Tim Ryan: Profile In Courage

From The Hill:

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) canceled a town hall on the new healthcare law Tuesday because of concerns about the security of the event.

The congressman's office cited safety issues at the facility where the meeting was to take place and threats to his office, according to a report by News21.

"We just thought it best to cancel it for safety concerns. This was not meant to be a place where we're going to talk partisan politics," Pat Lowry, a member of Ryan's staff, told News21.

I particularly love this next line from staffer Lowry:

"Don't get me wrong, Congressman Ryan will debate anyone, anytime."

Except, of course, voters in his own district, during a recess, when cameras are running.

We here at WillCollier.com wish both Congressman Ryan and Pat Lowry nothing but the best in their upcoming job searches. Might I suggest a rewarding career at Kentucky Fried Chicken?

UPDATE: The town hall wasn't the only cancellation for Brave Sir Ryan this week:

About one dozen protesters. many of them carrying signs, was apparently all it took to cancel Congressman Tim Ryan's appearance at the Youngstown Community Health Center Tuesday.

A spokesman for Ryan said there were security concerns, calling it "obviously a significant issue."

Although spokesman Pat Lowry mentioned no specific threats being made at the event, he also said that wasn't the only reason Ryan was a no show.

Nope, no threats--other than being caught on camera with constituents who don't agree with him.

Kevin Rudd, Tool

From the BBC:

Few are laughing in Australia following Robin Williams' joke that its people are "basically English rednecks".

His remarks, made on The Late Show with David Letterman, prompted Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to respond on a Sydney radio show.

"I think Robin Williams should go and spend a little time in Alabama before he frames comments about people being particularly redneck," said Mr Rudd.

Being a native Alabamian, I can but note that nobody from Alabama ever set up anything nearly as stupid as Rudd's recent "global warming" plan that cost nearly $3 billion and led directly to over a hundred houses burning down and several deaths. That's pretty impressive; my 100%-Alabamian grandad was an electrician, and in a 60-year career (he was still doing wiring in his 80's), he never managed to burn down even one house.

I understand that "bogan" is Australian for "redneck." Say, Tim, what's Aussie for, "Rudd, you're a tool?"

Comment Of The Week

Via Slashdot, regarding "global warming" whack job James Lovelock's recent statement, "I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."

So it's not going to be a boot stepping on a human face forever.

It's going to be a Birkenstock.

Follow-Up To "Your Package Has Been Eaten By An Alligator"

When I posted my bemused reaction to being told that a late package had been "eaten by an alligator" on Saturday morning, I figured the story--which, contrary to the suspicions of many online commentors, was absolutely true--would get a few laughs. I was cracking up myself after getting over being gobsmacked into stunned silence.

What I didn't expect was that the story--helped along by a post at Consumerist--would be all over everything within 48 hours. Here's a sampling of the links I turned up in five minutes of Googling:

Huffington Post

Seattle Weekly

Digg (WHOO-HOO!)

Manolith

CPU Review

Racked

Fark (YES!)

Cracked

Triple-M

USA Today (Okay, this one is just an aggregator catch, but still.)

As my buddy Lein Shory put it, "You spend all that time writing stuff and then you write a story about alligators eating your stuff and it's everywhere. That's the Internet."

Oh, and the package? Never showed up. The one and only item in the shipper's tracking record, dated last Wednesday, is, "Shipment has left seller facility and is in transit." So for all I know, there really is an alligator out there with a chomped-up Gigabyte motherboard in its gullet.

The ending is a happy one: Amazon priority-shipped me a replacement, which arrived Monday morning and is operating normally.

UPDATE: FAKE STEVE JOBS! (Guess it's a good thing I didn't mention the board is for a Hackintosh...)

UPDATE UPDATE: This post at German blog Basic Thinking made my German-speaking wife's entire week. Great graphic, too.

Finally (I think), here's a blurb from the New York Daily News. I got an email from the reporter yesterday, but didn't get a chance to return it until last night. Guess she decided to go ahead and run with the blog post.

ANOTHER: Here's a great article on the Alligator Incident from Chris Matyszczyk at CNET.

At PJM: What Really Happened?

Here's a new column of mine for Pajamas Media. A preview:

I wasn’t in Pelosi’s strategy meeting that day, but I’ll tell you what I think went on in there:

I think the House Democrats planned this from the start.

I think they looked out the window, and looked at the polls, and looked at their dismal electoral prospects this November and decided to try and smear their opposition. I think they decided before they ever walked out of the Cannon Building what they were going to say to the press once they reached the Capitol, no matter what actually happened — or didn’t happen — along the way. And just in case they did manage to run across some fool saying something really stupid, they had their own cameras rolling.

