Ted Cruz has revealed that he's been yelled at by his fellow GOP senators. He hasn't named names (he ought to-- accusations should come with names attached).

Here's the shouted complaint, according to Cruz:

The Wall Street Journal attacked the group for letting President Obama blame Republicans for blocking gun control instead of moderate Democrats. Cruz said senators made a similar argument: “They said, ‘Listen, before you did this, the politics of it were great. The [Democrats] were the bad guys, the Republicans were the good guys. Now we all look like a bunch of squishes.’”

That sounds almost unbelievable -- almost too perfect for a red-meat crowd-- except we know that GOP senators do think that way. Mitch McConnell, for example, is a big fan of the strategy of losing -- he's forever talking up taking tactical losses, losing on this law or that, losing this freedom or that one, and then counting himself lucky because now we win the political issue at the strategic level.

There are two problems with this sort of thinking:

1. It's no comfort that we might gain some political traction if we're losing on the issues we care about.

2. We never actually do win on the political level, either. There is never any Silver Lining in losing. Perhaps it's possible for some deft politicians to rescue a strategic victory out of a tactical defeat, but the crop of guys we have have proven repeatedly they're not up to it.

Returning to the complaint about Cruz making the squishes look bad, and made life for them politically difficult: He offered them some advice.

’Well, there is an alternative. You could just not be a bunch of squishes.’”

What an evil, to put a senator in the position of having to choose between his supposed constituents, the voters, and his actual constituents, the media and the Sunday morning shows that no one watches anymore.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:35 AM | Comments (181)
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On one hand, it could be quite cold and dreary, and food would be more expensive.

On the other hand, some of us will be warmed by gloating, and we'll all get into tremendous shape doing victory dances once a day.

Solar activity follows different cycles, including an 11-year cycle, a 90-year cycle and a 200-year cycle. Yuri Nagovitsyn comments.

“Evidently, solar activity is on the decrease. The 11-year cycle doesn’t bring about considerable climate change – only 1-2%. The impact of the 200-year cycle is greater – up to 50%. In this respect, we could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years. The period of low solar activity could start in 2030-2040 but it won’t be as pervasive as in the late 17th century”.

Best comment ever:

If only there was some natural source for variations in the earth's temperature. The source of such variation would have to be large, though: on an order of magnitude of our own Sun.

Posted by: Ace at 09:09 AM | Comments (226)
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I refuse to accept it.

No.

Posted by: Ace at 01:52 PM | Comments (215)
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Lots of numbers and a nice chart. Bottom line - Texas has wiped out a two-decade decline in crude oil output, and that within just the last 3 years. It is the largest oil producing state in the US, pumping out 32% of all domestic crude. If it were a nation, it would rank 13th in the world.

Texas oil output in February, at an average of 2.295 million bpd, was 25.3% greater than the combined 1.83 million bpd of US oil imports that month from all of the Persian Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar). In fact, Texas oil output has exceeded Persian Gulf imports in each of the last seven months starting last August, something that has never happened before in the history of monthly EIA data for Persian Gulf imports going back to January 1993.

The south Texas Eagle Ford field is now the largest oil and gas production field in the world. 6 years ago it was barely a blip.

This massive growth in energy production has helped fuel job growth. In the prior 12 months through March payrolls grew in Texas by 329,500 jobs (17% of all US jobs).

Black gold. Texas tea.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:46 AM | Comments (139)
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It would be hard to believe, except it's not at all.

The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.

“The breadth of the benefits the family was receiving was stunning,” said a person with knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee today…

The Herald notes, and AllahPundit underlines, that even Democrats are vowing to be in the forefront of the inquiry to find out how much money went into terrorist pockets.

He also links this old Kausfiles piece about the linkage of welfare and terrorism.

After noting that many 9/11 terrorists enjoyed the generosity of the West's welfare states...

The point isn't simply that many terrorists take advantage of Western welfare states, the same way they take advantage of Western freedoms and Western technology. The point is that extreme anti-social terrorist ideologies (radical Islam, in particular) seem to breed in "oppositional" cultures supported by various government welfare benefits.

...

In fact, there's a good argument that "welfare benefits + ethnic antagonism" is the universal recipe for an underclass with an angry, oppositional culture. The social logic is simple: Ethnic differences make it easy for those outside of, for example, French Arab neighborhoods to discriminate against those inside, and easy for those inside to resent the mainstream culture around them. Meanwhile, relatively generous welfare benefits enable those in the ethnic ghetto to stay there, stay unemployed, and seethe. Without government subsidies, they would have to overcome the prejudice against them and integrate into the mainstream working culture. Work, in this sense, is anti-terrorist medicine. (And if you work all day, there's less time to dream up ways and reasons to kill infidels.)

I think there's a sociological reason at play too. People will find something in their lives that gives them meaning.

For many people, work does give their lives meaning. Few like work, but most understand the accomplishment of standing on one's own feet and providing for oneself (and one's family).

The welfare state may put food in one's mouth, but it does so at the expense at stripping a sense of accomplishment, belonging, and meaning from the recipient. And that void will be filled by something else. While people do not require meaning, as a strict biological matter, as they require food, water, air, and shelter, they do crave it-- it's probably on the level, as far as centrality to one's being, as sex.

Posted by: Ace at 07:51 AM | Comments (301)
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• Good News, We're Paying For Tsarnaev's Defense Team
  
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• Militiamen Besiege Libya's Justice Ministry
  
• Cool: Ice Needles On Minnesota Beach (autoplay video)
  
• Pigford Forever
  
• Why Community Organizer Tactics Don't Work For The President
  
• Cruz: GOP Senators Yelled At Me For Supporting Gun Filibuster
  
• Female Soldier Pleads Guilty To Desertion
  
• More Ron Paul Being Ron Paul
  
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Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:21 AM | Comments (638)
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Happy Tuesday.

The Boston Herald is reporting that the Tsarnaev family received over $100,000 in taxpayer-funded benefits from 2002 through 2012.

We're 100 days into President Obama's second term and he has yet to move any piece of his legislative agenda.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:44 AM | Comments (438)
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Probably none. He went to Davidson College.

Posted by: JohnE. at 02:35 PM | Comments (223)
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There could be other explanations apart from the obvious one, of course.

Female DNA was found bomb components used in the attack this month on the Boston Marathon, a source familiar with the investigation confirmed to Fox News, though the source cautioned that it is too early to draw hard conclusions from that evidence.

"No one should expect that the investigation is over," the source told Fox News in confirming the development first reported by the Wall Street Journal, adding that it is just one piece of evidence that investigators are looking at.

Posted by: Ace at 04:33 PM | Comments (199)
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Death Valley Dreamlapse 2
Beautiful time-lapse photography. [rdbrewer]

Posted by: rdbrewer at 04:20 PM | Add Comment
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