PROF. JACOBSON ON CROWLEY, GATES, AND OBAMA: We Need The Truth, Not Beer And Apologies. “The best evidence as to the truth will be the recordings of the 911 call which precipitated the police going to Prof. Gates’ house, Sgt. Crowley’s radio calls once on the scene, and the accounts of eyewitnesses, including neighbors, passers-by, and the two other policemen on the scene.”
TOM MAGUIRE: MOVE ON? “If the Cambridge Police Dept had besmirched my behavior and deportment by telling people I was ‘tumultuous’ and acting strangely, I would demand the release of the dispatcher tapes to blow away their lies.”
And Ann Althouse says, “Release the tapes!”
STIMULUS: “A big mistake, a failure.”
SOMETHING WE CAN “LIVE WITH?”
How about “Keep your grubby laws off my body?” Just a thought . . . .
DOES THIS BLOG make me look fat?
IF ED RENDELL ISN’T “GOVERNOR X,” he should probably say or do something pretty definitive soon. But, then, I imagine we’ll find out one way or another soon enough.
UPDATE: A reader thinks it may be Blagojevich. Well, the Daily News ruled out Arnold, but that leaves 49 other suspects. But the talk seems to be focused around Rendell. [Maybe this is why Palin is resigning. People thought she might be ducking a scandal! -- ed. I'd rate her as even less likely than Phil Bredesen. But hey, a lesbian hooker-tryst might be just what it takes to get Palin into Hollywood's good graces!]
ACORN TRYING TO shut down anti-Obamacare protests? So far it doesn’t seem to be working very well. But be sure to bring video cameras. And, if you anticipate trouble, lawyers!
UPDATE: Related: Peter Roff, U.S. News: Democrats’ Healthcare Censorship Shows How Desperate They’ve Become. “A clear sign of their growing desperation is the way in which the Democrats are censoring the GOP’s official communications to their constituents. On Thursday Roll Call reported the majority party is ‘preventing Republican House Members from sending their constituents a mailing that is critical of the majority’s health care reform plan.’ . . . Republican staffers say this kind of censorship of the minority by the majority is almost unheard of on Capitol Hill, certainly during the years the GOP was in power. Moreover, they say, it is a clear sign that the Republicans are, for the moment, winning a fight once thought unwinnable. Rather than get them down, they are taking the efforts to suppress their message as a badge of effectiveness.” The anti-Obamacare marchers should feel the same way.
OUTSTANDING humility.
THE GEORGE COSTANZA APPROACH to health care reform.
FILE THIS UNDER “THINGS I’D LIKE TO BE TRUE:” Hydrocarbons in the deep Earth? “The oil and gas that fuels our homes and cars started out as living organisms that died, were compressed, and heated under heavy layers of sediments in the Earth’s crust. Scientists have debated for years whether some of these hydrocarbons could also have been created deeper in the Earth and formed without organic matter. Now for the first time, scientists have found that ethane and heavier hydrocarbons can be synthesized under the pressure-temperature conditions of the upper mantle —the layer of Earth under the crust and on top of the core. The research was conducted by scientists at the Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory, with colleagues from Russia and Sweden, and is published in the July 26, advanced on-line issue of Nature Geoscience.” Abiotic hydrocarbons is an old theory; it would be nice if it were true.
RACHEL SKLAR: Twitter Blocked On White House Computers…Maybe. Or maybe not, since the main source for that story is Robert Gibbs . . .
“MAINTENANCE SEX?” So what do you think? Is this important in a relationship? I wonder if we’d see something of a male/female split on this. Maybe not!
LABOR UNREST: Chinese Workers Kill Manager. “About 30 000 Chinese steelworkers clashed with police in a protest over plans to merge their mill with another company and beat the company’s general manager to death, a human rights monitor said on Saturday. Several hundred people were injured in the clash . . . Workers were angry that Chen was paid about $438 000 last year while some retirees received as little as $29 a month, the centre said. Beijing is trying to streamline China’s sprawling steel industry, the world’s largest, by orchestrating a series of mergers aimed at creating globally competitive producers. The mergers often are accompanied by layoffs that sometimes spark complaints that workers receive too little severance pay.”
Remember: Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, while under socialism it is exactly the reverse.
TEN FUN FACTS about writing a sex blog.
