analysis policy in all the world

Thứ Hai, 2 tháng 1, 2012

Exclusive Photo: Security Cam Captures L.A. Arson Suspect

Biff Spackle emails us this photo acquired from an unnamed source in Hollywood.

Hey, is that a Chevy Volt?

Seriously, police now have one person in custody related to the recent arson spree.

Larwyn's Linx: No Rest For Conservatives, the 'Sleeping Giant', in 2012

Have a news tip or great story? Drop me an email. Bloggers: you can install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget!

QOTD: "The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln. — Barack Obama"

Chủ Nhật, 1 tháng 1, 2012

What could go wrong? Dennis Rodman recruiting for his new topless women's basketball team

I can't wait to find out the name of the team (and feel free to propose some in the comments and I'll be sure to relay them to the Rod-man):

Dennis Rodman is bouncing back into basketball — this time as a coach for a topless women’s team he’s launching for Headquarters Gentlemen’s Club, the New York mammary mecca. [Ed: "mammary mecca"? If we're going to do alliteration, how about "boob bazaar"?]

The NBA bad boy dreamed up the team after hearing that rival strip joint Rick’s Cabaret had launched a league with former Atlanta Hawk Spud Webb, who runs the Texas Legends, an NBA Development League team. Rodman is even challenging Rick’s Cabaret’s topless team to a charity game.

“I don’t know too many men that don’t like a good-looking woman running up and down around the court,” Rodman told Page Six. [Ed: Word.]

Rodman, who told us he’s been a Headquarters customer for more than 30 years, is currently scouting for talent. He’ll be holding auditions next week at the jiggle joint for girls over 5-foot-10 to join the team.

“You don’t have to have too much experience, just know how to throw the ball into the hole,” was his sterling advice to hopefuls... Rodman said he also planned auditioning “players” during his appearance at Huntington, LI, club Paramount last night.

Team members will wear shorts, skimpy shirts and sneakers during games. “They’ll come out in a T-shirt or a tank top, but when the game starts, they’ll go topless,” Rodman boasted.

I'll be honest: this idea is a winner. And with a "Level 5 Leader" like Rodman at the helm, there's virtually nothing that can go wrong.

Image: Based upon an original found at Fark.

The EPA: Enemy of Civilization

I can come to no other conclusion that Lisa Jackson and the rest of President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency are bound and determined to de-industrialize America. And I can prove it. Please consider the following panoply of headlines from around the country:

• West Virginia: End EPA War Against Coal

"[The EPA] sprang a terrible Christmas "present" on West Virginians, Ohioans and ...other Americans. In mid-December the agency - merely doing the bidding of its boss, President Barack Obama - announced drastic new regulations aimed primarily at industries such as coal-fired power plants... the EPA's new rules will force utility companies to close at least 32 power plants...

...Obama's goal, in which top EPA officials and liberals in Congress cooperate enthusiastically, is to wreck the coal industry... One especially outrageous aspect of the rules - but, ironically, one cause for hope - is that they are the EPA's attempt to overrule Congress. Even under Democrat domination of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the Obama administration's "cap and trade" proposal was rejected. His response was to tell the EPA to plow ahead without lawmakers' approval."

And all this time I thought Bush was "the imperial president".

• Wyoming: The EPA's CYA Move

"It all started when Lisa Jackson, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said something never before stated by the EPA... In comments to a Bloomberg TV news show, she said the oil and gas industry practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, may have been responsible for the contamination of water at Pavillion, home to a few hundred people in west-central Wyoming.

...[Congress then demanded] she provide evidence to support what she had claimed. The next day the EPA announced it would release the report draft that very tentatively connected fracking with contamination in Pavillion, and then did so several hours later... It felt rushed. It felt like something that happens when an agency is trying to CYA, or to put it respectably, cover its butt.

...This time, the agency’s credibility — far more important than its chief’s butt — is on the line. Can the agency be trusted to do something important the right way? For many people, particularly in the oil and gas industry, that answer is already no."

So the EPA wants to destroy the coal, oil and gas industries. Gee, I wonder what they'll use to power those big, heavy government Suburbans?

• Oklahoma: EPA policy consistently incorrect

"The EPA has been consistently incorrect through the years, as with the Alaska pipeline and the Tennessee snail darter, to name a few, costing taxpayers billions. Now they plan to force coal-powered electrical plants to spend billions that will drastically increase electrical rates...

