Political Quote of the Day

From an unusual source:

Don't fear idiocy. It's the new smartness.

That actually comes from a Coke Zero commercial, but could just as easily be the new tagline for the Democrat party.

Obama Might Have to "Temporarily Bypass the Senate" on Treaty Ratification

I can't think that this will go over well with the honorable Senators from either party:

With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a “provisional basis” until the Senate ratifies the treaty.

"The most ideal situation would be to finish it in time that it could be submitted to the Senate so that it can be ratified," said White House Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Security and Arms Control Gary Samore. "If we're not able to do that, we'll have to look at arrangements to continue some of the inspection provisions, keep them enforced in a provisional basis, while the Senate considers the treaty."

If I was in the Senate, especially as a Republican, I'd be pretty ticked about letting the president bypass constitutional requirements. What's next - bypassing the Senate's Supreme Court confirmation requirement?

Blast From the Past

While looking for something else I came across some old photos in a box in the garage. It was a real trip down memory lane. Since I've already put these on Facebook I'll share them here (along with my embarrassment at that second photo below).

First, our family reunion in August of 1985 when the Oklahoma branch of the family met up with the California branch in Leadville, CO. That's me peeking over the heads in the back left:

This same clan gathered in Colorado 20 years earlier with far fewer people.

If we were to take that photo today everyone would be there except two people. My grandmother, sitting front and center, passed away in 1994. And my uncle, pictured in the center rear, died less than two years after this photo was taken - just days after he had come to California for my wedding.

Of course, if we took the photo today there would be a lot more people in the shot. We'd have to add several spouses and a bunch of kids (including mine).

This next shot is proof that I haven't always been as unquestionably cool as I am now:

Yes, the geeky kid with the glasses is me. I don't know exactly when this was taken, but I'm guessing somewhere in the 1966-67 timeframe during a birthday party outing for a friend of mine at Knott's Berry Farm. The kid sitting to my right is a grandfather now.

Time flies...

Health Care Quote of the Day

From Mickey Kaus:

It's seemed to me that the Obama administration has made a mistake in the framing of the health care issue: 'We'll raise your taxes and in exchange we're going to cut your treatments.' I mean, how could that not have widespread appeal? It's pain/pain!

Paying more for less. That's always a winning marketing strategy.

Majority Don't Want to Spend More for Energy to Stop Global Warming

I'm afraid the religion of global warming is in serious decline, much like world temperatures (from Rasmussen):

Fifty-six percent (56%) of Americans say they are not willing to pay more in taxes and utility costs to generate cleaner energy and fight global warming.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, taken since the climate change bill was passed on Friday, finds that 21% of Americans are willing to pay $100 more per year for cleaner energy and to counter global warming. Only 14% are willing to pay more than that amount.

Fifty-two percent (52%) of all adults say it is more important to keep the cost of energy as low as possible than it is to develop clean, environmentally friendly sources of energy. But 41% disagree and say developing cleaner, greener energy sources is the priority.

Sixty-three percent (63%) rate creating jobs as more important than taking steps to stop global warming. For 22%, stopping global warming is more important.

Memo to Rasmussen: I'd love to see a poll of how many Americans would like to see us able to explore and pump our own oil from American lands and waters, rather than holding so much territory off limits because we might inconvenience a duck or some caribou somewhere.

With 56% opposed to higher energy prices to stop global warming, the GOP has got to pound the message home that cap-and-tax will not do a thing for global warming, mainly because it has stopped on its own, and will only raise the price of everything. This is a winning issue for them if they use it correctly.

UPDATE: For those who insist that drilling in America would do no good, let's just look at all the places where Americans are not allowed to drill:

The Gorilla From Wasilla Threatens the Slanderers

Now that Sarah Palin is free to do pretty much whatever she wants, she's also free to take legal action against those who have made a career of defaming her. Gateway Pundit has an excerpt from her attorney's warning to those who think that continuing to slander and libel her is a good idea:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 4, 2009

On July 3rd, 2009, Governor Sarah Palin announced her intent to resign her gubernatorial duties and transfer the powers of Governor to Lt. Governor Sean Parnell.

Almost immediately afterwards, several unscrupulous people have asserted false and defamatory allegations that the “real” reasons for Governor Palin’s resignation stem from an alleged criminal investigation pertaining to the construction of the Wasilla Sports Complex. This canard was first floated by Democrat operatives in September 2008 during the national campaign and followed up by sympathetic Democratic writers.1. It was easily rebutted then as one of many fabrications about Sarah Palin. Just as power abhors a vacuum, modern journalism apparently abhors any type of due diligence and fact checking before scurrilous allegations are repeated as fact...

To the extent several websites, most notably liberal Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore, are now claiming as “fact” that Governor Palin resigned because she is “under federal investigation” for embezzlement or other criminal wrongdoing, we will be exploring legal options this week to address such defamation. This is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who re-publish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law. The Alaska Constitution protects the right of free speech, while simultaneously holding those “responsible for the abuse of that right.” Alaska Constitution Art. I, Sec. 5. http://ltgov.state.ak.us/constitution.php?section=1. These falsehoods abuse the right to free speech; continuing to publish these falsehoods of criminal activity is reckless, done without any regard for the truth, and is actionable.

This all comes out of "reports" that there is some mystical indictment ready to come down regarding the Wasilla Sports Complex that was built in 2002, and that's why she suddenly resigned. For more information on just how spurious that allegation is, see Don Surber's report.

It was irritating to see the local KTLA Channel 5 10pm anchorman spreading the same disinformation on the air Friday night. Without any substantiation or investigation of the charges he said that "there were rumors on the internet of a pending indictment", and that might be why she resigned. It was incredibly sloppy reporting, and unfortunately, not inconsistent with the declining level of journalism at that station since long-time anchor and editor Hal Fishman died a couple of years ago.

For the record, there are also "rumors on the internet" about that anchor's sexual orientation, but I digress.

A free Sarah Palin should be a terrorizing thought to those who think they've destroyed her. I have a feeling she's made from a lot tougher stuff than they are, and with the backing of a lot of supporters, her enemies are going to wish they had left her alone.

Philandering Doesn't End Well for Steve McNair

I was busy doing other things yesterday and didn't mention the shooting of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair in Nashville, TN. I was kind of waiting to see what was known about the story before mentioning it, and now it appears that McNair's wandering eye cost him his life:

Former NFL star quarterback Steve McNair was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds in a Nashville condominium Saturday - and authorities hinted he was murdered by a girlfriend who then turned the gun on herself.

Cops discovered McNair's bullet-riddled body slumped on a sofa inside his rented condo's blood-spattered living room, authorities said.

A woman McNair was reportedly dating, identified as Sahel Kazemi, 20, was found dead only a few feet away with a single bullet wound to the head. A gun was lying nearby, Nashville police said.

"At this moment nothing has been ruled out, but as far as actively looking for a suspect tonight, the answer would be no," Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron said.

It remained unclear what might have triggered the slaying, Aaron added.

McNair, 36, who was married and had four children, had reportedly been dating Kazemi for a few months. They met at a Dave & Buster's restaurant where Kazemi worked, her former boyfriend told the Tennessean newspaper.

Neighbors of Kazemi told the paper they often spotted McNair visiting her apartment. At times, she returned home in a black limousine, and not long ago, she showed up with a brand new Cadillac Escalade she said was a gift from her boyfriend.

"She is the sweetest girl, and she did not deserve this," Kazemi's ex-beau, Keith Norfleet, told the newspaper upon learning of her death. "He was making her believe they were going to be together, and everything would be perfect."

I believe on Seinfeld they used to call people like that "bad breaker-uppers".

It's a shame that a guy who was pretty well respected in the local community would meet his end in such a stupid way.

Disney Cast Member Killed in Monorail Crash

When I worked at Disneyland in 1975 the job I always wanted but never got was monorail driver. To a guy walking around in the heat pickup up trash the job of gliding above the park in an air-conditioned train looked pretty good.

In Florida one of those monorail employees died in a collision between trains:

A Disney World monorail driver was killed after colliding with another train at the Orlando, Fla., park, according to officials.

The driver died early Sunday when he rear-ended another train at about 2 a.m. EDT.

The operator of the other monorail train was taken to the hospital, but was uninjured, according to a statement from the Reedy Creek Fire Department.

The first driver, who was not identified, had to be cut out of his cab and was pronounced dead at the scene, CFNews13.com reported.

Two employees and five guests on both trains were not injured.

Witnesses said the crash took place on the EPCOT track near the Disney World parking lot as people were leaving the park following a Fourth of July fireworks show.

"Today, we mourn the loss of our fellow cast member. Our hearts go out to his family and to those who have lost a friend and co-worker," Mike Griffin, Disney World's vice president of public affairs, said in a statement.

"The safety of our guests and cast members is always our top priority. The monorail is out of service as we continue to work closely with law enforcement to determine what happened and the appropriate next steps," Griffin said.

It was the first fatal accident in the Disney World monorail's 38-year history, according to CFNews13.com,.

It's been quite awhile since a Disney cast member was killed in one of their parks. The summer before I started a girl was crushed in the "Carousel of Progress" attraction in Tomorrowland, but I'm having a hard time remembering the last time a cast member died on the job. (Correction - Laura points out that the attraction had recently been converted to "America Sings" when the accident involving the employee happened in 1974.)

This is going to put a real crimp Disney World's transportation plans around the park. With two trains badly damaged, they'll be out of service for quite awhile and you can't just go buy new ones. They're specially built and it will probably take months to years to replace them if it comes to that. They may be able to get the system up and running again in a few days once they finish their investigation, but being down two trains will really hurt their ability to move guests around.

The President Stops in Oklahoma

Not the current one, but the previous one:

Former President George W. Bush spoke amid thunderous applause in a rural Oklahoma town to celebrate the Fourth of July, calling the U.S. the ''greatest nation on the face of the earth.''

Bush was given six standing ovations as he spoke Saturday inside a remodeled rodeo arena in Woodward, a town of about 12,000 residents in northwest Oklahoma. About 9,200 tickets were sold for the event, which would be the biggest crowd for Bush since he left office in January.

Bush spoke of the bravery of injured soldiers he'd met throughout his presidency, and thanked members of the military for their service. He also thanked spectators for giving ''a retired guy something to do.''

Bush has turned up in a handful of out-of-the-way places since leaving office.

According to the report at Gateway Pundit Bush received six standing ovations.

He may not be in office anymore, but he's looking better every day.

PDS On Display

PDS = Palin Derangement Syndrome. Whenever I post something here it automatically posts sometime later on Facebook, and yesterday's item "It's All About Trig" generated some spirited discussion from PDS sufferers. Let me replay some of it here, without the names of the PDS sufferers. They've beclowned themselves enough already. I'll just use "PDS1" and "PDS2"

PDS1:No...we detest Sarah Palin because she's a vacant, judgmental, self-absorbed hypocrite willing to exploit her own family in order to further her political career. Oh, and she has the intellectual depth of a snickerdoodle.... ;-)

That was dumb enough, but PDS2 was not only obsessed with misstatements about Palin, but defended them even when they were easily disproved:

PDS2: It's disingenuous to say the left (since more than just those left of the line dislike this politician) despises (emotion word and far too strong when it's about politics) her because of her kid. And disingenuous is me being nice. First up, the woman's got about twice the child's IQ herself. "I can see Russia from my house," and "the country of Africa" and "maverick!" and "goshdarnit" etc. And where the hell did that accent come from, Minnesota? Did she pick it up in the airport gift store? I have my own reasons for disliking her, and it has to do, oddly enough, with Hillary Clinton and Mary Ruwart and many other women who were in a position of running for high office. She was campaigning on the fact that she has a vagina -- she was McCain's proxy vagina to try to get the women's vote and some of the "historic" vote. I cannot respect someone who expects to win by affirmative action and not merit.

The thing that caught my eye was the "Russia" statement, which was never made by Palin, but by Tina Fey in a Saturday Night Live skit. That pretty much told me all I needed to know about PDS2.

The error was pointed out to her by another poster and I followed up:

Rick Moore: Michael beat me to the punch, but the fact that you thought "I can see Russia from my house" came from Palin tells me you're paying attention to the wrong political sources.

And here came the defense:

PDS2: By the way, the exact Russia quote is this, from Palin herself: "They're our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska." Anybody care to look at a map and see how well you can see RUSSIA from Alaska? Tina Fey's quote is just a paraphrase, but the stupidity is still the same. Or the lack of geographical knowledge, we'll say.

Rick Moore: It took me 30 seconds on Google Maps - Diomede Island is approximately 3 miles from an island that belongs to Russia. Certainly "seeable".

PDS2: Russia itself is inland. An island belonging to Russia? That's like saying you can see the U.S. if you can see Puerto Rico. But whatever.

Rick Moore: PDS2, quit digging. For God's sake open Google maps and take a look. The Russian Republic goes all the way from the waters that border Alaska to Eastern Europe. It's the largest of the former Soviet republics. It includes a number of islands off the Eastern coast.

PDS2 was not heard from again.

PDS2 is certainly entitled to her own opinion, but not her own facts.

A Family Fourth

We had a good time tonight getting together with my parents and my sister's family in Laguna Niguel. After dinner it was cousins against cousins in Wii battles. My kids...

and my nieces...
The we headed out to the Regional Park where my brother-in-law had earlier staked out a spot on a hill overlooking the lake where the fireworks would be fired off. Here's your host, the Mrs., and HolyCoast Mom and Dad in the background.
This was our view. The fireworks were shot off from a spot on the other side of the lake.
I tried the fireworks setting on my camera with mixed results. Took about 50 pictures and threw most of them away. Here are a couple that turned out okay.

Fireworks

Our perch overlooking Laguna Niguel Regional Park, waiting for the fireworks to start.

As Revolutionaries Go, We Got Lucky

Rich Lowry talks about the good fortune we had as a nation in having revolutionary founders who were more than just people who didn't like their current government:

AS a nation, we were extraordinarily blessed in our revolutionaries. It wasn't just that they were brave and determined. So were the avatars of revolution throughout the 20th century who wrecked nations and peoples.

No, what makes them so wondrously distinct is that they were also just and wise, grounded always in a clear-eyed view of human nature.

"There is a degree of depravity in mankind," James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers, "which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust." When revolutionaries talk of depravity, it is often to brand their class or ethnic enemies for destruction. Gas chambers, prison camps and killing fields inevitably follow.

The depravity of which our Founders spoke was different. It ran through the hearts of all men, themselves included. It tempered their expectations of what they could, and what they should attempt to, achieve. No secular millennium, no perfectly harmonious republic -- because, as Madison wrote, "the latent causes of faction are sown in the nature of man."

