NASA climate data not reliable, per NASA

Full article here. 

Global warming critics call this a crucial blow to advocates' arguments that minor flaws in the "Climate-gate" data are unimportant, since all the major data sets arrive at the same conclusion -- that the Earth is getting warmer. But there's a good reason for that, the skeptics say: They all use the same data. 

"There is far too much overlap among the surface temperature data sets to assert with a straight face that they independently verify each other's results," says James M. Taylor, senior fellow of environment policy at The Heartland Institute.

Media treatment of Tea Party

We Report, You Obey: The MSM's Dirty Tea Party Fetish Angry or furious? Threatening or deeply, deeply sinister? From their angry pickup trucks to their extreme extremities, Mainstream Media News anchor Andrew Klavan delivers a hard-hitting, objective report on America's angry tea party of anger.

:-) - A video report from PJTV

House of Anger? Please.

The original article.

My take below

Unfairly or not, the defining images of opposition to health care reform may end up being those rage-filled partisans with spittle on their lips. Whether the outbursts came from inside Congress — the "baby killer" shout of Rep. Randy Neugebauer, and his colleagues who cheered on hecklers — or outside, where protesters hurled vile names against elected representatives, they are powerful and lasting scenes of a democracy gasping for dignity.

Since the media will largely control the 'defining images', this likely will be true to a great extent. As an adjunct of the Democrat party, most of the media will happily replay the clips that make the oppostion look 'rage-filled' and buffoonish. Similarly rabid protestors of the Iraq war were potrayed as simply exercising their rights in what was obviously a righteous cause.

Most of these vignettes are isolated incidents — a few crazies going off in a vein-popping binge. But the Republican Party now has taken some of the worst elements of Tea Party anger and incorporated them into its own identity. They are ticked off, red-faced, frothing — and these are the men in suits.

The accounts I've read of people who've actually attended Tea Party events describe orderly, polite protests - nothing 'red-faced' or 'frothing' about it. I'm sure there are crazies who show up, as there are crazies on the other side who don't represent most of the left. The tea party's views are mostly libertarian and - from what I've read - they've avoided affiliating with any existing party. They're not happy with pretty much any of the current crop of legislators. Bush was no proponent of smaller, less-intrusive government.
Here's an interesting commentary on an article discussing the supposed threats to Democrat lawmakers.

... as the party of the hissy fit, Republicans are playing with fire.

And Democrats should know as that's more often their role. (Low hanging fruit. Couldn't resist)

On Monday morning, most Americans awoke with some relief that the epic battle was over. Then, they tried to figure out what health care overhaul would mean to them. They found out that insurance companies would no longer be allowed to drop people if they get sick. They saw that older children could stay on their insurance through age 26. And the elderly, the most consistent voting block, discovered that the new law would gradually end a prescription drug donut hole that causes many of them to cut their pills in half to get through a month.

Saul Alinsky wrote a book - Rules for Radicals. Rule number 12:  "pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."This administration seems fond of Saul and his rules. In this case the target is insurance companies. The first step to a single payer health system is to get rid of the insurance companies. If insurance companies are required to cover people with existing conditions then why would anyone buy insurance before they became sick? That goes against the whole theory of insurance. Would anyone expect their auto insurance to cover them for an accident they had before they obtained coverage? Doesn't that sound silly?

No death panels. No socialized public option. No forcing people to change doctors or providers. And the most contentious part of the new law — requiring nearly everyone to get health coverage or pay a fine — does not kick in until 2014.

The fine will be pointless unless it is more than the cost of the insurance. I guess we'll see, but I'm guessing that won't be the case. And that 2014 date is interesting - that's when the requirements kick in, but the taxes start right away. That was the only way they could massage the numbers from the CBO to make it look like the plan isn't going to bankrupt the country.

 

But it's always better to be building something than destroying it.

That's just a silly statement.

Having welcomed Tea Party rage into their home, and vowing repeal, the Republicans have made a dangerous bargain. First, they are tying their fate to a fringe, one that includes a small faction of overt racists and unstable people. The Quinnipiac poll this week found only 13 percent of Americans say they are part of the Tea Party movement.

