Being on a business trip for a week makes it hard to keep up with blogging. And being on the US west coast helps with the realization that the world doesn’t revolve around Eastern time.

On with the links.

Obama is invoking Reagan a lot these days, trying to promote his agenda. But as Steven Hayward notes, Obama takes Reagan’s words out of the context of the politics and the times in which they were spoken.

Just prior to Reagan, Jimmy Carter worked with the dictatorship of North Korea to send food in return for not pursuing  nukes. In light of the recent (failed) N. Korea missile launch, you have to wonder why we thought it was a good idea to strike bargains with megalomaniacs.

The Hillary Rosen remarks, condemning Anne Romney for being a stay-at-home mom tipped the hand of the Democrats as to what they really think of women who make that choice. (Because, as with everything else from the Left, it’s not about the principle so much as it is the politics). On the Right, some were suggesting that we don’t need to worry about this because it means stooping to their level to respond to "Rosen-gate". But Ben Howe points out that, yes, this issue is worth our time and effort to respond to.

Irony Alert: For the third year in a row, Democrats punt on the budget, while at the same time accusing the Paul Ryan budget of being irresponsible.

Abortion as religion, with Planned Parenthood writing the prayer book.

It has been said that we’ve not had global warming on the scale that we have it now, and therefor this time around it must be human-induced. The Medieval Warming Period, it is said (and reiterated by the IPCC), was merely localized and therefore can’t be compared with today. New evidence, however, shows that indeed the MWP was felt as far away as Antarctica. Not exactly localized.

Taxing the rich rarely lives up to expectations of the amount it will bring in. That’s because the rich have many options of where to put their money. Cause pain in one place, the cash moves to another place. (Some on the Left will inevitably say that this makes the case for a global tax. Well, when our government can’t get by on $4 trillion a year, it’s not the fault of the rich.)

A crowd larger than any OWS gathering protested in San Francisco, but the media ignored it. Why? (Wait for it…) Because they were religious people protesting Obama. Some news is clearly more newsworthy than others. Oh, that liberal media.

Liberals were so absolutely sure that their view of the "living" Constitution was right, they were predicting a near-slam-dunk for them in the Supreme Court over ObamaCare. But exhibit A of how they simply failed to take seriously the arguments against it is Jeffrey Tubin of CNN. He was sure it would be 7-2 or even 8-1 in favor of the ACA, and was just gobsmacked after day 2. Why? The very same arguments used against ACA had been out there for months. But the news wouldn’t give it adequate coverage. Mr. Tubin, you could blame CNN for your ignorance. But then, that would mean you have no responsibility as a journalist to find it out for yourself. Oh, that liberal media.

And finally, something for the "separation of church and state" crowd. A US Army issued New Testament with a letter from the President recommending that soldiers should read it.

Even with Warren Buffett’s new tax policy idea, wherein he’d pay a higher tax rate, the continuing deficit dwarfs it.

Once again, the issue is not that we’re taking in too little in taxes. We can’t take in enough to cover the deficits. We must start cutting spending in a serious way.

[FYI, Part 2 of my "after-birth abortion" article will appear Monday, for both of you waiting for it. ]

Obama: ‘Drill Drill Drill won’t work. And you can thank Me that it did.’

America’s per capita debt is worse than Greece. And Greece’s credit rating is in the basement.

BBC: We’ll Mock Jesus But Never Mohammed. (Because Christians won’t cut off their head or burn things.)

For all the talk about crude names called at Sandra Fluke, the war on conservative women goes merrily unreported. Meryl Yourish refers to this as the new Exception Clause.

No wonder liberals think their unconstitutional ideas are constitutional. They don’t understand the document’s intent.

Like all generalizations, it’s not true of every single case, but James Q. Wilson asks an interesting question: Why Don’t Jews Like the Christians Who Like Them?

Just as Jews were once expelled from Arab lands, Christians are now being forced from countries they have long inhabited.

And finally, the return of the political cartoon to Friday Link Wrap-ups.

So says two high-ranking government officials who would know.

In a stark warning ahead of next month’s Budget, the Chancellor said there was little the Coalition could do to stimulate the economy.

Mr Osborne made it clear that due to the parlous state of the public finances the best hope for economic growth was to encourage businesses to flourish and hire more workers.

“The British Government has run out of money because all the money was spent in the good years,” the Chancellor said. “The money and the investment and the jobs need to come from the private sector.”

What should George Osborne do to provide a tax cut?

Tax the rich more to allow the income tax rate to be lifted to £10,000Borrow more and worry about reducing national debt in future yearsWe can’t afford any tax cuts

Mr Osborne’s bleak assessment echoes that of Liam Byrne, the former chief secretary to the Treasury, who bluntly joked that Labour had left Britain broke when he exited the Government in 2010.

He left David Laws, his successor, a one-line note saying: “Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left”.

Mr Osborne is under severe pressure to boost growth, amid signs the economy is slipping back into a recession.

Conservatives have been saying this for a generation. Government spending bankrupts us all. The private sector is where economic growth comes from. Government spending may give us something of a jolt (if any), but the cost associated with it is far more than if the government would just get out of the way and let the engine run.

