Quickies

A round-up of articles, news items, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.








B-Daddy has some thoughts on a potential Palin presidential run in 2012.

I am always torn by her, she is so unapologetic for my so many of my core values that I can't help but smile when she zings the media, the left and Obama. But she doesn't inspire my confidence, in the same way that Obama didn't inspire confidence in the 2008 elections.

As much as our side disliked John McCain, I respected him for this, he could wade into a hostile town hall meeting, take tough questions, and provide answers without losing his cool. Neither Obama nor Palin seem able to do so. Obama still can't after two years on the job, and I frankly don't think he is very intelligent.

While we largely agree with this assessment, we're not looking forward to a Palin run for a very different reason: the level of savagery and unhinged hatred that would be unleashed upon her would be unprecendented and detract from real issues that need to be addressed by this country as we decide who the next President will be. We would worry for her safety and that of her family's.

Just this past week, on his radio show, MSNBC personality, Ed Schultz called Laura Ingraham a "slut", twice, in case anyone misunderstood him the first time around. Ingraham is a second-tier conservative radio host. Expect more of the same new civility we've all been told we need to be practicing to be directed at Palin but on an order of magnitude or two larger should she decide to run. The mere thought of what we will read and see over the next 18 months should this come to pass is already making us sick to our stomach.


And Leslie at Temple of Mut has some thoughts on Palin Derangement Syndrome in the media, here.






Michael Ramirez... best in the biz.

Honduras is back in the news a bit as legally-deposed former President Manuel Zelaya who had been in exile has been allowed to return to Honduras and thus will return Honduras to everyone's good graces. Left Coast Rebel has the goods, here.

Our previous rants on Honduras can be found here.




If it's a Sunday, must mean it's time for Shane Atwell's weekly regulation watch blog post.

The biggest news this week is that the TSA and Department of Justice managed the bully the Texas legislature into withdrawing its bill to make groping genitalia without probable cause illegal. In related news Rand Paul managed to single handedly delay the extension of the 'Patriot' Act and its surveillance without court orders to the last minute but not past expiration. Does this mean Rand Paul has bigger balls than the entire Texas legislature?

Note that there are dozens of stories of how Obama is going to reduce regulation and streamline agencies. Frankly I think its a big lie and I won't link to those stories here until something good actually comes of it. So far their main accomplishment seems to have been figuring out that spilled milk is not the same as an oil spill.

What a great resource. Thanks, Shane!



There he goes again...

Of all the prospective GOP candidates out there, we are inclined to make the most excuses for or rationalize the most for Mitt Romney. He exudes a CEO-like competence in spades over most of the field and.... that hair, man, that hair.

Anyway, here's Mitt on the subject of ethanol subsidies this past week in Des Moines, Iowa:

It was an odd setting for a policy pronouncement, but on the sidewalk outside the Historical Building here, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney embraced ethanol subsidies. It came just days after and blocks from where his rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Tim Pawlenty, said the subsidies should be phased out.

“I support the subsidy of ethanol,” he told an Iowa voter. “I believe ethanol is an important part of our energy solution for this country.” Iowa leads the nation in the production of corn, a main source of ethanol.

(sigh)


We already showered earlier this morning so we'll save some water by keeping our mouth shut and not even attempting to defend this stupiditiy.





Terrific...

The United States is running out of a rare gas that is crucial for detecting smuggled nuclear-weapons materials because one arm of the Energy Department was selling the gas six times as fast as another arm could accumulate it, and the two sides failed to communicate for years, according to a new congressional audit.

The gas, helium-3, is a byproduct of the nuclear-weapons program, but as the number of nuclear weapons has declined, so has the supply of the gas. Yet, as the supply was shrinking, the government was investing more than $200 million to develop detection technology that required helium-3.

As a result, government scientists and contractors are racing to find or develop a new detection technology.

And finally, more incoherency on illegal immigration. Here's DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz not making a whole lot of sense:

I think the president was clearly articulating that his position — the Democrats position — is that we need comprehensive immigration reform. We have 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country that are part of the backbone of our economy. And that is not only a reality but a necessity. And that it would be harmful if — the Republican solution that I’ve seen in the last three years is that we should just pack them all up and ship them back to their own countries, and that in fact it should be a crime and we should arrest them all. I mean that was the legislation that Jim Sensenbrenner advanced a couple of years ago.

Never mind that the establishment wings of both parties are in bed with one another on this subject, it's telling the lack of any middle ground that can be negotiated over when the other side simply refuses to acknowledge the fact that illegal immigrants are breaking the law and indeed committing a crime.


That's all gang. We'll be back in tomorrow.