Chicken Little is a Dumb Cluck

The upcoming release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC AR5) has unleashed Chicken Littles that would have overfilled Petaluma when it was the “Chicken Capital of the World”. Editorial cartoons in both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat featured a “climate change denier” being engulfed by waves of global warming catastrophes. However, much of IPCC AR5 has already been leaked, and it is stealthily scaling back its prognostications from six years ago of the sensitivity of temperature increases to the doubling of atmospheric CO2. It now contains hints that previous certainties are now not quite so certain, inspired no doubt by the lack of significant warming for the past 17 years.

I had already analyzed in my last letter the evidence of slowing sea level rise that can be determined by looking at the 159-year San Francisco tide gauge record. At its current rate of 3.22 inches of sea level rise per century, it will take almost 11,000 years to hit the 36-inch increase that “experts” expect by 2100 (and that some expect by 2050). That would require an immediate increase from just over three inches per century to over three inches per decade. Temperature would have to increase immediately to above the highest IPCC AR5 projections not expected until after 2100.

Rolly Coombs, electrical power generation expert, noted a recent Thomas Elias ICO article where Elias mistakenly wrote that two Southern California solar installations would generate one-third of the power of a nuclear plant. Rolly observed that they would only produce 9% of Diablo Canyon’s 18,566 GwH/year, and I verified that by comparing their 642MW maximum capacity and 28% capacity factor to Diablo Canyon’s 2150MW capacity, which came out only 8%.

Is Elias stupid, or are his readers?

Both?

An Interview with President Obama and Senator Obama on the Individual Mandate

(My particular hero is Al Gore. I especially admire his ability to channel past events in a way that supports his current postions. I remember how we raptly listened as he told us how his mother used to sing "Look for the union label" to him when he was a boy - or at least a very youthful 27-year old. Now we find another has come along who shares Al's trait. The following is an interview I channeled with the new practitioner of the Gore art, drawn from the news of the day.)

President Obama, federal judge Roger Vinson said in his ruling that the individual mandate was unconstitutional, and compared it to congress compelling all Americans to eat broccoli (click here for this news item). A White House official speaking for you said that sort of “surpassingly curious reading” called into question Judge Vinson‘s entire ruling, and added “There’s something thoroughly odd and unconventional about (his) analysis.”


Mr. President, since this is a health matter we wanted a second opinion, so we wondered what Senator Obama thought of the individual mandate proposed by Senator Clinton. Senator Obama told us (2008): “If a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house.”

Mr. President, wouldn’t it be healthier to make everybody eat broccoli instead of buying a house?

The Public Option - We're Going There When England is Coming Back

My recurring healthcare theme has been that our demographics are lagging Europe's, and that we can learn from their mistakes and not mess things up.

One of the liberal's guiding lights to lead us all to the public option has been the British National Health Service (NHS). It gives universal coverage for free, so the liberals say, and is a model of what our healthcare should be.

I've begged to differ, since I observed the NHS on a first-hand basis for five years living in England (1970-1975). A bloke who worked for me then was one of my best friends, the late Arthur Sharman. Arthur suffered under the NHS for a decade until he died waiting vainly for a hip replacement. Each year he would be scheduled for the operation, and each year higher priorities and budget crunches would cause his hip replacement to be rescheduled for the following year.

For several years before his death, it became obvious that the damage done by not having the hip replacement earlier had gone too far for the operation to restore his quality of life.

The new British government, the conservative party named Tories, have now made clear what has been known for decades: the NHS will have to severely reduce and ration healthcare, and in particular such procedures as hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery, services for the terminally ill, and long-term care. (click here for the article on the massive cuts proposed for the NHS)

The slang name for the English healthcare screening units could easily be "Death" panels. That's obviously what must be part of a publically funded universal healthcare system. The "free" systems, like the NHS, depend on government taxing half or more of income away from its citizens, and healthcare has to compete for a share against education, transportation, welfare, and all the other government programs.

Also, to an extent greater than the other government programs, healthcare must serve a rapidly aging population and at the same time intergrate inceasingly expensive improvements in medical detection and treatment of illness.

We're lucky in the United States. We can watch Europe go blindly where we're headed, and learn from their mistakes.

Unless our leaders persist in following Europe blindly.

Experience is a great teacher, and teaches best when we can learn from the mistakes of others rather than our own.