If Samuel L. Jackson voted for Obama because he’s black –  using as his reasoning, "’Cuz that’s why other folks vote for other people — because they look like them … That’s American politics, pure and simple." — then is it OK for white folks to vote for white guys just because they’re white? Could those white folks expect the non-reaction to their reasoning as Jackson got for his?

Albert Mohler takes Nicholas Kristof to civics class.  The Constitution protect freedom of religion as a basic right, not only when it’s convenient.

"Actor Sean Penn criticized Republican presidential candidates during a visit to Venezuela on Thursday, saying that right-wing policies in the United States aim to benefit the wealthy." No, we want to make as many people as possible wealthy, as opposed to Venezuela’s socialism, which is making as many people as possible poor.

Stoning Christians on the Temple Mount. No, not Jews. One more guess.

Germans are discovering that, when they need their solar energy most, during December and January, it doesn’t help that they don’t get much sunshine then.

Sign of the Times: "For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage" Perhaps Rick Santorum isn’t as kooky as some are making him out to be.

A couple of items related to spending and our national debt.

Obama called Bush’s increase in the debt "irresponsible" and "unpatriotic". What does he think about his own contribution to the debt?

Obama signed an agreement to fund the DC-area incredibly successful school voucher program. Yet with all the new spending he added, he didn’t fund this. Does he really care about education, or just teacher unions?

Some Greeks are not willing to do what it takes to bring government spending in line with what is needed to get out of its crushing debt. They’d rather keep getting their government perks. Instead, they’d rather leave this debt to be paid by their grandchildren, and they’d rather burn things.

The Greek parliament approved a deeply unpopular austerity bill to secure a second EU/IMF bailout and avoid national bankruptcy, as buildings burned across central Athens and violence spread around the country.

Cinemas, cafes, shops and banks were set ablaze in central Athens as black-masked protesters fought riot police outside parliament.

State television reported the violence spread to the tourist islands of Corfu and Crete, the northern city of Thessaloniki and towns in central Greece. Shops were looted in the capital where police said 34 buildings were ablaze.

This is just a very angry OWS protest. They think the government is the answer to all their problems, and when the find it isn’t, they protest. They want the government to keep its power of confiscating wealth and spreading it around, in spite of the fact that they are, indeed, running out of other people’s money with which to maintain the lifestyle they’re accustomed to.

This is the problem with socialization, even a little bit of it. People begin to expect it, but the economics of the situation simply don’t allow it to be sustainable over the long-term. So when it has to be scaled back, this is what you get.

And we’re, for some insane reason, trying to replicate this "success" here. Then, this, too, is in our future.

California, like Greece, has been spending like there’s no tomorrow. And, like Greece, there may not be a tomorrow, if they can find $3.3 billion in the couch cushions.

Occupy Wall Street complained about how powerless they were against big banks and other members of "the 1%". Their solution was more government intervention to make things "fair". Ironically, their best success came when they themselves, the people, switched banks to protest fees and other things. In many cases, we don’t need government to act for us, we just need to act. The people already have the power. Use it!

James Taranto on the fallout from the Planned Parenthood / Susan G. Komen for the Cure dustup: "Planned Parenthood’s bitter campaign against Komen–aided by left-liberal activists and media–is analogous to a protection racket: Nice charity you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it. The message to other Planned Parenthood donors is that if they don’t play nice and keep coughing up the cash, they’ll get the Komen treatment."

Speaking of which, if even a New York Times columnist recognizes press bias in anything dealing with abortion, you know it’s getting much worse.

Speaking of which, while the media did report that donations to Planned Parenthood were up after the controversy, they conveniently didn’t report that Komen donations doubled.

Abortion pill via vending machine. Talk about changing the concept of "over the counter". What does it say about our society that a university finds it useful to dedicate entire vending machines to abortion pills? A cousin of mine commented, "These are the same people, of course, who will freak out at the presence of Chemicals In Food. But take a pill strong enough to abort before the fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall? No biggie."

Churches using school buildings during weekends is not a church-state issue. It just isn’t. New York City politicians are evicting some because of fear of lawsuits, not for any actual legal reasons. As Ed Stetzer says, "Any constitutional concerns about church use of public school buildings can be answered by a religion-neutral approach. A government that is religion-neutral we will not discriminate based on the content of speech–even unpopular religious speech. Thus, I stand with my Muslim friends who wish to rent on Friday, my Jewish friends on Saturday, and my Christian friends on Sunday–all paying money to use space that belongs to us all."

James Taranto quotes from last night’s State of the Union address and ponders.

In the next few weeks, I will sign an executive order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many [federally funded] construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.

"The money we’re no longer spending at war" is a fiction. It is money that has never been collected or borrowed and won’t have to be because there is (touch wood) no war to fight. It’s like a wife demanding that her husband buy her an expensive gift with the money she saved by not buying herself something even more expensive. Does Obama really think Americans foolish enough to fall for this?

The answer, unfortunately, is a resounding "Yes" for those who voted for the man.