One (some) of the problems with

government.

Imagine ...

If these were internal Exxon-Mobil e-mails, the trial lawyers would be racing out the door with only one pants-leg filled and every Green press flack would be demanding this lead the evening news and front every newspaper above the fold. If similar e-mails came from the RNC showing racism or homophobia, the New York Times would not demur in the name of privacy, it would call for the GOP to go into federal receivership.

Seriously, this is a really big deal but it's not likely to be treated like it by the news megaliths because it doesn't fit the narrative.
But there's no media bias.
Never mind that the science that is the basis for the entire Global Warming panic that we are completely restructuring our economy over is now suspect and the most respected authorities on the subject have proven that they have been manipulating their findings and squashing results that don't agree with their own.

No argument here...

 A rule under which only politicians have guns strikes me as the worst of all possible worlds

What you won't see in the AP story on the health care bill ...

the inconvenient facts.

The long awaited correlation between politics and food preferences

This is kind of fun.

Gun control: using two hands instead of one

FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE 1. "Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not."~Thomas Jefferson 2. "Those who trade liberty for security have neither." ~ John Adams 3. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms. 4. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject. 5. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them. 6. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control. 7. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for. 8. Know guns, know peace, know safety.     No guns, no peace, no safety. 9. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive. 10. Assault is a behavior, not a device. 11. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday. 12. The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights Reserved. 13. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others. 14. What part of 'shall not be infringed' do you NOT understand? 15. Guns have only two enemies; rust and politicians. 16. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves. 17. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control. IF YOU AGREE, PASS THIS 'REFRESHER' ON TO TEN FREE CITIZENS.

 

--
tom

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
 - Thomas Jefferson

Global cost of corruption: $1,600,000,000,000

... that's $1.6 trillion with a T - every year. That's an estimate, of course, since it's kind of hard to get a handle on that kind of transaction. Much of it, unfortunately, is stolen from the world's poorest nations. This only makes it harder to fix global hunger and poverty.

"This money is significantly greater than the value of all foreign development aid. It is more than the ten year cost of the health care bill that just passed the House. It would be enough to fund a worldwide basic health system and provide basic primary education to every child on earth. Over the next fifty years it will cost the world much more than climate change."

Are free markets trying to make a comeback in the U.S.?

The old is new again. Sign me up.

Worldwide resurgence in czars experiences setback

as the UK Drug Tsar gets fired for not perpetuating myths about drugs.

Cautionary note about Facebook games

Watch for scams in Farmville, Mafia Wars, and the rest of the FB games.

Boys club, White House style

from Prof. Althouse, via Prof. Reynolds.

Day by Day

Yeah, this pretty much sums it up ...

So's how's Healthcare reform working for Massachusetts

Short answer - not good.

Long answer.

A few highlights - but read the whole thing:

 Massachusetts has all the goodies in the Baucus bill:  subsidies, guaranteed issue, community rating, an individual mandate, and employer penalties.  Indeed, the Massachusetts program is probably to the left of where we're going to end up, on things like empowering the exchanges to negotiate with insurance companies and the size of the penalties for failing to procure insurance, two measures which are supposed to be critical for holding costs down.

and

And health-care costs have continued to grow rapidly. According to a Rand Corporation study this year, the growth now exceeds state GDP by 8%. The Boston Globe recently reported that state health-insurance commissioners are now worried that medical spending could push both employers and patients into bankruptcy, and may even threaten the system's continued existence. 

But why can't we be like Europe?

It's no good saying that well, we should try to be more like the Netherlands--you can't build a system on the assumption that you will, suddenly and for no apparent reason, be able to import someone else's political culture. 

and finally:

Progressives are watching the whole health care legislative process with utter dismay as it produces a monster of a bill that not even its mother could love--and trying to love it anyway, on the grounds that it's a start.  But this ridiculous hodgepodge, this hypertrophied Rube Goldberg apparatus, is not some startling aberration of the political process, induced by some Republican dark magic.  This is the kind of thing the American political system produces.  This is why all of our programs have a substantial element of the inexplicable and bizarre. 

Hard to argue with this

this

We've got the worst political class in American history, and its rottenness is pretty thoroughly bipartisan.

Why aren't we researching ways to remove excess CO2?

That makes more sense to me than trying to reconfigure the entire world energy structure ...

Governments are doing practically nothing to study the removal of carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere, but this technology could be a much cheaper form of climate protection than photovoltaic cells and other approaches getting lavish support, according to an article published today in Science.

ACORN and Obama

With ACORN in the news for at least three separate instances of supporting child prostitution it's a good time to remember that one of our president's early jobs was as a community organizer with ACORN. And that ACORN was in line for $4 billion in stimulus money right after the president's inauguration even while they were under investigation for voter registration fraud.

I think if this was a Republican president, we'd be hearing a LOT more about this ...

legalize, regulate, treat, tax

From New Scientist: 

Better world: Legalise drugs

Far from protecting us and our children, the war on drugs is making the world a much more dangerous place.

ACORN back in the news

... well should be at least.

Sheesh.

You'd think an organization like this would be a black mark on a resume ...

Genius bar appointment? Seriously?

I had the same experience - and reaction - as Instapundit.

Never

forget...