Democrats Bail Out on Cap and Tax

A farmer once told me he had a donkey that would do anything he said. When I asked for a demonstration, he walked up to the donkey and hit its head a hard blow with an ax handle.

"I thought you said the donkey would do whatever, you asked," I said. "If so, why did you hit it with the ax handle?"

"Well," said the farmer, "first you have to get his attention."

Just like the farmer's donkey, the first thing you have to do with Democrats is get their attention. Unfortunately, that means you have to wait for an election year to roll around before they will listen. The Democrats passed their so-called health care reform even though roughly sixty percent of American voters oppose it, because the Democrats thought the voters would forget about it by election time.

However, while they were trying for a radical makeover of health care, and then settling for a mishmash that no one liked, their ominous Cap and Trade legislation passed by the House just sat there mouldering in the Senate while the bloom was coming off the Obama rose.

Now Democrats are blaming Republicans for the death of Cap and Trade, but truth be known, many Democrats vainly praying for re-election want nothing to do with passing it in the face of high unemployment and persistent recession. Obama is looking ahead to 2012 and wants Congressional Democrats to "win one for the Capper," but those Democrats know a vote for Cap and Trade is their sure ticket out of Congress.

With a Congressional approval rating of 11 percent, many of them are on the way out anyway. Their only hope is a sudden economic turnaround, and that is sure not to happen if they mess up energy and make it more expensive. The recent modest economic improvements we see are rooted in the markets' certainty that Cap and Trade won't happen.

Democrats know that public attention is focused on jobs, jobs, jobs, and that messing up the economy now will prove that they have been ignoring the voters.

Time to get out the ax handle.

"Birthers" vs. "Truthers" and "TANGers"

Liberals are enjoying ridiculing Republicans who have doubts that Barack Obama is a natural born American. I don't share those doubts, but I was interested in the proof the Left says is conclusive, for a reason I will disclose a bit later in this post.

In the case of the Los Angeles Times (click here for the article), the proof is obvious: Obama's birth certificate.

I admit when I saw Obama's "birth certificate" I was underwhelmed, since it is a modern bare-bones form without any of the things I hoped to see: attending physician, hospital, certificate number, certifying signature and stamp, &etc. In other words it looks exactly like a modern form that anyone could have filled out on a laser printer. With the Certificate No. redacted (the form notes that "ANY ALTERATIONS INVALIDATE THIS CERTIFICATE") it really does not prove anything, and I can understand why the dubious would want more.

A radio host on NPR said that Liberals have proven that Obama was not born in America. According to the host, Liberals say you can't believe anything Ann Coulter says, and Ann says Obama was America-born.

It's not like Conservatives have a monopoly on conspiracy theories, since in number and fantasy the Left is far ahead. The "Truthers" inhabit a realm to which only the truly delusional can go. Since anyone who doesn't agree with them is part of the conspiracy, in their point of view there is no valid rebuttal to their beliefs - sorry, I mean their "facts." But just for the curious, here's one of many excellent debunkers (click here) of the "9/11 Truthers." All part of the conspiracy, don't you know.

The "TANGers" claim to fame is that their leader, Dan Rather, still believes his Texas Air National Guard letters were legitimate.

Before that was the "October Surprise." when soon to be Vice-President George H. W. Bush was flown to Paris in an F-111 supersonic Air Force fighter bomber, arranged to not have the hostages held by Iran released before the Reagan/Carter election, and was whisked back to Washington.

Many people, including some of my best friends, continue to say that Bill Clinton didn't lie when he said that he "never had sex with that woman." Oral sex, you see, is not sex.

Even though it's called sex.

I wish my friends realized that their defense of Clinton's lies eliminates a big part of the sex lives of gays, lesbians, bi-sexuals, transgenders, and even adventurous heterosexuals. It cuts sex in San Francisco by more than half.

Then there are Lefties who avere that Moncia Lowinsky was part of a Republican plot. That would be a dream come true for me - Republican leaders as devious as Democrats. Think of the brilliance and planning it would take to recruit a young Jewish Democrat capable of crossing the nation, procuring an internship, catching the eye of the President, and getting him to drop his pants in the White House and decorate a blue dress.

Hillary believed Bill "didn't have sex with that woman" and blamed it all on a vast right-wing conspiracy.

For ever looney right-wing conspiracy theory the Left has ten even loonier.

