Alternate title: Herman Cain: I Promise To Violate My Oath Of Office Before I Even Get To Take It.

This is the problem with politically untested, boutique candidates...they say dumb stuff.

I think fighting expansionist Islam is as much, if not more, a social challenge than a military one. We can not allow people to misrepresent political Islam, lie about Islam's history in America or it's importance to the fabric of this country. On that score, I'm with Cain.

That said, announcing that you will violate the "No religious tests" clause of the Constitution is simply wrong and shows either a lack of familiarity with parts of the Constitution or a willingness to skip parts that don't work for you. When you become President, you don't get to enforce just the bits you like, you swear to "preserve, protect and defend" all of it. Even Article VI, even as applied to Muslims.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:29 AM | Comments (293)
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Apparently, one Federal judge has worked it out: entitlement programs are apparently an "all or nothing" deal. If you choose not to take Medicare -- by this Judge's reasoning -- you are not eligible for Social Security either. Here's the money bit:

Yet in a stunning reversal, Judge Collyer last week revisited her decision and dismissed the case. In direct contravention to her prior ruling, the judge said the Medicare statute does — with a little creative reading — contain a requirement that Social Security recipients take government health care. The Medicare statute provides that only individuals who are “entitled” to Social Security are “entitled” to Medicare. Therefore, argues the judge, “The only way to avoid entitlement to Medicare Part A at age 65 is to forego the source of that entitlement, i.e., Social Security Retirement benefits.”

This is convoluted enough, but Judge Collyer’s truly novel finding comes with her implicit argument that to be “entitled” to a government benefit is to be obligated to accept it.

Someone will bust out that classic C. S. Lewis quote in the comments, so I'll save them the time and do it here: Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baronÂ’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Over in England, the collapse of the welfare-state has stirred the populace to a bit of the old ultra-violence.

The Brits went all-in on the welfare-state after World War II, and they discovered the same thing we did: it's not sustainable. But they're also finding that when you take away government-sponsored goodies from the home folks, they tend to react rather like two-year-olds who had their binkies taken away.

I keep saying that the "entitlement mentality" is not just a problem here; it's a problem in the entire industrialized world. England, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, the USA...governments are beggaring themselves (and their productive taxpaying citizens) trying to fund their brobdingnagian welfare-state apparatus.
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Posted by: Monty at 04:56 AM | Comments (203)
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Two months ago, I asked who you guys want to be the Republican presidential candidate in 2012. Sarah Palin carried the day with a whopping 46% of your votes. The nearest competitor was Herman Cain, who got just 13.4%.

Here's the latest on the possible candidates and then another poll.

Sarah Palin hasn't been in the news nearly as much as she was during our last poll, which was in the aftermath of the Arizona shooting. She did post the other day that she's through whining (her word) about the MBM. Technorati notes that Palin is winning the social media race. She has more than 2.8 million friends on Facebook and more than 462,000 followers on Twitter.

Mitt Romney continues to plug along. A Pew Poll of self-described Tea Party supporters just found Romney leading, with 25% making him their top choice in 2012.

Mitch Daniels says he hasn't decided whether to run yet, though he just collected the endorsement of Dick Armey, chairman of the Tea Party group FreedomWorks. Daniels' decision has been complicated by the Indiana legislative standoff. Democratic state lawmakers remain in Illinois, despite Daniels' weakness on passing a bill to curb union abuses.

Herman Cain is probably the most active candidate right now. He keeps popping up at events. This weekend he won the straw poll at Congressman Steve KingÂ’s Conservative Principles Conference in Iowa.

Newt Gingrich was on Fox News Sunday yesterday, where he's still trying to put the incessant discussion of his affairs and marriages to rest. Gingrich recently made the obligatory kowtow to revisionist Bryan Fischer of the AFA.

Haley Barbour was also in Iowa over the weekend, where he said that we should "proceed in national policy as if global warming is actually happening." He also criticized the Obama Administration, saying that it "too often thinks weÂ’re too stupid to take care of ourselves."

Mike Huckabee shared the stage with, among others, Van Jones last night at a "State of the Student" summit put on by Florida State and Florida A&M. According to the news report, Huckabee was a favorite of students because he is "authentic."

Tim Pawlenty is fighting back against charges that he supported Sharia-compliant financing to encourage homeownership in Minnesota, which I didn't realize was a bad thing. A Pawlenty spokesman says the governor terminated the Sharia loan program as soon as he found out about it. Apparently, only three people used the program before it was killed.

Finally, Michelle Bachmann is still exploring the possibility of running. She was also at the Conservative Principles Conference in Iowa over the weekend, where she talked about the importance of two-parent families. Bachmannn will be back in Iowa on April 11.

That's the news, now the poll. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:31 AM | Comments (650)
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Space. It's huge. So huge, in fact, that if you'd lost your car keys in it, they would be almost impossible to find.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:57 AM | Comments (45)
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And now here's something we hope you'll really like.

