A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945 (Minus North Korea’s)

None So Blind (or stupid and dishonest)....

Belmont Club:

"It is a variation on that very old political theme: Bush made me do it. This despite the fact that in early 2003, Congress had been warned by the director of the federal office responsible for overseeing Fannie and Freddie, Armando Falcon, who said “in a 118-page report of the companies’ potential for a catastrophic failure that could jeopardize the economy.” This was followed by efforts by the Bush administration to rein in Fannie and Freddy somewhat via new Treasury rules.

But Frank and other Democrats still opposed tighter regulation, Frank most notably in his public statements saying there was nothing wrong with Fannie and Freddie. He and other House Democrats also sent a letter to President George W. Bush in June 2004, saying the proposed crackdown could “weaken affordable housing performance . . . by emphasizing only safety and soundness.’’

Time to figure out who your real friends are....

Commentary:

"D.C. runs over black schoolkids. “Michelle Rhee—the tough broad who spent nearly four years as D.C. schools chancellor in a pitched battle against the corruption-plagued, incompetence-ridden Washington teachers union to reform a rotten public school system—was forced out today by mayor-elect Vincent Gray in what surely must be seen as a kind of triumph for the union and a potential tragedy for the city’s underprivileged, mostly-black schoolchildren.” Meanwhile, the Obamas are “tucking their own cute kids safely away in private schools.” Read the whole thing.

Officials from cities like New York should run, not walk, to grab her. “DC’s loss could be New York’s gain, and it behooves city Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to scoop her up before she departs for another system.”

'The Aim Is to Make Israel a Pariah'

Rupert Murdoch:

"Every day, the citizens of the Jewish homeland defend themselves against armies of terrorists whose maps spell out the goal they have in mind: a Middle East without Israel. In Europe, Jewish populations increasingly find themselves targeted by people who share that goal. And in the United States, I fear that our foreign policy sometimes emboldens these extremists.

...The world of 2010 is not the world of the 1930s. The threats Jews face today are different. But these threats are real. These threats are soaked in an ugly language familiar to anyone old enough to remember World War II. And these threats cannot be addressed until we see them for what they are: part of an ongoing war against the Jews."

Awesome: White House attacks on Rove’s group lead to massive influx of donations

Hot Air:

“Are we sure Obama’s not trying to help the GOP take back the House?”

Yes, but then you'll HAVE to vote for them to keep food on the table. It works out for everyone.....

Keeping the Poor in Poverty:

"Yet Obama and the Democrats, in thrall to the teachers’ unions, steadfastly resist proposals to give parents more control over their children’s education. Washington, D.C., has a public-school system that, despite spending more per child than almost any other system in the nation, still has a dropout rate of more than 50 percent. Yet one of the first actions of the president and congressional Democrats was to kill the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which offered vouchers to permit poor children to opt out of the city’s rotten public schools."

The stupidity of both the Times and college professors.....

The Seat Not Taken:

"But the very pleasing moment of anticipation casts a shadow, because I can’t accept the bounty of an extra seat without remembering why it’s empty, without wondering if its emptiness isn’t something quite sad. And quite dangerous, also, if left unexamined. Posters in the train, the station, the subway warn: if you see something, say something.

Oh, the whining..... let's see what happens if you put a blackhat Hasid on a train full of Africana Americans. Whom do you think would wind-up with the empty seat next to him?

How to stop 50% of West-hating terrorist attacks...

Ricochet.com:

"You can imagine the Syrians’ frustration, having to fund Hezbollah when the money could be spent on wind turbines.

Idiots....

The money quote...

Commentary:

"Unfortunately, there is no adult supervision of the Obama foreign policy."

Well done, Chap! Read it all...

John Derbyshire:

"My own life philosophy is one I call Blithe Nihilism. I believe there is no point to life, but I try not to let the belief bother me. Blithe Nihilism has its roots in the grand English anti-intellectual tradition — in the conviction that life is to be got on with and not thought about too much.

Once in a while — after some string of personal disasters, or in a random melancholy mood, or when reading some bloke’s 1,905-page suicide note — once in a while the defenses crack and you find yourself looking down into the pit. When that happens, you need to have some habitual remedy close at hand.

And you are surprised by this because...?

From the Unbelievable to the Passé:

"No, I cannot quite believe how quietly and without audit America’s moneyed and cognitive elites became such hectoring populists — with the constant assumption they could still live, school, work, and marry largely among like kind — oh so distant from the objects of their concern.

I don't think that Friedman understands anything he can't get royalties from....

Shocking! Tom Friedman Doesn’t Understand The Tea Party Movement:

"Ah the cutesy nickname. Friedman has been working this for years. I’m not sure if he stole the shtick from Maureen Dowd or the other way around but it’s annoying. Liberals, especially the ones working at and/or who read the NY Times, are forever going on about how much smarter and more nuanced they are than say the average rube who watches Fox News. Yet they seem to need a spoon full of childish phrasing to help them swallow their supposedly big ideas.

I believe that we are still waiting for President O'Blather to comment on this issue.....the Ground Zero Mosque - not so much

Molly Norris Goes Ghost:

"One may satirize, criticize, and even demonize Christians and Jews. Such speech remains protected by America’s Constitution. But when it comes to Islam and the sensibilities of overly sensitive Muslims, constitutional protections are no longer to be taken seriously. To even discuss these matters, as I am now doing, risks — nay, ensures — being castigated as an Islamophobe.

Life outside the classroom is so..... lifelike!

'Obama's Wars': The gang that couldn't shoot straight -- or shut up:

"-- Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: 'I agree with President Ahmadinejad.'

Read it all. Apparently, our resident genius ain't so bright after all....

Funny, why should we be protecting them if they aren't contributing to the effort?

Belmont Club:

"A sharply escalated campaign of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan is aimed in part at al-Qaeda units suspected of planning terrorist attacks on targets in Europe, a threat that U.S. officials described as “credible but not specific” enough to allow authorities to anticipate precisely where or when a strike might occur.

Slip of the tongue?

Althouse: French politician Rachida Dati criticizes investment funds for "looking for returns of 20 or 25%, at a time when fellatio is almost non-existent.":

"Now, why is that relevant?

Where to start?

When Falls the Coliseum » Bluenosing busybodies know what kind of entertainment your children need: "

Obama's not that smart....

Walter Russell Mead:

"Bob Woodward is a lot more confident than I am that washing an administration’s dirty linen in the middle of an ongoing war can help us to win or support the troops, but it obviously works for him. I may be old fashioned about this; , but wartime presidents deserve to have their policy advice, and their reactions to it, kept confidential. We should judge President Obama’s policy in Afghanistan by the consequences. The President should have either kept Mr. Woodward out of the White House or gotten him to agree to delay publication until after the 2012 election.

Obviously, the President figured that the long-time liberal Woodward would merely bow to his greatness and deliver a glowing critique. If all the other news outlets kowtow, why wouldn't this one?

‘How Religion-y, and Yet He Hates Religion’

Ed Driscoll:

How dare they!

Commentary:

"What seems to have flummoxed the left is that the Beck rally demonstrated that the populist anti-Obama faction in the country (some might use the mundane phrase “majority”) isn’t composed of wackos. They actually understand better than elites that the economic problems are in large part a function of a collapse in values. Obama likes to rail against Wall Street. Well, that’s a location. The ralliers want to talk about what went wrong with the people who populate business and government. They would say we have lost touch with essential values — thrift, persistence, responsibility, modesty, and, yes, faith in something beyond self and self-indulgence. As Brooks put it, “Every society has to engird capitalism in a restraining value system, or else it turns nihilistic and out of control.”

The chattering class should stop chattering long enough to listen to what citizens are saying. Not only is it quite reasonable; it is profound."