Planet Colorado

"I have never advocated killing anybody, but there have been several obituaries it has given me great pleasure to read."

Mark Twain

The news was delivered to Washington today. Hilarious.

Return with us now, to a soapbox near and dear to my heart, unemployment. You may have heard pronouncements from the BLS regarding exactly how many people are in one state of unemployment or another. Here's a graph of recent BLS numbers:
Since nobody at the BLS is running for office, these numbers have a certain amount of credibility. It looks like the U-3 is made up of 2.6 million, and the long-term unemployed is about 6.4 million.

You have probably heard the bluebird of hopeiness telling us that the unemployment rate, U-3, has fallen to 9.7%. Let's assume, in this case, that the government is telling us the truth.

OK, when you've cleaned your drink out of your keyboard, and gotten up off the floor, let's check a number. If 2.6 million unemployed represents 9.7 % of the workforce, then 6.4 million must represent, (pull out the calculator, fumble with buttons) 23.8%. A number that hasn't been seen since the great depression.

It is possible, of course, that the larger number in the chart above is, in fact, the U-6, which includes the regular unemployed in it, but that would suggest that the U-6 is about 14.7% and even the government doesn't claim that.

I think I know what all those climate scientists do to moonlight.

I hope this picture is real and not just Photoshopped. It's the funniest billboard I've seen since this one. As Instapundit put it, "Heh™." Indeed™. If it's not real, I'd be willing to kick in some money to ...

Please see the new blog at http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/.

I'll use this FreeColorado.com URL to link to the new and archival material, display my Twitter feed and (hopefully) my new blog's RSS feed, and so on.

Please see the new blog at http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/.

I'll convert this URL to my homepage with information about my active projects.

As the Pueblo Chieftain reports:

Greenwood Village Republican Walker Stapleton said he's the best choice for state treasurer based on his education and professional background.

The grandson of historic Denver Mayor Ben Stapleton and cousin to former President George W. Bush made a campaign stop at Pueblo County Republican headquarters Saturday.

As treasurer, Stapleton said he'd wisely manage state funds for the Public Employees' Retirement Association and be an advocate for taxpayers.

"I'm proud to say I've never been part of inside politics. [Pols emphasis] I've been involved with building a successful business," the 35-year-old told the small crowd...

As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Walker Stapleton has amassed donations from a total of 46 states, a huge network for a state treasurer's race. We don't know how many people can claim no part in "inside politics" after pulling down checks from Christian, Nancy, and Phil Anschutz, Dan Ritchie, and even cousin Barbara Bush herself, but it makes for entertaining copy in the small media markets.

Here's a slightly more informed take on Walker Stapleton's life on "the outside," from a Washington Post story circa late 2006:

At every wedding, it seems, something happens not according to plan. Expect the unexpected, planners warn. But how many brides and grooms expect a peace protest?

That is what happens when the president shows up for the ceremony in the midst of a polarizing war. About 700 demonstrators marched past the seaside church where President Bush's second cousin was to be married Saturday and then up to the checkpoint guarding the family summer compound to protest the war in Iraq...

For the Bush clan, this was a weekend of family milestones, with a funeral, wedding and christening on successive days. "It's a pretty jam-packed weekend," said one relative who did not want to be named. On Friday, the family marked the death of Grace Walker, the aunt by marriage of former President George H.W. Bush. On Saturday, they celebrated the wedding of her grandson, Walker Stapleton. And on Sunday, they will christen the new daughter of Walker Stapleton's sister, Wendy.

Stapleton, 29, a real estate businessman in Colorado, is the son of the former president's first cousin, Dorothy Walker Stapleton, and her husband, Craig Stapleton, who was a partner with the current president when they owned the Texas Rangers and now is ambassador to France. Walker Stapleton and his father were with George W. Bush working out on Election Day in 2000 when Karl Rove called the Texas governor to warn him he might lose. [Pols emphasis]

Just your typical "local kid makes good" narrative, wouldn't you say? We're sorry to inform you that despite what you may have heard, "George" Walker "Bush" Stapleton was never your paperboy.

David Kopel;  How the right to arms saved the non-violent civil rights protesters.

 That sort of history is well known in libertarian circles but I don't know how many others have read about it.

This seat is for sure going to be in play in Nov.  He won it with 58% but McCain won it by 1000 votes over Obama.  I had the great pleasure of meeting him when he came out to three rallies  for Jay Fawcett in 06.

http://www.wjactv.com/news/225...

BREAKING NEWS: Congressman John Murtha Dies At Age 77

Posted: 2:42 pm EST February 8, 2010Updated: 2:53 pm EST February 8, 2010
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Rep. John P. Murtha died Monday at 1:18 p.m. at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va.

At his bedside was his family.

Murtha, 77, was chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.

The 19-term Democrat was the first Vietnam veteran to serve in Congress. He currently leads House Appropriations subcommittee on defense spending. Murtha has been a representative for Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District since 1974.

Via Politico’s Twitter feed — Congressman John Murtha has died.

So what Audi’s message? Buy our enviro car, not because you care about the environment, but because it will keep the governmental enviro-nutjobs off your back.

The AP reported Friday:

President Barack Obama's visit to Denver later this month has some Democrats upset.

The president is headed to Denver Feb. 18 to raise money for Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet. Bennet's primary challenger, former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, says the state party should insist the president hold an event for Romanoff supporters, too.

"Many of my supporters were among the most active organizers for President Obama during the 2008 campaign and they remain staunchly behind the president," Romanoff wrote in a letter Friday to state party chairwoman Pat Waak.

"Unfortunately, the current plan of events during the president's visit has sent a clear message: 'Support the appointed incumbent Senator or do not be part of the president's visit to Colorado," Romanoff wrote...

Romanoff was considered a likely candidate for the Senate seat when it came open last year as former Sen. Ken Salazar became Interior Secretary. But Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter chose Bennet, who was superintendent of Denver Public Schools.

Romanoff said in his letter that there is "growing frustration" among Democrats that the party heavyweights are backing Bennet.

Here's what we'll say about this: it remains a fact that Barack Obama is considerably more popular than Andrew Romanoff, and there is a difference between making yourself anti-establishment (good idea) and anti-popular President (much less solid ground). This move is fraught with risk of backlash, of reasonable dissent giving over to Romanoff vs. everybody--as we've said before, if there's no compelling difference driving that rebelliousness, it's going to crash and burn.

Not unpredictably, we see GOP-leaning editorial boards are already carrying Romanoff's torch.

While there is a sentiment in the abstract that the Democratic Party shouldn't take a formal position on a primary, that doesn't mean the President can't pick a favorite if he chooses. Ultimately, Obama wants to make sure this seat stays with a Democrat, and if he thinks that Bennet is the more likely one to do that, then his interests lay in supporting him. Disagree as you will, but Bennet is just one of many incumbent Senators Obama will campaign for, and the poll numbers urgently indicate that--here and around the nation--there's no time to lose.

The rest of the commentary we leave to you.

Here’s a pretty clever way to explain taxes that even I can understand…

The latest poll in the U.S. Senate race in Colorado shows Democrat Andrew Romanoff leading by seven percentage points relative to incumbent Democrat Michael Bennet against presumptive Republican nominee Jane Norton. Romanoff trails Norton by seven points, Bennet by fourteen.

Early polling doesn't mean much. But, Romanoff's polling lead counterbalances the fact that Romanoff has a far smaller campaign war chest and has raised less money generally, because Romanoff's donors give less each than Bennet's donors (they have similar numbers of donors) and because Romanoff started his campaign later.

Bennet's campaign has argued vigorously that Romanoff doesn't have an ability to raise enough money to be competitive because Romanoff has imposed voluntary limits on his own fundraising. But, it is hard to argue that you are the more electable candidate when your competition leads you in the polls. Strong polling also makes it easier for a candidate to raise funds. Nobody wants to contribute money to a campaign that will lose anyway.

While Romanoff trails Bennet in fundraising, he already has a valuable intangible asset on his balance sheet. Romanoff has name recognition and credibility earned from his meteoric political career in the state that Bennet must buy through advertising with campaign contributions. Romanoff's intangible edge is even greater in the caucuses and Democratic party primary, whose participants are more likely to know Romanoff than the members of the general public.