"Enthusiasm there certainly was -- a revolution is impossible without enthusiasm," Irving Kristol writes of 1776, "but this enthusiasm was tempered by doubt, introspection, anxiety, skepticism. This may strike us as a very strange state of mind in which to make a revolution; and yet it is evidently the right state of mind for making a successful revolution."

The Revolution was institutionalized in the Constitution, an inspired exercise in leveraging human failings against one another -- "ambition counteracts ambition" -- to create a stable structure of liberty.

"It may be a reflection on human nature," Madison wrote in the famous passage in Federalist No. 51, "that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."

How did the Founders come to know man as they did? They had broad, practical experience that exposed them to humanity in its glory and its folly: as lawyers, military officers and -- especially important -- legislators.

Some knew hardship. Try, like Alexander Hamilton, making your way as a penniless, orphaned bastard from the West Indies and see if you don't pick up a few hard-boiled lessons about how the world works.

They read widely, knew the classics and soaked up history. John Adams studied and wrote a book about the French civil wars of the 16th century, concluding of human affairs: "Reason holds the helm, but passions are the gales."

Madison undertook a yearlong study of the history of republics and confederacies prior to the writing of the Constitution. Believing "experience is the oracle of truth," he endeavored to learn from this long, unrelieved record of failure.

They didn't let their view of reality get obscured by abstruse theories or sunny abstractions of the sort that perverted the French Revolution. No philosophes need apply. Instead, a residual Calvinism tinged their worldview. They admired the "country" tradition in England, characterized by a deep distrust of the crown and support for republican reforms to preserve English liberties.

In this tradition, the late historian Martin Malia writes, "men were neither rational nor naturally good," and "human government therefore invariably tended toward corruption and despotism."

In keeping with their lively view of human fallibility, our revolutionaries set about circumscribing government to limit its abuse. After a false start under the Articles of Confederation and its enfeebled federal government, the Constitution struck a proper and enduring balance.

It wasn't quite a "miracle." It was assuredly the work of men -- not just supremely talented statesmen and political thinkers, but some of the best social scientists the world has ever known.

The sad thing is that modern liberal leaders and judges can't see the wisdom in the founding documents, and instead insist that our principle be subject according to the whims of popular culture. It will be the destruction of the country if such changes are not stopped.

Bored on the Fourth of July

Roger L. Simon is so done with Obama:

I don’t think I’ve ever seen my country so divided and depressed on the Fourth of July in my lifetime and - no matter what Bob Dylan dreamed up - I’m not young, forever or otherwise. That includes the Vietnam War period when both sides at least had some conviction and excitement for the future, even if wrong. Not so now. The current situation is grim.

Obama is already over. In six short months the now-spattered bumper stickers with “Hope and Change” seem like pathetic remnants from the days of “23 Skidoo,” the echoes of “Yes, we can” more nauseating than ever in their cliché-ridden evasiveness. Although they may pretend otherwise, even Obama’s choir in the mainstream media seems to know he’s finished, their defenses of his wildly over-priced medical and cap-and-trade schemes perfunctory at best. Everyone knows we can’t afford them. His stimulus plan - if you could call it his, maybe it’s Geithner’s, maybe it’s someone else’s, maybe it’s not a plan at all - has produced absolutely nothing. In fact, I have met not one person of any ideology who evinces genuine confidence in it.

On the foreign policy front, it’s more embarrassing. He switches positions every day, such as they are, while acting like a petit-bourgeois snob with our allies and then, when people with genuine passion for democracy emerge on the scene (the courageous Iranian protestors), behaves like a cringeworthy, equivocating creep. Enough of Obama.

There's more here. He doesn't see a lot of promise from the Republicans either, and that's really depressing.

A Change in the Booth

For those of you who are NASCAR fans there's a story I missed from a few days ago involving the broadcast coverage of the race. As I was watching the pre-race show I wondered by Ralph Shaheen was handling play-by-play duties usually done on TNT by Bill Weber. Turns out there's a pretty good reason:

Bill Weber is gone from the NASCAR on TNT coverage for the final two Sprint Cup Series events on the network. TNT confirmed this with The Daly Planet on Wednesday morning.

Weber was scheduled to call the Wide-Open coverage for the network from Daytona on Saturday night. The summer race in Daytona is TNT's showcase event for the network's six race TV package.

Ralph Sheheen will handle the play-by-play duties for Daytona and Chicago with Kyle Petty and Wally Dallenbach alongside. TV ratings for the Sprint Cup Series race from Loudon, NH were up slightly and that may have played a role in this decision.

Weber was involved in a late night incident last Friday night at the TNT hotel in Manchester, NH. It spilled-over into Weber being sent home by TNT executives on Saturday and now his release from the TV package.

TNT has been tight-lipped about the issue and gave no indication whether or not Weber would continue with the network in 2010. Here is the official TNT release:

Bill Weber will not be part of TNT's NASCAR coverage of the Cup Series for the network’s last two races. Ralph Sheheen will handle play-by-play duties for The Coke Zero 400 in Daytona and the LifeLock.com 400 from Chicagoland. Sheheen will be calling the races alongside analysts Kyle Petty and Wally Dallenbach in the booth.

Shaheen handled the play-by-play last weekend too, and in this story tells how much preparation time he got:

It was certainly a surprise to see Joey Logano grab a victory in the rain-shortened Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but it was also a surprise to tune in to Sunday's telecast of the race to find Ralph Sheheen in the anchor position in place of Bill Weber.

“It was exciting, but also nerve-wracking,” said Sheheen Monday afternoon about his first time anchoring a NASCAR Sprint Cup race. “I got the call Saturday night, so I had no time to worry about it. The challenge is to just hop in there and go. Luckily, the TNT folks have a great team – from Wally (Dallenbach) and Kyle (Petty) in the booth to the woman who brought me the jacket I wore. It arrived about 10 minutes before we went on the air.”

The native of Sacramento is very familiar to SPEED viewers and racing fans from his work in nearly every form of motorsports since he first appeared on a live ESPN broadcast of an IMSA Camel GT race in 1988. This year alone, he has gone from a long list of motorcycle series (including AMA Supercross and Superbikes) to NASCAR and even public-address announcing at the Indianapolis 500. His versatility and a wide array of motorsports coverage meant he was uniquely suited as the choice to step into the TNT booth on late notice.

“It was so last minute, I didn’t have the time to research as I would have liked,” Sheheen explained. “As a pit reporter, you might concentrate on the 10 teams that you are covering, but if you’re in the booth, the research is much different. You’re suddenly worried about all 43 cars and a lot more.”

I have to admit, I've always had a problem with Weber. When NASCAR created the new TV contract beginning with the 2001 season the year was split between Fox and NBC. Fox had the first half and NBC the second. Weber was a pit reporter for NBC, and the play-by-play broadcaster was Allen Bestwick.

I liked Bestwick, who in addition to hosting the NBC broadcast was the host of "Inside Winston Cup Racing", a favorite NASCAR show of mine. During the 2004 season Bestwick broke his leg in a charity hockey game and missed two races. Weber was elevated to play-by-play in Bestwick's absence.

When the 2005 season opened Weber was given the play-by-play duties and Bestwick had been demoted to pre-show host and pit road reporter. Neither guy was as good in those new roles.

It's probably too late to do anything about this season, but if TNT was smart they'd sign Bestwick up for next year.

Bonus Political Quote of the Day

From Founding Father John Adams on how the Fourth of July should be celebrated:

"It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more."

Consider it done, Mr. Adams.

And thanks.

It's All About Trig

William Jacobson has a well-founded theory about why the left hates Sarah Palin so much: It's all about Trig:

I waited a whole day before posting about the Sarah Palin resignation. Well, not a whole day, but longer than almost everyone else in the blogosphere. Here's my take as of this moment in time, subject to change:

I don't know why Sarah Palin resigned, what her plans are, or whether she has or wants a political future.

I do know why the left hates her so much. And it keeps coming back to Trig.

Yes, some people hate Sarah Palin because she doesn't have the traditional pedigree, she isn't one of them, she is too good looking to be taken seriously, etc. And yes, some hate her because they hate her religion, politics, blah blah blah. But that doesn't explain the Sarah Palin hatred. It is so deep as to be pathological.

But it keeps coming back to Trig.

From the moment Palin was nominated for V.P., the attacks on Trig began. First there were the rumors, spread by Andrew Sullivan and others, that Sarah Palin was not Trig's mother, that there was a grand conspiracy of hundreds if not thousands of people to cover up that Bristol Palin was Trig's real mother. Those Trig truther conspiracy theories have been pushed hard by Sullivan and the others continuously to this day.

Read the whole thing. He includes lots of examples of lefty Trig-hating.

Palin-haters think they've won now that she's resigned and made a move that's being portrayed as "erratic" or "bizarre" or "abandoning Alaska". Maybe yes, maybe no.

One thing for sure, and this should scare the left to death - after July 26th she's free. Free to speak wherever and whenever she wants, free to write, free to see where her popularity within the party may take her.

I have my doubts that she has 2012 on her mind. She would not only be facing a GOP field that will be quick to remind everyone that she quit her governor's job early, but would be facing an incumbent president. My guess is that if she has White House ambitions she's got 2016 on her mind.

Her kids will be seven years older - most of them gone from home. Traveling will not be as big a burden on her family, and her time will be even more flexible. She'll only be 52, still pretty young for a presidential candidate and assuming that Obama hasn't changed the constitution, he won't be running.

The other benefit of waiting until 2016 is that even though Palin hatred might linger, it can't keep up the intensity that long. The Andrew Sullivans of the world will have faded into obscurity.

And by 2016 she'll be ready. Anyone who thinks she'll just disappear is probably vastly underestimating her. After all, can anyone name the last Vice Presidential losing candidate that was able to dominate the news cycle 8 months after the election?

Stay tuned.

Wheel of Religion

How come no American producer has come up with a game show like this?

What happens when you put a Muslim imam, a Christian priest, a rabbi and a Buddhist monk in a room with 10 atheists?

Turkish television station Kanal T hopes the answer is a ratings success as it prepares to launch a gameshow where spiritual guides from the four faiths will seek to convert a group of non-believers.

The prize for converts will be a pilgrimage to a holy site of their chosen religion -- Mecca for Muslims, the Vatican for Christians, Jerusalem for Jews and Tibet for Buddhists.

But religious authorities in Muslim but secular Turkey are not amused by the twist on the popular reality game show format and the Religious Affairs Directorate is refusing to provide an imam for the show.

"Doing something like this for the sake of ratings is disrespectful to all religions. Religion should not be a subject for entertainment programs," High Board of Religious Affairs Chairman Hamza Aktan told state news agency Anatolian after news of the planned program emerged.

The makers of "Penitents Compete" are unrepentant and reject claims that the show, scheduled to begin broadcasting in September, will cheapen religion.

"We are giving the biggest prize in the world, the gift of belief in God," Kanal T chief executive Seyhan Soylu told Reuters.

"We don't approve of anyone being an atheist. God is great and it doesn't matter which religion you believe in. The important thing is to believe," Soylu said.

I can just imagine all kinds of scenarios for that game show.

National Office Will Dwindle Down to the Unhealthily Single-Minded

Those are prescient and scary words from Mark Steyn as he analyzes Sarah Palin's surprising resignation:

With respect to many of the Palinologists below, I think they're getting way too hepatomantic over the entrails.

As a political move for anything other than the 2010 Senate race, today's announcement is a disaster. And I'm not sure it's a plus for the Senate - and, even if it were, the manner and timing suggest it was not a professionally planned event and therefore is unlikely to have any grand strategy behind it.

So Occam's Razor leaves us with: Who needs this?

In states far from the national spotlight, politics still attracts normal people. You're a mayor or a state senator or even the governor, but you lead a normal life. The local media are tough on you, but they know you, they live where you live, they're tough on the real you, not on some caricature cooked up by a malign alliance of late-night comics who'd never heard of you a week earlier and media grandees supposedly on your own side who pronounce you a "cancer".

Then suddenly you get the call from Washington. You know it'll mean Secret Service, and speechwriters, and minders vetting your wardrobe. But nobody said it would mean a mainstream network comedy host doing statutory rape gags about your 14-year old daughter. You've got a special-needs kid and a son in Iraq and a daughter who's given you your first grandchild in less than ideal circumstances. That would be enough for most of us. But the special-needs kid and the daughter and most everyone else you love are a national joke, and the PC enforcers are entirely cool with it.

Most of those who sneer at Sarah Palin have no desire to live her life. But why not try to - what's the word? - "empathize"? If you like Wasilla and hunting and snowmachining and moose stew and politics, is the last worth giving up everything else in the hopes that one day David Letterman and Maureen Dowd might decide Trig and Bristol and the rest are sufficiently non-risible to enable you to prosper in their world? And, putting aside the odds, would you really like to be the person you'd have to turn into under that scenario?

National office will dwindle down to the unhealthily singleminded (Clinton, Obama), the timeserving emirs of Incumbistan (Biden, McCain) and dynastic heirs (Bush). Our loss.

Thanks to the 24-hour news cycle which is always in need of fresh meat, and the people who live to destroy conservatives, a lot of good people who would be great in office will never choose to subject themselves to the nonsense.

Consequently, America is doomed to be government by the lowest common denominator instead of the best and the brightest.

Just a Reminder of Why We're All Here

The cap-and-tax bill was 1,200 pages long. The new health bill is reportedly somewhere in the neighborhood of 650 pages long. The founding document that started this whole country can be read in a couple of minutes.

Doesn't it seem like something is wrong with that?

We've forgotten the principles upon which this nation was founded 233 years ago, so I thought I'd offer a little reminder. It would be good for every American to read this document, and then compare it to what's going on today:

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of….

…the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

— Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to…

… compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare,

That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

— And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Some July 4th Memories

I hope you're all having a very Happy 4th of July today. Our family will be getting together later this evening for dinner and a fireworks show at Laguna Niguel Regional Park.

As I was thinking about the 4th a lot of memories came to mind. Here are a few of the more memorable years (with dates if I remember them):

Sometime in the early 60's - Our family planned to shoot of fireworks in our back yard but the June bugs were everywhere (they had hung around for a few extra days). They were so thick my mom and sister wouldn't leave the house, so they stood in the back screen door and watched my dad and I set off everything.

