Quote of the Year Finalist

... I know it's still only January, but this has to be in the running for the quote of the year. Judge Roger Vinson has basically struck down the entire health care bill, saying this:

It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place.

Awesome.

Editorial Control

... our Maximum Leader exercises it daily.

It Will Now Be Referred To As The C&W Words

Secular Apostate turns us on to a race spat at UC Irvine that is stereotypical* of the kind of fussing that goes on about race these days.

A California university says it was bad taste to serve chicken and waffles on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Officials at the University of California, Irvine, say the menu of stereotypical black food was served on Jan. 17 — the first day of the school’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. symposium.

The dining hall advertised the meal as an “MLK Holiday Special.”

The co-chairman of the school’s Black Student Union and another student lodged formal complaints.

Complaints about what? Last week I went to Bonnie Jean's Soul Food here in San Diego. One of my friends had their famous ... Chicken and Waffles. The food was great and the service friendly. They make all of their meals from scratch when you order, so it takes about half an hour to get your food. They've cleverly erected** a set of shelves containing family games for you to play while you wait. A couple at a table nearby played Uno*** while their food was prepared.

As for UC Irvine, I wonder if any of the diners listened to Niggaz Wit Attitudes music as they walked up to the dining hall.

Update: The editorial staff of The Scratching Post would like to apologize for showing insensitivity in the previous sentence. We used a term that should not be spoken in polite company and should be a referred to by it's initial. We acknowledge our mistake and beg your forgiveness. No one among the Clever-Americans should ever have to hear the word "wit." We fully support the efforts of sensitive academics everywhere to make our speech witless.

* - This will now be referred to as the "S" word in sensitivity to Abnormally-Normal-Americans.

** - This will now be referred to as the "E" word in sensitivity to Oversexed-Americans.

*** - This will now be referred to as the "U" word in sensitivity to Math-challenged-Americans.

Hillary and Barack Thread the Needle

I thought this was about as good a response to the Egyptian crisis as one could hope for out of Washington.

WASHINGTON--Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for an "orderly, peaceful transition" to a "real democracy" in Egypt, and said the U.S. wants to see free and fair elections in Egypt as a result of the antigovernment unrest.

Although U.S. officials have been careful not to call for the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Mrs. Clinton's comments on the Sunday morning news shows seemed to inch the U.S. government toward pushing the Egyptian president to let go of his grip on power.

It would also seem to doom Mubarak. Elections would not be good to him.

The Beginnings of Anarchy

Judith Levy has the best synopsis of the Egyptian rioting and it can be found here. A tidbit:

ON THE STREETS: The beginnings of anarchy. The police have thrown in the towel, leaving the maintenance of law and order to the army -- but the soldiers inside the tanks, who have chosen for the most part to stand by inactive while crowds pour into the streets in defiance of the dawn-to-dusk curfew, are also doing little to keep the protesters safe.

It's definitely worth a click to read the whole thing. Here's some video of the army and the protestors interacting:

More from Ms. Levy:

WITHIN THE MILITARY: Egypt has the draft. Unlike its policemen, its soldiers are not in uniform voluntarily. From Mubarak's perspective, the men inside the tanks could have gone either way, and they are indeed showing themselves to be undecided at best: they are neither cracking down on the protesters nor actively defending them. Many striking images are circulating of soldiers emerging from their tanks to be held aloft on the shoulders of protesters, but less mention is being made of the protesters urging the soldiers to open fire on the riot police -- a step they refused to take. The army has not formally taken any side and is unlikely to do so until it becomes clearer whether or not Suleiman -- an ex-general who is perceived as the army's candidate -- will take power.

Check out all the wreckage in the streets. Also, consider this: the streets themselves are being wrecked. An M-60A1 tank, Egypt's primary tank, weighs in at around 50 tons. Once you start doing donuts around the main streets, the asphalt is toast. After this thing dies down and Egypt returns to something resembling normalcy, shipping within Cairo is going to be problematic.

On the plus side, those tanks are delivering a Keynesian's dream: shovel-ready projects. Yay!

Update: Dig the looting going on in the last 30 seconds of the video. I love the guy with the plasma TV in a box.

Reagan Telling Soviet Union Jokes

... can be found here. They were great!

Link of the Day

Cat Vomits on Sofa; Climate of Hate Blamed.

LOL!

Our Knight-Protector Adds A Crucial Teammate To His Staff

Sir, the residents of the Catican will sleep even more soundly than before ...

