Good news for anyone thinking about watching President Obama’s first State of the Union address at 9:00pm – you can skip it. How have I reached this conclusion? Obama’s speech will be followed by a Thursday announcement of $8billion in ‘stimulus’ funds being devoted to another idiotic liberal pet project:

President Obama is going to Florida on Thursday to reveal how his administration will divvy up $8 billion in high-speed rail funding, but the good news will whistle all the way up to the Buckeye State, say Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Rep Mary Jo Kilroy, D-Columbus.

Passenger rail is wonderful, because it gets citizens into government subsidized trains and out of those terrible, Gaia-killing automobiles. Amtrak has a proven, storied history and should be grown with taxpayer money at every opportunity… except that it doesn’t, and it shouldn’t:

According to a U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) report in December 2004, Amtrak is by far the most heavily subsidized mode of travel in the U.S. Between its huge federal subsidies and its minuscule share of the intercity passenger market (less than 1 percent), Amtrak costs $210.31 per passenger per 1,000 miles, compared to $4.66 for intercity buses and $6.18 for commercial airlines in FY 2002.

Ok, so Amtrak makes a business of suckling at the public teat. But it’s for a good cause! Think of how many citizens will benefit from the several hundred million in pocket change our elected betters want to throw at this project!

An Amtrak study last fall said about 478,000 passengers would ride medium-speed trains connecting Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati. The line would require about $17 million a year in subsides.

Based on the Amtrak estimate, a number of people less than 5% of Ohio’s population would use the system. 478,000 / 11,485,910 = 4.16%. Senator Sherrod Brown could not be happier with his ability to bring home the bacon:

“This is some of the best news we have had in a long time,” Brown said. “If I put my ear down to the rail I think I hear a train coming.”

If I put my ear down to the rail I think I hear a senator giddy about blowing taxpayer funds on something 95% of Ohioans won’t use. I’m sure it will create enough jobs to be worth $17,000,000 a year in subsidies, because liberals always carefully justify every expenditure.

Brown contends the federal stimulus spending on rail is evidence that the Obama administration wants to spend more on the nation’s infrastructure needs and less on “tax cuts for the rich and the war in Iraq.”

This is extremely encouraging. Put photos of his posterior, a hole in the ground, and a viable business plan in front of the Senator, and he can’t identify a single thing. He can, however, puke up some liberal boilerplate about that horrible George W. Bush cutting taxes and killing terrorists.

Famous last words:

You always double down on an eleven.

And:

“The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office,” Obama said. “People are angry, and they’re frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.“

Massachusetts elected a Republican senator for the first time in decades, after a year of backroom deals and hapless foreign policy from Democrats. Clearly it’s a sign that people still haven’t stopped fuming about that doggone George W. Bush! Of all the ways President Obama could have responded to Scott Brown’s victory, this is the dumbest.

But wait, there’s more! Obama, who has subjected all the galaxy to a nearly constant barrage of his face and voice, needs to communicate more so we understand the things he’s doing for us. To help with that effort, the White House is bringing on Obama ’08 campaign manager David Plouffe. It’ll be just like old times! It’s not at all ridiculous for a leftist empty suit to renew his focus on marketing rather than shifting towards the electorate.

My favorite commentary on President Obama’s reaction to the loss of Ted Kennedy’s seat comes courtesy of Mark Steyn, for the Orange County Register:

Got it. People are so angry and frustrated at George W. Bush that they’re voting for Republicans. In Massachusetts. Boy, I can’t wait for that 159th interview.

Presumably, the president isn’t stupid enough actually to believe what he said. But it’s dispiriting to discover he’s stupid enough to think we’re stupid enough to believe it.

Maybe this touchy whining is a knee-jerk reaction, to be smoothed over by a sleek, centrist State of the Union address on Wednesday. Or maybe I’m a bigger lightweight than I realized, and I’m completely soused after the single High Life I had with dinner.

Good news for conservatives from an unlikely locale, as Scott Brown wins the Senate seat vacated at death by Ted Kennedy! This is something few could have predicted as recently as several weeks ago, but it turns out even Massachusetts voters have their limits where big government is concerned. The great thing about Brown’s victory, of course, is the Democrats’ loss of a guaranteed vote for Obamacare. The aftershocks should also be positive, as squishy Dems in states far less blue than Massachusetts pause to reflect on their political mortality.

Hot Air has some thoughts on a Politico story wherein the White House tacks a characteristically arrogant course. If there were any chance the national implications of Brown’s victory could have been overlooked, Obama went ahead and thrashed those over the weekend with a halfhearted last-minute speech. What now for the left’s health care, cap & tax, open borders, and more-rights-for-terrorists endeavors? Nancy Pelosi isn’t worried about the current project:

“Let’s remove all doubt,” Ms. Pelosi said. “We will have health care one way or another.”

“One way or another” is a reassuring promise (threat?), coming from the most transparent Congress in history. While the White House gets serious about digging themselves deeper and Nancy Pelosi talks like the Cheshire Cat on crystal meth, prominent lefty Arianna Huffington mopes about Obama’s failures:

On the eve of the first anniversary of President Obama’s inauguration, it’s become painfully obvious that elected officials are not going to save us. The 2008 election was all about “Hope.” But Hope is simply not cutting it.

No kidding. See, I have never bothered to read anything from the Huffington Post before, so at this point I was optimistic that Arianna might come to a sane conclusion, if not one I’d agree with. Hah!

One year later, wracked with conflict and discord, and battered by petty grievances, false promises, and worn out dogmas, we stand on the verge of passing a giant boon to health insurance companies and calling it “reform.”

The reason we are given? What else: the votes just aren’t there for a real reform bill.

That’s where Hope 2.0 comes in. If the votes aren’t there, the people need to create them. Just like King did. They need to build a movement. And to make that happen, we need to adopt another of the great lessons of Dr. King’s life: elevating the role empathy must play in our society.

Arianna Huffington is sad that the Progressives in Congress are ruining her government health care dreams by catering to special interests (e.g., groups lobbying furiously to secure their place in a rigged system). Somehow she thinks a majority of Americans agree that unaffordable state-run health care is a right we must force down Washington’s throat, which indicates she doesn’t talk to many people who live outside her head. Even among public option supporters, how many would be cheering for government intervention if Congress were remotely honest about the costs?

Here’s hoping the John McCains and Lindsey Grahams of the GOP don’t swoop in on gilded bipartisan unicorns to help the leftists salvage their shell game. Congratulations to Senator Brown (R-MA)! “R-MA” – now there’s something new.

President Obama’s approval rating has been suffering, so he’s falling back on what comes natural to a Chicago politician: taxation and demagoguery.

“My determination to achieve this goal is only heightened when I see reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at some of the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people,” Obama said at the White House. “We want our money back, and we’re going to get it.”

Yeah! Stick it to those money-lending SOBs!

Even companies that didn’t receive TARP funds would face the fee. The administration is using the argument that that [Typo in original - Ed.] every major financial firm in the U.S. is a beneficiary of government steps to bolster the industry.

“The tax will penalize the firms who repaid TARP with interest and those who never even accepted it to begin with,” said Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs for the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents large banks. “It will decrease the availability of loans and limit economic recovery.”

This fat cat clearly knows nothing about economic recovery – that’s what the stimulus bill is for! I’m as disgusted by huge banking exec bonuses as the next guy, and I’m sure some percentage of those executives are genuine scumbags. However, if our options are industry-leading scum or government scum, I’m much more comfortable with the former making the business decisions. Please keep in mind that the Democrats’ go-to guy for financial policy is Barney Frank, a terrible little man who redefines hypocrisy anew each day.

This photo has been altered, but only slightly.

While many banks repaid the money, “in almost every case, they engaged in practices that made this all necessary,” Frank said. “Every one of those institutions was engaged in the kind of activity that led to the problem.”

And how could I forget the favoritism, a vital ingredient of intelligent governance? This is actually another UAW bailout, masquerading as populism:

General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC, which also got aid from the bailout fund, would be exempt, as would smaller banks. As such, the fee will leave the country’s largest financial firms to cover losses from the government’s bailout of the automakers.

The levy also won’t be assessed on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-supported companies seized by regulators in 2008. The administration concluded charging Fannie and Freddie the fee wouldn’t be in taxpayers’ interest.

Emphasis mine. Lenders and the government made a long series of bad decisions. Some private companies screwed up so horribly that they had to come to Uncle Sam, hat in hand. Surprise! There were strings attached to the money they borrowed – and, mysteriously, strings attached for those who didn’t need a bailout. No strings, of course, for the UAW or leftist pet banks.

A parting word from White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. He always knows what to say to cheer us up!

“Americans have a choice in where they bank,” Gibbs said, suggesting that consumers who face higher fees move their money “to any number of small and community banks throughout this country that somehow got by all these years playing by the rules.”

The messages, while mixed, are shockingly clear. Private banks will be punished with a new fee, even though it wasn’t part of the TARP agreement; even if they’ve repaid their TARP loans; even if they weren’t involved in TARP at all. This fee’s costs will not be passed on to customers, because President Obama says so. But if the fees are passed on to customers, screw those banks, because they didn’t play by “the rules” according to Barney Frank and the White House. Companies run by the government will, of course, be exempt, because companies run by the government are good.

Together now: Private bad. Government good.

As occasional readers – both of you – will know, I’ve been a big fan of NBC’s Chuck although season 2 occasionally bummed me out. I really enjoyed the season 2 finale, because it avoided further overuse of the will-they-won’t-they drama while including plenty of the show’s quality humor and action. Let’s get the spoiler alert out of the way now, in case you’re still catching up on season 2 or haven’t watched the new episodes from last night and tonight!

Season 2 ended such that I was optimistic for the third season – giving Chuck a limitless supply of skills seemed like a great way to use the silly “intersect” concept that we’ve accepted to immediately transform the character. I was looking forward to Chuck as bumbling doofus/super spy, working with Agent Sexypants and Colonel Casey on a variety of fun missions. No need for dumb on-again, off-again romance between Chuck and Sarah, since they get in enough trouble that every episode is a dramatic chance for either (or both) of them to almost die. Yes, I knew this was too much to expect.

The first episode of season 3 had its moments, but was overall a big disappointment. Why, when the woman of his dreams wants to drop everything and run away with him, would Chuck back out? I’m happy to ignore lots of unbelievable things the show does to make spy drama light and entertaining, but the Chuck and Sarah business in Chuck Versus the Pink Slip was too much. The second episode explained it away somewhat, but to quote my eminently wise roommate:

If something is an infinitely stupid thing to do and you make it less stupid by half, it is still an infinitely stupid thing to do.

There are characters who would make the decision Chuck made for the reasons he explained in Chuck Versus the Three Words. Chuck is not one of these characters. Having seen for two years how Sarah and Casey are jerked around by their superiors, he would never choose espionage over Sarah Walker unless lame writers decided it’d be a nice way to draw out the sexual tension. Also, Mopey Chuck is someone we had seen enough of by the end of season 1, so this was a bad idea all around.

On the bright side, episodes 2 and 3 were better; the show is still funny, and Adam Baldwin still rocks worlds. The sooner Chuck and Sarah get together and stay together, the sooner we can stop wasting time on longing glances and all that crap! Were I Zachary Levi, I would have demanded twice as much making out with Yvonne Strahovski months ago. But then, Zachary Levi is probably a toolbox in real life, whereas in real life Yvonne Strahovski is Australian.

The first sentence of this Associated Press story really says it all:

After a disappointing new unemployment report, President Barack Obama pushed on Friday for an expanded government program..

No, scratch that – the first half of the first sentence says it all. Unemployment is much worse than President Obama said it would be, so let’s spend more of that stimulus money! Subsidizing green jobs – however the lobbyists and leftists define “green jobs” – is the obvious solution. This is really all Glenn Beck’s fault; if he hadn’t ruined the tenure of sweet, gentle communist Green Jobs Czar Van Jones our economy would be so green right now… you don’t even know!

Speaking of environmental boondoggles, someone remind me to dump all my GE if it gets back around $20. I should’ve learned before I started buying GE that two of the pillars of their business model are:

1. Lobby for government strangulation of things we don’t make.
2. Lobby for government funding of things we make that nobody wants to buy.