POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

Kill Truckabee

Here. Dan Riehl has related thoughts regarding Courage, the Cowardly Pol.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Boston Globe: Republicans Remain “On Warpath” Against Poor ACORN

Boo hoo.

The world's attention on Tuesday will be on President Obama's speech on Afghanistan.

But in a corner of Capitol Hill, Republicans will be doing their best to keep alive the controversy over ACORN, the community advocacy group.

Republicans on the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees announced today they will host a forum at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday "examining new details that have come to light regarding the inner workings of ACORN."

Prompted mostly by Republican outrage over videos showing ACORN staffers advising how to skirt the law, Congress believed it had cut off federal funding to ACORN. But President Obama's Justice Department ruled last week that because of technicalities with the wording of the bill, ACORN would continue to be paid from existing government contracts, mostly helping low-income people find affordable housing.

As I've mentioned, Holder circumvented the intent of Congress in his ruling. Perhaps this is why it's important to remain on that warpath.

Leading the charge, obviously, is Big Government, where Matthew Vadum had an important article up this morning discussing Holder's deafness regarding the ethically challenged organization, and now Publius discloses that ACORN worked in concert with NBC to produce a hidden-camera "sting" video regarding a tax preparer. It is to laugh, as well as to complicate AG Moonbeam's intended whitewash.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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The “Science” Is Unsettled

Or, when you've lost The Atlantic . . .

Clive Crook deserves kudos for an honest assessment of what the Warmaquiddick revelations mean:

While I'm listing surprises, let me note how disappointed I was by The Economist's coverage of all this. "Leaked emails do not show climate scientists at their best," it observes. No indeed. I should say I worked at the magazine for years, admire it as much as ever, and rely on the science coverage especially. But I was baffled by its reaction to the scandal. "Little wonder that the scientists are looking tribal and jumpy, and that sceptics have leapt so eagerly on such tiny scraps as proof of a conspiracy," its report concludes. Tiny scraps? I detest anti-scientific thinking as much as The Economist does. I admire expertise, and scientific expertise especially; like any intelligent citizen I am willing to defer to it. But that puts a great obligation on science. The people whose instinct is to respect and admire science should be the ones most disturbed by these revelations. The scientists have let them down, and made the anti-science crowd look wise. That is outrageous.

Megan McArdle adopts a world-weary tone similar to The Economist's: this is how science is done in the real world. If I were a scientist, I would resent that. She has criticised the emails and the IPCC response to them, then says she still believes the consensus view on climate change. Well, that was my position at the end of last week, and I suppose it still is. But how do I defend it? There is far more of a problem here for the consensus view than Megan and ordinarily reliable commentators like The Economist acknowledge. I am not a climate scientist. In the end I have to trust the experts. That is what we are asked to do. "Trust us, we're scientists".

Remember that this is not an academic exercise. We contemplate outlays of trillions of dollars to fix this supposed problem. Can I read these emails and feel that the scientists involved deserve to be trusted? No, I cannot.

It's a cogent reaction to the mere evidence of the emails, without even going to the tortured Fortran that generated the numbers. A lot of honest people have been taken in by this extraordinary scam, and in the shakeout, we'll be able to identify who they are.

They were co-opted! Ummmmmmmmmm . . . Matrixy:

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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The Mouse That Roared: Congratulations, Honduras

Rick Moran (credit where due) has up an excellent piece about Honduras' election of Porfirio Lobo, a conservative, to be their President. It concludes this way:

The American people will not be informed of this pitiful about face by our government. But the Honduran people don’t need our State Department’s blessing or condemnation to know what they have accomplished this day.

It's really amazing that it took the administration this long to come around to the obvious conclusion that Zelaya's deposing was constitutional and brought about by his repeated violations of the Honduran Constitution. Zelaya's performance in the Brazilian Embassy in Honduras, which harbored him when he snuck (I prefer it, don't care) back into the country, was a turning point. There, he claimed that he was being subject to radiation beams and hallucinogenic gases provided to the Honduran military by the United States. Senator DeMint and his fact-finders, despite John Kerry's attempt to block them, also managed to get on the ground and discover that the general Honduran view was quite different from what was being expressed in the MSM.