The Democrats and the left in general have been trying unsuccessfully to smear and marginalize the tea party movement for over a year now. I think that in the face of a storm of opposition, they decided to try for a Hail Mary pass; they picked a charge perfectly calibrated to excite the prejudices of their allies in the media and get big coverage. In the last, at least, they were successful.

"Your Package Has Been Eaten By An Alligator"

I swear, I am not making any of this up.

So I ordered a computer part from Amazon. We have Amazon Prime, and the part was supposed to show up yesterday, but never did. I called Amazon's 800 number this morning (actually 866-216-1072, if you want to note it for future reference), and got a female rep with not-so-good English. After quite a thrash getting my information, she allegedly called the shipper (long time on hold for me) and came back to say they had told her my package would not be delivered...

... because it had been eaten by an alligator.

Again, I swear, I am not making this up.

I made her repeat it about five times. "It may have been a different animal" was as far as she'd budge off of this story.

I called the shipper after I got off the line, they said, "WHAT?!?", and went on to tell me the package is on the truck and should arrive today. So I called Amazon back, and kept at it until I reached a native English speaker. He said, "WHAT?!?!?"

Acording to both the shipper and the non-alligator Amazon rep, the package is still on its way, and allegedly does not have any large tooth marks. I may not ever get the part, but at least I'm giving people some good stories to tell today...

UPDATE: Well, this one got completely out of hand. Here's a link to my follow-up post (and no, I don't say, "Ha-ha, made it all up!").

Public Service Blogroll Announcement

California Senate candidate Mickey Kaus has absconded from his normal took-the-Boeing slot at Slate, and will be blogging at kausfile.com for the duration of his candidacy.

And Mickey, some free campaign advice: your opponent, Barbra Boxer, is a shrill, thin-skinned, unlikable, nearly mindless twit. You shouldn't have to push very hard before she says something exceptionally stupid--and most likely newsworthy--about you and/or your candidacy.

Fighting The Man

Instapundit is collecting reports of anti-Obamacare/Tea Party protests today. I wasn't able to swing back around to get a photo, but a group of sign-carrying protesters were outside Congressman David Scott's now-infamous Smyrna, GA office about half an hour ago.

I doubt Scott will deign to notice; as noted earlier, this district is gerrymandered to produce a heavily Democratic majority, and Scott is a rubber-stamp vote for the current majority. If Barack Obama proposed the Castrate David Scott Act of 2010, Scott would probably volunteer to be a cosponsor.

Viva Beveridge!

As both an ex-Austinite and confirmed Tito's drinker, I was thoroughly delighted to see this profile of the great Tito Beveridge (yes, that's his real name) in the WSJ Magazine this weekend:

That story is the unlikely reinvention of a geophysicist with a knack for making booze and genially talking about it with anyone prepared to listen. In 1988, Beveridge headed to Venezuela and Colombia to work for Western Geophysical, where dynamite blasts were used to hunt underground oil reserves. It was 16-hour days on six-week rotations, with two weeks spent winding down . After three years overseeing crews of hundreds of men, negotiating with local politicians, and taking events like the totalling of a Bell helicopter worth hundreds of thousands of dollars as routine, he knew it was time to go home. “I’d gotten to the point where if I stopped, I could still integrate back into society,” he says.

Back in Texas, short stints as a water geologist and a mortgage broker reinforced the feeling that desk jobs weren’t his calling. He tried an exercise he saw on public television—making a list of his strengths (managing people, science, numbers) and loves (the outdoors, live music, women). His uncle had taught him to make flavored vodkas and he’d also tried fermenting exotic fruits in South America, so Beveridge set about trying to make a sippable spirit that women would drink. The reasoning: “A guy will buy a girl anything.”

So go grab a bottle of Tito's, pour yourself a strong one, and read the whole thing. Preferably in that order.

Recommended Reading

One of the great political myths of the past few decades is the trope that the 1994 elections would have gone differently--meaning less disastrously for the Democratic Party--if only the Congress had passed that era's version of "health care reform," a full-on socialized medicine regime popularly known as Hillarycare. This trope, promulgated by a coalition of ex-Clintonistas, left-wing ideologues, Harry Hopkins-ite office holders and their sympathizers in the media, has been taken as gospel by all of the above for some years now.

