There is something very sad and wrong about child stars or those who are the children of very famous parents. They inevitably turn out confused and devoid of identity. The focus of the media lense is often a magnifiying lense burning a hole into their soul and creating a void that they spend the rest of their lives attempting to fill. The “defining” of them by the media and popular culture results in them often defining themselves in twisted and perveted ways. The death of the tragic Michael Jackson is such one case. A child who never had a child grew into an adult who attempted to perpetually be a child, think like a child, and ultimately indulge himself sexually with a child. But he is not alone, Lindsay Lohan thinks she’s a lesbian, Chastity Bono thinks she’s a man, Paris Hilton thinks she’s something other than a scrawny brat and Britney Spears thinks she’s a good mother and that shaving her head was a good idea. The list of course is endless with those lost and hurting souls who’ve let the limelight use them and then turn them into mere shadows of their potential selves forever searching for an identity and worthwhile purpose.

It’s both sad and tragic and the public eats it up.

To riff off of PG’s post:

Last night Henry Waxman tacked another 300 pages onto the Cap and Trade bill under debate in the House today. That brings this 1000+ page document to 1300 or so – wonder if it’s even going to be read by many of the reps who are to vote on it? Support is still a bit tottery but they are forecasting it’ll squeak by.

Part of the reason the vote will be close is because even some Dems wonder at the wisdom of foisting an energy tax onto the backs of consumers at a time when gas is creeping back up towards $3 a gallon, the economy is in a recession and the globe hasn’t warmed a bit in a decade. In fact it’s cooled a bit. Australia is even getting ready to dump their own C&P program.

Kimberly Strassel sums up the “warmist’s” dilemma quite well in today’s Wall Street Journal:

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

She’s referring to that clampdown we saw a year or more ago when Al Gore and the Warmists annouced the debate was over and then tried to get dissenters fired. Lefty rags denounced Skeptics as “Deniers” and tried to set them on a moral par with those who refuse to believe the Holocaust ever happened. This was a big red flag to many. When you’re in the right on an issue you don’t squelch debate – you pursue it. Debate gives you a chance to prove you’re, well, right! Strassel shows us why:

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)

The collapse of the “consensus” has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth’s temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

Gore et al saw this coming. They understood that it’s impossible to push an agenda based on the Globe Warming when the globe ain’t. Hence the switcheroo from warming as a science issue to a moral one. You have a right to debate facts, but you don’t have a right to be immoral. Disagreement with the warmist orthodoxy now makes you a bad person.

Hence the current rush to get as much pushed through as soon as possible. Warmists have to make hay while the sun shines. Strassel sums it up:

Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the cost arguments against climate legislation. That’s made sense in light of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for sure: They won’t be alone.

The future’s not bright for Al Gore & Company.

These kind of emails are always kind of fun to get:

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit. She realizes that
virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such,
can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she
comes up with new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now,
but pay later.

She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the
customers loans). Word gets around about Heidi’s “drink now, pay later”
marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers
flood into Heidi’s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any
bar in Detroit. By providing her customers’ freedom from immediate
payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals,
she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most
consumed beverages. Consequently, Heidi’s gross sales volume increases
massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that
these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases
Heidi’s borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since
he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders transform these
customer loans into DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These
securities are then bundled and traded on international security
markets. Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities
being sold to them as AAA secured bonds are really the debts of
unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb,
and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the
nation’s leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager
at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand
payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi’s bar. He so
informs Heidi.

Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being
unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts.  Since,
Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy.
The bar closes and the eleven employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS drop in price by 90%. The
collapsed bond asset value destroys the banks liquidity and prevents it
from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in
the community.

The suppliers of Heidi’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions
and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the various BOND
securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her
bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.
Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family
business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is
taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and
lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective
executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings
attached cash infusion from the Government. The funds required for this
bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class
non-drinkers.

Now, do you understand?

I report, you decide.

Statement from First Lady Jenny Sanford:

I would like to start by saying I love my husband and I believe I have put forth every effort possible to be the best wife I can be during our almost twenty years of marriage. As well, for the last fifteen years my husband has been fully engaged in public service to the citizens and taxpayers of this state and I have faithfully supported him in those efforts to the best of my ability. I have been and remain proud of his accomplishments and his service to this state.

I personally believe that the greatest legacy I will leave behind in this world is not the job I held on Wall Street, or the campaigns I managed for Mark, or the work I have done as First Lady or even the philanthropic activities in which I have been routinely engaged. Instead, the greatest legacy I will leave in this world is the character of the children I, or we, leave behind. It is for that reason that I deeply regret the recent actions of my husband Mark, and their potential damage to our children.

 

I believe wholeheartedly in the sanctity, dignity and importance of the institution of marriage. I believe that has been consistently reflected in my actions. When I found out about my husband’s infidelity I worked immediately to first seek reconciliation through forgiveness, and then to work diligently to repair our marriage. We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong. I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago.

This trial separation was agreed to with the goal of ultimately strengthening our marriage. During this short separation it was agreed that Mark would not contact us. I kept this separation quiet out of respect of his public office and reputation, and in hopes of keeping our children from just this type of public exposure. Because of this separation, I did not know where he was in the past week.

I believe enduring love is primarily a commitment and an act of will, and for a marriage to be successful, that commitment must be reciprocal. I believe Mark has earned a chance to resurrect our marriage.

