A longer list this time.  I took a vacation from blogging during — if you’ll forgive the expression — Christmas vacation, and this video comes out.  Nina Totenberg apologizes for using the term "Christmas party".  Is this really a taboo among liberals?  Or are liberals in the press really this out of touch with the rest of America?

Here are six good reasons why embryonic stem cells will never make it out of the lab and into the bodies of sick people.  But money will still pour into it because, hey, it’s money!

Palestinians fired a Qassam rocket at a kindergarten, hurting one teen passing by.  I didn’t watch much news over vacation, but I’m sure this was all over it.  Right?  I mean, it would have been if Israel had done it, so I’m just supposing.

It’s amazing how stark the double standards are regarding leaks.  Julian Assange didn’t mind dumping data that is life-or-death to some of our Afghani informers, but hated it when leaks about his own legal troubles came out.  Really?  And there are other news reporter groups that hate it when they get leaked. 

Iran is shipping missiles to Venezuela.  Hey Hollywood, this is just fine, right?  (Chavez blames all the failures of socialism on others, and so this paranoia is bound to give him cause to use such weapons.  So, no, it’s not al right.)

No, the polar bear is not endangered.  So says the Obama administration.  Really.  And Bruce McQuain notes that, really, endangered status is more about power than it is about the environment.

The (Democrat-controlled) Congress blocked the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the US.  I guess Obama has no one to blame for this other than … Bush.

Twenty years ago, and continuing as recently as 2009, it was predicted that global warming would bring much milder winters with less snow because of the temperatures.  Ski slopes would be barren and snow would vanish from places as far north as Scotland. Now, however, they’re saying that all that snow we got, even in the deep south, is because of global warming.  The link has a good round-up of weather vs predictions.

More power to this guy, who quit his job, got some legal education, and started suing e-mail spammers.

Why do atheists whine about not being invited to a prayer event?  Hey, you don’t like an inauguration that includes a prayer service?  Go out and win an election, and run your inauguration any way you want.

Opinion programs on a news network do not have to be held to the same even-handed standards that news journalists do.  They deal with opinion and don’t pretend to be unbiased or completely objective.

So it’s highly disingenuous for Rachel Maddow to accuse Fox News in general of being a political operation because of the publicity given to political candidates by its opinion shows, and at the same time doing the exact same thing, on her show and others at MSNBC.  She tries to assert that Fox is a "political operation" and that MSNBC is not, but, as this video shows, that claim doesn’t pass the smell test.

Maddow is lying to her viewers, boldly and unashamedly, on a subject that is the bedrock of a news channel’s credibility; the subject of bias.  Opinion shows are biased and she knows it, but she accuses "Fox News", the network, of being a branch of the GOP.

Glass house, meet stone.

Obama said that the huge electoral loss last Tuesday was essentially a failure to communicate, and not a vote of no-confidence on his policies.  The policies are sounds, so he says, but they’re not working fast enough.  Except that countries like Germany, which adopted austerity policies rather than spending ones, is going gangbusters coming out of this recession.  And we’re not.  That’s what the voters were saying.

And apparently, blaming stupid voters and their anger, rather than facing facts, is an international problem.

ObamaCare price controls will raise health care prices.  We know this because that’s what it has always done in the past.  Joseph Antos, who oversaw a study that created the Medicare reimbursement system, knows of what he speaks.  Americans are already seeing some of this, and voted out those who supported it.

Is the electorate getting more conservative?  The New Republic seems to think so.

Fox was more fair and balanced than MSNBC in covering the election.  That’s not some right-wing claim; it’s the opinion of Time magazine, NPR, Mediaite and US News.  No card-carrying members of the vast right-wing conspiracy among that group.  Of course, being less biased than MSNBC is like saying that you are located somewhat south of the North Pole, with the network having exclusively liberal commentators on for the coverage.  America apparently noticed, since Fox beat the ratings of CNN & MSNBC.  Combined.