As Rick points out, Brazil's attitude in this instance (not to mention Spain's) has been particularly disheartening. Obama shoveled hundreds of millions of US dollars into Brazil's offshore drilling projects--which, if I were an environmentalist, I would claim threatens biodiversity in a way that no US project could. Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad has been touring South America, celebrating connections with such Zelaya supporters as Hugo Chavez, and talking about exporting enriched uranium to some of their allies. What Ahmadinejad intends to do is to open an American front, Marxist, Jihadist, whatever, against the US to counter the US presence abutting Iran in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Taliban control of opium production mirrors the control of drug-lord militia/Marxists in Central and South America. Bolivia, having accepted aid from Ahmadinejad, has instructed nurses at the benefitting hospital that they must wear the hijab, as that was a condition.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration coddles Cuba, despite their ridiculous war games against a US invasion, coordinated with Hugo's hysterical rantings about a Columbian threat to Venezuela.

None of this diplomatic clusterfark has anything to do with Iran's announcement that they will open another 10 uranium enrichment facilities, I am sure.

UPDATE: Drew M. at AoSHQ

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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The Commandments – Revised for an Enlightened Generation

Exodus
Chapter 20

1 Then God delivered all these commandments:
2 "I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.
3 You shall not have other gods besides me.

...unless it promises bread to all who hunger, water to all who thirst, shelter for all who wander... you know, all those material things only the State can provide.

4 You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth;

...unless it makes a good record, movie, tee shirt, or bumper sticker.

5 you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers' wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation;
6 but bestowing mercy down to the thousandth generation, on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 "You shall not take the name of the LORD, your God, in vain. For the LORD will not leave unpunished him who takes his name in vain.

...unless, of course, you know better. Then, and only then can you claim to issue mandates in the name of God and what Jesus would do. He was a Democrat, after all.

8 "Remember to keep holy the sabbath day.

...until the advent of the NFL and the talk shows.

9 Six days you may labor and do all your work,
10 but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD, your God. No work may be done then either by you, or your son or daughter, or your male or female slave, or your beast, or by the alien who lives with you.
11 In six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the LORD has blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
12 "Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you.

..."mother and father" are more rightly understood to mean teachers, police officers, the Feds, and politicians. So, really anyone wearing a uniform, belonging to a union, or in a position of power, local, state, or federal... the exceptional and enlightened in particular. Because, it should be self-evident that they know better than your real father and mother, who can barely make ends meet and spend their money foolishly and selfishly.

13 "You shall not kill.

...unless you or your "life partner" becomes pregnant and it is inconvenient. Or, unless one of your number is really old and suffering mightily and/or burdensome and wholly without any dignity."

14 "You shall not commit adultery.

...unless she is really - and I mean really hot. Or you are lonely. Or just plain horny and have a chance to screw someone, married or not. For instance, one time while I was living in Phoenix, there was this incredibly hot young pole dancer with really awesome tattoos. She propositioned me. I told her I was married. She said it didn't bother her.

15 "You shall not steal.

...over-taxing and redistribution of one's hard-earned wages or good-fortune is not stealing. Think of it as, erm, justice. We are all born equal - shouldn't we die equal?

16 "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

...unless there is something to be gained or a cheap political point to be scored.

17 "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male or female slave, nor his ox or ass, nor anything else that belongs to him."

...again, the exception is if you really, really want what he has... or are envious to a degree that you can't possibly be expected to live without it. None should be expected to go throuugh life without the finest of things. Or at least without some of the finer things that the evil wealthier folks have - damn them. And anyway, envy isn't really that ugly when everyone is envious.

Clearly, we humans know best.

Enoch_Root

AKA. Bobby Donn Brubaker (the most popular man in Mesa, AZ), the Umbrella of Terror, Jack Ketch.

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Bad Acid – When Black is White and Up is Down…

And right is wrong and true is false...

How far have we fallen, exactly?

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

more

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of 9/11 who also admitted to a U.S. military tribunal that he decapitated former Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl, and his four fellow Gitmo detainees were captured and held as enemy combatants under different rules of evidence from those required for homegrown criminals.

As Cornell constitutional law professor Jeremy Rabkin points out, Gitmo detainees are not ordinary felons, and ordinary courts are not designed to cope with the special challenges they pose.

more

“It is unfortunate that whatever demons possessed Nidal Hasan that he chose to deal with his problems in this way.”

more conjecture - no mention of the fertile soil from which they seem to sprout.

I could go on. But why? We obviously have no intention as a nation to laud truth, seek justice, or call bad fruit "bad fruit." We have convinced ourselves there is something above Truth - and that idol we worship is political correctness. And it is a bad, bad, bad tinted and distorted window through which to view the world.

