Lileks is on a roll today:

I heard more interviews with learned politicians informing me that “drilling for oil” will not affect anything, least of all the quantity of oil. We must apparently wait until 2015, when a magic engine that runs on unicorn flatulence is invented. I have to ask: why is anyone investing in unicorn flatulence today, when it won’t make any difference for several years? The answer’s simple: the engine will Appear at the chosen moment, borne from the clouds by starlings, but only if we have repented of our foul ways, and the last of the sinners has left the cul-de-sac to reside in a home located a sustainable distance from his or her place of employment. When the last suburban outlying development is empty, when the homes of whose size we disapprove has been abandoned, when the last citizen has been gathered unto the bosom of the urban center, where his profligate ways are sneered upon and the measure of his yard shall be no greater than the standard lot size decreed in 1902, then shall the magic engine appear. Until then, the wind and the sun will bear us onward.

Honestly, it’s like FDR coming into power promising “bold, persistent experimentation – except for any sort of government involvement in the economy. That’s off the table.”

No, in the Land of Inversion, we’ve decided to do things that run completely counter to human nature – at least to the nature we perceive in our domestic opponents. Don’t give an inch to your domestic foes; they’ll read it as weakness! To everyone else, though, it’s olive branches strewn like ticker-tape at an astronaut parade. In Israel, for example, this horrible prisoner swap – child-killer exchanged for murdered soldiers. The fellow is welcomed home as a hero by Hezbollah and Lebanon’s Prime Minister and President, because in the Land of Inversion, heads of state clear their calendar when child-killers breathe the sweet air of freedom again. It’s all relative, really. One man’s child-killer is another man’s freedom fighter, and if you point out that the “another man” is a Jew-hating idiot fanatic who’d be proud to blow up the Holocaust Museum in DC and take out a busload of Iowa tourists, you’re ignoring the significant impact this exchange had on the Climate of Trust that will lead to peace. I mean, it’s not like the entire cabinet turned out to meet the guy. In the delicate calculations of the region, that counts for something.

There are some tart words about the Archbishop of Canterbury as well.

…against leftist idiots. This always seemed like a strange thesis to me:

Perhaps even more bizarrely, a few people in the comments are citing China as an example of how capitalism undermined democracy. Apparently I missed the section in history class where we covered the vibrant democracy that existed in China prior to pro-market reforms. Because in the history I learned, the openness and transparency required to support the market reforms have enabled what little movement towards liberalization China has had.

I think that a lot stronger case can be made that democracy undermines capitalism than the reverse. Once people get the ability to vote to take wealth from one and give to another, capitalism, which consists of voluntary exchange, is severely weakened and diminished.

Not to imply, of course, that either thesis is an argument against either democracy or capitalism.

But I agree with Instapundit that it’s a good one:

Obama is humorless, and full of himself. That would make him a great target for satire, except that his followers take the position that any mockery or criticism is racist. The prospect of four years of that sort of thing is the best reason I can think of not to vote for him.

I don’t think that the Obama worshipers have any sense of what a turn-off he is to the rest of us.

But I agree with Instapundit that it’s a good one:

Obama is humorless, and full of himself. That would make him a great target for satire, except that his followers take the position that any mockery or criticism is racist. The prospect of four years of that sort of thing is the best reason I can think of not to vote for him.

I don’t think that the Obama worshipers have any sense of what a turn-off he is to the rest of us.

I would love an Obama presidency with a Republican-controlled Congress.

Unfortunately, that’s not a choice realistically on offer. The best we’ll probably be able to do, absent some political earthquake, is a McCain in the White House, with Dems continuing to misrule the Hill. That’s not a good thing, but it’s better than the donkeys running the whole show (despite the fact that McCain isn’t much of a Republican, either).

On the other hand, a Democrat monopoly on power would have salutary effects on the elections in 2010. But I fear the SCOTUS replacements that would almost certainly ensue in the interim, which are much harder to undo. That’s really the bottom line to want to keep Obama out of the White House.

Life is rough in Michelle Obama’s America, in which all six hundred bucks buys is a pair of ear rings. As for the fresh fruit, she can’t afford a refrigerator for the mansion?

Airbrushing Obama’s web site.

Hey, he said he was about change!

As Glenn notes, this could be a hint of how an Obama administration would behave.

You know, we lowly, benighted citizens are always told that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Well, considering the size of the federal code, and that of all the states in which we live, and occasionally move to, often on short notice, how does one justify this?

It’s not just about the ability for citizens to take pictures of police officers in public places (though that’s important too; see: King, Rodney). It’s about the officer’s behavior — specifically his attempt to bully this man into compliance with an illegal demand, using his power as an officer of the law in the service of his personal pique, at the expense of the citizenry that he is supposed to “serve and protect.” It is absolutely, totally and completely unacceptable for police officers to use the authority conferred by their badges to violate people’s rights in this manner, and society needs to send that message loud and clear.

Should ignorance of the law be an excuse for this man? Call me crazy, but it seems to me that those enforcing the law should be much more responsible for knowing it than those who are being oppressed by ignorance of it.