Also, rightly or wrongly, many Romanoff supporters believe that Bennet would be morally obligated to use unspent campaign funds to support Romanoff if he was defeated in the primary. I haven't researched what happens to unspent campaign funds of candidate's defeated in primaries, let alone what particular candidates actually do. But, the belief itself undercuts the argument for Bennet from fundraising prowess that his campaign has heavily relied upon so far.

Spending is out. Thrift is in.

After a long period in which economists bemoans rising consumer debt levels and near zero or negative consumer savings (a measure that includes payments of principal on loans), consumers are saving again and consumer debt levels are rapidly declining.

Cash In Mortgages

The biggest ticket consumer debt for most families is their mortgage. People are still refinancing mortgages. But, now rather than trying to get cash out of a mortgage to gain access to home equity, people after often putting cash in when the refinance to reduce their long term mortgage interest:

In Freddie Mac's latest quarterly survey of refinancings, 33% of homeowners put cash into the deal to lower their mortgage balances, the highest percentage ever. By contrast, only 27% of refinancers took cash out -- the lowest percentage on record. . . . there has been a steady rise since the fourth quarter of 2007, when cash-ins hit 9%, up from just 5% of all refis earlier that year. By early 2009, they accounted for 13% of refinancings, then grew to 18% in the third quarter. After that, cash-ins jumped to 33% in the final three months of 2009.

From the L.A. Times via Calculated Risk.

The shift isn't as driven by morality and sentiment as it seems. For example, one reason to put "cash in" a mortgage is that you must in order to refinance. Interest rates are low, so many people with adjustable rate or high interest mortgages wanted to refinance with fixed rate low interest mortgages.

But, you can only refinance if you have enough equity in your home to justify a loan (usually, at least five percent). If your home's appraised value has fallen to the point where you have little or no home equity, the only way you can do this is by paying off some of your existing mortgage. Investment prices have recovered much more quickly than real estate prices, so many people are able put money into homes whose values remain low.

The trend of people walking away from your upside down or low equity homes has also made headlines.

But, walking away from a mortgage doesn't work if you intend to keep living in your home, which will probably recover much of its lost value before you sell it, or if you want to be able to finance a new home with a mortgage loan, which a foreclosure on your credit record makes very difficult except in the now non-existent subprime mortgage market.

Walking away from a mortgage is also costly if you have a "recourse mortgage" (as do most people outside of a handful of states, most notably California). A "recourse mortgage" allows a mortgage lender to sue you if the value of your foreclosed upon house is less than the amount of the mortgage plus default interest rates and late fees plus attorneys' fees and costs associated with the foreclosure. If you have investment assets, the recourse mortgage debt incurred by walking away from the home will be larger than the cost of paying down your existing mortgage to the point where you have equity.

Other Factors In Behind Thrift

Wealth Effects Generally

Some of the change is driven by how "savings" is measured. The period of declining savings and increased consumer debt were accompanied by rising asset values. Home prices were soaring as were stock prices.

An unofficial but economically important way to think about savings is as unspent increases in wealth. Families were seeing their net worths increase despite a lack of additional savings. They didn't spend all of those increases, but they took out home equity loans and ran up unsecured credit, to access some of their new paper wealth. This left them with savings rates that seemed adequate. Remaining investments and home equity were viewed as sufficient to handle emergencies.

When asset prices fell in the housing bubble collapse and the financial crisis that followed making financial asset wealth disappear, many families found themselves with little or negative home equity, and with credit card debts that were no longer backed up by investments. So, now they are cutting back on consumption in order to pay down debts that have reached excessive levels for their current wealth.

If one views holding onto assets that decline in value as a form of spending, then savings rates now are probably considerably lower now than they were when the official savings rate was zero or negative.

Weak Job Markets As Savings Incentives

Why do those families feel the need to trim their debts and beef up their savings?

High unemployment is a factor there. The more insecure your job, and the more time it would likely take you to find a new job, the more likely it is that you will need to rely on emergency funds or incur new consumer debt. So, in times of weak employment, more people prepare by freeing up credit lines and putting money in the bank.

Changing Credit Card Terms and Underwriting Standards

Asset values swings didn't, of course, have any impact on the savings of roughly one-third of Americans who don't own homes and don't have any substantial market priced investment assets. In their case, increased "savings" are simply a product of increased minimum payments on credit cards, which mean that credit card borrowers must now make payments that cover not only interest but a meaningful amount of principal.

Also, credit card companies have been trimming unused credit lines, limiting the ability of people with credit cards to borrow. Banks have also made it harder to get loans for cars, homes, and other purposes, even though interest rates are low, which standing alone would encourage more borrowing. So, consumer debt has fallen, in part, because people who would spend more if they borrow to support that spending have been unable to spend more. People with bad credit, in particular, are facing a credit crunch.

Also, since a grossly disproportionate share of those saving the most (and of the total dollar value of credit card debt) involve people who own homes and/or have investments, the impact of low wealth people on savings rates is modest.

Debt Elimination

Another reason that we are seeing declining consumer debt levels is that a lot of debt is being written off.

When people do walk away from mortgages in non-recourse states like California, the unsatisfied balance of their mortgages is written off by banks, disappearing from the balance sheets of the consumers who once lived in the foreclosed homes.

Those who do not walk away from their mortgages are often "short sellers," selling their homes for less than the value of the outstanding mortgage. Banks sometimes are willing to forgive the unpaid balance on the loan or compromise it, because an ordinary sale of a home by a realtor followed by a prompt pay off of the proceeds of the sale to the bank is usually a better deal for the bank than going through the foreclosure process. In a foreclosure, the bank gets paid many months later and incurs attorneys' fees and collection costs, yet the proceeds that can be earned from selling the house are usually lower because there is pressure to sell (banks are not known for getting top dollar when they sell houses they have foreclosed upon) and because the physical condition of a house usually declines during the foreclosure process when home owners have no incentive to maintain the home.

Also, of course, bankruptcies are returning the levels not seen since before the 2005 bankruptcy reform legislation was imminent, discharging debts in the process. Someone who has lost their upside down home in a recourse mortgage state and has no investments has little incentive not to go bankrupt, particular if they have an income below the state's median income allowing them to do a Chapter 7 bankruptcy (i.e. one with no payment plan). For members of the growing ranks of the unemployed, eliminating debt through bankruptcy also makes sense.

Lenders may also voluntarily accept partial payment of debts in satisfaction of the entire amount owed, also eliminating debt, because the debtor could go bankrupt and wipe out a larger share of the amount owed, even if the debtor doesn't actually go bankrupt. Both sides in a deal like this avoid bankruptcy litigation expenses making a greater share of a debtor's limited funds available to satisfy the debt itself.

And, even if consumer debt is not formally discharged or forgiven, a debt that is written off by a lender can look identical to a discharged debt on the books of the lender for statistical purposes, thus making national consumer debt levels look lower.

Bottom Line

Most of the new trend towards thrift in the United States has little or nothing to do with changing consumer morality. Indeed, it is to some extent a statistical fluke if viewed as a change in "savings rates" rather than a change in consumption rates.

Still, low consumption habits may persist long after the constraints that made them necessary abate. People who survived the Great Depression, for example, often made permanent changes in their spending and savings habits.

Also, the net effect of the trend towards increased thrift is that our economy is growing less leveraged and more robust. Families with less debt, by whatever means, are more able to handle bad economic times in the future. This is one reason that "double dip" recessions are uncommon.

I was alerted on Twitter by a reader about their interesting blog entry Something New To Think About at 30,000 Feet (Flying and Spying). In the article, the writer highlights this product:

It's the Stealth iBot PC Monitor and, in essence, it's a simple device that enables you to install spyware on any PC computer in under ten seconds.

As the vendor describes in the Skymall catalog:

Easy To Use & Undetectable Total Computer Spying Tool Covertly Monitors Passwords, Chatting, Photos, Websites & More: Insert In USB, And In 5 Seconds Data Nano iBots Monitor All Computer Activity On ALL USER ACCOUNTS w/o Tell-Tale Hardware Left Behind

• Covertly Record Everything A Person Does On A Computer
• Remove Stealth iBot After 5 Seconds: No Hardware Left Behind
• Undetectable By Most Anti-Spyware Applications
• Store Up to 10,000 Screenshots & Virtually Unlimited Text
• Total Surveillance - Record All Computer Activity - Even On Other User Accounts
• Works With Any PC Computer Including Laptops

Are you shocked that they're selling this? I mean, really, doe everyone who reads Skymall while bored on an airplane flight need to be confronted with something that's the digital equivalent of a lock picking kit, only easier?