Oh goodness. I can picture the shredded upholstery and window blinds now. Not to mention feeling the sting of needlepoint claws sinking into bare legs as I walk through a dimly lit house. So how the blazes did I get talked into going to the animal shelter "just to look around and see what they have". Right. I should have seen that one coming.

Well done!

Cheezburger of the Day

... maybe of the month!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Egypt

The thing that jumped out at me from these videos is the fierceness of the clashes. It's not lobbing a few Molotov cocktails followed by some tear gas followed by a few gestures and running away. These people are angry.

I'll confess, I'm not sure who the players are. The drama, however, is unmistakable.

Update: I did a tiny bit of research. According to the WSJ, is driven by economics and corruption. It doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that could be blamed on the Jews.

A Proposed Location for the First 2012 Presidential Debate

Let's do it at the United Artists Theater in Detroit. Without renovations. Question #1: What did we get for $850B+ of Stimuloid Porkgasm™?


Click on the image to go to the source of the photo.

H/T: Secular Apostate.

A Narrowly Averted Catastrophe

The crack editorial staff of The Scratching Post awoke this morning to find that our Interweb Tubes were down. We had only our Droid 2 and Verizon between us and regression into a primitive, savage, possibly cannibalistic state of societal decay. Fortunately, Time Warner rectified the situation before we fell upon each other like wild beasts, burning down our offices in a spasm of prehistoric violence.

It's sobering to realize that civilization balances on the edge of just such a knife every day.

Cheezburger of the Day

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

This Is Not The Time To Talk About Investments In Green Energy And High Speed Rail

The deficit will hit a record high this year. The days of Social Security being used as a piggy bank are over. It's going to be a net seller of Treasuries from here on out.

Meanwhile, Japan, one of our biggest creditors, is starting to go over the cliff.

Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s credit rating was cut for the first time in nine years by Standard & Poor’s as persistent deflation and political gridlock undermine efforts to reduce a 943 trillion yen ($11 trillion) debt burden.

The world’s most indebted nation is now ranked at AA-, the fourth-highest level, putting the country on a par with China, which likely passed Japan last year to become the second-largest economy. The government lacks a “coherent strategy” to address the nation’s debt, the rating company said in a statement. The outlook for the rating is stable, S&P said.

Coherent strategy?!? What kiond of coherent strategy can you have when you're debt load is 200% of your GDP and you've grown accustomed to massive deficit spending? They're doomed. Before they go down, they're going to sell about $900B of US Treasuries.

So forget about high speed rail and green energy and higher education and all the rest. It's time to grow up.

Why Is There a State of the Union Speech Every Year?

Peter Robinson leads an excellent discussion of it on this week's Ricochet podcast.

The Windbag Meets the Irresistable Force

The NYT has this take on Obama's State of the Union call for more spending.

WASHINGTON — At a moment when the momentum in Washington is driving toward slashing budgets and shrinking government, President Obama argued on Tuesday evening that the politics of austerity, mindlessly applied, would amount to a pre-emptive surrender to China, India and a raft of smaller competitors who are investing while Americans are cutting.

In contrast, here's a compound interest table followed by a video of a freight train. (Be sure to multiply the numbers in the table by 1,400,000,000.) Enjoy.

My Take on a Take on the State of the Union Speech

Apparently, there was some kind of gathering in DC where someone gave a speech last night. The speech, as I understand it, was long and dull. It was followed by pundits reacting to it. Elsewhere, physics and chemistry still held sway as did mathematics and the workings of compound interest tables. The PJ Tatler has a partial roundup of reactions. Here's one.

Penny Nance, Concerned Women for America: “President Obama gets an “F” on the idea of a “freeze” on government spending. The President’s plan basically rearranges the deck chairs on the Titanic. It is too little too late to rescue our economy and the current $14 Trillion debt will only continue to grow. Concerned Women for America calls for the President to blah blah blah blah blah*”

Here's my reaction to the reaction.

Honestly, who calls themselves "Concerned Women for America?" They might as well cover themselves in hijabs. Who wants to hear from them, anyway? I want to know what Tiffany from "Hotties for Another Round of Mojitos" had to say about the speech.

* - I'm not sure if she really said "blah blah blah." I lost interest and didn't follow what was written.

Two Politicians

Tim Pawlenty (H/T: Claire Berlinski of Ricochet):

Ronald Reagan:

Notice a difference?

Good, Old-fashioned, Midwestern Love

God bless you, sir.

Men's Dress Shirts Without A Front Pocket Are Worthless

Worthless!