You lie?

Obama during the campaign on health care negotiations:

Texas vs. California

Over at Instapundit, a link to Texas vs. California, an ongoing discussion that many on the right or of the libertarian persuasion have pointed to in order to illustrate the flaws of certain policies with CA representing the left and TX the right.

More here, here, and here.

In what respects, then, does California "excel"? California's state and local government employees were the best compensated in America, according to the Census Bureau data for 2006. And the latest posting on the website of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility shows 9,223 former civil servants and educators receiving pensions worth more than $100,000 a year from California's public retirement funds. The "dues" paid by taxpayers in order to belong to Club California purchase benefits that, increasingly, are enjoyed by the staff instead of the members.

Nice work if you can get it.

South Park nails Whale Wars

Really, they did (Link to the full episode NSFW). Perhaps their recent episode lampooning the show Whale Wars hit a bit close to home? These idiots just managed to get their new speedboat, which was built to break speed records, smashed by a... whaling vessel. I know those speedwhalers can probably do a good, solid B+ 20 knots but um, guys, step on the gas much?

At the beginning of Operation Waltzing Matilda, Watson talked up the impact the Ady Gil, formerly known as Earthrace, would have in confronting whalers. He said the boat, with a top speed of up to 50 knots (58mph) and able to dive under waves completely, would "give us the speed we need to intercept the harpooners. This vessel is twice as fast as a harpoon vessel".

Mmmm... Yeah.

I will say that I'm impressed by the fact that Greenpeace calls him an eco-terrorist. That's some endorsement, I admit.

I saw this guy on some show yesterday claiming they are the victims in this incident but as they say, you can't be both the pimp and the prostitute. The older video right  below shows that the Sea Shepherd people have been throwing their muscle around so their shock plays a bit thin with me. Really, they shouldn't be surprised if or when the Japanese whalers return the favor.

The collision with the speedboat is below. That loud, screeching noise you hear? That's the sound of $2 million dollars being flushed down your low flow toilet. It's like the story of the guy who wrecks his brand new Porsche on the way home from the dealership - because he parked it on the railroad tracks. Here's hoping there's a "no ramming Japanese whaling vessels" clause in their insurance policy:

Kelly McParland over at the National Post is feeling some of the same vibes.

New unemployment numbers

Looks like it's leveling out. Let's hope we keep moving in the right direction. Innocent Bystanders has the latest chart:

H/T: Ace.

This is how Government "competes"

Here's an astounding video from Stossel's show on the strong arm tactics used by government regulators instituting TARP.




H/T: Hot Air.

Choice?

Two great videos over at The Patriot Room on school choice - one from Reason and one by Milton Friedman. It's difficult to think of a more pointed example of political calculus than the DC school voucher program. Which to back, powerful teacher's unions or a couple thousand poor kids? That Democrats chose the former should surprise no one.

Here's the first, hit the link above for the second, which is truly heartbreaking:

H/T: Hot Air

War Pr0n

We are all serious

So terrorism is a serious business. I know it. You know it. We all know it. I know that Obama knows it. But when I watch Obama give a speech or talk about it - I can't tell that he knows it. I basically have to take it on faith. I have to convince myself: "well, of course he takes it seriously, I mean, what kind of person wouldn't?" But it just doesn't register - I don't see it in his tone or mannerisms; it just doesn't seem to register on his emotional radar. Instead I feel like he takes this war and terrorism in general seriously in the manner I take my taxes - or visits to the dentist - seriously.

Unfortunately this doesn't inspire confidence in me. I don't want my Commander in Chief to conduct a war like I fill out my 1040 - with intermittent channel surfing and long sighs of irritation: for the love of the Home Tree^tm, when will this be over?

This could entirely be a matter of political grooming but you'd have a hard time convincing many people that Bush had more "polishing" than Obama. If there's any word that can be used to describe Obama it's polished. I hope that this is the case and that Obama really does take these wars and national security as deadly serious as Bush made me believe he did. 

Compare these comments by Bush back in 2006 recently reposted at the Foundry with those made by Obama over the past week:

See what I mean?

Very cool

The Third and Seventh.

H/T: Hot Air.

H/T: Villainous Company

A dig at pop culture

Over at NPR, a taste:

Admit it: If you've seen Avatar, weren't you sort of overwhelmed by how everything in the story has been in some other movie? Pocahontas, The Last of the Mohicans, the Smurfs. (OMG, we love the Smurfs.) It's like some unholy mashup of those movies, plus bits of Wall-E, Thundercats, Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, Lawrence of Arabia — every colonialist fantasy in which an Outsider Saves Natives, or Outsider Wants to Be a Native, or better yet Outsider Wants to Be King OF the Natives. Avatar rips off every movie in the world but Twilight.

Ouch.

Pearls before swine

$250 million for science, math...

