Free kibbles

Wattsupwiththat makes the scientific case for a combination of lunar and solar influence on the earth's natural climate cycles.

Pat Buchanan offers an alternate position on the idea that Iran is on the verge of developing a nuclear bomb. Wouldn't we all love if Buchanan is right and Iran is six years away from a nuclear weapon? But the consequences of waking up a year from now and realizing that Iran has a nuclear bomb are horrendous. We were wrong about India, Pakistan and North Korea, all of whom are run by sane people, unlike Iran, and got the bomb while people like Buchanan and the professionals in the intelligence community assured us they had no hope of doing so. Right. Oops is not an acceptable outcome with Iran. The trivial call is for better intelligence, but that's like asking for manna from heaven. We have to acknowledge that hundreds of billions spent on intelligence to know what is going on in Iran (and everywhere else) returns almost nothing on investment. We will have to decide whether to take action to stop the worst case scenario or sit on the sidelines with fingers crossed hoping for the best from the international equivalent of Charles Manson. Trust without verification is unacceptable with Iran.

Sure. Nobody cares about 26 years of war being perpetrated on Sri Lanke by the Tamil Tigers and the hundreds of thousands of casualties they caused, but god forbid Sri Lanke win because the press will strike them down with story after story about their failure to provide luxurious living conditions to the displaced civilians who supported the rebels for 26 years. Of course it sucks in the refuge camps. If they didn't want their lives to suck after their side was defeated, they shouldn't have supported the rebels.

Mark Steyn points out that Obama's trillion dollar borrow and stimulus boondoggle is only stimulating more borrowing by the government.

I don't want to give the impression that every job funded by the stimulus is a job coordinating the public awareness of programs for grant applications to coordinate the funding of public awareness coordination programs funded by the stimulus. SEVCA is also advertising for a "Job Readiness Program Coordinator." This is a job coordinating the program that gets people ready to get a job. For example, it occurred to me, after reading the ad, that I might like to be a "Job Readiness Program Coordinator." But am I ready for it? Increasing numbers of us are hopelessly unready for jobs. Ever since last November, many Americans have been ready for free health care, free day care, free college, free mortgages – and, once you get a taste for that, it's hardly surprising you're not ready for gainful employment. I only hope there are enough qualified "Job Readiness Program Coordinators" out there, and that they don't have to initiate a Job Readiness Program Coordinator Readiness Program. As the old novelty song once wondered, "Who Takes Care Of The Caretaker's Daughter While The Caretaker's Busy Taking Care?" Who coordinates programs for the Job Readiness Program Coordinator while the Job Readiness Program Coordinator's busy readying for his job? If you hum it, I'll put in for the stimulus funding.

OMG, that's funny. Somebody should pay this man to lambaste liberals. And it gets better:

You might think, were you a space alien recently landed from Planet Zongo, that, if tax returns are so complicated that "low- and moderate-income taxpayers" have difficulty filling them in, the obvious solution would be to make the tax code less complex.
...
We're spending trillions we don't have to create government programs to coordinate the application for funds to create more programs to spend even more trillions we don't have.

I'm going to read this a few dozen more times. This is almost better than sex (but not quite).

When you look at the destruction being wrought upon the citizens of California, New York, Michigan, other liberal states and now the US, you can't help but want to blast liberals as Newt Gingrich does so well in this essay. But this kind of partisanship pretends that Republicans are a lot better. They are not. They are almost just as bad as liberals, and while we can celebrate exposing the damage liberals have caused, we can't forget that Republicans are basically liberals-light, and that giving them control of government is also destructive, but to slightly lesser degree than Democrats. If Democrats are the Detroit Lions (and in a very real way, they are), conservatives are the Cincinnati Bengals (and as a fan, it really hurts me to say that).

Rich Lowry points out that President Obama's speeches are mostly attacks on straw men to make himself look moderate. That's an excellent observation.

Obama's transportation secretary plans to change people's behavior. He means make doing the things we like more expensive so we'll do them less often - i.e. making us more poor. No thanks. I like my behavior just fine. If I want to change it, I'll do so voluntarily. Voluntary is a four letter word to Obama.