Blue Dogs are not Pelosi’s “Amen Choir”

(Click on this for a larger, although still completely unintelligible chart of the Democrat plan for Obama Care)

Democrat leaders want to do something that I would like them to do.

That’s usually not a good idea for Democrats.

Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and the usual Liberal Democrat leadership suspects are frustrated that the “Blue Dogs” (conservative Democrats) on Waxman’s House Energy and Commerce Committee want to exercise their rights to shape the Obamacare Bill more to their liking. (Link here)

Democrat leaders are appalled they would do that. If the “Inner Nancy” were allowed to speak, she would say to the Blue Dogs: “You mutts are here to approve my legislation, so keep your paws off. Now ‘sit!’”

Queen Nancy knows she’s the power behind the throne, and so does Obama.

Fortunately for taxpayers, and recipients of the best healthcare in the World, the Blue Dogs know their constituents didn’t elect them to be Liberal lapdogs. They know that the Republicans they replaced will be replacing them soon if they support Pelosi’s Liberal San Francisco Democrat agenda.

Democrat leadership would like to bypass the Blue Dogs on Waxman’s committee and have their healthcare bill voted on by the whole House. I whole-heartedly endorse this Democrat strategy.

Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats will defeat Obamacare when the full House votes, resulting in a double ding against Democrat leadership: an embarrassing defeat for Obama and Pelosi, destroying their healthcare reform credentials, and total alienation of the Democrat’s conservative wing. The Blue Dogs will lose all trust in their leaders, but their constituents will wonder why they elected them instead of Republicans in the first place?

As Democrats do the same to the United States that they’ve already done to California, a lot more voters will be asking the same question.

Selective Cartoon Outrage Makes a Monkey of Democrats

This is the offending New York Post cartoon that Al Sharpton considers an excuse for government imposed censorship and sanctions against free expression. It hurts me to look at it because it reminds me of the terrible tragedy - the horribly maimed woman; the monkey's owner faced with the double tragedy of her friend's injuries and the death of her beloved pet; and the monkey dead because it was overprotective and incapable of understanding a change in its environment.

I looked at the cartoon and saw a monkey killed by the policemen, not President Obama. When I thought further about the meaning of the cartoon, I grasped that it was ridiculing the writers of the stimulus package, as I did in an earlier post. I still didn't think of Obama.

Then it struck me. To the Left, President Bush had been "BushChimpHitler." Many pictures and cartoons compared Bush to Hitler. Many others depicted President Bush as a chimp.

Unlike the Post cartoon, it was clear that President Bush was being compared to a chimp,

Democrats have been very selective about which cartoons they deem cause racial offense. For example, many well-known Leftist cartoonists drew very offensive cartoons of Condoleezza Rice:

This is by the always execrable Ted Rall, who is President of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists.

This one stereotyping Condi Rice as a slovenly, uneducated Mammy, is by Jeff Danzinger of the Los Angeles Times, syndicated by Tribune Media.

Even Pat Oliphant joins the racial stereotyping parade. Actually, Oliphant has been criticized many times for racist caricatures.

You notice that in each of these cartoons, unlike the Post cartoon, there is no ambiguity about who is being mocked and about the racial connotations.

Stumbling, Fumbling, Bumbling Obama Continued

My previous post on this topic was getting so overfilled with updated instances of further stumbling, bumbling, and fumbling that I decided to start a new one.

Leading off, the CEO of Catepillar, Jim Owens, was quoted by Obama as saying that the stimulus, when passed, would cause Catepillar to rescind 22,000 layoff notices issued last month. After Obama made the remark, and later repeated it, Owens was asked if the stimulus package would be able to stop the 22,000 layoffs or not, and answered, "I think realistically no. The truth is we're going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again."

Apparently the Democrat's "Great Communicator," is not a "Great Listener."

Come to think of it, he's coming up light in the communications area too, as evidenced by the sudden withdrawal of his Commerce Secretary nominee, Republican Senator Judd Gregg, who found too much to disagree with in Obama's policies. At least Gregg pulled out without an ethics cloud above his head.

Those who want to criticize Senator Gregg for getting cold feet might want to consider that Obama's Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, joined a long line of known tax cheats nominated by Obama, and is notable because he didn't have the decency to withdraw when his $34,000 of tax cheating became public.

