Delaware.
Land of..what exactly? Oregonites, New Yorkers, Texans and Californians, besides any potential family that live in that "state", what purpose does Delaware serve? Those of us in the other 49 states are, frankly, puzzled by its very existence.

For those of you who have heard rumors, yes it actually exists- it's a state that rests on the Delmarva Peninsula, mainly to buffer the bulk of Eastern Shore Maryland from having a kickassedly massive shoreline. Blocks Pennsylvania from having one at all, in fact.

The big story out of the First State this year was not, in fact, the epic battle of Rino V Conservative. Nor was it the Big F'n Deal out of native son Biden's mouth. No, Delaware managed to highlight its uselessness. Facts below. more...

Posted by: CAC at 09:12 AM | Comments (86)
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Interesting, in as much as he at least makes falsifiable predictions we can judge him by.

He predicted this current winter would be the coldest in 100 years, and that the Northeast US would suffer the worst blizzards in decades. Comparing him to the UK meterological office that believes in global warming -- they predicted a mild winter.

Using solar cycle theory, he predicts it'll be cold for 25 years or more.

One erroneous prediction doesn't prove or disprove a theory, but the global warming disciples really need to put some W's up. This is getting embarrassing.

Posted by: Ace at 08:54 AM | Comments (89)
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At Hot Air, a minor story continues drawing attention.

I don't know if Rendell is right. To the extent he's right, he's right in the wrong way.

Rendell speaks about courage and pioneer spirit with regard to driving to a football game in the tall snow. Is that right? Would taking an unnecessary risk in the service of being a spectator at a trivial entertainment demonstrate one's courage or pioneer spirit? If that's courage, what do our troops demonstrate? If that's pioneer spirit, what did that teenage girl who tried to sail solo through an ocean possess?

But driving in snow in an SUV with lots of emergency rescue vehicles available is courage? Or an indulgence? Especially since any use of emergency services is costly and, in an emergency situation, may cause delays in getting aid to others?

Perhaps he means this is just a symptom of the loss of courage and pioneer spirit, rather than this itself being an example of a loss of courage and pioneer spirit.

There's little doubt that risk-taking is, often, a good thing, and Americans have lost a lot of their risk-taking spirit. But to just frame this so simply -- taking risks for no particular reason is good! -- makes an untruth out of something sort of true.

Because a lot of teenagers take an awful lot of unnecessary and dumb risks in the service of excitement and entertainment, and we don't judge them worthy for doing so. We say they're callow and stupid.

To the extent he's right, I'd say this is less about courage and more about the loss of individual responsibility and judgment. Risk-taking is only justified if the payoff is big enough. Driving to an Eagles game in bad driving conditions, when the game is available on tv... I don't know if that's anything like a sound appraisal of risk and reward.

If we're talking about manfulness -- and I think we are, essentially -- I don't think the rule is "take risks whenever possible" so much as "make sound judgments about risk and take risks when justified." And the problem here might be that as a society we're so insulated against real physical risk we've lost the ability (generally) to make sound judgments about them.

I mean that a hunter might get lost in the snowy woods in pursuing his recreation, and, having gone through that ordeal, with the real chance of permanent maiming by frostbite or actual death, would have a proper appreciation of risk/reward in snowbound situations. Since most of us haven't faced that, we sort of blow that off as a possibility. It doesn't seem real to us as it's outside our experience. Intellectually, we might note that, but sort of as an asterisk under the category of "Things That Can Never Really Happen."

When it comes to calamity, most people acknowledge it as a risk but don't really acknowledge it in their guts. Calamity is too big a concept for most people to think about, and so they just note it as a possibility, assign it a risk of 0.00% of happening, and blow it off as a real, genuine concern.

And since we're a nation of idiots when it comes to such things, Big Daddy Government figures he has to come in and specifically forbid us from doing them, or cancel a game so that we're not overly tempted to stupid doom.

And maybe that's where I sort of agree with Rendell -- if we still (all of us, instead of a tiny fraction of us) possessed basic survival sense and an appreciation for the havoc that natural forces can cause, we could all make independent, personal decisions about whether it's a hot idea to bundle up our kids in the child seats and drive out onto snow-paved roads, and they'd be sound, in the main.

