Guaranteed to make you think, make you laugh, or make you mad. I'm happy with any of the three.
What Taxes Will States Turn to Next?Glenn Reynolds has the appropriate response:
The notion of just spending less doesn’t even occur to them. . . .It sure doesn't. Here in California we have a line item veto. Unfortunately, we don't have a governor willing to use it.
A bill can be bipartisan without bipartisan votes.
Doctors found Obama has a bit of weakness in his left hip and suffers from mild patella crepitus (noise or vibration) in his left knee.When I first read that I thought it said "crapitus", which I assumed meant he was full of crap. That would have been an accurate diagnosis.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged her colleagues to back a major overhaul of U.S. health care even if it threatens their political careers, a call to arms that underscores the issue's massive role in this election year.Of course, Pelosi is from an extremely liberal district in San Francisco and could probably vote to make communism the official state religion and still not get tossed out. Her challenge to support the wildly unpopular Obamacare bill carries no personal threat to herself, other than finding herself out of the Speaker's chair in January. At this point I think she's resigned to that fact and figures she might as well go down taking as many of her fellow Dems as she can with her.
Lawmakers sometimes must enact policies that, even if unpopular at the moment, will help the public, Pelosi said in an interview being broadcast Sunday the ABC News program "This Week."
"We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress," she said. "We're here to do the job for the American people."
It took courage for Congress to pass Social Security and Medicare, which eventually became highly popular, she said, "and many of the same forces that were at work decades ago are at work again against this bill."
It's unclear whether Pelosi's remarks will embolden or chill dozens of moderate House Democrats who face withering criticisms of the health care proposal in visits with constituents and in national polls. Republican lawmaker unanimously oppose the health care proposals, and many GOP strategists believe voters will turn against Democrats in the November elections.
Pelosi, from San Francisco, is more liberal than scores of her Democratic colleagues. But she generally walks a careful line between urging them to back left-of-center policies and giving them a green light to buck party leaders to improve their re-election hopes.
The news from sunny Bali that there is to be an international investigation into the conduct of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its chairman Dr Rajendra Pachauri would have made front-page headlines a few weeks back. But while Scotland and North America are still swept by blizzards, in their worst winter for decades, there has been something of a lull in the global warming storm – after three months when the IPCC and Dr Pachauri were themselves battered by almost daily blizzards of new scandals and revelations. And one reason for this lull is that the real message of all the scandals has been lost.Al Gore came out just today in a NY Times op-ed and tried to pooh-pooh the mistakes in the IPCC report as trivial in an effort to save his own reputation. Sorry, not buying anything from The Goreacle anymore.
The chief defence offered by the warmists to all those revelations centred on the IPCC's last 2007 report is that they were only a few marginal mistakes scattered through a vast, 3,000-page document. OK, they say, it might have been wrong to predict that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035; that global warming was about to destroy 40 per cent of the Amazon rainforest and cut African crop yields by 50 per cent; that sea levels were rising dangerously; that hurricanes, droughts and other "extreme weather events" were getting worse. These were a handful of isolated errors in a massive report; behind them the mighty edifice of global warming orthodoxy remains unscathed. The "science is settled", the "consensus" is intact.
But this completely misses the point. Put the errors together and it can be seen that one after another they tick off all the central, iconic issues of the entire global warming saga. Apart from those non-vanishing polar bears, no fears of climate change have been played on more insistently than these: the destruction of Himalayan glaciers and Amazonian rainforest; famine in Africa; fast-rising sea levels; the threat of hurricanes, droughts, floods and heatwaves all becoming more frequent.
All these alarms were given special prominence in the IPCC's 2007 report and each of them has now been shown to be based, not on hard evidence, but on scare stories, derived not from proper scientists but from environmental activists. Those glaciers are not vanishing; the damage to the rainforest is not from climate change but logging and agriculture; African crop yields are more likely to increase than diminish; the modest rise in sea levels is slowing not accelerating; hurricane activity is lower than it was 60 years ago; droughts were more frequent in the past; there has been no increase in floods or heatwaves.
Furthermore, it has also emerged in almost every case that the decision to include these scare stories rather than hard scientific evidence was deliberate. As several IPCC scientists have pointed out about the scare over Himalayan glaciers, for instance, those responsible for including it were well aware that proper science said something quite different. But it was inserted nevertheless – because that was the story wanted by those in charge.
After months of struggling to harness the energy of newly engaged tea party activists, the conservative establishment — with critical midterm congressional elections on the horizon — is taking aim for the first time at the movement’s extremist elements.I can't agree with Erickson more. I've been weeding the "birthers", "truthers" and Ron Paul nuts out of my Facebook friends list. I just don't have the time or desire to read their wacky rantings.
The move has been cast by some conservatives as a modern version of the marginalization of the far-right, anti-communist John Birch Society during the reorganization of the conservative movement spearheaded by William F. Buckley Jr. in the 1960s and 1970s.
“A similar effort will be required today of conservative political and intellectual leaders,” former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson wrote in his column in The Washington Post. “It will not be easy. Sometimes it takes courage to stand before a large crowd and proclaim that two plus two equals four.”
But for Gerson and other conservatives, this is not just an intellectual exercise. They have a very specific political goal: to deprive Democrats and their allies of a potentially potent weapon to use against the GOP in November.
“I don’t believe we should be giving [extremists] a platform or empowering them to do anything based off their conspiracy theories,” said Ned Ryun, president of American Majority, “because they give the left ammunition to try to define the tea party movement as crazy and fringy.”
The attempt “to clean up our own house,” as Erick Erickson, founder of the influential conservative blog RedState, puts it, is necessary “because traditional press outlets have decided to spotlight these fringe elements that get attracted to the movement, and focus on them as if they’re a large part of this tea party movement. And I don’t think they are.”
Until recently, organizers and activists mostly seemed content to ignore, or in some cases tolerate, extremists in their ranks, confident they’d be drowned out by the hundreds of thousands of activists who took to congressional town halls and marches around the country to protest big-spending initiatives pushed by President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress.
But inflammatory rhetoric such as former congressman Tom Tancredo’s racially tinged speech at this month’s tea party convention, reports of the involvement of right-wing militia groups and the continued propagation of conspiracy theories about Obama have sometimes cast the movement in an unfavorable light.
Erickson has advised new tea party organizers on how to avoid affiliations with extremists and this month banned birthers — conservatives who believe that Obama was not born in the United States and is, therefore, ineligible to be president — from his blog. (He has long blacklisted truthers, those who believe that the U.S. government was complicit in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — a conspiracy theory with devotees across the political spectrum.)
