The people pushing it just can’t help but lie – from the PJ Tattler:

…meteorologists are judged on results: if you get the predictions wrong too often, or by too much, you’re not doing your job. So when the Meteorological Office in the UK predicted “another warm winter” for this year, and got instead the coldest snowiest winter in perhaps as much as a thousand years, it was a bit of a scandal, and difficult to explain.

A Met Office source leaked an explanation to Roger Harrabin at the Telegraph: there was a secret report to the government that had predicted the cold winter, so it wasn’t the Met Office’s fault if Government hadn’t done enough…

A secret weather forecast? The PM got together Britain’s top forecasters for a double secret probation conference?

No, not that. More than likely, the meteorologists just did their thing and their thing didn’t match what the global warming zealots wanted…”coldest winter in 1,000 years” is very hard to square with “we’re warming every year”. Coming hard on all the stories of outright fraud underlying the global warming assumptions, my guess is that someone in government spiked the real weather prediction and was just hoping the meteorologists got it wrong and the winter would turn out, if not very warm, at least not very cold.

Anyone who is still holding that anthropogenic global warming is “settled science” is just blowing smoke – the world may, indeed, be warming up as part of a long term trend, but it is abundantly clear by now that if it is doing this, we don’t know why. And, so, any efforts to curb human CO2 emissions in the name of AGW are folly. Still go ahead and curb them because pollution is bad, but don’t try to sell an end-of-the-world story as part of your effort.

They just can’t stand it when someone in any way, shape or form dissents from liberal orthodoxy:

Washington University in St. Louis, one of the most highly-regarded colleges in the nation, is raising eyebrows with its sudden cancellation of a speech on abstinence education Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol Palin was slated to deliver…

What spiked it was a campaign by Planned Parenthood and other abortion activists who figured that the last place anyone should be having an open discussion is a college campus. Abstinence – you know, being sexual responsible and thus able to take an adult’s place in the world – is opposed by our liberals because it might create independent people who rule their own lives. Additionally, we have a Palin involved and you know how that gets any liberal out there foaming at the mouth. Here’s the real kicker about this:

…The protests were led in part by “Private Practice” star Kate Walsh, a member of the Planned Parenthood board of directors who has been in trouble with pro-life advocates for urging donations and support for the abortion business.

“Welcome to the Idiocracy…please join students at Wash.U. to boycott Bristol Palin’s speech on abstinence. What does she know about college or abstaining?” Walsh tweeted…

Oh, I don’t know, Kate – maybe being a single mother would give her some insights on the perils of NOT ABSTAINING. Additionally, maybe it would be good for the kids to hear a variety of view points so that they can sift the evidence and come to their own conclusions? You know, that whole “independent thought” thingy?

I guess not.

Excellent description of our actual situation from Jerry Bowyer over at Forbes:

…Increasingly our nation is divided, not between Rs and Ds, but between TIs and TBs: tribute imposers and tribute bearers. The imposers are gigantic banks, agri-businesses, higher education Colossae, government employees, NGO and QUANGO employees and the myriad others whose living is made chiefly by extracting wealth from other people. The bearers are the rest of us: the people who extract wealth from the earth, not from others.

What is the difference between crony capitalism and socialism? Not much. Both systems are based on a lack of appreciation of individual liberty. Both systems depend on elaborate centralized bureaucracies. In both systems, large proportions of people work for the government. Does it really make that much difference whether the government money is reported as W-2 income as opposed to 1099 income? Don’t the favored people become rich under socialism?…

A vast apparatus has been erected upon the body of America and it has entirely wrecked the nation – not only in terms of extracting wealth from us and hampering our wealth creation, but also throwing us in to a moral sewer where our kids get to contend with drugs, pornography and crime so that the Ruling Class can feel bohemian while they hide behind security gates and private police forces. This Ruling Class – the Tribute Imposers as noted above – simply have to go.

Cutting the government budgets – local, State and federal – is vital in and of itself: we face complete economic collapse because of our level of debt. But it is also important in another way – it allows us to de-fund our Ruling Class. From bureaucrats manning government agencies to taxpayer-subsidized “private” corporations, the people who make a mess of our nation live directly or indirectly upon us via the tax code. Cutting off their funding destroys their power (unemployed bureaucrats and banksters don’t have much authority) while also eliminating the need for a host of taxes and regulations, all built up for the sole purpose of enriching and protecting our Tribute Imposers.

This will be the oddest of revolutions – not only because it will be non-violent, but because it will really work out to nothing more, in the end, than changing a few laws and eliminating a host of regulations. Once done, America will be able to breath easy again and we’ll be able to get on with what America’s job has always been – building a better life for our selves and our children, and standing as a beacon of liberty in the world. Get rid of this great, useless rock of government and quasi-government corporations, and it will be like living in a new nation, again.

And so, let’s do it…

Geesh:

Rush Limbaugh’s imitation of the Chinese language during a recent speech made by Chinese President Hu Jintao has stirred a backlash among Asian-American lawmakers in California and nationally.

