Thank God it's Friday!!

Well, well. Ray Nagin is in the news again. It would seem he and about 60 other of his friends took offense of man who put up a sign of Obama In Diapers in front of his house.

A group of about 60 people protested outside a New Orleans home where a man mounted a sign depicting President Barack Obama in a diaper.

The protesters, who included former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, gathered outside Timmy Riley's Calhoun Street home Wednesday to demand the removal of the sign, which they said is disrespectful to Obama and African-Americans in general, WDSU-TV, New Orleans, reported Thursday.

"We see it every day. It's a monstrosity, and I can't believe somebody would put it up. But (Riley has) the right to do that, unfortunately," neighbor Veronica Lyons said.

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:06 PM | Comments (844)
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Eh, not bad.

I saw the full interview. Once again, he sounds decent there. He seems to have a real problem in debates.

Posted by: Ace at 05:11 PM | Comments (198)
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I'm taking the week off. Before you say "slacker," I haven't taken off since Christmas/New Years.

I've got some special guest bloggers coming in to cover for me. And the cobloggers will be posting extra.

I will probably show up to fight in the comments, of course.

Posted by: Ace at 02:56 PM | Comments (266)
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One of the chief tics of Obama's speaking style is a technique I call lying.

He likes to say things that will please the public, and demonstrate to them he is looking for a middle path.

But after the speech is over, he does not follow through on the promise.

Well, I agree that we canÂ’t afford wasteful spending, and IÂ’ll work with you, with Congress, to root it out. And I agree that there are some rules and regulations that do put an unnecessary burden on businesses at a time when they can least afford it. (Applause.) ThatÂ’s why I ordered a review of all government regulations. So far, weÂ’ve identified over 500 reforms, which will save billions of dollars over the next few years. (Applause.) We should have no more regulation than the health, safety and security of the American people require. Every rule should meet that common-sense test. (Applause.)

Darrell Issa released a report blasting regulatory fever.

He should call up Obama. This Obama chap seems very, very interested indeed in cutting unnecessary regulations, and wasteful spending too!

Posted by: Ace at 02:24 PM | Comments (97)
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Video.

Hm, I wonder how we might have become soft. Peter Kirasow:

There is a soft America and a tough America; a dependent America and an independent America; an entitlement America and a productive America. Which policies are more likely to produce a soft, dependent, and entitlement society? Which ones are more likely to produce a tough, independent, and productive society? The president seems blissfully unaware.

The Obama brand of liberalism not only is likely to contribute to a “softer” America, but a soft-headed America as well. We condemn tea-partiers and veterans as racists and potential terrorists but we release actual terrorists from Guantanamo because the evident cruelties of that country-club facility are too terrible to bear. We demonize the hard-won, self-made success of risk-takers, but shovel millions of their hard-earned dollars to prop up the uncompetitive but politically correct enterprises of the well-connected. Government policies proliferate that punish effort, risk, and success but reward sloth, identity, and failure.

...

Soft America eschews absolutes, derides standards, ridicules heroes, and scoffs at virtue.

Jonah Goldberg:

I wonder where America could have lost its competitive edge. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with a government that blows billions on green energy boondoggles while making it harder to drill for oil while trying to make electricity rates “skyrocket.” It couldn’t have to do with extending unemployment benefits to 99 weeks (and rising), or to bailouts or perhaps advice like this offered by Michelle Obama:

“We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do,” she tells the women. “Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.” Faced with that reality, she adds, “many of our bright stars are going into corporate law or hedge-fund management.”

Or maybe it has something to do with the influence of tough leaders like Nancy Pelosi who said Obamacare was a jobs bill because:

“Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance.”

Thank goodness we have Obamacare now so we can compete with the Chinese at photography.

So, it appears the good Doctor Obama has succeeded in spotting the symptoms, but failed abysmally in diagnosing the reasons for his patient's ailing condition.

Hint: He'd breathe better, doctor, if your foot wasn't pressing quite so hard on his throat, and he might show more energy and activity if you weren't keeping him prisoner in a padded room.

Posted by: Ace at 12:10 PM | Comments (289)
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Let's not start flicking each other's Bics just yet...

Posted by: Ace at 11:37 AM | Comments (343)
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Well... fine I guess.

Was he waiting on Palin's decision?

Speaking of Huckabee running for President, Christie may, or may not, decide to run, or not run, this weekend.

His father, brother, and wife are all said to be... in favor of him running.

Posted by: Ace at 10:46 AM | Comments (224)
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NBC's Today show just can't believe how wonderful that is.

Look, it's true -- she's perfectly normal, just plain folks like me!

And look, wow! Just like me, she uses those big plastic red carts at Target! Why, she must share my values!