“At some point, you have to use the word ‘crazy,’” said Erickson.
In the lobby of the University of Texas at San Antonio's humanities building, a hand-drawn poster announces, "Free porn: Just trade in your holy books (Bible, Koran, Vedas) for porn."Here's what should happen - somebody should take them a Koran and dare them to show their courage in their non-belief and publicly destroy it. They won't dare because they know if they burn or otherwise defile a Koran and they'll find out sooner than they had planned whether there's a God or not. Let's see if they have the courage of their non-convictions.
A student group at the university called The Atheist Agenda is reviving its Bibles-for-porn program, called "Smut for Smut," for three days beginning March 1, according to a report from San Antonio's KENS-TV.
"The idea is that religious texts are so appalling," said Atheist Agenda group member Brian Talker in a 2006 interview with UTSA student publication The Independent. "They are so full of genocide, misogyny and ludicrous ideas that far overshadow any banal common-sense platitudes like loving thy neighbor, that you are better off having porn, which isn't nearly as smutty."
A current member of the group told KENS the program is also meant as a slap against religious leaders and the "hypocrisy" of their condemnations of pornography.
"They've been going and rallying against pornography for the longest time," the unidentified student said, "and the disgusting, depraved acts that are within the Bible, Koran and Vedas completely outnumber any [faults] of any pornographic image."
W.H. Auden wrote a poem called Night Train about a train crossing the border and delivering mail. Driving the bobsled nicknamed Night Train, USA-1 pilot Steven Holcomb crossed the border and delivered a long-awaited gift: a U.S. Olympic gold in four-man bobsled Saturday for the first time since 1948.I had a piece the other day about the involvement of former NASCAR driver Geoff Bodine in the design of the US sleds. You can read that here, and the article about the win has this:
USA-1's performance — with Holcomb driving near perfect and Justin Olsen, Steve Mesler and Curt Tomasevicz pushing the sled at the start — was poetry in high-speed motion.
Starting at 3,044 feet above sea level and dropping 472 vertical feet with speeds reaching 95 mph in less than minute on one of the fastest, most demanding and treacherous tracks in the world, USA-1 was the best sled over the course of four heats in two days at the Whistler Sliding Centre.
It hasn't exactly been bobsled futility since the 1948 Olympics when Francis Tyler won gold in St. Moritz, Switzerland. But close. The USA won silver in 1952 and bronze in 1956 and didn't win another four-man medal until 2002 in Salt Lake City.Congrats to the team and the designers!
"We were the dominant power in the sport, then nothing in the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s," NBC analyst and former U.S. bobsledder John Morgan said.
That resurgence in 2002 coincides with former NASCAR driver and Daytona 500 winner Geoff Bodine's involvement starting before the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. At first, Bodine wanted to build sleds that were made in America instead of buying them from European builders. He enlisted the help auto racing chassis designer Bob Cuneo and started the Bo-Dyn Project.
But after Lillehammer, Bodine conceded what he knew from his NASCAR days: "Once we built the sleds and put them in competition, then we figured, 'Hey, this is no fun unless you win,' " Bodine said.
When Night Train hit the track for the 2008-09 season, Holcomb and his team had a sled that could compete with other top bobsledding nations, namely Germany and Switzerland.
The USA also had a driver who could compete with Lange and push athletes who could compete with Germany's linebacker-sized pushers.
"When you've got great talent and great support like the Bo-Dyn Project and the coaching staff that's been there the last four years, that's where it starts," U.S. bobsled coach Brian Shimer said. "The U.S. bobsled federation has done it right. It's made our job pretty easy and made us look good. Steve is just a phenomenal talent on the hill."
Today's Democrats are controlled by the radical Left, and it is more important to them to execute the permanent transformation of American society than it is to win the upcoming election cycles. They have already factored in losing in November — even losing big. For them, winning big now outweighs that. I think they're right.This is why the president will announce on Wednesday that they will go ahead with reconciliation in an attempt to pass some form of Obamacare before they lose their electoral majorities. They look at socialize medicine as their legacy to America, even if it means they don't have power again for a decade.
I hear Republicans getting giddy over the fact that "reconciliation," if it comes to that, is a huge political loser. That's the wrong way to look at it. The Democratic leadership has already internalized the inevitablility of taking its political lumps. That makes reconciliation truly scary. Since the Dems know they will have to ram this monstrosity through, they figure it might as well be as monstrous as they can get wavering Democrats to go along with. Clipping the leadership's statist ambitions in order to peel off a few Republicans is not going to work. I'm glad Republicans have held firm, but let's not be under any illusions about what that means. In the Democrat leadership, we are not dealing with conventional politicians for whom the goal of being reelected is paramount and will rein in their radicalism. They want socialized medicine and all it entails about government control even more than they want to win elections. After all, if the party of government transforms the relationship between the citizen and the state, its power over our lives will be vast even in those cycles when it is not in the majority. This is about power, and there is more to power than winning elections, especially if you've calculated that your opposition does not have the gumption to dismantle your ballooning welfare state.
Consequently, the next six weeks, like the next ten months, are going to be worse than we think. We're wired to think that everyone plays by the ususal rules of politics — i.e., if the tide starts to change, the side against whom it has turned modifies its positions in order to stay viable in the next election. But what will happen here will be the opposite. You have a party with the numbers to do anything it puts its mind to, led by movement Leftitsts who see their window of opportunity is closing. We seem to expect them to moderate because that's what everybody in their position does. But they won't. They will put their heads down and go for as much transformation as they can get, figuring that once they get it, it will never be rolled back. The only question is whether there are enough Democrats who are conventional politicians and who care about being reelected, such that they will deny the leadership the numbers it needs. But I don't think we should take much heart in this possibility. Those Democrats may well come to think they are going to lose anyway — that's why so many of them are abandoning ship now. If that's the case, their incentive will be to vote with the leadership.
The 18-year-old son of celebrity Marie Osmond jumped from his downtown Los Angeles apartment to his death Friday night,This comes just a couple of days after Andrew Koenig, son of actor Walter Koenig, killed himself in Vancouver.ETonline reported.
The suicide happened about 9 p.m., according to the site. Michael Blosil, one of Osmond's eight children, reportedly left a note that explained he had experienced deep depression.
"My family and I are devastated and in deep shock by the tragic loss of our dear Michael and ask that everyone respect our privacy during this difficult time," Osmond told ET.
Her Las Vegas show with brother Donnie was canceled for Saturday.
"Honest adults with licensed guns, go away. Lawbreakers looking for sitting ducks, step right in." Actually, the sign at the entrance to the Phoenix, Arizona restaurant simply read, "No Firearms." I returned to my car and left.It's especially surprising that restaurants would be so resistant to having armed good citizens in their establishments. Two of the most devastating mass shootings in history occurred in restaurants full of unarmed innocent people - the McDonald's shooting in San Ysidro, CA in 1984 (22 dead, 19 wounded) and the Luby's shooting in Killeen, TX in 1991 (23 dead, 20 wounded). The San Ysidro shooting resulted in stricter California gun laws and an increase in violence. The Luby's shooting resulted in a "right to carry" law in Texas and a reduction in violence.
A wave of constipated thinking has afflicted some Arizonans after legislators passed a law allowing licensed concealed handguns to be carried into businesses that serve alcohol as long as the licensees consume none. Proprietors have the option to post the "No Firearms" sign, and many have done so....
The benefits of having decent citizens carry concealed guns outweigh the one-in-ten-million chance that one of those citizens will turn not-so-decent and shoot you. Law-abiding Americans brandish handguns in 2.5 million defensive incidents a year -- once every 12½ seconds. In most cases, a gun's mere appearance settles a brewing conflict. The National Center for Policy Analysis found that major crime plunges when law-abiding citizens carry concealed handguns [ii]. The same NCPA study, covering every American county, found that murders dropped by 8.5 percent, while rapes and serious assaults fell up to 7 percent in states with licensed concealed carry. Furthermore, if states without licensed concealed carry would institute it, then 1570 murders, 4180 rapes, and over 60,000 aggravated assaults would not happen each year.
The National Academy of Sciences reviewed hundreds of studies and found not "a single gun regulation that reduced violent crime or murder." A criminal told John Stossel, then with ABC, that he wasn't "worried about the government saying [he] can't carry a gun" because he's "gonna carry a gun anyway." A Washington, D.C.-area assault victim asked, "If someone gets into your house, which would you rather have, a handgun or a telephone? You can call the police if you want, and they'll get there, and they'll take a picture of your dead body." If we replace "house" with "restaurant" in that last quote, we may ask if some restauranteurs see themselves as noble for creating gun-free zones from which defenseless patrons can depart for the beyond.
Can just anyone be licensed to carry a gun? Arizona has strict requirements for obtaining a concealed carry permit. Applicants must be twenty-one or older, state residents or American citizens, and not under felony indictment or conviction. To obtain a permit, one can never have been legally denied gun possession, must not suffer mental illness or have been judged mentally incompetent, and cannot have been committed to a mental institution. Prospective permit-holders must pass firearms safety training, which addresses marksmanship and judicious shooting, the legal issues and mental conditioning for using deadly force, and techniques for weapons care, maintenance, handling, and storage.
Considering the statistics presented here plus the state's stringent requirements for concealed handgun permit-holders, why would any Arizona restaurant operator choose to disarm honest patrons and announce to armed lawbreakers the presence of easy prey on premises? Multiple queries to the parent company of the restaurant in this article's opening story have gone unanswered. Perhaps restauranteurs' "logic" is based on California Senator Diane Feinstein's claim that "Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe." To people willing to wrap themselves in illusion, Feinstein's silliness feels good. A sober, law-abiding adult at a table a few feet away with a gun that you'd never know she had unless she used it to stop a killer from killing you? That feels bad.
To anti-gunners who embrace false security, what's important is how it feels, not what's real. By not having concealed weapons in the same building with their food, restaurant patrons can savor "the sign" just before the killer who laughed at the sign swings into action. Diners would surely feel awful witnessing a gal with a gun stop a guy with a gun who was only crying for attention.
... A TSUNAMI ADVISORY IS IN EFFECT WHICH INCLUDES THE COASTAL AREAS OF CALIFORNIA - OREGON - WASHINGTON - BRITISH COLUMBIA AND ALASKA FROM THE CALIFORNIA-MEXICO BORDER TO ATTU ALASKA...I guess we'll skip the walk along the beach in San Clemente today. The rain probably would have kept us away anyhow.
PERSONS IN TSUNAMI ADVISORY AREAS SHOULD MOVE OUT OF THE WATER... OFF THE BEACH AND OUT OF HARBORS AND MARINAS.
TSUNAMI ADVISORIES MEAN THAT A TSUNAMI CAPABLE OF PRODUCING STRONG CURRENTS OR WAVES DANGEROUS TO PERSONS IN OR VERY NEAR WATER IS IMMINENT OF EXPECTED. SIGNIFICANT WIDESPREAD INUNDATION IS NOT EXPECTED FOR AREAS IN AN ADVISORY. TSUNAMIS ARE A SERIES OF WAVES POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS SEVERAL HOURS AFTER INITIAL ARRIVAL TIME. ESTIMATED TIMES OF INITIAL WAVE ARRIVAL FOR SELECTED SITES IN THE ADVISORY ARE PROVIDED BELOW.
LA JOLLA-CA 1202 PST FEB 27 YAKUTAT-AK 1619 AKST FEB 27 SANTA BARBARA-CA 1231 PST FEB 27 KODIAK-AK 1628 AKST FEB 27 SAN FRANCISCO-CA 1326 PST FEB 27 SAND PT.
Al Gore won a Nobel Prize and an Oscar for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. But in the last three months, as global warming has gone from a scientific near-certitude to the subject of satire, Gore -- the public face of global warming -- has been silent on the topic.Gore was publicly jeered at the Apple Computer shareholder meeting the other day and my guess is a guy like him who is used to being worshiped for his globaloney holiness is suddenly finding it very uncomfortable to be out in public.
The former vice president apparently finds it inconvenient even to answer calls to testify before the U.S. Senate. You can call him Al . . . but he won't call back.
On Tuesday, Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe -- a prominent skeptic of global warming theory and the Republican leader of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee -- issued a request for Gore to come testify on global warming. In an interview with FoxNews.com, Inhofe said he wants Gore to appear because "it will be interesting to ask him on what science he based his movie," a film the senator considers "science fiction."
Gore has yet to respond, but that didn't prevent him from causing a stir at Apple's shareholder meeting Thursday. According to CNET, Gore was seated in the first row while several stockholders bashed his high-profile views on climate change. One reportedly said Gore "has become a laughingstock. The glaciers have not melted."
