Barack Obama.

No, seriously.

Although by his (or her) e-mail address, there's just a teensy little doubt in my mind that he (or she) is actually the 44th President of the United States. I mean, it wasn't a whitehouse.gov address, you know.

But why quibble?

Washington Post:

When critics lashed out at President Obama for scheduling a speech to public school students this month, accusing him of wanting to indoctrinate children to his politics, his advisers quickly scrubbed his planned comments for potentially problematic wording.

Uh-huh.

Why would there have been "potentially problematic wording" in the speech in the first place, hmmm?

Certified Black Man Lloyd Marcus reports the awful truth:

We made our way through the crowd to the bed of a pick up truck. National radio talk show host Mark Williams, blue star mom Deborah Johns, singer Diana Nagy, the Rivoli Revue (Ron and Kay) and I climbed on board. Someone handed Mark a bull horn which he used to encourage the extremely enthusiastic crowd. We said the Pledge of Allegiance and Diana lead in the singing of "God Bless America". Many in the crowd were sobbing. Then they showered us with thanks, hugs, bottled water, bags of shacks and homemade treats. I thought, "How many angry racist mobs bake and bring brownies and overwhelm a black guy with affection and hugs?"

Emphasis mine.

Somebody call Jimmy Carter. Somebody call the Southern Law Poverty Center. This man--probably the descendant of a slave, you know--is suffering such extreme oppression that it must be truly unbearable. As a white man, I acknowledge my innate guilt in wanting to give the guy a brownie and a hug, too.

Simian-blogging, but not very much fun at all.

BBC:

"Gorilla meat is sold pre-cut and smoked for about $6 per 'hand-sized' piece. Actual gorilla hands are also available," says Mr Pierre Fidenci, president of Endangered Species International (ESI).

What kind of sick SOB wants a gorilla hand?

Andrew Napolitano, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

Last week, I asked South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, where in the Constitution it authorizes the federal government to regulate the delivery of health care. He replied: "There's nothing in the Constitution that says that the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do." Then he shot back: "How about [you] show me where in the Constitution it prohibits the federal government from doing this?"

Rep. Clyburn, like many of his colleagues, seems to have conveniently forgotten that the federal government has only specific enumerated powers. He also seems to have overlooked the Ninth and 10th Amendments, which limit Congress's powers only to those granted in the Constitution.

One of those powers—the power "to regulate" interstate commerce—is the favorite hook on which Congress hangs its hat in order to justify the regulation of anything it wants to control.

Emphasis mine.

There's more:

Applying these principles to President Barack Obama's health-care proposal, it's clear that his plan is unconstitutional at its core. The practice of medicine consists of the delivery of intimate services to the human body. In almost all instances, the delivery of medical services occurs in one place and does not move across interstate lines. One goes to a physician not to engage in commercial activity, as the Framers of the Constitution understood, but to improve one's health. And the practice of medicine, much like public school safety, has been regulated by states for the past century.

The same Congress that wants to tell family farmers what to grow in their backyards has declined "to keep regular" the commercial sale of insurance policies. It has permitted all 50 states to erect the type of barriers that the Commerce Clause was written precisely to tear down. Insurers are barred from selling policies to people in another state.

That's right: Congress refuses to keep commerce regular when the commercial activity is the sale of insurance, but claims it can regulate the removal of a person's appendix because that constitutes interstate commerce.

If you write a Constitution, and nobody obeys it, is it really a Constitution? Do we live under the rule of law, or the whim of legislators?

What we need isn't a "revolution" but a restoration. We need to either return to the philosophies and laws that what made this country the greatest one on Earth, or continue advancing into the Brave New World of being just another tired social democracy, and watch the rest of the world slide into a weary, hopeless age where our descendents will never really know what the word "liberty" meant, and how very powerful that word--that idea, was.

Once, America was the "shining city on a hill," a place that many around the world held to mean something special, a place where anybody could make it, a place where the Statue of Liberty's inscription once held real meaning:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Is it time to melt down Lady Liberty and turn her into so much copper for eco-friendly wind turbines?

Memphis Commercial Appeal:

If enacted as scheduled on Jan. 1, 2010, policy changes recommended by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) -- the government's insurer for the elderly and disabled -- will severely cut current Medicare reimbursements to cardiologists and oncologists for critical care services that are provided to patients in physicians' offices or other out-of-hospital setting, such as chemotherapy to treat cancer, and various cardiac procedures to monitor and treat heart disease, such as nuclear imaging and heart catheterization.

These cuts will force cardiologists and oncologists to limit care to their Medicare patients, withdraw from treating Medicare patients altogether or require their patients to pay more out of pocket to make up the difference in the cost of these services.

Unless these proposed changes are rescinded, current and future cardiac and cancer care patients will suffer the consequences, especially in rural areas where the proportion of Medicare patients is exceptionally high and patients have fewer choices of health care providers.

It doesn't make sense to create a whole new government system of regulating health care when the Federal Government has not shown it can successfully manage even a system with the (relatively) limited goals of Medicare.

There Is No Free Lunch.

People have the right to all of the health care that they can afford. Period.

People have the right to obtain freely given additional health care that they could otherwise not afford, via charity or via pro bono work by medical professionals. Both should be strongly encouraged as a virtuous behavior of those with resources towards those without.

