Dodd Bails Out...

Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat, Connecticut, announced this morning that he will not seek re-election in 2010.  This is probably a smart move on his part, as the polls are showing that he'd lose even if he were running against Osama Bin Laden.  This drop in his popularity came about because his corruption has been exposed – he's been trading his powerful position on the Finance Committee for favors from the financial industry for years.  The most notorious examples of this are the sweetheart (low interest) mortgages he received from Countrywide, and the multi-million dollar “cottage” some “friends” in the financial industry gave him.  There's much, much more; it's now crystal-clear that Dodd is a corruptocrat of the first order.  He deserves to go to jail, but getting him out of office is a reasonable start.

But Dodd's bailing out can also be seen as part of a larger pattern here: Democrats have been retiring at a prodigious rate.  If I'm counting correctly, we're now up to 11 House members and 3 Senate members who are not coming back after 2010.  If the Republicans were to pick up some of those House seats and just one of the Senate seats, the Congressional balance of power would be significantly shifted away from the Democrats.  It would be a Congress much more conducive to complete gridlock – my favorite place for a federal government to be (because nearly everything they do is bad, so the less they can do, the better).

Some observers are predicting that the folks who have already bailed out are just the beginning of a tsunami of “retiring” Democrats.  If that's true, that's just lovely – and a very hopeful omen for the outcome of the 2010 mid-terms...

ClimateGate: See For Yourself...

American Thinker is running a series of daily graphs showing how the AGW folks “adjusted” the raw station temperature data.  Oddly enough, those adjustments all seem to change data showing one thing into data showing another thing altogether!

The graph at right is their graph for yesterday.  It shows the raw data (in blue) and “adjusted&rddquo; data (in red) for Kremsmuenster, Austria.

Just by eyeballing it, you can see that the raw data shows little if any trend in any direction, while the adjusted data shows a clear warming trend.

As many observers have noted, if you take all the raw data that independent analysts have been able to obtain, there is no clear trend in it.  The trend emerges only after these sorts of adjustments have been applied.  It's as though you weighed yourself every morning for 10 years, plotted the resulting data, saw that there was no declining weight pattern – so then you go back and “adjust” the data to show that you had a higher weight in the past.  Now you can claim that your weight is going down!

Off to the Airport...

We're headed to the airport this morning – the wife is catching a flight to go visit her mom in Indiana.  Kate (her mom) is in her 90s, and about three weeks ago took a tumble in her bedroom that broke five ribs, punctured a lung, and lacerated her liver.  Tomorrow Kate goes home, and for the first few weeks her daughters (one of whom lives in the area) will be taking care of her.  They'll also be observing...we want to be sure that Kate is actually up to living on her own (she's starting to have doubts herself).

It's gotta be tough to be in Kate's situation.  She's been living on her own in her Indiana farmhouse for most of 40 years since her husband died.  All her friends and most of her relatives are in the immediate area.  She used to work in a nursing home, so she knows better than most what the conditions are like there.  She refuses to go live with either daughter, knowing what an imposition it would be (whatever the daughters say about it).  She relishes her independence. 

But now her body and her mind are starting to betray her.  This latest incident would be funny if it weren't so scary – she took that fall while making her bed in the morning.  Her feet got tangled up in the blankets and she fell against her nightstand.  So Kate's faced with some very tough choices here, and so are her daughters...

Meanwhile, I'll be spending my evenings and weekends taking care of the menagerie – currently that's four dogs, seven cats, a few hundred hummingbirds, and a few dozen quail.  In our kitchen, the meds for our dogs currently under treatement are lined up with written directions – it's complicated, with a total of 9 different medicines given at intervals ranging from 12 to 48 hours.  Some of the pills have to be wrapped in cream cheese to entice the dogs to eat them; others they think of as treats.  One of the bigger challenges is making sure that the right dog gets the medicine – sometimes the intended target will spit out the pill (after sucking all the cream cheese off it!), and another dog will scarf it up.  Sigh...

Simple Home Remedies...

Via my mom:

AMAZINGLY SIMPLE HOME REMEDIES

Avoid cutting yourself when slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop.

Avoid arguments with the Mrs. about lifting the toilet seat by using the sink.

A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives; then you'll be afraid to cough.

You only need two tools in life: WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.

Always remember: Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem.

And finally, a daily thought:

Some people are like Slinkies – not really good for anything, but they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs.

Oh, yeah – I know some Slinkies, all right...

Burt Rutan on AGW...

If you're interested in aviation or space flight at all, you almost certainly know of Burt Rutan – widely considered the most innovative aviation engineer ever.  He's famous for so many things it's hard to keep track of them all, but they include: gyroplanes, several of the private spacecraft (including Virgin's), the first aircraft to fly around the world, the Veri-Eze homebuilt experimental airplane (and it's relatives), and much, much more.  He's one of the world's foremost experts on composite materials.