On this topic, it goes without saying, but needs to be said because the main stream media ignores it, that Joe Biden deserves a wing in Obama's Stumbling, Fumbling, Bumbling Hall of Infamy all his own. Most recently he clearly forecasted failure of the stimulus even if Obama and the Democrats did everything right.

Fortunately for Obama, no one with any intelligence pays any attention to what Joe Biden says. Unfortunately, that means that most Democrats do take Biden seriously.

It's a fundamental mystery of life how anyone can credit Obama with competence after his selection of Biden as his running mate.

More Dumb Joe Biden Remarks

Joe Biden said "If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, if we stand up there and we really make the tough decisions, there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong."

When Obama was asked about Biden's remark at a White House press conference, he commented: "You know, I don't remember exactly what Joe was referring to, not surprisingly."

However, what I believe is the final word on this was left to a commenter on the The Telegraph website, who noted that the Obama administration is not handling the financial crisis with absolute certainty, and is not making the tough decisions. With the stumbling, bumbling, fumbling approach the Obama administration is taking - primarily leaving crafting the stimulus package to the single-digit approval Democrat-led Congress - a 30 percent chance of getting it right would be wildly optimistic.

Test this and see if it seems logical. Obama comes into office with a mandate rarely seen in American politics, a belief that he can walk on water and that he will make everything alright. He joins forces with a Democrat-led Congress that has been in power for two years, got nothing accoplished and nothing right, and has the lowest rating in the history of congressional approval polling. So Obama steps aside and turns the salvation of the nation - most say of the world - to the widely preceived most ineffectual and incompetent group of legislators ever assembled in our nation's capital.

And then in another logic-defying step, they let Joe Biden out to talk about it.

The clowns can entertain, but never make one the Ringmaster.

Stumbling, Bumbling, Fumbling Obama

The White House is full of hothouse plants. So this is how you fight global warming!

The first two weeks of the Obama administration probably seem like déjà vu all over again for Detroit Lions fans.

(Click on the cartoon for a larger image)

(The latest stumbling, bumbling, fumbling Obama UPDATE: Obama likes it toasty warm in the White House. Reported by the New York Times:

He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?" said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. "He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there."

Not included in the New York Times article, back in May 18, 2008, CNN.COM has a transcript of a speech Obama gave in Portland, Oregon, about the seriousness of combating global warming. This is an excerpt of that speech:

We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra and then just expect every other country is going to say OK, you know, you guys go ahead keep on using 25 percent of the world's energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we'll be fine. Don't worry about us. That's not leadership.

More "do as I say, not as I do" leadership from the top Democrat?

Obama and Al Gore share the same approach to fighting global warming: "Talk a good fight, but let someone else take the hits." For more, go here:

(S)ome energy experts say Obama, who made energy efficiency a cornerstone of his campaign, needs to stay on message.

"He's got to make every American make a personal commitment" to decrease their own energy use and educate the country about the threat of climate change, he said. "The earlier the president can convey that message the better."

(The previous latest UPDATE:

A Senate committee today abruptly canceled a session to consider President Obama's nomination of Rep. Hilda Solis to be labor secretary in the wake of a report saying that her husband yesterday paid about $6,400 to settle tax liens against his business -- liens that had been outstanding for as long as 16 years.

Hilda Solis is a nominee I would really like to see tossed out. She's a throwback to the type of union-pandering Democrats that have killed and are killing American industries while claiming to be "saving jobs." Ms. Solis, you can't save union-workers' jobs if union costs and practices drive their employers out of business.)

The original post starts here:

The latest was Obama’s about face on a “Buy American” policy in the bailout when Europe and Canada reminded him that trade restrictions are a two-way street – they won’t buy our exports if we won’t buy theirs – and that what He proposed was a violation of World Trade agreements, anyway.

The Man who decried George Bush leading America away from other countries almost invited a Trade War. Fortunately He blinked. But why bring up something so stupid in the first place? Didn’t Democrats and The Obama brag about how They were in tune with the rest of the world, not arrogant like Republicans?

And smarter, too?

As a historical footnote, economists give FDR credit for using restrictive trade practices to deepen and drag out the Great Depression. “Beggar thy neighbor” politics.

Now I know what it means when Democrats say that He wants to be just like FDR.

As another digression, Democrats have been bemoaning the fact that a lot of basic manufacturing is done in China and other countries, not here. There’s a really good reason for that – basic economic common sense. Why should we make something simple and inexpensive when another country can make it cheaper? Isn’t it dumb to try to hold on to jobs where our workers are competing with lower paid foreign workers? Why wouldn’t we want to let go of such jobs, and have our citizens do higher skilled, better paying jobs?

Anyway, the bottom line, according to Democrats, is that we can’t Buy American for many goods because we don’t produce them in America anymore.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, Obama may have found the key to increasing tax revenues: just nominate Fat Cat Democrats like Tom Daschle, whose pockets were bulging with stipends from corporations who wanted him to make rain for them from government agencies, and use the confirmation process disclosures to force them to pay their tax liabilities. Then when they cough up their back taxes, dump them and nominate another Fat Cat.

Remember when Joe Biden said it was a pleasure to pay more taxes? Apparently not all Democrats share Joe’s euphoria.

Nancy Killefer, appointed by The President to a new position at the Office of Management and Budget to scrutinize government spending, couldn’t stand up to scrutiny of her own spending.

From Jay Hancock’s blog:

We have Treasury Secretary (!) Tim Geithner, who didn't pay self-employment tax for Medicare and Social Security for several years. We have Killefer. And don't forget Caroline Kennedy, who seems to have withdrawn from consideration for filling Hillary Clinton's NY Senate seat because of tax issues.

Jay adds that the joke going around Washington is: “Why are Democrats so happy to raise taxes?”

Answer: “They don't pay them.”

Obama - Smoke and Mirrors

Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel shows that Obama is bringing a classy act to the White House.
Bill Clinton administration is being recycled in more than one way.

A friend e-mailed me a comment purportedly from the London Daily Mail. It took a bit of googling to find it actually is from the Toronto Sun. Michael Coren's article includes:

A victory for the hysterical Oprah Winfrey, the mad racist preacher Jeremiah Wright, the mainstream media who abandoned any sense of objectivity long ago, Europeans who despise America largely because they depend on her, comics who
claim to be dangerous and fearless but would not dare attack genuinely powerful special interest groups. A victory for Obama-worshippers everywhere.

The writer's point is very simple: Obama has nothing in his very thin resume that would justify election to President of the United States. Almost all of his achievements were in Chicago, and Chicago shows no signs of being improved by Obama's ministrations. But the man who couldn't fix Chicago is the man to handle the whole world's problems?

Of course, Obama will be ably supported by the Democrats. Democrats are the ones who pour fuel on burning disasters. Remember how Bill Clinton was proud to sign financial deregulation promoted by Robert Rubin and his acolyte, Lawrence Summers? Liberal columnist Robert Scheer does, and wonders why Obama chose Summers to solve the problem Summer helped create. Meanwhile, Robert Rubin has walked away an extremely wealthy man from the train wreck he orchestrated at Citibank.

Timing is everything, right Democrats?

President Bush, after many attempts to reform housing financing, was left holding the bag while U-Tube is rife with videos of Barney Frank, the Congressional Black Caucusl, and the other usual suspects opposing tighter regulations because that would deny poor people "affordable" housing.

Being a Democrat means you never have to be responsible for you foul-ups, right?

Coleman Will Serve

I was worried Al Franken would be a Senator until I read that Harry Reid said Norm Coleman was finished. Reid said Blagojevich's appointment of Roland Burris to the Senate would never happen, and it is happening. Reid is great at predicting one thing, and then the opposite becomes reality.

My prediction is that Senator Reid is serving his last term in the Senate.

And that Governor Blagojevich will still be governor of Illinois when Reid says farewell.

DeWayne Wickham, Opposition to Burris might blow up on Democrats, USA Today, January 6, 2008, paints a clear picture of how foolish Reid was in trying to be judge, jury, and executioner before our justice system was given a chance to fulfill its obligations.

Senator Reid, it seems strange that a person in your position must be instructed about the presumption of innocence and that you can't assess guilt by association. You of all persons should know that you can't take a short-cut to justice.

That's called vigilantism.

It's the sort of thing lynch mobs do.

Willie Brown was Right about Blagojevich

As I have noted and updated, Willie Brown, legendary California Democrat, said that Fitzpatrick's case against Governor Blagojevich was weak because the Chicago Tribune forced the indictment before there was anything of substance to prosecute.

