Are you smarter than a sixth grader?

The photo above was taken at Graham Road Elementary School in Falls Church Virginia, where Obama went to discuss the $1.35 billion "Race to the Top" grant program.

There he is, the President of the United States, Leader of the Free World, unable to speak to a room full of sixth-grade kids without his teleprompter.

It's almost too sad to laugh.

Hitler shocked at Massachusetts election results

Here's what happened when Adolf Hitler learned that Scott Brown won the Senate seat occupied by Ted Kennedy for nearly 50 years...

(Many thanks to the Venerable Bede for pointing this out!)

My apologies for the off-center YouTube video, the subtitles are crucial but sometimes the right side of this video is going missing. Here's the link so you can view it on YouTube, where it does not seem to experience the truncation problem.

Environmental imperialism

In their latest display of hypocrisy, San Francisco's greenies have prevailed in their effort to close the Mirant plant in the city's Potrero Hill neighborhood. Mirant uses fossil fuels to generate electricity, and is admittedly a polluter, a fact which put it in the cross-hairs of the old-school sandal-wearing environmentalists and the younger adherents of the secular religion of Climate Change.

But don't think for a minute that San Francisco is replacing the electricity generated by the Mirant facility with clean green power. No, there will be no wind turbines on Nob Hill, no solar arrays...well, we are talking about San Francisco, there will be no solar arrays anywhere.

Instead, San Francisco residents will get their electricity from a dirty, polluting, fossil fuel plant in Pittsburg, California. Low-income, majority-minority Pittsburg, far enough away that San Franciscans can pat themselves on the back for closing the Mirant plant without having to trouble themselves about where the electricity they need to power their laptops and iPhones and espresso machines and wine caves actually comes from. I mean, it's not like people in San Francisco actually know anybody from Pittsburg.

If San Franciscans really believe that fossil fuel is evil, then they should disconnect themselves from the electrical grid, set up turbines and solar panels, maybe sell a few of their kitchen appliances on eBay, and take the brownouts as they come. But no, they'll let the poor people in Pittsburg bear the environmental consequences of their energy needs.

Bloody hypocritical environmental imperialists!

Happy Anniversary, Mr. President

In contemplating the one-year anniversary of His Holiness Barack Obama's coronation, I confess I can think of nothing but Scott Brown. The difference between the two men was made poignant last night when, in his victory speech, Scott Brown struck an extraordinarily gracious note.

He took time out to pay honor to the memory of the man who was Massachusetts' Senator for nearly 50 years; Ted Kennedy, the Liberal Lion of the Senate, brother of Bobby and Jack, the only one of the three who grew to be an old man.

Scott Brown called the late Senator a tireless and big-hearted public servant, a force like no other, and said that his name would always command affection and respect among the people of Massachusetts. He said this to his supporters, but he said it first in a phone call to Ted Kennedy's widow Victoria.

Scott Brown's supporters clapped in support of the late Senator's memory. It was the most bipartisan thing I've seen since January 20, 2009.

Compare the graciousness of Scott Brown and his supporters with the Obama supporters who booed President Bush at Obama's inaugural; or with Obama telling legislators that his view on taxes will prevail because "I won," or Obama's ominous utterance to a Democrat Congressman who voted against the stimulus: "don't think we're not keeping score, brother."

Well, the American people have been keeping score, brother. And last night, you lost your super-majority in the Senate. The People have had a referendum on Obamacare, Cap and Tax, Government Motors, prosecuting KSM in civil court, "the system worked," and Guantanamo North, and you lost.

Happy Anniversary, Mr. President.

It's Scott Brown!

The Kennedy Legacy is over, and a new American Revolution has begun today in Massachusetts.

Obama, having thrown his weight behind yet another Democratic candidate in a close race, has now gone 0 for 3. Not only does he have no coat-tails, the American People are gradually realizing that the Emperor Has No Clothes.

It's time to bring our country back from the brink of Socialism. Seat Scott Brown now!

About those Cadillac health plans

You've surely heard that one of Obamacare's revenue-generating mechanisms is a 40% excise tax on Cadillac health plans costing over $8,500 for individual plans and $23,000 for family plans.

You may be thinking you don't need to worry, because your health plan is comfortably under the cap. For example, I've got my most recent paystub in front of me, and my Kaiser HMO plan, which lets me see a doctor in six weeks if I really really need one, costs me $5,939.88 per year. $5,939.88 is less than $8,500, so I'm safe, right? Someone else has to pay for this, right?

Not so fast. There is a problem, and its name is "indexing."