I think not! To complain, I went to the Skymall site and clicked on the convenient "Customer Service" link, filled in their form, and submitted this message:

I just noticed this product in your catalog:

    http://www.skymall.com/shopping/detail.htm?pid=203188705

As a computer security professional, I am shocked that you would promote this and would like to suggest that it has no good, legitimate or valid uses in any situation and that you should pull it from the catalog immediately.

Customer service responded within an hour, which is quite impressive, until I read the message:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us at SkyMall. We do appreciate your time and comments. However I am sadden about your dissatisfaction about one of items. Here at SkyMall we feel that all of our items are properly working items. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and thank you for bringing this to our attention. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at 1-800-759-6255.
Thank you,
Dianna
SkyMall Customer Service

Really? That's it? "we feel that all of our items are properly working" and no response at all to a customer complaint about what they're listing in the catalog?

I will be optimistic and hope that my complaint is sent up the ladder from the first level customer service - obviously someone will minimal training - to someone in corporate who can actually respond in a meaningful manner.

Still, do you think I'll ever see another response from Skymall?

“Prosecutor, Charge Thyself,” WSJ:

Before he pursued statewide office in New York, Andrew Cuomo was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development during Bill Clinton’s second term. And lest you think his tenure is forgotten, the HUD Web site has an instructive item in its Archives section.

Entitled, “Highlights of HUD Accomplishments 1997-1999,” the document chronicles the “accomplishments under the leadership of Secretary Andrew Cuomo, who took office in January 1997.”

HUD’s Web visitors learn that in 1999 “Secretary Cuomo established new Affordable Housing Goals requiring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—two government sponsored enterprises involved in housing finance—to buy $2.4 trillion in mortgages in the next 10 years. This will mean new affordable housing for about 28.1 million low- and moderate-income families. The historic action raised the required percentage of mortgage loans for low- and moderate-income families that the companies must buy from the current 42 percent of their total purchases to a new high of 50 percent—a 19 percent increase—in the year 2001.”
It’s a sign of Washington’s continuing failure to examine its own failures that HUD still views such a policy as an “accomplishment.” It’s as if the Pentagon described Pearl Harbor as a victory.

We know that in the wake of Mr. Cuomo’s agitation, Fannie and Freddie’s purchases of subprime loans skyrocketed. Subprime and “liar” loans became loss leaders that eventually caused the two mortgage giants to fail—with taxpayers so far on the hook for $111 billion in losses and perhaps hundreds of billions more to come.

The problem wasn’t merely that HUD under Mr. Cuomo was raising the volume of risky loans for which taxpayers were guaranteeing. HUD was also encouraging a dangerous decline in underwriting standards at these government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). Says former Fannie Mae chief credit officer Edward Pinto, “HUD commissioned much research aimed at forcing the adoption of more flexible lending standards by the GSEs.”

In 1999, the Urban Institute published a HUD-commissioned study of Fannie and Freddie’s credit guidelines. Among its findings: “Almost all the informants said their opinion of the GSEs has changed for the better since both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made substantive alterations to their guidelines and developed new affordable loan products with more flexible underwriting guidelines.”

Keep in mind that Mr. Cuomo was doing this Fan and Fred cheerleading even as his colleagues in the Clinton Treasury were publicly raising red flags about their too-rapid expansion. Had Larry Summers, who was then Treasury Secretary, and Republican Paul Ryan, prevailed in their reform attempts, Fan and Fred wouldn’t have been able to pile up so much rotten debt and turbocharge the housing boom.

In 2008, Wayne Barrett wrote in detail in the Village Voice about the changes Mr. Cuomo also wrought at the Federal Housing Administration, encouraging bigger loans with smaller down payments.

Mr. Barrett wrote that Mr. Cuomo “made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country’s current crisis. He took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down . . . .”

Mr. Barrett summed up Mr. Cuomo’s tenure in the Clinton cabinet by noting that “the country will be living with his HUD mistakes, ill- or well-intended, for a long time to come.”

Even if one believes the allegations hurled by the New York Attorney General at Bank of America—and there is much reason to doubt them—Mr. Cuomo has arguably done far more harm to taxpayers and investors than the defendants have. Before he is handed the New York governorship by Democratic and media acclamation, voters deserve a full accounting of Mr. Cuomo’s complicity in the mortgage meltdown.

[my emphasis]

Naturally, political animals like Cuomo will look for the easy target to scapegoat. The problem is when we allow them to get away with it — to, in essence, re-craft the narrative to insulate them while casting about for places to lay blame.

In a world where truth is increasingly allowed to be equated with perception (hi, Nishi!), the manufacturing of consent — of an agreed upon narrative enforced and patrolled by the group in power that society concedes to be “truthful” based on its having forged a majority consensus — is an ever-more desirous option: not only does it circumvent the need for internal logic or the objective assessment of fact in making its implied argument; but it is relatively cheap, in that it relies almost entirely on rhetoric — a commodity most easily marshaled by those in power to reinforce the status quo.

Quips Terry H (who sent along the WSJ link), “As Jeff Jarvis famously observed: anyone can print the facts, its lessons we are after.”

Indeed. Because the facts can sometimes get in the way of telling a good story — and we can’t have something like reality nudging its nose under the Utopian tent of progressivism, can we?

What hath the FIRE economy and weak leadership wrought?

MORE than half of Chinese people questioned in a poll believe China and America are heading for a new “cold war”.

The finding came after battles over Taiwan, Tibet, trade, climate change, internet freedom and human rights which have poisoned relations in the three months since President Barack Obama made a fruitless visit to Beijing.

According to diplomatic sources, a rancorous postmortem examination is under way inside the US government, led by officials who think the president was badly advised and was made to appear weak. [...]

“We should retaliate with an eye for an eye and sell arms to Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela,” declared Liu Menxiong, a member of the Chinese people’s political consultative conference.

He added: “We have nothing to be afraid of. The North Koreans have stood up to America and has anything happened to them? No. Iran stands up to America and does disaster befall it? No.”

Decades of Ponzi economics and gutting American production to send jobs overseas, and then the cherry on top: The Amateur Administration.

“Read the whole thing”. h/t Zero Hedge, where as usual, Durden has a broader perspective.

We have to believe that the Colorado Springs Gazette's Tom Roeder was at least a little bit embarrassed as he wrote this report:

Every year, El Paso County lawmakers lead legislative lambs to the slaughter: bills so unlikely to pass that they're considered all but dead upon introduction.

The flock has only grown as the mostly-Republican delegation has fallen deeply into the General Assembly's minority.

Many of the measures they offer up as sacrifices on the political altar have changed little, having been introduced for years at every session...

Last week, in one example, Republican Rep. Kent Lambert offered up his plan to have the state guarantee some of its savings accounts by buying gold bars. His bill would have required the gold to be stored at the state Capitol.

"At least I got farther than I did last year," he said with a grin after the measure was executed after a 30-minute hearing in the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee...

Colorado Springs Republican Sen. Dave Schultheis, king of killed bills in a 10-year legislative career, says the doomed measures actually accomplish a lot in their brief lives at the Capitol.

One of the bills he has pledged to introduce would ban abortion in Colorado. Born out of a deep Presbyterian faith and support  in Colorado Springs, the annually introduced measure makes other lawmakers at least think about the unborn before they snuff out the bill in committee, he said.

"One of the reasons I tend to do this is others stay clear of it," said Schultheis...

Introducing such bills costs lawmakers. General Assembly rules cap at five the number of bills each of the Legislature's 100 members can introduce, with a few exceptions.

That means the bulk of Schultheis' General Assembly agenda could be spent on measures that will never see a vote on the Senate floor.

Now as the article goes on to point out, Democrats are not immune to the practice of introducing silly, time-wasting legislation--we've criticized one such bill this year. But it's Republicans like Kent Lambert and Dave Schultheis who take the art of stupid bills to this level, where it's their primary contribution as a legislator. Particularly troubling is the fact that they are proud of wasting the legislature's time, but in that regard they're unfortunately only accountable to their districts.

As for the part about the number of these kinds of divisive time-wasting bills growing larger as Republicans "fell deeply into the minority"...it's not a coincidence, folks.

And the people, they rejoiced!

Crittenden hits the right note in response:

Anyway, Obama’s half-day televised bipartisan makeup session sounds more like a gimmicky setup. Something between a Survivor Tribal Council and a Hail Mary pass. After that back-and-forth with GOP House newbies, he figured out he scores more points with vapid showiness than he does when he actually tries to accomplish something.