But we don't, we've lost that basic appreciation for danger, so we get the nanny treatment. And if we were a livelier, more daring people, we'd be more accustomed to risk, and calculations of genuine risk versus reward, and that wouldn't happen.

Where I can't get behind Rendell is in his assertion that just assuming a risk for the point of being a spectator is itself manly. Watching other guys do manly things is not itself manly.

I think the sound decision is not to drive in blizzard conditions, unless it's necessary. But being able to make that decision with a proper appreciation of risk and reward -- perspective -- is probably something a lot of us have lost.

Posted by: Ace at 06:51 AM | Comments (234)
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Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) is warning Bill Clinton to keep his nose out of the Chicago Mayor's race. His threat? Withdrawal of affection.

"The African American community has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with the Clintons, however it appears as though some of that relationship maybe fractured and perhaps even broken should former President Clinton come to town and participate overtly in efforts to thwart the legitimate political aspirations of Chicago's Black community," Davis said in the statement.

There's something perversely funny in that, if Clinton campaigns for Emanuel then of course that means he's trying to "thwart the legitimate political aspirations of Chicago's Black community."

Oddly, threatening "not to love Bill anymore" is probably the only threat that actually would make him slow down and think it over.

Recent poll shows Davis lagging far behind Raum.

Well, since I'm here and I just got the email from Ben, here's the latest standings in the NFL pick em thing.

Ubermensch

Reggie Bush's Birth Cert: 136
joltin' j: 134

Next nearest is 131!

Untermensch

Ben: 120
Russ from Winterset: 120
DrewM: 115
CDR M: 112
DiT:98 (yeah, I totally forgot)

It's the middle of a short week morons (for me anyway). Make the best of it.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:51 AM | Comments (68)
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I don't know about you guys, but I'm excited about CPAC this year. It's my first year in D.C., so I can actually go. Unfortunately, not everyone is as excited about it. Some groups are again organizing a boycott over the inclusion of gay conservative group GOProud.

When the latest story came out about the social conservative groups who are choosing to absent themselves from the conference, I decided not to post about it. First of all, it was just after Christmas and who wants to deal with a downer like that during the holidays? Second, the story was in World Net Daily and nowhere else. I suspected WND was simply continuing its crusade against GOProud (recall the kerfuffle when Ann Coulter had the audacity to speak at their Homocon party). Third, I figured WND's story and the various social con boycotts in general wouldn't make much of a splash on the Right, but rather give the Left something to chortle about.

As Jimmie at the Sundries Shack discovered, it was a good prediction:

And you know what? The boycott isn’t drawing much attention from the right, if any at all. Take a look at this memeorandum thread. See all those blogs writing about this story? They’re almost all left-wing blogs and I can guarantee you they’re not writing about the noble moral stand of the Concerned Women of America or the Family Research Council. Without even looking, I can tell you they’re eating up the “I hates me some gay people” quotes like sweet, sweet candy and using words like “bigot” and “hater”. It’s a mortal lock that they’re playing those two groups as representative of conservatives as a whole, to make us all look like homophobic cretins.

Whether CWA and FRC are taking a "noble moral stand" is somewhat questionable anyway. FRC says in WND that it has been "very involved in CPAC for over a decade." In fact, FRC stopped participating in CPAC a few years ago and now operates a rival conference, the Values Voters Summit. Encouraging people to skip CPAC and wait for its own conference is fine, but let's not pretend FRC doesn't have this self-interested motive in making CPAC look bad in the papers.

Stacy McCain doesn't understand the "auto-marginalization" of these groups, given the unparalleled opportunity at CPAC to reach out to other conservatives. But I suspect that they don't believe they are marginalizing themselves. Many conservative identity groups, particularly the Christian-identity Christian-themed special-interest groups* making the ruckus here-- FRC, Liberty Counsel, NOM -- already feel isolated in an immoral world. It's an easy calculation: will they get more by reaching out to other (immoral) conservatives at CPAC or by making a flashy stand in WND and then hold their own Christian conference?