=====

Mid-60's - I remember going with my family to Angel Stadium to see a huge professional show that included aerial mortars along with all kinds of standing displays. They were entertaining, but the design of the stadium was such that the smoke generated by the floor displays tended to stay in the stadium, making for a smoky fog that sometimes was tough to see through.

=====

Late 60's - We joined with another family, each buying a large box of fireworks. We were at the other house and fire everything off, throwing the spent sparklers, fountains and such into a large metal wash tub on the front lawn. There wasn't any water in the tub, and when the evening was over, we picked the tub up and found that it had gotten so hot it had burned a perfect hole in the lawn.

=====

1971 - The family was in Bethany, OK, visiting family. In Oklahoma City it was legal to buy bottle rockets and firecrackers. My cousin and I had a great time, though I did try and blow my fingers off at one point. Fortunately, I was unsuccessful.

=====

1975 - I had just started working at Disneyland a few days

before and was assigned to Main Street beginning about 4pm. The park was unbelievably crowded. I believe park capacity at that time was 55,000, and the crowd estimate that day was 85,000. I worked the ticket booth area for awhile, and then the Main Street area up through the Hub (the area where the various lands split off from Main Street. At 9pm the fireworks started, and I had been told that I was not to stop and watch but keep moving. It was impossible. I was literally pinned in shoulder-to-shoulder with tourists and couldn't move a step. Everybody had crammed into the Hub to see Tinkerbell fly, and I think they all thought there would be a special fireworks show that night (there wasn't - it was the same show they did all summer).

That day had been so tough on the employees that Disney struck a special medal and gave it to everyone who worked that July 4th. Unfortunately, mine was stolen some years later. I wish I still had it.

=====

1977 - I spent the holiday weekend with a family quartet in Fayetteville, AR. On the 3rd we traveled up to Southwest City, MO to sing for the local city celebration. Small town America at its best. The fireworks show consisted of one mortar, followed by applause and a two-minute or so delay, followed by another mortar. It went on like that for 45 minutes. They served watermelon right out of the back of a guy's pick-up truck. Great fun. On the 4th we sang twice, including an evening concert at a tiny Pentecostal church outside of town. There were horses tied up outside.

=====

1986 - My dad had a heart attack on June 26th followed by an angioplasty. He was home by the 4th and all of us, including my future bride, sat in the front yard of their Huntington Beach home watching the neighbors fire off their fireworks. We

were pretty glad to all be together.

=====

1988 - Fireworks were banned in Tustin where we lived, but we decided to flaunt the law and bought a couple of boxes of sparklers in nearby Santa Ana. We had recently gotten a video camera, and on our first tape I have pictures of my pregnant wife waving sparklers around in our condo's tiny backyard, hoping a police chopper wouldn't fly over and bust us.

=====

1990 - We had recently moved into our Mission Viejo home and our 20-month old daughter had come down with chicken pox a day or so earlier. We couldn't go out and join others in watching a professional show, so the three of us sat in the upstairs window and watched for whatever fireworks we could see. She gave us a running commentary on the whole thing.

=====

Late 90's or early 00's - For several years we went down to the lake at Laguna Niguel Regional Park and watched the professional aerial show they did there. Two of those years stand out. The first was the year a misfired shell landed on the brushy bank across from the island where they were shooting the show. It started a brush fire and things were delayed for awhile while the Orange County Fire Authority put on a firefighting demonstration for us. The second year was another misfire, but instead of setting the brush on fire, the entire show went up at once. We had about 30 seconds of serious explosions and color...and that was it.

=====

2006 - We scheduled a visit to my daughter's future college for the 5th, so we spent much of the 4th in San Francisco. We headed to Sausalito for dinner and were going to watch the SF fireworks from the waterfront there, but the crowd pouring in to Sausalito convinced us that if we stayed there we'd be trapped for hour. We snuck out of town before it got too crazy.

=====

2007 - My kids had never lived in a town where fireworks were legal, but for this particular year, we visited my wife's cousin in Fillmore where you can still buy the good stuff and shoot it off legally. We had a great night and the kids had a lot of fun...even though they weren't kids anymore.

More memories tonight, and hopefully more in years to come.

The Church of Global Warming

Don Surber asks a good question: Would Galileo Buy Global Warming?

FOR 2,000 years, the scientific debate was settled. The ancient Greeks had studied the skies, and had determined by the 4th century before Christ that the Earth was the center of the universe.

The heavenly bodies rotated around the Earth in little wheels. Except for a few geocentric deniers, most scientists agreed, and in addition, the Holy Scripture said so.

They had proof. Using their calculations, they could prove where the planet and the Moon and the Sun would be at any one time.

True, these bodies did not exactly circle the Earth in concentric circles, but there was an explanation that was long and too complicated to go into here.

Then along came this troublemaker, Nicolaus Copernicus. He was a mathematician and an astronomer in Poland, and he came up with a whole new set of calculations that had the Earth rotating the Sun.

This was in the 1500s. After he died, his theory got Galileo Galilei in a whole lot of trouble.

Galileo supported Copernicus' theory, which put him at odds with his fellow scientists and the Catholic Church.

Scientists at that time had no power.

The church was another matter. It had a lot of power, and church officials at the time believed that the Earth did not move (it is in Psalms), and that to say otherwise was heresy.

For more than 15 years, Galileo fought the church. But in 1633, Galileo finally recanted and said the Earth was the center of the universe.

In 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed regret and officially recognized that no, the Earth is not the center of the universe.

That was a little late for Galileo, but the audience for that retraction was the living, not those who have long departed this Earth.

Today, the Church of Manmade Global Warming holds that man's sin of materialism is causing the Earth to burn up.

Sound familiar? Galileo was an "Earth Center Denier", kind of like the "Global Warming Deniers" of today who are all but branded as heretics.

Read the rest of it here.

Political Quote of the Day

From media analyst Howard Kurtz, talking about the sudden Sarah Palin resignation (h/t The Corner):

"How can these talking heads pop off about the meaning of Palin's resignation when not one of them saw it coming?"

Exactly.

Moonwalker Has a Little Bigger View of the Changing Earth

No, not Michael Jackson, but 2nd man on the moon Buzz Aldrin. He was asked his view on man-made global warming:

But while trying to spread the word about the possibilities of space, Dr Aldrin said he was sceptical of climate change theories.

"I think the climate has been changing for billions of years," he said.

"If it's warming now, it may cool off later. I'm not in favour of just taking short-term isolated situations and depleting our resources to keep our climate just the way it is today.

"I'm not necessarily of the school that we are causing it all, I think the world is causing it."

I've questioned for a long time who gave the Al Gore crowd the authority to declare that today's climate is optimal and must be maintained at all costs?

The Earth is a self-regulating system. If it warms a bit, it has ways to shed the excess heat. If it cools, it has ways to warm up. All of it is beyond puny man's control and it's the height of arrogance to think differently.

Memorable Headline of the Day

You might think it would have something to do with the Michael Jackson Funeralpalooza or Sarah Palin's unexplainable resignation as governor of Alaska, but you'd be wrong. Today's most memorable headline has to be this:

Wrestling Midgets Killed by Fake Prostitutes

You just don't see that everyday.

Taking a walk

San Clemente Beach on a beautiful evening.

Colin Powell Admits His Obama Endorsement Was All About Race

In so many words:

Colin Powell, one of President Obama's most prominent Republican supporters, expressed concern Friday that the president's ambitious blitz of costly initiatives may be enlarging the size of government and the federal debt too much.

"I'm concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them," Mr. Powell said in an excerpt of an interview with CNN's John King, released by the network Friday morning.

Mr. Powell, a retired U.S. army general who rose to political prominence after a long and accomplished military career, said that health care reform and many of Mr. Obama's other initiatives are "important" to Americans.

But, he said, "one of the cautions that has to be given to the president -- and I've talked to some of his people about this -- is that you can't have so many things on the table that you can't absorb it all."

"And we can't pay for it all," said Mr. Powell, who was the first African-American to serve as secretary of state, under former President George W. Bush. He was also national security adviser to President Reagan, and was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1993.

The policies that Powell is now hesitant about are nothing new for Obama. He was pushing this stuff during the campaign when Powell endorsed him.

I guess Powell still is a Republican.

He was just blinded by The One's skin color.

Moving Money to the I-15 Rail Corridor

Harry Reid is excited:

A potential corridor for passenger trains between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area has become part of a federal initiative to modernize the nation's rail networks and develop high-speed service between cities.

Thursday's announcement, however, might doom a 30-year-old proposal to build a high-tech magnetic levitation, or "maglev," train from Anaheim to Las Vegas if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) gets his way.

Reid, who no longer supports the maglev project, said during an event to publicize the rail corridor that he would try to scuttle $45 million in federal funds earmarked for the proposal. The maglev project and a conventional rail line proposed by a private venture are trying to develop separate high speed passenger trains that would parallel oft-congested Interstate 15. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood announced Thursday that a swath of land along much of I-15 has been declared a federal high-speed rail corridor -- one of 11 such zones in the U.S. Projects proposed in those corridors are eligible for federal assistance, grants and loans.

Federal officials say the development of a successful high speed rail system between Southern California and Nevada would dramatically reduce delays and traffic accidents on I-15.

"For transportation, it's the most important thing that's happened to Nevada since Interstate 15," said Reid, who likened the federal high speed rail program to President Eisenhower's effort in the 1950s to develop the interstate highway system.

I'm heading to Vegas on Monday and wouldn't mind a high speed train to make that trip instead of a 4-hour drive. I personally don't care if the thing's magnetic or runs on Froot Loops. I just want to see a train on that route.

Sarah Palin to Resign

This news broke a little earlier today:

WASILLA, Alaska (July 3) — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Friday she is resigning from office at the end of the month, raising speculation that she would focus on a run for the White House in the 2012 race.

The former Republican vice presidential candidate made the surprise announcement from her home in suburban Wasilla on Friday morning. She said she would step down July 26 but didn't announce her plans.

Hmmmm.

The timing seems a little curious. In the past two days there have been a number of conservative voices, among them Charles Krauthammer and Jonah Goldberg, who have pretty much announced that she is not a serious presidential candidate.

And I have to agree.

I don't think she's done what she needed to do after the election to set herself up for the highest office in the land. She's made a number of speeches and had some high profile kerfuffles with the likes of David Letterman, but she really has set the table for a lot of knowledge in the big international policy subjects that she would need to learn to be ready for a national run. Maybe that's the plan for the next couple of years.

Meanwhile, without the duties in Alaska she'll be free to travel and speak whenever and wherever she wishes, and can start doing the hard work of setting up a national campaign framework, should that be her goal.

She is without question the one conservative candidate with the ability to generate huge amounts of interest right away, but she'll need to be better prepared than she was in 2008.

All that being said, I think this may be the end of Palin's political career. American don't much care for quitters, and it's way too early to resign for the purposes of setting up a national campaign.

Teacher Has a Special Surprise For You

Funny, I don't remember that particular field trip...

A teacher in Northern California is under fire after her X-rated 'extra curricular activity' apparently made its way onto a DVD given to students.

The teacher, who has not been identified, sent her 24 students at Isabelle Jackson Elementary school home with a video of class memories last Friday -- the last day of school.

It turns out, the DVD included six seconds of her having sex on a couch.

Officials at the Elk Grove Unified School District have asked the students' families to destroy the DVD. The teacher also called parents herself upon learning of the surprise scene.

School officials say some students did watch the DVD.

Police say no criminal complaints have been filed.

You know there's a good rule of thumb: Don't put it on tape if you don't want everyone to see it.

Global Warming Cartoon of the Day

H/t Watts Up With That:

International Relations Quote of the Day

From an Israeli official commenting on the imprisonment of former congressman and current loon Cynthia McKinney, who along with other violated a blockade of Gaza ports:

"Nobody wants to keep them here."

I'll bet that's the truth.

Eye Tooth

I've heard the term "eye tooth" before, but never thought it actually possible:

Martin Jones is now able to see his wife for the first time - after having a tooth implanted into his eye.

The formerly blind man, from South Yorkshire, Great Britain, had one of his front teeth removed and turned into a lens holder that was then inserted in his right eye.

When Jones married his wife Gill four years ago, he had been blinded by a tub of molten aluminium which had exploded in his face 12 years ago.

"I met my wife when I was blind and when I found out there was a chance I would get my sight back the first person I wanted to see was her," Jones told the Daily Mail.

"The doctors took the bandages off and it was like looking through water and then I saw this figure and it was her. It was unbelievable," Jones told the paper.

The accident during which Martin was blinded happened while he was working in a scrapyard in 1997.

He suffered 37 per cent burns and had his left eye removed after it was destroyed in the accident.

Amazing.

A Clinton Versus Obama Fued?

Hot Air seems to think so:

Yesterday we noted that Barack Obama had decided to leave his Secretary of State at home while he traveled to Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, perhaps not coincidentally after leaks indicated that Hillary Clinton thought Obama had responded too weakly to the Iranian crisis. Another Clinton has decided to defy Obama more openly. Former President Bill Clinton agreed to headline a fundraiser for Carolyn Maloney’s primary challenge to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand — after Obama endorsed her in the special election.
...

The Clinton-Obama relationship has always been strained, ever since Obama overtook Hillary in her bid for a history and a return to the White House. Obama appointed her as Secretary of State for his own political needs, not out of any sense of expertise on Hillary’s part for diplomacy. It took her almost no time to demonstrate that herself, with unforced errors like proclaiming her complete bemusement on multi-party democracy and the “reset” button she presented Sergei Lavrov that was mistranslated — and not in Cyrillic script, either.

If the politics between the two have stopped working, then Obama has no other need for Hillary. If Obama jettisons her, though, Hillary could turn into a formidable foe within the Democratic Party, and might wind up challenging an Obama re-election bid the way Ted Kennedy did to Jimmy Carter, which turned into a disaster for both men. How much defiance can Obama handle?

My guess is not much. Hillary thought Obama was too timid on Iran and said so, and that's probably got her in the doghouse for awhile. With all the international challenges facing this country, we don't need a president and secretary of state who aren't speaking to each other.

Political Photo of the Day

I just got this photo of the new California State Currency which will be issued by the state government during this budget crisis:

The U.S. Treasury is studying this currency for possible use in supporting the stimulus, cap-and-tax, and nationalized health care bills.

Sotomayor's Radical Connections

The Republican who will lead the GOP side in the Sotomayor confirmation hearings is not liking what he's seeing:

The top Republican on the Senate committee that will consider Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination says a Puerto Rican civil rights group's papers could shed light on her judicial approach, particularly her view of racial preferences in hiring.