We are well and truly f**ked as a nation - sorry to say, there may be no turning back. And quite possibly, we deserve every bramble for deciding we know best - pitching Reason (that which is our distinguishing characteristic as creatures created in God's image) out into the cold and embracing emotion instead.

Feelings, wo-o-o feelings,
wo-o-o, feelings again in my arms.
Feelings...(repeat & fade)

"Repeat and Fade" - indeed.

Enoch_Root

AKA. Bobby Donn Brubaker (the most popular man in Mesa, AZ), the Umbrella of Terror, Jack Ketch.

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The Unintended Consequences of Party Crashing

Donald Douglas has a great analysis of the lamestream coverage of the story:

But this screw up at the New York Daily News is major, since the timeline of President Obama's meet up with the Salahi gatecrashers is crucial to the further discovery of administration deception, to Obama's possible knowledge of Tareq Salahi's Middle East ties, and to the ongoing investigation of the failed Secret Service security procedures. Publishing the photo of then-Senator Barack Obama at the 2005 Rock the Vote Awards, here's the New York Daily News' report, "Wanna-Be TV Duo Tareq and Michaele Salahi Hunting for Payday for Party Crashing Story."

Read the whole thing, with an eye especially to the Middle Eastern angle. Not noted in Donald's story are the fabrications regarding the wife, who claims to have been a Washington Redskins cheerleader, though there's no record of her having been. My guess is that some digging would show a great deal more "self-fashioning," if someone were to go through the records. The idea of Obama being punked by a couple of hollower flim-flammers than himself is delicious.

UPDATE: Malkin has some information on Designated White House Head Socialite Desiree Rogers. Donald has a follow-up post.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Come over to the Dark Side…

Let us consider what happens to those who achieve academically -- they go to school for years, being taught by people who often have never had a job outside of teaching. Then they end up in college, being taught by people who think there's nothing better in the world than to be a professor in the academy. But what do they know? Have they actually tried working outside the academy?

Meep

Meep is a member of the Irish Catholic mafia, having a suspiciously high number of green-eyed, red-haired friends. While she doesn’t have red hair herself [except when she goes into the sun (rare for any vampire)], she does have green eyes. She’s a raving Papist and is a life actuary on the side [i.e., she counts dead people]. An amateur pain-in-the-ass [willing to go pro!], she likes covering retirement, mortality, math, and education issues.

Best of the Web, Saturday 28 Nov. 2009

A programmer looks at the CRU hockey stick source code:

And now, I think, those people are going to pay. Because it could still be that full disclosure will vindicate the AGW crowd, but having read the CRU material…I don’t think so. In all of the scenarios that are now plausible, those who bayed the loudest about “consensus” and howled for the persecution of “denialists” are now set up for a hard fall.

--

One of the reasons AGW flimflam angers me is that it crowds out sane, constructive environmentalism. An environmental lobby that really cared about saving the planet would be agitating for crash programs to replace the burning of fossil fuels with nuclear energy; buying up rainforest acreage to stem loss of biodiversity; funding research into better battery- and supercap-based storage technology so low-density renewable power sources could be aggregated into baseload power. But the envorinmentalists we have won’t do these things, because they’re fixated on the wrong problems and the wrong means of solving even those.

--

If the historical temperature data were generally known to be garbage (which I was pretty sure was true even before the leak), it couldn’t be used to justify public policy that is both bad and expensive – like the U.S.’s “cap-and-trade” bill in progress, which has so many giveaways and exemptions that it subverts its own ostensible purposes.

Read the whole thing. The man writes so well, it's hard to believe he's a programmer.

Christopher Taylor on the Gorebacle. Carol has some thoughts and links, and already has her Christmas decorations up.

How "the trick" was pulled off. And Monckton calls for UN to be shut down, warm-mongers to be jailed.
The web of warm-mongering connections is partially delineated in this important post at Big Government.

Regarding The Hague's decision that it has the right to try American and coalition soldiers for war crimes. No, the internationalists don't want hegemonic oversight of American sovereignty. Noel at Cold Fury has not unrelated thoughts about the Navy SEAL courts martial.

Obama finally does the right thing and hangs Zelaya out to dry. No connection at all, I'm sure, to Hugo's saber rattling at Columbia, or Cuba's war games preparation for an American invasion (under Obama?!!)

US Commission on Civil Rights trying to hold Holder accountable for New Black Panther malfeasance. Meanwhile, Holder does an end-run around Congress to help out ACORN. California Attorney General Moonbeam offers incoherent defense of ACORN.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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