The target constituency for these groups isn't conservatism as a whole, but a rather more limited group. I think they were genuinely surprised by the general lack of reception to their vocal GOProud opposition last year (remember the Sorba incident?) and this is the response. If they can't convince conservatives of the evils of GOProud inclusion (we're not even talking about the "evils" of gays here, we're talking about merely standing in the same room with them), well, they're going to take their ball and go home.

Update: *I was informed in comments that refering to these groups as Christian-identity groups is defamatory. Rather than fight about whether they are in fact identity groups with explicitly Christian goals and outlook, I'll just strike and rephrase to avoid the disputed words. A google search turned up a movement refered to as "Christian Identity" which is basically a racist idea masquerading as religion. I had no intention of associating FRC or the other special interest groups above with the racist Christian Identity movement and I'll avoid that phrasing in the future since it comes with unfortunate implications and a likelihood of misunderstanding.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:15 AM | Comments (355)
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This space is for comments on headlines and other stuff in the Top Headlines sidebar. It's also a place to suggest what you think are top headlines. A link to these comments is stickied at the top of the Top Headlines sidebar.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:51 AM | Comments (47)
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Yet Another Wacky Japanese TV Show

This time involving donuts, giant treadmills, and a dunking pool for losers.
Clearly we're behind in this kind of television entertainment - we must close the game show gap!

And of course I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention the Japanese Sega pissing game:

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:44 PM | Comments (546)
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Perhaps our long, national nightmare is finally over. I say perhaps, because Joe Miller could always appeal, right?

The federal judge dismissed the case, just as the Alaska courts did. Here's fairly federalist heart of it:

This is not to say that Miller’s technical arguments are frivolous, for it is easy to understand his view as to the proper interpretation of A.S. § 15.15.360(a)(11). But it is just as easy to accept the interpretation given by the Alaska Supreme Court. What we have before us is a poorly drafted state statute. Wisdom would suggest that the Alaska Legislature act to clarify it to avoid similar disputes in the future. For now we have to work with what we have and that is what the Alaska Supreme Court has done.

Generally speaking, the Alaska Supreme Court is the final expositor of Alaska law. That must be the case here. It concluded that Miller's interpretation of the statute "would erode the integrity of the election system," and held that "voter intent is paramount." Under the facts presented, this Court declines to second-guess the highest Court of the state.

The judge also dismissed Miller's equal protection claims. It's a short 11 pager (PDF).

So far there's no word that Miller intends to appeal. If he wanted, he could take this to the 9th Circuit. With the injunction lifted, Murky will be seated in time to keep her seniority.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:54 PM | Comments (81)
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Huge post by Allah on the huge snowfall. Bloomberg's unearned reputation as Mr. Capable is taking a big hit as his block in Manhattan is clear but the outer boroughs are strangely still snowbound. Hmmm. Guess it just worked out that way.

How bad was it? This bad.

Daily News writer Erin Durkin was stuck on the A train between the Aqueduct and Rockaway Boulevard stations (above ground, at least) for seven hours on Sunday after the conductor announced, "This train is completely dead." The 500 passengers went without food, water, bathrooms, and heat. The passengers tried to stay calm and not go crazy and eat one another, but it became difficult: "Spirits rose when they announced a rescue train was coming to fetch us — but sunk again at the news: 'The rescue train is stuck,'" Durkin writes. Conductors reportedly "pleaded for help, but no one came." One passenger banged on the windows and screamed, "I want to go home!"

No bathrooms? Oh boy. Seven hours is a long, long time with no bathroom. I'm guessing that nature won out over manners.

If this sticks to Bloomy, this video will become the metaphor that plays with his picture when people talk about an independent presidential run.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:42 PM | Comments (289)
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Good question. Even has his super-liberal guests (Clarence "Empty" Page and David "Candy" Corn) bash the birthers, they can't spin any plausible reason as to why Obama shouldn't do just this.

Neither can I. And I've said so. Granted, I reject the proofs of the birth certificate conspiracy theorists as balderdash. But one question cannot be easily answered: So why the hell doesn't he just release it then? The most suspicious thing here is Obama's own sneaky, dishonest behavior.

If a man acts for two years like he's got something to hide I start to think that maybe he does.

I have become convinced there is something embarrassing on that long form. There is little other way to explain such shady behavior.

Posted by: Ace at 12:56 PM | Comments (250)
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