White House Counsel Greg Craig, however, told Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., in a letter that board meeting minutes and other papers detailing the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund's activities while Sotomayor was an outside adviser shouldn't impact her nomination because she had no role in writing or approving them.

"During her time there, the organization took extreme positions on legal issues ranging from the death penalty to abortion to racial quotas," Sessions said in a statement. He said it was "absurd" for the White House to call the documents irrelevant.

The battle over the papers isn't likely to damage Sotomayor's chances of confirmation, since Democrats have more than enough votes in favor of President Barack Obama's first high court nominee, and Republicans have shown little appetite for trying to block her.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will begin confirmation hearings July 13, shrugged off the GOP concerns being raised about Sotomayor, saying some in the GOP were going to oppose any Obama pick - "even if the president had nominated Moses."

Since Moses isn't a U.S. citizen I imagine there would be GOP opposition to that pick.

Seriously, though, if Obama wanted a smooth confirmation process he shouldn't have chosen a radical leftist whose been obsessed with race her entire life. There were plenty of moderate judges that could have been chosen. Every time there was a court opening during a Republican adminstration the Dems demanded the president appoint a moderate, so why couldn't the Dems do it when they had the chance?

Because they were never interested in getting moderate judges.

I still have my doubt that Sotomayor's nomination can be stopped, but the evidence of her radical past is growing daily.

Will the U.S. Intercept North Korea's July 4th Firecracker?

The NORKs fired off some short range missiles the other day, but there's still speculation that they're planning to test a multi-stage ICBM, possibly on July 4th. What will we do about it?

U.S. missile defenses are prepared to try to knock down the last stage of a Taepodong-2 missile that North Korea is expected soon to launch if sensors detect the weapon threatens U.S. territory, the commander of the U.S. Northern Command told The Washington Times.

"The nation has a very, very credible ballistic-missile defense capability. Our ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, I'm very comfortable, give me a capability that if we really are threatened by a long-range ICBM that I've got high confidence that I could interdict that flight before it caused huge damage to any U.S. territory," said Air Force Gen. Victor E. "Gene" Renuart, Northcom commander.

The general said the United States won't activate its missile defenses if the North Korean missile appears it will fall safely into the water as the country's last test missile did.

Asked if North Korea is likely to conduct a July 4 Taepodong-2 test, as occurred in 2006, Gen. Renuart said in an interview this week with The Times at Northern Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, "I think we ought to assume there might be one on the first of July and continue to be prepared and ready."

Gen. Renuart, who is commander of the military's first combatant command devoted to defending against threats to U.S. territory, is also the commander of the U.S.-Canada North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, which monitors missile launches around the world and also foreign military aircraft intrusions of U.S. air space. Since Sept. 11, 2001, NORAD is also in charge of tracking civilian aircraft to be ready to respond to a terrorist hijacking.

Gen. Renuart said North Korea's leaders are unpredictable and their "decision logic does not always follow in the same vein as ours does."

That last paragraph is the key. You and I might think it would be crazy for the NORKs to send a missile anywhere near United States territory, but those people are just nuts enough to try it in the hopes that we'll knock it down and they can gin up a reason for outrage. The other side of that is they may hope we try and knock it down and fail - a real black-eye for the U.S.

The NORKs like to play dangerous games. I just hope Obama has given the military enough leeway to make the call rather than wait for a decision from him.

Tickets for the Michael Jackson Memorial

UPDATED AND BUMPED - for those of you playing along, here are the latest statistics as thousands, and maybe hundreds of thousands of people try to find out how to get one of 17,000 available Michael Jackson funeral tickets. Website info below.

=================

Let's see how many people are searching the internet for tickets to the Michael Jackson funeral at Staples Center on Tuesday. I'll bet this post gets hits from all over the world.

UPDATE: Germany, Switzerland, Ohio, California, Massachusetts, Wyoming, Ontario CN, Arizona, Texas, Washington, Greece, Illinois, Oregon, Maryland, British Columbia, New York, Hong Kong, Netherlands, England, Romania, Colorado, Florida, Alberta, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Missouri, Nevada, Kansas, Tennessee, Spain, Vermont, Italy, North Carolina, Virginia, Chile, India, Michigan, Louisiana, Alabama, Utah, Kentucky, Connecticut, Arkansas, Georgia, Belgium, Denmark...

Most inquiries are coming from cities all over California, as you'd expect.

Summary: 30 U.S. states, 3 Canadian provinces, 13 other countries.

UPDATE : Live blogging the Jackson presser:

• Councilwoman Jan Perry trying to justify the taxpayers picking up the ridiculous cost of security
• Must register at StaplesCenter.com to get tickets - 17,000 in all for Staples and Nokia Center.
• Worldwide pool coverage, but no funeral procession or broadcast on outside sign boards at Staples.
• No one without a ticket will be allowed in the Staples Center area. No tickets will be sold, and they're trying to make it so no tickets can be scalped. Good luck with that.
• As an experiment I tried to register at the Staples Center site and apparently got in just as they opened it to traffic. My registration went through, though I'll be in Vegas on Tuesday so if I happen to win some tickets I may get to test that scalping ban.

Bigger is Better

For those who are pushing us into driving little aluminum can cars in order to "save the planet", let me give you a story from today's newspaper. I'll leave the deceased party's name out:

(The Dummy), of Orange, is suspected of speeding and driving under the influence of alcohol when the accident occurred about 9:35 p.m. Wednesday at the intersection of Batavia Avenue and Fletcher Street, said Orange police Sgt. Dan Adams.

The initial investigation revealed that (Mr. Dummy) was driving a maroon older-model Honda Accord north on Batavia when he lost control and hit a curb. The Accord then careened across the road into oncoming traffic and collided with a GMC Yukon Denali, which was traveling south on Batavia, just north of Fletcher, Adams said.

(Mr. Dummy) died at the scene, Adams said, adding that he had no passengers.

The man driving the Denali complained of pain, but was not taken to a hospital. His female passenger complained of pain and was taken to a hospital, Adams said.

So, a Honda Accord at high speed hits a Yukon Denali. Honda driver dead, Yukon driver and passenger slightly hurt.

Bigger is better.

Real Circus Will Not Participate in Michael Jackson Circus

The same day Michael Jackson's funeral is to take place, the Ringling Brothers Circus is planning to be setting up in the same Staples Center for their run which begins the next day. Normally, they'd have the famous elephant parade from the train station to the arena the day before they open. They may have to change plans. One thing for sure, they're not planning to participate in the funeral:

The service will be held between 10am PST and noon PST. The Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus will be on standby, literally. The circus act just happens to be in town and is slated to begin their run at the Staples Center from July 8 to July 11.

"We will not be taking part in the memorial service," spokesperson Stephen Payne confirmed. "We are prepared to make any logistical changes with equipment and such to help out."

Do they have a spare monkey that can sit in for Bubbles?

Equal Rights for Ugly Women Tennis Players

That's what the ladies of Wimbledon want:

Things are heating up at Wimbledon’s Centre Court, and it's not just the quality of the tennis or the soaring summer temperature.

Fans and competitors alike have noticed that a string of easy-on-the-eyes female players — less skilled and lower seeded — have been slated to play at Wimbledon’s famed Centre Court, the club's prime piece of grass. Many of the top-seeded female players have been relegated to the peripheral courts.

Wimbledon promoters lured fans to Centre Court on Friday with the so-called "Battle of the Babes" -- No. 8 seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus against 28th-seeded Romanian beauty Sorana Cirstea.

The same day, second seed Serena Williams, a two-time Wimbledon champion, played her match on the No. 2 court. The American powerhouse got lost on her way there, arriving at her match six minutes late.

Disgruntled tennis fans are suggesting that the decisions are propelled entirely by television ratings for the BBC, which is airing the prestigious tournament — charges the broadcaster reportedly denies.

I guess "Battle of the Babes" is better than "Battle of the Women who Look Like Men" that you usually get at a women's tennis event (or golf...or basketball).

Political Video of the Day

Sometimes I feel like we conservatives are The Pips and there's no Gladys Knight:

Economic Graph of the Day

You've seen this before when May's numbers came out. It's now been updated with June's:

Hope. Change.

Get Too Close to the Fire and You're Gonna Get Burned

But it took an appeals court to make that official:

In case it wasn't clear before, walking into the 60-foot Burning Man effigy isn't a safe thing to do.

Just ask Anthony Beninati, who got literally burned in 2005 after venturing too close to the giant wooden fellow while on his third trip to the Burning Man festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

Beninati sued for damages. But on Tuesday, San Francisco's 1st District Court of Appeal doused his hopes after finding that the "college-educated" man had assumed the risk of harm by walking directly into the effigy while remnants of it were still burning.

"The risk of injury to those who voluntarily decide to partake in the commemorative ritual at Burning Man is self-evident," Justice Ignazio Ruvolo wrote.

Apparently not, since this guy had to sue to find that out.

Isn't it refreshing to hear a little common sense come out of a court decision?

Erasing Reagan?

Beltway Confidential has an item that shows just how petty some of the more liberal Democrats can be:

At Wednesday’s Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board meeting, chairman H.R. Crawford – a former District Council member and Marion Barry confidante – told fellow Board members that he has heard talk on Capitol Hill about yanking former President Ronald Reagan’s name off the local airport and returning it to its previous generic moniker: National Airport.

“It was just a discussion. We’re not aware of anything specific,” MWAA spokeswoman Tara Hamilton later told The Examiner.

It’s clear that the current crop of congressional leaders want no part of Reagan’s grand conservative vision for America, but erasing all trace of his memory from an airport that’s already been named in his honor is about as petty as you can get.

Why would anybody on Capitol Hill even consider such a patently partisan move, which is guaranteed to make Democrats look small and ridiculous? Do they so fear the inevitable comparisons between the Great Communicator and his teleprompted successor in the White House?

Why would that even come up in discussion? They'll have plenty of time to name stuff after Obama when his time comes.

The Sad Story of the Class of '94

The class we're talking about is the freshmen members of the Republican congress who were swept into power in the Gingrich Revolution in '94. Politico has the details:

The sex scandals that have tarnished Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) and Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) don’t appear to have much in common. Yet there is one thread that binds them together: Both Ensign and Sanford were members of the famed Republican House class of 1994, as well as its latest casualties.

As it turns out, the pressures and demands of political life have inflicted devastating damage not only on the Ensign and Sanford families, but on the families of many of the 71 other freshmen who formed the vanguard of the Republican Revolution.

In the 14 years since that star-crossed class arrived in Washington espousing an agenda that placed family values at its core, no less than a dozen of its members have been caught up in affairs, sex scandals or in messy separations and divorces from their spouses that, in more than a few instances, led to their political downfalls.

There's a lot more here.

The most successful member of that class, or should I say honorary member, is Rush Limbaugh, and he's had plenty of family problems of his own. However, he's still plugging away and reaching more listeners than ever. Unlike many members of the '94 class of congressional Republicans, Rush's message has never changed and that's why he's still on top and many of them, along with the Republican majority, are gone.

Political Coincidence of the Day

From a story on Obama's health care town hall in Virginia yesterday:

"The president called randomly on three audience members. All turned out to be members of groups with close ties to his administration: the Service Employees International Union, Health Care for America Now, and Organizing for America, which is a part of the Democratic National Committee. White House officials said that was a coincidence."

Yeah...right.

Sotomayor Opposed Judge Bork, Worked for ACORN

A 350 page document dump in the Senate confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor has revealed some new information that won't go over well with Republicans:

A legal advocacy group advised by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor in the 1980s actively opposed conservative Robert H. Bork's nomination to the high court calling him a "threat" to the "civil rights of the Latino community."

The Senate went on to reject President Reagan's nominee in 1987.

The revelation is included in 350 pages of documents the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund delivered to the senators late Tuesday evening.

Judge Sotomayor worked for PRLDEF in various capacities from 1980 until she became a federal judge in 1992, spending most of her time as a board member.

The documents, which the group's lawyers have said include relevant information about Judge Sotomayor's time there, also show the fund did legal work for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN. During the 2008 presidential election, ACORN came under fire after allegations of voter registration fraud.

Now called LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the group also has supported legalized abortion and called the death penalty racist in previously released documents.

"A cursory look at the limited material now in our possession raises several red flags, including a link between PRLDEF and ACORN, as well as information indicating Judge Sotomayor's deeper-than-previously thought involvement in developing the legal positions of the organization," said Stephen Boyd, spokesman for the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions.

The woman's a racist. How many ways do we have to say it? She's obsessed by her own Latina heritage and sees everything through a very distorted racial prism.

Filibuster and/or reject her and let's find someone better.

The Time for Israel to Strike is Now

So says former UN Ambassador John Bolton, who fears that Obama's naive belief that he can negotiate with religious fanatics makes the world a more dangerous place:

With Iran's hard-line mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unmistakably back in control, Israel's decision of whether to use military force against Tehran's nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever.

Iran's nuclear threat was never in doubt during its presidential campaign, but the post-election resistance raised the possibility of some sort of regime change. That prospect seems lost for the near future or for at least as long as it will take Iran to finalize a deliverable nuclear weapons capability.

Accordingly, with no other timely option, the already compelling logic for an Israeli strike is nearly inexorable. Israel is undoubtedly ratcheting forward its decision-making process. President Obama is almost certainly not....

Only those most theologically committed to negotiation still believe Iran will fully renounce its nuclear program. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has a "Plan B," which would allow Iran to have a "peaceful" civil nuclear power program while publicly "renouncing" the objective of nuclear weapons. Obama would define such an outcome as "success," even though in reality it would hardly be different from what Iran is doing and saying now. A "peaceful" uranium enrichment program, "peaceful" reactors such as Bushehr and "peaceful" heavy-water projects like that under construction at Arak leave Iran with an enormous breakout capability to produce nuclear weapons in very short order. And anyone who believes the Revolutionary Guard Corps will abandon its weaponization and ballistic missile programs probably believes that there was no fraud in Iran's June 12 election. See "huge credibility gap," supra.

In short, the stolen election and its tumultuous aftermath have dramatically highlighted the strategic and tactical flaws in Obama's game plan. With regime change off the table for the coming critical period in Iran's nuclear program, Israel's decision on using force is both easier and more urgent. Since there is no likelihood that diplomacy will start or finish in time, or even progress far enough to make any real difference, there is no point waiting for negotiations to play out. In fact, given the near certainty of Obama changing his definition of "success," negotiations represent an even more dangerous trap for Israel.

