The collapse of the global warming "consensus"

The Wall Street Journal has an article on how the "consensus" on human induced global warming is collapsing. It is very heartening, but I wish that someone would relay this news to the U.S. House of Representatives. I guess it is still not clear what the fate of the "cap and trade" bill is. Hopefully it will fail, but if they do manage to pass it, it will be all the more absurd. One thing the article points out is the Australian Parliament is ready to eliminate its own carbon-emissions restrictions. I always thought the Aussies had their heads in the right place.

Kudlow on the folly of government-run health care

Larry Kudlow has a spot-on column about how catastrophic government-run health care would be both in terms of cost and how it would denigrate the actual health care that people receive. It always amazes me that the liberals who are pushing this care so little for the lives and well-being of the people that it will affect.

Andrew McCarthy on understanding Obama's reaction to the Iranian protests

Andrew McCarthy has a brilliant post on the Corner on understanding Obama's response (or lack thereof) to the Iranian protests.

In brief, McCarthy says: "The fact is that, as a man of the hard Left, Obama is more comfortable with a totalitarian Islamic regime than he would be with a free Iranian society." I think that's exactly right... Obama doesn't want the protestors to win. He's more comfortable with the mullahs being in power.

Obama and Iran

There is really amazing stuff happening in Iran. I hope so much that the protesters might actually be able to achieve some real change over there. It is a long shot, but just imagine if that could happen. So it is really frustrating to have the U.S. president be such a waffler on what is going on over there. OK, so we're not sending troops in, but can't he make a statement in favor of true democracy over there? I mean you know it is bad when European leaders are more bold in their statements of support. There are a couple of good posts on the situation here by Powerline and here by Charles Krauthammer.

Christopher Hitchens on the Iranian "election"

As usual, Christopher Hitchens has an entertaining and insightful take on the Iranian "election" (he refuses to call it a real election and who can blame him?).

Ralph Peters on Obama's personal animus towards Europe

Ralph Peters has a great column detailing how Obama, who seems to love Europe-style socialism, doesn't seem to like Europeans too much. As Peters says:

"President Obama may be the least Europe-friendly occupant of the White House since James Monroe (the guy who put up a "Keep Out!" sign on our hemisphere). Bam clearly doesn't like Europeans."

Peters also points out some of Obama's clearly illogical (or Islam-centric?) views i.e. that Obama dissed France for not letting Muslim girls wear head scarves in schools or as Peters writes:

"That's rich. Our president praised the "wisdom" of King Abdullah, ignoring Saudi Arabia's hideous treatment of women, but whacked Europeans for insisting that heads -- and identities -- should go uncovered in free societies."

I think Peters has it right... I myself have noted and blogged on the fact that Obama seems to really dislike England and has problems with Angela Merkel of Germany. I kind of thought he was OK with France, but on this most recent trip he blew off the Sarkozys on a dinner invitation. The European press will start savaging Obama long before the U.S. press ever will (or would) so I look forward to that beginning, and I think it won't be long.

a "pay czar"??? can you believe it???

Apparently Obama has appointed a "pay czar" "with broad discretion over executive pay". Can you believe such a thing would ever happen in the United States of America? This is very disturbing, but then there is so much crap coming from this administration that it is really just one more in a long string of outrages.

It seems that North Korea is spoiling for war

This story just blew me away. Now North Korea is saying that if we extend our nuclear umbrella over South Korea and Japan that that amounts to a declaration of war? Come on! These guys are like a little bully that keeps on drawing a line in the sand and we keep stepping back and they keep drawing new lines. It seems that they want a confrontation.

Global warming? Yeah... sure...

After just having had some friends over to my house for a Sunday June 7 BBQ at which we all had jackets on, I was interested to read this story about the third annual International Conference on Climate Change. The speakers at the conference pointed out the flaws in the current conventional "wisdom" on human-induced global warming; however, as the story states that even though the meeting took place "just blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Almost no media covered the event." Well, there's nothing like not reporting a story to bury it.

Finally a worthy person wins the Powerball lottery

Here is a really tremendous story- a 23 year old rancher, working the family ranch in South Dakota wins a $232 million Powerball jackpot. Having grown up on a farm, I know how hard farm and ranch work is and so many ranchers are having hard times these days so this is a great story.

All of a sudden Bin Laden isn't important???

It hasn't been showing up at the top of the internet news page headlines that I frequent, but apparently Osama Bin Laden came out with an announcement threatening us for our actions in Pakistan and by "us" that largely refers to Obama administration actions. Two things came into my head: 1) I thought that with Obama in charge that everybody was supposed to love us now? and 2) why is this Bin Laden announcement not getting wider coverage? The answer to the second question came when I was listening to Rush Limbaugh and he played a sound clip of some journalist talking about how now Bin Laden isn't so important in the Muslim world. Say what? When did that happen?

Of course, the answer has to be that since now Obama is in charge that the media suddenly doesn't care that Bin Laden is still on the loose and so they have to minimize his role. Sigh...

Well, that didn't take long...

Even though Barack Obama said that the government wouldn't meddle in GM's affairs (seriously, did he think that anyone would believe that??? how dumb does he think we are?), just now I saw an on-line headline for a Wall Street Journal article about how "Lawmakers seek to influence plant locations" and I just thought "well, that didn't take long". This government takeover of GM and Chrysler is going to be the biggest cluster f*** in our nation's history (though it will soon be surpassed if these chuckleheads are successful in socializing the medical care industry).

Hugh Hewitt says don't buy a socialist motors (GM or Chrysler) car

Hugh Hewitt has a column calling for people not to buy any cars from GM or Chrysler as long as the government is running them (and make no mistake, no matter what Obama said in his speech today, the government will be calling all the shots at those companies). Listen to Hugh! I have a Jeep Liberty and if I replace it in the next year or two, I will not buy a GM or Chrysler/Jeep car.

The public says "no" to closing Gitmo... will Obama listen?

In Obama's speeches he makes a big deal about "listening to all sides" and "reaching out for opposing viewpoints". That is all rubbish of course. It seems pretty clear now that the only person Obama really listens to is Obama (OK, maybe he listens to Mrs. Obama). Be that as it may, you would think that when you have an overwhelming majority opposed to the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison (by more than 2 to 1 according to this USA Today/Gallup poll) that even the self-centered Obama would have to listen. Let's hope so.

Samuelson on the media's Obama worship

Robert Samuelson of Newsweek, certainly no conservative, has a column that is harshly critical of the media's worship of Obama. An especially good paragraph from the piece:

"Obama's rhetoric brims with inconsistencies. In the campaign, he claimed he would de-emphasize partisanship -- and also enact a highly-partisan agenda; both couldn't be true. He got a pass. Now, he claims he will control health care spending even though he proposes more government spending. He promotes "fiscal responsibility" when projections show huge and continuous budget deficits. Journalists seem to take his pronouncements at face value even when many are two-faced."

CNN's happy face on the GM debacle

I was watching some of CNN when I was on the elliptical machine at the gym. I guess it shouldn't surprise me, but they were trying to put a happy face on the GM bankruptcy (with all the associated travail that will come from plants and dealerships closing and people losing their jobs). Is there no piece of bad news coming from this administration that they won't try to put a positive spin on?