Political Lesson

The boondoggle immigration bill is dead and it is a great day for America. Voters shut down the Senate phone system, but they got the message anyway.

Ridiculous enough for you yet?

Scientist Implicates Worms in Global Warming

Jim Frederickson, the research director at the Composting Association has called for data on worms and composting to be re-examined after a German study found that worms produce greenhouse gases 290 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Worms are being used commercially to compost organic material and is in preference to putting it into the landfill. The German government wants 45% of all waste to be composted by 2015. "Everybody... thinks they can do no harm but they contribute to global warming. People are looking into alternative waste treatments but we have to make sure that we are not jumping from the frying pan into the fire," said Frederickson.

Need Cash?

I was just watching a program on my DVR and a commercial came on offering to lend you money with a phone call. Then as I quickly raced through the commercial as I always do, the small print disclosure which always goes past too fast to actually read caught my eye and I backed up and paused to read it. The company is Cash Call and it says if you borrow a typical $2600 and pay them back with 42 monthly payments of $216.55, the APR for the loan is 99.25%. That is accurate.

If you want to get in on this great deal, call 877-890-CASH or call me and I will only charge you $200/month.

Another Iraq Report from Michael Yon

These reports from the front lines in Iraq are unique. I just sent him a contribution since that is his only source of support.

Gay Pride?

I just saw on the news that this is "Gay Pride " month. Every month has to be something, I guess, but I am confused by this one. I thought one took pride in something accomplished, usually through admirable effort and/or perseverence. Since one is supposedly gay by accident of birth and gene assortment, it seems strange to be proud of sexuality. That seems no more a feat than being red headed.

CNN finds al Qaeda

I just ran across this little story from CNN. Before long the loony leftists in the Dem party are going to have to drop their call for us to get out of Iraq because we need to go where the terrorists are.

Iraq war being waged----at last

Here is a timely report on the war in Iraq.

Another Boring Interview?

A Contrary View

For those who are interested in the religion which is known as "global warming", here is a scientifically based article which summarizes a contrary view and warns of global cooling by 2020.

No surprise

When D.A. Nifong charged the 3 Duke athletes with rape the New York Times had their pictures on the front page and a damning editorial at the ready. When Nifong was disbarred for unethical behavior the article was on page 16.

Delayed Gratification

The older I get the more often I see that what passes for life's success and failures or deficiencies is ultimately based on choices, but many times the choice is between doing something now or some better time in the future. There are lots of examples. Sex at the wrong time and with the wrong person, for example. Getting an education through applied studying and due diligence can obviously affect how successful one is. Having fun in college is great unless it prevents you from accomplishing what you should be there for. You can have a lot of fun later if you have a good job and money coming in every month. Family timing is important. Have a family too soon and there can be a profound and lingering effect on subsequent financial health. Retirement is just a whole lot more fun and a lot less stressful if you have delayed some gratification by saving enough money to spend later in life. These are the big examples, but there are a lot of smaller ones as well. Some big time athletes get huge contracts and lots of money to go with minimal common sense and risk it all by deciding for example that despite contracts to the contrary they have to buy a motorcycle. Ben Rothlisberger, for example. Several professional golfers have lost irreplaceable productive months and years from injuries while skiing and snow-boarding. Ernie Els and Chris DiMarco come to mind here.

I guess the other side of the argument is one should have it all now because tomorrow may not come. If wrong, however, you wind up repenting in leisure.

Energy Legislation

The Alaska pipeline started sending oil down to the lower 48 on June 20, 1977. This pipeline from Prudhoe Bay was criticized by the looney left in the Democrat party at the time as a boondoggle which would bring us just 6 months of oil and devastate our planet for all time with its ecological damage. This is the same drivel that they are offering us now with regard to Anwar oil. The truth, however, is that we have realized 15 billion gallons of oil from the pipeline and there has been no ecological damage whatsoever. The liberal line never changes, however, as can easily be seen by the current legislation being debated in the Senate. There is no provision for new production, no way to encourage new refineries to be built, no encouragement for nuclear power production, but there is a proposal for new taxes on the energy companies which they restrict from meeting our energy demand. As a result, there will be no energy bill this year.

Interesting Statistic

I just ran across an interesting statistic in a Wall Street Journal article this morning. There are currently over 632,000 known fugitive aliens in the U.S. These are persons who have illegally come into the U.S., committed a crime, been found guilty and been released pending appeal of an order that they be deported.

Another one. Of the 15,000 illegal immigrants arrested last year for some criminal infraction, 10,000 were fugitives from deportation orders as described above.

