Breakfast Scramble (Monday)

No Shat Sherlock, TSA grope down will kill people.  Just the facts Ma’am.  As driving is much more dangerous than flying, anything which discourage air travel and motivates people to drive, actually costs lives, from Hill:

As the nation readies for one of the busiest traveling holidays, Steven Horwitz, a professor of economics at St. Lawrence University, told The Hill that the probable spike in road travel, caused by adverse feelings towards the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) new screening procedures, could also lead to more car-related deaths.

“Driving is much more dangerous than flying, as you are far more likely to be killed in an automobile accident mile-for-mile than you are in an airplane,” said Horwitz. “The result will be that the new TSA procedures will kill more Americans on the highway.”

TSA gropes in the dark, because the Obamatards turned off  the lights, from Nice Deb:

As a direct result of the Obama administration’s decision to be less intrusive on actual terror suspects, it has become profoundly more intrusive on everyday Americans.

Remember that the next time a blue gloved hand slides up your inner thigh at an airport checkpoint.You gave up some rights when you bought the ticket, they’ll tell you.

TSA safety quiz, which of following items is not allowed aboard an aircraft by the Transportation Security Administration:

A.  M-4 Carbine

B.   M-240 Machine Gun

C.   M-9 automatic pistol

D.  Nail Clippers

Answer:  Erich Erichson, Red State.

Feel secure?

Village Idiot  I:  Jimmy Carter, from Kevin Bogardus, Hill

Speaking on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Sunday, the former Democratic president took aim at the cable news channel climate, often a target for President Obama as well who says he tries to avoid the cable chatter.

“The talk shows with Glenn Beck and others on Fox News, I think, have deliberately distorted the news. And it’s become highly competitive,” Carter said. “And my Republican friends say that MSNBC might be just as biased on the other side in supporting the Democratic Party, the liberal element.”

Mr President, for your information, Glenn does not do news.   He does commentary.   That what commentators do, give commentary.   Now on the other paw, Keith Olberbite is hired by PMSNBC as a news anchor.   Go figure.

Village Idiot  II: Mark Shields, from Noel Sheppard, Newbusters:

Syndicated columnist and PBS regular Mark Shields on Friday actually said on national television that he has never heard a Democratic leader or presidential candidate accuse former President George W. Bush of lying America into the Iraq War.

I suppose Shields never heard of Valarie Plume,  her husband Joe Wilson, or the  infamous seventeen words.

Doug Mataconis over at OTB, is commenting on the Anti-Palin backlash going on, and seems to me quite willing to be part of that backlash.

I’ve already made note since the elections of reports of growing concern about Palin inside the GOP, as well as comments by the likes of Karl Rove that Palin is acting in an “unpresidential” manner. Now, the Palin backlash seems to be going viral with Townhall’s Mona Charen being the latest to argue that Sarah Palin should not run for President:

Gov Sarah Palin

After the 2008 campaign revealed her weaknesses on substance, Palin was advised by those who admire her natural gifts to bone up on policy and devote herself to governing Alaska successfully.  Instead, she quit her job as governor after two and a half years, published a book (another is due next week), and seemed to chase money and empty celebrity. Now, rather than being able to highlight the accomplishments of Sarah Palin’s Alaska, we get “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” another cheesy entrant in the reality show genre. She’d so much rather be out dog sledding than in some “dull political office,” she tells the audience. File that.

She is wildly popular with a swath of the Republican electorate, it’s true. And, as a conservative woman politician told me, the consultants (who get paid the big bucks win or lose) will doubtless descend upon her with game plans showing how she can win in Iowa and then cruise to the nomination. Maybe. But the general election would be a problem, since 53 percent of independent voters view Palin unfavorably, according to a recent Gallup poll, along with 81 percent of Democrats.

(…)

Palin has many strengths. I admire her fortitude and her commitment to principle. Her capacity to connect with a crowd is something most politicians can only dream of. I will always remember her 2008 convention speech as a rollicking star turn. She would be terrific as a talk-show host — the new Oprah.

But as a presidential candidate? Someone to convince critical independent voters that Republicans can govern successfully? Absolutely not.