Gore did not reply, and he has not commented on his blog or Twitter feed.
Inhofe says he hopes Gore will address the recent Climate-gate scandals that have besmirched the science, scientists and politicians who back the theory of manmade climate change. Last fall, news outlets in the United Kingdom exposed a scandal in which leading global warming scientists conspired in e-mails to hide data that contradicted "proof" of manmade global warming. Then the world's leaders failed to reach a deal on climate change policy in Copenhagen. And the U.N.'s climate change research body admitted flaws in its report that concluded that the Himalayan glaciers were melting, the Arctic ice cap was fading away, and the Amazon rainforest was in imminent danger.
Since his appearance at the Copenhagen climate summit in December, Gore has been reluctant to talk to the media, making only a handful of public appearances.
A devastating earthquake struck Chile early Saturday, toppling homes, collapsing bridges and plunging trucks into the fractured earth. A tsunami set off by the magnitude-8.8 quake threatened every nation around the Pacific Ocean — roughly a quarter of the globe.There haven't been many quakes recorded in history that were that large. If you go to the article you'll see lots of pictures of devastation in Chile, and tsunamis could wreak even more havoc all over the Pacific basin. It will be a day of careful watching for Pacific Rim nations.
Interior Minister Edmundo Perez Yoma said the most powerful quake to hit the country in a half-century killed at least 82 people, but the death toll was rising quickly.
In the town of Talca, just 65 miles (105 kilometers) from the epicenter, Associated Press journalist Roberto Candia said it felt as if a giant had grabbed him and shaken him.
The town's historic center, filled with buildings of adobe mud and straw, largely collapsed, though most of those were businesses that were not inhabited during the 3:34 a.m. (1:34 a.m. EST, 0634 GMT) quake. Neighbors pulled at least five people from the rubble while emergency workers, themselves disoriented, asked for information from reporters.
Many roads were destroyed, and electricity, water and phone lines were cut to many areas — meaning there was no word of death or damage from many outlying areas.
In the Chilean capital of Santiago, 200 miles (325 kilometers) northeast of the epicenter, a car dangled from a collapsed overpass, the national Fine Arts Museum was badly damaged and an apartment building's two-story parking lot pancaked, smashing about 50 cars whose alarms rang incessantly.
Experts warned that a tsunami could strike anywhere in the Pacific, and Hawaii could face its largest waves since 1964 starting at 11:19 a.m. (4:19 p.m. EST, 2119 GMT), according to Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
Tsunami waves were likely to hit Asian, Australian and New Zealand shores within 24 hours of the earthquake. The U.S. West Coast and Alaska, too, were threatened.
President Obama will make an announcement sometime next week on what he "believes is the best way forward" on health care reform, the White House said Friday.Obama will declare that he listened to the GOP, incorporated some of their ideas, but will go ahead with his vision of nationalized health care and will pass it through the Senate via reconciliation. It's hard to say at this point whether Harry Reid can get enough Senators to go along, and passage through the House may be all but impossible. However, if he makes the attempt to push it through this way the GOP better be prepared to go to war on this and every other issue that comes up.
"We've had many weeks to contemplate where we are," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.
The president will consider areas of common agreement discussed yesterday at the White House health care summit and work with his team to possibly incorporate them into the health care proposal he has put forward, Gibbs said. Some of those ideas could include Republican Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.)'s suggestions on cutting fraud and abuse from Medicare.
"This is a fairly dynamic process that will happen over the next several days," Gibbs said.
It is unclear whether there are enough votes in either the House or the Senate to pass the president's health care proposal, but Nancy-Ann DeParle, the director of the White House Office of Health Reform, will be working with both Democrats and Republicans to try make progress on the issue, Gibbs said.
If the Senate is unable to find any Republican votes for health care, they may use a process called "reconciliation," which only requires a simple majority, to pass the bill. While the proposal to use reconciliation has been characterized by some as too partisan, Gibbs said that "the notion that somehow health care hasn't been done this way has been offered up by people but is not accurate."
He pointed to COBRA (the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act), which gives workers who lose their health coverage limited extended benefits, as an example of health care legislation passed under reconciliation.
Apolo Anton Ohno was disqualified in the 500-meter short track speedskating final Friday night, apparently for causing a crash in the final turn.He still has one more team relay race to run, but no matter what he'll leave Vancouver as the American who has won the most Winter Olympic medals in history.
Ohno crossed the finish line second behind Canada’s Charles Hamelin, whose momentum spun him into the middle of the ice as the race ended.
Ohno was in last place when he tried to go inside of Canadian Francois-Louis Tremblay to move up on the final turn. The American’s right leg appeared to hit Tremblay and sent him crashing into the padding.
South Korea’s Sung Si-bak also went down, although it appeared he lost his balance.
After several minutes of discussion, during which Ohno skated calmly around the ice, the referees DQ’d him. He threw up his arms as if to say, “What can you do?” and smiled before leaving.
Nadia Brianne Matthews had a glowing future.
The sophomore star softball pitcher at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana had verbally committed to play for the University of Arizona, and had a sense of confidence, grace and warmth that went beyond her 16 years, friends say.
Her suicide Thursday at her Anaheim home has shocked and devastated relatives, friends and teachers and coaches who saw in her amazing talent and promise – a nice girl who could put a smile on anyone's face.
"She was very smart and genuine," said Bri Hopkins, a friend and fellow Mater Dei student. "Whatever she was going through, she didn't deserve it."
The coroner Friday afternoon ruled the manner of death suicide, "by ligature hanging."
Relatives were gathered at the family's apartment where Matthews was found.
"She was a beautiful daughter and I don't just mean physically," said her mother, Nadia Martinez. "I wouldn't have traded her for the world."
Martinez asked people to be sensitive: "We would really appreciate for everyone to respect our privacy and her privacy during this time."
Rowdy curling crowds; spontaneous street parties; public drunkeness. You don't have to look far for evidence that the crowds at Winter Games in Vancouver know how to have a good time.That might not even be enough for the Canadian women's hockey team.
And, as if anymore proof is needed that a wild Olympic atmosphere permeates B.C.'s largest city, now there's an apparent condom shortage.
That's right. As you read this, an emergency shipment of condoms is desperately making its way across Canada to the West Coast city.
Health officials in Vancouver have already provided 100,000 free condoms to the roughly 7,000 ahtletes and officials at the Games. That's about 14 condoms per person. But as of Wednesday, those supplies started running dangerously low.