Those who oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons are left in the near term with only the option of targeted military force against its weapons facilities. Significantly, the uprising in Iran also makes it more likely that an effective public diplomacy campaign could be waged in the country to explain to Iranians that such an attack is directed against the regime, not against the Iranian people. This was always true, but it has become even more important to make this case emphatically, when the gulf between the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the citizens of Iran has never been clearer or wider. Military action against Iran's nuclear program and the ultimate goal of regime change can be worked together consistently.

Otherwise, be prepared for an Iran with nuclear weapons, which some, including Obama advisers, believe could be contained and deterred. That is not a hypothesis we should seek to test in the real world. The cost of error could be fatal.

I'll bet that Israel is really regretting that they didn't go after Iran while Bush was still president. At one point I had predicted that once Obama was elected they would strike before he was inaugurated since they wouldn't be able to count on U.S. support after that. They may have missed their window.

The problem for Israel in acting alone is they have to pass through air space currently controlled by U.S. air assets, and without permission from Obama to go forward, our forces could be put in the extremely unfortunate position of threatening or shooting down Israeli warplanes.

I still think Israel will try to find a way to get this done, and Obama will try to block them every step of the way.

O Good Grief!

As a republican I'm being told that I cannot use the letter "O" anymore because Obama and the Democrats now have exclusive rights.

Really.

That's what one Maine Dem candidate for governor is telling his opponent, whose name happens to start with "O" (from Top of the Ticket):

My, O my, now we're witnessing partisan fights over letters of the alphabet. It must be summer.

There's a Republican in Maine -- more than one, actually -- who's pondering a campaign for governor.

His name is Les Otten.

There's a Democrat in Maine named Arden Manning. In fact, he's the executive director of the Maine Democratic Party.

No doubt in the interests of bipartisanship, Manning decided to give Otten's 3-day-old candidacy exploration a gift of priceless publicity internationally in the already crowded 10-candidate field for Maine's gubernatorial primaries in 11 months.

Manning's already called attention to -- well, he objected to, would be more accurate -- Otten's possible campaign logo on his possible campaign website.

(See top image.)

Manning claims the red-white-and-blue-and-green logo bears a remarkable resemblance to the campaign logo of one Barack Obama (see image at right), who

raised $750 million with it to win the White House last November.

And still uses the red-white-and-blue O to rouse support for the new president's ambitious programs and to pressure members in Congress through Organizing for America.

When yOu think abOut it, O is really a pretty cOmmOn letter.

But then Manning appears to shOOt his own argument in the fOOt by saying, "Barack Obama was not elected president because he had a snazzy graphic and well-designed website."

Hey, you can't blame Otten for taking advantage of a situation to create something that will subliminally remind people of hope and change. Why do you think Pepsi suddenly changed their logo in the middle of last year's campaign to this:

In fact, it's such a good idea, I think I'll get into the act with my own Obama-like logo:Can't you just feel the hope and change?

They Used to Sell Subscriptions, Now They Sell Access

Politico is reporting on a sales scheme by the Washington Post that even has lobbyists angry:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."

The offer — which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters — is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.

And it's a turn of the times that a lobbyist is scolding The Washington Post for its ethical practices.

"Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate," says the one-page flier. "Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. ... Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders …

“Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it. What is guaranteed is a collegial evening, with Obama administration officials, Congress members, business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds typically on the guest list of 20 or less. …

“Offered at $25,000 per sponsor, per Salon. Maximum of two sponsors per Salon. Underwriters’ CEO or Executive Director participates in the discussion. Underwriters appreciatively acknowledged in printed invitations and at the dinner. Annual series sponsorship of 11 Salons offered at $250,000 … Hosts and Discussion Leaders ... Health-care reporting and editorial staff members of The Washington Post ... An exclusive opportunity to participate in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will actually get it done. ... A Washington Post Salon ... July 21, 2009 6:30 p.m."

POLITICO has asked The Washington Post for a response, and will post it when it arrives.

I'm guessing the response will consist of 2 words, the second of which will be "you".

I can't think of a better way to show just how cozy the media is with the Obama administration than this story. Critical thinking has gone out the window in favor of fawning servitude. One wag is calling them "presstitutes". Very appropriate.

UPDATE: WaPo responds.

UPDATE 2: WaPo shamed into canceling their plan to sell influence.

The Governator is Back, Baby!

This is the governor I remember from the 2003 campaign:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this morning ordered state workers to take a third day off without pay each month after Republican lawmakers acting with his support blocked a Democratic proposal to ease the state's deficit and allow the government to keep paying bills.

The Republican governor unveiled billions of dollars in additional proposed cuts to schools and public universities to deal with a deficit that he says is now $26.3 billion, an increase of $2 billion. He also announced an emergency special session of the Legislature that would allow lawmakers to act on them immediately.

Schwarzenegger criticized lawmakers for engaging in "endless hearings" instead of negotiating and said they had rejected his proposals to overhaul state government with so-called reforms in deference to special interests.

"They are debating about cowtails," Schwarzenegger said, in reference to a bill pending in the Legislature. "This is inexcusable."

The Schwarzenegger administration said the newly released cuts would pare state spending by an additional $4.9 billion.


The latest reductions may be necessary after Tuesday night's inaction further exacerbated the state's financial problems by leaving on the table billions of dollars in potential cuts to school programs that had to be made before the new fiscal year began at midnight.

If lawmakers and the governor do not agree on a plan to wipe out the deficit -- or at least part of it -- by the end of today, State Controller John Chiang will begin giving out IOUs in lieu of checks to pay debts owed by the state.

"We have one more day," Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said as his house prepared to convene again.

Democrats in the Legislature will also propose additional cuts today. They are targeting redevelopment agencies. Their plan would raid $1.2 billion of agency funds earmarked for affordable housing. As part of the plan, state requirements that redevelopment projects include such housing would be eased.

Aides to the lawmakers and governor said the shortfall, previously projected at $24.3 billion, increased when Republican state senators blocked a last-ditch effort Tuesday night to slice $3.3 billion, mostly from education.

Those proposed cuts, which were approved by the state Assembly last week on a bipartisan vote, were to have affected the fiscal year that ended on Tuesday. The opportunity to make the reductions expired at the stroke of midnight, after the package failed in a series of party-line votes, with one GOP senator abstaining.

Schwarzenegger had promised to veto the bills unless they were accompanied by a complete plan to balance the budget. Steinberg, saying Republican lawmakers had taken their direction from Schwarzenegger in voting it down, accused all of them of "the most irresponsible act I have seen in my 15 years of public service."

Schwarzenegger said he won't sign any legislation unrelated to the budget until a full budget agreement is reached.

Unfortunately, the legislature got used to Schwarzenegger siding with them and allowing tax increases to go through. Now that he's finally playing tough they don't believe he's serious.

Stick with it governor. Make the Democrats cut until they fix the whole problem, not just band-aid solutions that postpone the pain for another few weeks.

Tracking and Taxing Your Every Move

In the never-ending quest to generate more tax revenue, various outfits are researching the possibility of replacing the gas tax with a per-mile tax:

The year is 2020 and the gasoline tax is history. In its place you get a monthly tax bill based on each mile you drove — tracked by a Global Positioning System device in your car and uploaded to a billing center.

What once was science fiction is being field-tested by the University of Iowa to iron out the wrinkles should a by-the-mile road tax ever be enacted.

Besides the technological advances making such a tax possible, the idea is getting a hard push from a growing number of transportation experts and officials. That is because the traditional by-the-gallon fuel tax, struggling to keep up with road building and maintenance demands, could fall even farther behind as vehicles' gas mileage rises and more alternative-fuel vehicles come on line.

The idea of shifting to a by-the-mile tax has been discussed for years, but it now appears to be getting more serious attention. A federal commission, after a two-year study, concluded earlier this year that the road tax was the "best path forward" to keep revenues flowing to highway and transportation projects, and could be an important new tool to help manage traffic and relieve congestion.

The decision by the 15-member National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission was unanimous, which surprised Robert Atkinson, the group's chairman. But he said it became clear as the commission's work progressed that a road tax on miles traveled was the best option.

"If you're committed to the system being improved then it was a no-brainer," he said.

While I'm usually in favor of use taxes versus general taxation that hits everybody, even if they don't use a particular service, I have problems with a system that will effectively track my every movement. It's none of the government's business where I go and when I go. For that reason alone, I favor the gas tax because it provides the government much less information about my movements.

Do I have something I'm trying to hide? No. All I'm doing is trying to retain as much personal freedom as I can, and for that reason, I don't expect Republicans and more moderate Democrats to support a proposal like this.

Obama Was Destined To Be Our Leader

Reader Norm pointed me to an article on Miceage.com about the revamped Hall of Presidents exhibit at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom in Florida. Although the writer has praise for the new exhibit, he notices that along with adding a new president, the theme has changed a bit too:

The attraction sports new marquees, a new countdown clock indicating how many minutes until the next show, and a new subtitle: "A Celebration of Liberty's Leaders." There are new movies (well, slideshow presentations), and they are displayed in eye-popping, unrealistically bright and cheerful projections, the result of a switch to digital projectors. It's jarring, in fact, how "fresh" that part of the show looks when compared to your memory of the dingy, cracked, faded, and often dirty film print that used to run here.

But this is no mere freshening of the same show, with the new president plopped into place at the end. This was a fundamental rethink of the show's purpose, scope, and orientation. The bottom line is that the show now offers park visitors an actual, honest to goodness thesis: everything in American presidential history, it claims by virtue of a new storyline, has been inexorably leading up to this moment, and the election of Barack Obama is the culmination of a long "development" in us as a culture and a society. There will be many who cheer this line of reasoning, but it strikes me that others may resent the apparent taking of sides. Had John McCain won the election, would the show celebrate in a similar way?

Of course, Obama's presidency is historic in a way that McCain's would not have been, if for no other reason than Obama's multiracial background. His victory reflects a major change from the past, and the revamped show would want to acknowledge that. It would be hard to have any objections on these grounds.

But no matter how you personally voted in the 2008 election, we all recognize that some folks voted for candidates who didn't win, and those folks are arguably being excluded in the celebration promoted by the new show, since the show is not as neutral as its previous versions had been. That's the problem with developing a "story" out of the list of presidents over time; such a narrative by definition creates the impression that Obama was supposed to win…and furthermore implies that anyone else was supposed to lose in that election. I think this will alienate some folks.

You can read the whole thing and see photos here.

Support for Sotomayor Falls

I guess approving of racism against white males can be a drawback in public opinion polls:

A heavily publicized U.S. Supreme Court reversal of an appeals court ruling by Judge Sonia Sotomayor has at least temporarily diminished public support for President Obama's first Supreme Court nominee.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, conducted on the two nights following the Supreme Court decision, finds that 37% now believe Sotomayor should be confirmed while 39% disagree.

Two weeks ago, the numbers were much brighter for the nominee. At that time, 42% favored confirmation, and 34% were opposed.

The more people understand about the outrageous nature of that case, the more they can't understand how Sotomayor, much less four sitting Supreme Court justices, could look at what happened in New Haven and approve of what was clearly racial bias against white people. The public is starting to catch on to the idea that anybody who would approve of such institutional bias doesn't belong on the highest court in the land.

Jackson Memorial Set for Tuesday at Staples Center

The Michael Jackson family has finally announced plans (from KTLA):

LOS ANGELES -- Michael Jackson's funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Tuesday, July 7, at Los Angeles' Staples Center.

That's according to the LAPD.

Earlier today, members of Jackson's family met with officials from the Los Angeles police and California Highway Patrol about funeral services.

The latest reports also indicate the pop star could be buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills.

Jackson specified no plans for a funeral or wishes for his remains in his 2002 last will, filed in a Los Angeles court Wednesday.

I can't believe they didn't go for The Coliseum, because I don't think Staples is going to be near big enough to handle the crowd that's going to show up. Remember what happened there the night the Lakers won the championship? Local businesses better start boarding up now.

UPDATE: Ticket information here.

Government Owned Auto Companies Aren't Selling Cars

These numbers don't bode well for the taxpayers' investment in GM and Chrysler:

Ford US sales fall 10.7 pct in June, while GM drops 33.4 and Chrysler tumbles 42 pct

Ford's June sales showed signs of stabilization, as the healthiest Detroit automaker posted its smallest sales decline of the year at 10.7 percent. It also said it gained market share. But Chrysler Group LLC, just weeks after exiting bankruptcy protection, reported a 42 percent drop in sales, hurt by a big cut in fleet sales and declines in all its models except the Dodge Challenger muscle car.

GM reported a 33.4 percent sales drop, slightly larger than the 30 percent drop it reported for May before it entered bankruptcy protection. GM plans to sell or close Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer and Saab to focus on four core brands -- Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick.

June sales from other automakers indicated that the industry downturn has begun leveling off. Toyota's U.S. sales fell 32 percent in June to 131,654 units -- a smaller decline than in previous months for the Japanese automaker.

Frankly, I'm surprised GM and Chrysler have any sales at all.

Looking for Something to Do in Southern California This Weekend?

Assuming you're not planning to attend the Michael Jackson wake (wherever it is), there's a rare chance to hear these guys sing this weekend:

Me and my buddies in The Crimson River Quartet will be doing a concert Sunday evening, July 5th, at Eldorado Park Community Church in Long Beach. The church is located at 3655 N. Norwalk Blvd., and the music will begin at 7:15 pm. Admission is free, and I think they're planning some fireworks afterwards.

Although we don't do that many concert appearances these days, our videos on YouTube continue to be a pretty popular (imagine that). Lately we've been getting over 10,000 views a week, and at last count we're somewhere around 400,000 since we first put them online in January of 2008.

If you have a chance, come on out and join us Sunday night!

The Supermajority Mirage

Just because there are 60 members of the Democrat caucus in the Senate doesn't mean they can do whatever they want, because as if often the case with Democrats, they don't always want the same things:

Like an oasis in the desert, the 60-vote Democratic supermajority is a mirage.

Yes, former comedian Al Franken is now Minnesota's senator-elect -- thanks to the state Supreme Court's ruling Tuesday -- giving Democrats enough members in the Senate to hit a filibuster-proof majority. This is no laughing matter.

But that's on a really, really good day. For all intents and purposes, Democrats don't truly have 60 votes in the Senate.

With the addition of Franken, they technically have 58. Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., caucus with Democrats but don't define themselves that way.

Sanders, a socialist, is arguably the most liberal member of the Senate, so he's more than willing to buck the Democratic leadership when he doesn't feel the liberal wing gets a fair shake. Lieberman, by contrast, is a moderate who's plenty willing to challenge the Democratic leadership when he believes it veers too far to the left.

But the Democrats aren't even at 58 votes on most days.