Of course, there are those, such as MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, who think that this entire Palin-For-President dance that we’re seeing is part of a cynical dance that the former Governor is playing that has nothing to do with any plans to ever run for higher office…

First, I feel obligated to point out that anybody that points to any operative at MSNBC the the the as a worthy comment on anything that’s happening on the conservative side, has a credibility gap that you could drive my tractor trailer through.

That said, I’m with Dan Rheil, who says:

These days, they are little better than Republicans content to hem and haw on the margins in the face of a Leftist, or progressive movement, and policies, that even now continue to push America to the Left. If my politics have shifted at all in recent years, it is in coming to see myself more aligned with a movement, the conservative movement, with perhaps one last chance to pull this great nation back from the Euro-socialist abyss.

It will not be an easy fight. But it is certainly one worth having.  We will have to fight the Republican ruling class, the corporatists and the globalists, who couldn’t give a tinker’s damn about the founding principles and core attributes that served to make America great for so many years. And that’s even before we take on the progressive Democrats.

Whether Sarah Palin is ultimately the one to lead that battle politically, or what, precisely, her best role in the fight might be, I can’t say. But I believe we are fortunate to have her, as she clearly will have some important role. For now, perhaps it’s simply drawing out our enemies established, allegedly, on our own side.

Gov Sarah Palin

But these people are not on the side of we the people. They ultimately and will forever come down on the side of Washington. It’s the sow that suckles them and, like a good little piglet, Mona Charen would be left aghast at the thought of having to ween herself from its proverbial teat. Heavens, she might be forced to do something productive, like get a real job for a change.

I have spoken warmly of Mona in the past, when she has been correct. Indeed, there was a time when she was consistently so.  But now the battle lines are being drawn as Dan suggests.  Mona had better figure out that this is not about the Republican establishment, but about real conservative values, which the Republican establishment has long since given up on. The reaction of the American people to such candidates as the Republican establishment offers, such as John McCain, for example, tells the real story.

I said several years ago, in part:

I don’t support Bush because of Bush. I support Bush because he and the remainder of the Republicans are the best weapon we have available to defeat what I see as the largest evil we face; Leftist Democrats.

That situation has not changed. I still see the Republican party to be the best weapon we have again what Dan calls “the Euro-socialist abyss”.   thing is, that will only hold true so long as we remove those willing to compromise with the Euro socialist left otherwise called “Democrats” from positions of power, and impose real conservative values.  I still hold that the GOP is the best tool to that end.  Assuming, of course, that we managed to take it back from the RINO crowd.

The degree to which this anti-Palin nonsense is getting press, his testimony to a growing fear among the left that real conservatism is actually going to take hold.  Let’s remember, people, the number of leftists who were willing to jump in with John McCain, at least in the primaries. they viewed him as being less of a threat to the leftist movement.  Clearly, they consider Palin and the Tea party to be a greater threat to the expansion of their socialist ideals.

Is Sarah Palin the best choice for President?  I don’t know as that’s the issue as yet. There may in fact be better choices that have not presented themselves. Then again, we haven’t been presented a choice as yet.  What we’ve been presented with from the press and from the left (granted, I repeat myself ) is a dosage of fear.  This fear is not based on her competence , or the lack of it.  This fear is based on her lack of being an acceptable to the socialist left, and to the RINO leadership so willing to compromise with the left.  And frankly, that point alone is what so many find endearing  about her.

An interesting problem showed up after last week’s update.  I started running out of memory while manipulating plug ins.  Turns out that the stock memory allocation settings wordpress had werelow for some of the plug ins I’ve been running.  I’ve repaired that issue. 

We’ve been bridging posts from the blog to a web page on Facebook.  That’s been getting a fair amount of traffic, and some comments.  I’ve initiated a plug in to copy some of those comments back to BitsBlog.

I have removed the old comment filter, which required you putting in a particular word to the form for you to be allowed to post comments.  I’m trying a new spam filtering idea and so far it seems to be working after some initial adjustments.  We’ll see how this goes.  If you have any trouble posting comments, let me know. 

BitsBlog is now averaging on the order of 900 hits a day, give or take. 

All plug in updates , save one, are completed.  I need to do some testing on the one I haven’t updated yet. 
Database backups continue unabated.  Those are automatic, and appear to be functioning normally. 