So naturally, the Canadian Foundation for AIDS research decided to step and make sure there were no hitches in Olympic action.
"When we heard about the condom shortage in Vancouver, we felt it important to respond immediately," said Kerry Whiteside, CANFAR's Executive Director. The organization assembled three large boxes of about 8,500 condoms, much to the relief of libidos at the Olympic Village. They're expected to arrive on Thursday.
The local economic forecast tied to President Barack Obama's proposed NASA budget keeps growing bleaker.People and their families who lost their jobs because Obama decided to cut the space program are not likely to support him in a much-needed swing state.
Revised projections now show that about 23,000 workers at and around Kennedy Space Center will lose their jobs because of the shuttles' retirement and the new proposal to cancel the development of new rockets and spacecraft.
That sum includes 9,000 "direct" space jobs and — conservatively speaking — 14,000 "indirect" jobs at hotels, restaurants, retail stores and others that depend on activity at the space center, said Lisa Rice, Brevard Workforce president.
The inaugural British Tea Party will take place on Saturday in my home town of Brighton, and I’ll be speaking. Do try to come: here are the details.Go get 'em, Brits!
Labour has raised more than a trillion pounds in additional taxation since 1997. Yet, unbelievably, Gordon Brown has still managed to run up a deficit of 12.6 per cent of GDP (Greece’s is 12.7 per cent). A far lower level of taxation brought Americans out in spontaneous protest last year.
If you happen to be coming to the Conservative Spring Conference, do please pop in: the Tea Party is five minutes’ walk from the conference venue. It is, however, outside the security zone, and anyone is welcome to come. Oh, and this being England, we’ll be serving actual, you know, tea. I hope to see some of this blog’s readers there.
The presence of one of the world's pre-eminent environmentalists at Apple's shareholder meeting Thursday was the subject of much of the morning's pointed discussion.Apple has been a big supporter of AB32, the global warming bill in the State of California that will dramatically increase the cost of just about everything. But, they're not a big enough supporter to put their new $1 billion dollar server farm here and pay the higher energy costs that will result. That's going to North Carolina where energy costs will be dramatically less. They don't mind sticking the rest of us with the higher costs that they refuse to pay themselves.
As expected, Apple's attitude on environmental and sustainability issues was one of the main concerns of the stockholders present Thursday, followed closely by the company's immense pile of cash. But early harsh comments about former Vice President Al Gore's record set the tone.
Gore was seated in the first row, along with his six fellow board members, in Apple's Town Hall auditorium as several stockholders took turns either bashing or praising his high-profile views on climate change.
At the first opportunity for audience participation just several minutes into the proceeding, a longtime and well-known Apple shareholder--some would say gadfly--who introduced himself as Shelton Ehrlich, stood at the microphone and urged against Gore's re-election to the board. Gore "has become a laughingstock. The glaciers have not melted," Sheldon said, referring to Gore's views on global warming. "If his advice he gives to Apple is as faulty as his views on the environment then he doesn't need to be re-elected."
Another shareholder immediately got up to defend Gore and endorse his presence as an Apple director. And that wasn't the end of it. Two different proposals from shareholders were presented in regard to Apple's environmental impact. One was from the nonprofit As You Sow, which for the second straight year asked Apple to publicly commit to specific greenhouse gas reduction goals and publish a formal sustainability report; the second came from Herrington Investments, which proposed that Apple's board establish a sustainability committee, just like a compensation or personnel committee.
Senate Democrats spent Thursday night hammering away at Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) for single-handedly holding up action in the upper chamber – but he blurted out a message to one of them on the Senate floor: “Tough s—t.”Read the rest of the Politico piece to see how much outrage was generated by Bunning's decision to make the Senate pay for the nonsense they were trying to hustle through the upper chamber.
In an unusual display in the normally sleepy chamber, Bunning – without the support of GOP leadership – has blocked efforts to quickly approve a series of extensions to measures that would otherwise expire Sunday, including unemployment insurance and the Cobra program that allows people who lose their health benefits to continue getting coverage.
And that has led to a furious exchange on the floor, with Democrats attacking the senator, who has refused to relent on his objection, in unusually harsh terms.
In a colloquy with Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Jeff Merkley, a freshman Democrat from Oregon, was pleading for Bunning to drop his objection, when the Kentucky Republican got fed up.
“Tough s—t,” Bunning said as he was seated in the back row, overheard by the floor staff and others in attendance.
A spokesman for Bunning did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Traffic has been diverted off the northbound lanes of the 5 freeway after a grenade was reported in the middle of the northbound lanes.I'm pretty familiar with that area and there aren't a lot of good alternate routes around there. There's going to be an unholy mess in San Clemente.
The grenade was first reported at about 11:40 a.m. near the Avenida Pico exit.
The California Highway Patrol has requested the help of the Orange County Sheriff Department's bomb squad to investigate the object, said Jim AMormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department.
The grenade was reported on the two right lanes of the northbound side of the freeway. A black utility belt was also spotted.
As a precaution, CHP officers are shutting down both sides of the busy freeway, said CHP officer Eric Barnard. How long the closure remains in effect is unknown, he said.
Southbound traffic is being diverted off the freeway at the Avenida Vista Hermosa exit, Barnard said. Northbound traffic is being diverted out of the freeway at the Avenida de la Estrella exit.
CHP has also requested Marines from Camp Pendleton to respond to the area, in case that the object turns out to be a military-issued explosive, he said.
Southbound traffic is being diverted off the freeway at the Avenida Vista Hermosa exit, Barnard said. Northbound traffic is being diverted out of the freeway at the Avenida de la Estrella exit.
Traffic on Avenida Vista Hermosa is also being shut down.
Britain might not make steel anymore, or cars, or pop music worth listening to, but, boy, are we world-beaters when it comes to tyranny. And now classical music, which was once taught to young people as a way of elevating their minds and tingling their souls, is being mined for its potential as a deterrent against bad behavior.
In January it was revealed that West Park School, in Derby in the midlands of England, was “subjecting” (its words) badly behaved children to Mozart and others. In “special detentions,” the children are forced to endure two hours of classical music both as a relaxant (the headmaster claims it calms them down) and as a deterrent against future bad behavior (apparently the number of disruptive pupils has fallen by 60 per cent since the detentions were introduced.)
