Military Report from Iraq

July 24, 2005: For thousands of Sunni Arabs who worked for Saddam’s security apparatus, the day of judgment is getting closer. Saddam’s enforcers rarely hid their identities, and many Kurds and Shia Arabs know the names, and faces, of the Sunni Arab thugs that tormented, and tortured them, and murdered their friends and family. These thugs have supported al Qaeda’s terror campaign in Iraq, and participated in some of the non-suicide attacks on Iraqis and foreigners. For the last two years, the enforcers were able to hide out in Sunni Arab towns and neighborhoods that were free of government control. But this provided only temporary refuge, and created other problems. The lack of police meant that criminal gangs, terrorist groups and warlord militias were in charge. These three groups didn’t always get along with each other. But they all left the old Saddam thugs alone. Now, with the government taking control of Sunni Arab areas, the Saddam thugs are in trouble, and getting desperate. These guys have several options. They can leave the country. Many have already done this. But there are no real sanctuaries for former Saddam killers. Syria is safe for the moment, but that is expected to change soon. Eventually, however, these guys can expect the war crimes indictments to catch up with them. If they stay in Iraq, they can either hope for an amnesty deal, or getting themselves back into power. Both of these options are being pursued, which means that violence and peace negotiations are both getting more intense. The problem here is that the Kurds and Shia Arabs are not willing to give a lot of Saddam’s killers a free pass. In response to that, the killers are getting more involved in the violence. Now Arab diplomats are being attacked. The message is clear; make a deal with the Sunni Arabs, or get more reminders of how Saddam stayed in power for so long. Playing it this way only makes more Iraqis determined to join the police and army, and go after the killers where they live, and bring them to justice (often on the spot.) The bullets are going both ways.

Democrats and terrorism

At every turn some liberal democratic senator can be heard declaring that we are not doing enough to fight or defend ourselves from terrorists. We are not spending enough. We are not doing enough to protect our chemical factories. We are not doing enough to guard against terror coming in through our ports. Our protection of trains and subways is not sufficient. We should be doing more to protect our food supply. Our borders are too porous and we should beef up that effort. The brilliance of all this is that when we are attacked again...and it will happen...they will come out and point to prior warnings that were not acted on to a sufficient extent or soon enough. The fact that there is no way we can provide unlimited resources to the effort and no way we can maintain a free society and achieve perfect defense. Bush will be blamed in a blizzard of demogoguery for failing at an impossible task.

Both Bush and Congress deserve blame for not setting any priorities in spending the money we do on home security. The slimy congressmen all insist on getting their "share" of the money even though some small town in Kansas is not a high terror target any more than some blue haired old lady is a threat to our air travel. In many cases, the small towns which do get their money just buy real nice police uniforms with it. Pathetic.

Biological Destiny

For some time now it has been apparent to me that if you have a marathon, for example, someone from Kenya is more likely to win it than someone from an Eskimo village in Alaska. Blacks predominate on NBA teams for a reason beyond culture. Turns out highly successful athletes are subjected to some of the most rigorous testing possible. Lance Armstrong, for example, has a heart 20% larger than normal, produces 1/3rd less lactic acid during exercise, and delivers oxygen to his legs at a higher rate than almost anyone alive. These studies and others suggest that in order to be a truly dominate athlete, one must be a genetic freak. Armstrong, it turns out, does not have one physical factor which distinguishes him from the rest of us, but in fact he has several extraordianry traits which exist in only a few hundred human beings. The odds of all these things being consolidated in one body are probably one in a billion.

Other examples? Michael Phelps, is an Olympic champion swimmer and propels himself through the water with feet that are truly like flippers. They are not only large (size 14), but also outrageously flexible. He can lie down flat on his back, legs outstretched and touch the tips of his toes to the floor. Mia Hamm, the soccer star, in some tests of her famous stamina, was found to produce less than one liter of sweat an hour--25-50% less than normal.

How long will it be before parents begin to test their youngsters to see how suited for the sport they are pushing them toward?

A toxic combination

When you start with bad science and add trial lawyers you really have a potential problem and that is what we see currently with Teflon. This substance has long been seen as a useful coating for cooking utensils, but on July 19th two law firms filed a class action suit on behalf of consumers regarding perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). The lawyers claim the substance could be hazardous and they want DuPont to pay $5 billion.If the suit is successful whatever is left after attorney's fees would go to replace everyone's cookware and pay for medical monitoring and more research. Note that nobody has died or is even sick.
What happened is an EPA advisory panel concluded research with PFOA given in massive doses to rodents suggested that the substance was "likely" a carcinogen in humans. The problem is rodents are not just little people and in high doses the chemical probably makes the DNA-repair systems of rats and mice go haywire and tumors result. Be that as it may, the new report has nothing to do with Teflon on your cookware. PFOA is destroyed in the manufacturing process used to make Teflon. Several studies have looked at Teflon with an eye to find PFOA associated with Teflon and have come up empty (even the lawyers can't point to studies showing results to the contrary). This will not deter the slimy lawyers, however. They will only argue that DuPont must show that Teflon is not harmful to their consumers. Take that to some sections of Mississippi and Texas and you just won the lottery if you are a sleezy trial lawyer.

London Bombs

How long will it take subway riders in London to get off the train when someone with a backpack gets on?

Poor Bush

It just came on me today as I was driving along on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Smoky Mountains that the ultra left who considers poor George Bush to be such a bumbling idiot and inept in all previous undertakings is suddenly some raving genius who was able to dip into the pool of available lawyers and pluck out the one stealth candidate for the Supreme Court who will completely reverse all their liberal gains in the past 50 years. The right wing is afraid that he made the same mistake as his Daddy and we will have another Souter. I think the fears of the right are more realistic, but probably not well-founded.

