KEITH HENNESSEY: Obama’s Buffett Rule Is Vaporware. “The President has not actually proposed a tax policy that fits this principle. Neither his budget nor the tax proposals released by Treasury include any policy specifics to establish a new minimum 30% tax rate for those with income > $1M. . . . It’s OK to call on Congress to enact a policy that you describe only through broad-based principles. But when you do this you cannot also claim ‘We won’t be adding to the deficit.’ The only way you can legitimately make such a claim is if you offer a specific proposal to back it up.” This is more like voting “present.”

NATURE FAKERY: “The vogue of environmentalism stems from two ancient myths disguised today by a thin veil of scientific authority.”

FROM JAMES TARANTO, THE TWEET OF THE DAY: Weird religion: Satan is against America. Normal religion: “God damn America.” (Bumped).

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Damaged U.S. Passport Chip Strands Passengers: “Damaging the embedded chip in your passport is now grounds for denying you the ability to travel in at least one airport in the U.S. Though the airport can slide the passport through the little number reader as easily as they can wave it in front of an RFID reader, they chose to deny a young child access to the flight, in essence denying the whole family. The child had accidentally sat on his passport, creasing the cover, and the passport appeared worn. The claim has been made that breaking the chip in the passport shows that you disrespect the privilege of owning a passport, and that the airport was justified in denying this child from using the passport.”

That sounds like statist language, doesn’t it: “disrespect the privilege of owning a passport.”

Privilege? Tar and feathers, at least, is a right, not a privilege. What’s the name of the officious idiot behind this? Make it public.

UPDATE: Here’s the officious idiot.

TESTIMONY: Scott Pace on Lightsquared and GPS.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Canada’s Long-Gun Registry Fades Out.

MEGAN MCARDLE ON PETER GLEICK’S GLOBAL-WARMING FAKERY: “I hardly know what to say about the latest developments in the Heartland document dump. Profanity seems too weak, and incredulity too tame. . . . Gleick has done enormous damage to his cause and his own reputation, and it’s no good to say that people shouldn’t be focusing on it. If his judgement is this bad, how is his judgement on matters of science? For that matter, what about the judgement of all the others in the movement who apparently see nothing worth dwelling on in his actions? When skeptics complain that global warming activists are apparently willing to go to any lengths–including lying–to advance their worldview, I’d say one of the movement’s top priorities should be not proving them right.”

Plus this: “After you have convinced people that you fervently believe your cause to be more important than telling the truth, you’ve lost the power to convince them of anything else.” Indeed.

Also, from John Hinderaker: “So, Peter Gleick: if I am wrong, sue me. If I am right, apologize for fabricating a document and attempting to perpetrate a hoax, and retire from public life.”

And Jonathan Adler observes: “This is just incredible (and not only because Gleick was chairing a working group on scientific integrity at the time of his actions). . . . Much of the clmate science community seems unable to condemn Gleick’s conduct (see, e.g. here), just as some environmentalist groups and climate activists have a hard time acknowledging the frequent exaggeration or ‘sexing up’ of climate studies to accentuate the threat posed by climate change. (And I say this as someone who believes climate change is a problem and supports appropriate policies to address the threat.)”

SHOULD I FILE THIS UNDER “HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE?” These Are The Insanely Expensive Cars That GWU Students Drive. “Students at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. don’t just complain about easy grades, they also drive cars so nice you’d think their campus was the parking lot of the Mall of the Emirates in Dubai. In the photo composite above is about $1.2 million worth of automobiles allegedly belonging to college students. Do your best not to hate them.”

IF YOU FAILED TO STOCK UP ON INCANDESCENT BULBS, you can still take advantage of this.

Also, today only: Panasonic DECT 6.0 PLUS Link-to-Cell via Bluetooth Cordless Phone, $54.99. I’ve got an earlier model — no bluetooth-to-cell connection — and it’s quite good.

UPDATE: Will Collier writes:

That Panasonic phone you’re linking today is very nice, and makes it easy to cut the landline cord. We have ours Bluetooth-linked to an old cell phone that we ported our old home number to, saving us a good $20/month on AT&T’s ridiculous landline charges. Works just like a “regular” phone line, and you can buy additional phones to put around the house if two aren’t enough. My only complaint is that the built-in answering machine doesn’t work for “cell-only” mode.

Interesting. And reader Colin Frazier writes:

Anyone who
1. has dropped home phone service in favor of using a mobile phone AND
2. has a larger-than-two-room home AND
3. has pants without pockets (that is, someone who is a woman :-)

will love the Link-to-Cell functionality. I got one for my parents. They use it with no land line and two cell phones. They drop their cell phones by the Panasonic base station when they walk in the house and they connect automatically. Inbound calls ring all their cordless ones. Likewise, they can make calls out through their cell phones from any cordless set. You can even easily transition to or from the cell phone to take a call on the road or to finish one at home.

That’s cool.