The World Boobage Size Chart

Finally a scientific study results in something that the average man can relate to. I don't know if this chart is self-reported like the World Penis Size Chart but I would imagine that there's a bit more firm data on boobage sizes. But as they say any more than a handful of data points is a waste.

No real surprises here although I would have expected that Britain would come out on top in Europe since I've always read that British ladies are the bustiest in Europe. Plus all my pictorial research seems to back this up. Clearly more studies are called for in this area.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:06 PM | Comments (544)
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This was his moment. He captured the nation.

It's a great tradition. I was enrapt. His advisors were almost as good as mine.

Good of him to take 37 seconds to mention the earthquake in Japan. I didn't hear anything about Libya but we know it weighed heavily on him while he was working on his bracket.

He's at least as good at foreign affairs as he is at pickin the final four. You have to admit that, he's got that smart goin on.

This idiot spent more time (on camera and off) working this nonsense than he did explaining his rationale for bombing Libya.

Because he knew, we really needed to be inspired, as a nation, at how fuckin good he was with NCAA brackets.

Sleep well. All is well. We've got Captain Jesus McAwesome on the job, 24 by 3 and a half.

tip via AndrewsDad

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 01:33 PM | Comments (315)
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You see, a nuclear plant in trouble is like a boy with digestive problems.

Press the red caption balloon icon in the lower bar to get rid of the caption.

I guess poo is more out in the open in Japan. Nuclear Boy helps me to better understand Poo Genie, a video I saw a few months ago. (Content Warning: Poo Genie depicts total nuclear meltdown in various scenarios.) It's a Japanese thing.

Open thread.

Posted by: rdbrewer at 12:59 PM | Comments (80)
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Well, this is certainly a red letter day in our kinetic military action time-limited, scope-limited military action WAR in Libya. Now NATO will be in charge of not just the No Fly Zone but also the ground strikes to protect civilians.

Reuters news agency quoted one Nato official as saying: "Nato has decided today to implement all aspects of the UN resolution 1973 to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas under threat of attack from the Gaddafi regime."

Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the takeover by Nato was "immediate".

However one diplomat, quoted by Associated Press, said the logistics of the transfer from US leadership could take several days.

Our correspondent says precise operational details have not been revealed by Nato but there will be a high-level committee of representatives from all of the countries taking part, in order to give broad political guidance to the campaign.

The Nato announcement came after a week of heated discussion among members, with Turkey and France in particular wary of a Nato leading role

How many more planes and ships does NATO have that aren't already involved? Right, none. So instead of the USA Africa Command running the show a Canadian general (or some such person) will be in charge. Of course that officer will be working under the military head of NATO who happens to be...an American admiral.

All of this pretty much glosses over the fact that NATO is pretty much a US show anyway. Apparently the added value is, um, a committee to run the war on which Turkey (a country that doesn't want to get rid of Gadaffi or attack his military too hard) more or less gets a veto.

Welcome to the Obama administration definition of progress. Now that the US is out of the lead (at least technically) it will be safe for Obama to come out and talk tomorrow night about this war that we're not really in or actually in charge of.

Added: Below the fold a visual explanation of the Obama/NATO leadership switch. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 11:55 AM | Comments (128)
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Smart Power?

On NBC's "Meet the Press," Gates was asked, "Is Libya in our vital interest as a country?" He answered, "No, I don't think it's a vital interest for the U.S., but we clearly have interests there, and it's a part of the region which is a vital interest for the U.S." Gates' statement wasn't an entirely convincing rationale for a major military commitment, and moderator David Gregory responded by saying, "I think a lot of people would hear that and say well, that's quite striking -- not in our vital interests and yet we're committing military resources."

At that moment, Clinton jumped in to offer an extended justification for going to war. "Did Libya attack us?" she asked. "No, they did not attack us. Do they have a very critical role in this region and do they neighbor two countries -- you just mentioned one, Egypt, the other Tunisia -- that are going through these extraordinary transformations and cannot afford to be destabilized by conflict on their borders? Yes. Do they have a major influence on what goes on in Europe because of everything from oil to immigration?"

At that point, Clinton suggested that the U.S. went to war to repay NATO allies for support in Afghanistan. "We asked our NATO allies to go into Afghanistan with us ten years ago," she said. "They have been there, and a lot of them have been there despite the fact that they were not attacked. The attack came on usÂ…They stuck with us. When it comes to Libya, we started hearing from the UK, France, Italy, other of our NATO alliesÂ…This was in their vital national interestÂ…"

We have to go to war when France and Italy's vital interests (aka Libyan Oil) are at stake? Really, that's the story Hillary is sticking with? No War for Europe's Oil!

The amazing thing is we've been engaged in kinetic military action time-limited, scope-limited military action WAR in Libya for over a week now and the Secretaries of State and Defense still can't their story straight on why. Maybe if there were a position of executive authority within the government who was ultimately responsible for this type of decision who could explain why we are in a kinetic military action time-limited, scope-limited military action WAR things would be clearer. Perhaps we could call that job "The President".

Breaking news update....I've just been informed we do have "A President". Here's the current holder of the office.