But people do NOT have the right to force others to pay for their health care, against their will of the payers. People do NOT have the right to force medical professionals to provide health care.

The former use of force is extortion--theft, and the latter is involuntary servitude--slavery.

Perhaps you justify your position with a high-minded sympathy for those in need (usually expressed as "you just want poor people to die!"). Be careful with that though, because that kind of argument goes both ways.

In fact no, I don't want poor people to die. It is a loss to all of us when anyone dies. But if you want to use the caricature, the straw-man, the reductio ad absurdum argument that I'm a heartless selfish bastard for being stridenly pro-liberty, then you must answer the counterargument: Which do you want to be: a thief, or a slavemaster, or both?

Because if you strip all of the rhetoric away, here is the complete list of the choices before us:

1. Freedom and personal responsibility--with all of the good and the bad that comes with it;

2. Extortion, via taxation (call it "fees," or "mandatory contributions" or "mandatory insurance coverage" or whatever other euphemism for using the force of government to seize the fruits of one person's labors and give them to someone else), or;

3. Slavery--the forced conscription of health care workers in the service of those who have no ability to compensate them for their service. Again, use any euphemism you will, forcing health care workers to give services boils down to involuntary servitude.

You only get to choose one. No, actually, that's not true. #2 and #3 are compatible with each other, but neither is compatible with #1.

Now, maybe you want to reconsider the assertion (in place of rational argument) that "you just want poor people to die!"

Or, maybe you want to be a thug, or a slaveholder, or both. It's your choice--it's still a (marginally) free country.

Science Daily: Barcoding endangered sea turtles:

Conservation geneticists who study sea turtles have a new tool to help track this highly migratory and endangered group of marine animals: DNA barcodes. DNA barcodes are short genetic sequences that efficiently distinguish species from each other—even if the samples from which the DNA is extracted are minute or degraded.

Oh. Different kind of barcode. Sorry, George.

I spent much of the time at the march with a brand-new friend, "Patch W Adams" of St. Louis or thereabouts. He's one of the St. Louis group of conservative bloggers--his blog is The P/Oed Patriot.

He took pictures along the way, including one of yours truly. It's in this post. I'm the second picture from the top, in the red t-shirt.

You know, for an out-of-control, enraged right wing wacko, I look pretty darn happy, don't I?

The overall spirit of the thing was a cheerful determination to hold, keep, defend, and restore our American freedoms--for ourselves, and for everyone--including and especially Democrats, "progressives," and authoritarians of all stripes. We just don't want them running the government, let alone our lives. A lot of us forgot that, during the Bush years, and perhaps for years or decades before.

We remember now. This nation was conceived in liberty. In liberty it stands or falls. If you love freedom and liberty, join us.

Liberty has been under attack since this Republic was founded, from those who wish (for good or ill) to hold power over their fellows. The 9/12 march was a protest against them, and a warning to them.

Despite what you're constantly told by enemies of liberty, to join us as defenders of liberty there is no religious test, no skin color requirement pro or con, no qualification by sex or sexual orientation involved right now. There's no dress code. We're not "astroturf"--one look at the atrocious message control of the signs in the march should tell you that. We're the real thing. We believe in non-violent political change, reserving the last resort of a free people for a truly desperate situation that we are, as yet, nowhere near. We know that there are some who fear or hate liberty and freedom--we feel sorry for the former, and we oppose the latter. The only qualifications to join us are a belief that freedom is a thing worthy of defense, and the willingness to stand up and say "Enough! This is the Land of the Free, not the land of the intimidated."

We seek to convince, not to force others into submission.

We believe in freedom--our freedom, and your freedom, too.

If you love freedom and liberty, join us. We have no leaders, because every free man and every free woman is a leader in his or her own way.

Join us and lead.

Sounds like the House will censure Joe Wilson for his temerity in speaking "Truth to Power."

A reminder to today's Democrats, from another Democrat:

I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.

--Harry S Truman

It's just the rather silly mood I'm in right now, but the phrase in this article "a blow to . . . wind energy" just amused me.

Sioux Falls Argus Leader:

The lead utility in a proposed South Dakota power plant is quitting the project - a blow to both wind energy and coal-fired electricity - but the other partners say the plan is still alive.

Otter Tail Power Co. is leaving the project that's designed to build the Big Stone II coal plant at Big Stone City in the state's northeast corner.

"It was a combination of factors - the broad economic downturn, a higher level of uncertainty and proposed climate legislation," said Cris Kling, public relations director for Otter Tail.

1. Drill, baby, drill!

2. Coal is Life. Over half of our energy comes today from coal.

3. Go nuclear (like--yes--the French). Go Polywell fusion. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can start cutting back on burning hydrocarbons for power. There are no other REAL alternatives right now to nuclear power. And polywell fusion is (in my humble opinion) the best hope for large-scale, clean, safe power generation for the future.

3. Wind power won't get it done any time soon. Solar power won't get it done any time soon. We need more power--worldwide--not less. The economic advance of less developed nations requires two things: a) suppressing political/economic corruption, and 2) providing adequate power. Come to think of it, those two things would be pretty good ideas here in the U.S., too.

Build nuclear power plants, and hope like hell polywell fusion pans out. Otherwise we're in deep kimchee.