The GOP would be well-advised to dismiss it for what it is and demand that the president approach serious matters seriously, rather than with a quickie reality TV session. Or better, just dismiss it as a gimmick, inform him the clock’s running out on that game already, and let him dangle through the mid-terms. However …

…However, the GOP continues to play the Left’s game. Virtually no one who’d bother watching such a contrivance is watching to make an informed decision on health care “reform” to begin with.

Instead, they’ll be tuning in for the made-for-TV drama — or rather, melodrama — from which our increasingly unserious media will extract only the most staged set pieces (parents crying; tales of insurance companies refusing treatment) and regurgitate it in sound bites on the local news, with the counterpoint being some silver-haired GOP fat cat smirking and saying something offhanded about the free market.

The message? Obama cares — while the GOP likes to watch children die if their corporate masters can make a buck off of it.

Listen: I understand that conservatives still believe — or at least, continue to hold out hope — that debates over issues are just that, and so they are eager to bring their case to the American people.

But portraying the villain in a televised stage-play about the evils of the market and the compassion of the Democrats, Who Are Only Fighting For You! is the exact wrong way to go about this.

The last thing we need is dramaticized government spectacle. And were I advising the GOP, I’d remind them that we live in a country that votes, increasingly, with its heart and not its head — and that if the election of Obama teaches us anything, it is that the heart is quite easy to manipulate when the people doing the manipulation have the scruples of a pack of lawyers, or a gaggle of union bosses.

YMMV.

From St.Mandy of Our Womyn of Perpetual Petulance:

Over this:

What kind of fetusphobe is it that is also insanely jealous of the obvious love between a mom and son?

Oh, wait, Amanda has company

The Women’s Media Center, which had objected to Focus on the Family advertising in the Super Bowl, said it was expecting a “benign’” ad but not the humor. But the group’s president, Jehmu Greene, said the tackle showed an undercurrent of violence against women.

“I think they’re attempting to use humor as another tactic of hiding their message and fooling the American people,” she said.

OOoooo!! Hidden messages!

Intentionalism, anyone?

(h/t Hot Air via B Moe)

*********************************
via TSI comes this hoot-fest

The idea that Focus on the Family – an organization that believes in reparative therapy for LGBT people, that likens abortion rights to the Nazi holocaust, and that has shadowy connections to open hate groups – gets this kind of a mammoth public forum is an absolute disgrace.

ZOMG! SHADOWY CONNECTIONS!! Strip ‘em of their First Amendment rights RIGHT NOW!!!

As for the ad, Pam Tebow speaks about the choice to ignore her doctor’s advice and risk her own life. She has every right to stand on a soap box with her hunky, Heisman winning son, and tell other women about the benefits of ignoring your doctor. But the idea that CBS would provide the platform for such a message without so much as a medical disclaimer, is simply wrong.

Because, you know, Planned Parenthood, securers of abortions for the under 15 set and advancer of claims abortion doesn’t involve babies, is the epitome of science and sound medical advice.

Wait…that rant is written by Dave Zirin. Sorry, penis person, you have no standing in this debate.

This is one of the best I've seen in a while:

World's Biggest Snake Ate New Prehistoric Croc Species

Whats not to like? You've got the world's biggest snake, a prehistoric croc -- and not just one of those tired old prehistoric crocs, but apparently a new one!

A good headline, to be sure, but probably not among the all-time greats.

"We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us."

--Friedrich Nietzsche

Ever since Governor Bill Ritter signed the executive order laying out a welcome mat to unionize state government, I’ve wondered if and when the Colorado WINS labor organizing coalition would lobby for the Democratic majority in state government to entrench their status through legislation.

Given the state of the budget and the tons of political capital Democrats are spilling to push through their series of tax hikes — one of which is even opposed by Pueblo labor interests — prospects for comprehensive union legislation have faded dramatically.

But Colorado WINS has other means to extend its reach, and grow its dues-paying membership base, inside Colorado government. As Dave Ohmart of Colorado LOSES points out, reluctant state employees are being cajoled into joining in order to have “a voice in decisions about their work environment.” So states a complaint filed by Sgt. Jeff Hotchkiss of the Pueblo correctional facility. Is such activity in violation of the terms of Ritter’s executive order?

A Colorado LOSES survey shows that at best, state employees have a mixed opinion of WINS. And that while many didn’t “give a crap” back in the summer of 2008, many more seem ready to oust WINS of its exclusive bargaining rights. Stay tuned….

I’m almost as surprised by the Saints’ win today as I was by Shannon Sharpe’s missing the final cut for the Hall of Fame. Happier about the former, though.

As disappointed as I am for Peyton Manning, it is impossible to be truly disappointed in the result.

Boo, on the other hand, to Audi for an ad that made me want to buy a Hummer. Or a Chris “Birdman” Anderson-mobile.

In case you missed it, Barney’s phone number is: 1-877-987-6401.

In reference to the Super Bowl half time show: lovely light show, but a boring performance from a band who hasn’t had a meaningful hit in longer than I can remember. Not that they didn’t play well and do their best to inject energy and excitement into their mini-concert/mash-up of some of their biggest hits. It’s just that the music sounds nothing close to relevant.

Was this really the best choice for keeping the audience in their seats instead of clicking over to the latest Danica Patrick “Too Hot for TV Internet Only” abomination at GoDaddy.com?

Promoted from the Pub

I’ve written before in comments about how, through bureaucratic means, the “New Left” seized power in the Democratic Party. The Left has always been excellent at working committee meetings. They excel at being “Committeemen”. This is about how they managed to pull off an brilliant internal coup.

All quotes below are from the December 1972 article in Commentary, “The New Politics & the Democrats” by Penn Kemble and Josh Muravchik.

Since the era of the original Progressives there has always been a faction of the political left in the Democratic Party. This faction, in the late 1960s early 1970s, allied with the “New Left”, which was outside the Party at the time, to, through rules changes, make the left’s ascension to power over the whole of the Party inevitable.

There were 4 groups involved in this act. The members of the Party as a whole, especially the 1968 convention delegates. The “old left/progressive faction of the Party. The visible and noisy part of the “New Left” that took to the streets to protest and demonstrate in Chicago during the 1968 convention. Lastly the hidden, masked part of the “New Left”. The “Clean for Gene” who cut their hair and beards, donned suits and ties to look the part of respectable young political types while keeping their far left ideology, softer voiced now, fully intact.

A variation on the “good cop, bad cop” routine was played out. The “bad cop” being those crazy protesters in the streets. The “good cop” the leftist politicos, “Clean for Gene”, now McCarthy delegates to the convention able to intimate to others that we (delegates) have to do something, give something, to placate those crazies out there before they destroy the Party.

That something was the setting up of the “Commission on Party Structure and Delegate Selection of the Democratic Party” known by the name of it’s chairman as the “McGovern Commission”. Though billed as balanced this commission was controlled by the “New Left”.

The twenty-eight members of the commission whom Harris selected did include representatives from the moderate wing of the party. But they were outweighed and outvoted by New-Politics liberals such as Fred Dutton, David Mixner of the Vietnam Moratorium Committee, and Congressman Don Fraser. (Reformers claimed they had even received a pledge from Harris not to appoint any people to the commission who would be “opposed to” reform—although nearly half of the delegates to the 1968 convention had voted against one of the key reform resolutions.)

The Commission was supposed to submit “recommendations” to the DNC for consideration. However it maneuvered to make it’s recommendations into requirements. Those requirements were for a quota system on each State’s delegates. Quotas for three groups, blacks, women and youth. This is where identity politics begins. Only members of these groups were assumed to be able to represent the interests of all others of that group.

During this same period the reform commission under McGovern was seized with unexpected vigor. At its November 1969 meeting the staff, with virtually no advance notice, introduced the proposal for a quota system for representation at national conventions. Quotas were established not only for blacks—a group which had historically been denied participation in Democratic party affairs in the South—but also for two newly classified victims of political discrimination, women and youth. An even more spectacular leap was taken in the commission’s definition of its own purposes and authority: it claimed for itself supreme decision-making power for reshaping the entire process of delegate selection to the national Democratic convention !

These maneuvers took the form of a “two step”. First was to claim that the DNC did not have authority over the commission, that only the convention had that authority.

The process by which the McGovern commission gained full authority over the reform process was equally remarkable. The commission staff was clearly aware that it might encounter resistance and even a veto against some of its more drastic proposals from the Democratic National Committee. On November 3, 1969 the staff posed the following questions in a memo to Chairman McGovern:

The DNC is having a meeting in January 1970. Do we want to submit our guidelines to them as a “report,” as mandated by the convention . . .? If submitted to the DNC and rejected, what are the consequences?

But the decision was made to circumvent the DNC. The rationalization for this appears in the official commission report:

Because the Commission was created by virtue of actions taken at the 1968 Convention, we believe that our legal responsibility extends to that body, and that body alone. We view ourselves as the agent of that convention on all matters related to delegate selection. Unless the 1972 Convention chooses to review any steps the Commission has taken, we regard our guidelines for delegate selection as binding on the states.

Next maneuver to take away the power of the, not yet called, convention to change what the commission had made a requirement.

A final opportunity for a democratic review of the guidelines came at the meeting of the credentials committee of the 1972 convention…The McGovern commission rules, Califano told the credentials committee, are “. . . the rules that have been set up and adopted by your national party. They are no longer the McGovern Commission Rules, or the Fraser Commission Rules. They are the Democratic Party Rules.” The credentials committee deferred to his opinion, with the result that the new rules were never in any form brought before the 1972 convention. The party had been radically transformed by an agency which through bluff and maneuver had successfully avoided all mechanisms of democratic review.

As they still do the left used distortions in language. Lies even, to get this proposal, quotas, made into a requirement.

One can hardly tell whether most of the commission members knew at the beginning that in effect they were establishing a quota system and sought to disguise it, or whether they were themselves confused about the implications of what they did. It does seem likely, however, that McGovern knew. He later boasted to an interviewer from the National Journal: “The way we got the quota thing through was by not using the word ‘quotas.’” At McGovern’s suggestion, a footnote was appended to the guidelines on representation which demonstrates a unique use of language that distinguishes New-Politics spokesmen from the old-line party bosses:

It is the understanding of the Commission that this [proportional representation] is not to be accomplished by the mandatory imposition of quotas.

The true purpose of this amendment is suggested by the fact that those voting for it included the militant minority on the commission which openly advocated strict quotas.

Though a radical idea, this proposal doesn’t seem on the surface to be the instrument that would propel the far left into power. However that is what it did because of a, perhaps, overlooked fact of political life.

The fact is, however, that the purpose of the McGovern quotas was not to make the convention more representative of the Democratic electorate as a whole, but to favor the affluent liberals within the party and to diminish the influence of its lower-middle and working-class constituents.

Those who take up the vocation of politics, as Max Weber insisted, first must have an extraordinary amount of free time. Such time is readily available to the suburban housewives and the subsidized students who have provided so many second-level leaders and foot soldiers to the New-Politics movement—and who, in practice, are the “women” and the “young” singled out by the McGovern quotas.

The results from this seemingly small change in Party rules reverberate still today through all of our lives.

Other articles on the same subject include:

Time, Monday, May. 01, 1972
The Nation: Reform Reconsidered

Commonweal, November 4, 2005
“Goodbye, Catholics: how one man reshaped the Democratic Party”. by Mark Stricherz

Huffington Post, February 4, 2007 05:07 PM
“Citizen Participation Endangered in Democratic Primary” by David Mixner

Newspaper correction of the day:

A story on Page 1 of Tuesday's Telegraph quoted a White House official explaining that a Q-and-A session with dozens of teenagers in Nashua High School North on Monday was "off the record." However, the explanation about the talk being "off the record" was, it turns out, also "off the record" and should not have been quoted.

(Via Radley Balko.)

"Google leaps language barrier with translator phone". (Via HotAir.)

Comic of the day: "Axecop" is a comic where the stories are invented by a 5-year old, then drawn by his 29-year old brother.

And don't miss "Ask Axecop", where the creator answers readers' questions!

"How much are your internal organs worth on the black market?"

More details here.

When I wrote my post titled An Angel Investor Group Move That Makes Me Vomit I expected to write my little rant and be done with it.  A month or so later Jason Calacanis picked up the mantle and started a Jihad against the idea of angel groups charging entrepreneurs to pitch to them.

The result is the Open Angel Forum.  I participated in the second event last week in Boulder.  I thought it was spectacular and the twitter stream from #OAFCO reflected this sentiment.  About 20 active (at least four investments in the past year) early stage investors (angels and seed stage VCs) attended.  Six entrepreneurs presented their companies in short seven minute pitches.  Five sponsors underwrote the food and drink at the event.  There was plenty of networking before and after.  That was it – small, intimate, and highly relevant to all.

Most of the presenters wrote blog posts about the event which will give you a great feel for what they experienced.

• Odojo – My Experience presenting at The Open Angel Forum
• FaceFile – Open Angel Forum Colorado
• Grogger – OAF: Things Getting Better for Entrepreneurs
• TeamSnap – TeamSnap presents at Open Angel Forum
• Kijubi – Kijubi @ Open Angel Forum in Boulder Colorado

The events continue with Open Angel Forum San Francisco on March 4th and Open Angel Forum New York City on April 8th.  If you are an entrepreneur or an angel investor in either city, check them out.

When I wrote my post titled An Angel Investor Group Move That Makes Me Vomit I expected to write my little rant and be done with it.  A month or so later Jason Calacanis picked up the mantle and started a Jihad against the idea of angel groups charging entrepreneurs to pitch to them.

The result is the Open Angel Forum.  I participated in the second event last week in Boulder.  I thought it was spectacular and the twitter stream from #OAFCO reflected this sentiment.  About 20 active (at least four investments in the past year) early stage investors (angels and seed stage VCs) attended.  Six entrepreneurs presented their companies in short seven minute pitches.  Five sponsors underwrote the food and drink at the event.  There was plenty of networking before and after.  That was it – small, intimate, and highly relevant to all.

Most of the presenters wrote blog posts about the event which will give you a great feel for what they experienced.

• Odojo – My Experience presenting at The Open Angel Forum
• FaceFile – Open Angel Forum Colorado
• Grogger – OAF: Things Getting Better for Entrepreneurs
• TeamSnap – TeamSnap presents at Open Angel Forum
• Kijubi – Kijubi @ Open Angel Forum in Boulder Colorado

The events continue with Open Angel Forum San Francisco on March 4th and Open Angel Forum New York City on April 8th.  If you are an entrepreneur or an angel investor in either city, check them out.

It must be 11, because the film has arrived. Our clubs Battle of Stalingrad Memorial Bowling Pin Shoot, so named because of the similar temperatures.
Here's what it's all about:
Clear your table before the other fellow clears his. This guy looks to be 1 pin ahead of the competition. Those tables are 4 ft x 8 ft, so the pins don't have to fall right off for you.
If you don't get a clean hit, or if your gun is a smaller caliber, you get something like this, with 5 "wounded" pins, taking cover so as to make your following shots both necessary and less effective. Could be worse, they could have fallen with the tops pointing toward the shooter.

We has two new shooters from Finland, bringing IPSC equipment that we don't normally see. Since we're strictly unofficial, we let anyone play.
Contest: For 500 Billll bucks, value zero, can anyone ID the gun she's using? I know it's a 9, but I missed the technical details. Another thing: She uses that gun regularly, and is very good with it. She can knock down 5 pins, then shoot them again to get them off the table faster than most of us can shoot 5 pins.
She finished 3rd overall. This was her usual finish. Her husband, using a conventional (looking) .45 auto, finished 2nd.

I use a revolver. The disadvantage is that I only have 6 shots before I have to reload, which is a relatively slow process. Hence I have an incentive to not miss. In a good round, I fire 5 shots, and clear the table, and hopefully my opponent, shooting faster, has missed enough times to be reloading while I drop the last pin. Let me point out that the ammo you use for this should be carefully selected, so as to give uniform results.
Or you can do like I do, and use whatever is on the top of the heap. Not only did I win the table I shot with this collection, I did it in 5. Practice, Practice, Practice.

The pins had been sitting in the equipment shed for 2 weeks at sub-freezing temps, and were very brittle. Hits frequently produced a shower of plastic fragments, and split the wood inside.

DC to RFK JR: Drop dead!

For copyright reasons, you'll just have to figure out which game we're referring to.

( - promoted by Rocky Mountain Right - )

You should never annoy a cop. As a working lawyer in the suburbs with a criminal docket, it has been my sad experience over the years to have clients who insist on going to trial for a misdemeanor crime. At trial, it is my guy’s word against the cop’s. The jury hears the defendant’s pitch and then hears from the cop. The cop is simply doing his duty. He isn’t out to get anyone. The client wants to get off of the rap for the crime he has committed. The party’s motives come into play.   

My experience is that the Jury always believes the cop if its one word against the other. And it’s no surprise. For juries, cops are usually seen as the good guys.

If you are a cop, you can be in trouble every time you approach someone you pulled over. Even in small towns. Even in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. In 2006, the most recent year with public crime records for Glenwood, seven women were raped, 61burglaries occurred, 43 cars were stolen and one armed robbery occurred.

In little old Glenwood Springs. Fortunately no cops got killed.

Scott McInnis was a Glenwood Springs cop. As if that weren’t enough, he also volunteered with the fire department. He later went to law school and became a lawyer in the same town he patrolled as a police officer. He demonstrates to this day that he never forgot his oath of office.

McInnis ran and was elected as member of the Colorado State Assembly, our state version of congress. The other Assembly members eventually made him Majority Leader. He ran for U.S. Congress and became Colorado’s congressman for the Western Slope.

McInnis got us two national parks as a congressman and he always fought to shrink the size and scope of government as a simple point of principal. He went to Washington for 12 years and then came home.

He got work here as a private lawyer and watched the same events transpire in Colorado over the past four years that we all have. The Democrats became the majority in Colorado government and their new Governor named Ritter brought Labor Unions into the government work force. The Colorado State Government ran out of money but somehow couldn’t shrink its taxpayer-paid work force to match our smaller state revenue stream. We got into the hole and the dems tried to raise taxes instead of shrinking the government machinery.

 

The majority Democrats passed increased taxes on natural gas production and the oil and gas jobs somehow ended up in Pennsylvania of all places. Our only local airline got swallowed up by a Midwest concern and all those jobs moved to the Midwest because of tax decisions, including the ludicrous idea to tax software used in making an airline reservation. The dems have engineered a train wreck since they took over our state government. It’s enough to annoy a cop. It’s enough to annoy a jury. It’s enough to annoy anyone. Including Scott McInnis. So he has decided to do something about it.

 

Scott McInnis is running to be Governor for the State of Colorado. He knows this place. It is his home and the home of his family going back four generations. Right now, it appears that if anybody in Colorado is ready to get us out of the hole we are in, it’s McInnis.

 

Last week, Mr. McInnis spoke to the Parker, CO Republicans. He gave out the sobering statistic that each day 275 more Coloradans lose their job. He thinks the Dems in charge at the state Capital are "job cremators, not job creators". His empathy for these workers is real and profound.

 

Addressing jobs in the area of natural gas production, he talked eloquently about the blue collar jobs that have left the state. "Roughneck jobs are great jobs. These are some of the good jobs that have left our state. Grand Junction is now Number One in the Nation in job losses and energy is the reason. Gov. Ritter put in the toughest anti-drilling legislation in the U.S. Conoco-Phillips stopped all exploration when the new regulations became law."

 

Bill Ritter wisely chose not to seek reelection as our governor. The Dems have put up Denver Mayor and saloon keeper John Hickenlooper as his replacement after an emergency phone call from Dem President Barack Obama. I expect Hickenlooper, after his long tenure as a bartender, to carry the Lower Downtown of Denver by a healthy margin. That leaves the rest of Colorado for him to reach. McInnis’ opinion - "The Denver Mayor seems to think that Colorado begins and ends at the Denver City Limits." McInnis doesn’t think Hickenlooper gets it. At the Parker meeting he was most incensed by a recent Hickenlooper quote that "the recession is really caused by people’s mental state". Spoken like a true bartender.

 

McInnis told the Parker crowd that he will dedicate himself to restoring jobs. He used the issue of Fort Carson as an example of what to do and what not to do. According to McInnis, both Ritter and Hickenlooper are against Fr. Carson’s expansion. After they made their views public, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchins visited with the Secretary of the Army and got a commitment for the new Cyber Command to move to San Antonio. This ought to have helped out our "mental state" a lot.

 

McInnis’ first promise, if elected, is to sign an executive order rolling back the unionization of state agencies. So long Andy Stern and the SEIU. Then to rewrite the job-killing oil and gas regulations and get oil companies to come back to Colorado.

 

In 2006, this writer had the opportunity to see Bill Ritter and Bob Beauprez at a joint appearance late in the campaign. It appeared that Bill Ritter was ready and prepared to be governor and that Beaurprez wasn’t. The 2006 election reflected this readiness. What we didn’t know at the time was that apparently Ritter had made his "deal with the devil" with the SEIU and other labor unions that culminated in a late-night executive order unionizing Colorado State workers shortly after his election.

 

McInnis has promised to reverse that. He appears ready to lead and is prepared to be a strong governor. He promises to fix many of the problems we face in our state and his promise appears real.

 

Who are you going to trust with your life, liberty and property, a bartender or a cop?

 

Mike Robinson is Sr. Partner at Robinson & Henry P.C., a Castle Rock Law Firm.

[Update: The Democrat money-grubbers in the Colorado Senate will be substituting an amendment for the Internet Tax bill which is likely to be even worse than the original bill.  Stay tuned…]

Colorado State Senator Greg Brophy (R-Wrea) explains the cynical and dangerous Internet sales tax bill which Democrats in the state legislature seem likely to pass into law. What needs to be noted and explained widely about the Internet-related bills which Democrats will soon pass is that their targets are largely young, middle-class, and tech-savvy, as was pointed out in Mike Garner’s comment to my Friday blog note on this topic.

These young people were part of the tidal wave that swept Barack Obama and many other Democrats into office and they’re a target audience which conservatives and Republicans should be hammering with a message of “Do you understand now what the Democrats are really about?”

HB10-1193 will cost a lot of income and jobs in Colorado, raise the cost of living for many who shop online, and give an Orwellian subpoena power to the State Dept. of Revenue.  While Amazon.com or other retailer would likely win a lawsuit, it’s more likely they’ll take the lower-cost option and simply end affiliate advertising programs in Colorado.  If, however, Colorado truly attempts to force those retailers to collect sales tax from and/or inform on customers who live in Colorado, Amazon may either have to fight in court or actually refuse to ship to Colorado.

I almost hope it’s the latter, for a time.  It could cause the biggest electoral backlash against Democrats on a state level that anyone’s ever seen.

Sorry if that's unseemly to call names, but that's simply the case. He said he wants Republicans to put their specific ideas on the table--they've been doing that for two years. Job creation is his first job and was last year?--then why did he backload so much of the "stimulus" for two and three and five years down the road? Eliminating lobbyists--other than the twenty that he appointed to

Money is what you give to government officials in the hope that they will, in return, at least perform their function, if not perform it in your favor. In India, the public is getting rapidly fed up with this sort of behavior, a legacy of the 70s when India sought to emulate the socialist utopia of the Soviet Union. To that end, this:
is being printed in large quantities to meet demand. It is apparently a good enough copy of real currency to be snatched quickly by a corrupt official.

Glenn Reynolds suggests it might make a good envelope stuffer for American pols seeking contributions to their re-election funds, and darkly hints it might be good for paying this years taxes, too. Well, maybe not good, but certainly appropriate.

Anyway, such a bill should be developed for use here, too. Maybe starting with the U.S. $100, revalued to zero.
Maybe I can get a Nobel prize in Economics for finally inventing fiat money with an actual value on it. Maybe I'll get arrested by the Treasury department for giving the game away.

• tow.com – iPad Case and Newton MessagePad Keyboard Case – the Newton similarities weren’t lost on me either.
• Hands-on with the Apple iPad it does make sense :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Andy Ihnatko
• Pack a Gun to Protect Valuables from Airline Theft or Loss – interesting.
• Mercurial vs Git – “Hopefully, this information could be useful to Mercurial users wanting to know how Git works and vice versa, as well as novice users who are not using either one yet. In that case, I suggest you to experiment a little bit with both instead of trying to make a theorethical decision based on what you read in the documentation or in articles like this one.”
• BBC News – Why do people vote against their own interests? – nails it.
• Open Thread: What Do Developers Think of Facebook’s HipHop? – Interesting!
• Photos of my models – a set on Flickr – impressive!
• Corporation Says It Will Run for Congress – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com – It’s hard to laugh at this…
• Benlog Dont Hash Secrets – I recently did an HMAC implementation for a WordPress integration.
• WebOS Quick Install v3.0 Now Available – I need to get set up with this.
• $10,000 bonus to work at Rackspace – Clever idea!
• I Dont Really Care Where You Are – can I get an “amen”?
• Daring Fireball Linked List: How Long in the Works Was the iPad? – I’d say it’s more that they are unwilling to re-brand if the current brand has significant goodwill or momentum.
• A successful Git branching model – timely for me.

All the ink and pixels spent in recent years on the question of whether Pluto ought or ought not be considered a planet missed the most interesting development in the story of this distant rock (or whatever it is.) Astronomer Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology puts it this way:

“You’re looking at the surface in the solar system where there are the biggest changes we’ve ever seen,” Brown said.

The color of the surface of Pluto changed so markedly, particularly between 2000 and 2002, that Buie has spent years checking and rechecking his work, just to make sure the differences weren’t an artifact of faulty equipment or calculations.

“I got that result years ago but it’s just so hard to understand and believe that I’ve been checking everything that I can think of,” he said. “I’m still nervous about it. It could be that I’ve just completely screwed this up, but I can’t find where.”

Until someone can provide a plausible reason why a planet (dwarf or otherwise) would just up and change color like that, I have to lean in the "he screwed up" direction.

But it's intriguing...

Check out this composite video of Pluto rotating.

This apparently shows Pluto post-color-change. I wonder what it looked like before?

Up early for your predictions and trash talk. I really don’t have a team to root for, but I’ll be watching mostly for the commercials. The Tebow 30-second testimonial has engendered far more publicity (and sheer weirdness from the pro-abortion side) then it would have gotten if it were merely ignored by those gnashing their teeth at CBS.

Jen Rubin, on the practical, short-term future of the Tea Party:

But for a moment, let’s put Palin aside. The issues she hit certainly comprise the core criticisms of Obama and will form the platform for conservatives in 2010 and 2012. Many of the issues she enumerated were positions that lifted Chris Christie, Bob McDonnell, and Scott Brown to victory, proving that there is not, in fact, much daylight between Tea Party activists, mainstream Republicans, and disaffected independent voters. And in one form or another, we are hearing similar themes from virtually all Republicans — whether it’s Rep. Paul Ryan or Marco Rubio or Meg Whitman or the other 2012 likely contenders.

So the question, I think, for Republicans is not what but who — who will emerge as the most effective standard bearer of that agenda. That — despite the continual chatter from the punditocracy to find the answer right now — can wait for the 2012 presidential campaign. The “what” will suffice for a nationalized, 2010 midterm election. And then the race will be on to see if Palin or some other figure emerges as the most effective champion for that core agenda.

The other thing Republicans should keep in mind is their own party’s genesis. The GOP emerged when the Whigs failed to deliver what a big part of the American electorate demanded. And history does have a way of repeating itself.

Since there’s nothing much on TV today, you should check out the new Week in Blogs on PJTV, and of course this week’s PJM Political, now in handy podcast form.

Speaking of Harvey's contributions to the culinary world, we were talking in the chat room after last week's podcast and everyone agreed that he has summed up the coming economy very well with the technology he has been predicting: the sandwich printer.

There is more than one problem with Mark Hillman's Denver Post column published yesterday. (Trial Lawyer Hypocrisy Act.)

By now the "professional journalists" have all reported that, according to the administration, Abdulmutallab (the Christmas Bomber) has been talking to authorities. The administration seems to think that this should be the end of the conversation about the brilliance of giving this guy his Miranda after 50 minutes in custody.EVERY single Republican of standing should be on the Sunday chats

Or was it Blogger Fest 0x0000000000000001? I'm not clear about the numbering. Honestly, right now I'm not clear about anything. Except that I left before midnight (and wasn't the last to leave this time) and arrived home safely about half

.
As a member of the biggest Third Party in the country, the American Constitution Party, I believe in a lot of the same conservative principles that the Tea Party - 9/12 movement stands for.  Or so I thought.  
I went to check out the group, and to hear the folks running for the Senate for the two major parties.  5 people competing for the GOP nomination showed up.  There was a cardboard cutout of Senator Bennet duct-taped to a chair on the dais, and the moderator announced that Andrew Romanoff had been invited, but declined.  

I arrived as they were reciting the Pledge.  
About 350-400 attendees.
Average age over 60.  
Forum was well-organized.

First speaker was Congressman Doug Lamborn; he took 10 minutes to say he was doing all he could to stop the Obamination of unbounded spending, outlandish taxation and strangling regulation.  
It sounded like he enjoyed being one of the 500 most powerful people on the planet, but after 3+ years in office, he couldn't point out even one example of how he had used that immense power to achieve something good.    
It sounded like he wanted to keep occupying that seat of power, but still wasn't going to do anything but rail and rant ineffectively against those evil Democrats.  Talk about a total waste of a Congressional seat.  
.
.
But the crowd of self-styled revolutionaries seemed OK with that.  As long as the seat was held by a Republican, that was good enough.  Don't ask him to roll up his sleeves and actually do anything with all that power.    
As he was blathering about how he was doing everything he could to sabotage and stonewall the Administration, some a**hole in the crowd sitting between the chair to my left and the chair to my right yelled out that he hadn't done anything.  After 4 years (it's only been just over 3,) he had nothing to show for it.  The Congressman was unable to respond with even one accomplishment.  

What's an unruly person like that doing in a Tea Party meeting ?  
Doesn't the Tea Party enjoy a reputation for civility ?  I need to check with Arlen Specter on that.  
But challenging an incumbent career GOP politician who has done absolutely nothing* to help the country address our problems ?  Outrageous.  The nerve.  

This loudmouth was "shushed" by most of the T-Party 'revolutionaries' surrounding him.  
The woman to his left asked, "The Dems control the House.  What do you expect him to do ?"  Soft bigotry, low expectations.  
Evidently the Tea Party gives Lamborn a pass because he's a Republican.
So, do they call themselves the "Tea Party" because they want to maintain the status quo ?  I couldn't figure that part out.

.

Then the candidates vying for the GOP nomination to run against Michael Bennet were asked questions.  Questions on illegal immigration, welfare for banks that are too big to fail, keep the Government out of government-funded health care, etc.

Jane Norton was the smoothest, most polished speaker.  I don't think she actually said anything memorable.  At least I don't remember.  I'll have to check out the writeup over at Colorado Statesman; they had a reporter there.  

Steve Barton was the worst speaker.  He looked and sounded uncomfortable.  I think that demeanor kept his message from getting through.  He needs more practice speaking at such functions.  

Cleve has an impressive resume, but his "aw, shucks" down-to-earth shtick didn't play well.  

Tom Wiens got the best crowd reactions.  I thought he said in one of his answers that he represented Woody Park in the Colorado legislature, and the crowd responded as if he did, but I think he's from Castle Rock.  I asked his campaign manager if Tom ever lived up Ute Pass, and he couldn't answer my question.  
Tom has a good speaking style, moderating tempo and volume, building to a solid applause line in every 'extemporaneous, off-the-cuff' answer.  In other words, he did some good prep, anticipating the questions and practicing answers with a coach.  
If there was a winner, and I don't think there was, it would have been Tom.  

Ken Buck came across as the most "senatorial."  Very good speaker; his answers were either well-rehearsed, or he is about as smart on his feet as Obama (that's pretty smart, in my book.)
Afterwards, I asked him why nobody was going after Norton.  He reminded me about a veiled reference to Referendum C that he made in one of his answers.  Man, at this stage, that subtlety is going to bury him.  

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All in all, I didn't get the impression that there was anything authentic to the notion of an independent Tea Party.  For my money, this could just as well have been an officially sanctioned event of the local GOP, in support of the goals of the corporate-owned, corporate-controlled national GOP.  
The people there struck me as disgruntled Republicans, unhappy about where their party has wandered lately, but unwilling to put principle ahead of party and unable to vote for anyone but the Republican candidate, regardless of whether she or he is a conservative.
They are smart, don't get me wrong.  They can see that corporations own Lamborn, and will own whoever beats Romanoff for the Senate seat.  They hate that corporate ownership has turned the GOP away from conservative principles.  They hope to get conservatives elected in the Primary, and are organizing to do that locally.  But when the General Election rolls around, every one of them is pulling the lever for the Republican candidate, even if its somebody's yellow dog.    

