44% approve, 55% don't.

You know how they grade that at Harvard, of course.

Oh, and Pollster.com continues to show the streams almost crossing.

Which recalls this memorable exchange about crossing the streams:

Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.

Dr. Peter Venkman: What?

Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?

Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.

Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?

Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. So, that's like a B?

Dr. Egon Spengler: On the curve, a solid B+.

Posted by: Ace at 12:36 PM | Comments (131)
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I'm not a big fan of the "run government like a business" school of thought. They are too different in structure and purpose to be compared. Still, it would be kind of nice if the President of the United States of America had a passing familiarity with free market economics.

Last night on 60 Minutes (this is what, His 3rd interview in a year with them? Does Steve Kroft have Obama's 'real' birth certificate or something?), Obama lashed out at bankers ahead of a meeting with them today.

"I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street," Obama said Friday in excerpts of an interview with CBS television to be aired on Sunday.

With unemployment still hovering at around 10 percent, amid a recession triggered in part by the excesses of financial institutions, Obama voiced frustration that "some people on Wall Street still don't get it."

Lavish pay and bonuses on Wall Street have been blamed for encouraging the excessive risk-taking that with the subprime mortgage housing crisis fueled the global maelstrom and brought the US financial sector to the brink of collapse a year ago.

Aside from the rank populism, which I find loathsome, what's the greater drag on the economy? Some bank bonus packages or out of control deficits, with the promise of more to come? And if we want to talk about compensation, let's revisit last week's government pay scale story.

So how does Obama propose the banks pay the American people back for bailing them out after their investments went belly up? Why, by being more promiscuous in their current lending habits of course.

"America's banks received extraordinary assistance from American taxpayers to rebuild their industry," (Obama) said after a hosting a White House meeting today with representatives from 12 banking institutions. "And now that they're back on their feet, we expect an extraordinary commitment from them to help rebuild our economy."

The president explained that he has heard from many small businesses that they have been unable to get loans in today's economic climate. "Now no one wants banks making the kinds of risky loans that got us into this situation in the first place," he said. "But given the difficulty businesspeople are having as lending has declined, and given the exceptional assistance banks received to get them through a difficult time, we expect them to explore every responsible way to help get our economy moving again."

Obama added, "We expect some results, because I'm getting too many letters from small businesses who explain that they are credit-worthy."

Oh well if they say they are credit worthy, it must be true. I mean it's not like we'd ever see loan applicants lie or anything.

And only lend to the creditworthy? I mean that kind of thinking is surely worth a Nobel in economics, right? This is ground breaking stuff from Obama. Why didn't those stupid 'fat cats' think of that?

And if the banks are hording their cash there's likely some good reasons, namely the looming crash many expect in the commercial real estate market and the current uncertainty over the tax and spend policies of this administration. Well, they aren't uncertain in the sense we know they will do lots of both but no one is quite sure how much. Amity Shlaes wrote in The Forgotten Man about the devastating effect uncertainty had on the economy thanks to FDR's indecision and "persistent experimentation" had when it came to fiscal, monetary and regulatory policy. You can see a short write up on it here.)

Today's dog and pony show was nothing more that a chance to blame others for the failure of this administration to do anything but make things worse.

On the bight side, He took the day off from blaming Bush*. Baby steps.

(I had linked to a commenter who said Obama did blame Bush today but it turned out the comment he was referring to was from last night's 60 Minutes.)

Posted by: DrewM at 12:05 PM | Comments (88)
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Figured I'd should mention it now, so in case you want to work something out...

I will be travelling all day tomorrow and I doubt I'll be on the computer for a single moment.

So, you know: Not going to make my usual up-and-at-'em 3 pm wake-up time.

Posted by: Ace at 11:55 AM | Comments (23)
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As Purple Avenger noted last night, Obama offered himself (apparently without being prompted) the grade of a "good, solid B+" for his performance in office so far.

Apparently where he went to school, grades aren't awarded to whether you succeed for fail, but according to whether you have "saved or created" additional opportunities for ad-hoc extra credit.

Or, perhaps, he's the world's most famous victim of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Frank of IMAO offered this Tweet:

Tiger had rated his marriage so far a B+.

And has created a new discussion topic of "#bplus."

And I've been offering my own grades:

Titanic's maiden cruise? Good, solid B+.

Seth Brundel's ability to detect insects in a small enclosed space? Oh, I don't know, I'll say just short of an A-.

