If Romney can't pass through it, no one else can either. In my opinion he has the demeanor to defeat someone as likeable as Obama undeniably is; you certainly aren't going to defeat him with the belligerence of a Newt Gingrich, who has 60% negatives and a media champing at the bit to destroy him for his past sins against Bill Clinton, among other things.

Of course Romney is a compromise; his success is and has been the result of the Buckley calculation and all the name-calling hissy fits by the "true conservatives" in the world (see the reaction to Ann Coulter's support of Mitt) won't change that.

I think of the selection process as a series of sieves, or filters. The first and foremost one is "Can the candidate beat Obama?" all else is secondary. Romney is the only available candidate that can in my view. You cannot defeat likeability with belligerence no matter how much that belligerence may please the Tea party/true conservatives in the Republican party.

See also my post and link to the Lindzen/Choi ERBE study below...

I have but one criticism. Why does her wheelchair have only one wheel? It appears to be defying the laws of gravity.

Definitely Fishtown. However, I like fine cigars and top shelf bourbon, read the likes of Victor Davis Hanson, George Friedman (of Stratfor) and Mark Steyn. One wonders what Murray would make of me...

Update:

I reconsidered and unblocked Harry a while back. We've had some more back and forth and I've replied to the odd comment here and there. Then, the other day, I tweeted him with the story that the SEC was charging several former Fannie/Freddie officials with civil fraud in the matter (See here) He, apparently in response, has blocked me.

I think that means I win.

File this item under "Late to the Party" Lindzen and Choi published a study in 2009 that showed the models that purport to accurately portray climate sensitivity to be way, way off (emphasis mine.)

Abstract

Climate feedbacks are estimated from fluctuations in the outgoing radiation budget from the latest version of Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) nonscanner data. It appears, for the entire tropics, the observed outgoing radiation fluxes increase with the increase in sea surface temperatures (SSTs). The observed behavior of radiation fluxes implies negative feedback processes associated with relatively low climate sensitivity. This is the opposite of the behavior of 11 atmospheric models forced by the same SSTs. Therefore, the models display much higher climate sensitivity than is inferred from ERBE, though it is difficult to pin down such high sensitivities with any precision. Results also show, the feedback in ERBE is mostly from shortwave radiation while the feedback in the models is mostly from longwave radiation. Although such a test does not distinguish the mechanisms, this is important since the inconsistency of climate feedbacks constitutes a very fundamental problem in climate prediction.

Politifact has quite a few bias issues which are ably pointed out by the folks over here.

The WSJ published a piece by Mr. Delingpole. (see here) The Mann letter was in response to it.

Why anyone would take any heed to what Mann says is beyond me. In any other branch of science it seems to me he would have been at the very least relegated to a long period in some sort of purgatory for publishing something so profoundly and thoroughly discredited as the "hockey stick" temperature graph.

After reviewing the newsbusters post here  ("...what they see as the liberal media"? Really?) I have unfollowed @jenrubinblogger on twitter and will not be reading whatever she has to write, nor will I be listening to whatever it is she has to say. If you can't bring yourself to admit and to say that the media is indeed biased to the left, there is little hope for you. Like's too short to pay attention to people who damage the very cause they say they champion.

I'm beginning to seriously consider whether Jennifer is a liberal plant. Judging from her twitter feed more so than her podcasts with Mickey, she's the Mikey of Republican electoral politics--she hates everyone. I've never before seen someone so willing to lead a circular firing squad on the right. I half expect candid shots of her at a pajama party/sleepover with Debbie Wassermann Schultz to be released...

I really hate it when headline writers personify things like snow. No, snow doesn't "eye" anything, it's a bunch of ice crystals fer cryin' out loud. That is all I have to say.

My favorite quote relating to Marx comes from his wife, Jenny, who said:
 “I wish that dear Karl could have spent more time acquiring capital instead of merely writing about it."

Lest we forget, OBWAT has a scene every Tea partier should love. It's the one where our intrepid heroes approach Pete's cousin Wash's homestead and immediately are shot at by said cousin's son:

Kid: "Hold it right there!
- You men from the bank?"
Pete: "You Wash's boy?"
Kid: "Yes, sir. Daddy told me to shoot who's ever from the bank."
Delmar: "We ain't from the bank, young fella."
Kid: "Yes, sir. I'm supposed to shoot folks servin' papers."
Delmar: "We ain't got no papers, neither."
Kid: "I nicked the census man."
Delmar: "Now, there's a good boy."