Bum Rap

The Guardian's getting cheeky with us, reporting the soft toilet paper apparently Americans alone in the world enjoy is destroying the world.

The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country's love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners.

The article's very funny and will teach you more about the bathroom tissue industry than you could want to know. But as the complaint is use of trees -- a completely renewable resource--

(Dave Dixon, a company spokesman, ... said the company used products from sustainbly farmed forests in Canada.)

and this is truly considered to be doing more damage than driving Hummers and raising too many methane-producing cows for our cheeseburgers, I am tempted to conclude there is no serious risk to the environment at all from anything Americans do. I wonder if that's the message the complainants here intended to convey? Curtsy: NLT

Imagine How The Iraqis Feel

New Orleans residents are afraid of what will happen now that the last National Guard troops are pulling out of their city. Abe Greenwald at Commentary makes two points: one, while it's common to say there was blame all around during Katrina, in fact Bush got it right. (As was well-documented here and elsewhere at the time). It was the Governor & the mayor who did a heckuva job.

But more to the point:

Critics have cited Hurricane Katrina as a domestic debacle for George W. Bush with a PR effect comparable to that of the Iraq War. What a funny day for reflection it is that finds President Barack Obama extending his withdrawal timetable in Iraq and complying with the Bush plan to keep a significant number of troops there through 2011, while the residents of New Orleans express heartsickness over being abandoned to local authorities by the federal government. Here’s the kicker:

“I don’t think the city is ready for us to leave,” said Lt. Ronald Brown, who has been part of Task Force Gator since April 2007. “I’d like to see us stay. I think we make a difference, but I guess it’s a money thing.”

Funny, I could swear I remember hearing Barack Obama talk about spending too much on a misguided war and too little at home. But, then, I must be hearing things. Because I also thought I heard something about billions of tax payer dollars being allocated for domestic infrastructure.

Pay No Attention To The Abortionist Behind The Curtain

Predictably, but quietly so we won't notice, Obama's canceling Bush's conscience protections for health-care providers. Maybe we'll start a segment called "Friday night drop." I have a feeling stuff like this is going to be habitual with this administration.

The pretext is the Bush rule is over-broad. Tosh.

Since Bush Is Too Gracious To Say, "Duh"

We'll say it for him. (Obama's pulling out of the UN conference on racism.)

They Had To Protect Free Speech To Crush It

In moves epitomizing what the Left means by "fairness," the Senate both banned and passed the Fairness Doctrine yesterday.

You'll be happy to know it banned the Fairness Doctrine, with 87 senators voting against that vile crushing of free expression, because they serve the voters who elected them.

However, on a strict party line vote, it voted for a Senator Durbin amendment (to the illegal and unconstitutional DC House Voting Rights Act, by the way-- Dems vote themselves an extra vote and crush your right to point out there is no case to be made for such a move) to accomplish the same goals through new FCC regulations, because voters don't know what's good for them.

If none of the rest of the Constitution means anything, I don't know why the First Amendment would stand.

So Much For Intelligence

Enemy combatant Ali al- Marri's being transferred to a civilian court rather than being tried before a military tribunal--a grand jury's already been impaneled.

The good news is, this move prevents SCOTUS from doing anything nutty. The bad news is, intelligence sources can be revealed in discovery. Andrew McCarthy has more.

There are rules in place, of course, but they are very elastic and they will be construed by a judge. The judge's responsibility is not national security but to provide due process for the accused. We are still at war, al Qaeda is still trying to attack us, and it goes to school on the trove of information that comes out of civilian trials — both information in our files that must be disclosed and information that comes out in the courtroom during the public hearings and trial proceedings. The Justice Department's best lawyers (who are very good) can try to draft narrow charges to minimize the potential damage, but — as Moussaoui's case showed — they can't control the judge (who, in Moussaoui's case, authorized extensive discovery of intelligence gleaned from detained terrorists, at one point dismissed the indictment because she thought the government wasn't disclosing enough, and even delved into interrogation tactics despite the fact that those tactics had no relevance to Moussaoui).

The Revolution's Being Planned In Brooklyn, Apparently

Notes from two of my favorite bloggers yesterday. The Anchoress. American Digest (read just his first sentence.) Just sayin'.