Democratic pollsters Pat Cadell and Douglas Schoen, see things somewhat differently, and write in in the Washington Post today:

First, the battle for public opinion has been lost. Comprehensive health care has been lost. If it fails, as appears possible, Democrats will face the brunt of the electorate's reaction. If it passes, however, Democrats will face a far greater calamitous reaction at the polls. Wishing, praying or pretending will not change these outcomes.

Nothing has been more disconcerting than to watch Democratic politicians and their media supporters deceive themselves into believing that the public favors the Democrats' current health-care plan. Yes, most Americans believe, as we do, that real health-care reform is needed. And yes, certain proposals in the plan are supported by the public.

However, a solid majority of Americans opposes the massive health-reform plan. Four-fifths of those who oppose the plan strongly oppose it, according to Rasmussen polling this week, while only half of those who support the plan do so strongly. Many more Americans believe the legislation will worsen their health care, cost them more personally and add significantly to the national deficit. Never in our experience as pollsters can we recall such self-deluding misconstruction of survey data.

The White House document released Thursday arguing that reform is becoming more popular is in large part fighting the last war. This isn't 1994; it's 2010. And the bottom line is that the American public is overwhelmingly against this bill in its totality even if they like some of its parts.

Read the whole thing.

I'm starting to agree with Steve Green about the likely numbers in November. If the D.C. Dems are dumb and/or arrogant enough to ignore Caddell and Schoen's advice--and I strongly suspect they are both--I think they can stop worrying about losing 30 or 40 house seats, and start worrying about losing 70 or 80.

The Case of the Lurking Staffer

A commenter identified as "demdawg" posted the following here below the preview of my PJM column on David Scott:

Actually, it took over a week to have a new sign commissioned and replaced.

The reference is regarding the sign outside Scott's Cobb County branch office, which was allegedly vandalized on August 11, 2009. Based on the time that post was made, 10:29AM on March 11, 2010, "demdawg" is almost certainly a David Scott staffer. According to my server logs, a reader from an IP address associated with house.gov who'd been hitting Google's blogsearch for "congressman david scott" was here at WillCollier.com at that time. Here's a screen shot (click on it to enlarge):



"demdawg" is also full of it. Scott had a new sign up by noon on August 12, 2009; I blogged about it here after I saw it on my lunch break that day.

But we here at WillCollier.com do appreciate Congressman Scott's D.C. office at least acknowledging the existence of his constituents--even if we are too declasse for him to visit, or even live in the same district with. We also wish you well in your upcoming career change to minority-party staffers.

UPDATE: In the comments, "demdawg," aka Michael (I'm assuming Michael Andel from Scott's D.C. office) replies:

Will, there are three signs at the Smyrna office. The one that was replaced took at least a week to change. In order to obligate funds for a sign, the Franking Commission must sign off on the expenditure. The Franking rules are very specific. And, to replace the damaged sign, a police report had to be obtained and submitted with the replacement obligation form. After that is approved, then the sign company is allowed to start work on the sign. In other words, the office would not be reimbursed for just buying a sign for any reason. It also has to be up to local codes. Maybe you saw one of the two other signs when you drove by.

The most visible sign at Scott's Smyrna office--and the one that was spray painted--is on Concord Road. There's another around the corner on Brown Road (if there's a third, it must be well away from traffic; I don't think I've ever laid eyes on it). Concord Road is the main east-west drag through that area, and the sign on Concord was spray-painted on the morning of August 12, but clean by noon the same day. If perhaps one of Scott's other signs was moved around the corner to replace it during the interim, that'd be a reasonable explaination.

That said, the sign defacement, coming as it did at a time when Scott was (a) "enjoying" quite a bit of media attention for blowing his stack at an anti-Obamacare questioner, and (b) hiding from his constituents during the August recess, was mighty politically convenient for Scott.

At any rate, though, I do genuinely appreciate Michael's response, and hope that he'll also pass along his boss's thoughts on matters such as, say, whether congressmen representing large districts should hold multiple public meetings during weeks-long recesses, whether those congressmen should actually live in their districts, and whether or not it's appropriate for congressmen to throw their weight around in fits of NIMBY-ism.

Not So "Unexpected"

For an outfit that sees itself as a major voice in the medical field, the New England Journal of Medicine apparently doesn't spend a heck of a lot of time talking to actual doctors. Anybody who's spoken to an actual physician over the past couple of years would not find this result "unexpected":

What if nearly half of all physicians in America stopped practicing medicine? While a sudden loss of half of the nations physicians seems unlikely, a very dramatic decrease in the physician workforce could become a reality as an unexpected side effect of health reform.

...

The results from the survey, entitled “Physician Survey: Health Reform’s Impact on Physician Supply and Quality of Medical Care,” were intriguing, particularly in light of the most recently published career projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS predicts a more than a 22 percent increase in physician jobs during the ten-year period ending in 2018. This places physician careers in the top 20 fastest-growing occupations from 2008 to 2018. Meanwhile, nearly one-third of physicians responding to the survey indicated that they will want to leave medical practice after health reform is implemented.

One very experienced M.D. I know is already looking into law schools; he's just not interested in continuing to practice medicine if he's forced to become a de facto government employee subject to arbitrary regulation and Congressional price-fixing. With all due respect to the Blogfaddah, I don't really think that particular career change would be a net benefit to society...

Update on David Scott (D-Jerk)

As I predicted, Congressman David Scott has apparently prevailed in his efforts to overrule the vast majority of his Inman Park (Atlanta) neighbors regarding the location of a proposed community garden. According to Atlanta's Creative Loafing alt-weekly,

Garden Committee chair Carolyn McLaughlin tells CL the group has decided to withdraw the project’s application, which today was set to be heard for the seventh time by the city’s Urban Design Commission.

She writes: “If we made the UDC vote on our application and they voted it down, it could mean that community gardens would not be allowed anywhere in Freedom Park. We decided that we could not do that to another neighborhood.”

Garden proponents, who had planned the project for more than six months, scouted more than 10 possible sites in Freedom Park. An area along Hurt Street was determined to be ideal. But some residents who lived near the site — including Congressman David Scott, whose brick mansion is located across the street — opposed the concept. They claimed the garden could lead to parking problems and congestion, among other concerns.

A neighborhood meeting marked by he-said/she-said accusations, heated rhetoric and even a personal plea from the congressman ended without a resolution. The community’s listserv got even rowdier. Garden advocates and residents attempted to strike a compromise, we’re told, but talks appear to have broken down.

In other words, rather than have their effort struck down thanks to political pressure from David Scott, the Inman gardeners were forced to pack up and move. Nice guy, my congressman.

Ironically, Scott, who lives in Inman Park and is an absentee "representative" of the 13th Congressional District, was caught not paying his property taxes to the tune of $23,200 back in 2007. Scott was also "honored" that year by being listed as one of the "Most Corrupt" members of Congress by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in '07, after having missed over $164,000 in income tax payments. At that point, he'd collecting over 40 tax liens on his homes (including a $702,000 residence in D.C.) and businesses.

Nancy Pelosi Is Lying

From The Hill:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested Tuesday evening that Democrats would have the votes to pass healthcare legislation if it were taken up today.

Pelosi, in an interview with Bloomberg and PBS host Charlie Rose, hinted that she could pass Democrats' healthcare plans through the House if they were brought up this week.

"Yes," Pelosi said when asked if she believed the House would end up having the votes to approve healthcare.

"If we took it up today, yes," the Speaker quickly added.

Horse puckey.

If La Nancy had the votes today, she would be calling a vote... today. She wouldn't be waiting one second longer than she absolutely had to.

She doesn't have the votes, and the CBO estimate she's allegedly waiting for is not going to generate any new "yes" votes for this monstrosity.

UPDATE: Michael Barone essentially concurs.

Head's Up

Like many a gadget freak, I have been and remain an unabashed fan of Monoprice.com, the home of ridiculously cheap electronic parts, cables and (to date) outstanding customer service. Unfortunately, though, Monoprice's site has been down for a couple of days now, and according to this story from Briam Krebs, it's because their customer database has been "compromised":

Audio visual cabling giant monoprice.com shut down its Web site – possibly for the next couple of weeks – while it investigates the possible compromise of its customer credit and debit card information.

Vincent Lim, monoprice.com’s operations manager, said the company took the site offline around midnight on Friday, Mar. 5, after it received e-mails and phone calls from several customers complaining about fraudulent charges on their cards that they had used on monoprice.com.

“A few of our customers recently reported to us that information from credit cards they used on the Monoprice website had been misused,” Lim said. “We promptly began an investigation with the help of expert computer forensic investigators to determine if any card data had been stolen from our computers.”

To date, he said, investigators have found no evidence that card information has been stolen from Monoprice’s computer network. The site is now allowing customers to browse products, but Monoprice won’t be taking any new orders until the investigation is completed, Lim said.

This is pretty lousy for anybody who's had their credit card data stolen (which could well include me; my Visa card popped up a fraudulent charge a couple of weeks ago--fortunately the bank caught it even before I did), but being willing to voluntarily shut down their entire business for as long as "a couple of weeks" to track down the problem speaks well of Monoprice.

At PJM: David Scott (D-Jerk)

My latest column for Pajamas Media is up today, here's a preview:

My local congresscritter is a Democrat by the name of David Scott. Scott’s 13th District is one of the more creatively gerrymandered in Georgia (and that’s saying something). It was engineered to ensure a heavily Democratic majority (polling 62%-37% for John Kerry in 2004, when Georgia as a whole went for George W. Bush 58%-41%), with most of the district’s population centered in Clayton County, which is just south of the city of Atlanta. The rest of the district stretches around the I-285 Perimeter’s west side, finally tapering off up here in Smyrna. To continue the 2004 comparison, Smyrna precincts registered 21,972 votes for Bush to 7,834 for Kerry.

Congressman Scott is rarely seen in these parts; if it weren’t for a billboard he puts up next to the Chick-Fil-A every couple of years, I probably wouldn’t even know what he looks like. The best I can tell, Scott hasn’t held a public meeting here in Cobb County since 2008 — at least that’s what Scott staffer Michael Andel indicated when I emailed Scott’s office last summer asking when he planned to hold a recess town hall. After making a jerk of himself at a meeting in Douglas County, Scott scheduled exactly one “health care” event that summer, which was held in his home base of Clayton County and heavily attended by supportive AFSCME and SEIU members.

A few days after my emails with Andel, Scott turned up in the news thanks to a spray-painted swastika on his Smyrna branch office (about a mile from my house), which generated several Scott-friendly column-inches in the Democratic-friendly media, particularly the local Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The AJC apparently didn’t have the time to ask how Scott managed to have the defaced sign professionally replaced in a matter of hours, almost as if he’d had one ready in case of just such an emergency. Since then he’s scarcely been heard of at all — with the exception of numerous taxpayer-funded franked mailings, of course.

That is, until a couple of weeks ago...

Paranoia, The Destroyer

Sheesh:

Just as the healthcare drama in the capitol reaches a grand finale, congressional officials are warning employees to avoid the DRUDGE REPORT!

The Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works issued an urgent email late Monday claiming the DRUDGE REPORT is 'responsible for the many viruses popping up throughout the Senate.'

The committee ordered hill staff: 'Try to avoid' the DRUDGE REPORT 'for now'.

On Monday DRUDGE served over 29 million pages with NOT ONE email complaint received about 'pop ups', or the site serving 'viruses'.

Via Drudge, of course...

California Tumbles Into The Sea

Several years ago, upon being inaugurated as mayor of San Francisco, California uber-pol Willie Brown exulted, "The weather here is fine; there’s no snow and no Republicans." In the broader context of the highly-gerrymandered Golden State, Brown's single-party electorate was far from an aberration. Most of California's congressional districts are drawn to ensure an easy victory for the incumbent party, in most cases the Democratic Party.

That insulation from opposition, like any artificial monopoly on power, has incubated a considerable amount of both arrogance and ignorance among the California congressional delegation--a delegation that exercises de facto control over the House of Representatives today. From National Journal today:

[F]urther complicating her efforts, say several House members, is a rising animosity within the Caucus toward a perceived lack of sympathy from Pelosi and other House members from relatively safe districts in California -- and who hold so many key chairmanships and others leadership posts -- to the election fears of their colleagues from other states.

"Across the Caucus, there is growing dissatisfaction and resentment -- not so much directed at Pelosi --- but with her cadre of California liberals seen as continually driving her House agenda, regardless of the hits the rest of us will have to take," said one House Democrat.

The Californians cited most frequently -- and angrily -- are Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman and Education and Labor Chairman George Miller, both with key roles in healthcare legislation. But also mentioned are Ethics Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, Rep. Anna Eshoo, Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman, and Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman Xavier Becerra.

"She seems to only be listening to this small cadre, and the rank and file are expected to simply fall in line," complained a senior Democrat; he said this is contributing to Caucus animosity over the prospect of being asked once again to walk the plank on a healthcare bill, after already passing a bill last year, on top of climate legislation establishing a cap-and-trade emissions program.

This California-related blowback was one of the reasons -- though certainly not the only one -- for the mini-uprising and backlash over Rep. Pete Stark's presumed ascension to the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee, following Rangel's announcement he was temporarily stepping down, says one member.

Governing from the hard left was always a losing proposition in a country where barely a fifth of voters describe themselves as "liberal," but clearly La Nancy and her Left Coast coterie weren't sharp enough to figure that out.

