How Much Carbon is Emitted During 443,243 Air Miles?

Ask this guy because he should know (h/t Instapundit):

Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, flew 443,243 miles in a 19 month period while speaking against global warming.

And that includes a weekend round trip between New York and New Delhi that was made so Pachauri could attend a cricket practice.

Global Warming Cartoon of the Day

From Big Government:

It doesn't look like ClimateGate has had much effect on the White House, based on this headline:

White House still believes 'climate change is happening'...

Of course climate change is happening. It's always happening. The climate is not a static thing. At times it's been warmer, at times colder. Right now it's cooling.

However, mankind hasn't had much to do with it and mankind certainly can't change it.

Swiss Government: We Can't Trust the People

I reported yesterday on the decision by Swiss voters to ban the construction of further Islamic minarets in their country. That vote hasn't gone over well with the Swiss government:

So concerned is the government by the decision that Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer Schlumpf, watching the results come in on Sunday afternoon, apparently told her advisers there ought to be some restrictions on what the general public can actually vote on.

This, for Switzerland, is political dynamite. The country's system of direct democracy is sacrosanct. The people are allowed to vote on any policy and to propose policy themselves, which is what they did on minarets.

That sort of reminds me of Bill Clinton's admission in the 90's that he'd raised taxes too much but couldn't give the money back to the taxpayers because he couldn't be sure they'd spend it the right way.

I would like to think that not all elected officials think the voters are stupid, but I'm having my doubts. Maybe they are stupid - at least the ones who voted for the elected officials.

Obama Bumps Charlie Brown

This is one ticked-off Peanuts fan here. I just read that Obama's speech tomorrow night at West Point will bump A Charlie Brown Christmas to December 8th:

FOX broadcasting, which has passed on taking prime time news conferences from Pres. Obama in the past, will carry tomorrow night's address at West Point at 8pmET. A new "So You Think You Can Dance" will begin after the president's speech (in the Eastern/Central time zones; regular time on the West Coast).

ABC announced today that it too will carry the speech. Originally scheduled programs, including "A Charlie Brown Christmas," will now air next Tuesday at 8pmET.

NBC and CBS announced last Wednesday that they would be carrying the speech.

The cable news channels will also air the address which will focus on the future role of the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

And I had a special post commemorating that show all ready to go.

Well, until next week I'll leave you with this from Ace:

It was just a scraggly, stunted Obama until

the media kids went to work on it and made it beautiful.

Photoshop by Slublog

Go Ahead and Fly Those Jets

There's a piece in the UK Times about all the celebrities who have been whining about global warming and carbon emissions while flying their private jets all over the world. Here's part of it:

Hypocrisy is the vice we find hardest to forgive, but it’s also the one we most enjoy discovering in others. And nothing piques our interest more than eco-hypocrisy as practised by the “green” celebrities who have been spouting green virtue but spewing out hundreds of tons of carbon from their private jets or multiple holiday homes around the globe.

There was Sheryl Crow, who had called upon the public to refrain from using more than one square of toilet paper per visit (“except on those pesky occasions when two or three are required”) and who was leading a Stop Global Warming concert tour across America. It was revealed that while Crow travelled in a biodiesel tour bus, her 30-person entourage followed in a fleet of 13 gas-guzzling vehicles.

John Travolta notoriously encouraged the British public to do its bit to fight global warming — after flying into London on one of his five, yes, five private jets (one of which is a Boeing 707). In 2006 his piloting hobby produced an estimated 800 tons of carbon emissions, more than a hundred times the output of the average Briton, according to the Carbon Trust.

It is less well known that Tom Cruise — who has campaigned for the LA-based environmental group Earth Communications Office — also has an air fleet and a licence to pilot his five planes, including a top-of-the-line customised Gulfstream jet he bought for his wife, Katie Holmes.

Harrison Ford, who is vice-chairman on the board of Conservation International, voices public-service messages for an environmental federation called EarthShare, and once shaved his chest hair to illustrate the effects of deforestation, is another hobby pilot. He once owned a Gulfstream but now makes do with a smaller Cessna Citation Sovereign eight-seater jet, four propeller planes and a helicopter.

Oprah Winfrey, who preaches eco-virtue from her TV pulpit, travelled in a 13-seat Gulfstream IV private jet for years — the preferred model for celebrities and the super-rich. (She has replaced it with a faster Bombardier Global Express.) The public first became aware of her private-jet habit when her plane had to make a forced landing in California in 2005; it was reminded of it this year after one of her stewardesses was fired for allegedly having sex with the pilot while Oprah and other passengers were asleep.

Jennifer Aniston told reporters that to save the Earth’s precious water resources she brushes her teeth while in the shower. But she also flew a hairdresser to Europe to accompany her on a recent publicity tour for the film Marley & Me.

It is hypocrisy, of course, to demand sacrifices from everybody else while you continue to indulge in wasteful practices. However, now that the concept of man-made global warming has been proven a complete fraud, go ahead and fly your jets. These high-flying celebrities are all jokes to us now.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

Michael Barone has some thoughts on the ClimateGate mess and Obama's upcoming trip to the climate summit in Copenhagen:

As Air Force One heads to Copenhagen for the climate summit Dec. 9, it will presumably not make a U-turn while flying over the Climate Research Unit at University of East Anglia near Norwich, England. But perhaps it should. The 61 megabytes of CRU e-mails and documents made public by a hacker cast serious doubt on the ballyhooed consensus on man-made global warming that the Copenhagen summit was called to address.

The CRU has been a major source of data on global temperatures, relied on by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But the e-mails suggest that CRU scientists have been suppressing and misstating data and working to prevent the publication of conflicting views in peer-reviewed science periodicals. Some of the more pungent e-mails:

"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

"Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith re AR4?"

"I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

"The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty we can't."

"I'm getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU temperature station data. Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!"

You get the idea. The most charitable plausible explanation I have seen comes from the Atlantic's Megan McArdle. "The CRU's main computer model may be, to put it bluntly, complete rubbish."

Australian geologist Ian Plimer, a global warming skeptic, is more blunt. The e-mails "show that data was massaged, numbers were fudged, diagrams were biased, there was destruction of data after freedom of information requests, and there was refusal to submit taxpayer-funded date for independent examination."

Global warming alarmist George Monbiot of the Guardian concedes that the e-mails "could scarcely be more damaging," adding, "I'm dismayed and deeply shaken by them." He has called for the resignation of the CRU director.