Death Star's thermal exhaust port engineering team? About an 87 out of 100, I'd say.

Hans Gruber's English-Tailored gravity-reversing levitation suit? Certainly above a B, but not quite an A.

I could also add:

Keith Olbermann's pre-match strategy in his Fight Against Death? A B on execution, but an additional half-mark for moxie.

Posted by: Ace at 11:37 AM | Comments (567)
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They're trying to mitigate it now.

U.S. Rep. John Murtha is recovering in a Washington area hospital after being admitted last night for abdominal pains that was determined to be from a gallbladder problem, his office said.

"He is currently resting and doing well," said spokesman Matt Mazonkey.

Last week, doctors suspected Murtha was suffering from swine flu because he wasn't feeling well.

Murtha's had swine flu for the last 30 years.

Posted by: Ace at 11:09 AM | Comments (68)
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(A series of daily-ish roundups of the day's Climate news and commentary.)

This is by no means a comprehensive recap. The stories come from a variety of sources, and I highly recommend exploring the linked sites for more breaking news.

An early one today. The wife and I need to spend some quality time together. Which apparently means "shopping".

(after the break...) more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 10:58 AM | Comments (33)
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Hmmm.

Congressional investigators looking into the abrupt firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin have discovered that the head of AmeriCorps met with a top aide to First Lady Michelle Obama the day before Walpin was removed.

According to Republican investigators, Alan Solomont, then the chairman of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps, had denied meeting with Jackie Norris, at the time the First Lady's chief of staff. But recently-released White House visitor logs show that Solomont met with Norris on June 9 of this year (as well as on two earlier occasions). President Obama fired Walpin on June 10 after an intense dispute over Walpin's aggressive investigation of misuse of AmeriCorps money by Obama political ally Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, California.

After being presented with the visitor logs, investigators say, Solomont explained that he met with Norris to discuss Corporation business but did not discuss the Walpin matter. When pressed, Solomont said he might have made an offhand comment, or a mention in passing, about the Walpin affair, but that he and Norris did not have a discussion about it.

What?

There's a line in Glengarry Glen Ross when Ed Harris is pitching the idea of burglarizing the office to an alarmed Alan Arkin.

Alan Arkin asks, worried, "Are we discussing this?"

Harris replies, "No, we're not discussing this, we're just talking about it."

Or something like that.

Posted by: Ace at 10:56 AM | Comments (43)
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Pic via Drudge

Wow, the guy who's not up for reelection until 2012 is now telling the people who are up for reelection in 2010 to cut a smaller deal with the Traitor Lieberman. To take heat on behalf of the guys up for reelection in 2010.

And Dingy Harry, who really needs the fightin' fighting nutroots on his side next year, is of course so angry with Lieberman that why he's not really in a compromising mood at all! Why he wants to fight, fight, fight, and he's just so goshdarn upset with ol' Joe he just can't bring himself around to accept this betrayal quite yet!

It's almost as if they've scripted this, almost as if they've calculated who is best able to withstand nutroots disappointment at this time.

The White House is encouraging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to cut a deal with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), which would mean eliminating the proposed Medicare expansion in the health reform bill, according to an official close to the negotiations.

But Reid is described as so frustrated with Lieberman that he is not ready to sacrifice a key element of the health care bill, and first wants to see the Congressional Budget Office cost analysis of the Medicare buy-in. The analysis is expected early this week.

"There is a weariness and a lot of frustration that one person is holding up the will of 59 others," the official said. “There is still too much anger and confusion at one particular senator’s reversal.”

If they do cut a deal -- which I　expect they will -- there still will be a lot of additional spending and a lot of new debt and a lot of harm to the economy. I guess we're just hoping now that the damage is kept to as low a level as possible. But that level will not be all that low, either.

Via Just Karl.

HuffPo: Liberal Poll Says 81% of Democrats Want Lieberman Stripped of Committee Assignments in Retaliation for Knife in the Back Surprise Betrayal Which Was Clearly Announced A Month Ago: Why is this interesting?

Because you will not find a single opinion piece decrying the "purity tests" and "loyalty oaths" the nutroots wishes to impose on its members. It seems only one party's more independent-minded members are praised for their maverick free-thinkingness.

Obligatory... Leak the story that you're pressuring Reid and then immediately deny the story you just leaked. Maintain plausible deniability; you want the idea out there, but you don't necessarily want it proven.

Almost pointless to link this, as they'd say this either way.