Enjoy your week.

PS: Almost forgot.  I’ve added a new server cache which seems to be working well.  Essentially this is like a number of other server side cache routines, with the exception that this is one with a much smaller footprint in terms of CPU cycles.  It also has the advantage of allowing logged in users to bypass the cache.  Which means that BitsBlog authors will get somewhat slower service than regular readers, but edits will be reflected correctly. 

Bruce McQuain asks the question:
So are Obama and the Democrats focused like a laser on jobs and the economy?

Then, Bruce answers his own question with the rather obvious, “Uh… No.”

The point is taken, Bruce.  That said, consider how much worse things would be if the democrats were actually focusing like a laser beam on the economy.  After all, everything that they have actually focused on has turned into a major screw up for the past two years.

Addendum: (DavidL)

Bruce gets an echo from a rather strange source, Eleanor Clift, in Newsweak:

What he [Barack Obama] needs are some hard-nosed policies to rescue the millions of homeowners who are underwater, plus a vision to revive the nation’s manufacturing base to begin the long and painful restoration of jobs. He needs people around him who make him uncomfortable, who challenge his world view, and who have a better understanding of the workings of Capitol Hill, however dysfunctional it has become. The people around Obama caught the lightning in ’08, but they’ve been outmaneuvered by a party that two years ago was on the brink of extinction.

Obama neither understands what creates jobs for ordinary American, nor even cares.  Obama is worried about but one job in the entire world, to wit his own.   More taxes and more regulation will not revive the economy, and create private sector jobs.   Obama would rather pass Cap and Tax than create a private sector job.

Putting the security back in air travel, by Muchael J. Totten, New York Post:

Security officials should pay less attention to objects, and more attention to people.

The Israelis do. They are, out of dreadful necessity, the world’s foremost experts in counterterrorism. And they couldn’t care less about what your grandmother brings on a plane. Instead, officials at Ben Gurion International Airport interview everyone in line before they’re even allowed to check in.

Putting the brown bag back in schools lunches, White House, Michelle O., idea salad bars in school cafeteria well short of half-back, from Ed Bruske. Sun Valley Online:

The White House is set to announce on Monday a major new initiative that would place up to 5,000 salad bars in public schools nationwide, despite uncertainties over how local health inspectors might treat those salad bars and USDA nutrition-tracking rules that could prove a major impediment.

Hat tip:  Liberty Pundits.

Can anybody say food fight?

The the big news story for the last couple of weeks has been the IPO of General Motors .  They managed to raise something on the order of $20 billion last week selling literally millions of shares owned by the Federal government and reducing the Federal government’s share of General Motors to 33% down from a high of 61%.

This situation has been much ballyhooed by the press who has always and forever been in the pocket of the left. So when you see that much in the way of trumpeting a supposed success   it seems logical to question whether not it is a real success.

First of all, I think I should point out that General Motors still owes taxpayers something on the order of $30 billion and if you add in what GMAC owes, it comes out closer to $45 billion.  That aside from the taxes which were completely written off by the Federal government at the leading edge of the Obama bailout.

Secondly, let’s consider that if finances are a zero sum game as the liberals like pointing out to us, then saving General Motors came at the cost of something else.  Like, for example, small businesses everywhere, upon whom this tax burden no false.  Does anyone doubt for a minute that tax rates are going to be going up on everyone else as a result of this governmental largess? In the process of this largess toward General Motors, the question must be asked, how many tax imposed failures have been created by the Obama White House?

Thirdly, there are large questions looming on the horizon for GM, because of the general financial condition of the company, and the large number of unfunded liabilities, which are governmentally imposed.

Fourth, we should consider the real purpose of bailing out General Motors.  Helping a business, any business, is generally not the bailiwicks of the Liberal.  So why would they go so far out of their way to help General Motors?  The answer lies with the United Auto Workers union… This is a group that has historically leaned left at every opportunity.  It seems clear that what we have is a massive bailout of a particular political constituency.  Consider the hypocrisy involved.  The left is forever and always complaining about “fairness”, and who gets what.  Yet, there is an alarming inconsistency in all of this, because it would appear that the UAW gets theirs, and everybody else gets to pay for it.