Two of the most revered members of the chamber suffer from poor health. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., has rarely visited the Senate for more than a year because of a struggle with brain cancer. Sen. Robert Byrd, 91, of West Virginia who has been slowing down in the past few years, recently suffered a staph infection and spent several weeks in the hospital before his release Tuesday. Depending on the day, the Democratic "supermajority" could be as scant as 56.

And then there are the moderate-to-conservative lawmakers who populate the Senate Democratic Caucus: Sens. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark.; Mark Pryor, D-Ark.; Ben Nelson D-Neb.; Bill Nelson, D-Fla.; Jon Tester, D-Mont.; and Arlen Specter, D-Pa.

This crowd is known to oppose the Democratic leadership on critical issues and often requires special courting. With them, the big Democratic majority could work against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., since it gives these moderates the perceived opening to bolt the party on key votes and freelance -- or act as holdouts that Democratic leaders must woo.

There's a reason why former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., titled his book "Herding Cats."

In a worst-case scenario, the independence of the moderates whittles the Democratic supermajority all the way down to a very ordinary 50 votes -- or fewer.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein D-Calif., sometimes goes it alone on given issues.

And Franken isn't technically a Democrat either, since Democrats in Minnesota are known as members of the "Democratic Farmer Labor Party."

Despite Franken's reputation as an unabashed liberal commentator before his Senate run, he insisted Tuesday he's not an automatic 60th vote.

"I know there's been a lot of talk about the fact that when I'm sworn in I'll be the 60th member of the Democratic caucus, but that's not how I see it," he said. "The way I see it, I'm not going to Washington to be the 60th Democratic senator. I'm going to Washington to be the second senator from the state of Minnesota, and that's how I'm going to do this job."

Despite the reality of Democrats' less-than-ideal hold on power in Washington, members of both parties still pointed to Franken's victory as the grease that would let the Democratic agenda slide through.

Democrats raised expectations for themselves, hailing Franken's win as key for efforts to pass health care reform and major energy policies.

"With 60 votes now in the Senate, there's no excuse for Democrats not passing our energy (and climate) bill," said a senior House Democratic aide, referring to the sweeping cap-and-trade legislation Democrats lugged through the House last week against all odds. The package faces dim prospects in the Senate.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, interpreted the impact of Franken's win as nothing short of complete and total Democratic domination in Washington. He said that means Democrats essentially own every policy that comes out of the nation's capital.

"With their supermajority, the era of excuses and finger-pointing is now over," Cornyn said in a written statement. "With just 59 votes, Senate Democrats in recent months have passed trillion-dollar spending bills, driven up America's debt, made every taxpayer a shareholder in the auto industry and now want to take over America's health care system. It's troubling to think about what they might now accomplish with 60 votes."

What's especially entertaining is the response of the wacky left to the 60 vote supermajority. They are demanding that every crazy idea they ever had be enacted into law, and when the Democrats can't muster the votes to do all these things, the wacky left will go nuts. It will truly be a pleasure to watch.

Never Neverland

Looks like yesterday's report that the Michael Jackson memorial would tie up Hwy 101 all weekend were wrong. There won't be a burial at Neverland Ranch:

Funeral arrangements for Michael Jackson are still in flux, but one thing is clear: The pop icon will not be buried at Neverland Ranch.

Jackson’s family wanted him interred at the Santa Barbara County estate, the site of some of the happiest and saddest times in his life, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had agreed to help clear any state bureaucratic hurdles, a source close to the situation told The Times.

But in the end, the source said, county officials could not find a way to quickly circumvent legal restrictions governing burial at a private residence.

"It’s nobody’s fault. Everybody in Santa Barbara feels bad about it,” the source said.

Law enforcement officials had expressed concerns about thousands of cars driving up a narrow mountain road to Neverland.

Santa Barbara County sheriff's Lt. Butch Arnoldi said that the two-lane Figueroa Mountain Road is not designed for a crush of cars and that his department is discussing how to make the route to Neverland as safe as possible.

Stay tuned.

(Laura - looks like you can go to Carpinteria this weekend after all.)

Alec Baldwin for Governor of Ohio?

Here's a scary thought for my Ohio readers:

Movie star ALEC BALDWIN has been given the opportunity to launch his political career in Ohio by a local law firm keen to back a bid to make him the state's next Governor.

The Cooler star has often spoken about his political aspirations and now he has gone public with his plans to retire from acting in 2012, a group of leading Ohio businessmen want him to consider running for office there.

He tells Playboy magazine, "A law firm in a liberal Democratic bastion in Ohio state politics sent me a binder with a cover letter that read: "Mr. Baldwin, here's who we represent, the kinds of cases we handle, our credentials in Ohio state politics. We want you to move to Ohio and run for Governor. We will launch your career.'"

And Baldwin admits he has been tempted by the offer to join the ranks of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura and become a celebrity Governor - or simply run for political office elsewhere.

He adds, "The desire is there."

Neither Ventura nor Schwarzenegger turned out to be stellar governors. I imagine that Baldwin would keep that record intact.

The 300-Page Bribery

One of the big stories during last Friday's cap-and-tax vote was the addition of 300 pages to the legislation at 3am on the morning the vote was scheduled. No one had a chance to read it, though John Boehner read excerpts of it during his one hour floor speech.

What was in those 300 pages? Bribes. Lots of bribes, designed to sway undecided Democrats to vote for the largest tax hike in U.s. history:

When House Democratic leaders were rounding up votes Friday for the massive climate-change bill, they paid special attention to their colleagues from Ohio who remained stubbornly undecided.

They finally secured the vote of one Ohioan, veteran Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, the old-fashioned way. They gave her what she wanted - a new federal power authority, similar to Washington state’s Bonneville Power Administration, stocked with up to $3.5 billion in taxpayer money available for lending to renewable energy and economic development projects in Ohio and other Midwestern states.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, included the Kaptur project in a 310-page amendment to the legislation unveiled at 3 a.m. Friday, just hours before the bill was to be debated on the House floor. The amendment was packed with other vote-getting provisions, both large and small, that had been sought by dozens of wavering Democrats.

KTLA is reporting this morning that Chairman Henry Waxman, who railroaded this whole thing through, was hospitalized this morning after "not feeling well". I guess constant lying about climate change and health care is finally taking its toll.

Franken Wins By Changing the Rules

The Wall Street Journal is calling it a stolen election:

The Minnesota Supreme Court yesterday declared Democrat Al Franken the winner of last year's disputed Senate race, and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman's gracious concession at least spares the state any further legal combat. The unfortunate lesson is that you don't need to win the vote on Election Day as long as your lawyers are creative enough to have enough new or disqualified ballots counted after the fact.
Mr. Franken trailed Mr. Coleman by 725 votes after the initial count on election night, and 215 after the first canvass. The Democrat's strategy from the start was to manipulate the recount in a way that would discover votes that could add to his total. The Franken legal team swarmed the recount, aggressively demanding that votes that had been disqualified be added to his count, while others be denied for Mr. Coleman.

But the team's real goldmine were absentee ballots, thousands of which the Franken team claimed had been mistakenly rejected. While Mr. Coleman's lawyers demanded a uniform standard for how counties should re-evaluate these rejected ballots, the Franken team ginned up an additional 1,350 absentees from Franken-leaning counties. By the time this treasure hunt ended, Mr. Franken was 312 votes up, and Mr. Coleman was left to file legal briefs.

There's more here, along with a warning for Republicans in the future.

Shockwave

Cool photo of the day:

That's an F-22 Raptor (the plane Obama wants us to stop building) breaking the sound barrier as it overflies the carrier John F. Stennis in the Gulf of Alaska during an exercise. The story is here.

Welcoming Al to the Senate

It looks like the GOP is not impressed with the Democrats' choice of Senator from Minnesota:

Inhofe said the much-anticipated conclusion of a Senate race in Minnesota that will give Democrats the 60 votes needed to overcome Republican filibusters would not be enough to save the climate change bill.

“I’ll tell you what a lot of people are thinking, and that is it looks like things are going to be over and we are going to get the clown from Minnesota,’’ he said.

“They are not going to get more than 35 votes.’’

Asked if he was referring to Al Franken as the clown from Minnesota, Inhofe confirmed he was.

“I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. I don’t know the guy, but … for a living he is a clown,’’ the senator said.

“That’s what he does for a living.’’

A former cast member of NBC’s Saturday Night Live, Franken on Tuesday was declared the winner of the Minnesota race and is expected to join the Senate next week.

Franken is going to have some work to do to convince America he's not a clown. Good luck with that.

Glenn Reynolds adds this:

Caligula sent a horse to the Senate. Minnesota is just sending part of the horse.

Wal-Mart Supports Obamacare

And the guys at Say Anything probably know why:

Believe you me, Wal-Mart isn’t doing this out of concern for the proverbial poor, down-trodden masses. Wal-Mart is doing this because a government mandate for business-provided health care will kill their smaller, more-regional competition.

Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, announced Tuesday that it would support a mandate on businesses to help expand health care coverage, an about-face from other business interests that have strongly opposed any such requirement.

It’s amazing to me how many liberals decry big corporations like Wal-Mart and talk about how they’re “running the little guy out of business” without realizing that liberal, big-government policies contribute greatly to the growth of big business.

And not in an economically healthy way.

Corporations like Wal-Mart support big government regulation like health insurance mandates and cap and trade and the minimum wage because they know that while they can shoulder the burden of those additional regulations and taxes, their smaller competition cannot. In fact, a trend develops once a government begins regulating businesses within an economy more and more. The more tax and regulatory burdens businesses must shoulder the larger businesses must become in order to survive.

Given the hatred that the left routinely shows Wal-Mart because of their non-union workforce, do you think they'll finally find some love in their heart for the giant retailer?

Sure...when it's convenient.

More Americans Think Democrats are Too Liberal

Democrats are not successfully convincing Americans that their policies are "mainstream":

A Gallup Poll finds a statistically significant increase since last year in the percentage of Americans who describe the Democratic Party's views as being "too liberal," from 39% to 46%. This is the largest percentage saying so since November 1994, after the party's losses in that year's midterm elections.

Most major demographic and attitudinal subgroups show at least a slight uptick since 2008 in perceptions that the Democratic Party is too liberal. The increasing perception of the Democrats as too far left comes as President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have expanded the government's role in the economy to address the economic problems facing the country. Additionally, the government is working toward major healthcare reform legislation and strengthening environmental regulations.

Notably, there has been no change over the past year in the percentage of Americans who say the Republican Party is "too conservative," though the 43% who say the party leans too far to the right matches the historical high mark set last year.

The One who was going to bring us all together is successfully dividing this country into two polar opposites.

Michael Jackson, Marketing Genius

How about these numbers (from Breaking News):

WSJ: U.S. retailers sold 415,000 albums by Michael Jackson in the four days following his death last week.

WSJ: In addition, Michael Jackson sold more than 2.3 million digitally downloaded songs since his death.

I'll bet they haven't sold that much OxiClean.

It's marketing genius, but you can only do it once.

Political Quote of the Day

From Charles Krauthammer, on the win by Al Franken in the Minnesota Senate Race:

"I think it will be refreshing having at least one senator who admits he is a comedian."

Cirque de Albany

It's hard to believe a state as populous as New York couldn't come up with a smarter group of people to put in their legislature. You really have to see this to believe it:

Of course, this is the same state that brought you Chuckie Schumer, Eliot Spitzer, Hillary Clinton and Al Sharpton, so I guess nothing should be surprising.

Political Cartoon of the Day

From Michael Ramirez:

Senator Franken

We've all known this was coming for months:

Former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman conceded Tuesday to Democrat Al Franken, after the Supreme Court ruled that Franken should be certified the winner of November's Senate race.

"I just had a conversation with Al Franken congratulating him on his victory," Coleman told reporters, outside his home in St. Paul. "The Supreme Court of Minnesota has spoken. I respect its decision and I will abide by its result."

He said he has no "regrets" about his months-long legal challenge but that he no longer wants to press it.

Democrats are undoubtedly rubbing their hands in glee at the thought of a super majority in the Senate. However, neither Senator Kennedy nor Senator Byrd appear to be in shape to cast any important votes, so even with full Dem support they'll be two votes shy of stopping filibusters.

And on an issue like cap-and-trade and nationalized health care, there are a number of Dem senators that won't support it.

Jackson Family Plans Public Viewing at Neverland Ranch

UPDATE: Never(land) mind.

The transformation of Neverland Ranch to the West Coast Graceland has begun:

Michael Jackson's body will be taken to his Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara County for a public viewing to be held Friday, CNN reported Tuesday.

The body will be taken to the ranch on Thursday, the cable news station reported, but no further details on the viewing have been released yet. A private memorial service will held Sunday.

The Associated Press reports that Santa Barbara County officials are in a meeting about Michael Jackson plans, and E! Online is reporting they are discussing a possible memorial service at Neverland Ranch.

Lt. Butch Arnoldi tells E!: “Our guys are meeting as we speak with the California Highway Patrol to discuss the security issues.”

Santa Barbara County Fire spokesman Capt. David Sadecki confirmed to The Associated Press that fire officials, California Highway Patrol and county sheriffs officials were meeting Tuesday morning to discuss “the whole Michael Jackson thing.”

“The Santa Barbara County Fire Department is willing to accommodate the Jackson family with whatever request they have regarding a funeral procession should they have one,” Sadecki told The Associated Press.

Hwy 101 is going to be such a mess. If you live in Santa Barbara - GET OUT!

I'm really surprised they're not going to do a big mass event in Los Angeles, such as the Lakers did at the Coliseum. The highway up to the Neverland area will never be able to hold the traffic that's likely to head there, and should they do a funeral procession to move the body up prior to Friday, it'll be the OJ Simpson chase writ HUGE. What a spectacle that'll be.

UPDATE: Word is there will be some sort of procession up to Neverland on Thursday, and the public viewing will continue on both Friday and Saturday. That basically means that Highway 101 and the connecting roads around Neverland will be out of commission for days.

The Other Duke Rape Case

When you hear the phrase "Duke Rape Case" you probably think of the lacrosse team that was wrongly accused by the local D.A. and terribly smeared by members of the Duke faculty. The team members were later exonerated when the case fell apart, though to my knowledge no apology was ever issued by the faculty members who signed a letter condemning the young men.

Well, there's another Duke rape case and this one involves a member of the faculty:

Sitting in a Durham County jail cell, Frank M. Lombard, the Duke University researcher accused of offering his adopted 5-year-old son for sex, awaits a trip to Washington, D.C., this week to face federal criminal charges.

