Muammar Gaddafi, like any good magician, is employing misdirection to try to avoid happening to him what is happening in other Arab countries. “Hey Palestinians, let’s you and him fight!”

Is the Obama White House turning social media into State Run Media 2.0?  There’s a bit of media sour grapes in that charge, but it’s also true that the more the White House does an end-run around the media, the more they can paint with whatever rose-colored paintbrush they want.

Really, is Israel the main problem in the Middle East? Even those who are protesting in Arab countries are protesting their own governments, not Israel.

And if Obama has lost Bill Maher, he’s lost liberal America.

The eeevil rich, aren’t just rich; they’re Nazis.

Showing no concern for the new civility push that followed the Arizona massacre, a group of leftist activists from groups including Code Pink, Common Cause and jewel of liberal think tanks, the Center for American Progress, turned into a loud mob complete with Nazi imagery outside a conservative gathering in Rancho Mirage, California.

But the media only ever really complain about it from the Right.

If you didn’t hear anything, or very little, about thousands who attended the March for Life last weekend in DC, that’s understandable. The media routinely ignores it.

And speaking of a liberal media, Jay Carney, who used to write for Time magazine, is now Obama’s new press secretary. His new job description — putting Obama in the most positive light possible — is very much like his old job description.

And still speaking of a liberal media, they’re getting rather disappointed that Obama is not doing what he said he would. Well, they’ve just joined those of us who have been paying attention for 2 years.

Headline from USA Today: "When unwed births hit 41%, it’s just not right". But it’s OK at 40%? Seriously though, look at the graph showing how fast the out-of-wedlock births have jumped since the notorious "Sexual Revolution" of the 1960s.

Civil Discourse Watch:

“They’re going to hang themselves,” said Belknap [New Hampshire] Democratic Chair Ed Allard of Republicans. “And we’re going to help them.”

Allard’s threat came during a meeting of despondent Democrats in Belknap County on Thursday evening. The meeting was hosted by President Obama’s Organizing for America.

The IPCC said that the glaciers in the Karakoram mountain range would be gone by 2035 due to climate change. The latest word? "Researchers have discovered that contrary to popular belief half of the ice flows in the Karakoram range of the mountains are actually growing rather than shrinking." Um, who’s popular belief are they talking about?

And finally, a shorter version of the State of the Union speech, from Rick McKee:

A verse I found highlighted by a friend on Facebook:

Proverbs 26:18-19 (New International Version 1984, ©1984)

¹⁸ Like a madman shooting
   firebrands or deadly arrows
¹⁹ is a man who deceives his neighbor
   and says, “I was only joking!”

The Left seems to forget their own hateful rhetoric when they start to point fingers at Sarah Palin. “…a big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it.” “I’m just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact.” “Somebody’s going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and he’s going to explode like a giant blimp.” Indeed. These and other gems at Q&O.

On the (much) lighter side, I have finally been convinced that you should only put 1 space after a period, not two. I’m endeavoring to do so in this post, but it’s a hard habit to break.

Living up their promises, the Republicans have put forth a proposal for $2.5 trillion of spending cuts. Since it’s that amount over 10 years, it’s still only a drop in the bucket. But it’s more than they have suggested in the past (as far as I know) and certainly more than Democrats ever have. If the Dems want to criticize the choices of where to cut, let’s just see them propose their own.

I grew up in the Salvation Army denomination. (Yes, it’s a denomination.) Representatives from around the world are currently meeting to elect the next General, the administrative head of the Salvation Army. You can follow events on their web page, get e-mail updates, or even follow them on Twitter.

Cutting sugar, sodium and trans fats. Buying more produce locally. Cutting price premiums for healthier food options. That’s Wal-Mart for you. (Yeah, that Wal-Mart).

In Houston, it’s apparently safer for the homeless to go hungry than to get a meal that hasn’t been government certified.

Reason TV asks, what happened to the antiwar movement? It gives a serious look at the disappearance of a group that was so huge while Bush was President. Glenn Reynolds notes, they were useful idiots until they stopped being useful.

