Since 2005 the pay (wages plus benefits) for state and local government workers in the U.S. has increased five percent, while compensation for private sector workers has remained flat. That extra five percent isn’t exactly peanuts:

State and local governments pay more than $1 trillion in compensation annually (actually, that’s an astounding number–I had no idea it was that high). If compensation is 5% higher than it should be, that’s $50 billion in excess pay costs for the state.

Not only does this $50b of mandated excess generosity on the backs of the taxpayers add up, it adds up rather nicely:

Lo and behold, that $50 billion would roughly cover the total size of the state budget gaps. For example, in February a survey found that the combined budget gap of all 50 states was $55 billion for the 2011 budget year and $62 billion for the 2012 budget year.

Why, it’s as if there’s a solution in there somewhere…

During last Saturday’s White House Correspondents dinner Barack Obama delivered one of those standard-issue, boilerplate jokes that presidents typically deliver on such occasions: “The Jonas Brothers are here; they’re out there somewhere. Sasha and Malia are huge fans. But boys, don’t get any ideas. I have two words for you: ‘predator drones.’ You will never see it coming.”
It’s just an innocuous joke with a bit of faux-edginess built in; kinda corny, kinda funny. To some on the left side of the aisle, though, it’s an outrage:

It evinces a callous disregard for human life that is really inappropriate for a world leader, especially a president who is waging war against an enemy that deliberately targets civilians. It also helps undermine that outreach by making it look insincere.

Salon.com further ups the ante, making it a two-fer outrage:

…predator drone strikes in Pakistan have killed literally hundreds of completely innocent civilians, and now the president is evincing a casual disregard for those lives he is responsible for ending by making a lighthearted joke about killing famous young celebrities for the crime of attempting to sleep with his young daughters.”

I love that line, “a lighthearted joke about killing famous young celebrities.”
Lefty crashpad Daily Kos:

As controversial as their purported effectiveness, and the human cost of its killings, is its supposed legality. DefenseNews recently reported that assassinations by drones may bring legal trouble for the Obama administration…

Maybe so. But it was still just a joke.

The following report is enough to give any AGW “denier” reason to step back and reconsider:

There are also worrisome reports of significant temperature increases, with anomalies of several degrees. Also in the report is the mention of ice free open sea of almost 2 million square kilometers, which is termed as “unprecendented in the history of the Arctic”.
It is shocking to read. I urge readers to have a look at some of the excerpts I’ve posted.
First a map. Spitsbergen is part of Svalbard, which is part of Norway.

… read it at WUWT.
Update: Receding glaciers reveal remains of ancient decadent culture.

Eventually, even stupid is going to get it right.
Update: Tea Bagger Terror

About fifteen years ago I was walking through a Vancouver park with a friend of mine, a strict vegetarian who was obsessively concerned with her health and with what went into her body. When she saw someone about ten or fifteen yards away from us sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette, she became agitated, and started talking about her right to breathe clean air. Thing is, the smoker was actually downwind from us; my acquaintance was not being tormented by any actual violation of her lung-space, but rather by her own thoughts, by the idea that her well-tended health was being violated, and she seemed mulishly, self-righteously unable to see the distinction.
I mention this because the executive director of Action on Smoking and Health recently called for a ban on smoking in parks and playgrounds in Edmonton, and now City Council is debating whether or not to implement the proposed ban. The chief executive of the Lung Association of Alberta, who has come out in support of the proposed changes, noted that “In the indoor world, we started with small areas that were smoke-free…and moved on from there.”
Boy, have they ever moved on. It might be hard to get overly worked up about a ban on smoking in playgrounds – although even that is probably a bit of an overreaction – but…city parks? The last time I checked, the outdoors is a pretty big place.
Even Edmonton’s Mayor Stephen Mandel, who has a tendency to see the city as a community league or a social club that every resident has voluntarily joined, said “There are all kinds of rules and regulations, but where does government start and where does government finish?”
Well, if the nanny-statists have their way, it finishes one precisely-measured finger length inside the opening at the end of your alimentary canal:

Anti-smoking advocates upped their demands on Wednesday, calling on the province to outlaw smoking in provincial parks.

Seriously.
Keep your curtains drawn and your bathroom door locked at all times, folks…

During a discussion on ABC’s “This Week,” self-overrating blowhard Bill Maher criticized President Obama for being in favour of offshore drilling, and said that America should have attacked the “problem” of reliance on oil in the 70’s:

Maher : “I mean, Brazil got off oil in the last thirty years, we certainly could have…”

George Will: “…can you just explain to me in what sense Brazil got off oil?