Annals of Free Speech

I think it was Mark Steyn who mentioned traveling behind a car with a "Bush Scares Me" bumper sticker and thinking that if your fear can be a bumper sticker, you actually ain't scared at all.

In Oklahoma City, however, a cop recently pulled a man over and confuscated his anti-Obama sign. As "threatening" to the President.

Still Completely Truthy

Nobel prizewinner Al Gore was forced to pull one of the slides from his Academy Award-winning slide show. Curtsy to the Ryskind Sketchbook, where Ryskind notes this makes the show slightly less untruthful while still being completely untrue.

In the same post he notes that a consensus of scientists thought that NASA global warming monitor rocket would launch properly.

"Cheaper Than Cap-N-Trade," from The Ryskind Sketchbook

Politics Is Noble

I get tired of the use of "political" as a perjorative, "politics" as a diminutive, as in "just politics." I understand it, even do it myself occasionally, but it still irks me.

Therefore, it's a delight to find Chaput the Great discussing the political vocation in an address at U. Toronto on Monday. I'll leave you to RTWT to get the scope of his argument, but here are some highlights.

On how "tolerance" misunderstood destroys liberty:

A healthy democracy requires vigorous moral debate to survive. Real pluralism demands that people of strong beliefs will advance their convictions in the public square -- peacefully, legally and respectfully, but energetically and without embarrassment. Anything less is bad citizenship and a form of theft from the public conversation.

He hadn't even heard Obama's speech to Congress when he said this:

in democracies, we elect public servants, not messiahs. It's worth recalling that despite two ugly wars, an unpopular Republican president, a fractured Republican party, the support of most of the American news media and massively out-spending his opponent, our new president actually trailed in the election polls the week before the economic meltdown. This subtracts nothing from the legitimacy of his office. It also takes nothing away from our obligation to respect the president's leadership.

But it does place some of today's talk about a "new American mandate" in perspective. Americans, including many Catholics, elected a gifted man to fix an economic crisis. That's the mandate. They gave nobody a mandate to retool American culture on the issues of marriage and the family, sexuality, bioethics, religion in public life and abortion. That retooling could easily happen, and it clearly will happen -- but only if Catholics and other religious believers allow it.

On why decent people can't "get past" abortion:

Catholic social teaching goes well beyond abortion. In America we have many urgent issues that beg for our attention, from immigration reform to health care to poverty to homelessness. The Church in Denver and throughout the United States is committed to all these issues. We need to do a much better job of helping women who face problem pregnancies, and American bishops have been pressing our public leaders for that for more than 30 years. But we don't "help" anyone by allowing or funding an intimate, lethal act of violence. We can't build a just society with the blood of unborn children. The right to life is the foundation of every other human right -- and if we ignore it, sooner or later every other right becomes politically contingent.

On Christians being the problem with the world --but not for the reason today's atheists think. Citing Bernanos' essay imagining an atheist being allowed to preach a homily:

"Dear brothers," says the agnostic from the pulpit, "many unbelievers are not as hardened as you imagine. … [But when] we seek [Christ] now, in this world, it is you we find, and only you. … It is you Christians who participate in divinity, as your liturgy proclaims; it is you ‘divine men' who ever since [Christ's] ascension have been his representatives on earth. … You are the salt of the earth. [So if] the world loses its flavor, who is it I should blame? … The New Testament is eternally young. It is you who are so old. … Because you do not live your faith, your faith has ceased to be a living thing."

While in Toronto, the Archbishop also spoke to a group of businessmen, an equally wonderful address about the intersection of character and circumstance --and the real solution to our financial problems, which are ethical more than economic in nature. Corruption is everywhere, and markets depend on honesty.

Christian Converts In Iraq

Interesting video from AlJazeera English.

I'd Stick To The Hard Sciences

Brett McS pointed ninme to this cool site where you can watch thousands of video lectures from the "world's top scholars." Except the lecturers who get top billing in my field are Bill Bradley and Tom Friedman. No offense, I respect the achievements of those men in their fields, but... these are top scholars? So I went to economics, and the top lectures are all on pitching for funding. And Alan Blinder, Clinton appointee and adviser to the Kerry campaign, explaining the financial mess.

Physics lectures look interesting, though.