All of which brings to mind the old computer geek's phrase: Garbage in, garbage out.

And yet the summit will go on, Obama will attend and promise all sorts of draconian cuts in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and the whole farce will continue as though none of this ever happened. They just have too much to lose if they admit that global warming is one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated in human history.

Another Teen Driver Tragedy

I don't normally do these stories unless they're in my local area, but I'm making an exception in this case because I've very familiar with the location of the accident. My wife and I passed through this very intersection twice during our trip to my daughter's college last weekend:

A Sonoma mother and father and their two young children were killed when their minivan was struck by a speeding teenager Saturday night.

The Maloney family had just spent their thanksgiving vacation in Hawaii. They were driving home from the airport in their minivan Saturday night when they had the green light on Highway 37.

California Highway Patrol investigators say 19-year-old Steven Culbertson was supposed to stop at the red light on Lakeville Highway, but instead of stopping, he clipped a Honda CRV and flew through the intersection.

"Witnesses put his speed at anywhere from 70-90 mph," Officer Jon Sloat said.

John Maloney, his wife Susan and their two children, 8-year-old Aiden and 5-year- old Grace, were all pronounced dead at the scene.

At their now empty Sonoma home flowers lay on the doorstep.

"The whole family gone, the whole family gone, it's just terrible," neighbor Adele Ney said.

Ney had known the Maloney's for 10 years.

John was the vice president of a Novato solar company. He also has a teenage daughter who was not with them in the car Saturday night.

"It's just terrible, they were such a nice couple, I mean perfect neighbors, he was such a nice guy," Ney said.

The driver of the Honda was too distraught to talk on camera, but told ABC7 he was the first to arrive on scene. His brother, a doctor, was also with him and tried to perform CPR on Susan Maloney, but it was too late.

The crash left Culbertson brain dead. He died Sunday at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

The problem is Culbertson was probably brain dead before the crash. Otherwise he wouldn't have been going 90 at that location.

Sonoma is a beautiful little town with some neighborhoods of very nice homes belonging to professionals from around the area. It was also the location of the 2009 HGTV Dream Home. We try to stop in Sonoma every chance we get, and visited the town on Nov. 21 when we stopped at Train Town.

It's a sad day in Sonoma.

"Please Tells Us That America is in It to Win It"

That's the message Sarah Palin has for Barack Obama (from her Facebook site):

We head into the Christmas season wishing for leadership in Washington that reflects our commitment to the values and ideals that have built the freest and most prosperous and generous nation on earth.

Heading into December and Tuesday’s announcement of our nation’s strategy in Afghanistan, I ask the President to reassure us that the administration is in this War on Terror to win.

And I’ll pass along the following from Harold B. Estes, a 95-year-old member of the Greatest Generation: “I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you’re the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you’re not in this fight to win, then get out.”

Thank you, Mr. President. Please tell us on Tuesday that America is in it to win.

- Sarah Palin

Obama will be speaking at West Point on Tuesday where he is expected to announce his plans for Afghanistan, a decision that has dragged on for months.

Harry Reid's Fool's Errand

Harry Reid has created a health care bill that members of his own party cannot support:

With the Senate set to begin debate Monday on health care overhaul, the all-hands-on-deck Democratic coalition that allowed the bill to advance is fracturing already.

Some Democratic senators say they'll jump ship from the bill without tighter restrictions on abortion coverage. Others say they'll go unless a government plan to compete with private insurance companies gets tossed overboard. Such concessions would enrage liberals, the heart and soul of the party.

There's no clear course for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to steer legislation through Congress to President Barack Obama. You can't make history unless you reach 60 votes out of 100 senators, and don't count on Republicans helping him.

But Reid is determined to avoid being remembered as another Democrat who tried and failed to make health care access for the middle class a part of America's social safety net.

Harry is on his way to becoming the next Tom Daschle, a Dem Senate Majority Leader voted out of office. He was probably doomed before this debate and he knows it, and that could be why he's willing to go ahead and try to jam this bill through. He figures history will be kinder to him if he succeeds in getting Obamacare even if he loses his job.

And win or lose on Obamacare, he will likely lose his job next year.

The GOP seems to be hanging together, but with people like Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and John McCain, you can never be sure. Let's hope the Democrats destroy the bill so the GOP doesn't have to.

UN Threatened by ClimateGate

The United Nations is digging in its heels and has decided that ClimateGate won't slow down their goal of a one world government:

There is "virtually no possibility" of a few scientists biasing the advice given to governments by the UN's top global warming body, its chair said today.

Rajendra Pachauri defended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the wake of apparent suggestions in emails between climate scientists at the University of East Anglia that they had prevented work they did not agree with from being included in the panel's fourth assessment report, which was published in 2007.

The emails were made public this month after a hacker illegally obtained them from servers at the university.

Pachauri said the large number of contributors and rigorous peer review mechanism adopted by the IPCC meant that any bias would be rapidly uncovered.

"The processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report," he said.

"Every single comment that an expert reviewer provides has to be answered either by acceptance of the comment, or if it is not accepted, the reasons have to be clearly specified. So I think it is a very transparent, a very comprehensive process which insures that even if someone wants to leave out a piece of peer reviewed literature there is virtually no possibility of that happening."

There's one major problem with that - the East Anglia laboratory where all this was happening is not just "a few scientists", they were the leading voices promoting global warming. Other scientists disagreed with their findings at their own risk, and consequently, they were driving the whole discussion. Some clown at the IPCC is not going to be able to just wave them away as inconsequential.

This is how Christopher Booker at the UK Telegraph describes the scientists involved:

The reason why even the Guardian's George Monbiot has expressed total shock and dismay at the picture revealed by the documents is that their authors are not just any old bunch of academics. Their importance cannot be overestimated, What we are looking at here is the small group of scientists who have for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The UN will continue to push for a new global warming treaty that will have punishing effects on the United States and other developed countries, but politically the ClimateGate scandal will make it very difficult to get an agreement at the Copenhagen meeting. The story broke just in time to effectively kill it.

The Environmental Priests and Their Fraudulent Religion

Charles Krauthammer takes a look at the global warming enthusiasts:

For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class -- social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts and their left-wing political allies -- arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism).

Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher's England to Deng's China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty more rapidly than ever in human history.

Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but -- even better -- in the name of Earth itself.

Environmentalists are Gaia's priests, instructing us in her proper service and casting out those who refuse to genuflect. (See Newsweek above.) And having proclaimed the ultimate commandment -- carbon chastity -- they are preparing the supporting canonical legislation that will tell you how much you can travel, what kind of light you will read by, and at what temperature you may set your bedroom thermostat.

