Welcome to Lent. Time to give up a bit, and give a bit more:

Even now, says the LORD,

return to me with your whole heart,

with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;

Rend your hearts, not your garments,

and return to the LORD, your God.

For gracious and merciful is he,

slow to anger, rich in kindness,

and relenting in punishment.

Perhaps he will again relent

and leave behind him a blessing,

Offerings and libations

for the LORD, your God. – Joel 2:12-14

Even for non-Christians out there, it is good for one small part of the year – the next 40 days – to give up something and/or to go the extra mile for others. We really weren’t built to have lavish lives – a calm modesty and enough is enough is more what we’re geared for. Lent allows us a chance to do just that.

Just a small dose of humility can go a long way…

Yeah, just what we need – people to talk up deficit reduction and then issue a report no one will read or act upon. Good idea, Barry!

President Obama will sign an executive order Thursday creating a fiscal commission aimed at addressing the budget deficit.

The commission is expected to be headed by Erskine Bowles, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, and former Republican Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming. It will lack the power to bind Congress to up-or-down votes on deficit reduction measures that a similar commission, rejected by the Senate last month, would have had.

We don’t need more policy-wonk talk shops, Mr. President. We need action. Here’s something you can do – how about an immediate, 25% reduction in non-defense/law enforcement government salaries? It would go like this:

“Due to the economic crisis and in light of our overwhelming debt, all government employees who are not active duty soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, or armed law enforcement personnel, will immediately have their base pay reduced by 25%. People with complaints should be advised that we could have cut salary by firing 1/4 of the work force, so suck it up.”

That would be a wise decision. It would be a courageous decision. It would be a decision which has immediate, practical benefit to the American people. It would make you a hero to the overwhelming majority of Americans. Heck, at a stroke you might ensure your re-election…

But we know the President won’t do it – because he lacks the courage and the imagination to take such a step.

Hell, I say he never deserved a first.

52 percent of Americans said President Barack Obama doesn’t deserve reelection in 2012, according to a new poll.

44 percent of all Americans said they would vote to reelect the president in two and a half years, less than the slight majority who said they would prefer to elect someone else.

Obama faces a 44-52 deficit among both all Americans and registered voters, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll released Tuesday. Four percent had no opinion.

It is unfortunate that he ever got to where he is in the first place. But it is somewhat comforting that American realize that Obama is just another fraud who talked the talk during the campaign, but has zero leadership skills, no bipartisan bones in his body, and an unpopular agenda.

They’ve been building factories with no orders, commercial space with no takers and cities with no residents – all on money created out of thin air and then force-fed through the economy via easy lending terms. The wind has been sown:

Pressures mount as China attempts to walk a fine line between overheating and an economic bust accompanied by massive social unrest.

Elsewhere, central bankers assume the global economy is in recovery. In reality, the global economy is in another speculative binge fueled by reckless global stimulus, with China at the head of the pack.

Meanwhile, global imbalances grow with most eyes on Greece and Spain. Let’s not forget the massive property bubbles in Australia and Canada, and massive speculation in China. In the US, cities and states are on the verge of bankruptcy.

Something is brewing alright. That something is “trouble”, and not just for China.

The crash, when it comes, will be quite spectacular. Sooner or later – and very likely sooner rather than later – the bubble will burst, and all the money the western economies have invested in China will vanish like a puff of smoke…and, dear people, for many major, global banks, China has been the one bright spot on the balance sheet.

This will get rather messy.

UPDATE: Don’t anyone say you weren’t warned

Foreigners cut Treasury stakes; rates could rise

Foreign demand for short-term Treasurys tumbles, led by China; chance of higher rates looms”

In his latest video…

So much for us becoming a party of toothless, southern knuckldraggers:

The state’s loneliest Republicans – those who languish in the navy blue regions from Northampton to Nantucket – are shaking off their years-long malaise and rebuilding a political machine in the land of Birkenstocks and Priuses.

“People are coming out of the woodwork saying, ‘We’ve been Republicans in hiding and now we want to be out and help,’ ” said Jeffrey Hopkins, chairman of the City Republican Committee in the old Democratic union stronghold of Fall River.

In the wake of Scott Brown’s victory in his Senate campaign versus Martha Coakley, a surge in interest in the GOP has come from longtime Republicans, independents, Tea Party activists and even Democrats, dazzling many organizers.