Charles Krauthammer:

Suppose someone – say, the president of United States – proposed the following: We are drowning in debt. More than $14 trillion right now. I’ve got a great idea for deficit reduction. It will yield a savings of $230 billion over the next 10 years: We increase spending by $540 billion while we increase taxes by $770 billion.

He’d be laughed out of town. And yet, this is precisely what the Democrats are claiming as a virtue of Obamacare.

Some say that if spending $X saves us $Y down the road(where Y is greater than X), then the government should spend it. But ObamaCare is much more a behemoth than simply judicious spending on road repairs before they get much worse. The claim that repealing ObamaCare will cost us money is ridiculous for Krauthammer’s reason.  Amazing.

And finally:

Haven’t found much to expound upon this week, or perhaps my blogging muse took an extended (if you’ll pardon the expression) Christmas vacation.  But indeed, I still have been perusing the ‘net, and have found a few interesting links.

If you’ve ever wondered why the ACLU seems to regularly side with organizations and issues that seem to oppose traditional American values, this collection of unearthed letters between the ACLU founder, Roger Baldwin and the American Communist Party should shed some light.  (Hat tip: Holy Coast)

Y’know that phrase, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it"?  Here’s you’re chance to learn from it.  If you want to find out how ObamaCare will turn out, just look at the broken promises and escalating costs of RomneyCare in Massachusetts.

An impressive new invention from Germany; heat balls! 

Chavez currently has dictatorial powers in Venezuela, and is currently in a stand-off with American diplomats.  So he wants the US to change the envoy to Caracas to one of his choice of useful idiots; Sean Penn, Oliver Stone or Bill Clinton.  Talk about gall.

So many liberal blogs got this absolutely wrong, you wonder if poor civics or history classes in public school lead to liberalism.  Talking Points Memo illustrated this perfectly.  When reading the Constitution in the House chambers yesterday, Republicans read what amounted to the amended Constitution, skipping parts that were superseded by later amendments.  This included counting only 3/5ths of the slaves.  Evan McMorris-Santoro writes:

It’s fairly likely that no elected politician wants to stand up and read aloud the Founder’s vision of African Americans as equaling three-fifths of a white person, so the GOP has decided to leave that part, and others, out when the Constitution is read today.

This was no "vision" of discounting African-Americans.  In fact, the "Three-Fifths Compromise" did two things when it was written into the Constitution.  It gave us a "united" states, which would have been impossible if slave states would not agree to the new Constitution, and it kept slave states from gaining too many representatives in the House (by simply importing "constituents") to keep slavery from ever being abolished.  It was a compromise, not a "vision", and it paved the way for the abolition of slavery.  A good explanation is here.

The federal debt is certainly cause for concern, but there’s also the problem of individual cities who have been financing all sorts of things with municipal bond debt.  This, too, has gotten out of control, leading us to another bailout-or-bankruptcy issue.

And finally, the roll of homeschoolers has grown to 2 million, 4% of all school-aged children.  Thanks, public schools.  Couldn’t have done it without you.

What Charlie Rangel did:

To summarize briefly, we have blatant and recurring Federal and State tax fraud, illegal use of four rent-controlled apartments in New York City, using his Congressional letterhead to illegally solicit funds for his private foundation from lobbyists for companies he was writing tax regs on, outrageous conflict of interest, failure to declare over $600,000 in income..the sort of stuff that would get you or I locked up for a long time.

What punishment he got:

Charlie Rangel’s penalty? He’ll be required to stand in the well before his colleagues in the House while a censure resolution is read, which will then become part of the Congressional Record. That’s it. Boo-freaking hoo.And he will stay in Congress.

Love that accountability.

Remember the movie "Erin Brockovich", telling of one woman’s crusade to get justice for the people of Hinckley, California from the eeevil corporation, Pacific Gas & Electric, for releasing a toxic plume of hexavalent chromium 6.  PG&E was sued for (what was going to be) a huge spike in cancer for the people.  No real scientific proof was offered, but this result was clearly going to happen.  Yeah, well, it didn’t.  Turned out John Stossel was right.  Again.  And Erin is back in Hinckley, pursuing the same thing.

Chuck Collins, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and writing for they Sojourners blog, decides that the moral measure of a tax plan. 