Only Monday, a British parliamentary committee proposed that every citizen be required to carry a carbon card that must be presented, under penalty of law, when buying gasoline, taking an airplane or using electricity. The card contains your yearly carbon ration to be drawn down with every purchase, every trip, every swipe.

There's no greater social power than the power to ration. And, other than rationing food, there is no greater instrument of social control than rationing energy, the currency of just about everything one does and uses in an advanced society.

That's just the middle portion of a great article. Read the whole thing.

Krauthammer basically repeats a point I've heard Rush Limbaugh talk about for years - that environmentalism is the modern home for all those socialists and communists who had no place to go when the Soviet bloc collapsed. They lost their ability to control people through direct political power, so they sought control indirectly through environmentalism.

ClimateGate may send them packing looking for the next opportunity.

ACLU Tries to Take the Animals From the Manger

After all, it's Christmas time:

The ACLU sent a letter dated Nov. 11 asking the city to “end the unlawful endorsement of religion,” claiming that the city paid for animals used in a Nativity scene. The letter accused the city of violating the First Amendment.

In the letter, the ACLU claimed the city paid $200 for animals used in a Nativity scene co-sponsored by Grace Church of the Nazarene.

Piper confirmed the city spent the money two years ago — not last year as the letter claims — the exhibit’s first year at “Christmas on the Cumberland.” The scene will be on display from 6 to 9 p.m. Dec. 11 and 12 this year at McGregor Park pavilion.

“If the City of Clarksville did pay for the animals, this was a violation of the Establishment Clause,” the ACLU letter reads. “The City of Clarksville must not provide funds for Grace Church of Nazarene to perform biblical plays or displays.”

The church’s pastor, Steve Estep, and the mayor said the church will receive no money from the city this year for the Nativity scene. And each year, Estep said, the church has been required to obtain a permit from the Parks and Recreation Department for several hundred dollars.

Why isn't the ACLU examining the loss of civil rights that will occur if cap-and-tax or Obamacare gets passed? Wouldn't that be a lot more valuable expenditure of time than $200 manger animals?

The Memory Tree

Most people have Christmas trees this time of year, but as we approach our 23rd Christmas ours has become more of a memory tree. We've purposely tried to find ornaments that mark places we've been or have some significance in our lives. We decided a couple of years ago that we wouldn't put anything on the tree unless it had a special meaning to us. As you can see, the 7' tree is pretty cluttered.
Since I can't invite all of you over to the house to give you the tour, I thought I'd post a bunch of pictures and give you a little bit of the stories behind them.

This is the first ornament we ever bought together. I had a gift certificate to Sak's Fifth Avenue and we bought this along with other stuff.
Our first Christmas as a married couple, and my favorite cartoon characters.
The tree has some other firsts as well, such as the first ornaments for each of our kids. Our daughter in 1988...
and our son in 1991.
Of course, we also have some of those kid-made items, like this one from preschool.
My wife's mom had a number of beautiful antique glass ornaments that are now on our tree.

Disneyland has played a big role in our lives, and we have several Christopher Radko pieces from there, including the castle...
Disney's first couple...
The Disney railroad...
and the Haunted Mansion dressed up for the Nightmare Before Christmas.
Presidents have also had an impact, such as this one from the Ronald Reagan Library.
This came from our visit to Mount Vernon, George Washington's home.
And this one was a gift from the Bush White House.
Our family travels are represented. Both kids made trips to Canada with the marching band, and our daughter bought this for us on her second trip.
The next two came from the orchestra's 2007 New York City trip. Carnegie Hall, where the orchestra performed, and one commemorating New York City itself.

We picked this up on Kauai in 2006.
This came from this past July's Michigan trip.
In April we visited the train museum in Sacramento. This poppy pattern had been used on the china in famous Santa Fe Super Chief trains.
San Francisco - my wife loves the old Victorian homes.
And a couple from Las Vegas.

In 2003 I did an ornament for the guys in the quartet.
And there are a couple of silly memories - this ornament from Carl's Jr. that we got probably 15 years or more ago. I used to kid my daughter about "that ugly old star".
And the last one - an ornament that came with our DVD of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, my favorite holiday movie.
I can't wait to see what we add next.

Seven Stories

Politico has seven stories Obama doesn't want told, all of which are true and potentially damaging. I'll just give you the titles and you can read the article for the details:

He thinks he’s playing with Monopoly money
Too much Leonard Nimoy
That’s the Chicago Way
He’s a pushover
He sees America as another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe
President Pelosi
He’s in love with the man in the mirror

Read the whole thing.

Could This Be Mike Huckabee's Willie Horton?

You remember Willie Horton from the 1988 presidential campaign? This is from his Wikipedia entry:

...a convicted felon who was the subject of a Massachusetts weekend furlough program that released him while serving a life sentence for murder, without the possibility of parole, during which he committed assault, armed robbery and rape.

Al Gore brought Horton into the campaign during his failed run against Michael Dukakis, the governor who authorized the furlough program. During the general campaign George H.W. Bush basically beat Dukakis over the head with the guy and though it didn't help Gore, it helped Bush win.

On Sunday morning four police officers in Washington State were killed in an ambush, and one of the suspects has a connection that Mike Huckabee will find troubling should he run again in 2012:

Maurice Clemmons, the 37-year-old Tacoma man being sought for questioning in the killing of four Lakewood police officers this morning, has a long criminal record punctuated by violence, erratic behavior and concerns about his mental health.

Nine years ago, then-Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee granted clemency to Clemmons, commuting his lengthy prison sentence over the protests of prosecutors.

"This is the day I've been dreading for a long time," Larry Jegley, prosecuting attorney for Arkansas' Pulaski County said Sunday night when informed that Clemmons was being sought in connection to the killings.

Clemmons' criminal history includes at least five felony convictions in Arkansas and at least eight felony charges in Washington. The record also stands out for the number of times he has been released from custody despite questions about the danger he posed.

Clemmons had been in jail in Pierce County for the past several months on a pending charge of second-degree rape of a child.

He was released from custody just six days ago, even though he was wanted on a fugitive warrant out of Arkansas and was staring at eight felony charges in all out of Washington state.

Clemmons posted $15,000 with a Chehalis company called Jail Sucks Bail Bonds. The bondsman, in turn, put up $150,000, securing Clemmons' release on the pending child-rape charge.