President Empty Suit*

As for Clinton's idea that it's in our vital national interest to stand behind our allies when they decide to go adventuring...um, no. The reason they went to Afghanistan is because they were pretty much bound to by a little thing we like to call the North Atlantic Treaty which declared an attack on one was an attack on all. We don't owe them a solid for living up to their sworn obligations. If we're keeping score, I'd say even factoring in Euro 'help' in Afghanistan, the whole, "thanks for saving us from the Nazis and keeping the Soviets in check for 40 plus years" account isn't quite even yet. But who is keeping score?

Oh and Hillary would like the world, especially Bahir Assad, to know this Libya thing is a one off and we're not going to get involved in Syria. So you know...take care of business, we're not going to say or do anything.

Arguing that Qaddafi's longstanding history of brutality distinguished itself from the regime of Syrian President Bashir Assad, Clinton said Syrian circumstances had not aligned in a fashion to suggest that the U.S. would undertake military operations there.

"The situation in Libya which engendered so much concern from around the international community, had a leader who used military force against the protesters from one end of his country to the other, who publicly said things like 'We'll show no mercy,' 'We'll go house to house,' and the international community moved with great speed in part because there's a history here," she told CBS' Bob Schieffer. "This is someone who's behaved in a way that's caused great concern in the past 40-plus years in the Arab world, the African world, Europe and the United States."

When asked about recent brutalities committed by the Syrian regime against civilians, Clinton suggested that "there's a difference between calling out aircraft and indiscriminately strafing and bombing your own cities, than police actions which frankly have exceeded the use of force that any of us would want to see."

I'm not advocating going into Syria (that's a job for Joe Lieberman) but Assad isn't as bad as Kadaffi? Really? I don't think the US Secretary of State should be laying out a road map for a dictator like Assad to follow to keep the killings under some threshold for concern. There's a little thing called "strategic ambiguity", it can be helpful to keep the bad guys guessing what might set you off. But no, Hills just said "have it at Doc!".

If this is Smart Power(tm), I think I would like some old timey Stupid Power about now.

One other thing, some guy over at the New Republic is pretty bummed that Obama hasn't gotten a bump in the polls out of his Libyan, er, thing. (safe link to the Daily Caller). You'll never guess whose fault that is.

A week into American and allied action in Libya, one political result is already clear: Barack Obama has not benefited in the polls. If anything, ObamaÂ’s Gallup approval numbers are actually down a few points since American involvement in Libya began.

We can look to political science to understand this trend—specifically, to the idea of the “rally around the flag” effect. A rally effect, by definition, is when a president’s approval numbers increase during a national security event. Unfortunately for Obama, there’s been no rally effect this week. Which, of course, begs the question: Why?

...To apply this to the current situation, when the United States acted in Libya, many prominent Republicans criticized the intervention—as they were likely to do, considering the extreme, anti-all-things-Obama sentiment that’s taken hold of the GOP. Newt Gingrich, for one, called the operation as “badly run as any foreign operation we’ve seen in our lifetime.” Speaker of the House John Boehner, meanwhile, said he was “troubled” by the fact that Obama undertook action “without clearly defining” the mission. Per Brody’s theory, Obama hasn’t gotten a poll bump.

Looking to the future, as the U.S. political scene becomes increasingly hyper-partisan—with each side of the aisle refusing to find common ground on practically any issue—we can expect that rallying around the flag will become less and less likely. Obama’s polling numbers after the Libya intervention could be just the tip of a future iceberg.

As Mickey Kaus points out at the link maybe it's not the criticism of the policy (which has been pretty mild and there's been a lot of GOP support) but the policy itself. But it can't be that! Obama is awesome and France and the UN said ok! It must be those evil, anti-war Republicans who won't get on board with this awesome new war.

I'd go back to the empty suit nature of this presidency. Obama launched a war and then went to South America for 5 days. Since returning he hasn't been seen in public except on Friday to celebrate Greek Independence Day. President's get support because they lead and ask for it. Obama has hidden first behind military leaders (Admiral Mullen was the only figure on the talk shows last week) and now Clinton and Gates (who can't get their stories straight). Obama will be MIA for about 10 days before we hear from him tomorrow night. I think people would like to support him but he's got to tell us what the hell we're supposed to be supporting first.

*Courtesy of the man, the myth, the legend...Slublog.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:47 AM | Comments (325)
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Natalie Portman won the best acting Oscar for her performance in Black Swan. But which part of her performance was being rewarded?

Her basic actor-ish performance of conveying emotion?

Or the presumed fact that she learned to be a headliner-level ballerina in less than year's worth of training?

Obviously the first part is always considered. Was the second part a strong factor? And if so, what to do if Portman really didn't learn much more about being a ballerina than you'd expect an actor to?

This video was leaked by a visual effects company that worked on Black Swan. Such a thing is sort of standard -- they're showing off their work for future clients.

But they began by showing off something that the studio apparently doesn't wish to be widely known.
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Posted by: Ace at 07:19 AM | Comments (234)
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