Sleazy. (Now With Cartoon)

"Good News" from The Ryskind Sketchbook

The main word that comes to mind upon reading the President's speech last night. (By the way, did he start on time? I turned the tube on at 10 pm and he was still going, yet I haven't heard anyone complain that he spoke for more than an hour, and the speech doesn't read that long.) Sleazy because he couches a raw federal power grab (see Krauthammer's take, eg or "He is my shepherd") in terms to make it seem as if he's simply "facilitating" the free market. Even WaPo has grave doubts.

Foreign policy was hardly mentioned, but what was interesting is that no allies were mentioned apart from Israel, and you'd think only the Middle East existed.

This was not an isolationist speech. But it was one in which, with the sole and neutral acknowledgment of Israel, American stood entirely alone. The support of Britain, Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands in Afghanistan went unmentioned, as did all of America’s allies in East Asia. So, curiously, did India, an omission highlighted by Gov. Bobby Jindal’s folksy response. Nor did Obama say a good word for freedom, democracy, or liberty abroad, an omission that will surely be noticed in Venezuala, China, Russia, and Iran, all of whom also fell by the wayside. Above all, it left the sense of an America turning inward, eager to sound engaged but unwilling to notice that engagement requires painful commitments by allies that deserve to be acknowledged, and confrontations not simply with abstract forces like hunger, but with dictators and tyrants who wish us harm.

This may have been the sleaziest line of all:

To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend – because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America. That is why I have ordered the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, and will seek swift and certain justice for captured terrorists – because living our values doesn’t make us weaker, it makes us safer and it makes us stronger. And that is why I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture.

Yeah, we've cancelled all the "enhanced interrogation" techniques where we can control the level of harshness, retaining only "rendition," in which we outsource to regimes known to torture. (Don't worry, we make them "promise" not to.)

Delivery-wise, the President was his pleasant self, although he seemed to be on uppers, as did Bobby Jindal afterwards. They both spoke too quickly and seemed giddy and pre-meditatedly positive. Trying too hard. Speaking of which, what was with Pop-up Gramma (which, by the way, would make an excellent drinking game next time around)? I know Pelosi's delighted to have Democrats ruling the world again, but the way she shot out of her seat every second to "ovate" Obama looked silly. As if she were being to be judged on explosiveness of take-off, height, form and sticking the landing.

"Joe," meanwhile, whom you don't mess with, apparently, appeared to be Blackberrying through the speech, although I s'pose I'll be told he was merely studying the text.

Michelle had a nice moment hugging that girl from SC.

Update: Two items from CMR's take. Comparing Obama w/ Clinton, Patrick notes that Clinton convinced himself he was telling the truth.

Barack Obama is far scarier. He lies, he knows he is lying, and he doesn't care. "I don't believe in bigger gov't" - "Tax cuts for 95%" - "No earmarks" Lies all. His lies seem to be pre-meditated fabrications to give him what he wants, more power. With Clinton, the truth always seemed distorted. Cloudy. With Obama, truth is simply irrelevant.

Also:

nobody messes with Joe. Well, except Joe of course.

In Decline

WaPo's earnings down 77 per cent.

Gosh

David Cameron's 6-yr-old son died suddenly today. How awful! Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord.

There Is Torture In America

Last night we had friends over for a Mardi Gras pancake dinner. Usually we serve sausage on the side because bacon is too messy and time-consuming for a mess of people. But a neighbor brought a package of maple-cured bacon and fried it up, filling the whole house with the most wonderful smoky smell.

Which was pleasant last night. But I curse her on this day of fast and abstinence when the very walls are crying out, "bacon."

I think it was deliberate. Sneaky Baptist.

Ash Wednesday One-Stop Shopping

Why? Fulton Sheen on Reparation; Jimmy Akin on the connection between Ash Wednesday and the Old Testament; plus lenten apologetics.

What? Fast & abstinence rules in the U.S.; the USCCB's lenten resources; Confession made easy. Plus an examination of conscience.

Who? Not just Catholics.

Lenten reading/meditation: St. Bernard of Clairvaux's 12 Degrees of Humility & Pride; Cardinal Ratzinger's 2005 Stations of the Cross.

Lenten eating: meatless meals and bread for lent.

Plus: NCR's guide to Lent;

T.S. Eliot's "Ash Wednesday"

Emily Litella Saves The Polar Bears

Disappearing Arctic Ice: never mind.

Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.

Since then the USNSIDC has stopped giving daily updates at all because of other glitches. And can you make sense of this explanation?

