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Jonathan Tobin notes the hypocrisy of an anti-Israel president participating in a Jewish religious event.
…After a week spent beating up on Israel, blowing a minor gaffe into an international incident, subjecting Israel’s prime minister to unprecedented insults that Obama would never think of trying on even the most humble Third World leader, and establishing the principle that the Jewish presence in eastern Jerusalem — even in existing Jewish neighborhoods — is illegal and an affront to American interests — after all that, Obama plans on spending Monday night mouthing a few lines from the Passover Haggadah at a Seder held in the White House. …
…Can any Jew with a smidgeon of self-respect or affection for Israel think that having a president say “Next year in Jerusalem!” while sitting at a table with matzo and macaroons makes up for policies that treat the 200,000 Jews living in the post-1967 Jewish neighborhoods of their own ancient capital as illegal settlers on stolen land?
Perhaps Obama and his coterie of Jewish advisers think they are entitled to expropriate the symbols of Judaism to lend legitimacy to their anti-Israel policies. Of course, if Obama had any real sympathy for the people of Israel or the Jewish people, he might instead spend Monday night reevaluating a policy that appears to concede nuclear weapons to the rabid Jew-haters of Islamist Iran and reinforces the intransigence of the supposedly moderate Palestinian Authority and its allies across the Muslim world. …
Yesterday we heard about Paul Krugman marching in lockstep with the Dem complaints about GOP rhetoric. In Townhall, John Hawkins gives us a sample of violent rantings from liberals aimed at conservatives. You can go to the article to read the quotes.
In an effort to distract people from the destructive, illegitimate power-grab-of-a-bill masquerading as health care reform that the Democrats just passed over the objections of the American people, liberal members of Congress have spent days over-hyping threats against them. ….
Meanwhile, if conservatives truthfully refer to Barack Obama as a socialist or encourage people to fight back against the takeover of 1/6 of our economy, we’re hysterically accused of inciting violence, while liberals who actually call for violence and publicly wish death upon conservatives are given a free pass.
Well today, that free pass has run out because people are going to get just a taste of the violent rhetoric that has been coming from the Left for years in this country. Conservatives have long since been willing to stand up and say that they oppose political violence and threats coming from our side – as well we should. So, when will Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama finally stand up and condemn the ocean of violence and hatred being spewed by their friends, supporters and ideological allies? …
David Harsanyi tells Mitt Romney to come clean about the healthcare disaster he helped create in Massachusetts.
…Here’s what he should have said years ago:
“Everyone makes mistakes. Heck, I made a huge one. My plan, first hijacked by state liberals and now copied by Barack Obama, has created a fiscal nightmare in my state — one, which according to the former Democratic treasurer, has forced us to cut back on other basic services.
“Though we promised an individual mandate would mean everyone chipping in, nearly 70 percent of the newly insured are subsidized by taxpayers — with many paying nothing. Meanwhile, health care spending in our state is 27 percent higher than the national average and we have a shortage of doctors to boot. And that’s just for starters . . .
Thomas Sowell turns his attention to global warming.
…The recent statement that the earth was warmer in the Middle Ages than it is today, made by the climate scientist who is at the heart of the recent scandal about “global warming” statistics, ought to at least give pause to those who are determined to believe that human beings must be the reason for “climate change.”
Other climate scientists have pointed out before now that the earth has warmed and cooled many times over the centuries. Contrary to the impression created in much of the media and in politics, no one has denied that temperatures change, sometimes more than they are changing today. …
Three of the mainstream’s finest provide their reservations about the health care bill. They’re reading the polls and getting nervous about November.
In USA Today, Susan Page gives poll numbers on Obamacare.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the health care overhaul signed into law last week costs too much and expands the government’s role in health care too far, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, underscoring an uphill selling job ahead for President Obama and congressional Democrats.
Those surveyed are inclined to fear that the massive legislation will increase their costs and hurt the quality of health care their families receive, although they are more positive about its impact on the nation’s health care system overall. …
…There was a strong reaction against the tactics Democratic leaders used to pass the bill. A 53% majority call Democratic methods “an abuse of power;” 40% say they are appropriate. …
In Politico, Josh Gerstein reviews poll numbers as well.
…But Obama’s approval in the Gallup daily tracking poll stands at 48 percent — near his all-time low of 46 percent in the three-day rolling average. Near the time of passage, Obama ticked up to 50 percent in the poll. …
…At least one survey showed hints that Obama is still enjoying a bit of a boost from the passage of the landmark health legislation. The CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll showed Obama’s approval rating up to 51 percent from 46 percent before the health bill passed. There were also signs of increased support for Obama from lower-income households and union members — key Democratic voting groups. …
…“It’s pretty clear to me that public opinion is arrayed against the plan. And among swing voters, opinion is even more against the plan,” said Doug Schoen, a Democratic pollster who raised hackles at the White House recently by making dire predictions about the impact of health care reform’s passage. “I don’t think there’s any evidence it will be good politically, except for maybe some marginal impact firing up the base. …
In Newsweek, Howard Fineman has even more surprising poll numbers. It appears that some of the center commentators are more comfortable talking about Obamacare by looking at poll numbers.
…In Gallup’s new poll, Americans by narrow margins agree that the new health-care law will improve coverage (44–40 percent) and the “overall health of Americans” (40–35 percent). In a way, it’s astonishing that sizable minorities could disagree with those two statements, since everyone agrees the law will provide medical coverage to 32 million more Americans.
But that’s where support, however ambivalent, ends. Americans think the law will harm the U.S. economy (44–34 percent), the overall quality of health care in the U.S. (55–29 percent), and the federal balance sheet (61–23 percent). …
March 24th Pickings had an Economist piece on studies of fairness by folks at the U of British Columbia. Same study, but John Tierney has a different take.
… But a second factor seemed even more important. In explaining attitudes toward fairness, Dr. Henrich and his colleagues found that the strongest predictor was the community’s level of “market integration,” which was measured by the percentage of the diet that was purchased. The people who got all or most of their food by hunting, fishing, foraging or growing it themselves were less inclined to share a prize equally.
Grocery shopping may seem an unlikely form of moral education, but the researchers argue in Science that the development of “market norms” promotes general levels of “trust, fairness and cooperation” with strangers. (You can debate that point at nytimes.com/tierneylab.)
“Markets don’t work very efficiently if everyone acts selfishly and believes everyone else will do the same,” Dr. Henrich says. “You end up with high transaction costs because you have to have all these protections to cover every loophole. But if you develop norms to be fair and trusting with people beyond your social sphere, that provides enormous economic advantages and allows a society to grow.” …
The Economist has an article on an interesting new technology to spot terrorists in airports.
…WeCU’s approach relies on displaying stimuli, such as photographs of individuals who might be known to terrorists but not to ordinary people, or code words that intelligence has discovered are associated with particular operations, and observing what happens. …
…When confronted with such stimuli, someone who is unfamiliar with them will merely be bemused and ignore them. Someone who knows what they are, and is feeling guilty about it, will undergo an increase in body temperature, heart rate and breathing rate. WeCU’s apparatus is able to monitor the first two of these using an infra-red camera. This captures the heat pattern of blood vessels near the skin, betraying both changes in overall temperature and in heart rate. The system first establishes a baseline for an approaching individual, then flashes the potentially stimulating image on a screen or wall in the subject’s eyeline. If the baseline changes in a way that is suspicious, the individual can be ushered away for further questioning. …