Again with a misportrayal of the Tea Party as being about rage. And here's one thought on the supposed racist faction of the Tea Party movement. There probably are racists among Tea Partiers but there are probably more in the Democrat party - or have we forgotten our President's long-time pastor Reverend Wright.
And let's not be too quick to dismiss that 13 percent who are 'part of the Tea Party movement'. Since this is a movement that's just about a year old, 13 percent doesn't seem too shabby. I'd consider it pretty impressive. I mean I'm not 'part of the Tea Party movement' but I feel a lot more affinity for them than either of the dominant parties.

It was the ancient Greeks who gave us a sense of what Republicans will be living with under this pact with rage. Many people are afraid of the dark, the saying goes. But the real tragedy is those who are afraid of the light.

Hmmm. A 'pact with rage' - really?
And I guess we'll see when and how brightly the light shines on the details of the new healthcare plan. Considering the administrations past aversion to transparency, I'm not expecting much.

Not likely, but makes sense to me ...

From my inbox...

An idea whose time has come 

For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they didn't pay into Social Security, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform that is being considered...in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn't seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop. This is a good way to do that. It is an idea whose time has come.

Have each person contact a minimum of Twenty people on their Address list, in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one proposal that really should be passed around.

Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution

"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States."

You are one of my 20.

Things Ann Althouse likes about President Obama

Funny.

From an email forward ...

I'm Sick of "Inherited"

The Washington Post babbled again today about Obama inheriting a huge deficit from Bush, blah blah blah. Amazingly enough, a lot of people swallow this nonsense.

So once more, I'll try a short civics lesson.

Budgets do not get approved by the White House. They are passed only by CONGRESS and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party. They controlled the budget process for FY 2008 and FY 2009, as well as FY 2010 and FY 2011. In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush belatedly got tough on spending increases. For FY 2009, though, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the FY 2009 budgets.



And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete FY 2009.

Let's remember what the deficits looked like during that period:




If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for those budgets. If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.

In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.

 

Idaho resident responds to NYT article pimping sad stereotypes

Funny stuff.

This sounds right to me

... all the fraud, critical "lost" data, suppression of criticism and so on doesn't prove that there's no global warming — people can lie about things that, nonetheless, turn out to be true — but it has to induce a certain degree of skepticism. So what should we do?

Nothing. At least, in my opinion, we should continue to try to minimize the use of fossil fuels regardless. Burning coal and oil is filthy, and they're more valuable as chemical feedstocks anyway. We should be building nuclear plants and pursuing efficiencies in the shorter term, while working on better solar (including orbital solar), wind, etc. power supplies for the longer term.

I agree. Cap and trade is a bunch of crap with primarily political goals.

But I'm all for taking care of the environment and burning less oil. I was an early adopter of compact fluorescents - because I believed the hype that they would save me money in the long run. Now I'm switching back to incandescents and waiting for LED lights to get cheaper. The fluorescents never lasted as long as they claimed - some of them I replaced as often as I would have an incandescent and for a lot more money. And now of course we find out they have mercury in them which will now be going into our landfills. 

I'm interested in solar, too, but again mostly I'm waiting for it to get cheaper. 

And of course, I don't think the government needs to be driving this stuff. Let the markets sort it out.

A plague on both your houses

voters not happy with Dems or GOP. 

Sounds about right to me.

Have a little salt with this ...

This was forwarded to me from my friend Craig. I thought it was interesting but kind of long. I definitely agree with it that lawyers are more part of our problems than likely bringers of solutions. I suspect there are plenty of lawyers among Republicans and some non-lawyers among Democrat politicians, but I haven't looked into it.

The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers Party. Barack Obama is a lawyer. Michelle Obama is a lawyer. Hillary Clinton is a lawyer. Bill Clinton is a lawyer. John Edwards is a lawyer. Elizabeth Edwards is a lawyer. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate). Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress: Harry Reid is a lawyer.. Nancy Pelosi is a lawyer.

The Republican Party is different. President Bush is a businessman. Vice President Cheney is a businessman. The leaders of the Republican Revolution: Newt Gingrich was a history professor. Tom Delay was an exterminator. Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon. Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976.

The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work, who are often the targets of lawyers. The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick, like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich.

The Lawyers Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America .. And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers Party, grow.

Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.

This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.

Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming. Some Americans become adverse parties of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.

Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning todo to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.

We cannot expect the Lawyers Party to provide real change, realreform or real hope in America Most Americans know that a republic in whichevery major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges isnot what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannotfight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. MostAmericans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore decliningmoral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.

Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.

The United States has 5% of the worlds population and 66% of the worlds lawyers! Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits. This legislation has continually been blocked from even being voted on by the Democrat Party. When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association goes to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high!

The system is working as designed.

The President's two major initiatives - cap-and-trade and health care - have failed because there was not a broad consensus to enact them. Our system is heavily biased against such proposals. That's a good thing.

from here. 

Apparently we're in Wonderland.

Who knew?

Nothing means anything, anymore. Words truly are "just words," now, and in this Looking-Glass Administration, words mean exactly what Obama says they mean at any given moment. They will mean something else, in five minutes.

Attacks on GOP

How can the Republicans be accused of being the Party of No, if they are in fact voting as their constituents want them to and rejecting the president's agenda? Doesn't that make us the People of No?

Exactly.

I think the President knows this and would much rather tell us to please just get out of his way because he knows better than we do what we need. But he's cunning enough to realize that might be seen as hubris by the little people, so he goes after the opposition party.

If someone is trying to set a bomb to blow up a building (or an economy, or a nation) then obstruction is what's needed. Compromising doesn't really do the job, sometimes.

SOTU and SCOTUS

From comments on Ann Althouse's blog (via Instapundit):

As Dennis Miller just said a minute ago on my radio: Obama chose to call out the only 9 guys in the room that did their homework in law school. And the rest who ended up settling for politics stood and cheered it.

man up!

You know, one could argue that President Bush "inherited" Al Qaeda from Bill Clinton, who did little-to-nothing in response to all of Al Qaeda's provocations throughout the 1990's and unto the USS Cole bombing. But never, not once, did Bush ever say, "I inherited this…" It's time for Obama to become a man.

from here

SOTU

I didn't see it - only heard about 5 minutes of it, but saw some commentary to the effect that it sounded like a campaign speech. That doesn't surprise me. He's good at campaigning - really it's the only thing he has experience in ...

perspective

Gerri's friend Joanna has been helping in Haiti since November. She has a blog. Her latest update ended: 

Hope that all of you had a good weekend.  I just noticed that the Vikings lost.  How sad.  I think it is the first glimpse of "news" I have seen in months.

The middle class is filled with people who pay attention to the second page of their paycheck stubs.

It's clear that the middle class is the great enemy of collectivism. Only they have the combination of voting power, money, and economic self-interest to see the growth of government as undesirable, and provide effective resistance. They generally view their interactions with government in a negative light – they've all spent time in the Department of Motor Vehicles mausoleum, spent hours wrestling with tax forms, or been slapped with a traffic citation they don't think they deserved. They understand the inefficiency and emotional instability of government, and instinctively resent its intrusion into their lives. A health-care takeover is the best chance collectivists will ever have of persuading the middle class to vote itself into chains

The middle class is a vast group in a capitalist society, which is one of the things collectivists really hate about capitalism. Its upper reaches include the entrepreneurs and small business owners that bring economic vitality. Virtually every aspect of Obama's agenda is designed to injure or burden small businessmen, and this is no accident. Despite their angry rhetoric about giant corporations, leftists have little trouble controlling them.

it is crucial to understand that it doesn't matter if the people engineering a collectivist state have sinister motives or not. In fact, the belief that their intentions make a difference is incredibly dangerous. It's related to the catechism of the faculty-lounge Marxist, which holds that communism and fascism only failed because bad people were in charge of them.

 
and of the President's statement that he pushed so hard for the health care plan because insurance companies "were doing things that were just plain wrong, and were leaving folks in an extremely vulnerable position."

It doesn't matter if this is his sincere belief, spoken straight from the heart. His health-care plan was still an awful idea that united the country in opposition against the increasingly thuggish and arrogant methods he used to advance it. Those methods are integral to the collectivist enterprise. It will always become thuggish and arrogant, because when all virtue resides in the State, those who oppose the growth of the State become villains by definition.

 (emphasis mine)

from here - It's worth reading the whole piece

True for families, businesses, governmente

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.

- Charles Dickens, David Copperfield.

Thoughts on the Brown win

 Polls show that most Americans want smaller government, even with fewer "services." Running on a platform that money's better kept in voters' own pockets, rather than handed over to special interest logrolling and vote-buying, will work: If it'll work in Massachusetts, it should work pretty much anywhere.

from Instapundit.