Hey, when even men of the cloth are suggesting that InstaPundit needs to be a bit spicier, I figured maybe I could learn something. But I’m not so sure. . . .
STACY MCCAIN reports from the Richmond Tea Party.
GLENN LOURY: Obama, Gates and the American Black Man. “The Gates arrest is a made-for-cable-TV tempest in a teapot. It is the rough equivalent of a black man being thrown out of a restaurant after having berated an indifferent maître d’ for showing him to a table by the kitchen door, all the while declaring what everybody is supposed to know: this is what happens to a black man in America. . . . It is depressing in the extreme that the president, when it came time for him to expend political capital on the issue of race and the police, did so on behalf of his ‘friend’ rather than stressing policy reforms that might keep the poorly educated, infrequently employed, troubled but still human young black men in America out of prison.”
BLUE ON BLUE: Sen. Robert Byrd blasts “cap and trade.” (Probably best if the protesters to the right don’t meet these people, and vice versa.)
Plus, Senator Kent Conrad: Democrats Don’t Have The Votes On Health Care.
JUPITER — OUR COSMIC PROTECTOR? “Part of what makes the Earth such a nice place to live, the story goes, is that Jupiter’s overbearing gravity acts as a gravitational shield deflecting incoming space junk, mainly comets, away from the inner solar system where it could do for us what an asteroid apparently did for the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.” But wait, there’s a downside! “Jupiter is just as much a menace as a savior, he said. The big planet throws a lot of comets out of the solar system, but it also throws them in.”
THE HYUNDAI GENESIS: A Star Trek angle.
MARK STEYN: He Said / VIP Said. “Professor Gates is now saying that, if Sergeant Crowley publicly apologizes for his racism, the prof will graciously agree to ‘educate him about the history of racism in America.’ Which is a helluva deal. I mean, Ivy League parents re-mortgage their homes to pay Gates for the privilege of lecturing their kids, and here he is offering to hector it away to some no-name lunkhead for free.”
I’d rather listen to David Hasselhoff sing Hooked On A Feeling. Or even Hoogie-Boogie Land.
PHIL BOWERMASTER: What we really need are Robocops. “Accusing a robot of racial profiling or having power go to its head (assuming that those truly are things outside the scope of its design) would make about as much sense as accusing my lawnmower of sexually harassing the women in my neighborhood.”
LATEST CBO HEALTHCARE REPORT, illustrated on video.
Plus this: “The sweetest part of this? Obama tried to strong-arm the CBO the last time they sent up a red flag about what an awful boondoggle his pet program will turn out to be. Here’s what he gets for trying things ‘the Chicago way.’”
BAILOUT POLITICS, TIM GEITHNER, and the need to line up a scapegoat.
IT’S NOT JUST TEA PARTIES! I was at Market Square for brunch today, and we saw a protest against TVA coal-fired power plants by United Mountain Defense and the local chapter of Earth First! A nice lady handed me a pamphlet and said “We’re against coal-fired power plants.” “So am I,” I replied. “They should all be replaced by nice, clean nukes!” This produced dumbfoundment. But, hey, burning coal is lousy. (And coal — and oil, and natural gas — should be saved for chemical feedstocks anyway). Nuclear plants are much better. And while they have issues, too, if we’re in a greenhouse crisis we should be prepared to depart from business as usual, right?
Anyway, in a shocking default I had forgotten my camera, but luckily I had my cellphone. So the pics aren’t Lumix-quality, but they’re acceptable.
I think there were about 40-50 people there, though it was hard to tell how many were protesters and how many were interested onlookers.
Although giant puppets are, of course, de rigeur at such events, it wasn’t obvious to me what they had to do with coal mining. The Insta-Wife thought that this one was supposed to be Barack Obama, but I’m not so sure. It kind of looks like Martin Luther King, but I don’t think he ever took a position on global warming or acid rain. Note the extremely white sandaled feet, which I thought a nice touch.
Anyway, more breaking-news coverage from InstaPundit, where there’s usually at least one backup camera somewhere. . . .
And if this interests you, here’s the website for United Mountain Defense. The request for protesters to wear “suits and ties” seems to have gone unheeded, though.
UPDATE: More giant puppets. Look like Sojourner Truth and Gandhi, maybe. Connection to coal-fired power plants still unclear. Clearly, however, the Tea Party crowd still faces a serious Giant Puppet Gap.