What are we doing about this situation? Well, according to the article, since last October the feds have captured and deported 537 of these fugitives. Here is the math. The number has been reduced to 632,189 from 632,726. That probably doesn't convince you that the promised attention to the illegal fugitive matter in the proposed legislation being promulgated by Bush and Teddy Kennedy will be delivered in fact.

Take your pick

I am reading in the news today that Mike Bloomberg, the liberal mayor of New York City has renounced his voter affilliation and is now unaffiliated rather than a Republican. There is growing expectations that the billionaire may decide to spend some of that money to run for President. This could give us the once in a lifetime opportunity to choose which New York liberal we want to vote for. Take your pick: Clinton, Guiliani, or Bloomberg. Beam me up, Scottie.

Another snippet from Mark Steyn

This is just a small part of another great essay by Mark Steyn. Read it all.

There are immigration laws on the books right now, aren't there? Why not try enforcing them? The same people who say that government is a mighty power for good that can extinguish every cigarette butt and detoxify every cheeseburger and even change the very climate of the planet back to some Edenic state so that the water that falleth from heaven will land as ice and snow, and polar bears on distant continents will frolic as they did in days of yore, the very same people say: Building a border fence? Enforcing deportation orders? Can't be done, old boy. Pie-in-the-sky.

The proper intellectual level

I just read that some 4th graders have now issued a global warming report.

That is about the same level of scientific sophistication that I have seen in similar analyses of the subject.

Homework

Here is a research project for the coming weeks. As you read the reports from the Mid-east and the civil war involving Hamas and Fatah, pay attention to the way it is described by the looney left in the nation's largest newspapers and wire services. If you pay close attention you will notice the casualties are described as "people". Once you have established that nobody in specific terms is affected by the war, go back and read the recent reports from the Israel incursion into Lebanon. There, you will find, the casualties are babies, civilians, women and children, non-combatants and the buildings affected were schools and hospitals as well as the houses of poor peasants.

If your results are as I suspect, you will find there are no innocent victims of the carnage being wrought by Iran's surrogates in Gaza and the West Bank as they fight Fatah. If Israel decides it doesn't want and can't tolerate an enemy state on its border in Gaza and takes retaliatory measures to counter rocket fire into its cities, the result will be reported as a form of genocide by the heartless Jews.

Trust me

1. Of course I will respect you in the morning.

2. The check is in the mail.

3. Islam is a religion of peace.

4. We will really enforce border security this time.

I thought mine was the worst

I just ran across an article which purports to list the 10 worst jobs in science. After checking to see if Microbiology Professor in a medical school was listed, I read about some which really do seem to be pretty sorry. Here is the worst according to the article which you can read here.

“The worst was at a factory pig farm,” says Steven M. Barsky, the author of Diving in High-Risk Environments, the industry bible for hazardous-materials divers. “A guy had driven his truck into the waste lagoon and drowned. Not only was it full of urine and liquid pig feces, the farmer had dumped all the needles used to inject the pigs with antibiotics and hormones in there.” Someone had to recover the body, and the task fell to commercial hazmat divers.

The Coburn Solution

When the Dems were campaigning last Fall in congressional races across the country, they rightly pointed to the corruption by Republicans in Congress and the need to clean up practices such as earmarks which allowed funding for "bridges to nowhere" in Alaska. Nancy Pelosi pledged to "make this the most honest, ethical and open Congress in history." Well, after only 6 months that seems to be an empty promise--- similar to the pledge to work 5 days a week. With regard to earmarks, David Obey, the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee has decided that the membership has no need to actually know about and vote on those special little projects inserted into spending bills. He will now take all 32,000 of them and decide later which ones will be funded. As we consider this, we should remember that the crooked Republicans were thrown out for funding 14,000 of these earmarks. Anyway, congressional spending practices seem to be the same or worse than when the Dems were elected last Fall. While we wait for Nancy Pelosi to decide whether she wants to honor her word or impose discipline on her legislative body, we can watch Tom Coburn in the Senate. Senator Coburn says that unless something is done about earmarks we should remember that any one member of the Senate can prevent spending bills from going to conference to resolve differences in the House and Senate. If there is anyone in America who doesn't think that there is one member who will excercise his perogative in this regard, they don't know Senator Coburn. This should be fun.

In a related development, there is a paper pledge in the House with enough Republicans signed on to sustain any veto by President Bush of a spending bill which exceeds his budget. This is a shaky proposition since the Republicans could go wobbly if one of their pet boondoggles is threatened, but it may help some.