Some people might ask why we don't simply switch to the EOS AMSR-E sensor. AMSR-E is a newer and more accurate passive microwave sensor. However, we do not use AMSR-E data in our analysis because it is not consistent with our historical data. Thus, while AMSR-E gives us greater accuracy and more confidence on current sea ice conditions, it actually provides less accuracy on the long-term changes over the past thirty years. There is a balance between being as accurate as possible at any given moment and being as consistent as possible through long time periods. Our main scientific focus is on the long-term changes in Arctic sea ice. With that in mind, we have chosen to continue using the SSM/I sensor, which provides the longest record of Arctic sea ice extent.

I understand the difficulty of tracking over time if you switch mid-stream to a totally different method, but what is the point of tracking wildly inaccurate data over time?

I Knew I Liked Him

Shamelessly pinched from American Digest.

I Protest

SOTU happens to fall on Fat Tuesday this year, which is absolutely appropriate given this is the last moment the country will be eating once the plague of stimulus infects all sources of wealth. We're hosting a party, so unless the guests start begging to watch I'll have to miss it.

For the record, this is my attitude towards just about anything the President says regarding stimulus --"even when he's changed it or condensed it." Although I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks later.



Also for the record, for reasons I've stated elsewhere, I protest there being a response to the SOTU, even if it is Slumdog Governor who delivers it.

Bah!

Going It Alone?

from The Ryskind Sketchbook

I wonder if British Muslims will allow Churchill to come home? He famously compared Mein Kampf to the Koran. Frank Gaffney has a good column on the President's motivations for thumbing his nose at the Brits.

Got Milk?

I'm watching PBS' conclusion of Oliver Twist this evening, so will miss the Oscars for the bazillionth consecutive year (except for once at ninme's mom's house some years ago).

Gee, I wonder if the movie about the put-upon homosexual will win?

Love, Barry

President Obama takes nothing seriously, apparently.

He signs letters to the families of fallen soldiers, "Barack."

And on his trip to Ottawa last week he said this.

Um, it's not a massive breech of protocol to openly accuse your host country of election-tampering? And not an embarrassment to laugh at the idea you were elected by Canadians?

Obama's Poodles

You know the press is in the bag for Obama, but some things are so blatant they're astonishing. Via the Anchoress comes the story (first reported by Instapundit) of the high school kids who mocked Obama's stimulus package while he was out on the stump.

AIRBRUSHING IN THE EAST VALLEY TRIBUNE? So I linked to a story on high school students skeptical about Obama’s stimulus speech. Now the story has the same headline, but the quotes are missing, replaced by a bunch of feelgood talk about how excited everyone was to have Obama in town. But you can find the original story here. And here’s the Google Cache. Some difference, huh? I emailed the reporter, Hayley Ringle, to ask what happened. (Bumped)…The Google Cache now shows the new story. No response to my email yet. I saved screenshots, though, and of course there’s the Drudge capture.

And if you go to that article now, this appears:

To our readers: Due to a technical error, this story was temporarily removed from our Web site. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Dark times for liberty.

Obama Takes Over Our Cities

What?

Even as President Barack Obama told the nation's mayors they now have a friend in the White House, he warned that he would use the "full power" of the presidency to expose and crack down on them if they misuse the economic stimulus dollars meant to boost the economy out of its doldrums.
snip
"If a federal agency proposes a project that will waste that money I will not hesitate to call them out on it and put a stop to it," Obama told mayors who gathered in the White House. "And I want everybody here to be on notice that if a local government does the same. I will call them out on it and use the full power of my office and our administration to stop it."

Remind you of anyone?

Who's Obama's Svengali?

"Hope's Little Helper" From The Ryskind Sketchbook

Perhaps you saw the news the Prez is seeking remedial help for his press conferences.

the White House is looking to install a small video or computer screen into the podium used by the president for press conferences and events in the White House. "It would make it easier for the comms guys to pass along information without being obvious about it," says the adviser.

That Bush was electronically prompted during debates and press conferences was a recurring bizarre charge of the nutroots (google "Bush prompted" or "Bush wired" and see) . What will they say when their guy openly takes prompting --and who will be behind it?

I consider this post exhibit number two in a strange but true thesis: Bush was a better speaker than Obama.

What Evil Can You Possibly Be Talking About?

When atheists complain about evil acts inspired by religion.