After waiving an extradition hearing Friday morning, he was locked in the Durham jail Saturday without bail.

Federal authorities say Lombard, 42, of 24 Indigo Creek Trail, performed sexual acts on his son and invited an undercover investigator online to fly to North Carolina and do the same.

Lombard owns the home with another man, according to Durham County property records. The pair bought the home, which sits at the end of a narrow path lined with trees and multicolored homes, in May 2007, the records show. The co-owner has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

A bag of baseball equipment, a pair of tennis rackets, a skateboard and a child's bike lay on the home's front porch Saturday. No one answered the door as a dog barked inside.

Lombard, associate director of Duke's Center for Health Policy, was arrested Wednesday evening at his home. Investigators seized two webcams, five computers and a sex toy, among other items, after searching his home.

The 5-year-old and another child in the home were placed in protective custody.

Lombard has not faced a criminal charge but has speeding infractions and other driving offenses.

Lombard, a licensed clinical social worker with a master's degree in social work, is a health-disparities researcher who studies HIV/AIDS in the rural South.

This guy will be really popular in prison. And, of course, I'm waiting for the letter from the faculty condemning this guy.

Still waiting...

Domestic Violence Headline of the Day

From Drudge:

Man charged for spraying wife with garden hose for smoking...

Hey, if my wife was on fire I'd try to put her out.

Consumers Much Less Confident in June

How confident are you given everything our government is doing?

U.S. consumer confidence took an unexpectedly steep slide in June, figures released on Tuesday showed, suggesting the 18-month-long recession had yet to loosen its grip on the economy.

A separate report on April house prices in major cities offered some encouraging signs that the worst of the housing slump may be over, but that was not enough to lift investors' spirits, while another crop of economic data showed business activity in New York City and the Midwest remained weak and retail chains slogged through a rough June.

Billionaire investor George Soros added to the cautionary tone, saying fears of inflation would drive up borrowing costs and choke off growth once financial markets recover.

Major stock market indexes turned lower after the Conference Board's consumer confidence index showed households felt gloomier about their current situation, and less optimistic about the eventual economic recovery.

Kevin Kruszenski, head of listed trading at Keybanc Capital Markets in Cleveland, said the confidence data "kind of took the wind out of things a little bit."

The confidence index fell to 49.3 in June from 54.8 in May. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a healthier reading of 55.0 for this month.

George Soros' entire investment strategy is based on continued economic troubles. No wonder he's talking the economy down.

When you add in the inflationary factors that will undoubtedly kick in thanks to the stimulus spending, the new taxes being proposed by cap-and-trade and nationalized health care, why should Americans be confident?

GOP Sees an Opportunity With Cap-and-Tax Votes

Right after the cap-and-tax bill passed last week a prominent GOP strategist tweeted "50 Democrats just lost their seats for a bill that will die in the Senate". The GOP is not wasting time reminding voters of the extra costs the Democrats just voted to impose on them:

Republicans believe a handful of junior House Democrats may have taken a career-ending vote by supporting the controversial energy bill last week and are planning to launch an ad campaign in targeted districts to try to seal their fate.

The National Republican Congressional Committee is planning to air TV and radio commercials and unleash robocalls against Democrats who hail from districts that could be adversely affected by the narrowly passed legislation, are GOP-leaning or both.

Those likely to find themselves with targets on their back after the 219-212 vote: freshman Reps. Harry Teague of New Mexico, Betsy Markey of Colorado, John Boccieri of Ohio, Thomas Perriello of Virginia and Alan Grayson of Florida and second-termer Zack Space of Ohio.

The GOP’s hope is do to these vulnerable Democrats what Republicans famously did to former Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, the Pennsylvania Democrat who ensured that her career was limited to one term when she cast the deciding vote for President Bill Clinton’s budget package in 1993.

“There’s a reason why over 40 Democrats in swing districts voted against this,” said NRCC spokesman Ken Spain. “They realized that voting for [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi’s bill wasn’t worth the price of millions of dollars in TV ads that would be required to put up what will ultimately be a futile defense of this vote. The question is: What were the others thinking?”

Private businesses are getting into the act as well. Gateway Pundit has the story of a local bakery company that's running messages on their electronic signs blasting a local congressman whose vote may put them out of business.

The eight GOP turncoats who voted for this pig are getting blamed for the bill's passage, but in fact all they did was give cover to Democrats to vote against it. The bill probably would have passed anyway, but the Dem leadership would of had to force some of their more reluctant and endangered members to vote for it.

That certainly doesn't the GOP voters, though. Those people still need to go.

Whether this bill gets past the Senate may not matter in the 2010 elections. The fact that these Democrats were willing to vote for this monstrosity will be enough to convince voters that they aren't doing what's best for the local constituents. All politics is local, and the home folks are going to hear how their representatives voted to pile additional taxes and fees on them to combat a mythical global warming problem.

Jacko Fake-o

The promoters of Michael Jackson's planned 50 concert London tour are scrambling to come up with a way to save their hides, and one idea is to use a digitized King of Pop along with the live musicians and dancers:

Execs are also considering honouring all the dates by putting a DIGITAL Jacko on stage.

The source said: "A highly technical version of MJ as a silhouette performing on stage has been discussed.

"It is possible to create an impression that Michael is actually there, giving fans a place to mourn and celebrate his music."

The insider added: "Executives are keen that they do go ahead."

Well, I guess that's better the stuffing him and propping him up on stage.

This is where there's another parallel to the Elvis story. A couple of years ago there was a special set of performances involving films of Elvis in concert performances backed by his original musicians and back-up singers who performed live. It was a PBS special, and I must admit, they did a pretty good job of it. I'm sure the Jacko promoters are looking at that concert as a guideline for what they might be able to do in London.

The Growing Nanny State

Here are two headlines from just the past two days showing the growing nanny state under Obama's leadership:

Nanny State: White House announces new lighting standards...

FDA may put restrictions on Tylenol

The government doesn't think you're capable of making any good decisions on your own.

Given that more people have been killed in Airbus airliners in the past two months than by lightbulbs or Tylenol, perhaps the FDA should look at regulating ticket sales on overwater flights by Airbus jets.

Gun Control Quote of the Day

From an unnamed Mira Loma, CA resident who just dispatched a home invader with the robber's own gun:

"That's what you get… for breaking into my house."

Yep. I'm not sure what was said in the part the newspaper removed from the quote but I imagine it was colorful.

Gov. Sanford: God Wants Me to Stay in Office

Hard to argue with logic like that:

In a written message to supporters Monday, Mark Sanford asserted that God’s plan for him includes finishing his term as South Carolina governor.

Sanford is facing calls for his resignation after disappearing to Argentina then returning last week to admit an affair.

“Immediately after all this unfolded last week I had thought I would resign – as I believe in the military model of leadership and when trust of any form is broken one lays down the sword,” Sanford wrote in the message, which he posted on his personal website http://www.governorsanford.com and Facebook page, and broadcast via Twitter.

“A long list of close friends have suggested otherwise – that for God to really work in my life I shouldn’t be getting off so lightly. While it would be personally easier to exit stage left, their point has been that my larger sin was the sin of pride.”

Sanford writes that those friends asserted that “if I walked in with a real spirit of humility then this last legislative term could well be our most productive one - and that outside this term, I would ultimately be a better person and of more service in whatever doors God opened next in life if I stuck around to learn lessons rather than running and hiding down at the farm.”

If Sanford's national ambitions weren't completely shot before this, I'm pretty sure they're toast now.

U.S. Has 25 Times More Recoverable Oil Than Previously Thought

And yet, they probably still won't let us go get it:

Reston, VA - North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.

A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.

Technically recoverable oil resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices. USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources.

New geologic models applied to the Bakken Formation, advances in drilling and production technologies, and recent oil discoveries have resulted in these substantially larger technically recoverable oil volumes. About 105 million barrels of oil were produced from the Bakken Formation by the end of 2007.

The USGS Bakken study was undertaken as part of a nationwide project assessing domestic petroleum basins using standardized methodology and protocol as required by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 2000.

The Bakken Formation estimate is larger than all other current USGS oil assessments of the lower 48 states and is the largest "continuous" oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS. A "continuous" oil accumulation means that the oil resource is dispersed throughout a geologic formation rather than existing as discrete, localized occurrences. The next largest "continuous" oil accumulation in the U.S. is in the Austin Chalk of Texas and Louisiana, with an undiscovered estimate of 1.0 billions of barrels of technically recoverable oil.

"It is clear that the Bakken formation contains a significant amount of oil - the question is how much of that oil is recoverable using today's technology?" said Senator Byron Dorgan, of North Dakota. "To get an answer to this important question, I requested that the U.S. Geological Survey complete this study, which will provide an up-to-date estimate on the amount of technically recoverable oil resources in the Bakken Shale formation."

For at least 30 years the doomsayers have been telling us the world is running out of oil, and yet, we keep finding more.

Oil extraction technology has dramatically improved since 1995, and therefore oil that was previously unrecoverable can now be pumped out. However, this administration and congress still considers drilling for our own oil to be politically incorrect, which means regardless of how much oil is out there, they won't let us go and get it.

Instead, we'll tax domestic producers out of business with cap-and-tax and will cause even more of our oil to be imported.

Treason Against the Planet

How's this for hyperbole from Paul Krugman in the NY Times:

So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement. But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases. And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.

Yes, it's treason! Because if we don't do something NOW...well, nothing bad will happen since global warming ended in 1998 and isn't caused by man anyway.

Never mind.

Original Apollo 11 Tapes Found

Those of us who watched the moon landing on live TV did not see a very clear image. The astronauts almost looked like ghostly figures moving around the monochrome moon. There's a reason for why those images looked as they did, and just in time for the 40th anniversary of the moon landing we might get a whole new view:

Just in time for the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing, NASA may have found the long-lost original Apollo 11 videotapes.

If true, as Britain's Sunday Express reports, the high-quality tapes may give us a whole new view of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's lunar strolls.

Back on July 20, 1969, the raw video feed from the moon was beamed to the Parkes Observatory radio telescope in southeastern Australia, and then compressed and sent to Mission Control in Houston.

Because of technical issues, NASA's images couldn't be fed directly to the TV networks.

Instead, the grayish, blotchy images Americans saw on their TV sets were the result of a regular TV camera pointed at the huge wall monitor in Houston — a copy of a copy, in effect. (Australians saw slightly different footage.)

Those images survive, and anyone can see them on YouTube. But the original, sharp, black-and-white tapes that were recorded at Parkes vanished.

NASA had thought they'd been shipped to the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., But a search there a couple of years ago turned up nothing.

Around the same time, though, a cache of tapes containing data from moon-surface experiments from the entire Apollo program was discovered in a university basement in Perth, Western Australia, on the other side of the country from Parkes.

According to the Sunday Express, NASA has combed through those tapes and found the original Apollo 11 video footage.

"We're talking about the same tapes," an unnamed NASA spokesman told the newspaper, though he added that "at this point, I'm not prepared to discuss what has or has not been found."

I hope they've got the tapes. It will be fun to relive that experience.

I don't know what Neil Armstrong has been up to lately. He's lived pretty much out of the spotlight since retiring from NASA, but his moon landing buddy Buzz Aldrin has kept himself busy, including his latest projet - a rap video with Snoop Dog:

Buzz Aldrin's Rocket Experience from Buzz Aldrin

I think part of Buzz is still out there.

The LGBTTIQQ2S Crowd Are Suckers

How else do you explain the abuse the "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Transgendered, Intersexual, Queer, Questioning, 2-Spirited crowd is getting from Obama... and still giving him standing ovations (from Hot Air):

What does a president get from a gay audience when he’s publicly against gay marriage, unwilling to take bold action to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and so terrified of the political consequences of challenging the Defense of Marriage Act that he’ll actually defend it in court? Why, he gets “thunderous applause,” of course — if he’s a Democrat. I’ll be charitable and assume that this audience isn’t representative of all gays demanding equal rights, that they’re a handpicked bunch of chumps congregated to cheer The One on no matter how many promises he breaks. The alternative is too depressing to consider.

Money line: “We’ve been in office six months now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration.” Translation: Elect me to a second term so I can be the hardcore liberal I am without worrying about the electoral consequences. Exit question: How come a guy with huge majorities in both houses of Congress can’t get any of this stuff done now?

Apparently abuse at the hands of others is something those people enjoy.

Grieving Jackson Fans Reducing Their Carbon Footprints

All the way to zero:

The man behind the world's biggest online Michael Jackson fan club has said heartbroken followers of the star have committed suicide because of his death.

Gary Taylor, president and owner of MJJcommunity.com, said he understood the tragedies had mostly taken place outside of the UK but he believed one may have been British.

"I know there has been an increase, I now believe the figure is 12. I believe there may have been one Briton who has taken their life," he said.

I don't think we wanted those people reproducing anyway.

Today's White House Spin - Racism Against Whites Was "Precedent"

The White House knows how bad today's Supreme Court ruling looks for Sonia Sotomayor. She and her fellow appeals court judges tried to deny white firefighters from New Haven, CT their civil rights. Here's how they tried to spin it:

The White House came to the defense of President Obama's pick to be the newest Supreme Court justice after Judge Sonia Sotomayor's ruling in a racially charged case was reversed by the Supreme Court.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs all but accused the current court of "judicial activism," a buzz term used by conservatives in recent years, in overturning what the White House saw as Sotomayor's upholding of precedent.

The highest court ruled Monday that a group of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn. were discriminated against after the city threw out a promotion test after one Hispanic and no African-Americans passed. Sotomayor ruled in favor of the city as an appeals court judge.

Republicans on Monday sought to use the case to question Sotomayor's qualifications and buy more time before her confirmation hearings are set to begin on July 13.

But Gibbs said that the case "denotes that [Sotomayor] is a follower of precedent," and the arguments over judicial activism "seem to be at the very least upside-down in this case."

Gibbs said the case proves "she doesn't legislate from the bench."

"I think it is an interesting new interpretation of a law that has been reviewed by many judges in many courts, judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans."

I will agree with one thing - it was quite fashionable in legal circles to allow racism against white men, but that didn't make it right.

What was really laughable this afternoon was the reaction of New Haven Mayor John DeStefano who said he was worried about the black firefighters who scored poorly on the exam.

Well boo-hoo - try studying next time.

The mayor went on to suggest that "every test in their life is set-up so they fail". What liberal guilt bovine excrement. Turn off BET and open a book.

I still have my doubts that this ruling will in any way slow down Sotomayor's confirmation, but it certainly won't make things any smoother and should give the Republicans some good material for questions.