I do feel a obligated to point out that for every piece of supposedly happy news coming out of Washington, and Detroit, over this matter, (GM paying the money back, etc) how many tax dollars have been lost with other businesses failing because of the large nod to the UAW?

A fifth, and rather potent point that the funding news media seems to miss , is that the bailout of General Motors may have solved the UAW’s concerns, but not the unemployment rate which still hovers at around 10%. Oh, sure, the White House, and the usual lefty pundits like to tell us about how money “million jobs” have been saved but ultimately when you look at the situation from an objective viewpoint it seems clear that the figures being tossed around use the same rather suspect methodology of “jobs saved or created” that were used to justify the original stimulus, which demonstrably did nothing. I hasten to add that had General Motors gone belly up, most of their businesses would have been snapped up by other car companies , most workers would have been reemployment, allbeit absent the influence of the UAW. In short, the bailout of General Motors has probably cost more jobs than it saved, and other negative consequences still loom on the horizon.

Now, let’s consider the reasons involved for the seeming popularity of the IPO.

If, as we are told by the left, finances are a zero sum game, then we must consider that the snapping up of shares of the newly reformed General Motors, is at the expense of people buying stock in other companies, or other investments.  And the investors that were kicked to the curb by the government takeover are largely being ignored by those investing now.  Investors at the moment are looking at this as a guaranteed income.  The reason that is a simple; a precedent has been set, which indicates that the government is never going to allow General Motors to fail. Consider the worldwide precedent for such things.  That way lies the Ziguli, and the Trabant,  for two examples.

This government in particular is not about to let General Motors fail, because with a handpicked CEO, whose style is apparently amenable to the leftist politics emanating from the White House,   the White House gets to pursue its pet projects, such as the electric car.  (Well, OK, maybe not all electric.  I guess some lies are to be expected. after all, these are leftists we’re talking about.

The bottom line, here, is that none of this is good news for the American public.  Not one iota of it.    Yet, Obama touts this disaster as a success.

Dumbo’s Direction, from Eugene Robinson, RCP:

For what it’s worth, my advice for Obama is to forget the Republicans.  Not literally, of course — the new House leadership is going to make itself hard to ignore. But ultimately, it’s the president who sets the agenda, and who ultimately is held accountable for America’s successes and failures. Obama’s focus should be on using all the tools at his disposal to move the country in the direction he believes it must go.

The American voter has seen where,  Dumbo, a/k/a Dim Won, b/k/a Barack Obama has tried to take the country, more debt, more taxes, less privacy, more invasive government and less national security,  and they don’t like it.   Dumbo has tripled the national debt, jacked up the health care costs and put untold thousand out of work and called it progress.   What Obama believes and what the American public want are not one in the same.

Eric Holder meet  foot, from Micheal Gerson, RCP:

Testifying last year before Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder not only defended a New York trial for lead 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed, he lectured, he taunted, he preened. Unlike others, he was not “scared” of what Mohammed would say at trial. Failure was “not an option.” This case, he told a reporter, would be “the defining event of my time as attorney general.”

Which it certainly has been. Under Holder’s influence, American detainee policy is a botched, hypocritical, politicized mess.

The GOP chicks keep on winning, from the Washington Examiner:

Weirdly, it appears only seven-term Democrat Bob “Who are you?” Etheridge — neck and neck with his challenger throughout the night — finally succumbed to Renee Elmers (according to WRAL news of Raleigh).

Hat tip: Charlotte Conservative News.

And from Sam Foste, Left Coast Rebel:

Fog over NY-25 absentee count clears and Ann Marie Buerkle emerges as likely winner

It’s nearly a “mathematical certainty” according to a spokeperson associated with Ann Marie Buerkle’s campaign. Thanks to a recanvass of Wayne County and the final absentee count in Onondaga County. Dan Maffei has little chance in erroding Ann Marie Buerkle’s lead.

Hat tip:   RS McCain.

Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) too stupid to be Senator:

More than just retransmission consent ailes our television markets. We need new catalysts for quality news and entertainment programming. I hunger for quality news. I’m tired of the right and the left. There’s a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to Fox and to MSNBC, “Out. Off. End. Goodbye.” It’d be a big favor to political discourse, our ability to do our work here in Congress, and to the American people, to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and, more importantly, in their future.