Clemmons lives in Tacoma, where he has run a landscaping and power-washing business out of his house, according to a police interview with his wife earlier this year.

As mentioned previously Huckabee may not be inclined to run for other reasons, but this may make his decision a bit easier.

Memo to presidential wannabes - don't let bad guys out of prison if you find yourself with that opportunity. They'll just screw you up later on.

UPDATE: Huckabee responds to this unwanted attention (from Marc Ambinder's Twitter feed):

Huck, in statement, blames "justice systems" in both AK and WA for allowing release of suspect wanted for these "worst or all murders."

From statement: "He was arrested later for parole violation and taken back to prison to serve his full term, (cont)

Huck: "Our thoughts and prayers are and should be with the families of those honorable, brave, and heroic police officers.”

Global Warming Quote of the Day

From Jim Treacher:

OMG, can you believe Obama changed his mind about going to Copenhagen after all this stuff came out? It's like sprinting to board your ship at the last minute, and it's the Titanic.

Who's advising this guy anyway? The same guy that told him to go to Copenhagen to get the Olympics for Chicago?

How'd that work out?

And a bonus quote from Bill Clinton:

“Global warming could make some places colder.”

Yeah, like the whole world.

Tiger Needs to Get The Story Out

It may not be pretty, but it's better than letting all the speculation run wild. Sportswriter Mike Lupica add this:

By Saturday morning, nothing much had changed in the Tiger Woods story, which means that we were still supposed to believe that his wife, Elin Nordegren, somehow turned one of Tiger's Nike SQ drivers into the Jaws of Life.

Woods was driving a Cadillac Escalade out of his own driveway, which is the same as driving a tank. He wasn't going fast enough to deploy his air bags. But we're supposed to believe that in a rescue worthy of the new series, "Trauma," his wife had to bust a back window to pull her husband to safety after he ran over a fire hydrant and into a tree.

Not even the people who reported that can possibly believe a version like that. Neither can the Windermere, Fla. police. And neither can all the people Woods employs to insulate him and protect him and cover his assets, the people who made him unavailable to the police for the second straight day Saturday.

There are those who might suggest it gives Woods and the missus more time to get their stories straight. But then this is a cynical world.

Call me a cynic, but I'm not buying the story that she beat out the back window with a golf club to get him out of his car. I'm guessing she was beating out the back window as he was trying to escape the house and he crashed in the process.

We'll see.

With millions in endorsements on the line Tiger needs to get this whole thing behind him before it spins out of control. He's supposed to be in Southern California next week, but that stop is now up in the air.

UPDATE: Tiger cancels 3rd attempted meeting with cops. They're not going to want to keep that up very long.

Huckabee's 2012 Presidential Bid Depends on His Ratings

If you don't want Mike Huckabee to run for president in 2012, be sure to watch his show on Fox News. It sounds like he'd be glad to stay with that if people keep watching:

MIKE HUCKABEE, on "Fox News Sunday," told Chris Wallace that a 2012 presidential bid is "less than likely," and depends on whether Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of Fox News, keeps liking his eponymous weekend talk show. "The reason I wouldn’t is that this Fox gig I’ve got is really wonderful, " Huckabee said.

Huckabee plays a conservative on TV, but as governor of Arkansas he was one of those big spending "compassionate" conservatives. I think it's probably best if he sticks to TV.

Four Cops Killed in Ambush in Washington State

It occurred near an Air Force base:

Four police officers were shot dead in an ambush at a Washington state coffee house, a sheriff's official said Sunday.

The attack occurred east of McChord Air Force Base in Parkland, Wash.

Authorities said two suspects entered Forza Coffee Co. and opened fire on the four police officers who were sitting inside, Fox affiliate q13fox.com reported.

Police are now searching for the two suspects, one white male and one black male, q13Fox.com reported.

The officers were going over paper work before starting their day shift when they were killed, q13fox.com reported.

"It was just a flat out ambush," Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer told The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash.

Investigators believe the officers were targeted, and it was not a robbery, Troyer said.

I'll be interested to find out the motivation behind this.

The People Promoting Global Warming Threw Away Their Data

After all, if someone else looks at it they might come to a different conclusion:

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

These people can no longer call themselves scientists - they are political hacks. Science is supposed to be about a search for the truth, and that is done by not just accepting one group's conclusions, but allowing others to test the data for themselves to see if they agree and can reproduce the same results. The scientific method is designed to ensure that there is reliability in the results.

It appears that politics completely took over the global warming debate with certain "scientists" deciding that the earth must be warming and we must completely redo our economic system to stop it. Aided by liberal politicians who see global warming as a convenient way to grab more power and money, and a press interested in promoting whatever liberal politicians want, the globaloney "scientists" were allowed to run free without scrutiny.

Those days are over.

Palin Derangement Syndrome 2

C. Edmund Wright at American Thinker has some interesting thoughts on the panic Sarah Palin is causing among both the Democrats and the branch of the GOP that thinks that only moderates can win:

The Alaska Governor is far more than someone who appeals to the (conservative) base, she is someone who can make the base appeal to America.

This compact yet comprehensive diagnosis was made in the early hours of the Palin Derangement Syndrome (PDS) outbreak, when Sarah Palin was first being introduced to the nation. It still rings true as the Jurassic media continues a childish obsession with someone who does not control a single government lever.

Having said that, PDS has now matured past epidemic to full-blown pandemic status with a derangement component that is now insanely intense. Remember, Palin does not have one whit of legal authority over these people or anyone else. Yet as her elected status has ended, her effect on the elites has only increased. Perhaps it is time to update the correct initial diagnosis to contemplate the increased virulence of this mental and emotional malady.

To corroborate and condense the many valid commentaries out there on the Palin effect, allow me to submit diagnosis PDS 2:

The persistence and even growth of Palin's popularity and impact on the national discussion now makes unavoidable the reality of the elitists' worst fear: that there are more of us than there are of them. And we now realize it.

As many have correctly pointed out, the pundits' vitriol and patronizing comments smack of a hatred and anger that only thinly veils the real emotion underlying their irrational behavior: Fear. Part of it is fear that she will indeed hold public office again. But it goes even deeper than that.

It is an increasing awareness that Palin's impact is much more than a strong advocacy of conservatism as a sound political philosophy. These people are now finding it hard to escape the reality that her life is a compelling and real advocacy of conservatism as a powerful life philosophy. Life trumps politics.

And once the casual voter has related to Palin's life philosophy as something that is true, practical and worth adopting, they are dead to liberalism forever. They will never again believe in "the electability" of moderates like McCain and never again fall prey to a "clean articulate black man" with a good tele-prompter.

If your life revolves around convincing Republicans to nominate folks like McCain or around electing people like Obama, this is a scary prospect indeed.

For a good example of the hysteria of the left check out Dan Riehl's report on the latest anti-Palin cause being promoted by frightened lefties. But it's not just the left that's in a panic, members of the former McCain campaign have also been very critical of Palin, trying to paint her as the reason McCain lost and insisting that a conservative like her could never win. In fact, the only reason McCain came as close as he did was because Palin motivated conservatives to vote for McCain even though they had to hold their nose to do it. Without a conservative on that ticket McCain would have lost by 15 or 20 points as conservatives would have just stayed home.

I don't know what Palin's plans are for a political future. She doesn't need to run for office to be a force in the party. Her presence will be widely sought during the 2010 congressional campaigns to promote conservative candidates, and in 2012...who knows? If she runs I don't know if she could win, but if she doesn't run, anyone she endorses will have a big leg up with the conservative base. She could end up in the role of king maker for the 2012 nomination.

By the way, just in case the left needs another reason to hate Palin, here's a video of her discussing her faith with the Billy Graham organization.

For All Your Online Shopping Needs

As mentioned in a previous post online sales this Thanksgiving weekend soared as many decided to skip the malls and order their gifts from home. There are many advantages to this, besides the convenience and hassle-free nature of online buying, you can quite often skip the local sales tax in the process (depending on the vendor).

You can find an amazing amount of things through Amazon.com, and if you start your Amazon purchases by clicking on the link in this post or on the sidebar to the right or the banner above, your purchases don't cost one dime more but help support HolyCoast.com through the referral fees Amazon pays for those links.

Check it out - you'll be surprised what you can find.

Swiss Decide Not to be Neutral on Radical Islam

This is kind of an unusual place to draw a line in the sand. They didn't ban Islam but banned one of its prominent symbols, the minaret:

Supporters of a ban argued minarets are a symbol of an Islamic claim to power.

"The Islamic religion is intolerant, but we do not want to limit freedom of religion, we want to outlaw the political symbol," says Ulrich Schlüer, a member of the rightwing Swiss People's party and one of the leading promoters of the anti-minaret initiative.

The group says it is time to act now before Christian values are undermined and violence flares in Muslim ghettoes as in neighbouring European states.

Supporters claim there is public concern about the growing Muslim community in Switzerland, radical imams, the role of women, as well as head scarves and other dress codes.

Immigrants
The number of Muslim immigrants has increased to about 350,000 (up to 4.5 per cent of the Swiss population) since the 1990s. Most of them came from the former Yugoslavia and Turkey and are considered moderates.

There are an estimated 160 mosques and prayer rooms in Switzerland, mainly in disused factories and warehouses. Only four of them have a minaret, including the mosques in Geneva and Zurich.

In the wake of heated debates at a local level about requests to build more minarets, members of the People's Party and the Federal Democratic Union collected enough signatures to force a nationwide vote.

Europe is being taken over by radical Islamists seeking to turn those nations into Sharia-following Muslim countries. The Danes have had all kinds of problems over the "cartoons of blasphemy", and there was murderous violence in The Netherlands against critics of Islam. In France the Muslim "youth" burn cars for sport, and in Britain the nation is only a few small steps away from accepting Sharia law alongside their own. Criticism of Islam in England can get you charged with a crime.

What's going on in Europe should be a warning to us all.

The Governator Must Want a Job in the Obama Administration

He's already taken care of the requirement that he fail to pay taxes:

The Internal Revenue Service has filed a federal tax lien against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for nearly $80,000, public records show.

The lien was filed May 11 at the Los Angeles County recorder's office for $79,064, according to a record in an electronic database that includes lien filings. The record does not indicate what property the lien was placed on, but it lists the debtor as Arnold Schwarzenegger with the governor's home address in Brentwood.

Give him a cabinet position - he'll fit right in.

The Consumers Respond to the Big Deals

From Breaking News:

Black Friday 2009 online retail sales grow 41% over 2008 reports Mercent ECommerce.

Thanksgiving Day 2009 online retail sales grow 33% over 2008 reports Mercent ECommerce.

You make stuff cheap enough and people will buy lots of it.

Blue States Turning Purple

Don Surber has information on Obama's falling poll numbers in key blue states that went heavily for him in 2008. The changes shows occurred in just two months:

Survey USA has some state by state job approval ratings for President Obama from November 20-22 surveys. Survey USA polls adults and it released results from only a few states.

The job approval/disapproval numbers in 5 states he took (with Sept. 27-29 numbers in parenthesis):

California 53/38 (62/33)
New York 53/39 (63/33)
Oregon 47/47 (59/37)
Virginia 37/60 (49/48)
Washington state 48/48 (53/42)

That is quite a drop in two months.

Hope. Change. Rinse. Repeat.

You can blame a lot of that movement on Obamacare. The American people don't want it.

Chili's Ruins the Taco

I don't normally do food reviews, but when a restaurant takes a favorite item of mine and wrecks it I just have to chime in. I eat at Chili's periodically and usually get their soft tacos. They had three different versions, each of which came with three large tacos loaded with good stuff plus sides of rice and beans. A very good meal and plenty of food.

Tonight we went to Chili's and my favorite tacos were gone, replaced by "mini-tacos" in several different versions. Now you get four mini-tacos, can mix and match flavors if you like, but the end result is small tacos with less food overall for the same price. They were largely tasteless and very much unsatisfying compared to the old version. I guess it's their response to the "slider" phenomenon.

Here's what's going to happen. People like me who used to order the soft tacos will order the new variety...once...and never again. The only question is how long until the chain starts to realize that nobody is buying their mini-tacos and they reverse this marketing disaster?

Chili's - call me. I can help.

UPDATE: On my next visit to Chili's I talked to the management and wait staff there and they all agreed that the new tacos are a giant disappointment. They did, however, tell me that they could still make a couple of the old recipes - the Baja Club Tacos or Chicken Crisper Tacos. They apparently have an "old favorites" list on their computer system that allows them to make and bill for items that aren't currently on the menu. They made me the Chicken Crisper Tacos which were delicious and certainly a lot more and tastier food than what you get with the mini-tacos.

