This & That

NRO/The Tank: The Obama-Matic (TM) Content-Free Euphemism Generator [Fred Schwarz]

Sometimes you just have to hand it to the Obama administration. What better way to signal a new beginning than to rename the boring old War on Terror as the Overseas Contingency Operation? The phrase has an almost Dadaist purity, like that random-word spam we all used to get a few years ago. And you can’t deny that whenever anyone hears the phrase “Overseas Contingency Operation,” the first thing they’ll think of is a violent struggle against Islamic extremists. Either that or airline scheduling software.

NRO/The Corner: Harry Reid Calls John Roberts a Liar [Kathryn Jean Lopez]/Politico

“Roberts didn’t tell us the truth. At least Alito told us who he was,” Reid said, referring to Samuel Alito, the second Supreme Court justice nominated by President George W. Bush. “But we’re stuck with those two young men, and we’ll try to change by having some moderates in the federal courts system as time goes on — I think that will happen.”

Glenn Reynolds at INSTAPUNDIT: Work?

“More than three decades of research shows that a focus on effort—not on intelligence or ability—is key to success in school and in life.” Hey, I’ve got an idea — why don’t we organize society so that it rewards hard work! We could even see that people who work harder and do better make more money! And then their efforts would pay off in more general societal prosperity, making life better for everyone! And we could . . . Naaaah.

TELEGRAPH.CO.UK by Ian Douglas: Black car ban hysteria misses the point

The California Environmental Protection Agency Air Resources Board Cool Cars project does seek to reduce the amount of fuel burned to run air conditioning systems in the Dodges and Buicks of the golden state, but it has nothing to do with colour. --So-called 'cool paint' has a coating that is transparent to visible light but reflects infra-red, so less heat is passed to the interior. Tests carried out showed that it reduced the temperature in some parts of the car by as much as 30F and cut the amount of fuel used to maintain the same temperature by almost 30 per cent on sunny days, of which California has many.

RC: Freedom Tower Renamed "One World Tower"

Debra Burlingame sees it as yet another example of the nation forgetting 9/11. Her brother Charles was the pilot aboard American Airlines Flight 77 which was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon by Islamic extremist terrorists. ---"If we can't say the word freedom out loud, God help us," she told the New York Post. "I understand the decision from a marketing point of view. But it saddens me that it's no longer economically viable to declare who we are."