Hat tip:  Doug Powers, Michelle Malkn.

Earth to Rockefeller, the Federal Communications Commission has no authority over  cable networks, like Fox and PMSNBC.

Steny Hoyer miffed,  House soon to be minorty whip, Steny Hoyer is miffed because the republican did not jump at Dim Won’s b/k/a Barack Obama invitation to bipartisan conference.   Get used to it Steny.    To put it Obamaese,  we won, you lost.

Source:  Nice Deb.

Alvin Greene for President, if we run him, the blacks will vote for him.  from Meredeth Shiner, Poltico:

“I’m the next president,” Greene said. “I’ll be 35 … just before November, so I was born to be president. I’m the man. I’m the man. I’m the man. Greene’s the man. I’m the man. I’m the greatest person ever. I was born to be president. I’m the man, I’m the greatest individual ever.”

Greene has the same one qualification for President as does Barack Obama, an ego completely out of proportion to his abilities,, limited as they are, and he be blacker than Dim Won.    If we can get Greene’s name on the ballot in all fifty states, blacks will support him.

Charlie Rangel for jail, or Micheal Godwin spitting into the political wind, from the New York Post:

It’s official: Charlie Rangel is a crook. A liar. And a tax cheat.

The guilty finding by a bipartisan group of his peers lays to rest any illusion the flimflam man’s disgraceful conduct was an aberration or mere sloppiness. The case revealed a decades-long pattern of willful deceit and intentional evasion.

In a better world, we would be bidding him good riddance. He would be expelled from Congress, and a federal prosecutor would be waiting at the door, ready to pounce on the ton of evidence that convicted him. A grand jury would be going through the bank accounts bulging with cash, the sources of which remain suspiciously unclear

Nothing new here, Rangel been a crook for years.    Given the  Voting Rights Art of 1965 and the Supreme Court’s interpertation thereof, we stuck with majority minority districts until some Congress and President muster the courage to amend.

Majority Minority disstricts have given us a long line of undistinguished  congresscritters for life, the collective brillance of government light bulb.   Till the repeal of VRCA(1965)  there virtually nothng to stop areas like Harlem from electing crooks and liars like Rangel, or predecessor Adam Clayton Powell,  as c congresscritters for life.   What I can ask, but alas not expect, is Congress to reform the corrupt senority system which rewards congresscritters with unmerited and unearned  political power simply by virtue of getting re-elected.

So if Harlem want Rangel as their congresscritter, sobeit.  However I ask that Rangel not be allowed to use his seniority to write out nation’s tax laws    It not too much to ask that the person who write the tax code should also obey them.

‘Rats for Purgatory,  Speaker Tablecloth elected to lead demorates into the wildness for forty years,  from Carl Hulse, NewYork Slimes:

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, was re-elected on Wednesday to lead the Democrats in the next Congress, despite her party’s loss of more than 60 seats and its majority control of the House in the midterm elections.

Officials said that Ms. Pelosi defeated Representative Heath Shuler of North Carolina in an internal party vote, 150 to 43. Mr. Shuler acknowledged before the vote that he had no chance to win, but he wanted to give disgruntled Democrats a chance to register their opposition to Ms. Pelosi’s leadership just the same.

Arrest the TSA perverts, what do you call a person who pulls down the pants of another man to fondle his private parts in public?  The same thing I do.  Judge Andrew Napolitano appears to suggestingb that these perverts are subject to arrest by local officialsl, video:

Hat tip video: Johnny Dollar.

More, by Lyanne Melendez, KGO-TV/DT:

SAN MATEO COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) — The San Mateo district attorney’s office has a warning for all TSA personnel at SFO — anyone inappropriately touching a passenger during a security pat down will be prosecuted.

Incoming San Mateo DA Steve Wagstaffe says any complaints of inappropriate touching during an airport security pat down will land on his desk.

“The case would be reviewed and if we could prove the elements of it, that it was inappropriately done with a sexual or lewd intent, that person would be prosecuted,” he said.

The charge — sexual battery.

Bravo.

