In Congress too long: Reps. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) and Lamar Smith (R-Texas)

Who are

...pleased as punch to require your ISP to retain scads of data about your online doings and then sell that info (free for nothing) down the river to Mr. Obama's overseer Attorney General Eric Holder.  They could not be more proud to turn your Constitution-readin’, gun-ownin’ online self over to the Feds, in fact.

Well, we know all that “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” stuff is sooooo overrated, anyway.


UPDATE (110131 03:00), Elsewhere:

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Clipfile - January 25, 2011

“...It must suck to be a radical these days.  You can’t have conversations in which you pine for revolution without every damn website linking to it.” - “Pogo,” commenting at Althouse

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As night follows day...

Instapundit:

...followed by brownouts and blackouts in 3... 2... 1...

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“I’ll just soldier on with being disagreeable”

Me, too.

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One less reason to watch the Super Bowl

ESPN’s Gregg Easterbrook brings the bad news:

...There will be no cheerleaders at the Super Bowl.  Green Bay and Pittsburgh, the last teams standing, are among the small number of NFL franchises that do not have a professional cheer-babe squad...

Because the Super Bowl is the sole NFL game each season to which both teams bring their cheerleaders, normally one of the treats of attending the final contest is gorgeous, scantily attired, dancing women along both sidelines.  Instead, in XII days in Dallas, there will be no cheerleaders at all.  How could this happen?  This is America!

Hope-n-change?

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Whaddaya mean, “we”?

While digging under the rocks over at the CSM, Roberta uncovered an opinion piece by Dr. Anthony Schlaff attaking Republican opposition to Obamacare’s insurance mandate, and containing this lulu:

“...let us not forget that we as a society created our government to make our choices...”

Well, sorta, kinda, maybe.  I mean, government-by-strongman has always been about the rulers “making choices” for the ruled, expressed as “Do what I choose, or I’ll kill you.”  And representative government has always been about unloading the minutiae of administration from the backs of the populace.

But I don’t think that the founders woke up one morning saying, “It’s just what America needs: A government that will make our choices for us, so we don’t have to!”  I always thought that our government was more about backing up the individual citizen on the stuff that might be burdensome or difficult: “...establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty,” and the like.  Nor do I believe that, once created, our government was supposed to go merrily on its way, with the citizens having no right to tell it, “Sorry, you got it wrong.”  (See: Election, 2010.)

Dr. Schlaff must live in a different society than I do.

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In Congress too long: Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.)

The Hill:

Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) said he would propose a bill in the coming weeks that would ban the carrying of guns within [1000 feet of] the president, vice president, members of Congress and federal judges.

...because assassins always obey the law.

King made the announcement accompanied by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg...

Oh, why am I not surprised?

Hey Mayor, how’s that snow removal goin’?

Related:

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In Congress too long: Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.)

“We’ve had some incidents where TSA authorities think that congresspeople should be treated like everybody else.  Well, the fact of the matter is, we are held to a higher standard in so many other areas, and I think we need to take a hard look at exactly how the TSA interact with members of Congress.”

’Cause we wouldn’t want to have congressmen mistaken for proles, now would we?

Actually, members of congress should get special treatment:  They should be subject to “enhanced” screening, good and hard, every time they fly.

(Quote from The Hill, via IP.)

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Indy Blog•Meet this coming Sunday

(That’s Sunday the 16th, that is...)

Your chance to meet (the usual) interesting people!  (Great beer, too.)

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Snow Job

Brendan O’Neill, exploring the “chasm that separates the warming-obsessed elite from the rest of us”:

Perhaps the most revealing thing about the snow crisis is that it was held up as evidence, not that the experts were mistaken, but that the public is stupid.  Apparently it’s those who ask ‘Whatever happened to global warming?’, rather than those who predicted ‘no more traditional British winters’, who need to have their heads checked.  Because what they don’t understand - ignoramuses that they are - is that heavy snow is also proof that our planet is getting hotter, and that industrialised society is to blame, just as surely as the absence of snow was proof of the same thing 10 years ago.
...
...What we have here is an updated version of the elitist idea that the better classes have access to a profound and complicated truth that the rest of us cannot grasp.

As it turns out, they did. But not as you might predict:

Met Office knew big freeze was coming but hushed it up

The Met Office [the UK’s national weather service, a government agency-o.g.] warned [government] ministers to expect an ‘exceptionally cold winter’ but then kept the prediction secret from the public.

The forecaster decided not to reveal the information because it was embarrassed after wrongly predicting a ‘barbecue summer’ in 2009, BBC analyst Roger Harrabin said.

The Register:

But back in October, the Met published maps showing a high probability of a warmer-than-average winter.  The Met vigorously denies the map, reproduced below, is a “forecast”.
.

Meanwhile, Britain’s government explores ways to shame the proles into eating their vegetables:

Shoppers will be bombarded with messages at supermarket check-outs about eating fruit and vegetables, under plans being considered by Ministers.

Trolleys could even come with a painted line marking where customers should put their healthy produce as part of the proposals which critics will see as an expansion of the nanny state.

Unhealthy options – such as crisps and pies – may be placed on higher shelves than low-calorie and high-fibre foods to dissuade shoppers from buying them.

The proposals are part of the Coalition’s attempt to ‘nudge’ Britons towards healthy choices and are the brainchild of the Behavioural Insight Team...

“Behavioural Insight Team.”  How nicely Orwellian.

Related:

HT:  Insty (for O’Neill)

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