Here's why indexing is a problem. It's nearing tax time again, and tens of millions of families are currently wondering whether this is going to be the year they are hit by the Alternative Minimum Tax, or AMT. You may recall that the AMT was passed in 1969 in order to circumvent the tax-minimization strategies of 155 wealthy families and require these families to start paying federal taxes. Problem is, the AMT was set at absolute levels and not indexed for inflation, and over time the tax that was supposed to apply to 155 families gradually expanded its reach and now ensnares tens of millions of middle-class filers every year. People who live in high-tax states and who (fortunately or unfortunately) have lots of deductions for things like mortgages, health care expenses, and state income tax suffer under the AMT, because these deductions are taken away and they need to pay federal tax on a greater share of their income.

Every year, Congress passes an "AMT patch" to limit the worst of the damage, although the AMT continues to damage the financial well-being of increasing numbers of middle-class filers, and is raising taxes from classes of filers not contemplated in the original legislation. Well, Congress passes a patch almost every year. Significantly, Congress failed to pass a patch in 2009, so tens of millions of Americans are anticipating April 15 with a tremendous sense of insecurity. (And we all know how insecurity is great for the economy and consumer spending!)

All because the AMT was not properly indexed, which brings us back to those Cadillac plans. The excise tax on Cadillac plans is indexed at inflation plus one percentage point, which is a degree of indexing entirely insufficient to prevent the gradual and inexorable extension of the excise tax to an ever-greater share of health plans. Health care costs don't rise in step with inflation, they rise far in excess of inflation, for very good reasons, including the increase in our elderly population, new medical advances, "defensive medicine," and the exorbitant investment necessary to get a new pharmaceutical to market. Health care is becoming more expensive because it is becoming more valuable and more heavily consumed, and Obamacare's goal of providing healthcare at public expense to tens of millions of previously under-insured consumers is only going to raise costs, not lower them.

So your healthcare costs are going to continue increasing faster than the rate of inflation, while the excise tax is only indexed for inflation plus one percentage point. Inevitably, the excise tax will begin to apply to your plan, and you'll be left wondering whatever happened to Obama's promises to let you keep your health plan if you like it, and to not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 per year.

Environmentalist Inconsistency

The environmentalists need to make up their minds. Either climate change is the Greatest Threat Ever and humanity needs to kick out the jams, sacrifice, and spends lots of money to reduce carbon emissions, or we don't. Because right now, they are riding both sides of the fence.

Case in point: Mojave Desert, California, where BrightSource Energy wants to install a 400,000-mirror solar thermal array to satisfy the energy needs to 142,000 homes. California's elected leaders and unelected bureaucrats are constantly beating the climate change drum, so this project should be a no-brainer, right? Clean energy from the sun, no unclean fossil fuels or messy global entanglements, right?

Wrong. Standing in the way are the Sierra Club and two dozen endangered tortoises whose habitat will be threatened by this project. That's right, two dozen endangered tortoises and their Sierra Club representatives are blocking the delivery of clean power to 142,000 homes.

The Sierra Club needs to make up its mind. Does the Sierra Club (and, by association, its fellow travelers in the environmental extremist Left) support an organized sacrifice to combat climate change, or doesn't it? Because if you'll scuttle plans to deliver clean energy to 142,000 homes over two dozen tortoises, people will start to think you aren't that serious about it. When you reach deeper and deeper into my pocket by making me pay more for energy, and by forcing me to subsidize trendy Green projects through line-item surcharges buried in my utility bill, I'm not feeling too sympathetic about the plight of a handful of tortoises.

Or, as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger so famously quipped, "If we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave Desert, I don't know where the hell we can put it."

6.5 earthquake rocks Humboldt County

A 6.5 earthquake struck Northern California's Humboldt County on Saturday, the San Francisco Chronicle estimates there are 18,000 customers are without power.

18,000 customers without power in Humboldt County? Dude, that's a lot of grow lights. But this is California, I fully expect that some enterprising entrepreneur is powering grow lights with solar panels. If you see rooftop solar arrays wildly out of proportion to the square footage and customary energy usage of the buildings to which they are attached, that'll be why.

Come to think of it, I wonder how many subsidies given out under the California Solar Initiative have been for solar arrays where the juice produced exceeds customary energy use for the property involved. Could it be that Humboldt's Gentleman Farmers are already receiving ratepayer subsidies for their marijuana crops?

Scott Brown Money Bomb

As a New Englander in exile, living in California but not a Californian, I beseech you:

Help take Massachusetts back!

I know that Massachusetts has a reputation as a true blue state, but it always struck me as sort of an odd purple, filled with social conservatives who voted Democrat but who would have been Republicans if they lived anywhere else. The Kennedy legacy, the romance of Camelot, was quite powerful, and I think that romance took its toll in the voting booth.

