Jennifer Rubin reflects, and looks ahead:

The time therefore is ripe for a new generation of conservative leaders who have the ability to organize, invigorate, and give purpose to conservatives outside the Beltway. It is not enough for conservatives to oppose cap-and-trade policies — they need an alternative to left-leaning environmental action groups. It is not enough for pundits to bemoan the lack of Republican appeal to nonwhite voters — they need Hispanic, African-American, and Asian-American conservatives to organize in their communities, support new candidates, and translate the conservative agenda into alternatives to the NAACP and LULAC.

The generation of Ronald Reagan, of which Weyrich was a prominent member, also carried with it a spirit and attitude which is largely absent on the Right today. They were feisty, fun, optimistic, and, yes, cool. The “establishment” was the Left while they were the counterculture, at least the political counterculture. They were not a bitter, paranoid, and angry bunch — qualities too often in evidence today. And they were not scolds.

The Right reacted to Sarah Palin for many reasons, but in large part, I suspect it is that she was bright, cheery, and looked like she was having some fun out there. The generation of conservatives who are going to do the organizing, find the leaders, and translate think tank research into a viable political platform better be happy warriors or they will find it hard to find adherents.

So if WeyrichÂ’s passing gives conservatives time to reflect, they might recall two accomplishments of his generation. They built structures that advanced the conservative cause. And they had a good time doing it. ThatÂ’s an example worth following.

Thanks to polynikes.

Posted by: Ace at 12:05 PM | Comments (24)
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I don't like the sound of that, temporarily or not.

The Canvassing Board made it through more than 100 ballots in its first hour of work, much faster than it awarded ballots on Tuesday and Wednesday. Their work was aided by Republican Norm Coleman's campaign decision to drop about 400 challenges.

Meanwhile, a Coleman spokesman predicted that Democrat Al Franken would take the lead Thursday for the first time in the recount as many of Coleman's challenges being dropping would go into Franken's column. The spokesman, Mark Drake, predicted it would be a "temporary flip" that Coleman would overcome later as other withdrawn challenges are awarded to the candidates.

Coleman entered this week's phase of the recount with a 188-vote lead, which swelled to 360 after the board spent its first two days handling _ and mostly rejecting _ Franken challenges.

So, most of these challenges are bunkum, but challenged ballots are not counted in the tallies until they're either ruled upon or dropped by the candidate who challenged them. Coleman dropping his challenges is a bit of a nonfactor, considering he was doing tit-for-tat in putting up his own spurious challenges to match Franken's.

Franken may drop some more of his idiotic challenges, thus getting those votes back into Coleman's column. And even if he doesn't -- most of the ballots he hoped to keep from Coleman will still be awarded to Coleman.

Most.

But with the lead in counted ballots at only 188, it wouldn't take many challenges to go Franken's way for him to win. Say, around... oh, 189 or so.

Worst. Election. Ever.

Adventures in Democratic Election Theft: Ann Coulter warns this will not turn out well.

Posted by: Ace at 11:51 AM | Comments (39)
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Who on earth would leak this?

And what kind of bastards would publish it?

What possible public interest could there be in the technical details of which frequencies jammers stop?

Steven Aftergood, the Federation of American Scientists' long-time advocate for open government, believes the site has gone too far. "Wikileaks says that it publishes restricted documents that are 'of substantial political, diplomatic or ethical significance.' Its publication makes sense only from the perspective that all secrecy is wrong and should be resisted. It's not a perspective that I share."

Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, not surprisingly, has a completely different take. "Wikileaks represents whistleblowers in the way that lawyers represent their clients -- fairly and impartially. Our 'job' is to safely and impartially conduct the whistleblowers message to the public, not to inject our own nationality or beliefs," he tells Danger Room.

Um, what "whistleblowing" is present here?

The details of the leak, Wired says, are less damaging than they would have been in 2004 (when the paper was written) because most of the older models have been replaced by newer ones.

That still means that some of our bomb-jammers can now be thwarted, and bomb-makers have a great deal of insight into how our newer ones work, too.

This gets tossed out around a lot, but I think we have a pretty necessary treason prosecution on our hands, here. We need to find this leaker. We also need to go after WikiLeaks with whatever legal tools we have.

Update: I'm told that this is either Julian Assuange of WikiLeaks, or Edgar Winter's transgendered cousin Jackie Winter.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Even though it burns the skin of some.

Thans to Slublog.

Posted by: Ace at 11:25 AM | Comments (74)
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What makes this particularly noteworthy:

1) The rapist in question had just raped her days before. He was breaking into her house to rape her again.

2) He also turned off the power in the house before coming after her, so there was no power at all in her phone -- she couldn't call 911.

The anti-gun response to crimes in progress -- just call the cops -- is kinda stupid in the first place, but sometimes it's not even possible.

Posted by: Ace at 11:16 AM | Comments (59)
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Broken promises. Sweet.

*Maybe* some doves in the Obama camp leaked all this with the hope that public howls a week before Christmas and with all the other news in the world would pressure Obama to keep to the withdrawal promise from which he has been steadily backpedaling. Maybe.