One news report says some of the children who have endured this Mozart authoritarianism now find classical music unbearable. As one critical commentator said, they will probably “go into adulthood associating great music—the most bewitchingly lovely sounds on Earth—with a punitive slap on the chops.” This is what passes for education in Britain today: teaching kids to think “Danger!” whenever they hear Mozart’s Requiem or some other piece of musical genius.
The classical music detentions at West Park School are only the latest experiment in using and abusing some of humanity’s greatest cultural achievements to reprimand youth.
Across the UK, local councils and other public institutions now play recorded classical music through speakers at bus-stops, in parking lots, outside department stores, and elsewhere. No, not because they think the public will appreciate these sweet sounds (they think we are uncultured grunts), but because they hope it will make naughty youngsters flee.
Tyne and Wear in the north of England was one of the first parts of the UK to weaponize classical music. In the early 2000s, the local railway company decided to do something about the “problem” of “youths hanging around” its train stations. The young people were “not getting up to criminal activities,” admitted Tyne and Wear Metro, but they were “swearing, smoking at stations and harassing passengers.” So the railway company unleashed “blasts of Mozart and Vivaldi.”
Apparently it was a roaring success. The youth fled. “They seem to loathe [the music],” said the proud railway guy. “It’s pretty uncool to be seen hanging around somewhere when Mozart is playing.” He said the most successful deterrent music included the Pastoral Symphony by Beethoven, Symphony No. 2 by Rachmaninov, and Piano Concerto No. 2 by Shostakovich. (That last one I can kind of understand.)
In Yorkshire in the north of England, the local council has started playing classical music through vandal-proof speakers at “troublesome bus-stops” between 7:30 PM and 11:30 PM. Shops in Worcester, Bristol, and North Wales have also taken to “firing out” bursts of classical music to ward of feckless youngsters.
In Holywood (in County Down in Northern Ireland, not to be confused with Hollywood in California), local businesspeople encouraged the council to pipe classical music as a way of getting rid of youngsters who were spitting in the street and doing graffiti. And apparently classical music defeats street art: The graffiti levels fell.
After a wave of news about attempted domestic terror attacks, Democrats facing a tough election year quietly voted this week to extend the Patriot Act legislation that many of them had decried under former President George W. Bush.And why did it get a bad name under the Bush Administration? Because the left was apoplectic about aggressively fighting terrorism. Now that potential acts of terrorism could mess up their political plans, the Patriot Act suddenly looks like a pretty good idea.
The House passed a one-year reauthorization of the Patriot Act Thursday night 315-97, just a day after the Senate moved the bill on a late-evening unanimous voice vote.
With the law facing a sunset date of Feb. 28, the Senate opted to vote for the extension of three crucial provisions of the act rather than opening debate on a revised bipartisan plan passed by the Judiciary Committee in October that would have imposed stricter privacy safeguards.
“In the end, it became non-controversial,” Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) told POLITICO. “[There was] the growing concern about increase on the pace of attacks on the homeland… and frankly, I think the Patriot [Act] got a bad name under the Bush Administration.”
The women of the Canadian hockey team politely accepted their gold medals and waved to an adoring crowd. And then the real celebration began.Well, it's not exactly the black power salute that cost two Americans their medals in Mexico City in 1968. I doubt the ladies will suffer any consequences.
More than half an hour after they beat the United States 2-0 on Thursday, the players came back from the locker room and staged a party on ice — swigging from bottles of champagne, guzzling beer and smoking cigars.
In a sport that Canada invented, there was never an option besides gold, and with it finally in hand, the home team let loose.
Meghan Agosta and Marie-Philip Poulin posed wearing goofy grins. Rebecca Johnston actually tried to drive the ice-resurfacing machine. Haley Irwin poured champagne into the mouth of Tessa Bonhomme, gold medals swinging from both their necks.
The celebration raised eyebrows at the IOC, which said it would look into the matter. Informed of the antics by The Associated Press, Gilbert Felli, the IOC’s executive director of the Olympic Games, said it was “not what we want to see.”
President Barack Obama strongly signaled that Democrats will move forward on a health care overhaul with or without Republicans, preparing his party for a fight whose political outcome will rest with voters in November.If they push through with this and actually get Obamacare passed (which is no guarantee these days) the elections in November will be a Dem bloodbath. We'll see a voter uprising like nothing seen since 1860 when states started leaving the union. That won't happen this time, but millions will abandon the Democrat party as a completely failed political philosophy unworthy of a position of leadership in America.
Delivering his closing argument at a 7-1/2-hour televised policy marathon Thursday, Obama told Republicans he welcomes their ideas -- even ones Democrats don't like -- but they must fit into his framework for a broad health care remake that would cover tens of millions of uninsured Americans.
That's the deal.
It's a gamble for Obama and his party, and it's far from certain that Democratic congressional leaders can rally their members to muscle a bill through on their own. At stake are Democrats' political fortunes in the midterm elections and the fate of Obama's domestic agenda pitted against emboldened Republicans.
"The truth of the matter is that politically speaking, there may not be any reason for Republicans to want to do anything," Obama said, summing up. "I don't need a poll to know that most Republican voters are opposed to this bill and might be opposed to the kind of compromise we could craft.
Senate Minority Leader McConnell, House Minority Leader Boehner, Sen. McCain, and Senate Minority Whip Kyl arrive at the Blair House.
"And if we can't," he added, "I think we've got to go ahead and some make decisions, and then that's what elections are for. "
To the nearly 40 lawmakers in the room with him, the message was unmistakable.
"Frankly, I was discouraged by the outcome," said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "I do not believe there will be any Republican support for this 2,700-page bill."
Democratic leaders -- who preside over majorities in both chambers-- were having none of that.
"It's time to do something, and we're going to do it," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.I'm beginning to think the Obama Administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress will turn out to be a blessing for America - not because of the good they will do but because they finally did enough things wrong to wake the people up to the threats they face from their own government. That's a good thing.
Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.
The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.
According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday, Americans overwhelmingly think that the U.S. government is broken - though the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what's broken can be fixed.
Embattled Gov. Paterson has pulled the plug on his election bid, a source close to the governor said Friday.As Democrat as New York is, a good GOP candidate could win this seat. I have to believe even New Yorkers are running out of patience with corrupt Democrats.
Paterson will announce the decision later Friday.
Paterson has been under fire for having contacted a woman who accused one of his top aides of domestic violence.
The source said the governor has agreed not to seek election, but he will not resign - opting to serve out the remainder of his term.
The decision clears the way for Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who is the favorite of many Democrats, to seek the nomination unimpeded.