So You're Saying The Mob Rushed To Judgment After Media Frenzy?

Remember the case of poor Chandra Levy, the girl who went missing in 2001 and whose mortal remains were found a year later in Rock Creek Park? Police expect to arrest her killer shortly. And guess what? It's not former Rep. Gary Condit (remember this hit piece in which WaPo didn't say he was guilty but sure made him seem sinister?), but a Salvadoran immigrant currently serving time in prison for non-lethal assaults on two other women in the same area during the same time period.

Condit looked guilty, but turns out he was guilty of an affair, not murder.

Cowboy Hill

Apparently not all self-evident truths are created equal. When Bush uttered them, he was an ignorant and arrogant cowboy making the world hate us. Hillary, however, has merely "startled" diplomats with a little blunt talk.

The topic that so raised eyebrows? Succession in NoKo. She didn't see what the big deal was:

Maybe this is unusual, because you are supposed to be so careful that you spend hours avoiding stating the obvious, but you know, that's just not productive, in my view," the secretary told reporters traveling with her.

You know you've fallen on hard political times when Hillary Clinton seems like the most candid and sensible government spokesman.

He Should Give Up Coffee For Lent

le Café - Oldelaf (english subtitles)
by Boebis

Language alert in two phrases of this song --even in the subtitles. I'm not sure being hopped up on coffee is the biggest problem facing the French.

This Man Beheaded This Woman In Buffalo, New York

shamelessly pinched from ninme, who pinched it from Tim Blair

The Hassans ran the "Bridges" television network, dedicated to showing the moderate face of Islam. The murder took place last week, and AP just got around to noticing. Mark Steyn notes the spin on the story is what a blow it is to moderate Muslims, who will suffer more prejudice now.

I've been busy not blogging for days, but have been keeping my eyes peeled for when the story would make national news (the blogs have been all over it). You'd think something like this in her own backyard might catch the Formerly Gray Lady's attention, eg, but no, not until yesterday.

And those gutsy feminists who are always telling us well-behaved women rarely make history?

(crickets)

Busy being subservient to the wishes of Muslim men, apparently.

But who the hell cares? She was only a woman.

Mmmmm, Pie

"Pie" from The Ryskind Sketchbook

He defines "fairness" for Democrats:

If Castro & Chavez can control political speech, why can't they?

I don't know why they bother. If talk radio had any real influence would we have the Congress we have? In fact, I suspect the one thing that could get Gramma tossed out of office next election would be turning every radio station in the nation into Top 40 or Oldies.

Nevertheless, my recommendation is we amass our files on Chris Matthews, Brian Williams, Katie Couric, etc., and use the fairness doctrine to shut down television news, too. There's always a silver lining.

Why Obama Wants To Pay For You To Go To College

Higher education is remedial education, and the affliction it remedies is an American upbringing.

Young Frankensteins

We keep telling people: adult stem cells work, embryonic stem cells do not, because we can't control their growth. These geniuses injected fetal stem cells into a sick child, with disastrous results. Geez Louise, fetal tissue was shown to be a dead end under Bush the First.

California's Going Out Of Business

Ahnuld will write you an IOU if he owes you a tax refund this year.

If you thought that the collapse of Iceland made things tricky, confidence-wise, just wait until this sucker goes down. Which it is expected to do this week or next, as it technically becomes insolvent, unable to pay tax refunds, repair roads and bridges, keep schools open, or indeed provide a wage for anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves on its payroll.

Cheer up, Californians, you're still the vanguard. The stimulus bill will put us all in your boat in about 18 months.

Curtsy: ninme.

Pope v. Pelosi

This round to the Pope, I think, in spite of the blogosphere's fears about her making a photo-op of it to fool Catholic voters back home. However, dig the Vatican's press release about it, bearing in mind that these things are crafted in the most bland, cautious, diplomatic language possible:

Following the General Audience the Holy Father briefly greeted Mrs Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, together with her entourage.

His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.

Translation: Gramma got spanked. CMR was hoping for something a little tougher, but I think it'll do.

Update: Well-played, Holiness.

The Vatican said it was not issuing a photo of the meeting — as it usually does when the pope meets world leaders — saying the encounter was private.

In Stunning Act of Delayed Retribution, First Black President Enslaves All Americans

This is how freedom dies.

