Alito's In

And it wasn't even close. Of course, this is just the cloture vote, but he should be confirmed just in time for the SOTU tomorrow night.

It's Not So Bad

Even though yesterday was considered the most depressing day of the year, I don't think it's that bad right now.

For example, I Googled "good news" and got 1.39 billion results. The ones at the top had to do mostly with the Christian faith.

On the other hand, I Googled "bad news" and got 446 million results.

It looks like the good news outweighs the bad 3 to 1.

Not surprisingly, the #1 result for bad news: Noam Chomsky's website

good news
bad news

Bloggers' Statement to House Leadership

This is why the center right controls the Presidency, the Congress, and soon the Supreme Court - rationale demands from the base and not radical ideas from the fever-swamp fringe.

Below is a statement, signed by numerous influential bloggers, to the Republicans in the House as they approach their leadership elections:

"We are bloggers with boatloads of opinions, and none of us come close to agreeing with any other one of us all of the time. But we do agree on this: The new leadership in the House of Representatives needs to be thoroughly and transparently free of the taint of the Jack Abramoff scandals, and beyond that, of undue influence of K Street.

We are not naive about lobbying, and we know it can and has in fact advanced crucial issues and has often served to inform rather than simply influence Members.

But we are certain that the public is disgusted with excess and with privilege. We hope the Hastert-Dreier effort leads to sweeping reforms including the end of subsidized travel and other obvious influence operations. Just as importantly, we call for major changes to increase openness, transparency and accountability in Congressional operations and in the appropriations process.

As for the Republican leadership elections, we hope to see more candidates who will support these goals, and we therefore welcome the entry of Congressman John Shadegg to the race for Majority Leader. We hope every Congressman who is committed to ethical and transparent conduct supports a reform agenda and a reform candidate. And we hope all would-be members of the leadership make themselves available to new media to answer questions now and on a regular basis in the future."


Signed,

N.Z. Bear, The Truth Laid Bear
Hugh Hewitt, HughHewitt.com
Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit.com
Kevin Aylward, Wizbang!
La Shawn Barber, La Shawn Barber's Corner
Lorie Byrd / DJ Drummond , Polipundit
Beth Cleaver, MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
Jeff Goldstein, Protein Wisdom
Stephen Green, Vodkapundit
John Hawkins, Right Wing News
John Hinderaker, Power Line
Jon Henke / McQ / Dale Franks, QandO
James Joyner, Outside The Beltway
Mike Krempasky, Redstate.org
Michelle Malkin, MichelleMalkin.com
Ed Morrissey, Captain's Quarters
Scott Ott, Scrappleface
The Anchoress, The Anchoress
John Donovan / Bill Tuttle, Castle Argghhh!!!

Updates to Blogroll

I've added DilbertBlog to my BlogRoll on the left. I've started reading this blog regularly and found it to be highly amusing. I hope you agree.

More Income, Lower Expenses

As I try to balance my personal budget, I always try to reduce my expenses, while increasing my income. It's a tough thing to do, but I look for trends to determine if I am going in the right direction.

Similarly, it looks like the federal government is doing the same thing:

"The federal government posted the first budget surplus for December in three years as corporate tax payments hit an all-time high, helping offset a record level for spending, the Treasury Department reported Thursday.

The department said in its monthly budget report that government receipts surpassed spending by $10.98 billion last month. A year ago, the government ran a deficit of $2.85 billion in December.

The improvement reflected the fact that government receipts were up 12.1 percent from a year ago to $241.88 billion while government spending rose by a slower 5.6 percent to $230.9 billion. The figure for outlays still represented an all-time high for spending for any month."

While spending is still high and needs to come down, revenues are up and expenses seem to be slowing. Hopefully, they will start to shrink instead of rising slower.

A budget surplus is definitely a step in the right direction.

I blame the Bush tax cuts.

Budget deficit
Bush tax cuts