RAND SIMBERG: FakeGate: Can’t Hide This Decline. “Peter Gleick adds yet more fraud to the warmists’ resume.” It seems to me that people who were confident in the science would behave differently.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Gun culture spreads in India: Indians own about 40 million guns, second only to the U.S. Rising incomes, along with crime and fear of terrorist attacks, have fueled firearms purchases..

Perhaps one day soon the right to arms will be recognized as an international human right.

HEH: I Am a Nigerian Scientist. I Need Your Help Processing a $9,500,000 Climate Research Grant.

Related: Take a close look at the crisis manager that lil’ ol’ Peter Gleick has taken on: Chris Lehane, who worked for the Clinton White House during Whitewater and Monicagate.

Also: Meet the criminal defense attorney who’s representing lil’ ol’ Peter Gleick: John Keker, who defended Enron’s CFO Andrew Fastow.

Well, they’re both experienced with fraud and coverups.

A FRACKING TIMELINE:

Last week, ProPublica posted a big fancy chart about hydraulic fracturing on its website that purports to show that “government involvement with the drilling technique goes back decades.” (By “drilling technique” we assume they’re referring to hydraulic fracturing, even though, as a point of fact, hydraulic fracturing is not a drilling technique.) It’s a less-than-veiled attempt to provide cover for the claim that it was the federal government, not private industry, that facilitated the growth of shale development. But as we already know, that claim lacks merit. As Professor Michael Giberson of Texas Tech University has observed, the federal government’s role was “merely convenient to technological advancement and not necessary.” (emphasis added)

And, as it turns out, the chart is defined more by what it omits than what it includes. So, we decided to make our own timeline to provide everyone with a little more context (and facts) about the history of hydraulic fracturing, not to mention its incredible safety record.

More at the link.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Obama’s Double Talk on Sky-High Gas Prices.

When gas prices hit $4 a gallon in 2008, candidate Barack Obama said it was due to previous failed energy policies. Now that prices are heading still higher, President Obama calls it progress.

Already, pump prices are higher than they’ve been in previous years, suggesting they will top $4 soon and possibly reach an unprecedented $5 this summer.

President Obama is starting to notice the political implications. So he sent Robert Gibbs — now a top campaign adviser — out to tell the public not to worry.

Read the whole thing.

HMM: Congressional investigations sought over IRS ‘assault’ on tea party groups.

Well, when the President jokes about auditing his enemies, you can expect the worker-bees to pick up on the message. I warned at the time that the President’s thuggish “joke” would cause a loss of faith in the IRS.

DOUG BANDOW: End College Sports’ Indentured Servitude: Pay “Student Athletes.”

DAVID HARSANYI: Hey, Wait — Aren’t High Gas Prices What Democrats Want? Yeah, but they don’t like to admit it in an election year.

IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, Michael Shermer reviews Peter Diamandis’ and Steven Kotler’s Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think.

DON SURBER: “Glenn Kessler called Mitt Romney a liar for accurately quoting Barack Obama.” Well, that’s dirty pool, isn’t it? Bringing up a statement that’s no longer operative?

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN I’D SEE HEADLINES LIKE THIS: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About the President’s Secret Army. And they were right!

SO WHERE ARE ALL THE STORIES ABOUT THE “WEAK DEMOCRATIC FIELD?” Quinnipiac: Obama Barely Ahead of Romney, Santorum.

OOPS: Someone Forgot To Obtain A Waiver.

JAMES TARANTO: Mystification and Triumphalism: Why the left can’t handle the truth about social conservatism. I’m no social-con, but the media spin is pathetic.

Taranto continues:

Krugman and Alter were both born in the 1950s, which is to say that they are both baby boomers. Both were too young to be protesting on campus in 1968, but both are old enough that the triumph of contemporary feminism and the sexual revolution coincided with their formative years. That is to say, both presumably cast their lot with the cultural left in its moment of triumph and in the belief that by doing so, they were putting themselves on the side of progress.

That was an understandable thing for them to believe given the times and what one assumes were their predispositions. But while feminism and the sexual revolution have been great for high-status men like Krugman and Alter (full disclosure: and this columnist), and for those women who place a high value on professional careers, things have not worked out so well for those who are less privileged.

That is a truth so undeniable that it can even slip past the editorial filters at the New York Times.

That is big. On the other hand, there’s no love for Bill Bennett among the Pickup Artist community. Then again, that’s consistent with Taranto’s point, isn’t it?

(And I do like the way he uses the “full disclosure” trope as a way of quietly bragging that he’s big with the ladies . . . .)

UPDATE

THE AUDACITY OF OUTRIGHT LIES: White House spokesman Jay Carney had the audacity to say, “the President didn’t turn down the Keystone pipeline” even though that’s exactly what he did. On Facebook, Jim Treacher comments: “Jay Carney used to be a journalist. Why is he so bad at lying?”

Related: White House seeks to deflect blame over rising gas prices.