The only thing I care about in the Superbowl this year – that some how, some way, Green Bay pulls off the win. Not that I’m a Packers fan, but my boss is a Pittsburgh fan and he’ll be insufferable if Pittsburgh wins.

Other than that…

Forget about global warming – how about the magnetic poles shift and we get gigantic storms which alter just about everything in the natural world? Interesting story here. Other than investing in canned goods and shotguns, not much anyone can do about this, if its true.

Kristol takes on Beck and other conservatives for being a bit too worried about the ultimate outcome in Egypt. I can’t say that I agree with all Kristol says – I would cut off Egypt’s military until such time as a democratic government is in place – but I do agree that this isn’t time to start setting off the alarm bells. Things will go the way they will – mostly, our job is to watch, wait, encourage genuine liberty and stand ready to defend American interests if they become threatened either by the Egyptian regime, or its successors.

Are you tied at the hip to a practice which is falling in to ever greater disrepute among the American people? Well, here’s your answer – don’t cut loose from the horrific practice; just stop reporting the abortion statistics! Always better to keep the cockroaches hidden, ya know?

Obama’s bounce in the opinion polls is over.

Mish goes in to some of the mathematical alchemy used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in figuring out the unemployment rate. Do read it – you still won’t know exactly how its done (no one does as the BLS won’t release their methodology), but it will help you understand how easy it would be for someone to fudge the numbers, if they wanted to.

If the United States were a company, it’d be bankrupt. Which is a bit of a “no kidding” thing for those of us who are paying attention. Given this, the article is really best for liberals – but they won’t read it. So, quite a quandary.

And, remember, the Superbowl is important, but not that important:

Jesus said to his disciples:

“You are the salt of the earth.

But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?

It is no longer good for anything

but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

You are the light of the world.

A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.

Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;

it is set on a lampstand,

where it gives light to all in the house.

Just so, your light must shine before others,

that they may see your good deeds

and glorify your heavenly Father.” – Matthew 5:13-16

Ah, our welcoming, tolerant liberals – they’d never try to do anything which would prevent the free exchange of ideas, would they?

Saying it received an “onslaught of personal attacks,” a Colorado nonprofit announced in a news release today that it was canceling a scheduled May appearance in Glendale by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Palin, the former Alaskan governor and possible 2012 Republican presidential candidate, was to be the keynote speaker at the May 2 Patriots & Warriors Gala at the Infinity Park Event Center in Glendale.

The event, sponsored by the Sharon K. Pacheco Foundation, was announced Friday. But the group said Saturday that the event had been canceled because of “safety concerns resulting from an onslaught of negative feedback received by the organization.”…

Well, they had to stop her from speaking, didn’t they? Someone like Sarah Palin – speaking at an event for a group which provides a “grief camp” for the kids of fallen soldiers – is just too dangerous for our nation! She might have said something which in some way, shape or form could have been misconstrued by an insane person who never heard it! Just can’t have that, now can we? Of course, its not just Sarah Palin and the United States – seems that foreign liberals are just like ours:

President George W. Bush has canceled an event in the famously neutral country Switzerland because of expected protests to his presence there.

Bush was supposed to give the keynote address at a Jewish group’s charity gala on Feb. 12 in Geneva…

…”We didn’t want to put people and property in Geneva at risk. The gala is maintained but George Bush will not take part,” the group’s lawyer, Robert Equey told the Tribune de Geneve…

Oh, come on, now – you know they had to stop Bush from speaking. Its a Jewish group, for crying out loud! Clearly part of a Neo-con/Zionist plot – once again, just too dangerous to allow the man to speak…the world might die if certain words from certain people are spoken in public.

Thank goodness we have liberals to ensure that our debates are carried on in a respectful, peaceful manner.

From Sky News:

As anti-Mubarak demonstrators continue their protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, away from the area there are signs of growing divisions among their ranks.

One protester, Ahmed, fought the president’s hated riot police a week ago but he has now stopped going to the square.

For him, Mr Mubarak’s concessions, including stepping down at the next election and promising reforms, is enough.

He told Sky News that as the protests continue he “doesn’t want chaos”…

The report goes on to note that some are still willing to keep it up – but how long, really, can you keep up a demonstration? Eventually, people have to get back to work if for no other reason than they need to obtain food and other necessities. It is still possible that the rebels will prevail, but I consider this a fast-disappearing possibility.

