Not even the UK's reliably left-wing Guardian can put a good face on the Copenhagen Fiasco, otherwise known as the Climate Summit:

With just two days remaining, the inability to overcome disagreements about the shape of a deal to combat global warming led to hours of inaction today , while outside the negotiations police clashed with protesters who broke through a security cordon but failed in an attempt to storm the conference centre.

So we've come to this: lefty protesters protesting…the climate…and demanding that governments, of all improbable institutions, do something about it. Turn down the thermostat, Barack! Yes, you can! I just wonder how much carbon all that tear gas is releasing into Ma Earth's fragile atmosphere…?

Posted by tmg110 at 7:08 AM CST

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Michael Moore can always be counted on to put an ugly face on progressivism’s worst instincts. He’s doing it now in the context of his meltdown over the direction of ObamaCare. Here’s Mike’s most recent Tweet: “People of Connecticut: What have u done 2 this country? We hold u responsible. Start recall of Lieberman 2day or we'll boycott your state.” Uh-oh—no more antiwar protests, Earth Day marches or same-sex marriages in the Nutmeg State. That’s some threat!

Moore’s upset with Connecticut because the state’s Senator Joe Lieberman drove a stake through the heart of the public option. And he does have a point of sorts. With the p.o. gone, all that remains of “reform” is a sweetheart deal for insurance companies. True, they’ll become lapdogs of Big Government—but in return they’ll enjoy guaranteed profits, squeezed out of a captive market. That’s just farcical, and I can certainly understand why Moore is bent out of shape. Not that his solution is better. In the annals of really stupid ideas, “Medicare for all” gets four stars and a ring of the bell.

Now Moore and other lumpenprogressive thugs are out for Lieberman’s political blood. Their purge is sure to embroil additional Democratic p.o. skeptics as the party base processes its rage and disappointment over this great betrayal. Let them tear one another’s throats out, I say. Progressive fratricide can only be good for conservatism—and for the country.

Posted by tmg110 at 6:58 AM CST

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Last night I watched for the third or fourth time George Pal's The War of the Worlds (1953), one of those movies that shouldn't work, but does. Transplanting H.G. Wells' Martian invasion from the English Home Counties, circa 1898, to Southern California, early 1950s, seems ill-advised enough. But larding the story with religious sensibility must have set poor H.G. spinning in his grave. The movie's air of can-do American gumption and prayerful Christianity is about as far from the mental universe of the original novel as can well be imagined. One scene even includes a square dance! But no matter: The War of the Worlds is good, clean sci-fi fun, happily unencumbered by Earnest Messages or Weighty Philosophical Considerations.

My favorite War of the Worlds moment comes just before the fighting erupts. Observing the Martians' landing zone from a sandbagged bunker, General Mann (Les Tremayne) intones, "They'll probably move at dawn." Never has a film cliché been delivered with such perfect pitch! And sure enough, the war begins right on schedule with the incineration by heat ray of the saintly Pastor Collins (Lewis Martin). The troops surrounding the landing zone are routed with great slaughter, and the next thing you know, civilization itself is on the point of collapse. Not even the atom bomb, delivered by the US Air Force's Flying Wing, can arrest the progress of the invasion. In the end, of course, the Martians are defeated, in a clear manifestation of God's favor, by humble terrestrial bacteria against which the Martians have no defense.

The special effects are nothing special by modern standards, but their very crudity lends the movie a certain period charm. As for the acting, Gene Barry, Ann Robinson and the rest of the cast do all right in their admittedly undemanding roles. Don't expect much in the way of character development—like the SF pulps from which it draws inspiration, The War of the Worlds isn't too interested in the inner lives of its characters. It's simplistic, sensational, shallow, wide-eyed, unintentionally funny in spots—and isn't that what we sometimes want in a movie? I'll take this one over the elephantine Spielberg/Cruise version any day.

Posted by tmg110 at 6:34 AM CST

Updated: Thursday, 17 December 2009 7:04 AM CST

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

President Obama has been demonizing those evil insurance companies for weeks, so perhaps a few eyebrows should be raised at his support for the health care "reform" bill now being debated in the Senate:

In essence, it’s a requirement that all Americans pay health-insurance premiums to secure qualified coverage. And if there is no government-run option, the public will have no choice but to pay their premiums to private insurers. Yes, that’s right. The Democratic party is on the verge of enacting a requirement, enforced with federal tax penalties, which would effectively require hard-working Americans to hand over even more of their wages to profit-hungry, private insurance companies.

If this doesn't make sense to you, remember that we've long since passed the point where the actual contents of a health care "reform" bill matter. Now it's all about passing something—even if it breaks every past promise and makes no sense whatsoever.

The irony is exquisite. Just about the only provision of Democrat health care "reform" that polls well with the public is the so-called public option. But at the insistence of Senator Joe Lieberman, the p.o. has been stripped from the Senate bill. Progressives are of course furious. They've always regarded the p.o. as a first step toward their ultimate goal: a government-run, single-payer health care system.

If the Senate bill or anything like it is enacted into law, the 2010 elections will be disastrous for the Democratic Party. Health care reform, Democrats' Holy Grail since the days of FDR, may well prove to be the party's Waterloo. We can but hope!

