Cooling The AGW Hoax

How pleasing to see the junk science of global warming unwinding before our eyes. Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit has a nice summary here. It is amazing to watch the believers - Boxer comes to mind - twisting in the wind and blaming the email "thieves" as the bad guys. This is quite the reversal from the "Pentagon Papers" days when those who would expose suspected wrongdoing stood for truth, justice, and the American way.

Holiday

No posts these last few days. I'm on holiday in Benton County, Arkansas, where the Ozark Plateau gives way to the Central Lowlands as one move west into Oklahoma. Good company and weather have been spectacular. Warm dry winds, new commercial aviation corridors, new song birds, long-known and loved family. There is much to enjoy here. Expect continued light posting for several days.

Barbie As The Absolute Ultimate Sex Toy

My favorite psychiatrist on the Internet, Dr. Sanity, is supposed to be on hiatus during her move from Michigan to California. Still, the news environment remains rich, giving her every opportunity to post zingers on the cultural wackiness around us. Her observations on Burqa Barbie as a new low in degradation pull the wraps off the psycho-sexuality driving much of the Arab world.

Elections By The Numbers

Here is some excellent number crunching by Jim Geraghty involving key races in suburban counties earlier this month. There are some dramatic shifts in loyalties going on, perhaps the most significant in the last fifty years, and they will impact next year's midterm elections. As we move closer to the election, I expect to see similar work coming from Michael Barone, the dean of American political analysts, and Patrick Ruffini, a younger wired wizard on the rise among conservatives.

High Taxes Continue To Drive Wealthy Out Of Maryland

The Baltimore Sun has another report today about the effect of high taxes on Marylanders with net taxable incomes over $1 million. If you're a tax collector, the 30% decline is worthy of study. Has the recession reduced their incomes or have they abandoned the state for safer tax havens? Maryland faces increasing budget deficits next years and beyond and growing resistance to the state's effort to tax anything and everything. The taxmen had better hope an improving economy restores most of those millionaires to the tax rolls.

The Mirror Doesn't Lie

The White House couldn't be pleased about the president's trip to Asia when it looked in Der Spiegel this morning. In a nutshell, he returned to Washington weaker, empty-handed, and looking a lot like Jimmy Carter. For more on the story, read Leslie Gelb's piece at The Daily Beast, and Victor Davis Hanson's take on liberal anger over the tour at National Review Online.

The Mind Of The Modern Liberal

Fred Siegel, writing in City Journal, has an interesting history lesson for us in on the origin of modern liberalism in America. I posted this today on the anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy because it reminds us of how liberalism has changed since his passing. His defense of liberty (1961), ". . . we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to insure the survival and the success of liberty," is one we are not likely to hear again from liberalism. Of course, times do change. In those 46 years, my personal political views have moved from the posture of what Siegal calls "the 68ers" to the center-right where I would be happy to support what has become known as the Kennedy Doctrine. That so many of my generation have turned their backs on 1961 to cling to 1968 leaves me quite puzzled.

Photo: President Kennedy authorizes the naval blockade of Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis.