Now this is doubling down.  After a few weeks of waffling, Obama is pressing ahead with health care.  Thing is, according to the story (from Reuters, no less – !!), even Wall Street isn’t all that fazed by the notion (says health care stocks are up, and tossed in a couple of quotes from health care execs who say they just aren’t worried).

It’s easy to be amazed at the complete defiance on the part of the Dems to public opinion on health care.  If there’s anything on which politicians of any stripe will lie, it’s whether they read polls.  And anybody who reads polls as much as the Dems must has got to know that public opinion on this has been declining for months.  It isn’t a question of whether the people have heard Obama’s message.  He’s been banging on about this since 2007.  They’ve heard – they don’t want it.

So what gives?  Why continue to suicidally push for something that is so publicly toxic, that will likely turn the House and possibly Senate back over to GOP control in November?  In a sense, I think the answer lies in the question.  It’s pretty roundly agreed that the GOP is going to pick up some seats in November, if nothing else due to the American electoral pendulum swinging back in the other direction.  But I’m thinking that somewhere deep in the bowels of the DNC, the hardcore poll number crunchers have taken a good, long look at the internals and concluded that there’s no averting disaster in the fall.  They’ve issued an internal memo that has made the rounds to Rahm et al with the dire news that there’s no turning this ship around before November, that barring some unforeseen miracle there’s really nothing that can be done to prevent at least one chamber of Congress from falling into Republican control.

Hence, the renewed push for socialized medicine, only now kamikaze-style.  Obama and his fellow Democrats are saying in deed if not in word that they’re ceding electoral success in November, up to and including writing off control of Congress to the Republicans.  The GOP is of course cheered beyond measure at this development, but this presents a tremendous short-term problem: Obama and his fellow Democrats have similarly morphed into people with nothing to lose that they likely won’t lose anyway, and have therefore become that much more dangerous.  The clock is ticking, and the Dems know it.  The question is whether the GOP has picked up on the Dems’ new scorched earth policy, and whether they have the means to stave off the assault.

– For those long, lonely nights in the bathroom, you can do a lot worse than the Bejeweled 2 game on the iPhone.
– Not all toilet paper is made alike. (I knew this before, but the point has been driven home even more powerfully now.)
– Trying to pace yourself by sleeping as possible between bathroom visits helps.
– The WordPress app for the iPhone isn’t half bad. At one point I closed the app mid-post without saving (like I said, I’m sick, okay?), and it had already saved the draft for me.
– The Winky brand of gelatin cups is okay…with the exception of the blueberry flavor, which tastes roughly like Scope.
– It’s at times like these that you realize you can never place sufficient value on a wonderful spouse. Or on good health, for that matter.

I’ve been hanging on to this meaning to post it.  This silly op-ed from RealClearPolitics got linked on InstaPundit.  And it is silly.  Because amidst all the buyer’s remorse over having thrown the lever for Obama, the writer makes it clear she was just incensed at McCain for having picked Palin as his running mate.

You see, I felt my choice was to risk McCain dropping dead and letting the world’s most well-known hockey mom run this country, or to believe that Obama would surround himself with educated people and that he was smart enough to take their advice.

So rather than vote for a vice-presidential candidate with limited experience, your response was to vote for a presidential candidate with limited experience? But that’s hardly her only swipe against the governor of Alaska the mayor of Wasilla.

Seven years later, I am ashamed to say that I was blinded by charisma. Obama was so convincing that I stopped caring about what he knew and started getting caught up in the euphoria. Imagine having a president who came from a broken home, who had money troubles, who did grass-roots community service? A young father. The first black president. It pains me to admit I got caught up in the hoopla.

But McCain made it easy. He’s a smart man, I don’t doubt that. But between picking Palin, suggesting that the first debates be delayed and, well, picking Palin, he made it easy for Obama to win. As Election Day drew near, all Obama had to do was keep his mouth shut to win.

Well, some of us find Palin’s background more than a bit inspiring.  Baseball Crank has covered it in some detail.  But to each his own, I guess.  What escapes me is why she would find somebody who came from humble beginnings to achieve success inspiring (Obama) while finding somebody who rose from similarly humble beginnings in some way detestable (Palin).

Drudge and the Daily Mail should really rethink the headline “Teenager jailed for 15 years after using Facebook to blackmail seven students into sex.”  He’s 19 years old, meaning he’s not a minor.  (Doesn’t it seem a bit idiotic to point this out?)  And while I’m not seeing any comments in the thread at present, when I read it yesterday the British commenters roundly applauded the heavy sentence, which I thought was most interesting; many said he would have gotten a slap on the wrist in the UK.

Go here to watch some lefty heads splitting open. (By way of Steven den Beste, whose predictions are gradually, magically coming true!)