• We're all officially enslaved to a tax burden we can never pay, yea, verily, unto the 8th generation. In the name of a stimulus package which, by taking $1 trillion out of the private sector, will suck away all our jobs (the average American job paying $40,000/ year, that works out to job loss of what, 25 million jobs? My calculator doesn't have that many places). Markets panic. Naturally. We just nationalized our economy.
  
• The bill includes a government takeover of health care.
• Welfare un-reformed.
  
• The White House is taking over the census to gerrymander us into a one party system.
• Fairness Doctrine on the way, although not in a bill requiring votes. Just regulations, regulations, regulations.

Seems like there's a term we learned in economics for a regime in which private property is retained but government controls the means of production, exercises autocratic control over programs, promotes national unity, creates one party rule and stifles opposition. It's on the tip of my tongue.

• Not to be alarmist, but did the Obama Youth program just begin?
  

Meeting The Man Who Saved Her Life

Firefighter thanked after 40 years.

I love the way he says, "Her little ahms...."

Curtsy: CMR

Giving Churchill The Boot

The White House sent a bust of Churchill back where it came from.

A bust of the former prime minister once voted the greatest Briton in history, which was loaned to George W Bush from the Government's art collection after the September 11 attacks, has now been formally handed back.

The bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if it were ever sold on the open market, enjoyed pride of place in the Oval Office during President Bush's tenure.

But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: "Thanks, but no thanks."

Just as well. He wouldn't want to see what we're about to become anyway.

Curtsy: Mere Comments
Update: Top 10 Reasons Obama Returned Churchill

3 — Returned with the request to send bust of Neville Chamberlain.
1 — Was not aware it opened entrance to the Bat Cave.

Lord, If You Will, You Can Make Me Clean

The Pope thinks you should go to Confession.

Almost as important, the Anchoress does too --and provides a video primer on how to do so if you don't know. As she says,

Lent is coming. [Next week! Gack!--ed.]

So are hard times.

If you’re feeling fretful, you may want to try incorporating some prayer and spiritual discipline into your life. And if you’re Catholic, and you want to get back into church, and begin to re-engage with the sacraments, or simply to get the most out of Lent, you might want to try going back to confession.

I adore Confession. I think I feel physically lighter and stand up straighter after spitting out the poison of all my sins and internal gunk every couple of weeks. It's like revisiting the scene from Pilgrim's Progress where Pilgrim's burden rolls away.

I observe that if I have a couple of days feeling cranky and at odds with the world, the problem isn't usually anyone else's fault, it's a build-up of sin, for which the best solution is an influx of sanctifying grace. Spit it all out and joy returns. I thought perhaps I was imagining this, but I observe it in my kids as well.

It's dramatic. Basically they get along well together, but over the course of a few weeks they'll get to a point where no amount of correction can stop them griping at each other constantly. The only solution is to get 'em shriven PDQ before they go feral. They go in to the box Satan's Own, fussing over who's going to go first and come out my adorable little angels again: giggly, eager to please, the impudent edge to their voices gone.

It would be heresy to suggest that Confession automatically makes you feel physically and emotionally better or that its main purpose is psychological, but for those purposes as well it works for me.

I also share the philosophy of a priest who once told me he could get into a lot of trouble in two weeks, and it calms him to know if he's hit by a truck, that's as much of his life as he'd ever have to answer for. Excellent policy, says I. Hard times coming.

For those of you who live in my neck of the woods and find the Saturday 3 pm Confession time at most parishes inconvenient, a tip: there are never the lines at Franciscan Monastery that there are at the Basilica. Breeze in, breeze out, say hello to St. Frank, and you're done.

Friends Forever

Facebook won't let you not be friends.

Senate Grants Obama Droit de Seigneur

The Senate will likely pass the stimulus bill, even though the reconciled version is 1100 pp. long and was released at 11 pm last night.

Yes, folks, the Congress of the United States is going to borrow or print a trillion dollars to spend on it literally knows not what. (Can't we lodge a constitutional challenge?)

Plus, treat those cancers now! Socialized medicine stays in:

funds a back-door effort to socialize medicine and set up UK-style health care rationing in the United States. The $1.1 billion in the bill for “comparative effectiveness research” will help establish a government board that will make life and death medical decisions about health care cost and treatments. (Page 52 of House Conference Report)

See. Sen. Coburn's speech on the floor on this topic here. (Feb. 13th, on health care provisions.)