Their stated justification includes prevention of 11,000 premature deaths and 4,700 heart attacks annually. How does one determine who died prematurely? How do they separate the air pollutants of coal-powered plants from the many other air pollutants such as volcanoes, internal combustion engines, natural waste from mammals, forest fires, exhaust from home heating/AC systems and more?"

Dude, didn't you hear? The science is settled!

But there is a little bit of good news:

• Texas: Federal court stays EPA’s CSAPR

"A federal court Friday put on hold a controversial Obama administration regulation aimed at reducing power plant pollution in 27 states the Environmental Protection Agency contends contributes to unhealthy air downwind... [The] EPA’s unrealistic timelines for unspecific regulations have forced company orders to idle units in both plants, threatening their respective power grids, and potentially increasing utility costs to customers.

...So, the stay will be a bit of a reprieve."

Two good quotes to tie a bow on things

1. Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, said the stay was a "first step to setting it right. The underlying rule was the subject of hasty process, poor technical support, unequal application and substantial threat to jobs, power bills and reliability."

2. Nebraska A.G. Jon Bruning stated, "this stay means Nebraskans will not have to foot the bill for unnecessary modifications mandated by the EPA. We will continue to fight these job-killing regulations by an overreaching federal government run amok."

If you want to live in a third-world country that has an unstable electric grid, then -- by all means -- please vote for Barack Obama in 2012.

But if you've gotten used to having electricity in your life, then my recommendation would be to vote against every Democrat you possibly can. In fact, do it for the children.

Spy Photo: Nancy Pelosi in Bikini; Also 'Occupy Hawaii' Protesters Rally at Pelosi's Hawaiian Resort

It turns out that Nancy Pelosi -- who empathizes deeply with "The 99 Percent" -- is enjoying her ~~ill-gotten gains~~ hard-earned IPO profits at Hawaii's Four Seasons Resort Hualalai at Historic Ka'upulehu in Kona. Cub Reporter Biff Spackle -- on assignment in Kona -- captured this spy photo of the dynamic former House Speaker enjoying the beach in a flattering bikini.

Okay, I admit it: this is a Photoshop.

But in all seriousness, Occupy Hawaii protesters are rallying near Pelosi's resort to express their discontent with the ~~crony Marxist~~ progressive princess.

The Graph That Proves President Obama Truly Is 'Historic'

But not in a good way:

Over the past 50 years, 10 U.S. presidents have made annual budget requests to Congress, projecting deficits both big and small. But no other president compares to Barack Obama when it comes to the size and scale of the current budget deficit facing the United States.

The country is facing an 8.3 percent estimated average national deficit of a two-term Obama administration — the biggest of the past 50 years. By comparison, the current estimate for Obama is nearly double the percentage under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — and they were fighting the Cold War.

...So what does the current trajectory mean for the United States? We’re certainly no longer looking at a continuation of manageable deficits in the years to come. This is a dramatic change in the magnitude of annual shortfalls at the federal level. That’s one reason Heritage came up with a plan to fix the debt crisis.

And for the drones out there who point to President Clinton's "budget surplus", I'd like to remind you of one simple fact: the House of Representatives -- and specifically Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. John Kasich (now governor of Ohio) -- pinned Clinton's shoulders to the mat in order to force a balanced budget on the spend-happy Democrats.

Larwyn's Linx: Voter ID Terrifies Democrats

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Nation

Voter ID Terrifies Democrats: Times
Sundays with Sherrod: ‘Celebrating’ 19 Awful Years: BigGovt
Suspected Terrorists Can Be Indefinitely Detained Without Trial: Wire

Will Obama steal the 2012 election?: Times
Aides: Obama to bypass Congress, issue XO's every week: WZ
Is Mitt Romney just John McCain with hair?: Paco

GOP Senators Join Call for Kagan Recusal as Required By Law: TH
Chief Justice Responds to Obamacare Recusal Calls: WSJ
Virginia AG Intervenes in Ballot Mess: Tatler

Economy

A Simple Way to Think About the U.S. Debt and Deficit Problems: AT
Two Possible Paths in 2012: Driscoll
Small businesswoman's unbelievable takedown of Obamanomics: WZ