Newt boots it, or why Newt Gingrich should never again run for public office. Gingrich is the political version of Glenn Beck, a better than average mind sabotaged by the chronic problem talking before thinking.  Gingrich’s latest Beck moment, from David Brody, CBN News:

President Obama has had an amazing career. He’s gone from State Senator to U.S. Senator to Democratic Nominee to President with amazing speed. Now in this Election, he’s had his first really big decisive defeat. I think it’ll be really healthy for him if he could take off from Thanksgiving through most of December and really think. I mean walk on the beach or walk in the woods or whatever he likes doing but get away from the daily business and try to reflect on what happened.

Hat tip: Michelle.

Gingrich is smart enough, and informed enough, to realize that a Narcissus, such as Barack Obama, is utterly incapable of self-reflection.    Obama, a/k/a Dim Won, a/k/a Dumbo can not get past his notion that he knows all the answers,  and any disagreement with him is simply due t his inability to explain his divine truth the the bitter clingers.

Mrs. Pelosi does the  Lewisinky, or three into two won’t go, by Ed Morrissey, Hot Air:

Over the weekend, I wondered whether Nancy Pelosi’s solution to the leadership fight between Steny Hoyer and James Clyburn — but really caused by herself — would mollify the Congressional Black Caucus.  As of last night, the answer appears to be a resounding no.  While the CBC says it supports Clyburn for “the number three position,” the group pointedly refused to endorse Pelosi for the top position until Pelosi explains exactly what Clyburn’s authority and power will actually be in the new make-work position of “assistant leader”

The Congressional Black Caucus wants a seat at the power table.   Mrs. Pelosi does not want to give her’s up and there not room for both her and both Steny Hoyer and James Clyburn.  Which one will lose out?

Charlie’s Menendez defense,  Charles Rangel walks out of House ethics hears and pleads that he was not represented, from the New York Slimes:

“How can anyone have confidence in the decision of the ethics subcommittee when I was deprived of due process rights, right to counsel and was not even in the room?” the statement read. “I can only hope that the full committee will treat me more fairly, and take into account my entire 40 years of service to the Congress before making any decisions on sanctions.” The committee’s verdict is a stinging rebuke for Mr. Rangel, who has represented Harlem for 40 years and was once one of the most imposing Democrats in Washington.

By Rangel’s logic, any defendant could avoid conviction by simply walking out of the court room.   Shat, who needs lawyers.

Slimes refudiates cultural relativism, of welcome to the real world Bob Herbert, from the New York Slimes:

Black children can’t wait for Washington to get its act together. They don’t have time to wait for the economy to improve. They need mom and dad and the larger community to act now, to do the right thing without delay.

This is not a fight only for blacks. All allies are welcome. But the cultural imperative lies overwhelmingly with the black community itself.

Not to argue with Herbert’s argument but rather to note, and gloat, that what Herbert says goes against political correctness doctrine.   One, Herbert is rather judgemental,  and two he rejects that idea that all cultures, must somehow, be deemed to be equal.   Rather, Herbert looks at contemporary black culture and finds it wanting and in need of improvement. Such argument never made Bill Cosby very popular.    In Herbert’s case it is enough for me to declare Herbert an Honorary Swamp Stomper for the day.    That and five dollars will get him a cup of coffee.

Dumbo’s delusions, Barack Obama is, at best, a very ordinary man, with a very extraordinary ego, from Ralph R. Reiland, Pittsburgh Tribune:

That might be the problem at the White House.

U.S. Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark., made public President Obama’s answer to conservative Democrats, worried about the unpopularity of ObamaCare in their districts, when they asked in a White House meeting why 2010 might resemble the negative backlash that greeted Bill Clinton’s flawed 1994 attempt at health care reform: “Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.” That’s what Sonny said to Cher, 1965.

The actual “big difference” turned out to be Obama losing even more seats than Clinton. “The Democratic Party under Barack Obama in 2010 suffered the greatest defeat for a newly elected president in a midterm since the Republican Party under Warren Gamaliel Harding in 1922,”

The trouble with artificial self esteem, such as Obama’s, is that is never survives contact with the real world.