Things will not go back to normal, however – new men and forces have been thrown up in this rebellion and various second and third tier players in the regime now will see their opportunity to clear out the upper levels, thus allowing their rise to power. The Moslem Brotherhood, while not officially un-banned, has had the lid taken off – they will now have far greater ability to organize and propagandize. But for the mass of Egyptians, things will not improve – because they will still have a regime which does not allow free expression of the will of the people, nor will they shed their crony-capitalism/state-socialism economic model.

If this rebellion does fizzle, it will be because of the essential mindlessness of the revolt – just wanting a tyrant out doesn’t do the trick, even if you get him out. A tyrant is not a stand-alone operation. All tyrants have massive support systems built in to their societies. Mubarak has had his willing participants in his rule – if you want to have a revolution, then you have to know what you want to put in place of the old regime. I doubt the masses in Tahrir Square had any ideas beyond getting rid of Mubarak and maybe a vague idea of “democracy”, for which concept they may or may not have a realistic view. Because there was no firm direction of the revolt, it was unable to garner the sort of hard force necessary to topple a regime and install a new one – the army first stayed aloof, and then clearly decided to protect the regime.

If the Egyptians are to get any political change, they’ll have to decide what they want – and the really bad news here is that “democracy” has failed, while the Moslem Brotherhood has been strengthened and will now be able to carefully explain just what they want to do – and in contrast to a disastrously failed “democracy” movement, the MB may seem a good alternative to what will remain a corrupt and repressive Egyptian government.

UPDATE: Some things to keep in mind about Egypt:

…The regime’s weakness, in turn, reflects the dysfunctional character of the country. 35% of all Egyptians, and 45% of Egyptian women can’t read.

Nine out of ten Egyptian women suffer genital mutilation. US President Barack Obama said Jan. 29, “The right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny … are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere.” Does Obama think that genital mutilation is a human rights violation? To expect Egypt to leap from the intimate violence of traditional society to the full rights of a modern democracy seems whimsical…

From Big Government:

Following the release of a video that has received nationwide attention showing Planned Parenthood staff at a New Jersey abortion center helping alleged sexual traffickers cover up their crimes with abortions and STD testing, Governor Chris Christie has vetoed a bill funding Planned Parenthood…

In a rational America, all government agencies would cut funding to that horrific, anti-human organization. What is a bit shocking is that Christie’s action is unique – we’ll see how many other governors and legislatures are willing to follow suit, and that will tell us just how far the rot has gone…anyone and any agency which doesn’t cut funding is in really bad shape.

From the AP:

Shell Alaska has dropped plans to drill in the Arctic waters of the Beaufort Sea this year and will concentrate on obtaining permits for the 2012 season, company Vice President Pete Slaiby said Thursday.

The recent remand of air permits issued by the Environmental Protection Agency was the final driver behind the decision, Slaiby said at a news conference…

And its all just tied up on absurd environmentalist worries – which include that the cold, inclement weather causes risks while at the same time the project would further stress animals feeling the effects of global warming…which is it? It can’t be both – unless it is neither, which is almost certainly the case. What the environmentalists want is no drilling – so they’ll just throw up whatever objections they can knowing that liberal Democrats in DC will do their bidding.

800 jobs will be lost over this – as well as losing the chance to lessen our dependence upon foreign oil. This action, in its effect, is anti-American and those who caused this should be ashamed of themselves. If they really felt themselves to be American, they would feel that shame…but I doubt they’ll lose any sleep over it. In fact, they might even feel a bit of delight in that they’ve further hobbled America and made us just a little bit weaker in the world, in keeping with a general liberal belief that it is bad when America is predominant.

From Zero Hedge:

At 64.2%, the labor force participation rate (as a percentage of the total civilian noninstitutional population) is now at a fresh 26 year low, the lowest since March 1984, and is the only reason why the unemployment rate dropped to 9% (labor force declined from 153,690 to 153,186). Those not in the Labor Force has increased from 83.9 million to 86.2 million, or 2.2 million in one year!

If you were to add even half that 2.2 million back in to the labor force, the unemployment rate would probably be above 10%. And even with such a huge reduction in the number of people looking for work, the best Bernanke can promise us is that employment will get back to normal in two or three years.

