Cabinet Comedy

The Obamedy continues! At least this time it wasn’t because of tax fraud.

We’re now looking for Obama’s third secretary of Commerce.

It is really quite astonishing. “I screwed up” may become a bi-weekly confession.

At some point, things like this can begin to cement a (negative) image in the public imagination. Discrete issues converge and form a single, harmful impression. Obama & Company were looking increasingly amateurish before today; this is now bordering on incompetence…

Less than a month ago, Barack Obama was seemingly sitting atop the world. We all knew reality would set in soon enough; what we didn’t know was how quickly the magic would fade, and give way to what we are now witnessing. It’s still early, of course, and presidents can recover from their initial missteps. But Obama and his team have dug themselves a fairly deep early hole.

The narrative ain’t what it once was.

No, it sure isn’t. Just ask the CEO of Caterpillar.

Now this is my kind of economist

And she has a good plan, too.

Fight the power, man.

Update:

Or just get your own earmark.

Robot Love

A nice interview with Andrew.

Andrew Stanton never set out to dwell in the idea of mankind in ruin.   In the early days of the project, the “robot love story” or “Trash Planet” wasn’t going to be a film that elevated the animation genre or exposed the potential dangers we face if we keep staying plugged in, hooked up and immobile.   It was going to be the next movie in the Pixar lineup, thought up by Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter at the infamous lunch meeting.  Years later, after both had gone and done other things, it was Stanton who picked it back up and along with co-writer Jim Reardon, turned it into a masterpiece.

Round Up the Posse

Making the case that Posse Comitatus doesn’t mean what you think it does.

Posse comitatus means power of the county and is described as the male population above the age of fifteen that a sheriff could summon to keep the peace. It’s known in popular culture as a the “posse” that a local sheriff employed to capture wrongdoers. The framers of the Constitution debated the posse comitatus, and did not rule out its use. The greater concern was securing life, liberty, and property. At the conclusion of the American Civil War, the military was sent to the South to ensure that elections were orderly; that the newly emancipated Blacks were not mistreated, as they had been in the past. This deployment added insult to injury for the people of the South; not only had they been defeated, but there was an occupying army. In 1878, Rep. Knott of Kentucky proposed an amendment that came to be known as the Posse Comitatus Act.

Born This Day, 200 Years Ago

Two men who changed the world, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln.

Cause for celebration!

Update:

And here’s the celebration now! (The Dover High teachers are a very nice touch.)

Welcome to Amerika

Too many police across the country are getting the idea that photography is illegal. Here’s a Federal Reserve police officer telling a videographer that he needs permission to shoot any Federal building. The question is, is this incompetence or malice?

For more on this, see PhotoPermit.org. Also, Instapundit posts about this periodically, as in the case of this Ann Althouse post about a guy arrested for just taking a picture in a public place.