Trust Me

Bush, McCain, and Kennedy want us to let them pass amnesty in the current farce called an immigration bill and trust them to enforce border security even though they haven't done so despite current law for over 20 years. How about this. Secure the border and we promise to revisit the amnesty question in a few years if you actually do it.

Wish I had thought of it

I just heard those tatoos on a woman's lower back called "tramp stamps". Hard to argue with that.

The dem view

Again from Mark Steyn:

A few days ago, Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, declared:

"This week we will vote on cloture and final passage of a comprehensive bill that will strengthen border security, bring the 12 million undocumented Americans out of the shadows, and keep our economy strong."

So, according to Reid, they are already Americans and now we just need to get the documents in order.

More on immigration

From Mark Steyn:

Back in the real world, far from those senators living in the nonshadows of their boundless self-admiration, the truth is that America's immigration bureaucracy cannot cope with its existing caseload, and thus will certainly be unable to cope with millions of additional teeming hordes tossed into its waiting room.

Currently, the time in which an immigration adjudicator is expected to approve or reject an application is six minutes. That's not enough time to read the basic form, never mind any supporting documentation. Under political pressure to "bring the 12 million undocumented Americans out of the shadows," the immigration bureaucracy will rubber-stamp gazillions of applications for open-ended probationary legal status within 24 hours and with no more supporting documentation than a utility bill or an affidavit from a friend. There's never been a better time for Mullah Omar to apply for U.S. residency.

Remember the 1986 amnesty? Mahmoud abu Halima applied for it and went on to bomb the World Trade Center seven years later. His colleague, Mohammad Salameh, was rejected but carried on living here anyway. John Lee Malvo was detained and released by U.S. immigration in breach of its own procedures and re-emerged as the Washington sniper. The young Muslim men who availed themselves of the U.S. government's "visa express" system for Saudi Arabia filled in joke applications – "Address in the United States: HOTEL, AMERICA" – that octogenarian snowbirds from Toronto who've been wintering at their Florida condos since 1953 wouldn't try to get away with. The late Mohammed Atta received his flight-school student visa on March 11, 2002, six months to the day after famously flying his first and last commercial airliner.

All the above passed through the legal immigration system. Whether they were detained, rejected, approved or posthumously approved, in the end it made no difference. Because U.S. immigration had no real idea who these men were.

But, don't worry, they'll be able to handle another "12 million undocumented Americans" tossed in for express processing.

The real "immigration fraud" is not Mahmoud abu Halima's or John Lee Malvo's or Mohammed Atta's, but that of the politicians who attempted to foist this sham bill on the nation.

Enforcement Now

Since the Bush administration thinks we are all as dumb as a sack of hammers, they keep trying to convince us that the border enforcement in the current bill is so solid and we can rely on its implementation so firmly that the amnesty aspects which start immediately should be accepted. That is hogwash and we all know it.

1. If all these enforcement measures are so wonderful, why not enact just them and drop the questionable legalization part? Bush is holding the parts of the bill everyone says they want hostage to the parts he wants.

2. If we tried the enforcement parts first, then we wouldn't have to trust the federal government. We could make sure the measures work before we go ahead with legalization (and attract a new wave of legalization-seeking illegals).

We need more money

Anytime someone criticizes the abject failure of the educational establishment in the U.S. there is an inevitable reply that we just need to spend more money and everything will get better. This is, of course, utter nonsense and now and then there is a report which makes this painfully obvious. Today's comes in the form of an article in the Washington Post which makes the point again that the schools in Washington, D.C. are the worst in the nation. This is actually common knowledge and the following paragraph from the column speaks to the money issue. Read the whole thing here.

The District spends $12,979 per pupil each year, ranking it third-highest among the 100 largest districts in the nation. But most of that money does not get to the classroom. D.C. schools rank first in the share of the budget spent on administration, last in spending on teachers and instruction.

Background Check on Speed

I just learned the bill before the Senate provides for a background check on illegal immigrants before they can be given the stamp of approval for entering the path to citizenship. The bill provides that it be given when the background check is concluded or the next business day--whichever comes first. As Tammy Bruce points out, it takes longer for her vet to check her cats fecal sample.

Buffett on Corn

Here is another opinion of Warren Buffett at his most recent investor's meting.