(Still, it’s Fox that Obama chooses to do battle with.  He doesn’t want fair coverage, he wants favorable coverage.)

Sorry, no cartoon this week.  Nothing really stood out.  Try again next week.

With apologies to P. J. O’Rouke for the title, last night was a historic night for the GOP, but I have a feeling this was more the voters saying "Stop!" to Obama than it was saying "Go!" to the Republicans.

Still, there were other things at work here than a Democratic smackdown.  Witness the shift of so many state governments to the Republicans. These folks weren’t the ones who bailed out banks, took over car companies or squirmed a health care bill through Congress.  And yet, for example, for the first time since Reconstruction, Georgia’s major state offices will all be held by Republicans.  While the wave last night certainly helped, this is a shift that has been going on for years.  The state legislature shift is, I think, the underreported story of the night (though Erick Erickson gives us a good view of it).  It’s important because in many cases it is so historic ("not since the 19th century" historic, in a few cases), and because reapportionment is happening this year due to the census.  This is big, and I think it’s more than just coattails.

But if you look at things like how well Democrats did who had voted for the health care reform bill, it’s clear that there was, indeed, a significant portion of the vote that was a referendum on Obama and the Democratic Congress.  Complaining from Democrats that the bill wasn’t explained enough, over the course of 6 months, is simply a refusal to face facts; the American people generally did not want this behemoth.  There was a price to pay for all the shenanigans done to get it passed.

Another big repudiation of the evening was of the media.  (Hmm, repudiation of Democrats and the media.  Why do these two groups keep getting mentioned together, I wonder?)  Uniquely labeling the Tea Party "extreme" by mainstream reporters and pundits alike, and spending so much press trying to make Christine O’Donnell the de facto face of the Tea Party, the voters have apparently decided for themselves what is or isn’t "extreme" and who’s endorsement (rather than the press’s) they’ll listen to (i.e. Sarah Palin’s picks are currently running more than 2 to 1 in the win column). 

Other interesting highlights:

No to recreational pot:  Californians voted No to make marijuana more available than it already is.  

Arizona governor re-elected: Jan Brewer got a vote of confidence from her state.  Apparently, enforcing laws that the feds refuse to enforce hasn’t been the economic meltdown her detractors claimed it would be.

I’ll close with some words from Don Surber, but read the whole thing.

This is not a normal midterm election in which the president’s party typically loses seats. In the last 10 midterms, a president’s party has averaged a loss of 12 House and two Senate seats.

That includes 1994’s tsunami, as then-Congressman Bob Wise put it.

President Carter lost 15 House and three Senate seats in his midterm.

Obama lost 59+ and 7+.

This was a big deal.

But I say to Republicans: Great, kids. Don’t get cocky.

The battle has just begun.

Who said this, after hearing that "Muhammed" was now the #1 baby name in Britain?

“Am I a racist to feel alarmed by that?  Because I am. And it’s not because of the race, it’s because of the religion. I don’t have to apologize, do I, for not wanting the Western world to be taken over by Islam in 300 years?”

No, not Juan Williams, who said something similar and got fired for it.  No, not Mark Steyn, who’s written a book on this subject.  In fact, it’s not a conservative at all.

It’s Bill Maher.

Conservative Margaret Hoover replied, "If you’re with NPR, you’d be fired."  I disagree.  Nina Totenburg has been spouting opinion for years and that hasn’t jeopardized her job. 

You’ll not hear much of this, if any at all, from the media or the left-wing bloggers because Maher is still extremely useful to them in a host of other areas.  For them it’s not about principles, it’s about politics.  If you have the right stance on the issues, a few minor indiscretions will be tolerated.  (Or even major ones; see the NOW crowd’s muted reaction to Bill Clinton). 

Just another double standard.

Nina Totenberg is an NPR news correspondent.  She’s supposed to report the news straight and without bias.  This has not kept her from offering opinions over the years anyway.  She went so far as to wish AIDS on Jesse Helms or his grandchildren. 