From The Gospel According To The One

From the book of Barack

And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.' 9 And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a stimulus. 10 Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a stimulus. 11 And on receiving it they grumbled at the householder, 12 saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.' 13 But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a stimulus? 14 Take what belongs to you, and go; I choose to give to this last as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? I won. 16 So the last will be first, and the first last, and the HHS Secretary shall decide if either's health care is appropriate.

B Mine

K-Lo doesn't seem to approve these GOP valentines, but I do.

Pop-Up Dodd

Root Cause from The Ryskind Sketchbook

To Infinity & Beyond!

New name for an unimaginably large number: a "stimulus." As in, "The star twenty galaxies away is a "stimulus" away from earth in light years." Iowahawk has the story.(Iowahawk language and imagery, you are warned.)

Project director Yujin Xiao of Stanford University said the theoretical number, dubbed a "stimulus," could lead to breakthroughs in fields as diverse as astrophysics, quantum mechanics, and Chicago asphalt contracting."Unlike the previous large numbers like the Googleplex or the Bazillionty, the Stimulus has no static numerical definition," said Xiao. "It keeps growing and growing, compounding factorially, eating up all zeros in its path. It moves freely across Cartesian dimensions and has the power to make any other number irrational."

Downside? A stimulus can kill you. Because tucked inside the stimulus bill is a health care coup in which a government board decides whether and how your doctor can treat you. Nobody's rosaries are going to be on anyone's ovaries, but Big Brother is going to touch you all over.

One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446).

Oo, "monitor treatments," I like the sound of that.

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541).

My favorite part is where Tom Daschle, designer of the new program (although he won't be around to administer it, alas --and after he'd crafted his own powers so nicely!) admits the purpose of government health care is to destroy health care.

The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs.

And behold the siren song of the culture of death:

He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

So that's what President Obama meant by

We will restore science to its rightful place

The back seat!

And Say g'night, Gramma! Except of course You, Gramma Pelosi, because Democrats in power will avoid this system as easily as they avoid paying taxes.

Update: a reader left a link questioning the validity of this, but Sen. Coburn's still crying foul. With links.

Why Do They Hate Us?

Perhaps you've read that President Obama has nominated a p0rn champion to be the #2 in the Justice Department. The guy won't even protect kids from being exposed to p0rn in libraries, and he fought for p0rn0graphers' "right" not to have to make sure their models are of age. Roger Scruton makes the interesting observation that this has foreign policy implications.

it is legal activism in America that has paved the way for the world-wide flood of pornographic material, and for the world-wide revulsion against a society and a culture that seems to find nothing wrong with it. The issue of pornography is therefore not just a major domestic problem: it is, or ought to be, at the top of the foreign policy agenda. For President Obama to be making overtures of conciliation towards the Muslim world—something that is certainly needed—while appointing to high legal office one of the most virulent advocates of a culture that poses the greatest threat to Muslim society is, it seems to me, indicative of a deep confusion—a confusion inherent in the essential negativity of liberal politics.

That Babe, Martha Washington

Martha was not fat when she married George. Yes, she liked to read the Bible, but she devoured gothic romance novels, too. She capably ran the five plantations left to her when her first husband died, bargaining with London merchants for the best tobacco prices. And unknown to most, while George was courting her she had another suitor, a Virginia planter with much greater wealth and stature. In a little-known letter, Charles Carter wrote to his brother about what a beauty she was and how he hoped to "arouse a flame in her breast."

--from Fresh Look at Martha

Don't miss her wedding shoes. Curtsy: NLT

ObamaNoms

Keep up with the tax cheats, incompetents and porn-in-library defenders nominated to run our government. Here.

Or here, the Iowahawk version:

"I think the American public understands that whenever there's a transfer of power, there are always going to be a couple of trips and stumbles, followed by an ethics imbroglio or two, and maybe a little glitchy pecadillo or occasional kerfuffly snafu," said Hitler. "If anything, these resignations just go to show how committed President Obama is to bringing ethics back to Washington. After the days of Scooter Libby and Jack Abramoff, I think the American public can take pride in the fact that almost 80% of the White House staff have full legal permission to pass within 300 feet of Chicago public playgrounds."

