WELL, THE RESERVATIONS COULDN’T HAVE BEEN THAT BAD: With Reservations, Obama Signs Act to Allow Detention of Citizens.
I saw this commentary from Occupy Canada on Facebook:
Archive for 2012
January 2, 2012
MICKEY KAUS: E-Verify As A Wedge Issue? “E-Verify seems like a great wedge issue: a popular and sensible policy that puts Obama in a richly-deserved tough spot, forcing him to choose between pleasing voters generally and continuing his desperate Hispandering initiative. … Bonus: It would especially appeal to the non-trivial number of African Americans who believe, with some justification, that illegal immigrants are taking jobs unskilled African Americans used to get.”
BEWARE THE FAT TRAP. “For 15 years, Joseph Proietto has been helping people lose weight. When these obese patients arrive at his weight-loss clinic in Australia, they are determined to slim down. And most of the time, he says, they do just that, sticking to the clinic’s program and dropping excess pounds. But then, almost without exception, the weight begins to creep back. In a matter of months or years, the entire effort has come undone, and the patient is fat again. . . . While researchers have known for decades that the body undergoes various metabolic and hormonal changes while it’s losing weight, the Australian team detected something new. A full year after significant weight loss, these men and women remained in what could be described as a biologically altered state. Their still-plump bodies were acting as if they were starving and were working overtime to regain the pounds they lost.” As with quitting smoking, it’s easier not to become fat in the first place than to lose weight and keep it off.
UPDATE: Some diet advice.
AT AMAZON, New Year’s Deals in Exercise & Fitness.
Also, today only: a Schwinn elliptical trainer for $279.99.
THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED OVER THE HOLIDAY WEEKEND, if you were out, you know, having a life or something:
My Sunday Washington Examiner column: When Muddling Through Is The Best You Can Hope For.
2011: The Year Intellectual Property Trumped Civil Liberties.
Amy Alkon and the Insta-Wife talk about men.
Revising my Venn diagrams. “I would have thought that the circles representing ‘people who have endorsed Ron Paul’ and ‘people who defend the competence of Obama’s central economic planning’ wouldn’t overlap.”
Flag-burning at Occupy Charlotte.
The left-wing origins of Newt Gingrich’s attack on the courts.
Obama Fundraiser Guilty in $21 Million Bank Fraud Scheme.
4000 GM Sonics recalled because auto workers forgot to install brake pads.
Women who drink wine every day have better sex.
Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Soviet Union’s demise.
Surrendering Afghanistan to the Taliban?
Saving money with “strategic shopping.”
I talk with Bill Whittle about why blogs are here to stay.
Taylor Marsh throws in the towel on Obama.
Whatever you do, don’t follow this link if you’re Tim Geithner.
HEROES WITH A GUN: Passers-by save 3 kids from icy river drowning. “Former police officer Chris Willden didn’t hesitate when he realized children were trapped in an upside down car in an icy Utah river. He pulled his handgun, pushed it up against the submerged windows and shot out the glass. Then he reached inside. . . . Highway Patrol Lt. Steve Winward said that after shooting out a window, the rescuer cut a seatbelt to free one child. He said the rescuers helped turn the Honda Accord upright in the Logan River. They lifted the car enough to free the three trapped children. . . . Mullahkel said the scene reminded him of another heroic rescue in Logan earlier this year. In that case, bystanders lifted a burning car off an injured motorcyclist and pulled him to safety. The motorcyclist survived and is recovering from his injuries.”
It’s good to have a pocketknife, too. Or at least one of these.
SOPA UPDATE: Online community Reddit driving opposition to piracy bill. “Members of Congress and their staff have grown used to scouring the Web, Twitter and Facebook to see where voters stand before finalizing their positions. But the heated debate over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has turned the social news website Reddit into an unlikely rallying point for opponents of the bill. . . . Last week a protest thread started on Reddit against the domain name registrar GoDaddy prompted a large-scale boycott of the firm, forcing GoDaddy to reverse its support for the bill and trumpet the news. The boycott and most of the other organizing efforts currently underway on Reddit are organic, driven by the grassroots community of loyal users that dictate which stories top the site’s feed. But Reddit, owned by Conde Nast parent company Advanced Publications, has joined Tumblr, Mozilla and other Web firms in declaring open opposition to SOPA.”
Related: Take 30 Seconds To Stop Online Censorship.
You can call Congress right here. (Reposted from yesterday, because this is important).
AN EXCITING NEW YEAR’S BLOGGINGHEADS featuring “emphatic masculine hand gestures.”
MICKEY KAUS: The Power of Surrender. “In the debt ceiling debate of last year, Obama would have been wise to find a way to accede to GOP demands for a deal that was all cuts and no tax increases. He would have stolen the issue (leaner government) from the opposition at an acceptable price. Instead he held out for something unpopular he couldn’t get (tax increases) and looked impotent, ultimately agreeing to a deal without revenue increases in any case. Now the situation is reversed.”
THE ONLY WRITING ADVICE YOU’LL EVER NEED. Pretty much.
CHANGE SAME: Obama’s position on the Guantanamo detainees will forever be to have no position. “Obviously, the man is trying to get reelected, but it’s so absurd to pose as if standing on principle, when you’re not willing to say or do anything at all. . . . Now, it’s 3 years later. Obama’s first and probably only presidential term is rolling to a close, and he hasn’t done anything with the detainees.”
SPACEX HAS its own model rocket kit.
DAVID POST on SOPA: “The regulators have started to understand scale, and the solutions they’ve come up with — law enforcement via the domain name system — is positively chilling. If that’s the best we can do, we’re in trouble.”