My bet is that this is an inoculating early leak so that fewer doves are actually left standing on the rug when Obama finally and formally pulls it out from under them.

Posted by: Ace at 11:08 AM | Comments (33)
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All flat-out wrong.

The most obvious one:

10. WEÂ’LL BE HOTTER

SPEAKING of the Met, it has so far predicted 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2007 would be the worldÂ’s hottest or second-hottest year on record, but nine of the past 10 years it predicted temperatures too high.

In fact, the Met this month conceded 2008 would be the coldest year this century.

That makes 1998 still the hottest year on record since the Medieval Warm Period some 1000 years ago. Indeed, temperatures have slowly fallen since around 2002.

As Roger Pielke Sr, Professor Emeritus of Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science, declared this month: “Global warming has stopped for the last few years.”

Lesson: Something is wrong with warming models that predict warming in a cooling world, especially when weÂ’re each year pumping out even more greenhouse gases. Be sceptical.

You can tell how much mayhem Global Warming is wreaking -- I mean, look at how difficult it makes predicting weather trends! Global warming has made climatology catastrophically random and unpredictable.

The science is settled.

I mean, it's snowing in Las Vegas -- and kids get their first snow day since 1979 (incidentally, around the tail-end of the last cooling phase).

The Gore Effect (whereby record cold and snow immediately occurs when a global warming conference begins) continues:

On Tuesday, Senator Harry Reid, a global-warming believer, called for allowing renewable energy firms to receive eight years of refundable tax credits in a single year. This appeared in the Las Vegas Review Journal yesterday.

While the Senator talks this week about creating green jobs and energy independence, he has been adamant about killing more economical sources of energy such as planned coal-fueled power plants in Northern Nevada (and the jobs they would create) because of global-warming alarmism.

Last night, Las Vegas had what the National Weather Service spokesperson called "a significant historical event," which is the most snow in Las Vegas in 30 years, and the most snow in December since they started keeping records in 1937.

A little bonus: One Global Warming Alarmist attacks skeptics... under a sockpuppet name on a blog.

Thanks to Arthur.

Posted by: Ace at 10:46 AM | Comments (56)
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I can't gin up the outrage over the inevitable Caroline Kennedy appointment, because 1) a lot of Senators are dumb and unqualified and 2) I'm not sure it matters much if one very liberal dynastic-politics boob (like Caroline Kennedy) is appointed in favor of a more qualified very liberal dynastic-politics boob (like Andrew Cuomo).

One would think the left and the MSM (BIRM) would pause to reflect on their breathless hypocrisy, but one would, as is common in this life, be disappointed.

Tom Maguire catches the NYT spinning a paper-thin resume into something more substantial:

This from the Times is especially droll:

But friends and associates say that Ms. Kennedy, 51, is no dilettante, and that her career is replete with examples of the kind of hands-on policy work and behind-the-scenes maneuvering that could serve her well.

Last spring, she joined the search committee for a new director of the Harvard University Institute of Politics, where she and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, her uncle, are members of an advisory panel. The university wanted a big-name politician. But Ms. Kennedy argued for someone who would view the post as a career maker, not a career ender, others involved said.

Her choice was Bill Purcell, a two-term Nashville mayor. Her uncle, whose voice carried the greatest weight on the board, had fallen ill with brain cancer, and might have gone in a different direction, one insider said. But over six weeks, she patiently made her case and eventually won over members of the instituteÂ’s board and Harvard officials.

...

Well good for her! As you may have suspected but the Times omitted, the Harvard University Institute of Politics is part of the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Its mission statement opens with the reminder that it was founded as "A memorial to President Kennedy". And Caroline Kennedy is able to exert influence from her board seat there - who'd a thunk?

As others have noted, Caroline Kennedy has the sort of experience many very wealthy socialites have -- hosting fundraisers for various causes -- as they attempt to fill up their enormous amount of leisure-time with something approaching meaning. And personal discovery, of course.

And eating shrimp and drinking mimosas.

How this transforms her from gadfly into qualified senate candidate, when two years of hard-charging reform as Governor failed to make Sarah Palin as plausible pick as Vice President, eludes me.

Posted by: Ace at 10:05 AM | Comments (84)
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They're not even waiting to see the details. Whatever The One wants, they'll support.

Leading liberal groups–24 of them–formed a new coalition today to push for passage of an economic stimulus plan, pledging a massive effort that will include field events and an ad campaign....

The coalition will support "whatever President-elect [Barack] Obama and congressional leaders come up with," Americans United for Change President Brad Woodhouse told reporters on a conference call this morning. ""This campaign is about getting as many votes in the House and the Senate" as we can, Woodhouse said.