Dazed Dumbo, the magic is gone and Barack Obama can’t get other nations to follow his lead, from San Francisco Chronicle

Shellacked at home, shellacked abroad. President Obama’s Asia trip is extending a losing streak with the latest setback – a refusal by other major financial powers to follow his lead to revive the global economy.

Few people still believe in Keynesian economics, even few who sober.

Janet Naplitano lies her Behar off, Useless Toady:

Nearly a year after a thwarted terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound airliner last Christmas Day, the recent attempt by terrorists to conceal and ship explosive devices aboard aircraft bound for the United States reminds us that al-Qaeda and those inspired by its ideology are determined to strike our global aviation system and are constantly adapting their tactics for doing so.

Our best defense against such threats remains a risk-based, layered security approach that utilizes a range of measures, both seen and unseen, including law enforcement, advanced technology, intelligence, watch-list checks and international collaboration.

Discrete my Behar.  There is no threat based profile on three year old girds.   Transportation Security Perverts frisk children to get their rocks off, video:

Hat tip video: Wizbang

If TSA grope downs are so discrete, I ask that Ms Napolitano submit to a grope down by a yet to be selected Bitsblog volunteer.   Count me out, I don’t grope old Behars.

‘Refudiate’ Named Word of the Year, by John McCormack, Weekly Standard.

Newsweak ponders if the presidency has grown too big for one mere mortal:

Can any single person fully meet the demands of the 21st-century presidency? Obama has looked to many models of leadership, including FDR and Abraham Lincoln, two transformative presidents who governed during times of upheaval. But what’s lost in those historical comparisons is that both men ran slim bureaucracies rooted in relative simplicity.  Neither had secretaries of education, transportation, health and human services, veterans’ affairs, energy, or homeland security, nor czars for pollution or drug abuse, nor televisions in the West Wing constantly tuned to yammering pundits. They had bigger issues to grapple with, but far less managing to do. “Lincoln had time to think,” says Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University. “That kind of downtime just doesn’t exist anymore.”

Silly,  if Dim Won, b/k/a Barack Obama can spare enough time from playing golf to write a children’s book, be can find enough time to be President, from Useless Toady:

President Obama’s picture book for kids, Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters (Knopf, $17.99), pays tribute to 13 Americans whose traits he sees in his own children.

The 31-page book, for kids ages 3 and up, is filled with lyrical questions for Malia, 12, and Sasha, 9, opening with, “Have I told you lately how wonderful you are?”

Of course the first requirement of any real job to to actually show up.  Dumbo ought to try that sometime.

Dumbo miffed, by Carol E. Lee, Politico:

Asked by CBS’s Chip Reid about complaints heard from other leaders during the summit, Obama shot back: “What about compliments?”

He appeared thin-skinned about the characterizations of his time at the summit, saying that nobody wrote about leaders setting the stage for financial regulatory reform at the last G-20 summit because it “wasn’t real sexy” and criticizing reporters’ “search for drama.”

So whet happened to Dumbo’s  supposed  world class temperment?

Dumbo Dithers, from Ed Morrissey, Hot Air:

The White House has apparently leaked to the Washington Post in another Friday night news dump that they no longer intend to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the lead 9/11 plotter and the man who murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, in federal court.  However, they also don’t intend to try KSM in a military commission, either, despite using that venue for others detained at Guantanamo Bay.  Instead, it looks like the Obama administration has responded to an avalanche of opposition from New York Democrats and the Right with the political equivalent of taking their ball and going home:

Leaders decide.    I’ll guarantee that the Obama administration will never close down the detention facility at Guantanamo, period.   Any detainee at Gitmo is beyond the reach of Habious Corpus.

Searching for Dumbo’s soul,  while Dim Won, a/k/a partied in Asia,  his advisers mulled what to do to recover from the electoral debacle.    A key take from Anne E. Kornblut, Washington Post:

Advisers also said it will probably take months, if not longer, to develop a strategy for restoring some of the early promise of the Obama presidency, particularly the notion that he was a different kind of Democrat.

Bottom line, over two years after Dim Won’s campaign of Hope and Change, Dumbo’s aides are just now trying to figure how live up to the soaring rhetoric of Obama’ campaign promises.  Obama never intended to be some new kind of post-partisan politician.  Rather, like the old style Chicago politician that he was, and still is, he just saying what he had to say to get elected.

