Author: McQ

Fifty dollar a barrel oil certainly isn’t helping the situation: The fall in oil prices from $147 this July to below $50 today has blown a gaping hole in the government’s budget calculations. It is now facing a $150bn shortfall in its spending plans – and will have to slash expenditure in 2009. Today Putin […]

New satellite data: A new satellite predicts at least 23 years of global cooling Several Canadian environmental scientists agree that the new Jason satellite indicates at least a 23-year cycle of global cooling ahead. This oceanographic satellite shows a much larger than normal persistent Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Cooler PDO phases usually last 21 to […]

In this week’s US News and World Report, Grover Norquist babbles on under the title “Conservatives Will Rise Again” about how this has all been seen before (after Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush). After each defeat, conservatism was declared dead. Norquist believes it is only a matter of time before Americans again […]

No pun intended. Over at the American Prospect, Adam Serwer tugs at Osama’s beard: Al Qaeda plays a little identity politics: In al-Qaida’s first response to Obama’s victory, al-Zawahri also called the president-elect, along with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, “house negroes.” Of course, in the typically irony impaired way the left […]

Or a crony? And of course, he’s another Clinton re-tread who was acting AG and approved including the Marc Rich pardon for Clinton’s approval at that time. Then there’s his role in the Elian Gonzales kidnapping. As to the charges of cronyism: A partner at the D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling, Holder served […]

If you look at some of the statewide propositions, you’d have to wonder. Take California, a state most people think of as being a bit to the extreme side of green, whether the reputation is earned or not. Given the following, maybe “not” is the more correct choice: In California, President-elect Obama defeated Senator John […]

More AGW conclusions called into doubt: On Monday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore’s chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record. The blunder? GISS’s computerised temperature maps seemed […]

Forbes warns us: If you think runaway oil prices are upsetting, just wait for what’s in store for electricity. Similar forces are in play. Demand is rising fast; supply is not. The cost to get coal and natural gas out of the ground is going up, and to that expense must be added the cost […]

More GM bailout news: Momentum is building in Washington for a rescue package for the auto industry to head off a possible bankruptcy filing by General Motors, which is rapidly running low on cash. But not everyone agrees that a Chapter 11 filing by G.M. would be the disaster that many fear. Some experts note […]

Yeah I know, “nice” – the guy hasn’t even been inaugurated and I’ve already questioned whether he’s a one-term president. But I’ve had a theory that no matter which candidate won the presidential election, he’d be a one-term president. My thinking is that the economic situation would dictate that, not being particularly better in 2012 […]

I continue to shake my head as the bailout fever continues to grow: President-elect Barack Obama yesterday urged President Bush to support immediate aid for struggling automakers and back a new stimulus package, even as congressional Democrats began drafting legislation to give the Detroit automakers quick access to $25 billion by adding them to the […]

I had the occasion to attend a mini-reunion of some of my old friends from the Army. About 12 of us gathered at a restaurant in Birmingham to tell stories about each other and absent comrades and remark about how old we were all looking. Anyway, it was nice to see them all again. As […]

Bill Ayers has finally had his say. I’ll leave it you to read (and heave) the whole thing if you have the stomach for it. Irony, is obviously not a strong suit with Ayers: In a robust and sophisticated democracy, political leaders – and all of us – ought to seek ways to talk with […]

Jon Henke points to a little editing at the Obama site. The original (cached): The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, […]

I‘ve been watching this disgusting performance concerning Palin and anonymous McCain staffers leaking unflattering information about her from a distance, not really wanting to get involved in it. While I understand that it is fairly normal for a losing campaign to evidence some of the dissonance that helped them take 2nd place, this has been […]

After feeding off of emotional rhetoric and high-flying promises of the campaign, Democrats are now trying to lower expectations. Democratic leaders are tamping down on expectations for rapid change and trying to signal they will place a calm hand on the nation’s tiller. “The country must be governed from the middle,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi […]

Interesting stuff. From a recently completed pre-election survey: The decisive defeat Republicans suffered in Tuesday’s election came because conservative voters decided the party had lost its way, not because the electorate has shifted to the left, according to Issue Autopsy ’08, a survey of swing state voters in Colorado, Florida, Ohio and Virginia commissioned by […]

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard outlines the looming danger if the results of this election are as expected: It is not just that the Democrats will win a crushing victory in both houses of Congress, perhaps reaching the 60-seat Senate threshold that lets them steam-roll legislation. It is also that the incoming class of 2008 is of a […]

Mark Steyn points to this Ed Driscoll quote: When the MSM moans about the gallons of red ink it’s spilled since 2001, it needs to ask itself if it’s prepared to actually report the news, in a fashion that interests readers, or if it exists as a non-profit ideological support system. The focus of the […]

While I prefer Bob Barr’s tax plan (cut ’em and the size of government too), I don’t think the difference between the Obama tax plan and the McCain tax plan can be better summarized than the following two paragraphs and the accompanying chart. [Full disclosure – the IRET is a pro-McCain group of economists, but […]

Talk about the “Great Set-up”, the con continues with attempts at lowering expectations. Joe Biden recently explained that the rich are now those making $150,000. Bill Richardson takes it down another notch: Do I hear $100,000? $95,000? Love these “new” politics, don’t you? [Crossposted at QandO]

Another highlight, or lowlight, depending on your view, of an “all Democrats, all the time” government would most likely be some sort of legislative move to rein in the radio talk show media which is dominated by conservative talkers. It will most likely be updated to somehow put a crimp in cable news, specifically Fox […]

Obama has been speaking out of both sides of his mouth when it comes to defense: When it comes to defense, there are two Barack Obamas in this race. There is the candidate who insists, as he did last year in an article in Foreign Affairs, that “a strong military is, more than anything, necessary […]

With oil bouncing around at about in the low sixties, there are some anxious OPEC nations out there. But as you’ll see in the very instructive chart below, some are more anxious than others: The following are estimates from Washington-based consultancy PFC Energy of how much various OPEC countries need on average to balance their […]

Even more of a reason to be quaking in your boots. Remember this from the DNC? “I pledge to you that I will be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate,” Mr. [Edward] Kennedy told the cheering crowd in Denver. “This is the cause of my life, new hope that we […]

First of all that’s simply not true. Even Barney Frank, who is mostly clueless, knows that ambitious spending schemes need revenue from somewhere. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said Democrats will push for a stimulus package after the November election, and called for a package reducing defense spending by 25 percent while saying Congress will “eventually” […]

George Will characterizes government at both the state and federal level as recently having a number of “Willie Sutton” moments. Sutton was a famous and quite prolific bank robbers of years gone by. What caught Will’s attention is something the brain trust in Congress is dreaming up (much like the 401(k) scam I talked about […]

The two candidates for president have outlined their belief in AGW and how they’d fight it, but thankfully the global climate situation isn’t cooperating. From Australia, Andrew Bolt brings us this update: Last year’s summer melt had been so fierce that climate scientists warned that the warmed seas gave us a 50-50 chance of an […]

Via Hot Air and Ed Morrisey: You know, I get tired of saying things over and over and I’m sure you get tired of reading them (I at least try to say it a little differently each time to cut down on the monotony), but this is important. I remember feeling just like I do […]

It sure has been fun today to watch the left embrace their favorite “Uncle Tom” now that he’s seen the “error of his ways” and endorsed Barack Obama. It is interesting to see how various parts of the left have handled it. For instance one nimrod on Craigslist says: No one will be surprised that […]