The coalition, dubbed the Campaign for Jobs and Economic Recovery Now, includes the following liberal and progressive groups: AFSCME, SEIU, AFLCIO, NEA, Americans United for Change, USAction, Campaign for America’s Future, ACORN, Health Care for America Now, Sierra Club, People for the American Way Foundation, National Women’s Law Center, TrueMajority.org, Young Democrats of America, 21st Century Democrats, Community Action Partnership, Institute for Policy Studies – Cities for Progress , Progressive Future , National Priorities Project , Working Group on Extreme Inequality, YWCA USA , Economic Policy Institute, Women Voices, Women Vote, and the League of Conservation Voters.

Permanent campaign -- all those gonzo Obama supporters need to do something with their time post-election.

I always thought it was a fault of Bush's to not ask for pubic support and activist involvement more often during his presidency. It struck me he was trying to be the anti-Clinton. Clinton often urged the public (or whined to the public, depending on your politics) to help him fight for this or that. Bush seemed to take the position that the public wanted a time-out from politics altogether, and so didn't really bothering ginning up public outrage or support very often.

I think it's fair to say that Obama will not be following Bush's example.

I always feared the Obama Effect -- that an Obama victory would represent a rise in leftist power and enthusiasm and activism in a way that a Hillary victory would not. The left is both confident and re-engaged in a politics they had long written off as hopeless. It's going to take an awful lot of work by conservatives to blunt this attack on the American system.

On the Other Hand... Is card check already "on the brink," as Kaus hopes?

I doubt it -- so far I don't believe the public has engaged with this issue enough, not nearly like they did with the Comprehensive Piece of Shit. It took a lot of energy and action by the grassroots to get their representatives to back off of that, and we haven't seen anything like that yet.

Of course, the issue hasn't actually been presented yet. But enough GOP Senators may go along with Obama's horrible payoff to the unions out of a misplaced sense of... of what, I have no idea. But going along with liberal disasters in the making seems to be Republican Senators' default position.

Posted by: Ace at 09:37 AM | Comments (35)
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Either he's serious, or he's playing a bit of bad cop to make the unions reconsider acceding to the Corker Plan. Either way, it's better than the Automatic Auto Bailout TARP scheme.

The White House says a managed bankruptcy for automakers is one option being considered to help save the troubled industry.

White House press secretary Dana Perino told reporters Thursday that "we're going to do something." The Bush administration wants to avoid what it calls a "disorderly collapse" of car companies that would result in devastating job losses and sweeping economic problems.

...

Setting up a so-called managed bankruptcy would be complicated, involving talks with not just automakers but unions and other stakeholders.

Posted by: Ace at 09:20 AM | Comments (14)
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The other day I posted in the sidebar an article with my own (or the tipster's) headline: "Blame Bush: Higher Percentage of Black Kids Living in Two-Parent Homes In Decades."

Well.. kinda.

The New York Times headline “2-Parent Black Families Showing Gains," Wednesday seemed like great news. ( Full disclosure: I am briefly quoted in the article.) After decades of decline, more black kids are finally growing up with their mothers and fathers!

Alas, check out the third paragraph of the piece: “The Census Bureau attributed an indeterminate amount of the increase to revised definitions adopted in 2007, which identify as parents any man and woman living together, whether or not they are married or the child's biological parents.” What the data is really saying, it turns out, is that more black children are living with a woman who may or may not be their mother, and a man who either may or may not be their father, and may or may not be married to the woman who may or may not be their mother.

James Taranto had an apt response to this Orwellianism. “The problem of illegitimacy and broken families had seemed intractable for decades, but the Census Bureau has been able to make a significant dent in it, at virtually no cost to the taxpayer, merely by redefining the word parents.” Equally disturbing is the Times’s complete obliviousness to the import of the Census Bureau’s word play. “The number of black children being raised by two parents appears to be edging higher,” the piece begins. Well, that’s only if “raising” is the same thing as “living with.” If the increase in children living with two “parents” is due, for instance, to a growth in the percentage of mothers cohabiting temporarily with their boyfriends, then “raising” is another bit of dissembling.

It's not so much that this story is biased, though it is, at least in two ways: The NYT is determined to report happy-talk to its liberal readership where there is none, and the NYT is also determined to make up news where none exists. A change in accounting practices does not indicate a trend, except in how people are accounted for.

It's not merely that the MSM is extremely biased, which, of course, they are. It's also that they're simply unprofessional even where they don't even need to be, and seem, as Instapundit remarked, to be less in the business of reporting than in the business of burying real news under mountains of fake news -- to simply hide actual news from the pubic.

Honestly -- the problem here isn't really that this impacts the political discussion much. The problem is just that people have a limited amount of time to devote to reading about news and current trends and policy and all the rest, and the NYT, as usual, wastes a significant chuck of that reporting non-news.

I got taken in. I didn't think they'd just make something up -- especially something so minor. But they did.

So what could people have been reading about were they not wasting their time reading false reportage?

They do this an awful lot.

Supposedly they're the "gatekeepers," separating the news wheat from the non-news chaff. But they behave more like lockjammers, fouling a lock with bubblegum to keep readers from getting to the actual news.

Posted by: Ace at 09:03 AM | Comments (22)
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