Political Quote of the Day

Who said this? (h/t The Corner):

"We will not obey the Supreme Court. The court which only imparts justice for the powerful, the rich, and the bankers, only causes problems for democracy."

I'll bet you thought it was Barack Obama. He has said much the same thing about various other institutions.

But this time you'd be wrong. It was lefty President Manuel "Mel" Zela of Honduras...right before the military escorted him out of the country in his jammies.

The Brevity Act

Bob Gale at Big Hollywood thinks it's time for new constitutional amendment and I couldn't agree more:

Earlier this year, Congress passed a “Stimulus” Bill. It was 973 pages long. This past Friday, the House passed a “Climate Change” Bill. It was more than 1200 pages long.

This got me wondering: how long, exactly, is our Constitution? How many pages did it take our country’s founders to lay out the structure and functions of our Federal Government?

Easy to answer. I found the Constitution online and copied it into a Word document, in Times New Roman 12 point type. So how long is it?

Including the preamble, all signatures and all 27 amendments, it’s 20 pages.

Without the signatures and amendments, it’s 11 pages.

Think about that. The entire foundation of our country - the complete design for our entire government — is clearly explained in only 11 pages.

No single Amendment is a full page. Many are only a single sentence.

Yet the bill that was passed on June 26, 2009 by 219 of our elected representatives — people to whom we’ve entrusted our Constitution, men and women who have sworn an oath to uphold it - was more than 1200 pages long. That’s over 100 times longer than the U.S. Constitution! And not one member of Congress, NOT ONE, read the whole thing!

A word comes to my mind to describe this: “INSANE.”

I cannot believe that this type of legislation and legislative behavior is what the signers of our Constitution intended when they invented Congress.

Therefore, I am respectfully proposing a 28th Amendment to our Constitution. I call it the Brevity Act.

No law, bill, resolution or any act of Congress shall exceed 2000 words, including all footnotes, amendments and signatures. Congress shall not vote on any item longer than that. Each item requiring a vote shall be read aloud in its entirety in session to a majority of members. Those not in attendance may not vote on the item.

2000 words is about 5 single spaced pages in a 12 point Word document. If it’s longer than that, then it’s too complicated to be a single law or bill, so it must either be cut or turned into multiple bills, each requiring a separate vote.

Furthermore, a Brevity Act should be part of every State Constitution, County Charter and City Charter.

To those who would oppose this Act because it would require Legislatures to vote separately on every single item in the budget, I say, it’s about time!

It should be a Federal crime for any Representative or Senator to vote on a bill he or she hasn't read. And I'd take it one step further - before they can vote they have to pass a 10 question quiz demonstrating they not only read the bill but understand what they read.

That would really slow things down in Congress, and perhaps we could start expecting intelligent voting from our elected representatives.

God'll Get You for That

I'd hate to have to explain this to St. Peter:

Talk about a lack of piety. Long Island cops say they've caught a woman robbing congregants during church.

Patricia Adams saw an opportunity during services at Our Lady of Hope Catholic Church – and it wasn't for worship. While a devout parishioner knelt down in prayer, the 46-year-old learned over a church pew and stole cash from her purse, police said. An usher saw her do it and called the cops.

Cops arrested Adams as she left the church yesterday morning. They recovered the stolen goods and returned them to the unsuspecting victim.

This wasn't the first time Adams lifted money off a hapless worshipper, however. In May, the Westbury woman jacked cash from a purse left on a pew by a woman who was receiving communion, cops said.

This happens more often than you'd think. I used to have a client who had a problem like this one Sunday morning. The choir was in the sanctuary for the service, but the ladies had left their purses in the choir room. Somebody got in there and cleaned them all out.

The Other Big Court Ruling

There's another case that was handed down by the Supreme Court today - sort of. Rather than giving a final opinion, the court is scheduling a special oral argument date in September to consider the limits recent campaign finance laws have put on the free speech of citizens:

The U.S. Supreme Court today ordered a new round of oral arguments in Citizens United v. FEC, the “Hillary: The Movie” case. The Court wants parties to address whether Austin v. Michigan, a case that bans certain political speech by corporations, including nonprofit corporations such as Citizens United, should be overturned. The Court also wants to consider whether part of McConnell v. FEC, upholding the so-called “electioneering communications” ban in McCain-Feingold, should likewise be overturned and the ban struck down entirely.

“The Court has set up a blockbuster case about Americans’ First Amendment rights to join together and speak freely about politics,” said Steve Simpson, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Citizens United v. FEC. “A majority of the High Court appears to recognize the grave threat to free speech posed by both the electioneering communications ban in McCain-Feingold and the ban on corporate political speech. This case could mark a significant advance for First Amendment rights and will have major implications for state laws nationwide.” . . .

The Citizens United case came about because the Federal Election Commission banned the airing of “Hillary: The Movie,” produced by the nonprofit Citizens United, on cable TV and required the group to “name names” of the film’s backers by disclosing to the government detailed personal information about donors if the group ran TV ads for the film. At oral argument, justices appeared concerned that if the government could ban corporate-funded films about candidates, it could also ban books. Revisiting Austin and McConnell allows the Court to fully consider whether speech regulation has gone too far.

I would love to see McCain-Feingold struck down. To me there's no question that the bill imposed unconstitutional restrictions on free political speech and only has served to protect the interests of incumbents.

Say a Prayer for the Five Sane Justices

Jonathan Tobin at Commentary suggests that we conservatives say a prayer for the health of the five justices who are preventing this country from turning into a banana republic:

The Supreme Court’s ruling this morning on the New Haven firefighters’ lawsuit is a reminder of the vital role a sane majority on the high court plays in protecting the rights of citizens against the dictates of liberal ideology.

The 5-4 ruling, which reverses a decision endorsed by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, validated the complaints of a group of firefighters who took and passed a promotion test but wound up being told that the exam was invalid because no minorities had done well enough on it. Though no one could credibly allege that the test was biased or that any discrimination had actually taken place, the city of New Haven threw out the test (thus rendering the efforts of the firefighters who had passed it worthless) because they feared that they would nonetheless be sued by the affirmative action bar, which views any result other than the one sought for minorities as inherently discriminatory.

Sotomayor and the Second Federal Circuit majority that dismissed the firefighters appeal didn’t even bother to state their reasons for their egregious and unconstitutional approval of this outrage. But fortunately there are still five members of the Supreme Court who aren’t willing to go along with such travesties.

How did the four members of the minority justify their dissent? Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the white firefighters “understandably attract this court’s sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion.” This is nonsense. Having jumped through every hoop that the city of New Haven set for them, the firefighters were entitled to the promotions that they had fairly earned in open competition. Denying them these promotions, merely because they were neither black nor Hispanic, is inherently discriminatory. Such reverse discrimination has become commonplace in recent decades, but it is still a disgrace when our courts seek to rationalize such naked racialism through the sort of convoluted reasoning put forward by Ginsburg.

The majority, led by that fickle weathervane Anthony Kennedy (thank goodness the wind was blowing in the right direction!), is to be commended for establishing a precedent that may curtail the widespread practice of officially endorsed discrimination.

But just as interesting is the insight this ruling brings to the question of Sotomayor’s nomination. The Senate is being asked to approve a person who was willing to endorse blatant discrimination motivated by race, albeit in the guise of remedying past discrimination even when no such discrimination is proved or even alleged.

Sotomayor will, when she is undoubtedly confirmed, replace David Souter, one of the justices who were willing to let the affirmative action mindset further erode American democracy. But the fact that her nomination will not undermine the narrow majority for reason is no cause for complacency. A doctrinaire liberal like Barack Obama can be counted on to put forward similar nominees in the next three to eight years. Anyone who cares about the future of the rule of law in this nation should not go to sleep tonight without saying a prayer for the continued good health of Justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy.

Even if Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed the balance of the court will remain unchanged. However, should one of the holy five decide to call it quits, we're all in big trouble.

John McCain Was Right

Jennifer Rubin makes some comparisons between the Barack Obama John McCain told us about and the real Barack Obama:

John McCain regularly accused then-candidate Barack Obama of being a tax-and-spend liberal, seeking to “spread the wealth” as Obama disclosed in a much regretted off-hand comment. Well, the spending promises were discarded instantaneously. He did not go “line-by-line” through the budget nor have we seen a net reduction in spending....

Obama ran as a fiscal moderate — swearing affection for markets and promising only to tax the “rich.” The reality, just as McCain predicted, is quite different. The question remains whether the voters will notice and object to having been so blatantly deceived.

Turns out the real Barack Obama IS the guy John McCain told us about. The media was dismissive of his accusations, and even tried to destroy Joe the Plumber who extracted the "spread the wealth" comment from Obama, but McCain was right the whole time.

There was a time when I wasn't sure that a President McCain would be all that different than a President Obama.

I'm over that now.

Another Day, Another Czar

Do we really need one of these?

Vice President Biden announced today that Lynn Rosenthal will be the White House adviser on Violence Against Women, a new position created to work with the president and vice president on domestic violence and sexual assault issues...

Why does the president need advice on violence against women? Aren't you either for it or against it? Doesn't seem like a lot of advice is really needed.

Bernie Madoff Can Get Out of Prison When He's 221

Seventy-one year old Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme bankrupted many individuals and charities, was given a 150-year prison sentence this morning. He'll be 221 when he's served his debt to society. I think he can get out on good behavior when he's 200.

Today's Must See Video

The late Billy Mays and Andrew Sullivan of TV's "Pitch Men" show and infomercial fame discuss Obama's stimulus plan:

Supremes Overturn Sotomayor (Again) and Rule in Favor of White Firefighters

This isn't really a surprise. It's the ruling most people expected given the facts of the case:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide and make it harder to prove discrimination when there is no evidence it was intentional.

"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters "understandably attract this court's sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them."

Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens signed onto Ginsburg's dissent, which she read aloud in court Monday.

Kennedy's opinion made only passing reference to the work of Sotomayor and the other two judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who upheld a lower court ruling in favor of New Haven.

But the appellate judges have been criticized for producing a cursory opinion that failed to deal with "indisputably complex and far from well-settled" questions, in the words of another appeals court judge, Sotomayor mentor Jose Cabranes.

"This perfunctory disposition rests uneasily with the weighty issues presented by this appeal," Cabranes said, in a dissent from the full 2nd Circuit's decision not to hear the case.

Looks like the court said to Sotomayor "you may be a Latina, but you're not so wise".

While I expect this case will be raised during the confirmation hearing, I doubt it will have a major impact on Sotomayor's chances for confirmation. She was profoundly wrong on this case, as she has been profoundly wrong and overturned by the courts before, but for some reason being profoundly wrong does not seem to keep people off the court.

15% of Teens Think They'll Die Early

These are troubling numbers:

A surprising number of teenagers—nearly 15 percent—think they're going to die young, leading many to drug use, suicide attempts and other unsafe behavior, new research suggests.

The study, based on a survey of more than 20,000 kids, challenges conventional wisdom that says teens engage in risky behavior because they think they're invulnerable to harm. Instead, a sizable number of teens may take chances "because they feel hopeless and figure that not much is at stake," said study author Dr. Iris Borowsky, a researcher at the University of Minnesota.

That behavior threatens to turn their fatalism into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Over seven years, kids who thought they would die early were seven time more likely than optimistic kids to be subsequently diagnosed with AIDS. They also were more likely to attempt suicide and get in fights resulting in serious injuries.

Borowsky said the magnitude of kids with a negative outlook was eye-opening.

Adolescence is "a time of great opportunity and for such a large minority of youth to feel like they don't have a long life ahead of them was surprising," she said.

The study suggests a new way doctors could detect kids likely to engage in unsafe behavior and potentially help prevent it, said Dr. Jonathan Klein, a University of Rochester adolescent health expert who was not involved in the research.

"Asking about this sense of fatalism is probably a pretty important component of one of the ways we can figure out who those kids at greater risk are," he said.

I always thought kids did dumb things because they thought they were bulletproof. Maybe not.

The Apostle Paul Located?

Color me skeptical:

The first-ever scientific test on what are believed to be the remains of the Apostle Paul "seems to confirm" that they do indeed belong to the Roman Catholic saint, Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday.

It was the second major discovery concerning St. Paul announced by the Vatican in as many days.

On Saturday, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano announced the June 19 discovery of a fresco inside another tomb depicting St. Paul, which Vatican officials said represented the oldest known icon of the apostle.

Benedict said archaeologists recently unearthed and opened the white marble sarcophagus located under the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls in Rome, which for some 2,000 years has been believed by the faithful to be the tomb of St. Paul.

Benedict said scientists had conducted carbon dating tests on bone fragments found inside the sarcophagus and confirmed that they date from the first or second century.

"This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul," Benedict said, announcing the findings at a service in the basilica to mark the end of the Vatican's Paoline year, in honor of the apostle.

Is that sort of like the unanimous and uncontested tradition that man-made global warming is destroying the earth?

Who knows, it may well be Paul, but there's absolutely no way to confirm it one way or the other, and the way the Catholic church loves to hang onto icons, my guess is their desire to believe it will overwhelm any skepticism.

Big Day for The Supremes

Not the Motown hitmaking trio, but the nine folks on the big bench in Washington:

A closely watched discrimination lawsuit by white firefighters who say they have unfairly been denied promotions is one of three remaining Supreme Court cases awaiting resolution Monday.

The court intends to finish its work for the summer that day, Chief Justice John Roberts said. The court also will say goodbye to Justice David Souter who has announced he will retire "when the court rises for the summer recess."

Sonia Sotomayor, nominated to take Souter's place, was one of three appeals court judges who ruled that officials in New Haven, Conn., acted properly in throwing out firefighters' promotions exams because of racially skewed results.

The city says it decided not to use the test scores to determine promotions because it might have been vulnerable to claims the exam had a "disparate impact" on minorities in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The white firefighters said the decision violated the same law's prohibition on intentional discrimination.

The opinion that Sotomayor endorsed has been criticized as a cursory look at a tough issue. Among the critics are fellow judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. Her defenders have said the short opinion properly applied earlier cases from that appeals court.

The outcome of the case could alter how employers in both the public and private sectors make job-related decisions.

The other two unsettled cases involve campaign finance law and states' ability to investigate alleged discrimination in lending by national banks.

The firefighter case will be particularly interesting. The court will have the opportunity to both slap down racial preferences, but will have a chance to slap down Sonia Sotomayor as well who did everything she could to keep this case from getting to the Supreme Court. I'll have more on the Court's final decision later today.