Gate Crashers Now Trying to Sell Their Story

Imagine that:

A television executive says the couple that crashed President Barack Obama's first state dinner is offering to talk to broadcast networks about it for a payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the network does not publicly discuss bookings, told The Associated Press that representatives for Michaele and Tareq Salahi contacted networks to urge them to "get their bids in" for an interview. The executive says the Virginia couple was looking for a payment in the mid-six figures range.

The couple's success in getting into the state dinner Tuesday without an invitation embarrassed the White House and Secret Service.

The woman, who was pictured at the dinner greeting both the president and Vice President Joe Biden, is a reality TV hopeful trying to get on Bravo's "The Real Housewives of D.C."

These people are perfect for "The Real Housewives" series. Shallow, obsessed with themselves and money, and not enough brain cells between them to make a normal person. They'll fit right in.

Where Did Obama Get His Ideas About Socialized Medicine?

From a socialist doctor friend, of course. Gateway Pundit has the details:

New Zeal reported this week on Barack Obama’s Marxist neighbor and doctor friend who taught him about the single-payer health care system.

The push to socialize US Heathcare came, not from from the “people”, but from small clique of Marxists, led by a man with close persional ties to president Barack Obama.

This group’s goal is fully socialized, government run “single payer” healthcare-as long promoted through Congressman John Conyers’ National Health Insurance Act, or HR 676.

The leader of this Marxist clique is Quentin Young-a retired Chicago physician, a life long Marxist activist and long time friend and political ally of Barack Obama.

According to radical journalist John Nichols writing in The Progressive;

Obama…learned about single-payer health care from his old friend and neighbor Dr. Quentin Young, the longtime coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Quentin Young told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, that while an Illinois State senator, Obama was a strong supporter of “single payer.”

Barack Obama, in those early days—influenced, I hope, by me and others—categorically said single payer was the best way, and he would inaugurate it if he could get the support, meaning majorities in both houses, which he’s got, and the presidency, which he’s got. And he said that on more than one occasion…. ”

So who exactly is Dr. Quentin Young?
According to New Zeal:

Quentin Young is one of America’s most committed socialists, beginning with his time in the Young Communist League in late 1930s Chicago.

After WW2, into the mid 1970s, Young was closely associated with the Communist Party and was accused of belonging to the Bethune Club (a communist doctor’s club) by a US Congressional Committee investigating the riots at the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago.

There’s much more.
Of course, this surprises no one.

Obama's past is a rogue's gallery of socialists, communists and anarchists. No wonder his ideas are so screwed up.

Sports Headline of the Day

And now, it's not about Tiger Woods:

Transsexual Sportswriter Dead

Transsexual sportswriter Mike Penner has died, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The journalist made international news in 2007 when he announced he was transsexual and then began penning his articles for the Los Angeles Times under the name Christine Daniels.

Colleagues at the Times say the suspected cause of death was suicide.

Confusion will do that to you.

And how would this guy feel knowing the last headline of his left made it apparent his sexuality was his only claim to fame? Wouldn't he have rather had "Great Sportswriter Dead" or "Fine Sportswriter Dead".

Have you ever seen the headline "Heterosexual Sportswriter Dead"?

It's a shame it ended this way for him, on many levels.

The Love is Gone

Peggy Noonan, who fell for the whole rainbows and unicorns thing and supported Obama (after her previous life as a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan), is starting to realize that the Obama of campaign mythology is not the Obama of the current White House. She's not alone:

As I read Ms. Drew's piece, I was reminded of something I began noticing a few months ago in bipartisan crowds. I would ask Democrats how they thought the president was doing. In the past they would extol, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, his virtues. Increasingly, they would preface their answer with, "Well, I was for Hillary." This in turn reminded me of a surprising thing I observe among loyal Democrats in informal settings and conversations: No one loves Barack Obama. Half the American people say they support him, and Democrats are still with him. But there were Bill Clinton supporters who really loved him. George W. Bush had people who loved him. A lot of people loved Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. But no one seems to love Mr. Obama now; they're not dazzled and head over heels. That's gone away. He himself seems a fairly chilly customer; perhaps in turn he inspires chilly support. But presidents need that rock—bottom 20% who, no matter what's happening—war, unemployment—adore their guy, have complete faith in him, and insist that you love him, too.

They're the hard 20 a president always keeps. Nixon kept them! Obama probably has a hard 20 too, but whatever is keeping them close, it doesn't seem to be love.

My guess is that 12% out of that hard 20% is the African-American community who are going to stick with Obama no matter what he does just based on race. The other 8% still believe in rainbows and unicorns.

Noonan also worries that Obama has typecast himself with all the bowing and scraping to foreign leaders:

Which gets us back to the bow.

In a presidency, a picture or photograph becomes iconic only when it seems to express something people already think. When Gerald Ford was spoofed for being physically clumsy, it took off. The picture of Ford losing his footing and tumbling as he came down the steps of Air Force One became a symbol. There was a reason, and it wasn't that he was physically clumsy. He was not only coordinated but graceful. He'd been a football star at the University of Michigan and was offered contracts by the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers.

But the picture took off because it expressed the growing public view that Ford's policies were bumbling and stumbling. The picture was iconic of a growing political perception.

The Obama bowing pictures are becoming iconic, and they would not be if they weren't playing off a growing perception. If the pictures had been accompanied by headlines from Asia saying "Tough Talks Yield Big Progress" or "Obama Shows Muscle in China," the bowing pictures might be understood this way: "He Stoops to Conquer: Canny Obama shows elaborate deference while he subtly, toughly, quietly advances his nation's interests."

But that's not how the pictures were received or will be remembered.

It is true that Mr. Obama often seems not to have a firm grasp of—or respect for—protocol, of what has been done before and why, and of what divergence from the traditional might imply. And it is true that his political timing was unfortunate. When a great nation is feeling confident and strong, a surprising presidential bow might seem gracious. When it is feeling anxious, a bow will seem obsequious.

The Obama bowing pictures are becoming iconic not for those reasons, however, but because they express a growing political perception, and that is that there is something amateurish about this presidency, something too ad hoc and highly personalized about it, something . . . incompetent, at least in its first year.

Just the fact that Obama doesn't understand that American presidents don't bow to foreign leaders is enough to confirm his amateur status. He's a beta male in a world dominated by alpha males and that weakness will not serve the country well.

Democrats Moving Public Opinion on Health Care

But not in the direction they had planned (from The Corner):

Who says the Democrats haven’t moved public opinion in the health care debate? According to a new Rasmussen poll out today, they have steadily persuaded more and more Americans that the health care system we have is a good one.