And exactly like me, apparently AP gets notified in advance of her Target shopping trips so they can document it!

Wait, what? Professional AP photographers aren't on hand to take pictures of me at my Target runs.

Wait a minute...

AP photographer Charles Dharapak told CBS News he took pictures of the first lady at the Target on Route 1 in Alexandria, Virginia.

The first lady's office confirmed that the pictures showed Mrs. Obama, though it did not immediately respond when asked if it tipped off Dharapak.

Posted by: Ace at 10:14 AM | Comments (344)
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At Instapundit. I didn't know about this until Monty tipped it.

At NPR, a story about the Bakken oil fields.

Now, I did read this was a big field, but I didn't know it was already producing so much, or that it was expected to produce even more.

Two years ago, America was importing about two thirds of its oil. Today, according to the Energy Information Administration, it imports less than half. And by 2017, investment bank Goldman Sachs predicts the US could be poised to pass Saudi Arabia and overtake Russia as the world's largest oil producer.

Places like Williston are the reason why.

"For many years, they knew that there was oil in that area, but the technology wasn't available to get it out," the town's mayor, Ward Koeser, tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz.

But in the last few years, advances in such technologies as "fracking" and horizontal drilling have made, by some estimates, as much as 11 billion barrels of oil available in the Bakken formation under North Dakota and Montana.

"There's oil companies coming from all over the country now." Koeser says.

Williston has skipped the recession entirely. Unemployment there is less than 2 percent. The population, the mayor estimates, has grown from 12,000 to 20,000 in the last four years.

"We actually have probably between 2,000 and 3,000 job openings in Williston right now," Koeser says.

Now, add ANWR and the California coast into the mix. Things start to look a little more hopeful.

But Note: Warren points out:

I suspect that a good part of this is related to lower demand due to a weakened economy. And you thought that Obama's economic policies weren't accomplishing anything.

Yes, that's true, energy demand falls in recessions and depressions, so we'd have less need of foreign crude. But still, 66% to 50% is a big drop-off that can't (I don't think) be explained away by idled resources.

Posted by: Ace at 08:43 AM | Comments (256)
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11 year-old Demias Jimerson is learning a valuable lesson in "fairness" this football season.

"He is going to score almost every time he touches the ball," said Wilson Intermediate School Principal Terri Bryant.

And because of the injustice ... an outrage, really ... of having a player on the team who so outshines his peers, the Wilson Intermediate Football League is invoking something called the "Madre Hill Rule"

Once Hill scored three touchdowns, if his team had a 14-point lead, officials banned him from scoring any more touchdowns.

Wait. What?

I grew up in Georgia in the '70s and remember when Herschel Walker ran roughshod over any opponent that faced him. He racked up over 3,000 yards rushing in his senior year alone on the way to a state championship. No one, to my recollection, ever talked about how awful it was that Herschel kicked so much ass. No, the talk was about what could be done (wink, nod) to get him to commit to play for [insert favorite NCAA Division I team here]. My, how times have changed.

The Madre Hill Rule is, in effect, a 100% marginal tax rate on touchdowns. I'm surprised the district didn't update it for the Age of Obama™ and let Jimerson score but then redistribute some of his points to the other team. A Jimerson surtax, if you will.

To run with this idea a little more (and ignoring PAT's), if the redistribution was, say, 5 points for his own team and 1 point for the other team, I'm sure the coach would let him keep scoring. 4 to 2? Maybe.

But once it got to parity, the coach would be telling him to run as hard as he can to the one yard line and then go out of bounds or down the ball so he could take three cracks at the goal line with a kid that could get him the full 6 point advantage over the other team. The league would immediately begin referring to this as the Jimerson loophole and then institute even more cockeyed rules that had the effect of keeping the kid on the sidelines or off the playing field entirely. Hmmm ... seems familiar somehow.

And why? All in the name of "fairness", that's why. Too much trouble to ask other teams to rise to the challenge and design a defense to stop him, I guess. Nope, it's just not fair that he's so good, so we have to erect roadblocks in his path.

And this prepares the other kids for life in the real world, where there's always someone bigger, faster, stronger, smarter or better in some way how again? Answer: it doesn't but the primary goal of our education system is keeping teachers and administrators employed so shut up.

Master Jimerson appears to be a fine young man who's taking all this in stride, though:

"I'm gonna run hard and bring our team to victory," said Jimerson. Then he added, "but God always comes first, before anything, and grades second."

I hope he continues to score every time he touches the ball despite this dumb rule. And if he should happen to see this post, there's an inspirational video tucked below the fold that I hope he keeps in mind when he's picking colleges in a few years.

*Excellent alternate title suggested by Soothsayer in the comments more...

Posted by: andy at 08:02 AM | Comments (150)
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