Via Gabriel Malor.

Posted by: Ace at 10:23 AM | Comments (65)
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Ed is beset himself wondering how on earth Joe Lieberman's resistance to cloture on ObamaCare can possibly be a "surprise setback" when Liebermann's been saying the same basic thing since, like, the second week of last Forever.

Well, not to get all Hitler on anyone, but every failure needs a scapegoat. You need an Emmanuel Goldstein out there if you want to direct anger from its rightful object (the Democrats, generally, but especially Obama and the Congressional leadership) to a convenient whipping boy.

Joe Lieberman didn't stab them in the back. He stabbed them directly in their fronts, and not even sneaky-like; he's stabbing them after telling them repeatedly "Stop threatening me with this devastating blow to the economy or I will be forced to defend myself." After telling them that thirty times, and yet watching them continue to menace the country with ObamaCare, he defended himself, and us of course, but so now it's a surprise knife-in-the-back from the typical wielder of such weapons.

Joe Lieberman is technically -- and actually -- an independent. He owes the Democrats no allegiance or loyalty. That's what the word "independent" generally means, a lack of obligation or duty to any faction. They are casting this as if Lieberman owed them their vote, and that it is then an act of betrayal to not have it; while in fact of course it was always he Democrats' who had the responsibility to persuade and earn his vote.

Further, the Democrats have long been playing a cynical game here. On one hand, the angry netroots wants ObamaCare, in as extreme form as possible, not because they really understand this or that provision, but largely because they know the "Teabaggers" do not want it, and in the typical dreary calculus of thumb-in-the-eye vengeance politics, they simply want it because they want to make a show of political domination and humiliation over their opponents.

So at no point in these proceedings were the Democrats seriously, on-the-square negotiating in good faith for a bill that would be broadly acceptable to at least 60% of America; instead, they have always insisted on the outlines of a bill that would be eagerly greeted by 30% and unwanted, or even despised, by the rest. This has long been a cynical game of proposing a maximalist policy that they knew they didn't have the votes for to appease their base, so that they can then use claims of "betrayal" and Republican obstructionism to gin up support and donations.

As a pundit long ago suggested: The Democrats' dream scenario is to propose something extreme to get the netroots excited and yet lose by one or two votes, so they get credit from the far left for attempting to foist socialism on America but do not provoke the vast majority of voters, who are justifiably frightened of that prospect, by actually accomplishing the goal.

Best of both worlds. To the left: We really tried to create the Socialist States of America. To the center: But we didn't, so it's still safe to vote Democratic.

So, this is their dream scenario, their carefully-constructed contrivance for getting them out of the situation they created for themselves. I notice that there is apparently no surprise about Ben Nelson, a good Democrat they want re-elected, also stating he wouldn't vote for closure; or Claire McCaskill's statement she wouldn't vote for any bill that increased the deficit.

Of course not. Those are Senators in red or purple states and the Democrats want to insulate them from the wrath of the base; so anger is directed instead to someone not of their party at all. (Just as the Democrats' failures have long been pinned on Republicans, who cannot block a single thing the Democrats propose.)

And so it goes.

Posted by: Ace at 09:43 AM | Comments (87)
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Is it a "trick" if you just ignore all the other thermometers?

Or is is fraud?

via WUWT, Jeff Id at the Air Vent (validating the work done by Save Capitalism -- get that? A peer reviewed blog post) explains how the all-important GHCN data was massaged for the Antarctic. According to a study based on these numbers, the Antarctic is warming at a rate of 4 degrees celsius per century.

Reminiscent of Briffa and his magic Yamal tree, GHCN used one temperature sensor location to represent an entire continent.

Let that sink in. One thermometer in one location is what GHCN has used to report the temperature history of the entire continent of Antarctica.

Now I'm going to ask you to go out on a limb, and guess whether this station was on the high or low-end of temperature change.

In the meantime, the BAS maintains an up to date, value added dataset of their own. Using 63 stations and simple area weighted averaging we get antarctic trends of 0.05 C/decade...

Currently the ‘homogenized’ value added version of GHCN has a trend that is EIGHT times higher than actual for the ENTIRE ANTARCTIC CONTINENT.

Check out the post at WUWT for a compilation of graph's & pics of the magical temperature station's "pristine" location.

UPDATE: Typos fixed. At least I got chicken.

Posted by: Open Blog at 07:55 AM | Comments (98)
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