"I think the idea of running vehicles on corn is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. Governments, under pressure, do crazy things, but this is among the dumbest. Raise the cost of food so you can run these autos about? You use up justa bout as much hydrocarbons making ethanol as it produces, and its cost doesn't even factor in the loss of topsoil. "

Legislative Records

I am getting fed up with liberal columnists analyzing Fred Thompson's record in the Senate and never failing to make the point that there is no legislation bearing his name. That is true, but where is a similar admission that the same can be said of Hillary Clinton?

Sewage Problem in Gaza

This is an informative analysis of the sewage problems in the Gaza strip as provided by Opinion Journal.

"Further deadly sewage floods are feared after a wave of stinking waste and mud from a collapsed septic pool inundated a Gaza village, killing five people, including two babies," the Associated Press reports:

The collapse has been blamed on residents stealing sand from an embankment.

It highlighted the desperate need to upgrade Gaza's overloaded, outdated infrastructure--but aid officials say construction of a modern sewage treatment plant has been held up by constant Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

The report gets a bit more specific as to the meaning of "constant Israeli-Palestinian fighting":

Umm Naser is about 300 metres [300 million microns] from the border with Israel, in an area where Palestinians have frequently launched rockets into Israel and Israeli artillery and aircraft have fired back. The situation worsened after Hamas-linked militants captured an Israeli soldier last June in a cross-border raid, and Israel responded by invading northern Gaza.

The Jerusalem Post reported earlier this month that metal provided by Israel had been used in the construction of those terrorist rockets. And why was Israel selling the Palestinians metal? "For the construction of a sewage system in Gaza."

Palestinian babies drown in sewage because of the bloodlust of Palestinian grown-ups. What a fetid political culture.

Buffett's Analysis

He is a hopeless liberal, but he is also the most accomplished investor of all time. Warren Buffett, the famous head of Berkshire holds a meeting of his investors each year in Omaha, Nebraska. During this meeting, he answers all relevant questions regarding the fund he and Charlie Munger manage. One question he always gets since he is getting up near 80, is who is going to be his successor. His answer was longer, but within the answer he said Mozart was approached by a young man who said he wanted to write symphonies also and Mozart told him he was too young. "But you were young when you started." Mozart agreed, but pointed out that, "Yes, but I was not asking anyone for advice on how to do it".

Sigheh

I just learned about the Shia Muslim tradition of temporary marriage, or sigheh, which allows a man and a woman in Iran to marry for a set period of time, ranging from an hour to 99 years. This is evidently a common thing in Iran where the young men have a hard time finding sufficient work to support a wife and needs to relieve sexual tension. My source did not reveal the average time period requested for sigheh, but I suspect there aren't many 99 year arrangements.

More Bush idiocy

Continuing with the Bush is an idiot theme I recently adopted, I just read that Bush recommended a 3% across the board increase in military pay and the dems in Congress raised that to 3.5%. The White House is now fighting that instead of making it 4% with a firm resolve to keep moving the number to a point where the liberals cave. Surely Bush is not going to choose military pay to make a stand on spending.

Catching Up 2

It was fun to see the so-called global warming situation from the European point of view. As has been most apparent, the European politicians have their panties in a wad because Bush won't destroy our economy by adopting policies which reduce carbon dioxide release here when India and China and others would not be required to participate. The goal, of course, is not to reduce pollution which we should all embrace, or to reduce our dependence on unreliable sources of oil, which is also desirable. The loony socialists in Europe want to prevent the globe from getting warmer even though there is no good scientific evidence which supports the proposition that this would be necessary or even possible. There is not even evidence that our carbon output is more important in this regard than cow farts.

At any rate, we had a young guide in London who was lamenting the fact that the summers in London had been hotter in the past few years. She said we had to do something about her resulting discomfort. Much of this concern could be related to the lack of air conditioning in much of London and she was 50 pounds overweight. On the other hand, a much different perspective was noted in Lithuania. There the guide observed that the winters in that country had been much less severe than in the past and she was not at all upset by this.

So, as BestView has noted in several rantings in the past, there could well be a warming similar to that has occurred at previous times and the consequence of this is not something which can be categorically described in positive and negative terms.

Catching Up 1

Just back from a couple of weeks in Europe and find the political situation has turned most interesting. First, it seems that Bush is now exceeding his misadventures with the Farm Program, the expanded involvement by the feds in education, a new Medicare entitlement program, the Harriet Meirs nomination, the incompetence of the FEMA after Katrina, and is now calling his last few remaining supporters (his base) names and denigrating their opposition to the Immigration legislation drafted with Ted Kennedy. One can only conclude that Bush's long-standing critics were right and he really is an idiot. My two votes for Bush can still be supported by a firm conclusion that Gore and Kerry would have been worse.