Maher: “I believe they did. I believe they, in the 70’s, they had a program to use sugar cane ethanol. And I believe that is what fuels their country…”

Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters ruins the fun with facts: Brazil is in fact “the eighth largest consumer of oil in the world, burning 2.372 million barrels a day. That places them ahead of Canada, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Mexico, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Spain,” and it produces more oil than even Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria, Libya.
Maher, for his part, is still sporting that dim, unrepentant sneer as he moves on to his next “fact”…

Least Stressed Counties:
1. Ford County, Kan., 4.07
2. Ellis County, Kan., 4.17
3. Brown County, S.D., 4.6
4. Brookings County, S.D., 4.66
5. Finney County, Kan., 4.89
6. Riley County, Kan., 5.08
7. Buffalo County, Neb., 5.19
8. Ward County, N.D., 5.22
9. Grand Forks County, N.D., 5.30
10. Lafourche Parish, La., 5.31
11. Burleigh County, N.D., 5.36
12. Platte County, Neb., 5.49
13. Johnson County, Iowa, 5.5
14. Arlington County, Va., 5.54
15. Albany County, Wyo., 5.59
16. Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, 5.67
17. Custer County, Okla., 5.7
18. Lincoln County, S.D., 5.72
19. Madison County, Neb., 5.74
20. Bryan County, Okla., 5.75
… and now for the most stressed.

It’s almost impossible to argue in good conscience with House Speaker Peter Milliken’s recent ruling – even the most conservative-leaning columnists and editorialists have been virtually unanimous in their support of it – but that doesn’t make it any more palatable. It’s tough to swallow the idea that the same opposition MPs who have been volubly smearing both the troops and the Afghan mission will be given access to classified documents pertaining to the war effort, in the name of parliamentary principle; after watching the opposition lob insinuative, damaging accusations about the mission, month after month, for political gain, principle isn’t exactly the first word – or the second, or the third – that comes to mind.
Even supporters of Milliken’s ruling seem to acknowledge the opposition’s true motivation. The National Post’s editorial noted that “….the opposition parties – far from being concerned just for the well-being of prisoners we capture or for the integrity of Parliament – truly are praying for revelations they can spin to bring down the government.”
Parliament reigns supreme nonetheless. Lorne Gunter, who also supports the ruling, writes:

Many Tory bloggers have railed against the Speaker’s ruling, insisting that the opposition contains several MPs sympathetic to the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah and other Islamic extremists and terror groups. That’s true, but beside the point.

If there are opposition MPs who are sympathetic to the Taliban, allowing them access to classified information pertaining to a war against the Taliban would hardly be beside the point, but in fairness, Gunter goes on to point out that “while the Evidence Act may permit opposition MPs to see classified documents, it does not protect them should they tell our enemies what is in those documents.” Andrew Coyne too, who has a great knowledge of, respect for, and faith in our longstanding rules of parliament, also seems convinced that potential security problems can be obviated by holding in camera hearings and swearing opposition MPs to secrecy.
Let’s hope so, because it’s probably best in the long run – after all, the Liberals will be back in power at some point – to reaffirm that a parliament’s right to know overrides a government’s right to secrecy. It’s just…unfortunate that Milliken’s ruling, based though it may have been on a longstanding and important principle of our democracy, was forced upon him by people whose push was not motivated by anything resembling principles, parliamentary or otherwise:

This is not the first time that governments have withheld ‘secret documents’ from Parliament. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has simply done what many predecessors did in the past. The difference is that a minority government doesn’t control the House…once we have another majority government, we are going to be back where we were before with governments, again, withdrawing ‘secret documents’ from Parliament and abruptly and democratically shutting down sensitive inquiries like the Liberal government did with the Somalia scandal in the 1990s. This debate has nothing to do with ‘history’ but everything to do with cheap politics.

… more.
Update c/o Steyn:

As I write, I have my papers on me — and not just because I’m in Arizona. I’m an immigrant, and it is a condition of my admission to this great land that I carry documentary proof of my residency status with me at all times and be prepared to produce it to law-enforcement officials, whether on a business trip to Tucson or taking a 20-minute stroll in the woods back at my pad in New Hampshire.
Who would impose such an outrageous Nazi fascist discriminatory law?
Er, well, that would be Franklin Roosevelt.
But don’t let the fine print of the New Deal prevent you from going into full-scale meltdown. “Boycott Arizona-stan!” urges MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, surely a trifle Islamophobically. What has some blameless Central Asian basket case done to deserve being compared to a hellhole like Phoenix?