(Hat tip: James C. Capretta, posting on NRO's "Critical Condition" blog.)

Posted by tmg110 at 8:24 AM CST

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

No, no, that's not some kind of racial slur. It is, rather, an ideological descriptor referring to global warming activists: green on the outside, red on the inside. For as has now become obvious, climate alarmism is the new Bolshevism.

Think I'm exaggerating? Just take a look at what's going on across the pond in Copenhagen. Whatever that circus is all about, it's got little to do with anything that can be described as science. It is, rather, a broad-front assault on capitalism and liberal democracy on behalf of a bogus environmentalism.

Writing in the American Spectator, Peter Ferrara explains how the scientific case for global warming has collapsed. But, as he points out, the political case for climate activism remains powerfully attractive to progressives. In the name of saving the planet, these Watermelon People are plotting to transfer vast power from individuals and markets to transnational bureaucracies and unaccountable "experts." For a long time, the Watermelons were riding the crest of a powerful wave—but 2010 may turn out to be the year that the tide went out for them.

Posted by tmg110 at 7:13 AM CST

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

The Land of Lincoln's reward for making itself into one of the most deeply azure of Blue States, and for giving America The Greatest President Who Absolutely Ever Was: not the Olympics for Chicago but Gitmo on the Mississippi. That's right, the world's most dangerous Islamofascist terrorists will soon be transferred from Gitmo to the Thomson Correctional Center, which lies just 150 miles south of Chicago. Now that's what I call cosmic justice!

Posted by tmg110 at 7:08 AM CST

Updated: Tuesday, 15 December 2009 7:17 AM CST

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Senator Joe Lieberman is dubious of the wisdom of Harry Reid's latest iteration of ObamaCare. Regarding the so-called public option as a budget-buster, he has said that he can't support any bill that contains it or anything like it. This includes the latest Reid proposal: extending Medicare to people between 55 and 64

And the Left's reaction to what they see as Lieberman's apostasy? The Senator has been accused of acting from motives of petty revenge against party progressives who attempted to unseat him in 2006. Attempts are being made to drive the Senator's wife from her position with a breast cancer charity. Progressive pundit Ezra Klein calls Lieberman "stupid" and accuses him of endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. This from people who have been busy of late accusing Republicans of ideological bigotry!

(A tip of the hat to the Weekly Standard's John McCormack for this roundup of progressive hate-Lieberman ranting.)

Posted by tmg110 at 6:25 AM CST

Updated: Wednesday, 16 December 2009 7:57 AM CST

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

I have to second this one: Barack Obama is The Most Boring Man in the World.

So claims National Review’s Rich Lowry in his amusingly on-target article. And it’s true—you can’t turn on the TV or bring up your Internet home page without encountering some prize specimen of the Obama cult. “Obama Asks Moms to Return to School!” Comcast informs me just about every morning. Then there are the presidential speeches. As Lowry correctly observes, they’re possessed of a brain-numbing sameness that leaves the listener wondering just what it was the President was saying.

The idea of Barack Obama—young, smart, classy, cool, charming and, above all, black—was enough to get him elected. But it soon became evident that he has no class. Now we’re finding out that he’s got no charm, either. Having Obama for president is like being seated next to a crashing bore at a dinner party. He just won’t shut up and besides, the food is terrible.

Posted by tmg110 at 7:31 AM CST

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

We finally have a fresh new idea for combating climate change: let the whole world adopt China’s one-child policy. So opines Canadian journalist Diane Francis in this article for the Financial Post.

If you’re surprised that a good, decent Canadian liberal would make such a monstrous suggestion, you shouldn’t be. Progressives have long been enamored of birth control in all forms—and it’s but a short step, after all, from making abortion a sacrament to making it compulsory. Perhaps the Environmental Protection Agency could declare human beings themselves to be a health hazard. A precedent exists, inasmuch as the EPA already so designates human exhalation. And women who failed to comply with this planet-saving fatwa could simply be denied medical services—which, if Obama-style health care "reform" is implemented, would be an easy penalty to impose

I’m kidding, of course, but it’s sobering to reflect that zealots like Ms. Francis might seriously entertain my suggestions. Oh, and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that she herself is the mother of two children.

Posted by tmg110 at 7:24 AM CST

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

This week the EPA went ahead and issued its long-threatened finding that carbon dioxide is a threat to human health. That's right, with every breath you exhale, you're spewing a dangerous pollutant into the atmosphere.

If this sounds kooky, that's because it is. For a months, the Obama Administration has been trying to pressure Congress into passing an unpopular carbon tax. The implied threat: If you folks in Congress don't take action, the EPA will be forced to begin regulating 70% of the nation's economy.

But as Kim Strassel points out in this article for the Wall Street Journal, things haven't quite worked out as expected. On the contrary, Congress appears relieved that the Administration has assumed responsibility for carbon regulation. Why take an unpopular, politically risky action when someone else is willing to do it for you? Bye-bye cap and trade!

The idea that the EPA can regulate carbon emissions across the economy is, of course, ridiculous. What it can do, though, is generate mountains of regulations, miles of red tape and scores of convoluted lawsuits. It'll be costly—but fun to watch. I wonder if President Obama and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson are familiar with the story of the Tar Baby?

Posted by tmg110 at 6:51 AM CST

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink