Politics

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.
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The government has failed to restore security to Somalia, which has been without an effective central government since 1991.

Arianna Huffington adopts my rhetoric (yes, I know she’s never heard me, but I’ve been calling for socialists and central planners to be relegated to midnight radio for years):

Because my internets are abuzz with chatter about this year’s Che Guevara hagiography, here’s a bit from a Ché biographer:

One of the prerequisite talents for elected office is maintaining a straight face when telling jokes like this:

Many people talked about a housing "bubble" before it "popped", but none (to my knowledge) warned about the credit and economic contraction that would follow. Nevertheless, no one is shy about being wise enough to offer radical policy prescriptions now that the downturn is here.

The evidence is mounting that we have not made sufficient sacrifice to Ra, or whichever sun god is in charge:

I have detected  a new crisis that I have named "the daylight change crisis". I first noticed it sometime around the end of June this year. I started paying attention and created computer models and sure enough I was right! We are losing daylight at an astonishing rate. Each day we are losing approximately 2 minutes of day light and my computer models predict total darkness by next July.

In a most untimely manner, Time has published a series of photos of Barack Obama from 1980. This was before his awakening to a political calling, back when he was a layabout weedblower and part-time cokehead. And, if I recall correctly, when he was still Barry the Hawai’ian, before he started crafting his Afro-Barack identity.

Piracy off the Somali coast continues to be a significant concern. Fourteen ships and over 200 sailors are currently held captive. Fret not, the UN is on the case:

The United Nations Security Council has unanimously approved a US resolution allowing countries to pursue Somali pirates on land as well as at sea.

It is an extension of the powers countries already have to enter Somali waters to chase pirates.
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Do you believe Sarah Palin said she, “could see Russia from her house?” If so, you’re in agreement with 86.9% of Obama voters. But Palin never said it. It was a line from Tina Fey in a Saturday Night Live sketch.*

Paul Ostrow, the 1st Ward’s City Councilmember, has decided against running for a fourth term in 2009. Ostrow, in my estimation, is knowledgeable and diligent. He seems to have the temperament of a bureaucrat, without the obvious passion several other wards enjoy from their representatives. His decision does not create, but merely amplifies, the power vacuum in Northeast.

As the municipal home of NRR is facing a deteriorating financial position, I have a suggestion. Divest non-essential services. In particular, sell the rights to operate parking meters.

Chicago just raised $1.15 billion in cash by selling their meter rights for 75 years. They have 36,000 meters, while Minneapolis has only 6,800. But that would still result in a payment something over $200 million, assuming a similar rate.

The Supreme Court has decided against considering the latest challenge to Obama’s citizenship. Their decision was issued without comment.

This time, the story has made it past the blogosphere. The StarTribune posted a longer version of the AP’s story, which included this:

Everybody's guilty of something, and they know it.

Quoted from: The Barrister at Maggie’s Farm

The US Supreme Court has denied to review the New Jersey challenge to Obama’s natural-born citizenship. But there’s yet another, this time from Connecticut, which the Supremes will consider considering this Friday.

Although I created a tag on NRR for my Obama Derangement Syndrome posts, I do not think I have been truly afflicted. At least not yet. As evidence of my mental health, I have made all these points, either here or in the meat world:

Presidents really don't have that much to do with the economy. Constitutionally, their scope for action independent of Congress is extremely limited. For we citizens, that means presidential utility in such matters is largely to focus public opinion on Congress when Congress is failing to act, or acting inappropriately (such as looking after their own butts or catering to special interests), rather than taking care of the broader public interest.

A princess in the righty blogosphere believes Obama was born in Hawai’i. Michelle Malkin made her name with her rhetoric more than her reason. She commits a standard ad hominem fallacy while exposing attorney Phillip Berg as a 9/11 Truther:

President Obama will likely be signing into law some form of socialized medicine legislation. Already a goal of Congressional leadership, now with an even stronger majority, I expect a American Health Protection Act will be the last bill sponsored by, and first national tribute to, Ted Kennedy and his brain tumor.

In a startling act of good sense, Louisiana voters have rejected 9-term incumbent US Representative William Jefferson (D) in a run-off election. Jefferson made national headlines when he was found to be storing $90,000 in cash in his freezer, that being bribe money he accepted in an FBI sting. It seems that the new post-Katrina New Orleans might not be so tolerant of the culture of corruption.

The Berg v. Obama suit is not the only challenge to Barry’s ascendancy:

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider Friday whether to take up a lawsuit challenging President-elect Barack Obama's U.S. citizenship, a continuation of a New Jersey case embraced by some opponents of Obama's election.