Pelosi Reverses House Fairness Rules - HUMAN EVENTS

"After decades of Democrat control of the House of Representatives, gross abuses to the legislative process and several high-profile scandals contributed to an overwhelming Republican House Congressional landslide victory in 1994. Reforms to the House Rules as part of the Contract with America were designed to open up to public scrutiny what had become under this decades-long Democrat majority a dangerously secretive House legislative process. The Republican reform of the way the House did business included opening committee meetings to the public and media, making Congress actually subject to federal law, term limits for committee chairmen ending decades-long committee fiefdoms, truth in budgeting, elimination of the committee proxy vote, authorization of a House audit, specific requirements for blanket rules waivers, and guarantees to the then-Democrat minority party to offer amendments to pieces of legislation.

Pelosi’s proposed repeal of decades-long House accountability reforms exposes a tyrannical Democrat leadership poised to assemble legislation in secret, then goose-step it through Congress by the elimination of debate and amendment procedures as part of America’s governing legislative process."

Flat-screen TVs to face energy-efficiency rules in California - Los Angeles Times

"Sales of television sets are growing by 4 million a year, the vast majority of them flat-panels. LCD -- liquid crystal display -- sets use 43% more electricity, on average, than conventional tube TVs; larger models use proportionately more. Plasma TVs, which command a relatively small share of the market, need more than three times as much power as bulky, old-style sets."

News to me, and a bit hard to believe, but there is no explanation given for a statement that contradicts everything I've read on the subject thus far. thank-you in-depth MSM reporting!

But maybe it's not just bad reporting. The graph which pictorially restates the above is taken from a state energy commission web site that has lots of links to "useful information" mostly consisting of dead links, or in some cases presentations not of facts on energy use, but instead on high level self promotions for the commission selling the importance of continuing to measure things at taxpayer expense.

I can only assume that the value of CRT TV sets over the newer LCD models has to do with the relative size of the two. I can believe that someone replacing an old 27-inch CRT set with an LCD that is at least twice that size MIGHT be consuming more power. I find it still very hard to beleive that inch for inch the energy used goes up.

Google gives out-of-print books a new life online - International Herald Tribune

"Some librarians privately expressed fears that Google might charge high prices for subscriptions to the book database as it grows. Although nonprofit groups like the Open Content Alliance are building their own digital collections, no other significant private-sector competitors are in the business. In May, Microsoft ended its book scanning project, effectively leaving Google as a monopoly corporate player."

Prez-Elect Makes New Pitch, Promises on Job Creation -- Including 600,000 New Government Employees

"He says the 'No. 1 goal of my plan ... is to create three million new jobs, more than 80 percent of them in the private sector.”

If you do the math: 20 percent of three million means 600,000 new government employees."

No sign of that scalpel is there?

A donor's gift soon followed Clinton's help - International Herald Tribune

"A developer in New York state donated $100,000 to former President Bill Clinton's foundation in November 2004, around the same time that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton helped secure millions of dollars in federal assistance for the businessman's mall project."

Richardson to withdraw as Commerce secretary - Politics- msnbc.com

"New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, tapped in December by President-elect Barack Obama to serve as secretary of Commerce, has withdrawn his name for the position, citing a pending investigation into a company that has done business with his state."

One has to wonder why someone so squeaky clean would act so quickly to drop out of public scrutiny.

Are we about to set a record for the largest number of scandals to beset a presidency before it even begins?

How a Public Health Plan Will Erode Private Care

It turns out, however, that these promises cannot be fulfilled. Under the health reform plan that the President-elect has outlined, including variations of his basic approach that have been refined by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) and former Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD), President-elect Obama's pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services, millions of Americans will indeed lose their existing coverage, and the promised premium savings are unlikely to materialize.

...

Tanner's observation, however, begs an obvious question: If the rules and standards, financing and benefits, reserve and solvency requirements, and consumer protections and guarantees are all the same for competing private plans and the public plan, then, logically, why should there be a public plan at all? A common set of market rules for insurers would be sufficient to achieve whatever public good is envisioned to ensure affordable coverage and fair competition. Otherwise, it would seem that the only reason to create a public plan would be simply to have a public plan--a meaningless exercise, unless the goal is public monopoly.

RealClearPolitics - The Gaza Rules

"Fifth and finally, victimization is crucial. Hamas daily sends barrages into Israel, as its hooded thugs thump their chests and brag of their radical Islamic militancy. But when the payback comes, suddenly warriors are transmogrified into weeping victims, posing teary-eyed for the news camera as they deplore 'genocide' and 'the Palestinian Holocaust.' At least the Japanese militarists did not cry out to the League of Nations for help once mean Marines landed on Iwo Jima."

Hollywood's Digital Dawdling - BusinessWeek

"The basic problem is that Hollywood is attempting to preserve an analog business model in a digital age. The result is a crazy quilt of availability in different media, in different geographies, and at different times. Our Man in Havana turns up now and then on cable channels, and the DVD has been available from Sony in Britain since 2005. But that disk is coded so it only works in European 'Zone 2' players, not in North America. All of this makes little sense in a world where digital copies, legal or otherwise, are freely available."

With 2008, Let’s Say Good-bye to Mediocrity

"Let us not wash off our hands as well. It is our acquiescence that has led to the spread of this culture of mediocrity. We accept dropped phone calls on our wireless networks, computers that constantly crash, broadband networks that are best effort."

Two Advisers Reflect on Eight Years With Bush - washingtonpost.com

"Hadley invoked Bush's 2000 campaign theme in summing up the president's personal qualities. 'He has got this great compassion which was not just a slogan, 'compassionate conservative.' It is who he is. It is one of the great things he brought to this office,' Hadley concluded. 'This is the one thing that just drives me crazy, that somehow this is an arrogant administration, an arrogant president running an arrogant policy. This guy -- one thing he is not is arrogant.'"

Blago Raises the Stakes - HUMAN EVENTS

"But who is truly showing hubris here? And under what authority and with what justification would Reid deny Burris his seat?

There is not the slightest hint Burris did anything unethical or illegal to win this appointment. Nor is there any doubt as to Gov. Blagojevich's right to make the appointment. He is still governor of Illinois. He has not been convicted of anything. And he not only has the right but an obligation to carry out his duties, one of which is to appoint candidates to fill empty seats in the U.S. Senate.

As for Burris, his qualifications are surely superior to those of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, whom Democrats have been pounding New York Gov. David Paterson to appoint to Hillary Clinton's seat."

FOXNews.com - Zune Extinction Event: Microsoft Music Players All Freeze Up at Once - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News

"Some online techies recommended taking the thing apart, disconnecting both the battery and the hard drive, waiting a few seconds, then plugging them back in.

Later in the day, Microsoft finally figured it out. While writing some of the driver software, the world's biggest software company had forgotten to compensate for leap years."

Environment minister Sammy Wilson: I still think man-made climate change is a con - Environment, News - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk

"I mean I get it in the Assembly all the time and most of the people who shout about climate change have not read one article about climate change, not read one book about climate change, if you asked them to explain how they believe there’s a connection between CO2 emission and the effects which they claim there’s going to be, if you ask them to explain the thought process or the modelling that is required and the assumptions behind that and how tenuous all the connections are, they wouldn’t have a clue."

Obama And That Other Ponzi Scheme - December 31, 2008

"Prosecutors allege that Hsu directed his investors to donate money to specific candidates, and then reimbursed them in violation of federal campaign laws. Unswayed by Cohen's argument, Marrero declined to delay the trial, which will begin a week before Obama's inauguration."