Monthly Archives: February 2012

Afghanistan: Let’s Get Out

Featured image Nearly a year ago, I wrote that I thought it was time to get our troops out of Afghanistan. A remarkable 74% of our readers who voted in our poll agreed. Events since then have tended to confirm that we should pull the plug on our military effort. The latest example is the fiasco over the burning of a few Korans by American troops. The facts surrounding the incident are »

How Popular Is Your State?

Featured image Public Policy Polling has run an interesting series of surveys, asking Americans whether they have a favorable or unfavorable view of various states. The question strikes me as odd; it makes sense to have a favorable or unfavorable view of a state’s government, but of the state itself? I would say that I have a favorable opinion of all of the states. As you might expect, the results show strong »

Another Sign of the End Times for the Climate Campaign?

Featured image I mentioned to my cruise mates John O’Sullivan and David Pryce-Jones over drinks down here in the South Atlantic a couple days ago that based on the available evidence, Britain is currently being governed by its second woman prime minister.  They immediately offered the predictable dissent, namely, that while the description clearly fits David Cameron, Lady Thatcher was among the more manly political figures of the last century.  True, that. »

A letter to the Obama campaign

Featured image Byron Tau reports at Politico that the Koch Companies have released a response to the Obama campaign’s fundraising letter of this past Friday directly assaulting the Koch brothers and their business. John wrote about the disgusting nature of the Obama campaign fundraising letter here, alternately quoting from and responding to it. It is a letter that comes straight out of the Alinsky playbook. Tau links to the Koch Companies’ response, »

Hooray, but not quite, for Hollywood

Featured image Occasional contributor Bill Katz holds down the fort at Urgent Agenda. Bill is a man of many parts, a few of which go back to his days as a producer on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Bill is back on the show biz beat with reflections on tonight’s Academy Awards show: The Oscars are on this Sunday night. Aren’t you excited? No? Why not? Can’t you sense the excitement »

Who’s Obsessed?

Featured image Yesterday, along with millions of others, I got a fundraising appeal from Barack Obama’s campaign manager. The email was titled “They’re obsessed.” It began: In just about 24 hours, Mitt Romney is headed to a hotel ballroom to give a speech sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a front group founded and funded by the Koch brothers. AFP is a grass roots organization with close to two million activist-participants. I believe »

Abandon Hope all ye who enter here

Featured image In another story that I doubt will get much coverage in the mainstream media, the creator of the famous messianic “Hope” artwork used by the Obama campaign now admits that he has been lying about the origin of the image. He adapted it from an AP photo and has lied about it repeatedly in the interest of pride and money. Robert Gearty reports in his New York Daily News story: »

Miracle of the algae

Featured image If Americans aren’t sold on electric cars as the solution to our energy problems, I’m pretty sure that they won’t fall for pond scum (algae). Yet this is part of what President Obama had on offer this past Thursday when he spoke at the University of Miami. The White House text and video of the speech are here. The algae angle would have earned a Republican president hoots of derision »

Climatefail Footnote

Featured image The climateers just don’t know when to leave well enough alone, apparently  Not only is Peter Gleick being celebrated as a hero by many climate campaigners, but their allies can’t resist trying to find some way to change the subject back to the Heartland Institute.  And in doing so they’re about to commit their next major blunder.  This is a double-down bet they will surely lose. Buried in the legitimate »

Why The Climate Skeptics Are Winning

Featured image That’s the headline for my account of the Peter Gleick affair in the Weekly Standard, just out online this morning.  I make some comparisons of Gleick’s weak cover story to the Hiss case, noting that about the only thing missing is an old Woodstock typewriter.  My conclusion: The Gleick episode exposes again a movement that disdains arguing with its critics, choosing demonization over persuasion and debate. A confident movement would »

Why Should the Taxpayers Subsidize Electric Vehicles?

Featured image Well, they shouldn’t. Scott Rasmussen published a survey a few days ago in which only 29% of Americans supported subsidies for electric cars, which means that the average American is smarter than the Obama administration. There are a number of ideas why subsidizing electric cars, like pretty much every “green” energy scheme, is a bad idea; Michael Ramirez notes just one of them. Where do you suppose all that electricity »

A Rebuke to Our Rudderless President

Featured image President Obama has proclaimed himself helpless in the face of gasoline prices, which have doubled on his watch. He is just fated, apparently, to be a lousy president. Now that it is a little late to try to blame his predecessor, he is out of ammo. Today Senator Jeff Sessions tried to buck Obama up with a letter containing suggestions as to how the executive branch might take arms against »

Sharia Law In Pennsylvania

Featured image Andy McCarthy’s post on a criminal prosecution in Pennsylvania that was dismissed based on an application of sharia law and a recognition of the special, privileged status of Islam is the most chilling thing I have read in quite a while. This is Andy’s account of the events that led to the prosecution: The victim, [atheist activist] Ernest Perce, wore a “Zombie Mohammed” costume and pretended to walk among the »

Weirdest Correction of the Day

Featured image I enjoy reading the Corrections section of the New York Times. The paper’s corrections are revealing in several ways. Often, they show a remarkable ignorance of subjects like arithmetic, science, history and literature on the part of the paper’s reporters and editors. They also allow us to deduce the law that governs the Times’s willingness to correct its mistakes: the Times corrects errors with an alacrity that is inversely proportional »

Joel Mowbray reports: Dem congressman winks…

Featured image Our occasional correspondent Joel Mowbray ([email protected]) reports: The growing predilection on the Left of accusing people who are pro-Israel of having dual loyalties has now emerged in a Democratic congressional primary in New Jersey, where two longtime Congressmen are squaring off because of redistricting. What’s unusual, though, is that the nasty charge is being tolerated, perhaps even encouraged, by a sitting member of Congress, Rep. Bill Pascrell. Starting the flap »

Climate Gleick-Out Update: Plot Thickens

Featured image In my article about the Peter Gleick affair coming out tonight or early tomorrow morning in the next issue of The Weekly Standard, I note that “the Heartland Institute has always extended invitations to the leading ‘mainstream’ figures to speak or debate at the [annual Heartland climate change] conference, including Al Gore, NASA’s James Hansen, and senior officials from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (Heartland typically receives no »

A message to Mickey Kaus

Featured image Yesterday I clicked on an Instapundit link in this one-sentence post: “Mickey Kaus notes a case of eerie prescience.” Clicking on the link, I was transported to a link-filled post stating: “Eerie Prescience, Esquire Division: A lot of what is written about the new smarts-and-skills based elite, and how it is separating off from society–by, among others, Robert Reich, me, David Brooks and now Charles Murray–was anticipated in a ballsy, »