First, I'm all for spending more money on education - when it can be shown that said money might actually result in an improvement in education. However, the US has been spending more and more money on education over the past 25 years, massively more - to little, if any effect. Depending on what you count as "expenditure" we currently spend about $11,700 per K-12 student. Heritage has a good post on this so I'm going to steal one of their graphs:

The Post, in typical fashion, glosses over the real picture of international American performance:

Business and government leaders have sounded alarms over science and math education in recent years as concern has mounted that the United States may be losing the technological edge that fueled its economy in the 20th century. The nation's universities are still known as world leaders, but the performance of its K-12 schools has come under scrutiny. International math testing in 2007 found that U.S. fourth-graders trailed counterparts in some areas of Europe and Asia and that U.S. eighth-graders lagged behind those from a handful of Asian powers. Similar results were found in science.

The tests they are talking about are the PIRLS and TIMSS examinations and they accurately quote the results. However, there is one more international test that is extremely important for international student comparison: PISA.  In 2006, 57 countries participated in the exam. It measures the performance of 15 year olds in reading, science, and math. If you are interested in the scores of fourth and eighth graders why not 11th graders as well? That they went to the trouble to post results from the other tests only makes the exclusion of PISA all the more glaring. Anyway, as you are probably already guessing, the US's performance in PISA was abysmal. The US's score for reading was thrown out due to an error in the test booklet but in science we scored 30th and in math, 34th.

For years more education spending has been the clarion call of the left. Teachers and Teacher's Unions have been claiming that we simply don't spend enough money on education: if we spent more, we'd get more. And so we have. We have dramatically increased spending on education on both a federal and state level. But with the exception of Switzerland we spend more on a per student basis than any other country in the world. And still countries like Croatia and Austria outscore us in science and math.

While I appreciate the intentions of these folks, this money will still be funneled through the incompetent, bureaucratic mess that is our education system and the results will be similar to previous influxes of cash into the system - almost nothing.

Big Business

Stossel mentions an op-ed in Forbes by Rep. Ryan. Here is the op-ed. I think many people confuse Big Business for what are more realistically agreements between government and business. Many times "regulation" is steered to keep competition out of certain regions or areas and new, would-be competitors suppressed. Hit the link for a refreshing article from an elected official.

So Dodd is calling it quits...

The end.

The Fox analysts mostly say this is bad news for Democrats and the CNN analysts mostly say the opposite.

One wonders.

CIA using assets to look at global warming?

So Fox and Friends had this story on this morning about the CIA using satellites to look into possible global warming evidence. An article over at the New York Times appears to be the source of the story. On its face this appears to be a serious misuse of intelligence assets but upon consideration it may be understandable. The article is careful to point out early:

The monitoring program has little or no impact on regular intelligence gathering, federal officials said, but instead releases secret information already collected or takes advantage of opportunities to record environmental data when classified sensors are otherwise idle or passing over wilderness.

Of course, "little" may mean something different to you and me than to the editors at the NYT or to unnamed "federal officials". Which federal officials you ask? Well, the Times doesn't say but maybe it's this one:

 A senior federal official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, defended the scientific monitoring as exploiting the intelligence field quite adroitly.

Ah, the infamous anonymous federal official; there's one in every Times story it seems. Once again we are forced to take the word of someone on a possibly critical issue who doesn't want their name used either because of political considerations or because it is a crime for them to speak about it. The article also goes on to mention that the scientists involved in this program have secret clearances, one presumes over the accuracy and capability of the satellites involved. An NDA is without a doubt part of these clearances... No doubt these scientists will take their responsibilities more seriously than these "federal officials".

That said, it is obvious that satellites do in fact spend time over areas that would otherwise be of no interest to us and I have no problem with using that "time" for other pursuits. Obviously we do have polar satellites and it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to see some spare available time for some scientific inspection so long as it doesn't interfere with the primary mission of the CIA - you know, security of the nation and all that jazz. The article also mentions that this program was suspended under Bush which does give me additional pause. Say what you will about Bush but he was serious about terrorism and security. This might be a case of walking and chewing gum at the same time but from where I sit I wouldn't bet on it.

Because I have to

Some good news from Iraq

Zero American Combat Deaths in Iraq Last Month

Blizzard helps authorities catch fugitive

No, the other kind of Blizzard:

Long arm of law reaches into World of Warcraft.

Armed with this information and Hightower's WOW alias of "Rastlynn," Roberson sent Blizzard a subpoena asking for Hightower's location--a subpoena that couldn't be enforced, given that it was in a different state. Several months later, though, the lawman received a welcome surprise--a packet of information on the fugitive's whereabouts, including the IP address from which he was logging onto the WOW servers.

"I did a search off the IP address to locate him," Roberson told Kokomo Perspective. "I got a longitude and latitude. Then I went to Google Earth. It works wonders. It uses longitude and latitude. Boom! I had an address."

Security or silliness

David Steinberg at the LA Times writes about some of the silly security procedures at the airports. Stories such as these and my own experiences at airports have made me wonder if perhaps we should look in a different direction. Of course in the tradition of most government contracts it's possible, or probable, that we would end up with a monopolistic type system where the best results of competitive capitalism are mostly negated.

A Picture is Worth...

Over at Instapundit I see this Rasmussen graph of the Presidential approval index. It is quite startling:

Berkeley High to drop science labs because...

... white and asian students perform better.

Regardless of whether or not this ever actually happens it is still amazing that it's even being considered.