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* -- it's not fair to say that Congressman Lamborn hasn't done anything to help American citizens.  He has worked hard to protect a very select group of "citizens" against the ravages of over-regulation and cash shortfalls in these harrowing times.  
Those "citizens" are grateful.  They include Bank of America, AIG, Wall Street brokers, Wall Street bankers, credit card companies and the Federal Reserve.  Thankfully, the Supreme Court is protecting the rights of these "citizens" to contribute to Congressman Lamborn's reelection as a way to show their appreciation.  
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Click on image to play

Scott Brown a fluke?

Rrrwwwrr. Meet Capt. Adam Kinzinger, Republican, running for 11th Congressional District, Illinois.

Captain Kinzinger now serves as a pilot with the Air Force Special Ops and Air National Guard.

Captain Kinzinger has been recognized for his efforts both in an out of uniform. In 2007, he received the United States Air Force Airman’s Medal for saving the life of a young woman who was violently attacked. Despite the likelihood that he too would be stabbed, Adam wrestled the knife away from the attacker and pinned him to the ground until the police arrived. He was also awarded the National Guard’s Valley Forge Cross for Heroism and was selected as the Southeastern Wisconsin American Red Cross Hero of the Year.

h/t LauraW @ Ace’s

Use of your cell phone’s video capability in public will get you arrested in Boston. (h/t Overlawyered)

Quantum Computing Leap Forward: Altering a Lone Electron Without Disturbing Its Neighbors

This is huge because the qbits that drive this particular design of quantum computer are electrons. Isolating individual electrons gets us much closer to finding out if it will work.

Back East, Global Warming is in full cry, and people who forgot to stock up on french toast are being forced to eat their pets. Here, where hunting the mighty Mastodon with anything more aggressive than a sharp stick will get you laughed at, we all got together and went out to hunt the wily wild bowling pin.

Foggy this morning, which coated everything with the kind of photogenic layer of ice that poets like to write about, especially from a warm loft with a hot beverage in hand. It's enough to convince you that being a poet is not without its advantages.

NOTE: At low temperatures, the plastic sheathing on bowling pins gets quite brittle, making for rather striking explosions of plastic from struck pins. Pictures, still and moving were taken. Film, as they say, at 11, whenever that turns out to be.

There's an article here about the Suffolk County (Long Island N.Y) cops making the bust of the day, catching a driver using the HOV lane with a metabolically-impaired passenger. Worse even, the passenger wasn't even a dead human (it's been tried) but a rather lifelike mannequin.

I'm guessing that the perp had been getting away with this for a while, but let me offer some hints that might help here. First, signs of life include subtle little movements. So fix your "passenger" up with tinted glasses to cover the fixed stare.

Second, the cops get paid to observe and report, so help them out here by giving your friend a regular change of clothes. Maybe even a regular change of wig, too.

Third, don't use one of those inflatable dolls from the alternative book store. This will get you pulled over quickly so the nice policeman can find out who's two-timing his girlfriend.

Fourth, babies tend to look a lot alike, and don't have large wardrobes. Get a child carrier, and install one of those large, lifelike dolls in it. Use one that actually looks like a baby. Do not use one that looks like Barbie. Even an empty carrier can be covered with a blanket, which means you may only need the head, and the rest of the space can be used to hold ice, and bottled refreshment. Properly mounted, the head can even bobble and turn in a lifelike manner.

One more thing, once you arrive where you're going, put the carrier in your trunk, or at least remove the dolly and stash it where it either can't be seen, or is obviously a doll. You don't want to be explaining to an amused cop and irate social worker that the "baby" you abandoned in the carrier in your car is actually your car pool passenger. Place the doll next to the carrier when you park, and everybody will assume it belongs to the absent occupant of the carrier.

I ran across this finally-polished journalistic gem while scanning zoning-related news stories for the news aggregators at Local Liberty Online. It's not often that you find a zoning-related article that makes you laugh out load -- most just make me clench my jaw. But this one manages to capture not just the mania of the rules-enforcers, but the madness of our times.

Follow the link and enjoy.

Conservative blogger Ross Kaminsky had the opportunity recently to vapidly genuflect to interview Senate candidate Jane Norton. It's kind of long, but we wanted to make sure you didn't miss this insightful passage:

[S]he noted that the word "education" is nowhere in the Constitution and that she has proposed eliminating the federal Department of Education.  I wholly support that proposal, not just because the Dept. of Education is unconstitutional, but also because it is arguably one of the least effective parts of government on a per-dollar basis.

I asked Jane Norton what she thought of the Tea Party movement.  She said that she thought it was perhaps the most exciting political development of her lifetime [Pols emphasis] and that it is exactly what the country needs...

Okay, stop there. Jane Norton, born in 1955, thinks that the "Tea Party" movement is, let's make sure we've got this straight, "the most exciting political development of her lifetime?"

Because during Jane Norton's lifetime, we've had some pretty exciting political developments: there was the civil rights movement, for example--maybe not terribly exciting for Norton, apparently not at all for the "Tea Party" themselves--there will be some disagreement on that one. But what about the election and re-election of Ronald Reagan, fellow Republicans? That wasn't politically kind of exciting? Or the fall of the USSR? The 1994 Republican Revolution? Clinton's impeachment? 9/11-inspired electoral triumph in 2002? Just doesn't seem like a very objective statement, does it?

Don't get us wrong, we know this is nothing more than a throwaway line, to be thrown away as fast as the "Tea Party" itself will be by Norton as soon as she's no longer sweating a primary challenge. It just kind of struck us, like "abolishing" the Department of Education, or agreeing that the federal government has "no place" in health care, not to mention that stuff about Obama caring more about "terrorist rights" than Americans...as something Sarah Palin would say.

Documentarian Michael Moore is a collectivist who has become rich bashing capitalism. But that isn't stopping him from acting like a corporate welfare mother, as the Michigan Capitol Confidential reports, by seeking $1 million in filmmaker subsidies from his old home state.

The Mackinac Center, a Michigan think tank that opposes the state's extremely generous film-fare program, has Moore on tape at a 2008 film festival decrying such taxpayer handouts. “Why do they need our money, from Michigan, from our taxpayers, when we’re already broke here?" Moore asks. "I mean, they play one state against another, and so they get all this free cash when they’re making billions already in profits. What’s the thinking behind that?”

Yet here comes Moore, only a few years later, with greasy old baseball cap in hand. Maybe someone should do a documentary called "Hypocrisy: The Michael Moore Story."

“The White House needs more of them.”

Today marks the 99th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth. In a telling development, Republicans around the country have begun holding Reagan Day dinners, as they’ve long traditionally done every February for Abraham Lincoln. This is yet another spontaneous display of affection for Reagan. [...]

Reagan was just plain likable. [...] Central to that likability was Reagan’s humility. The word “I” didn’t dominate his conversation, unless he was poking fun at himself. He was no narcissist. Ronald Reagan was not full of pride; he was thoroughly unpossessed of self-love. [...]

At the time this happened, Clark was serving as Reagan’s national-security adviser. He had previously been deputy secretary of state, and would later be appointed secretary of the interior. His driver all this time was a man named Joe Bullock, a Georgia native who had moved to Washington during the Great Depression. Joe was a victim of the cruel Jim Crow laws that afflicted the South. He went to Washington for a better life.

Joe first found employment as a mule driver. He eventually began chauffeuring various senior people in the federal government, some of whom, including a high-level figure in the Carter administration, didn’t treat him well; in fact, that previous cabinet secretary didn’t speak a word to Joe in three years. [...]

Joe had worked for the federal government for half a century, but had never been within 50 yards of the Oval Office. He walked in. He saw Clark, Vice President Bush, the senior aides, and the president of the United States. He was in awe, overcome. Suddenly, this tough six-foot-four man began weeping: He had come so far since Jim Crow and the Great Depression. He was choked up.

No one in the room was prepared for that reaction. They were dead silent, uncomfortable, unable to respond — except for Ronald Reagan. The president rose, walked over to the driver, extended his hand, breathed in, and said matter-of-factly, “Mr. Bullock, I understand you have a belt to show me?”

It was an “everyman” touch. And it put old Joe immediately at ease. Business-like, Joe showed the belt, and then he and Reagan began swapping stories, chatting away like old friends.

“The rest of us just faded away,” said Bill Clark, “as the two got along famously.” President and driver, remembering the old days.

Bullock left with a story to tell his fellow drivers, and his grandchildren. He died a few years later.

Thank you, newrouter.