Early interest, of course, does not a resurgent party make – but each journey really does begin with the first step. Electing Senator Brown was Step One.

The plain fact of the matter is that the Democrats obtained their pow in 2006 and 2008 by flat out lying about themselves and, of course, a relentless campaign of slander against President Bush…they threw so much garbage at him that in the public mind, some of it stuck…and given the way the Congressional GOP blew it, our defeat was pretty much inevitable. But that doesn’t change the fundamental fact that only via lies were Democrats able to obtain their majority and elect Obama. The lies have now been exposed.

They ran centrist and are governing leftist. They figured that they could continually bamboozle the people until they got a solid majority completely dependent upon government, and then they’d be in forever. Didn’t work out that way – by means of the New Media grafted upon the innate distrust of government among Americans, the Democrats have been stymied.

Now comes the really hard part – hitting them with so much truth that they are wrecked as a party for a generation. Of course, key to this is doing as much as we can to clear out our own political barnacles. Most of them have already gone but we must be wary as 2010 advances that we don’t replace old RINOs with new RINOs.

We can do this – we can take our country back and return it to the Founder’s vision. If we work hard. If we keep the faith. If we remain true to what we profess.

News Flash: Guys dig good looking women. Who knew?

News Flash, II: Treating adolescents like human beings rather than as sex-crazed beasts tends to encourage sexual morality. Son of a gun, abstinence education works! Once again, who knew?

Atheist brings asinine case to court, seeks to ban even a “moment of silence” in school.

French banker says the Euro is toast. Me: not so sure. Lots of global banksters have a lot of money tied up in Euros…until they can safely bail out and stick regular folks with the bill, the Euro will remain.

How to get rich: work for government. I think that, once upon a time, I talked up this issue.

Economic recovery? If you believe there is one, then I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

Ideas to cut the budget: Eliminate the 12th grade? The idea has merit – I mean, seriously, unless you were definitely headed to college, what did that 12th year of school do for you?

That is how much Obama’s policy on oil drilling is going to cost us:

Restrictions on oil and gas drilling will cost the U.S. economy $2.36 trillion through 2029, according to a study requested by state utility regulators and paid for in part by industry-sponsored groups.

Drilling restrictions in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off the U.S. coastline are blocking access to about nine years’ worth of U.S. oil and gas consumption, according to the report. Among sponsors are the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the industry-funded Gas Technology Institute, of Des Plaines, Illinois.

Obama is stealing from the future in two ways – by borrowing our grand-childrens money, and by taking away their ability to earn money.

As I’ve been yammering endlessly on about, we need to start a crash course in making, mining and growing our own stuff. The oil and gas is on our soil and off our coasts – surely we can work out a means of obtaining it with minimal environmental impact. But, impact or no, we must obtain it. We all hope for the day when oil and gas won’t be necessary – but that day is, at best, decades away. Meanwhile, we’re fools for sending our money to enemy States for their oil while we have our own.

It is time we started acting like we live in the real world. The liberal dream – nightmare, really – is dead. Time to wake up, and get back to work.

Senator Evan Bayh is retiring…

Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh will not seek re-election this year, a decision that hands Republicans a prime pickup opportunity in the middle of the country.

“After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so by serving in Congress has waned,” Bayh will say, according to prepared remarks obtained by the Fix. He will make the decision formal at a press conference later today.

Bayh was first elected to the Senate in 1998 and was re-elected easily in 2004. National Republicans had recruited former Sen. Dan Coats to challenge Bayh in 2010 although polling suggested Bayh began the race with a 20-point edge. He also had $13 million in the bank at the end of the year.

Oh, and there’s this.

The Cook Political Report, one of the nation’s leading handicappers of congressional elections, now carries 10 Democratic-held seats in its most competitive categories — meaning that if Republicans sweep those race (and lose none of their own vulnerable seats), they will have a 51-seat majority. Cook, incidentally, moved Indiana from a lean Democratic seat to a lean Republican seat in the wake of the Bayh news.

2010 is going to be a good year indeed.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: And better and better and better…

Signs of real vulnerability for California’s Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer

UPDATE II, by Mark Noonan:

Now Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) to bow out?

Hello boys and girls. Its kind of a holiday, and I just can’t think of anything worthwhile to put up for the AM. Have at it.