California state Sen. Leland Yee, a Democrat from San Francisco, is leading a fight in demanding an apology from the radio talk show host for what he and others view as racist and derogatory remarks against the Chinese people.

In recent days, the state lawmaker has rallied civil rights groups in a boycott of companies like Pro Flowers, Sleep Train and Domino’s Pizza that advertise on Limbaugh’s national talk radio show…

Oh, for crying out loud – he wasn’t insulting Americans of Chinese or other east Asian decent: he was mocking the dictator of China…something all Americans should applaud, most especially those who have cultural ties to China and its long-suffering people. Mr. Yee, rather than attacking a fellow American who is on the side of the Chinese people against their anti-human regime, why don’t you spend some time working for the good of others? Maybe its time to lay aside playing the race card from the bottom of the deck?

It is just so disgusting to see liberals go on like this – absolutely no sense; sense of proportion or sense of humor. No wonder Rush keeps half his brain tied behind his back – if he used the whole thing, liberals would spontaneously combust.

From PBS:

In an exclusive interview with the NewsHour, Vice President Joe Biden told Jim Lehrer Thursday afternoon that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the target of anti-government demonstrations in Cairo, is someone he knows “fairly well” and does not consider to be a dictator. But the “time has come for President Mubarak to begin to move in the direction of being more responsive to some of the needs of the people out there.”…

Look, Joe; either back him, or throw him under the bus – don’t say the man who has been in charge for 30 years isn’t a dictator and then opine that he should stop dictating policy. For crying out loud, please try not to be entirely stupid in these matters.

We hitched our wagon to Mubarak’s regime 30 years ago and it is gotten us nothing in return. To me, its time for a bit of “underbus” with this man and his rotten government – but what we’re getting is incoherence which will make us despised all over the place – by people yearning to be free, as well as the dictators shooting them down in the streets. Whatever betides in Egypt, American policy looks to be the loser.

UPDATE: Pajamas Media has a running update on the events of the day. The most recent entry (6:33 EST) is:

As the protests continue, several people are claiming that the army may be providing riot police and other security forces with live ammunition to use against protesters. This cannot be denied or confirmed yet. Many people inside Egypt on social networking sites — using proxies to connect on the single remaining ISP that hasn’t been blocked by the government — are showing anger and discontent at President Mubarak’s speech and his refusal to cede power.

Jeremy Scahill of The Nation claimed on Twitter that President Barack Obama was on the phone with Mubarak for half an hour. No other source has confirmed this yet.

If that last bit is true, I hope it was a “you can’t get asylum here, and we’ve also frozen all Egyptian assets in the US”. One thing is clear, the people of Egypt don’t like Mubarak and we must cut ourselves loose from him immediately. If we are to have any say in the final settlement, we can’t be tied to Mubarak’s corrupt, cruel and incompetent regime.

UPDATE II: CNN is reporting that Mubarak has dissolved his cabinet (probably trying to dodge and weave to keep himself in power).

UPDATE III: World in crisis, American diplomacy in shambles – what do you do? You try to spin the events to get your man Obama off the hook…

Axelrod: President Obama Has “On Several Occasions Directly Confronted” Mubarak on Human Rights for the Past 2 Years “To Get Ahead of This”

Well, Axe, old buddy, what this before or after Obama’s Cairo speech where he spread a bunch of revisionist historical nonsense to try and make Moslems love us more? We’re really in trouble here, folks – we’ve got complete idiots running the show.

UPDATE IV: Obama’s statement. Not much to say for it – but it is clear that we aren’t ditching Mubarak as of this time.

UPDATE V: Rumor is that Mubarak’s televised statement a bit earlier today was pre-recorded. A bad sign for his regime…

From Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post:

…The statements indicate several points: 1) the New Black Panther Party case brought by career Justice Department employees was meritorious on the law and the facts; 2) there is voluminous evidence of the Obama administration’s political interference in the prosecution of the New Black Panther Party case; 3) there is ample evidence that the Obama administration directed Justice Department employees not to bring cases against minority defendants who violated voting rights laws or to enforce a provision requiring that states and localities clean up their voting rolls to prevent fraud; 4) the Justice Department stonewalled efforts to investigate the case; and 5) vice chairman Abigail Thernstrom has, for reasons not entirely clear, ignored the evidence and tried to undermine the commission’s work…

Here is a link to the US Commission on Civil Right’s investigation of the NBPP case. As noted above, it is clear that the Obama Administration has decided not to enforce voting rights laws when violated by minorities – in other words, if you have a certain skin color, you are free to violate whatever laws you wish…race-based law enforcement, otherwise known as racism. Just as once upon a time a white man could get away with violating a black man’s rights, now a non-white person can do the same.

You cannot get justice by applications of injustice. No matter how much racism was directed against minorities in the past it does not justify applications of racism now or in the future. A wrong deed is a wrong deed – it stands alone and must be condemned and not repeated. Obama’s Administration seems determined to carry out the liberal ideal that two wrongs do make a right.