ELECTRONIC ARMAGEDDON? “The electric grid as it’s currently constituted is vulnerable to EMP; the further down the road we go towards a smart grid, the more vulnerable it will become.”
THE HILL: White House eases stimulus lobbyist restrictions. Didn’t see that one coming, did you?
Related: Health care push relying increasingly on lobbyists.
IT’S AN OBAMACAREPALOOZA on the latest PJM Political.
IN THE MAIL: From J.R. Parrish, You Don’t Have to Learn the Hard Way: Making It in the Real World: A Guide for Graduates.
MICKEY KAUS: Orszagism Reeling: “Orszagism–the idea that health care reform will be able to dramatically ‘bend the cost curve’ and solve the long-term budget crisis, without compromising care– suffered a couple of blows in the past 24 hours.” Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: A reader — shockingly, a man of the cloth, so I’m leaving him unnamed — writes: “Glenn, I find it deeply disappointing that you have a headline like ‘Orszagism Reeling’, and then follow it with budget and health care issues. C’mon! With a lead-in like that, can’t we have something on porn, or at least prostitution? :-)”
Blame Kaus for the tease, not me. But I’m scheduling a post on “maintenance sex” for later, so maybe that will meet the day’s need for prurience.
IT’S LOOKING EASIER ALL THE TIME: Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man.
I say: Don’t rage against the machine. Embrace the machine.
A little bit of background here.
A REPORT ON THE RICHMOND TEA PARTY from the Times-Dispatch.
And here’s a report on the Asheville Tea Party organization, which Heath Shuler treated rather ungraciously last week.
UPDATE: More from Richmond: Tea For 2000.
ROGER SIMON: Thomas Friedman — Keeping Up With The Saudis.
BISCUITS CONQUER ALL? All except bacon, maybe. Because nothing beats bacon!
A BUNCH OF interesting food links.
RASMUSSEN: OBAMA DROPS AGAIN: “The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 29% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -11. That’s the first time his ratings have reached double digits in negative territory. . . . Today is the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted after the President’s prime time televised press conference.”
And a reminder: “It is important to remember that the Rasmussen Reports job approval ratings are based upon a sample of likely voters. Some other firms base their approval ratings on samples of all adults.”
UPDATE: Have people figured him out?
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Chris Breisch emails: “4 out of 5 of the people who disapprove of Obama, strongly disapprove. Did even GWB ever have such skewed disapproval numbers?” I don’t know. Clearly, Obama is a polarizing figure, not the post-partisan he was presented as during the campaign.
THE NEW ECONOMY: Trouble Ahead As Politics Replaces Market Forces.
SO WHO HALF-KILLED the “half-dead” American Dream?
CHICAGO’S MAYOR DALEY WEIGHS IN ON GATES CONTROVERSY: “President Obama should have gathered the facts first before commenting on Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s encounter with Cambridge, Mass. police, Mayor Daley said Saturday, wading into the controversy.”
CHINA: One big bubble?
CALIFORNIA’S IOUs and their Depression-era predecessors.
MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT TARP COST. And lack of transparency on where the money’s going. Ed Morrissey writes:
I seem to recall when Barack Obama promised the most open and transparent administration ever. Since his inauguration, Obama has fired one IG for daring to oppose a sweetheart settlement with a political ally, allowed another to get dumped by the agency she oversaw, and now have publicly feuded with Barofsky. Earlier, they tried to limit his authority by claiming that Barofsky didn’t work independently of Treasury, which got a stern letter from Senator Charles Grassley. It looks as though the White House has declared war on transparency, and especially the IGs who exist to provide it.
Yeah, they’re transparent, all right.
Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has suffered a major setback in her legal battle with American ‘shock jock’ Michael Savage after her officials were accused of banning him from the country on racial grounds.
Emails written by Home Office officials privately acknowledged the ban on Mr Savage would provide ‘balance’ to a list dominated by Muslims – and linked the decision to Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
The officials admitted their action could look ‘duplicitous’ and cited his ‘homophobia’ as a reason the move would receive public support.
So to avoid looking “racist” and suffering bad PR, they chose to be “duplicitous” and hope that gay rights would provide a smokescreen. So how’s that avoiding-the-bad-PR thing working out for you, guys? . . .