Dumbo Care Waivers, if Obama Care is so damn good why does it require so damn many waivers?   From Michelle:

Now comes word that Torquemada HHS Secretay Kathleen Sebelius has approved a whopping 111 waivers for businesses of all sizes, along with more unions and other providers of health insurance. The escapees include employers of many low-wage and part-time workers whose health insurance plans would otherwise be dropped, including Darden Restaurants — the parent company of the Olive Garden and Red Lobster and other chains, which employ some 34,000 people.

It has been said that the best way to get rid of stupid laws, such as Obama Care, is to strictly enforce them.   It is time for the Obama administration to either enforce Obama Care or better yet pull the plug on it.

Good Time Charlie has to go, from Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein, New York Post:

Congressman Charles Rangel, whose ethics trial starts tomorrow, appears to have improperly used political-action committee money to pay for his defense.

Rangel tapped his National Leadership PAC for $293,000 to pay his main legal-defense team this year. He took another $100,000 from the PAC in 2009 to pay lawyer Lanny Davis.

Two legal experts told The Post such spending is against House rules.

“It’s a breach of congressional ethics,” one campaign-finance lawyer said.

Washington, DC, political lawyer Cleta Mitchell said there is “no authority for a member to use leadership PAC funds as a slush fund to pay for personal or official expenses.”

It is time to says good bye  Charlie.

Telling NRO where not to go, Little Miss Attila:

I just don’t get this: every time I go to NRO, I get a popup ad that doesn’t have a close button. It’s a fundraising appeal, and the only way to get rid of it is to click on it, see the appeal come up in article format, figure out that this is wrong, close that window (or did I hit the “previous” button?) and get to where you wanted to get in the first place.

The process is irritating enough to make them unlinkable, because I don’t want readers to have to go through the process.

That a Big 10-4 to LMA.

Forwarded from a reader:

Linda Burnett, 23, a resident of San Diego, was visiting  her in-laws and  while there went to a nearby supermarket to pick up some groceries.

Later, her husband noticed her sitting in her car in the  driveway with the windows rolled up and with her eyes closed, with both hands behind the back of her  head.  He became concerned and walked over to the car.  He noticed that Linda’s eyes were now open  and she looked very  strange. He asked her if she was okay  and Linda replied that she had been shot in  the back of the head  and had been holding her brains  in for over an hour.

The husband called the  paramedics, who broke into the car because the  doors were locked and  Linda refused to remove her  hands from her head. When they finally got in,  they found Linda had a wad of bread dough on the
back of her  head.

A Pillsbury biscuit container  had exploded from the heat, making a loud noise that sounded like  a gunshot, and the wad of dough  hit her in the back of the head.  When she  reached back to find   out what it was, she felt the  dough and thought it was her brains.  She initially passed out, but  quickly  recovered.

Linda is a blonde, a Democrat  and an Obama supporter, but that could all be a coincidence.

The defective biscuit  canister was analyzed, and it was determined to be Bush’s  fault.

Let me provide you a data point.

Over the weekend I made a run in my tractor trailer from the Rochester area to Windsor Locks, Connecticut.

Roundtrip ended up being as close to no matter to 600 miles .  The tolls for this exercise were just a hair under $130.00.

My truck (the black one, left of shot) waiting to be unloaded at Windsor Locks, CT early Sunday morning.

Now, certainly, the trucking company I work for will pay me back for the expenditure on tolls.  No problem, this is simply the way it works.  But where they get the money?  Well, they charge more to the customer we moved the freight for.  Who, in turn, pays more for the product.  But, of course, they don’t absorb that cost either.  The person at the store buying those articles, in other words the end user , or more simply you and I, and up paying that additional fee.  It’s called a hidden tax, in that the government ends up with the money, but because it’s hidden under several layers of transactions, the end user never sees it as a tax.

Now, add that to the cost of fuel, in which is also included an extraordinarily high tax, plus mileage taxes imposed on any one operating a tractor trailer, plus all the unfunded mandates, in other words requirements for trucking companies to have such and such, and so and so, while not providing any funds for the purpose.  All those get added to your bill when you go to the store.

Just something for you to think about.