U.S.A.

It is true that there could have been no Obama presidency had Dr King and the movement he sprang from not existed, but that simple fact of history does not amount to a King benediction from the grave for Obama's moral character and political policies.

Indeed, Dr King's life and words are indelible evidence that he and Obama represent opposing moral and political camps.

The ongoing Obama spectacle is a party to which I was not invited. Thus, I’m trying to keep low profile. There are battles to be fought, but I will gain nothing by interrupting the march to communal O-gasm.

Roissy in DC, as a devout hedonist, sees an opportunity:

Even after landing his powerless jetliner on the Hudson River, pilot Sullenberger maintained his cool:

One of the first rescuers on the scene said Sullenberger seemed impervious to the chaos around him.

"He looked absolutely immaculate," the rescuer said. "He looked like David Niven in an airplane uniform. He looked unruffled. His uniform was sharp. You could see him walking down the aisles making sure everybody got out."

In this week’s column, Walter Williams poses a question:

The Federal Register, which lists new regulations, annually averaged 72,844 pages between 1977 and 1980. During the Reagan years, the average fell to 54,335. During the Bush I years, they rose to 59,527, to 71,590 during the Clinton years and rose to a record of 75,526 during the Bush II years.

Economic heavyweight John Maynard Keynes is often quoted for his observation, “In the long run, we’re all dead.” Keynes’s ‘long run’ arrived long ago, but his disproven theories march on. For our current rash of bailouts or spend-and-tax “stimulus programs”, blame Keynes.

Harvard economist Greg Mankiw directs a shotgun blast at Keynesian thinking:

The allergy epidemic in American kids cannot have a biological origin, argues Joel Stein:

Yes, a tiny number of kids have severe peanut allergies that cause anaphylactic shock, and all their teachers should be warned, handed EpiPens and given a really expensive gift at Christmas. But unless you're a character on "Heroes," genes don't mutate fast enough to have caused an 18% increase in childhood food allergies between 1997 and 2007.

Our nation’s President-elect is learning that community organizing really is not sufficient experience to manage the world’s most powerful bureaucracy. Campaiging on platitudes learned during his adventures in the Chicago ghetto was much easier. The complexities a serious Presidential candidate should have grasped are leading Barry to forsake his glorious promises.

I heard it from Anderson Cooper, in full sneer, on CNN. I join Michelle Malkin’s opinion:

If a community organizer can be president and a Saturday Night Live comedian can be a U.S. senator, why can’t a plumber be a reporter?

Today the US Department of Labor released December’s unemployment statistics. Everyone was expecting bad news. Well, there was news. But “bad” is a judgement, not a fact, and the headlines reflect those Chicken Little expectations.

Carnage continues with 524,000 jobs lost in Dec.
Unemployment rate rises to 7.2%, the highest in 16 years

Some of the folks who doubt Obama’s eligibility to serve as President have made a commercial:

Lower gasoline prices are saving American consumers a billion dollars every day:

Last week's $1.59 - the average for a gallon of regular on Dec. 29, according to the Energy Information Administration - works out to $1.33 in 2001 dollars, or 9 percent less than it was the day Mr. Bush took office. The tumble in prices, from a high of more than $4.05 in early July, has meant incredible savings.

Prominent in today’s headlines is Obama’s proposal for tax cuts. Some commenters are optimistic that Barry is not really as much of a Marxist goon as his history and campaign rhetoric suggested. I disagree.

The lede to a weekend story on Marketwatch.com (an investing news site):

While most investors panicked or were forced to sell, Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett put more than $20 billion to work last year, positioning his insurance-focused conglomerate to profit if the economy and markets recover in coming years.
[emphasis added]

If?

Auto sales are down significantly in the short term, so much that the least-viable manufacturers are taking a lifeline from the US Congress. Congress has made no secret that they intend to wiggle their end of the rope to force greater production of fuel-efficient vehicles. But that class of vehicle has suffered the biggest drop in demand:

Even before his coronation in a few weeks, Barack Obama is bringing the country together. Turns out, the majority in nearly every state wants more information about the facts of his birth and citizenship.

C’mon, Barry, show us the document!

TJIC has a suggestion to address the lefty bias our educational system:

I think that anarchists should be given equal time - every time the schools bring a politician in, anarchists should be brought in too.

“Hey, kids, do you want to go to Disney World?”

“Yeah!!!”

“Well, your moms and dads worked very hard, and now they have a lot of money, and they can all take you to Disney World, and maybe buy you a pony.”

“Yeah!!!”

When I hear buzzwords like sprawl and McMansion and hyperconsumption and unsustainability and so forth, they are universally used as pretexts to allow the author to hate his fellow citizens without seeming snobby. No one needs what I don't want is the slogan of the age.

Although I nearly missed it, most of you are probably aware that last Wednesday Thursday was Christmas (see, I really did almost miss it). My relationship with Jesus Day is unique, an adjective chosen in order to sidestep a bout of reflective self-analysis. The day has been one of tradition and rememberance. Both in common culture and in my own.

The Electoral College has met and cast the actual votes making Barry the President-elect. This has not deterred the Obama Birth Deniers:

A second conference has been posted on the docket for the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue of Barack Obama's eligibility to occupy the White House, this one scheduled a week after Congress is to review the Electoral College vote tabulation.

First, from today’s headlines:

Somalia's president has resigned after months of political infighting within the UN-backed transitional government.
…
The government has failed to restore security to Somalia, which has been without an effective central government since 1991.