Privatize the Schools: PJM
Keynes was right -- about the Jews?: Power Line
Ron Paul: 'I Can Connect With Both' Tea Partiers and Occupiers: CNS

Climate & Energy

A New Year’s Prediction Challenge For Climate Alarmists – 2012 Edition: RWN
Say what? Rep. Dingell claims Chevy Volt is "selling like hotcakes": AutoBlog
Gingrich Axes Chapter on Climate Change in Forthcoming Book: Malkin

Media

“Anti-Semitism has become almost wholly the province of the Left today”: Wizbang
Santorum Closing in on Romney in Iowa in Des Moines Register Poll: HE
Occupy Wall Street in 2011 & The Racist Rager from Occupy Wall Street Responds: Urban Infidel

New TV Show Idea: All-American Christian: AT
NBC Touts Californians Who Support Higher Taxes: NB
Mormonism or Marxism: Which Would You Prefer at the White House?: Townhall

2011 Graphics Roundup: Looking Spoon
Top 10 Most Influential Conservative Women in America: HE
Ezra Klein, Chris Hayes Reveal What DC Media Knew: Obama Willing to Let Payroll Tax Cut Expire: BigJourn

World

The Year We Lost Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia and Most of the Middle East: Sultan Knish
Obama administration turns to notorious Jew hater to mediate in Afghanistan: AT
Al Arabiya Arabic Channel Chooses Weirdest Fatwas of 2011: Blaze

The Santa Killer Was a Religion of Peacer: Giles
Christians could disappear altogether from Egypt, Iraq and Afghanistan: Atlas
Best War Porn Evah!: WZ

Intellectual Freedom Buried Yet Again: AT
Afghan Child Bride Beaten and Tortured: “My Mother-in-Law Pulled Out My Nails”: GWP

Sci-Tech

First Siri, Now Threat Detection: Inside SRI’s Amazing R&D: Wired
Facebook hands out White Hat debit cards to hackers: CNet
Chicago restaurants stop taking cell phone orders: CNet

Cornucopia

Young Aldo: Double Plus Undead
Steel Panther, The Greatest Band Ever: Ace
The Genius Of Capitalism - An Alien Cathouse: Wolf Howling

Image: "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Better than hoped for"
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: The 2011 Fabulous 50 Blog Award Winners

QOTD: "Nancy Pelosi and her husband were parties to a dozen or so IPOs, many of which were effectively off limits to all but the biggest institutional investors and their favored clients. One of those was a 2008 investment of between $1 million and $5 million in Visa, an opportunity the average investor could not have bought, begged, or borrowed his way into — one that made the Pelosis a 50 percent profit in two days. Visa, of course, had business before Speaker Pelosi, who was helping to shape credit-card-reform legislation at the time. Visa got what it wanted. The Pelosis have also made some very fortunate investments in gas and energy firms that have benefited from Representative Pelosi’s legislative actions.

The Pelosis made a million bucks off a single deal involving OnDisplay, the IPO of which was underwritten by investment banker William Hambrecht, a major Pelosi campaign contributor. Writes Schweizer: “The same Bill Hambrecht went before the House Finance Committee, chaired by Barney Frank, a Pelosi ally, to push for a change in the registration process for stock IPOs, an exemption called Regulation A. Under current law, a company that plans an IPO of less than $5 million in stock gets an exemption from detailed reporting. Hambrecht wanted the exemption raised to $30 million, which would greatly benefit his business, making IPOs easier, quicker, and far less expensive. As the hearings began, Congressman Frank said, ‘I should note also that it was Speaker Pelosi who first called this to our attention earlier in the year. It is something that the speaker has taken a great interest in.’”" --Kevin D. Williamson, "Repo Men"

Thứ Hai, 2 tháng 1, 2012

Nation

Economy

Gunrunner & Energygate

Climate & Energy

Media

World

Sci-Tech

Cornucopia

Chủ Nhật, 1 tháng 1, 2012

• West Virginia: End EPA War Against Coal

• Wyoming: The EPA's CYA Move

• Oklahoma: EPA policy consistently incorrect

• Texas: Federal court stays EPA’s CSAPR

Two good quotes to tie a bow on things

Nation

Economy

Climate & Energy

Media

World

Sci-Tech

Cornucopia