making the United States a more equitable country" and furthering the Democrats' "political calculus." In other words, the purpose is to further redistribute income by putting health care further under government control, and in the process making the middle class more dependent on government. As the party of government, Democrats will benefit over the long run.

This explains why Nancy Pelosi is willing to risk the seats of so many Blue Dog Democrats by forcing such an unpopular bill through Congress on a narrow, partisan vote: You have to break a few eggs to make a permanent welfare state.

Speaking of breaking eggs, the Left has historically approved of doing that.

Kaus considers the real "id" politics of health care.

Since the game is now in the Senate, Hewitt offers a list of The Potentially Reasonable Democratic Senators, with addresses, phone numbers, etc

Viking:

I'll just borrow this thought from Mark Steyn on the passage of the health care bill:

If "health care" were about health care, the devil would be in the details. But it's not about health or costs or coverage; it's about getting over the river and burning the bridge. It doesn't matter what form of governmentalized health care gets passed as long as it passes. Once it’s in place, it will be "reformed", endlessly, but it will never be undone.

The history of Social Security and Medicare and damn near every government program follows the same pattern: start small and expand later. When Social Security was started in the mid-1930's, the program collected 1% from your income along with 1% from your employer; these contributions went to fund a program to prevent poverty in old age. Now Social Security collects 6.2% of your income (12.4% for the self-employed) to fund a much healthier and wealthier senior population compared to their Depression-era counterparts.

Going Muslim vs. Going Postal. What about Going Medieval and Going Menopausal?

Not a joke: 'Islam not responsible' for Fort Hood massacre: US imam

Related: The O identifies the real extremists. Ace

Related: "Concerned" about the wrong things. Commentary

Related: Fort Hood. Let's drop the PC. Never understood what was so PC about radical Islam anyway,

The good news from Venezuela. The people might be unhappy with Chavez, but the WH is not.

Shrinkwrapped sends a doubtless unread letter to his Congresscritter, including

You have no idea how many unexpected and bad consequences will flow from this bill. 

Explaining Rent-Seeking

Some insurance plans cover abortions? News to me. That's strange. Abortion is a totally elective procedure. Doc, I have a little growth in my uterus. What do "rights" have to do with freebies? I have the right to own guns, but not for the gummint to buy them for me.

The Obama politics of the Berlin Wall. Related in the WSJ: Four Little Words

China's race problem.

Not a reference to Michelle Malkin: Barack on Michelle: “She just seems so bitter, so angry all the time.”

Murdoch wants to get paid for the WSJ. I do not blame him. The product is worth money.

More nuke plants in Britain. Good for them.

Wrong side of what? The march to feudalism? Via NYT:

“This is an opportunity to do something as big as Social Security,” he added. “And me, personally, I don’t want to be on the wrong side of history.”

How is that Social Security working out? And never mind that private insurance is readily available. Tom Sowell asks:

What is so wrong with the current medical system in the United States that we are being urged to rush headlong into a new government system that we are not even supposed to understand, because this legislation is to be rushed through Congress before even the Senators and Representatives have a chance to read it?

Related: The fall of the wall didn't kill the Left. Big Government

The contortions people are going through to avoid the obvious reality that Major Hasan was a one-man Jihad are remarkable. Scott at Powerline identified his disorder: PISS. Why do Moslems get a pass on violence? Wizbang: Hasan worshipped with 9-11 hijackers. At Moonbattery, Moslems defend the Major. The world has gone mad.

Related at Jammie: 'It Would Be a Shame If Our Diversity Became a Casualty as Well'. Hmmm. In Brain Dead Country, Horowitz says:

We have a vast internal threat in this country in the form of this unholy alliance between the anti-American Left and radical Islam
– whose Muslim Brotherhood network extends
through our universities, our government and our military. It is “politically incorrect” to recognize this fact. You can be
barred — as I have been — from speaking at universities for even talking about
it.

Related: Joe Lieberman says it, though:

Mr. Lieberman said that if news reports were true that Mr. Hasan had
turned to Islamic extremism, "the murder of these 13 people was a
terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most-destructive terrorist act
to be committed on American soil since 9/11."

Meanwhile,  Nidal Hasan’s Imam Praises Fort Hood Massacre

Somebody at the Guardian wishes the Berlin Wall were still up. A pathetic soul. I feel sorry for her, in a way. But also creeped out by her.

SEIU is feeling their oats.

Rick Moran with THOUGHTS ON THE PASSAGE OF HEALTH CARE REFORM

Among other garbage in the giant stinking garbage truck that is the Dem bill, there is $200 million for veterinarians. Not Vets - Veterinarians.

Legal immigrant Steyn on health care:

Obama believes in “the fierce urgency of now”, and fierce it is. That’s where all the poor befuddled sober centrists who can’t understand why the Democrats keep passing incoherent 1,200-page bills every week are missing the point. If “health care” were about health care, the devil would be in the details. But it’s not about health or costs or coverage; it’s about getting over the river and burning the bridge. It doesn’t matter what form of governmentalized health care gets passed as long as it passes. Once it’s in place, it will be “reformed”, endlessly, but it will never be undone.