I'm Swamped

ninme, however, has blogging goodness for you today. Kiwis acting sensible, Obama messing up, dogs laughing...what more could you wish for?

The Presidency Is Not Late Night Television, Sir

The President of the United States just made a fat joke at a citizen's expense.

Update: I take it back. I have to agree with Chris in comments, who notes that when you see the video of the exchange, it's clear the Prez did not make a mean remark, he was making fun of the tabloid itself. The link's in the combox if you care.

Bush's Terrible Legacy, II

Look who's discovering the rights of Arab women.

Obama Dozed, People Frozed

Obama doesn't care about white people. Dozens of people have died and thousands more been displaced by ice storms, and where is FEMA? Millions of people have been without power in Kentucky & Ohio for days at a time.

Finding fuel — heating oil along with gas for cars and generators — was another struggle for those trying to tough it out at home, with hospitals and other essential services getting priority over members of the public.

The addition of 3,000 soldiers and airmen makes 4,600 Guardsmen pressed into service. It's the largest call-up in Kentucky history, which Beshear called an appropriate response to a storm that cut power to more than 600,000 people, the state's largest outage on record. Many people in rural areas cannot get out of their driveways due to debris and have no phone service, the governor said.

"With the length of this disaster and what we're expecting to be a multi-day process here, we're concerned about the lives and the safety of our people in their own homes," Beshear said, "and we need the manpower in some of the rural areas to go door-to-door and do a door-to-door canvass ... and make sure they're OK."

Sounds like a job for Sean Penn. Bill Quick notes at Instapundit: the appropriate question is, “Where is the mainstream media, screaming in one united voice, that the absence of FEMA demonstrates the utter fecklessness and failure of the current President and all his policies? Indeed, yes, where is Andersen Cooper to cry for the devastation? The Anchoress quotes a very cold lady:

I know, an ice storm in Kentucky is not a hurricane in La. but still, thousands of people STILL without power, that’s heat and water. It’s cold here folks.Food is getting scarce in some places and I heard on the radio some places folks are getting water from streams etc.
We not all a bunch of dumb rednecks who have no meaning or matter in this country. Where is the outrage about the lack of action? Where?

The Anchoress also notes this in the press reports:

Local officials grew angrier at what they said was a lack of help from the state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. [Emphasis mine - admin]

In Kentucky’s Grayson County, about 80 miles southwest of Louisville, Emergency Management Director Randell Smith said the 25 National Guardsmen who have responded have no chain saws to clear fallen trees.

“We’ve got people out in some areas we haven’t even visited yet,” Smith said. “We don’t even know that they’re alive.”

Smith said FEMA was still a no-show days after the storm.

Emphasis hers, and read her entire post as part of The Fairness Doctrine.

Vaclav Klaus Fan Club Fodder

Vaclav Klaus went to Davos and made fun of Al Gore.

Referring to the former US vice president, who attended Davos this year, he added: "I'm very sorry that some people like Al Gore are not ready to listen to the competing theories. I do listen to them.

In another story I saw that he said he like Al Gore personally and that they'd had a friendly conversation. But when reporters asked him if he thought Al Gore threatened freedom, he was polite but firm:

Environmentalism and the global warming alarmism is challenging our freedom. Al Gore is an important person in this movement.

He's none too happy about the way we're solving our financial crises either.

"I'm afraid that the current crisis will be misused for radically constraining the functioning of the markets and market economy all around the world," he said.

"I'm more afraid of the consequences of the crisis than the crisis itself."

VK Rules!

Is It Too Early To Have Lost My Patience With This Administration?

Do you see Obama in you? Detroit Free Press has a gallery of people who do.

For Obama plays in 10,000 places, lovely in eyes and lovely in limbs not his...

Turns out all this Obama worship was really self-worship all along. But we knew that.

Meanwhile, has there ever been an administration so riddled with corruption before it even began? The Sec. of Treasury and Sec. of HHS tried to cheat the American people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars...and they're going to cleanse us of corruption? And the President has the gall to complain about Wall Street "greed"?

The good news is, I no longer fear him (as neither do our enemies; I feel an Iranian hostage crisis coming on). His first big legislation was a big whiff. Within a year the same MSM that is fanning this worship will smell Watergate in the water and, as Mr. W. says, be competing to bring him down. And prove once again that the media, not the people, are sovereign.

Meanwhile, look at all those two-faced people.