Sir Orca?

Gordon Brown is making Ted Kennedy an honorary knight. Would that be for his long political career or amazing, Olympic swimming feat at Chappaquiddick?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkLvJheTU5ryjXjiiDoyIHbENt-AD96N7FU01

Mummies Redux and Another Sane Court Ruling

The Supreme Court just ruled in favor of Pleasant Grove, a city that had been sued by a fringe group that wanted it's founding rules placed next to the 10 Commandments in a park. This is very important and 9-0 ruling. I believed this is how the court would rule, but I never would've guessed that it would be unanimous. I like being pleasantly surprised. This is a great precedent: just because you have a right to say something doesn't mean that all of society must acknowledge your speech. This group can still go and worship in their pyramid with no hindrance from the government.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/washington/26scotus.html?hp

Check out what I said when this case was on the docket: http://arlingtonline.blogspot.com/2008/11/mummies-10-commandments-and-supreme.html

A Sane Court Ruling

Let me start out by saying that I'm always reticent when a court makes a ruling on science. It's a little disconcerting that someone with a JD is now an expert on anything from particle physics to microbiology. That being said, finally a court has ruled that there is no connection between the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, rubella) and autism. This has been a nut job conspiracy theory for years now. "Well, maybe mercury in the vaccine might have caused autism." And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt. No one has ever demonstrated why there would be a connection between the two.

As someone who has been around autistic and handicapped people all his life, I sympathize with these families. But most of them just wanted money, maybe to help their families, but still. This ruling was also a slam at the trial lawyers. And hopefully, there will be fewer people who do not vaccinate their children because of some pseudo-scientific rot gut.

http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2009/02/13/health-buzz-court-rules-on-vaccines-and-autism-and-other-health-news.html

Really? A center-right country?

So after Obama got elected, a lot of people said, "Yes, he did run on the left, but this is still a center-right country. There's only so much he can do." Well, I don't think we live in a center-right country anymore. I think we might finally be shifting to a center-left country, pseudo-European socialist country.

Consider this: in 1992 when Bill Clinton was elected president, he ran as a "New Democrat" and stated that "the era of big government" is over. He even promised a middle class tax (once in office though, he enacted one of the largest peace time tax increases in history). He had left wing beliefs, but could only get elected as a centrist. Also recall that once in office, there was public outrage over many extraneous programs in the 1993 Budget Bill, for example the infamous "midnight basketball" program. These all told cost 10s of billions of dollars, more money back then... I guess a lot of money any time.

Now look at today. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, their fellow traveling Marxicrats are working on "stimulus" bill (a euphemism if there ever was one) that will cost somewhere around 900 billion dollars! And the price is still rising! And this is in addition to a $700 billion bailout just 6 months ago!!! There is no outcry from the public. Admittedly, the bill is not that popular according to some polls, but its hardly a backlash.

Obama openly ran as a socialist-esque, far left wing Democrat. His opponent, McCain, that monument to imbecility, tried to be a Neo Teddy Roosevelt. Very left and sort of left, those were our choices. Now that the Marxists are securely in power, we're going to see socialism like never before. How is it that we've gotten to the point where these were our choices in president? Ronald Reagan and Scoop Jackson they're not. Socialism is here again!

Who owns the Moon?

"The Moon belongs to America, and anxiously awaits the arrival of our astro-men. Will you be among them?"

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/081210-who-owns-moon.html

Wait, Illinois is corrupt?

I hope everyone's paying attention to the corruption charges against the Illinois governor. I'm sure I will write more on it later. For the moment, I will bring it to everyone's attention that Obama's campaign said they were meeting with the governor over who to nominate to Obama's old Senate. Now the are saying the previous statement from November was wrong. Hmm...
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/12/questions-arise.html

While I doubt Obama is directly involved with this, I hope I'm proved wrong. Clearly he associated with these people. So is this the change we've all been waiting for?

P.S. Supposedly candidate #5, the one Blago was trying to elicit bribes from for the senate seat, is Jesse Jackson's son. Like father, like son.

The Bailout... A Historical Perspective

This is fascinating. If you adjust all of these historical expenditures they pale in comparison to the Bailout. I personally think this 4.6 number is way too low.

"If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars.

People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

Crunching the inflation adjusted numbers, we find the bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion"

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/25/bailout-costs-more-t.html