Forty-nine percent (49%) of voters nationwide now rate the U.S. health care system as good or excellent. That marks a steady increase from 44% at the beginning of October, 35% in May and 29% a year-and-a-half ago.

This surely isn’t how the Democrats want to see public opinion moving, but it’s how they have been moving it. By comparison with the system envisioned in the House and Senate health care bills, our current system certainly does look excellent.

We have the best health care system in the world and everyone has access to it. Some people don't have insurance to cover it and they are often referred to as "not having health care", but that's a myth.

If the lack of insurance by a relatively small part of the population is the problem, that can be fixed fairly easily and for much less money than what the Democrats are proposing. From Charles Krauthammer:

Insuring the uninsured is a moral imperative. The problem is that the Democrats have chosen the worst possible method — a $1 trillion new entitlement of stupefying arbitrariness and inefficiency.

The better choice is targeted measures that attack the inefficiencies of the current system one by one — tort reform, interstate purchasing. and taxing employee benefits. It would take 20 pages to write such a bill, not 2,000 — and provide the funds to cover the uninsured without wrecking both U.S. health care and the U.S. Treasury.

It's time to start over. The bills in the House and Senate need to die a painful death so Democrats will learn not to try that again. You'd have thought they'd have learned after HillaryCare and the '94 electoral beat down, but apparently they have short attention spans.

Trying to Stop the Fox News Juggernaut One TV at a Time

I found this story rather funny:

The Left Wing has sunk to an all new low: they have created the website www.turnofffox.com which encourages people to ‘turn off fox’ but not just for themselves, they encourage people to buy a remote that will turn off any television anywhere (supposedly) so that if Fox News is on in the Doctor’s office or anywhere outside of your own home, they want you to turn it off. It’s not enough for them to just simply not watch it themselves, they wish to dictate what others are watching as well which is complete lunacy and against Americans’ freedoms. Have they no shame? Are they that immature that they need to encourage people to purchase a product to turn off what other people enjoy watching?

Of course they have no shame. Obama tried to demonize Fox and all his efforts did was drive the network to its highest ever ratings. Having a few soft-headed liberals running around with universal TV remotes isn't going to affect Fox News' ratings one bit, nor will it prevent people from hearing the news liberals don't want you to hear, like ClimateGate, the disaster Obamacare will be, the disaster the Stimulus bill already is, the disasater cap-and-tax will be...etc.

The website encourages readers to send in comments and strategy suggestions via their email address. Here's what I sent them:

From: Rick Moore
To:turnofffox@gmail.com
Subject: Strategy Idea

I have a strategy idea for you: Get a life.

Perhaps you have some strategy ideas of your own you'd like to send them.

The Ice is Melting! The Ice is Melting!

Tim Blair provides us with 128 years of New York Times' stories that all have a common theme:

From the New York Times, 128 years of looming polar doom:

• 1881: “This past Winter, both inside and outside the Arctic circle, appears to have been unusually mild. The ice is very light and rapidly melting …”

• 1932: “NEXT GREAT DELUGE FORECAST BY SCIENCE; Melting Polar Ice Caps to Raise the Level of Seas and Flood the Continents”

• 1934: “New Evidence Supports Geology’s View That the Arctic Is Growing Warmer”

• 1937: “Continued warm weather at the Pole, melting snow and ice.”

• 1954: “The particular point of inquiry concerns whether the ice is melting at such a rate as to imperil low-lying coastal areas through raising the level of the sea in the near future.”

• 1957: “U.S. Arctic Station Melting”

• 1958: “At present, the Arctic ice pack is melting away fast. Some estimates say that it is 40 per cent thinner and 12 per cent smaller than it was fifteen years [ago].”

• 1959: “Will the Arctic Ocean soon be free of ice?”

• 1971: “STUDY SAYS MAN ALTERS CLIMATE; U.N. Report Links Melting of Polar Ice to His Activities”

• 1979: “A puzzling haze over the Arctic ice packs has been identified as a byproduct of air pollution, a finding that may support predictions of a disastrous melting of the earth’s ice caps.”

• 1982: “Because of global heating attributed to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from fuel burning, about 20,000 cubic miles of polar ice has melted in the past 40 years, apparently contributing to a rise in sea levels …”

• 1999: “Evidence continues to accumulate that the frozen world of the Arctic and sub-Arctic is thawing.”

• 2000: “The North Pole is melting. The thick ice that has for ages covered the Arctic Ocean at the pole has turned to water, recent visitors there reported yesterday.”

• 2002: “The melting of Greenland glaciers and Arctic Ocean sea ice this past summer reached levels not seen in decades, scientists reported today.”

• 2004: “There is an awful lot of Arctic and glacial ice melting.”

• 2005: “Another melancholy gathering of climate scientists presented evidence this month that the Antarctic ice shelf is melting - a prospect difficult to imagine a decade ago.”

Now we have an honest-to-goodness climate disaster - at least a disaster for those pushing global warming - in the form of ClimateGate and the Times is nowhere to be found.

And just for fun there's this column today from a liberal columnist (not in the Times) who assures us that ClimateGate can't show that global warming is a fraud because the ice caps are still melting (which they aren't). It never ends.

Methodists Surrender to Radical Islam

Another mainstream denomination that's failing, and rightfully so:

Nearly half of the bishops of the United Methodist Church, America’s third largest (though declining) denomination, are demanding that the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan by next year.

“We believe there is no path to military victory in Afghanistan,” harrumphed the bishops in their November letter to President Obama. But it’s not clear that these bishops ever wanted a “victory” in Afghanistan. After 9-11, the Council of Bishops declined to condemn al Qaeda or the Taliban, preferring only to seek “solidarity with victimized peoples throughout the world” and to intone that that “violence in all of its forms and expressions is contrary to God’s purpose for the world.” In other words, there were no necessarily great moral distinction between Osama bin Laden and those U.S. led military forces that sought his capture.

The bishops also have 4 times denounced U.S. military actions in Iraq while never expressing any special concern about Saddam Hussein’s mass murders or epic torture prisons, much less what even greater horrors might have prevailed to Iraqis had the U.S. withdrawn precipitously. With Iraq now relatively subdued, the bishops are now aiming their outrage at any U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.

Maybe next year the bishops can attend the Hajj and march around stoning the devil. The devil would get a kick out of that.