He's not a climatolagist.  But he's one very smart guy with a world-class BS detector.

Burt Rutan thinks the AGW hypothesis is a complete fraud, and he thought so long before ClimateGate.  I just found out about Rutan's views myself.  His credibility is very high with me; I reacted to his thoughts here much as I did when I discovered that Freeman Dyson was an AGW skeptic.

Check out Rutan's presentation on the subject (including videos) at Watts Up With That.  Excellent stuff.

What's It Mean to be at War? Obama Has No Idea...

Mark Steyn takes Obama and his administration to task for their responses to the Knickerbomber:

"suspect..." "charged..." The president can't tell an allegedly alleged suspect (which is what he is in Obama fantasy land) from an enemy combatant (which is what he is in cold, hard reality). But worse than the complacent cop-show jargonizing was a phrase it's hard to read as anything other than a deliberate attempt to mislead the public: the president referred to the Knickerbomber as an "isolated extremist." By this time, it was already clear that young Umar had been radicalized by jihadist networks in London and fast-tracked to training in Yemen by terror operatives who understood the potentially high value of a westernized Muslim with excellent English from a respectable family. Yet President Obama tried to pass him off as some sort of lone misfit who wakes up one morning and goes bananas. Could happen to anyone.

Read the whole thing here.

2010 – the Year of the Chickens...

The chickens coming home to roost, that is.  Victor Davis Hansen has an interesting piece on how some of the lamer moves on the part of the Obama administration are likely to create some unhappy consequences sometime this year...

The Gathering Storm...

Scary graphic, but the message is dead serious.  At every turn, our liberal congress-critters are doing their best to limit one of American's most fundamental rights: the right to bear arms.

I just hope we have enough concerned citizens to beat back these efforts...

Year In Review...

Yup, it's that time of the year – when Dave Barry does his review of the year past.  A sample from this one:

In government news, top Washington thinkers, looking for a way to goose the economy along, come up with the ``Cash for Clunkers'' program, under which the federal government provides a financial inducement for people to take functional cars, which are mostly American-made, to car dealers, who deliberately destroy these cars and sell the people new replacement cars, which are mostly foreign-made. This program, which was budgeted for $1 billion, ends up costing $3 billion and is halted after a month. The administration declares that it has been a huge success, which everybody understands to mean that it will never, ever be repeated. With this mission accomplished, the top Washington thinkers are free to train all of their brainpower on the nation's health-care system.

It Just Hit Me!

Three readers sent variations of this to me today – it must be rattling around all over the intertubes:

My dog sleeps about 20 hours a day. She has her food prepared for her. She can eat whenever she wants, 24/7/365. Her meals are provided at no cost to her. She visits the Dr. Once a year for her checkup, and again during the year if any medical needs arise. For this she pays nothing, and nothing is required of her. She lives in a nice neighborhood in a house that is much larger than she needs, but she is not required to do any upkeep. If she makes a mess, someone else cleans it up. She has her choice of luxurious places to sleep. She receives these accommodations absolutely free. She is living like a queen, and has absolutely no expenses whatsoever. All of her costs are picked up by others who go out and earn a living every day.

I was just thinking about all this, and suddenly it hit me like a brick in the head: Holy Shit, my dog is a liberal!

Mark Steyn on the Health Care Bill...

My long-time readers know that Mark Steyn is one of my favorite columnists.  His own life experiences lend him extra credibility on health care issues: he was born and raised in England, moved to Canada as an adult, and then more recently moved to the U.S.   So he has direct personal experience with the two health care systems most frequently cited by American liberals as the model that the U.S. should aspire to.

Naturally, Mr. Steyn has some opinions on the wisdom of this.  Here's a taste:

That’s why Nebraska’s grotesque zombie senator Ben Nelson is the perfect poster boy for the new arrangements, and not just another so-called Blue Dog Democrat spayed into compliance by a massive cash injection. There is no reason on earth why Nebraska should be the only state in this Union to have every dime of its increased Medicare tab picked up by the 49 others. So either that privilege will be extended to all, or to favored others, or its asymmetry will be balanced by other precisely targeted lollipops hither and yon. Whatever happens, it’s a dagger at the heart of American federalism, just as the bill’s magisterial proclamation that the Independent Medicare Advisory Board can only be abolished by a two-thirds vote of the Senate strikes at one of the most basic principles of a free society — that no parliament can bind its successors.

These details are obnoxious not merely in and of themselves but because they tell us the truth about where we’re headed: Think of the way almost every Big Government project bursts its bodice and winds up bigger and more bloated than its creators allegedly foresaw. In this instance, the stays come pre-loosened, and studded with loopholes. Because the Democrat operators — the Nancy Pelosis and Barney Franks — know that what matters is to get something, anything across the river, and then burn the bridge behind you.