So Charles Krauthammer wanted to know the difference between what she’s been doing for at least the past 15 years, and what Juan Williams did that got him fired.  Juan is, or was, an NPR news analyst, which Krauthammer argues might have less of an appearance-of-objectivity standard than a correspondent.  So he asks, what’s the line that Juan crossed?

No one can give him a straight answer, not even Totenburg herself.

NPR’s long history of liberal bias answers the question itself.  You don’t get a second look if you wish death to a Republican or his grandchildren.  But express your honest fears, even acknowledging that they are irrational, and you’re out the door. 

There should no longer be any question whatsoever of the overwhelming bias of the NPR news organization.  Intellectual honesty demands an accounting of the Juan Williams firing, after which that is the inescapable conclusion.

More links this week since I didn’t get around to it last week.

What’s keeping this recession going for so long?  Ask James Madison.  Yes, that James Madison.

The 6th Circuit judge that upheld the health care reform individual mandate to buy insurance has really redefined terms in order to make his ruling.

With that reasoning, Judge Steeh thoroughly unmoors the commerce clause from its concern with actual economic activity that Congress can regulate to a more amorphous realm of “economic decisions” which apparently include the decision to NOT enter into commerce at all.

A better example of an activist judge you’re not likely to find soon.

Roger Ebert, in reviewing “Waiting for Superman”, acknowledges that the private school highlighted does better than public school, proclaiming “Our schools do not work”.  His solution?  (Wait for it…)  More money for public schools, for the ones that don’t work instead of encouraging what does work and at typically a lower cost per student.  Liberal education policies are now just talking points rather than reasoned arguments.

Remembering a sociopathic mass murderer, who is extolled by liberal students T-shirts everywhere.  (No, not Charles Manson. I’m talking about Che Guevara.)

The Rise of the (Conservative, Christian) Woman in American politics.

Juan Williams responds to the NPR sacking.  Ah, the tolerant Left in action.

And to close it out, two cartoons to make up for missing a week.  I just love Chuck Asay.  (Click for larger versions.)

I’ve been on the road this week, and by the time this posts I’ll be heading home.  I haven’t done much blogging as a result, but I have collected a few links.

Remember all the riots, protests and violence when the US military burned Bibles?  Or when Muslims blew the doors off churches, burned Bibles and destroyed every cross they could find?  Yeah, me neither.  Define for me “religion of peace” again?  The actions that the Left calls “Islamophobia” in America don’t hold a candle to what gets done to Christians by Muslims elsewhere, but somehow “Christophobia” hasn’t entered their vernacular yet.

The amount of money the United States now owes is more than all the money in the world.  That’s how bad it is.

Christians protest abortion, the media yawns.  One pro-abortion protestor hits the streets, you get an article with pictures.

Gun owner ship goes up.  Violent crime goes down.  If the Left was right about poor economic times causing crime, and that more guns cause more crime, there ought to be more heads exploding on that side of the aisle, if they’re being intellectually honest.

The return of no-money-down mortgages.  Um, that’s what got us into this mess in the first place!

The disappearing homeless.  Well, they’re still there, and likely there are more now that the housing bubble popped.  But the media has gone silent on them.  Guess they’re waiting for a Republican President, like they did before.

And finally, from Chuck Asay, some advice about getting your religion hijacked.  (Click for a larger version.)

Media Bias Dept.:  The Left got upset when Rupert Murdoch gave money to right-wing groups.  No mention, of course of the 88% of TV network donations go to Democrats.  And how much coverage did you hear about the BBC’s Director General admitting that the state-run news organization has had a "massive" left-wing bias?  Yeah, me neither.  Also, Patterico explains how the media has shaped the national discussion by selective coverage.

Market Watch:  The market is doing more for troubled homeowners than the government it.  CNN is, apparently, shocked to discover such a thing can happen.