ADMINISTRATION ECONOMIC PLAN explained.
PAPER TIGER? Another report of ACORN marchers outnumbered 10-1.
PROF. JACOBSON: Thank God the CBO Works on Saturdays. CBO letter at the link.
A BIG sale in Health and Personal care.
UPDATE: Reader Debbie Eberts writes: “It’s not safe for surfing while children are nearby. At about page 3 and following, some, um, explicit sexual health things show up in the list. FYI.” I hadn’t noticed those, but I looked and — well, yes, but I don’t think it’s anything a kid would just notice if you were surfing the list. But anyway, consider yourself warned.
CRISIS OF A HOUSE inflated.
IRAN UPDATE: Iranian Police, Militia Attack Opposition Protesters. But while the attacks are to be taken for granted, the big news is that the protests are still going on. “As night fell, Iranians across the city gathered on their rooftops and chanted death to the dictator’ and ‘courageous neighbors, thank you for your support,’ apparently in response to the protests around the world.”
THAT’S NOT VERY SMART: Nikon dissing mommybloggers? Yeah, ’cause moms never want to take pictures or anything. (Via Michael Silence, who comments: “Who’s advising Nikon, the AP? The Knox County mayor’s office? Memo to Nikon: Roll up a newspaper and go smack a hornet’s nest.”)
PROJECTION: 40% of Americans could get swine flu next year.
POLITICO: CBO Deals New Blow to Health Plan. “For the second time this month, congressional budget analysts have dealt a blow to the Democrat’s health reform efforts, this time by saying a plan touted by the White House as crucial to paying for the bill would actually save almost no money over 10 years.”
Well, you can’t blame Obama for this — he doesn’t even know what’s in the bill. . . .
CULTURAL DIFFERENCES. I guess, like Erin Andrews, she was asking for it.
VIRGINIA POSTREL: Is California Still Glamorous?
AN ELECTRIC CAR that can recharge in 11 minutes?
BITES FROM THE APPLE: A roundup of news from the Apple empire. A tablet-based Mac?
PLANET-KILLING CLIMATE-CHANGER: “It was a great trip!”
UPDATE: Expert is as expert does. “Here is a picture of Thomas Friedman’s house.” My goodness. Can that be right? It’s certainly a bigger carbon footprint than Stately Instapundit Manor.
PROGRESS IN UNDERSTANDING celiac disease.
GREEN SHOOTS! From 1930.
EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL: U.S. Navy Commander Files Sex Complaint Against Female Miami Herald Journo.
MICHAEL YON FROM AFGHANISTAN on satellite communications for soldiers. And bloggers.
CHANGE! Heh.
IN THE MAIL: From Richard Botkin, Ride the Thunder: A Vietnam War Story of Honor and Triumph.
THE NEXT BIG THING in entertainment.
KATIE COURIC VS. Alessandra Stanley. Let down again by those layers of editors and fact-checkers. . . .
CHRIS DODD UPDATE: AP: Dodd May Snub Lobbyists, But Not Their Cash. “Facing the toughest re-election fight of his nearly 30 years in the Senate, Sen. Christopher Dodd boasts about snubbing lobbyists. Yet even as he touts his independence, the embattled Connecticut Democrat is still cashing lobbyist campaign checks and rubbing shoulders with them at fundraisers and party gatherings.”
THE NIKON D5000 gets a very positive review from Popular Mechanics. “The D5000 is a fantastic camera for the price and a great, consumer-friendly entry in the world of SLRs.” I love my D300, but the D5000 is a lot cheaper — less than half the price of the D300 body-only, even with the 18-55 lens included.
LAYING DOWN A MARKER: Bill Quick says it’s a sucker’s rally. We’ll see. I think the declining prospects for Obamacare and cap-and-trade have been responsible for a lot of the advances in the market.
MICHAEL SILENCE: “That’s the problem, for the AP it is still 1994.”
HEALTH CARE “REFORM” — WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? “Stormy weather in Congress is threatening President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, but some see a silver lining: the lobbyists are still mostly on board.”
TOM MAGUIRE: ‘Sorry’ Seems To Be The Hardest Word. Plus, “So – do feminists and domestic violence experts agree that if the man of the house shouts at the cops that everything is cool so get out, the cops should simply leave?”