The House Ethics Committee's decision to admonish New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel over improper corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean leaves both Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the ethics committee itself facing some difficult questions.My guess is Rangel will get a public slap on the hand while in private they're slapping him on the back.
When then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was admonished by the ethics committee in October 2004, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders went on the offensive against him.
“Mr. DeLay has proven himself to be ethically unfit to lead the party,” Pelosi said at a press conference the following day. “The burden falls upon his fellow House Republicans. Republicans must answer: Do they want an ethically unfit person to be their majority leader or do they want to remove the ethical cloud that hangs over the Capitol?”
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) — now the House majority leader — said DeLay "certainly ought to step aside as leader at this point in time because I think his credibility has been undermined by these findings."
Six years later, the shoe is on the other foot: Republicans have previously called for Rangel to lose his chairmanship over his ethical troubles, and some of them — including Indiana Rep. Mike Pence — renewed that call Thursday night.
How will Pelosi and Hoyer respond?
Neither had anything to say about Rangel's future Thursday night, but the issue is certain to be a central topic for Democratic leadership in the days ahead.
Washington (CNN) – Thursday’s health care summit at Blair House was billed as an opportunity for members of both parties to share their proposals for reform, but one party had far more time to put forth their ideas.
A CNN analysis of the meeting shows that Democrats - including President Obama, who helmed the meeting - were granted more than twice the amount speaking time as Republicans.
Democrats spoke for a total of 135 minutes while President Obama spoke for 122 minutes, for a total of 257 minutes. Republicans, meanwhile, spoke for just 111 minutes, about 30 percent of the total speaking time.
But what we witnessed a young Canadian figure skater named Joannie Rochette do late Tuesday night in a packed arena at the Vancouver Games was gut-wrenching on another level.I can't imagine how tough it must be for her to continue to compete. She ended up in third position after the short program. Tonight she could end up with a bronze, and wouldn't that be something?
Here was a woman who on Sunday learned that her mother Therese died quite suddenly and extremely unexpectedly. She was just 55. But young Joannie hit the Olympic ice at the Pacific Coliseum nonetheless and proceeded to skate what turned out to be her best short performance of the season. She then melted into tears upon receiving a standing ovation from the crowd.
It must have felt to her like 50,000 hugs, and probably still not enough.
But Rochette, being a figure skater, most remarkably soldiered on by herself. She didn't have 50 some other teammates to lean on. She didn't have an offensive line and running backs and receivers to support her effort. She didn't even have a doubles partner.
All Rochette had for a few minutes was herself. She faced the music alone.
Her selection of music was utterly appropriate. It was the Uruguayan tango La Cumparsita. The lyrics begin: "The little parade of endless miseries ..."
Rochette stood alone on the brightest and biggest stage she'd ever been on in her life, and with the weight of losing the foundation of her life pressing on her, she skated like she'd never skated before.
"Words cannot describe it," Rochette said afterward in quotes relayed through Skate Canada's high performance director Mike Slipchuk. "It's hard to be precise. I have no regrets. It was a very nice, warm welcome. Hard to handle, but I appreciate the support. I will remember this forever."
Everyone who witnessed it will remember her performance forever too.
Standing near Whistler’s Thunderbird corner as American pilot John Napier roared into view, former NASCAR great Geoff Bodine neatly summed up the difference between bobsleigh racing and motorsport.Well done, Geoff.
“A driver controls his speed, can shut the engine off if he don’t want to go,” Bodine told Reuters at the Winter Olympics.
“Here the engine is Mother Nature. You don’t turn her off until you get to the bottom.”
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Bodine, winner of the 1986 Daytona 500, NASCAR’s showpiece race, is well qualified to talk about the two high-speed sports, one all growling V8 engines and concrete and the other requiring brute strength, polished runners, ice and gravity.
Always fascinated by speeding machines, Bodine was sitting at home watching the 1992 Winter Olympics and observing how the American sledders were struggling to match their German and Swiss rivals.
It wrankled with Bodine, one of NASCAR’s great innovators, and stirred his patriotic instincts. After a chat with close friend and stock car chassis builder Bob Cuneo he decided bobsleigh could use a little NASCAR technology.
The Bo-Dyn (Bo for Bodine, Dyn for Chassis Dynamics) Bobsled Project was born.
‘GROUND ZERO’
Eighteen years later and Bodine, who once reached 197mph in a NASCAR race in Atlanta, is as passionate as ever about bobsleigh racing and nobody would be prouder on Saturday if Steve Holcomb’s gleaming black sled known as the Night Train ends the 62-year wait for an American men’s bobsleigh gold.
“The whole basis for this project was to provide American made equipment for American athletes,” Bodine said.
“When I first started I was ignorant about the sport.
“Bobby had never seen a bobsleigh before and I had never seen a bobsleigh before apart from on television. We started from ground zero.”
A change in the Olympic cycle meant Bodine and Cuneo had just two years to design, test and build the first sleds for the American team at the 1994 Lillehammer Games.
“I was watching the Lillehammer Games at home and when the first sled went down the run, that was my proudest moment,” he said.
“I’m proud of what these guys do every time they go down a run, but that first sled in Lillehammer, that was something.”
"Hi Rush (or Sean, Michael, Hugh, Mark...et al), I really love your show. I've been listening a long time. I probably agree with you 95% of the time, but I have to disagree with you on Obama's health care plan."That kind of opening is typical of what Rush Limbaugh calls "seminar callers". That name came from seminars the Dems used to give to teach people how to get on talk radio and spread the Dem message. I see similar things in the comments all the time from various spammers. They'll start out saying how much they like the blog and how informative it is, and then they'll say some like "by the way, I was having trouble getting my manhood to work and I found out I could use (brand name drug) to fix all that. Here's the link..."). Those all get rapidly deleted.
The Democratic National Committee's Organizing for America has quietly launched an initiative aimed at making Obama supporters' voices heard on the largely conservative airwaves.Maybe some lesser hosts won't catch them right away, but the big boys can smell those seminar callers a mile away. It's a wasted effort.
"The fate of health reform has been a focus of debate in living rooms and offices, on TV and online -- and on talk radio. And since millions of folks turn to talk radio as a trusted source of news and opinions, we need to make sure OFA supporters are calling in with a pro-reform message," says the introduction to the online tool.
The online tool presents users with a radio show discussing political topics, to which supporters can listen live, and the phone number for that station, for when health care comes up. It also offers tips for callers and talking points on the issue.