And here's where you can read the whole thing.

American Education...

Here's an interesting piece by an American educator noting that her foreign students out-perform her American students by a wide margin.  This is a phenomenon I've blogged about many times in the context of hiring U.S.-educated employees versus foreign-educated employees.

She ascribes the difference to “work ethic” differences, but the actual examples cited seem to speak more to the lack of motivation and seriousness of the American students.  To me, those imply cultural factors that are tough to pin down in any simple way.  The sum of them, though, is this: it's ok for an American to be an uneducated git upon completion of high school or college.  There are no unhappy consequences, other than certain careers being out of reach.  This is not true in many other countries; there, first of all, you'd never graduate without actually having achieved certain measurable sets of knowledge or skill.  Second of all, should you fail to reach these, you'd be greatly looked down upon.

How can we fix this?  I'm afraid I'm not optimistic about it...

The BVD Bomber: Inside Story...

Put down any breakfast beverages you may have in your hand.  Swallow anything in your mouth.  Then read this sample of IowaHawk's latest satirical masterpiece, wherein he brings you the inside story straight from the Christmas Day BVD bomber himself, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab:

I pretty much dozed off after that, but then it was like "BING! Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. In twenty minutes we will begin preparations for our final descent into Detroit, so if you have to use the restrooms, blah blah blah." Crap, I had completely forgotten to blow up the plane, and the concierge was giving me the hurry up sign. So I walked back to the loo, and there was already a line of hippies. So I told them, "hey dude, do you mind? I really gotta pinch one bad." I guess my eyes were kinda dilated from the suicide relaxants, so they let me by.

Lemme ask you: have you ever tried to inject a glycerin detonator syringe into some plastic explosives glued under your nutsack, while you were stoned out of your gourd, in an airplane bathroom, during Lake Erie turbulence, while some stupid hippie is pounding on the door? Take my word for this, it. is. a. mofo. I must have stabbed myself in the junk eight or ten times before I finally got it smoldering. So I stroll out of the loo, real casual-like, with my nuts on fire, and headed back to my seat to blow out the fuselage.

Read the whole thing here.

Blogger Up...

I have more-or-less recovered from my bout with the flu.  I'm functional enough this morning to go into work (I've been playing hooky the past couple of days). 

The best part about being sick is how good it feels when you're done...

Indeed...

Who Thinks of These Things?

ClimateGate: Merry Christmas Hockey Stick...

Via Steve McIntyre:

Iran...

Charles Krauthammer on the year of living fecklessly, a review of what Obama has done wrong on Iran.

Reading this, I can't help thinking how much better it would be have an eyes-wide-open realist like Krauthammer determining our Iranian strategy, rather than Obama and his “engagement” policy that's so reminiscent of Chamberlain.

On the other hand, the New York Times yesterday published a commentary piece that essentially said it's time to bomb the crap out of Iranian nuclear facilities.  That's about as expected (coming from the NYT) as a clean-shaven Santa.  Obama's left reacted in a tiredly predictable way, insisting that military action can't work and only engagement can.  The lessons of history apparently really can't be learned...

Meanwhile, as Krauthammer points out, Iran is another year closer to having the bomb that absolutely everyone knows they're trying so hard to make.  If they obtain that bomb, the political dynamics of the Middle East will be changed in ways that are to the detriment of every other Middle Eastern nation, and they all know it.  So my bet is that the most militarily capable nation in the Middle East (Israel) will mount the attack that the U.S. won't make – and that they'll be covertly aided by some countries we ordinarily think of as Israel's enemies.  Candidates are Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq...

Around Our House...

...are animals.  Lots of animals.  More animals than most people could imagine sharing their space with.  Only crazy people like us would think this was a desiable situation.

Our four dogs (seen here posing in front of our Christmas tree) and seven cats are quite happy today.  The dogs got presents (tug toys that squeak – everything a dog could desire) and everybody got lots of yummy food.  At right, the dogs are (clockwise starting with the black-and-white border collie): Racer, Mo'i, Lea, and Miki.   The angelic-looking kitty framed by the wreath is Halala Pala, affectionately known as the “Ha”.  He is the king of deception; his angelic looks conceal a devil on loan from Hades.  Curled up asleep is Maka Lea, who also looks angelic and innocent – but who actually is a well-practiced bully that rules the feline hierarchy here with unrelenting claw and vigilance.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all 12 of my regular readers!

  

Mao on a Christmas Ornament – at the White House!

I've no idea what the process was that led to this, nor do I know if these ornaments were approved by either of the Obamas personally.

But I do know this: as an American who cares about his fellow humanity, presenting Mao – responsible for more human death and misery than any other person in all of history – in such a context is insulting, wrong, and outrageous.

I can't even begin to imagine what anyone involved was thinking...