POST-RACIAL AMERICA (CONT’D): A hate crime in East Austin. ‘The brick, thrown through a 4-year-old boy’s bedroom window, read ‘Keep Eastside Black. Keep Eastside Strong.’”
THIS AFTERNOON: The Richmond Tea Party. Stacy McCain will be there, saying “Don’t Get Angry, Get Organized!” Always good advice.
KNOX COUNTY MAYOR’S AIDE TARGETS BLOGGER. Yeah, that’s smart.
UPDATE: Well, not really. Smart PR people don’t generally go after bloggers, as this tends to attract other bloggers to the story . . . .
THE RELIGIOUS QUALITY OF ENVIRONMENTAL EXTREMISM: I think that people start with a desire to be extremists — or, at least, to feel good about themselves and condemn others — and then look around for an ideology that gives them what they want. The actual merits are far less important, as is demonstrated by the transparent idiocy of most ideologies.
ALAN BOYLE: See Jupiter’s Great Black Spot. Cool pic of the impact spot on Jupiter, taken by the newly-operational Hubble Wide Field Camera. Thanks, astronaut repair-crew!
Plus this: “One big question about the impact is: Why didn’t we see this coming? What does this say about our ability to detect potential killer asteroids or comets before they hit Earth? . . . The good news is that Jupiter acts as something of a gravitational vacuum cleaner, sucking in deep-space impacts that might otherwise whack Earth. The bad news is that much more needs to be done to detect potentially harmful space rocks, and draw up a plan to protect our planet when (not if) we find one. In that sense, Jupiter’s black eye serves as a warning that we better put up our dukes.”
JOHN STOSSEL: War is peace. Up is down.
THE PATH NOT TAKEN: Victor Davis Hanson imagines Obama’s first six months, had Obama acted like a moderate and not a lefty.
YEAH, THAT’S A SMART BUSINESS PLAN: Associated Press Goes to War with Search Engines and Blogs. Because who wants all that yucky web traffic, anyway?
UPDATE: From the comments: “Next up, Agatha Christie sues the Dewey Decimal System.”
60 STORMTROOPERS walk onto the terrace.
UPDATE: C.J. Burch succumbs to a geek crush.
DAVID FREDDOSO: Will Obamacare Euthanize Granny? No. Well, certainly not if she’s made the proper campaign contributions. . . .
IF HEALTHCARE IS A “RIGHT,” why does it depend on what the government says you can have? “Now, imagine if the government had a body of experts charged with figuring out what your free-speech rights are, or your right to assemble, or worship. Mr. Jones, you can say X and Y, but not Z. Ms. Smith, you can freely assemble with Aleutians, Freemasons, and carpenters, but you may not meet in public with anyone from Cleveland or of Albanian descent. Mrs. Wilson, you may pray to Vishnu and Crom, but never to Allah or Buddha, and when you do pray, you cannot do so for longer than 20 minutes at a time, unless it is one of several designated holidays. Please see Extended Prayer Form 10–22B.”
ROGER SIMON: Gates, and Obama’s nostalgia for racism. “The problem is that this nostalgia not only blames people unfairly, it also increases the very thing it pretends to oppose – racism itself. The unfair or inaccurate imputation of racism promotes racism.” Of course, that increases the power of people who trade on charges of racism . . . .
THIS KEEPS HAPPENING: ACORN Holds Pro-Obamacare Rally… Tea Party Breaks Out.
WINDOWS 7 WILL MAKE YOU MISS VISTA!
Uh, guys? You might want to try a different slogan . . . .
WELL, thanks!
ENERGY WASTING BUREAUCRATS at the Department of Energy. They’re, like, the Tim Geithners of thermostats or something. . . .
A BUMPER STICKER FOR THE AGE OF OBAMA: “I support the President but I am against all his policies.” Plus a new spin on an old anti-war slogan . . . .
MICKEY KAUS: “A secret conversation on “JournoList” apparently produces eerily similar arguments against the filibuster from Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias. Except Yglesias goes on to make some quirky and sophisticated points about the effects of filibusterless democracy on campaigning and on the welfare state, while Klein’s reads like a prize-winning high school essay. (Also, Klein hides the JournoList connection, while Yglesias is transparent about it.)”
TOMORROW: A Richmond Tea Party.