"Recovery" Summer Dept.:  Germany’s recover has been fueled to a large extent by private sector consumption and growth, as opposed to the graph I posted earlier showing most of our jobs went to the government.  And irony of ironies, a French bureaucrat had to tell the US about cutting spending spurs growth.  Why can our own guys understand that?

ObamaCare Dept.:  After helping pass the health care bill, one Democratic Senator, using language he helped craft in the bill, is trying to use it to exempt his state from the individual mandate.  "Yeah, it’s a great idea … for everyone else but me."  Also, reality is putting the lie to the promise that nothing was going to change for you if you like the health care you have.

Film Corner:  The trailer us up for "Blood Money", an expose of the abortion industry.

Government (In)action Dept.:  The Justice Department is refusing to enforce voter fraud laws, and they’ve plainly said as much.  So one lawyer is using a provision of the law to file the lawsuits the Obama’s Justice won’t.  Our President respects the rule of law insofar as it furthers his own agenda.  No good can come of that.

Gossip Column:  Fidel Castro himself admits that the communist economic model doesn’t work.  It "works" only insofar as you get influxes of cash from, say, a beneficiary either internally (the "rich") or externally (the USSR).  But on its own, it is an abject failure.  Would that the Left would hear this and stop trying to move us closer to it.

And finally, the last word on the "Ground Zero Mosque" and the burning of Korans, from Rick McKee.  (Click for a larger image.)

He was a rabid environmentalist.  He considered babies "parasitic human infants", and wanted all "pro-birth" programs to push "stopping human birth".  He was extremely anti-war, and equated having more humans with more war.  He considered civilization "filth", and its religious roots "disgusting".

And ThinkProgress, an extremely popular liberal blog, calls out the Right over this guy, James Jay Lee, who took hostages at the Discovery Channel, because one of his eleven points refers to immigration. 

Really?  Is this what passes for intellectual honesty on the Left these days?  A guy who said Al Gore’s "An Inconvenient Truth" woke him up is a product of the Right?

None other than President of the United States Bill Clinton blamed conservative talk radio for Timothy McVeigh, and recently brought that back up in light of the Tea Party.  Conservatives against the "Ground Zero Mosque" were blamed for the stabbing of a Muslim cabbie (until it was found that it was a GZM supporter who stabbed the cabbie who was against the Mosque).  And Caleb Howe reminds us:

Lee acted irrationally. His environmental extremism was likely a function of his derangement, rather than the source of it. He latched on. He took it to the extreme, to say the least. Lee was not, by any measure that I would choose, a sane man. The story told by his brother-in-law – one of temper, erratic behavior, and irrational views – recalls Jerry Kane.

Jerry Kane, and his son Joe, killed two police officers and were killed themselves, in a shoot-out precipitated by a simple traffic stop. Jerry Kane, too, was an unstable man. His hometown mayor said of him that “You were always looking over your shoulder to make sure he wasn’t there. You never knew what he was going to do. I always thought he was an unstable individual.” Like Lee, the aftermath anecdotes painted a picture of paranoia and fear. But that didn’t stop liberal sites like Crooks and Liars from laying him at the feet of the conservative movement. Or Joseph Stack. Or Richard Poplawski. Or Byron Williams. It didn’t stop them from suggesting that Erick [Erickson] was responsible for a census worker slaying.

In fact, every time someone is shot in a lone gunman scenario, the right, and the tea parties and talk radio in particular, are virtually instantaneously blamed by the left at large for “violent” rhetoric and instigation.

Stop me, again, if you’ve heard THAT one before.

We never stop hearing from the MSNBC left how the Fox News right is stirring up violence. But when someone clearly basing his murderous intent on the idea that humans are going to destroy the world, and soon, acts on the dire prophecies of Al Gore … well suddenly you can’t blame rhetoric for crazy people.

Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz will simply not take responsibility for this guy.  I don’t think they should, but they should then not require the Right to take responsibility for the acts of other nuts.

But they will, as will Bill Clinton.  This is what passes for intellectual honesty on the Left.