Psalm 127 states that sons are a gift from the Lord and children a reward from Him. I will continue to pour my energy into raising our sons to be honorable young men. I remain willing to forgive Mark completely for his indiscretions and to welcome him back, in time, if he continues to work toward reconciliation with a true spirit of humility and repentance.

This is a very painful time for us and I would humbly request now that members of the media respect the privacy of my boys and me as we struggle together to continue on with our lives and as I seek the wisdom of Solomon, the strength and patience of Job and the grace of God in helping to heal my family.

Sometimes fortune pats you on the back and sometimes it kicks you squarely in the nuts. Obama has enjoyed the former, and now he’s dealing with the latter. For months he’s been talking up “engagement” with the Mullahs in Iran, buttering the Arab street, apologizing for everything from the Crusades to the statue of Mohammed in the supreme court chambers, and promising an end to confrontation and conflict in the Middle East. After all, the reasoning seems to go, if projecting power hasn’t worked, maybe projecting weakness will!

So after investing heaps of political capital into Iran, scant days after his “Cairo” speech, Iranians have their faux election and the streets explode – right in Obama’s face. Obama is stuck – he can’t talk up the protestors without appearing to talk down the government he’s been talking to. He’s gone all in on this political Ponzi scheme.

Dick Morris sketches out the political danger the President is in today:

When President Clinton, for example, dithered as Bosnia burned, he acquired a reputation for weakness that dragged down his ratings. It was only after he moved decisively to bomb and then disarm the Serbs that he shed his image of weakness. It took President H.W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq to set to rest concerns that he was a “wimp.” Jimmy Carter never recovered from the lasting damage to his reputation that his inability to stand up to Iran during the hostage crisis precipitated.

So now, as North Korea defies international sanctions and sends arms to Myanmar and Iran slaughters its citizens in the streets, President Obama looks helpless and hapless. He comes across as not having a clue how to handle the crises.

And, as North Korea prepares to launch a missile on a Hail Mary pass aimed at Hawaii, the Democrats slash 19 missile interceptors from the Defense Department budget.

The transparent appeasement of Iran’s government — and its obvious lack of reciprocation — make Obama look ridiculous.

Long after the mullahs have suppressed what limited democracy they once allowed, Obama’s image problems will persist.

Foreign Policy weakness is the herpes virus of the Democratic Party – it keeps flaring up at the worst times. The current spectacle in which the leader of the party that invests Gitmo Terrorists with civil rights yet turns away nervously from a people fighting and protesting for free elections and democratic reform is a scab that wont fade any time soon.

What a president should sound like

The death of Neda

Bankruptcy Litigation Blog: Objecting to the GM 363 Sale’s Treatment of Product Liability Claims: Stepping Into The Fray.

In case you weren’t mad enough already, take a look at another class wiped out by the Chrysler and pending GM bankruptcy plan.

a lot of panicked plaintiffs’ lawyers involved in cases against GM are screaming these days as they watch years of toil on behalf of people seriously injured by defective GM products (like crushed roofs, exploding “side saddle” gas tanks, and collapsing seat backs) potentially go for naught as GM makes its grandest attempt ever to crush an entire class of former customers and existing and future products liability claimants in a sale that many plaintiffs lawyers of record only received written notice of in the past couple of days.

Many thanks to the Center for Auto Safety’s Executive Director, Clarence Ditlow, for his help in organizing the team, and to Public Citizen’s Adina Rosenbaum and Allison Zieve for their tremendous assistance in framing the legal arguments and drafting the pleadings.

And, of course, special thanks to The Coleman Law Firm’s own Bob Coleman for his generosity in dedicating the firm’s resources to this important pro bono effort.

The sad, and all too tragic, stories of my clients, taken from the filed objection, are set forth below.  The only thing my clients did wrong here was buy a GM car.  For this act of brand loyalty, they have paid dearly.

I f their stories don’t bring a tear to your eye, then you probably support the sale’s treatment of product liability claimants too!

I just love common sense…

The most impressive, and unfortunately the most substantive, video of Obama you will ever see. It is said that the dark side of the Force can give one great power. I hate to brag, but I do have some great ability to kill flies myself but I require two hands and a reliance upon my intuitive understanding of the typical takeoff flight pattern of a fly when it is frightened. The secret had been handed down to me by another famous fly killer (an ex-boss). But the straight on death blow is a rare phenomenon in and of itself and rarely seen in person or on video. This, in fact, may be a once in a lifetime opportunity for the general public to view such a scene.

and is now the proud possessor of a “stent” in his right coronary artery. Naturally this had to happen 10 days before heath insurance kicked in at the new job. The good news is that the attack itself was tiny (he thought it was a sore throat) and damage minimal. One blockage in one artery that was fixed via catheter literally 3 hours after he walked into the emergency room. On Friday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend, no less! The cardiologist showed up in shorts and a tee shirt. he said “We can either treat this with medication and send you home or we can go in right now, find out what’s wrong and fix it on the spot.” Tough choice, right?

There’s nothing like restored blood flow to make a guy feel Aces. The Beast was back to work six days later. When the Beast-dad had his heart attack in 1988 he was out for 5 months. Technology is amazing. Co-workers were flabbergasted:  “You don’t look like you’re back from a Heart Attack, you look like you’re back from vacation!”

No more paddling around in the float tube – at least for now.

Just click on Ashley Herzog’s (Townhall) picture for link.