Now another notable California Democrat, Senator Dianne Feinstein, has upped the ante by stating that Blagojevich's choice, Burris, should be seated. Since Senator Feinstein chairs the Senate Rules Committee, which Democrats thought would stall Blagojevich until he could be impeached and removed, I think I hear the sound of a done deal here.

Remember Bill Clinton making appointments as he was being impeached?

Senator Roland Burris, take your seat!

Isn't it obvious that with no deal done, Blagojevich skates free?

To embarrass Democrats another day!

Blagojevich Going Strong, says Willie Brown

As I previously noted, the former Speaker of the California Assembly and Mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown, chatted with Governor Blagojevich and found that he had "many heated conversations" with Rahm Emanuel about nominating a replacement for Obama in the Senate.

In Willie's latest column, he notes a "Joe Montana" play: "Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's appointment of Roland Burris to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama - the same seat Blagojevich stands accused of attempting to sell - is the political play of the season."

Now we know that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid earlier tried to get Blagojevich to not appoint three other black males, preferring that he appoint a white female because he thought any of the blacks would not be re-electable. And it's all on tape, waiting to come out and add to the Democrat's embarrassment both before and after Obama's inauguration.

Speaking of embarrassing, now "New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on Sunday announced that he was withdrawing his nomination to be President-elect Barack Obama's commerce secretary amid a grand jury investigation into how some of his political donors won a lucrative state contract."

The Obama Administration-elect is already the most scandal-prone administration-elect of all time.

And it will only get better.

Obama, Blagojevich, Emanuel Cover Up - Willie Brown Blows the Whistle

Willie Brown, former legendary Speaker of the California Assembly and far less legendary former Mayor of San Francisco, got a telephone call from Governor Blagojevich. They chatted about Willie's assertion in his San Francisco article last week that Patrick Fitzgerald's case against the governor was very weak because it was just loose talk, and no deal was made.

According to Willie, this is the gist of their chat (click on this for the link to Willie's World):

I can't go into details, but my impression is that the whole mess started because the governor had been considering appointing a political rival, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, to the Senate so she wouldn't be able to run against him when he went up for re-election in 2010.

Apparently, Obama's people weren't happy about the idea of Madigan coming to Washington, and there were some pretty heated conversations between Blagojevich and Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, which I understand will burn your ears off.

Let us reconstruct what this may mean. Blogojevich told Willie Brown that he had conversations (that means more than one) with Rahm Emanuel. Apparently the conversations were very heated, meaning a lot of disagreement should be on Fitzpatrick' tapes.

Meanwhile, We have George Stephanopoulos in George's Bottom Line reporting (in an exclusive!):

Sources tell me that the Obama team's review of contacts with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich will show that Rahm Emanuel had only one phone conversation with Blagojevich.

When will we get to the bottom of this?

Is Willie right? Are George's sources telling him the truth, or Clintonesquely parsing it? Will Fitzgerald's tapes declare the winner, or will we be left wondering for all time?


I'm betting that Willie's version is closer to the truth, that there were many contacts, because Blagojevich called him and volunteered the information, one cynical politician to another. I think George was being spun by Obama/Emanuel operatives with the goal of arguing about which contacts between Blagojevich and Emanuel count as Senate nomination contacts.

Regardless of George's bottom line, I think the bottom line on this will end the same as always: "it's not the crime, it's the cover up."


When will they ever learn?

Over a Barrel

What do Venezuela, Iran, and Russia have in common?

Besides the fact that they're ruled by despots?

Not long ago, when oil was selling at over $140 a barrel, these three oil-producers were the "cocks of the walk."

"We're in charge now," their leaders chorused.

Now that oil has fallen over $100 a barrel, what song are they singing?

"Among emerging markets, Russia has been one of the hardest hit by the global financial crisis and plunging oil prices, the mainstay of the Russian economy. These factors have put the national currency under intense strain and triggered massive stock market losses and capital outflows from the country."

Hugo Chavez in Venezuela was trumpeting the triumph of socialism over capitalism, but the grim reality of socialism is that it only looks good when you have a lot of oil, oil is selling at over $148 per barrel, and the price is rising.

When the price goes under $70 a barrel, Venezuela and Iran have problems. When it goes under $40 per barrel, Venezuela and Iran are economic basket cases.

Russia is a bit better off because Russia actually developed industries and built up reserves during the past fat eight years.

Guess who didn't?