They're learning now--and the lessons will continue for at least the next nine months.

Busted

Just yesterday, traitor Adam Gadahn, an American citizen who'd been serving for years as the voice of Al-Qaida, released a video encouraging other American muslims to imitate fellow traitor Nidal Hasan and commit terrorism within the United States.

Today, Pakistan grabbed the little bastard. He's in custody and presumably being interrogated.

Gadahn has been fond of aiming accusations of "torture" at Americans over the years in his propaganda statements. Golly, I wonder whether he'd rather be interrogated by the Pakistanis right now, or the Americans?

Either way, there's a needle in Fort Leavenworth waiting for this waste of oxygen--and he'll be getting off easy when it finally goes into his arm.

Power Speaking Truth

There's times in this gig when you should comment, times when you should snark, and times when you should just step back and say, "this is really remarkable, and you should read all of it."

This speech, by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, is one of the latter. A brief sample:

You know, at some point there has to be parity. There has to be parity between what is happening in the real world, and what is happening in the public sector world. The money does not grow on trees outside this building or outside your municipal building. It comes from the hard working people of our communities who are suffering and are hurting right now.

I heard someone in the legislature say two days ago that they wanted no fare hike in New Jersey Transit, no cuts in service, and no cuts in subsidy. And I was thinking to myself, man I should have made this guy treasurer. [Laughter] Because if you can pull that one off, you're obviously magic.

This is the type of awful political rhetoric that people sent me to this city to stop.

I would love to be able to do that, but I can't. I would love to tell you that municipal aid will stay level, but it's not. And it's not because we don't have the money. So you need to prepare. You need to prepare for what's coming down the line because we have no choice but to do these things.

And so we need to get honest with each other. In this instance, the political class,for which unfortunately all of us are a member of, the political class is lagging behind the public on this. The public is ready to hear that tough choices have to be made. They're not going to like it. Don't confuse the two. But they are ready to hear the truth.
...

You all know that these raises that are being given to public employees of all stripes, we cannot afford. You all know the state cannot continue to spend money it does not have. And you all know that the appetite for tax increases among our constituents has come to an end.

And so the path to reform and success is clear. We know what it is. We just have to have the courage to go there. What we are doing is showing people that government can work again for them, not for us. Government has worked for the political class for much too long.

There's no time left. We have no room left to borrow. We have no room left to tax. So we merely have room left now, to do this. We are all reaching the edge of a cliff. And it reminds me a bit of that part of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where the had a seminal decision to make. So what did they do? They held hands and they jumped off the cliff.

We have to hold hands at every level of government, state county, municipal, school board. We have to hold hands and jump off the cliff.

I mean it: read the whole thing. It might well be the most remarkable statement from an elected official in at least a generation.

Synchronicity

How is this year like other years?

Overreach on an unpopular "health care" bill? Check.

Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee busted for corruption? Check.

Majority party congressman "retiring" in disgrace over a sex scandal? Check!

Ah, if only La Nancy were in a competitive district...

That'll Leave A Mark

From a reader's email to Instapundit:

I wonder if Baby Boomers moaning about their leeching Millennial children ever gave thought to the fact that much of my generation’s upbringing, not to mention an economy captive to a welfare-entitlement tsunami, is really a function of the Boomer generation’s narcissism and we-are-the-world asshattery?

The "Millenials" are far from the only folks with that attitude. A considerable and cross-partisan chunk of my own turning-forty generation has always been resigned to the fact that we're going to be saddled with cleaning up after the irresponsible Sixties pukes.

Kaus For Senate (or, Giving Back the Boeing?)

Jaw-dropper of the day, from Mickey Kaus. I'd been wondering why he'd gone radio silent over the past several days:

I did go down to the local registrar's office Monday and take out nomination papers to run in the primary for U.S. Senator against Barbara Boxer. If I return them in timely fashion with enough signatures, I should be able to get on the June ballot. We'll see what happens.

This isn't the place to make an electioneering spiel--I don't want to be a test case of campaign finance law if I can help it. But the basic idea would be to argue, as a Democrat, against the party's dogma on several major issues (you can guess which ones). Likeminded Dem voters who assume they will vote for Sen. Boxer The Incumbent in the fall might value a mechanism that lets them register their dissent in the primary.

Good for Mickey. I'll certainly be rooting for him in the primary.

Mickey also notes that his blog's status with Slate is now up in the air, but one way or another it will remain reachable via kausfiles.com.