Al Gore Greeting By Less Than Adoring Fans in Chicago

ClimateGate is starting to effect the global warming movement's biggest star:

Justin Mangano, from Australia, was beaming after Al Gore signed his book Tuesday when his star-struck moment was interrupted by a protester being hauled out of the Borders bookstore in the Chicago Loop.

Gore was at the book store promoting the just released “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.” Fans were there to get his autograph and opponents came to challenge his message. Members of the group, We Are Change, were the most outspoken of Gore’s naysayers at the former vice president’s appearance at 150 N. State St. Gore’s security guards escorted the protesters from the store.

The We Are Change group contends that Gore’s message of global warming is a hoax, that he is a puppet of a new world order and that he is propagating a eugenics program.

The group claims it is “a citizens based grassroots peace and social justice movement working to reveal the truth behind the events of September 11th, as well as the lies of the government and corporate elite who remain suspect in this crime.”

“We need to wake up to this now, or it’s going to be too late. They want to tax the air we breathe and the meat we eat,” said activist Saad Ali, one of about 30 protesters at the event. ‘There are 30,000 scientists trying to sue this bum,” he screamed as he was escorted from the building.

I'm glad to see Gore getting challenged, but it's too bad it's coming from a 9/11 Troofer organization. That will make it easy for the press to ignore the protests.

Another Meaningless Apology

Once again people who didn't commit the offense apologize to people who weren't harmed:

Members of one of America's oldest Protestant churches officially apologized Friday — for the first time — for massacring and displacing Native Americans 400 years ago.

"We consumed your resources, dehumanized your people and disregarded your culture, along with your dreams, hopes and great love for this land," the Rev. Robert Chase told descendants from both sides. "With pain, we the Collegiate Church, remember our part in these events."

I'm sorry, but I find these kinds of things really stupid. For an apology to have any meaning it must come from the offender to the offended. It's like apologizing for slavery - none of the actual participants can be involved and therefore it's meaningless. It's a band-aid for liberal guilt and nothing more.

The Tiger Woods' Plot Thickens

TMZ.com has a story that's a little different from the media has been reporting about Tiger Woods' Saturday morning car crash:

Tiger Woods did not suffer facial lacerations from a car accident. They were inflicted by his wife, Elin Nordegren -- according to a conversation Woods had Friday after the accident.

Tiger has yet to be formally interviewed by the Florida Highway Patrol -- that should happen this afternoon. But we're told Tiger had a conversation Friday -- with a non-law enforcement type -- detailing what went down before his Escalade hit a fire hydrant.

We're told he said his wife had confronted him about reports that he was seeing another woman. The argument got heated and, according to our source, she scratched his face up. We're told it was then Woods beat a hasty retreat for his SUV -- but according to our source, Woods says his wife followed behind with a golf club. As Tiger drove away, she struck the vehicle several times with the club.

We're told Woods became "distracted," thought the vehicle was stopped, and looked to see what had happened. At that point the SUV hit the fire hydrant and then hit a tree.

We're also told Woods had said during the conversation Friday he had been taking prescription pain medication for an injury, which could explain why he seemed somewhat out of it at the scene.

I hate to say it, but the TMZ report actually makes more sense than what's been previously reported.

Pelosi: America Wants Us to Screw Up Again

That's pretty much my read on this story:

Building the case for a brand new jobs-creation bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says most Americans would not mind inflating the already-gaping deficit in exchange for more jobs.

The California Democrat said on a conference call Tuesday that Americans could "absorb" the hit to the federal budget, and she argued that their biggest complaint is not that the deficit is big -- it's that they're not seeing any benefit in return for increasing the U.S. debt load.

Despite the $787 billion stimulus package passed in February, unemployment climbed to 10.2 percent in October. While critics cite the jobless rate as a sign that the stimulus has failed, Pelosi argues that the federal government is just not trying hard enough.

"We have to shed any weakness that anybody may have about not wanting to be confrontational on this subject for fear that we'd be labeled not sensitive to the deficit," Pelosi said, in a recording posted by Think Progress.

"The American people have an anger about the growth of the deficit because they're not getting anything for it. ... If somebody has the idea that the percentage of GDP of what our national debt is will go up a bit, but they will now -- and their neighbors and their children -- will have jobs, I think they could absorb that, and then we ride it out and bring money in," she said.

"But I think if anybody is asking the public, 'Would you rather have a job or the percentage of GDP of our national debt would go up a little bit?' I think that everybody wants a job."

House Democrats are not calling the expected jobs proposal a "stimulus," though it would probably include similar measures like infrastructure spending.

Of the $787 billion in "stimulus" funds, something like a measly 15% has actually been spent, with the bulk of the spending coming in 2010 in the form of slush funds for Democrat special interest groups. How about just canceling all of that stuff and if you must spend the money, put it into something that will generate real economic growth, like tax cuts for small businesses.

Black Friday Fights

Wal-Mart was a popular spot this Black Friday and some people in Southern California took it especially seriously:

Police were called to two Southern California Wal-Mart stores Friday morning, including one that shut down for more than two hours, after shoppers became too rowdy.

Store management at a Wal-Mart in Upland called police around 2:44 a.m. Friday and reported that customers were fighting inside, according to Upland Police Lt. Jim Etchason.

Employees say about 300 people were inside the store, which remained open all night, when customers began pushing and shoving each other.

The shoppers apparently began tearing into merchandise that had been shrink-wrapped and was supposed to be opened later in the day.

One employee said the customers "just bombarded the store."

The unruly shoppers were kicked out of the store and told to line up in the parking lot.

The store was shut down while employees emptied shopping carts and returned the merchandise to shelves.

While outside, employees say some customers began yelling, pounding on the doors and trying to sneak in through the lawn and garden section.

The crowd eventually calmed down and police officers stood guard as a precaution.

Police left around 6:15 a.m., shortly after the store reopened, allowing customers back inside in groups of 20-to-30.

No arrests were made and no injuries were reported.

About two hours after the Upland incident began, San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies were called to a Wal-Mart in Rancho Cucamonga.

Deputies were summoned around 4:03 a.m. after a fight broke out near the electronics section, said Jodi Miller, public information officer with the San Bernardino County sheriff's department.

The store didn't actually close, according to a manager. When deputies arrived, none of the people involved in the reported scuffle were there.

My son works for Toys-R-Us and spent six hours running around the store today helping lots of customers. The store opened at midnight and according to his co-workers who where there they had 700 people in line. It was two hours before everybody could actually get in the store.

That's just crazy.