The House must investigate this and bring all the principals in to testify under oath – we must expose to the American people that our Executive branch has decided that some laws shall not be enforced because the latest liberal fads are more important than justice. We dare not allow liberals to impose a new racism upon the United States – “and justice for all” isn’t just a set of words, it is a requirement for America.

The genesis of the discontent which we now see surging all around the Moslem world – and likely to spread to other areas – is the fact that the price of food is rising very fast. Taking off from the point of food, it is taking on a decidedly political tint.

It hasn’t bit us here in the United States because we still pay such a tiny percentage of our income for food. But for people who spend half their income on the basic necessities, any price hike hurts. And prices have been spiking very high. Mish goes over a very large number of reports about the riots in Egypt and observes the following:

Most of the increases in food prices are due to droughts in South America, floods in Australia, and poor growing conditions in many places.

However, Bernanke’s “Quantitative Easing” policies combined with rampant credit growth in China and India have led to increased speculation in commodities. That speculation has forced up food prices.

If you are tweeting, please tweet this “Bernanke has blood on his hands”.

Please note that speculation in commodities is not a cause of anything. Rather commodity speculation is a result of piss poor monetary policies not only the Fed, but central bankers worldwide.

It is time to call things as they are. It isn’t deliberate in the sense that Bernanke and central bankers like him didn’t plan for people to have their food prices shoot up, but it is criminal none the less. It should have dawned on them that if you rapidly print up buckets of fake money, then things of real value – including food – will rise in monetary price. They wanted inflation on the insane theory that rising prices means prosperity – what they’ve got is a world on the verge of a breakdown as the poor are losing what little they have…and it doesn’t help matters that the bankers are raking it in.

As I’ve said before, we won’t go hungry here in the United States – even in our stunted form, American agriculture is still the wonder of the world. If we really turned on the power, we’d have food coming out of our ears – but, for now, its just that we’ve got enough, and the prices rises will be an inconvenience for us rather than a matter of life and death (though rising prices, in general, might tip us back in to full blown recession). But many people around the world are getting hurt and it is high time we stopped this – stopped the use of fiat money; stopped using debt; stopped being utter fools. It is time we got back to work – back to honestly earning a day’s pay by doing something useful.

Or, we can continue on – and watch as the world goes up in flames.

UPDATE: the violence continues to spread and increase in intensity.

From Rasmussen:

…Rasmussen Reports asked voters the same three questions about the president’s economic proposals on the two nights prior to the speech and then again on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

On the first two nights, 39% supported the proposals. On the next two nights, support was 41%.

Fifty percent (50%) of Likely U.S. Voters now oppose the federal government spending more money in areas like education, transportation and technological innovation, up from 45% in the previous survey…

This is getting to be like the border security issue – the people just ain’t buying what the government is selling. Obama can call it “investment” all he wants, but everyone knows it is just more spending – and as a bankrupt nation, we just can’t spend any more.

The GOP holds all the cards in this provided we hold firm – if we betray the American people on the matter of spending and government reform, then we’re toast. If, on the other hand, we do the right thing, then we just might win enough power in 2012 to thoroughly reform our nation.

Suppose tens of thousands of people had marched on Washington on Monday to demand federal funding for abortion – do you suppose the MSM would have been all over that? Well, tens of thousands of people did march on Washington this past Monday…

None of the broadcast news programs from Monday evening and Tuesday morning covered the 2011 “March for Life” in Washington, DC, a pro-life rally that reportedly drew at least tens of thousands of attendees.

Neither NBC, ABC, nor CBS gave any coverage Monday to the March for Life on their respective evening news programs; none of the networks covered the story Tuesday morning. The New York Times did not cover the story, as the MRC’s blog “Times Watch” documented. The Washington Post, however, did provide a fair account of the rally in its Metro section…

The Post’s coverage might have been “fair”, but it still wasn’t all that great – 27,000 young people turned out for a pre-rally, youth event and as the kids were only a portion of the marchers, the number of people attending over all probably stretched to at least 100,000. The Post described this throng as “thousands”. What did the MSM cover? Oscar nominations and Oprah finding a long lost sister…

It doesn’t matter, in the end – the movement for Life is gaining ground all over the country. The Culture of Death just cannot shake the nastiness which is inherent in any position calling for legal abortion. People are growing tired of the nauseating filth in this nation – and it is in a lot of ways the women of America who are showing the most courage and determination to clean up the mess. The MSM didn’t cover this because they don’t understand this – all the women the news producers know are in favor of abortion; such women – though they don’t understand this – are also in favor of continuing to be the mere sexual playthings of degraded men…failing to draw the connection between a callous disregard for life and a cavalier attitude towards sexual responsibility. Those who ignored the march represent a dying attitude – those who marched for life represent that good and decent strain in America which is rapidly surging back to power.