With Ted Kennedy's passing, has the curse inflicted by the Kennedy clan on the good people of Massachusetts been lifted, like the Curse of the Bambino was lifted from the Red Sox in 2004?

The 2004 Red Sox were the Idiots. The Cardinals were on the field executing beautiful, craftsmanlike technical plays, and the Idiots cleaned their clock. In 2010, the voters need to be the Idiots, go bravely to the polls and play with their hearts. Vote for the change we know Massachusetts needs, rather than pulling the lever for the inevitable. Vote for Scott Brown, because in Massachusetts nothing is impossible!

The special election is January 19 (plan ahead for rough weather!), but you can make your feelings known and help Scott now by making a campaign contribution. There's a Money Bomb planned for January 11, click this link for details.

Vote for Scott Brown, and take the Bay State back!

Random thoughts on the Pantybomber

While out for a walk this evening, my thoughts turned to Umar Farouk "Fancypants" Abdulmutallab and his incendiary underwear. Specifically, I was wondering how anyone could maintain a normal gait while packing a bomb in his trousers. Especially a man, who presumably requires a bit more rearrangement. The presence of a wrapped package nestled into one's nethers would have to make you walk funny, with or without the added stress of knowing that it is a bomb. (Flash to etiquette class in an Al Qaeda compound, with prospective bombers practicing walking with bombs in their trousers while balancing books on their heads.)

Federal authorities are telling the media that an al Qaeda bomb maker fashioned the bomb and sewed it into Fancypants' underwear. (Bomb maker, seamstress; a true Renaissance man!) But could it be that the story offered up by Fancypants is a false flag, designed to make us run in circles adding additional layers of ineffective security while ignoring the real threat?

Here's where I'm going with this. First, the bomb in his pants would have made him walk funny; granted, Northwest is not El Al, but wouldn't anyone have noticed? Second, one of the passengers has been talking publicly about an unidentified man who helped convince the airline employees in Amsterdam to let Fancypants board the plane; how many more assistants did Fancypants have in Amsterdam? Third, he spent 20 minutes in the bathroom. Doing what? Could he have been retrieving something that was placed there for him by a fifth column airline employee?

Maybe he didn't board the plane with the bomb in his pants, maybe he spent 20 minutes in the bathroom retrieving the bomb and tucking it into the special pocket sewn into his underwear by an Al Qaeda bomb maker/seamstress so he could transport it unobtrusively back to his seat. It would be a successful false flag, because in all this chatter about more effective passenger pre-flight screening, I have not heard a word about more effective airline or airport employee screening. Way to misdirect our attention and our resources.

I was only halfway through my walk, so I kept thinking. I thought that, assuming that prospective bombers are actually boarding planes with bombs in their trousers, it might be more logical to have women carry the bombs. After all, when it comes to conserving trouser space, we girls are built much more efficiently. Practically designed by Ikea, especially when you consider the internal storage space.

I heard someone opine that bomb-sniffing dogs could have sniffed out the chemicals in the Pantybomber's trousers. Perhaps, but how close would the dog have to be? Nose in crotch? Islam considers dogs to be unclean, when a Muslim woman in an American airport refuses to allow an unclean animal near her crotch, whom do you think is going to blink first?

Presumably, we'll all be passing through those scanner thingies soon, and someone at TSA will be looking at weirdly depersonalized but highly-personal scans of us, checking for anything artificial.

So, returning to the concept of a woman's unique built-in internal storage space, here's a question: how deep do those scans go? Would they reveal something being carried intra-vaginally? Then what? Pull the woman aside, she explains the presence of an intra-vaginal object by saying she is menstruating; seriously, then what?

So much for the calming benefits of exercise.

2009 bar graph

In case you were asleep in 2009 and missed all the fun.

Scott Brown for US Senate

Our secret weapon in the fight to defeat the carcinoma known as Obamacare is Scott Brown, who is running for the Senate seat left vacant by Ted Kennedy's death. His core principles are as follows:

• Government is too big and that the federal stimulus bill made government bigger instead of creating jobs
• Taxes are too high and are going higher if Congress continues with its out-of-control spending
• The historic amount of debt we are passing on to our children and grandchildren is immoral
• Power concentrated in the hands of one political party, as it is here in Massachusetts, leads to bad government and poor decisions
• A strong military and vigorous homeland defense will protect our interests and security around the world and at home.
• All Americans deserve health care, but we shouldn't have to create a new government insurance program to provide it

Mysteriously, and unforgiveably, his campaign has been all but ignored by the GOP national leadership. But as comedian Lenny Clark opines in the video, "we've had enough!"

The special election is January 19, there's still time for you to donate to Scott Brown's campaign. Please do.