"Does it further concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few? Or does it disperse concentrated wealth and power, and strengthen possibilities for a democratic society with greater equality, improved health and well-being, shared prosperity, and ecological sustainability?"

By this measure, it sounds like the "rich" should never have their taxes decreased.  Ever.  OK, so what’s his limit on that moral measure?  How much money should the "rich" be allowed to keep?  Can we just get that number out, so we know what the standard is?

Wonder what the Hollywood Left’s supporters of Hugo Chavez will think of his upcoming dictatorial powers?  Eh, probably sweep it under the rug.

Liu Xiaobo, newest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, also endorses the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, praised George W. Bush, and is strongly on Israel’s side in the Middle East conflict.  Just sayin’.

Post-natal abortions are all the rage.  Oh, please don’t be surprised.  It’s just the natural result of the culture of death mindset.

Death panels are getting ready to meet.  Really. 

The deficit commission that President Obama convened agrees that most of ObamaCare should be kept.  Unfortunately, they believe in order to keep it fiscally sustainable is for it to include Death Panels.  They laughed at Sarah Palin for predicting this.  I don’t hear anyone laughing now.

Speaking of Sarah Palin, Richard Cohen (no conservative, he) just can stop reading about (and apparently, can’t stop writing about) the former Alaska governor.  And in writing about her and her beliefs, he includes this bit of honesty:

The left just doesn’t get America. I say this as a fellow-traveler of liberalism and as one who recognizes that many liberals fear the heartland. They see it as a dark place of primitive religions and too many guns. For such a person, Palin is the perfect personification of the unknown and feared Ugly American who will emerge from the heartland to seize Washington, turning off all the lights and casting America into darkness. The left does not merely disagree with the right; it fears it.

Hospitals closing or ridden with crime.  Doctors quitting the medical practice or leaving the country to find greener pastures in which to practice.  Shortages of medical supplies.  While these are predictions of what will come with ObamaCare, we have yet another example of where socialized medicine is failing.  Mr. Obama, call Mr. Chavez to find out how well it’s working in Venezuela.  (Hint:  It’s not.)

The Christmas song “Silver Bells” was inspired by the sound of Salvation Army bell-ringers outside department stores.  But apparently familiarity breeds contempt.

The character of Aslan in the Narnia series of books, as well established in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, is an allegory for Jesus Christ.  That was C. S. Lewis’ purpose.  But Liam Neeson, who provides the voice for Aslan in the movie series, has apparently been infected with the political correctness syndrome that pervades Hollywood.

Ahead of the release of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader next Thursday, Neeson said: ‘Aslan symbolises a Christ-like figure but he also symbolises for me Mohammed, Buddha and all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries.

‘That’s who Aslan stands for as well as a mentor figure for kids – that’s what he means for me.’

Mohammed and Buddha died for your sins?  Really?

Does Romans chapter 1 condemn homosexuality?  Some interpret it in such a way that it doesn’t, in spite of the words chosen.  John Stott takes apart such interpretations.

Bryan Longworth had an interesting tweet the other day.  “Comprehensive sex ed has been taught in schools 4 over 40 years. The results? Epedemic #STIs. How’s perversion working 4 U?”  Not so well, judging by the results.

And finally, Chuck Asay has some words for Democrats who are ostensibly fighting for the workers.  (Click for a larger version.)

The Left considers honest disagreement as "hate", redefining what should be a rather well-defined term.  This leads Tom Gilson at First Things to feel compelled to state that he does not hate homosexuals, despite his having signed the Manhattan Declaration.  Apparently, being associated with that stereotypes you as some sort of Westboro Church member.  Love that "tolerant" Left.

That promise from Obama that you could keep your existing plan and not be forced to change under ObamaCare(tm) has already been broken.  But now even unions realize they won’t be able to afford coverage for children, so they’re dropping it.  (But since they are unions, after all, they have to put forward a good face about this whole government takeover.)

The cost of the War on Poverty, since its inception is more than the cost of all of the actual wars in US history.  Annual spending, in 2008 and adjusted for inflation, was 13 times what it was in 1964.  Imagine if this money were to be given to private charities who waste far less of each dollar than the government does.  Imagine how much less it would cost.  It’s easy if you try.

Hmm, I feel a song coming on.

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.

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.