My quick sampling produced Christian radio, a local talk station in Buffalo, and the syndicated talk shows of Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Sean Hannity -- who will no doubt be thrilled with their new, liberal callers.
Supporters are then encouraged to report back on their encounters.
Montgomery County officials are wondering where all the millionaires have gone, as the shrinking pool of wealthy taxpayers is wreaking havoc on the county's finances.There's a fundamental rule of taxation that says whatever activity you tax you get less of. There also a fundamental law of human nature that says if you have the means to escape unfair taxation you probably will. The millionaires voted with their feet.
County officials recently pegged the budget deficit for the next fiscal year at $761.5 million. Much of the gap is caused by a drop in income tax revenue, and much of that drop is tied to a small number of wealthy county residents who lost money in a poor economy, died or fled the state's new millionaire tax.
Montgomery lost $4.6 billion in taxable income from tax years 2007 to 2008. More than 82 percent of that drop comes from taxpayers with incomes of $1 million or more, county records show. During that period, the number of income tax returns above $1 million fell from 3,172 to 2,321, a 27 percent decrease.
A weak economy that ate away at capital gains and slowed the growth of small businesses can account for much of the drop. But there's been a fierce debate since the state raised taxes for millionaires to 6.25 percent from 5.5 percent in 2008 whether millionaires are fleeing en masse for states with lower tax burdens.
County data show that 216 millionaires who filed taxes for 2007 did not file with the state for 2008.
A Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon says a woman's size-D breast implants might have saved her life when a gunman opened fire at her office.While we're talking about Obamacare, how about this sparkling moment during the health care summit from Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY):
Lydia Carranza was working at the Simi Valley dental office July 1 when her co-worker, the gunman's wife, was shot and killed.
Carranza was just a few feet away. She survived a gunshot to the chest, but the the bullet left a scar and deflated the implant.
"She's just one lucky woman," Dr. Ashkan Ghavami told the LA Times. "I saw the CT scan. The bullet fragments were millimeters from her heart and her vital organs. Had she not had the implant, she might not be alive today."
CNN’s WOLF BLITZER: “It looks like the Republicans certainly showed up ready to play.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)From what I've been reading the GOP brought a very strong team, including 3 doctors, and went at the president and the Dems armed with facts, not sob stories or demagoguery. The Dems, on the other hand, brought the usual collection of lefty hacks, have been very prickly all day, trotted out their favorite health care horror stories (like the lady who wears her dead sister's teeth), and have done their best to stick to talking points and avoid dealing with the factual issues related to their bills.
CNN’s GLORIA BORGER: “The Republicans have been very effective today. They really did come to play. They were very smart.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)
BORGER: “They took on the substance of a very complex issue. … But they really stuck to the substance of this issue and tried to get to the heart of it and I think did a very good job.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)
BORGER: “They came in with a plan. They mapped it out.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)
CNN’s DAVID GERGEN: “The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the House Republicans that he could do that again here today. That would revive health care and would change the public opinion about their health care bill and they can go on to victory. Just the opposite has happened.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)
GERGEN: “He doesn’t have a strong Democratic team behind him.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)
THE HILL’S A.B. STODDARD: “I think we need to start out by acknowledging Republicans brought their ‘A Team.’ They had doctors knowledgeable about the system, they brought substance to the table, and they, I thought, expressed interest in the reform. I thought in the lecture from Senator John McCain and on the issue of transparency, I thought today the Democrats were pretty much on their knees.” (Fox News’ “Live,” 2/25/10)
Just about everyone agrees that Republicans will be gaining a sizeable number of U.S. House seats come November, but this far in advance, few agree on the exact number. We’ve seen a couple of dozen predictions so far, and the range is from +10 GOP to +50 GOP—quite a spread.Charlie Cook, another political analysis, said the other day that it's hard to see a scenario in which the GOP does not win control of the House. As these various models begin to coalesce that outcome is becoming more likely.
To our knowledge, the Crystal Ball is the only predictive organization that uses two different methods for its prognostications. We carefully examine the 435 districts individually, and make an estimate of the outcome for each seat (using polling, past election results, elite opinion in the district, and so on). Last week we published our current estimate of GOP gains from this method: +27 seats.
This week we employ the other method, statistical regression analysis that uses variables such as the president’s Gallup Poll rating and the basic facts of the election. The author is Prof. Alan Abramowitz of Emory University, a frequent contributor to the Crystal Ball and one of the nation’s most distinguished political scientists. Prof. Abramowitz’s model for the 2010 House midterm election has been perhaps the most accurate of all political science models in projecting past midterm elections. As Prof. Abramowitz explains, the key variables in the 2010 election are the simple realities that (1) it is the midterm election of a Democratic presidential administration and (2) the Democrats are defending so many marginal seats—more than fifty that they added in 2006 and 2008, two exceptionally pro-Democratic elections.
His model has a result that will startle many of our readers: Republicans will pick up 37 House seats in November. That is remarkably close to the 40 seats the GOP needs to take outright control of the House.
Let’s remember that the gap between +27 and +37 seats isn’t great, especially when viewed from the perspective of February. Over the next eight months, we expect the numbers in both methods of analysis to vary a bit, up or down, and eventually to converge as we approach November 2nd. It is already obvious that 2010 is going to be a midterm election to remember.
Let me say to my colleagues, I am proud of my record on climate change. I have been all over the world, and I have seen climate change. I know it is real, and I will be glad to continue this debate with my colleagues and people who do not agree with that. I believe climate change is real.Yes, Senator, climate change is real. It's always been real. The climate is changing all the time. There's never been a period in recorded history when the climate wasn't changing.
"I Don't Count My Time Because I'm The President"And we all know he's a completely objective participant in this kabuki dance.
After a brief period of consultation following the White House health reform summit, congressional Democrats plan to begin making the case next week for a massive, Democrats-only health care plan, party strategists told POLITICO.I've been following the summit a bit via Twitter and from what I'm reading the GOP is offering actual ideas and solutions while the Democrats are offering sob stories and grumpiness. This thing is probably going to be a net loser for the Democrats.
A Democratic official said the six-hour summit was expected to “give a face to gridlock, in the form of House and Senate Republicans.”
Democrats plan to begin rhetorical, and perhaps legislative, steps toward the Democrats-only, or reconciliation, process early next week, the strategists said.
After the summit, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid planned to take the temperature of their caucuses.
“The point [of the summit] is to alter the political atmospherics, and it will take a day or two to sense if it succeeded,” the official said.
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