Of course, I don’t entirely trust the number – it seems odd that we’ve had so many straight months of declining labor force participation. Keep in mind that the keepers of the stats say the recovery began in 2009…surely by now we’d have an increase in participation, wouldn’t we? I mean, if there really was any genuine increase in wealth creation as opposed to a “wealth effect” created by massive amounts of fiat money.

And that, ultimately, is my worry – that we’re buying this “recovery” with fake money and mountains more debt and we’re not getting any net increase in national wealth for it. This means at the end of the day, even more debt will have to be supported by relatively less actual wealth. This is a recipe for complete economic collapse. Time will tell how this comes out, but if one wishes to bet, don’t bet that a printing press and borrowed money leads to prosperity.

UPDATE: More information on the unemployment numbers. “Bogus” seems an accurate description.

Here’s the story at NRO’s The Corner:

Despite the recent repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the drive to reinstate the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at Stanford University is facing resistance.

In March 2010, the Faculty Senate appointed a committee to investigate whether to allow ROTC back on campus after an almost 40-year absence. The committee will report back in May 2011.

In the meantime, anti-ROTC groups have been making their opposition known. One group, Stanford Says No to War, created a website at the misleading domain name http://rotc.stanford.edu to air its displeasure. (Earlier this month, the university revoked the domain name to avoid further confusion.) Unsurprisingly, the anti-war group believes ROTC’s presence is antithetical to the university’s purpose. It cites Professor Cecilia Ridgeway, who once said in Reading Eagle: “Universities are about solving problems through discussion, not military approaches.”…

Well, ok. Here’s what we do – we move Stanford (buildings, professors, student body, the whole shebang) to, say, Tehran. There the wonderful people of Stanford (especially the worthies at American Indian Gays, Black and Queer at Stanford, Feminist Collective and Queer and Questioning Asians And Pacific Islanders) can go and discuss their issues with the Mullahs. I’m sure that a group of unarmed, earnest college students and professors will have no trouble at all in convincing the Iranian government, by discussion, that there is a place for Black and Queer in the Islamic Republic.

Talk about ivory tower! These fools really don’t seem to understand that they are able to sit around doing hardly anything of importance while giving themselves airs of superiority because rougher men and women are willing to carry a weapon in their defense. There probably won’t be too many ROTC types at Stanford – or any other of our elite universities – but there will be some, and simple common sense and a desire for self-preservation would get rational people behind such a such a group of people. Sadly, common sense is what is most lacking in American “higher education” these days.

Of course, we really can’t ship Stanford to Tehran. But there is something we can do – if they don’t immediately allow ROTC back on campus with full access and no problems from faculty, then we cut them off. No student loans, no grants – no nothing; not another penny of taxpayer funds. That’ll make them squeal like stuck pigs – and get them to stop being quite so stupid.

Hat Tip The American Catholic – and a second on the wonder why Fox would block such an ad…let’s face it, a good part of Fox’s Superbowl audience will be people delighted with John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.

Not exactly the most controversial statement one can make – though bound to offend the usual collection of anti-religious pinheads who get upset about such things. But, on balance, offending people like that usually works to your advantage.

Very strange action – I’d like to hear a rational explanation from Fox about it.

From Bloomberg:

The Obama Administration acted in contempt by continuing its deepwater-drilling moratorium after the policy was struck down, a New Orleans judge ruled.

Interior Department regulators acted with “determined disregard” by lifting and reinstituting a series of policy changes that restricted offshore drilling, following the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, U.S. District Judge, Martin Feldman of New Orleans ruled yesterday.

“Each step the government took following the court’s imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance,” Feldman said in the ruling…

Obama and his liberals don’t care about our national energy situation – that we are importing massive amounts of oil from enemy States; that gasoline looks to be heading towards $4 a gallon by summer. All that doesn’t matter – what matters is if Obama can keep part of his liberal donor base happy; and they are kept happy by a drilling ban. Regular folks? Who care? Especially as Obama knows he won’t win any of the Gulf States in 2012, anyways…they can go get stuffed.

Liberalism is laid bare here – the complete disregard for law; the hatred of any activity which actually creates wealth; the contempt for so-called “bitter clingers” who won’t vote for them. As long as Obama is President, policy will be subordinated to whatever is thought best to maintain and expand the political and economic power of the liberal Ruling Class.

We’ll see where this case – and the ObamaCare case – go…but my bet is that Obama will just defy the courts and keep at it, secure in the knowledge that as long as Reid is Majority leader, no Congressional efforts to call him to account will go anywhere.