CNN can't hide their position

We are on the road and don't have our usual news sources so we had to watch the press reveal that Judge Roberts was the President's choice for the Supreme Court on CNN. Within minutes they had a crawl under the picture of Judge Roberts which alternated between two facts. First, we were informed that he assisted President Bush in the 2000 recount. Next they informed us that he was a deputy to Ken Starr when he was Solicitor General. That should have been enough red meat for the dems to get their panties in a permanent wad. I predict a fight but not a war, however.

Ebonics is back

Incorporating Ebonics into a new school policy that targets black students, the lowest-achieving group in the San Bernardino City Unified School District, may provide students a more well-rounded curriculum, said a local sociologist.

The goal of the district's policy is to improve black students' academic performance by keeping them interested in school. Compared with other racial groups in the district, black students go to college the least and have the most dropouts and suspensions...

Mary Texeira, a sociology professor at Cal State San Bernardino, commended the San Bernardino Board of Education for approving the policy in June. Texeira suggested that including Ebonics in the program would be beneficial for students. Ebonics, a dialect of American English that is spoken by many blacks throughout the country, was recognized as a separate language in 1996 by the Oakland school board.

If Ebonics is all that's keeping them interested, what's going to happen when they enter the real world, where Ebonics won't be the accepted form of communication?

Phthalates not scary?

Contrary to earlier reports, everyday exposure to phthalates -- chemical plasticizers used extensively in household products and in certain medical products -- may not have harmful effects on fertility in young men, a new study shows. Let's call it the Halloween Factor: if research shows even the most tentative risk to health from a chemical, the media will be all over it; but if further research finds that there is, in fact, no risk, then the media will largely ignore it.

Dr. Bosse A.G. Jonsson from Lund University Hospital, Sweden, and colleagues looked for associations between phthalate metabolite levels in urine and semen quality and reproductive hormone parameters in 234 young Swedish men entering the military.

There was "no clear pattern of associations" between any of the phthalate metabolites and any of the biomarkers of reproductive function measured.

In fact, exposure to phthalic acid seemed to be associated with improved reproductive function, as measured by several markers."

Good Week Award

Who had the best weekend in Europe? How about Lance Armstrong pulling ahead of the pack in the race up some mountain in France? Tiger Woods winning the British Open for his second major victory this year? Good choices, but it would be hard for either of them to challenge J.K. Rowling's selling 6.9 million Harry Potter books in 24 hours. May have to read one of her books one of these days.

Ben Stein makes a good point

In a NY Times article, Ben Stein who is on various talk and financial shows made the point that Phillip Purcell was just shown the door at Morgan Stanley, a big Wall Street company, and given a $113 million severance package and his successor who is a loyal friend of his is given an estimated $32 million to take his place. Hedge fund managers are now being reported to make $350 to $500 million each per year. Stein makes the case that the system is really out of whack when the men and women like the Navy Seals who make this good life possible are paid about $1900 per month with combat pay. Here is how he puts it:

Remember that it all depends on the fighting men and women, not on the people in finance. It depends on the guys whose names you will never know, guys who come home and work - not at jobs in which helicopters ferry them to secret-deal meetings in New York or London, but at jobs in places like a car wash in Burleson, Tex., where one of the men who captured Saddam Hussein is working without complaint and with barely mentioning that he was in Iraq.

Petite Party People

As a geezer, I know I know I am out of the main stream in most areas and don't even suspect a lot of what is going on today. This morning I was reminded again just how true this is. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal dealing primarily with the potential scandal of Wall Street brokers being feted excessively by interested individuals. No big surprise there. However, at a party in trendy South Beach in Miami there was a groom-to-be who was entertained on a yacht by at least one dwarf hired for the occasion. It seems there is a real business (see Shortdwarf.com) that rents dwarfs for parties at rates starting at $149 per hour. The owner of the business says some people are just into dwarf entertainment.

Islam Threatened

A statement that has warned against the dangers of allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia was released on the Internet on Friday. More than 100 sheikhs, imams, judges, Islamic scholars, Islamic university teachers, several heads of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice centers in the Kingdom, as well as some teachers at the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah signed the statement.

The statement said that the enemies of Islam are seeking to destroy the great role women have been given in Islam by corrupting them and hence corrupting the Islamic world.

Small World

Magdy Mahmoud Mustafa el-Nashar is the biochemist currently being held in Egypt for chats about his role in the London bombings. British media reported that police had found evidence of the explosive TATP in his bathtub. This is the same explosive which was to be used by the shoe bomber Richard Reid who was affiliated with the same mosque in London. el-Nashar was in Raleigh, N. C. for one semester studying at North Carolina State. The problem is he stayed here for a total of 13 months. We really need to find out what he did during that time an who he had contacts with.

Mars Hoax

I am really disappointed that Mars won't be as big as the moon. It will be big on October 30 or 31 of this year, but not as big as the moon. Here is the link.

London Bombing Suspect Caught

The former North Carolina State student thought to be involved in the London bombing in the role of bomb maker has been arrested in Egypt. Turns out to be a male Muslim. We may be developing a pattern here.

France vs. Great Britan

This is an interesting comparison of the ways in which France and England have supported the U.S. in the war on terror and in Iraq. I have always thought Daniel Pipes knew what was what in the war on terror.

I wish Bush was this articulate

The following is a response by John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, to a question from a reporter:

MAXINE McKEW: Prime Minister, if as you say you can't rule out that possibility that we could have potential bombers right here in Australia, what if today's announcement, this redeployment to Afghanistan and our continued presence in Iraq is all the provocation they need?

JOHN HOWARD: Maxine, these people are opposed to what we believe in and what we stand for, far more than what we do. If you imagine that you can buy immunity from fanatics by curling yourself in a ball, apologising for the world - to the world - for who you are and what you stand for and what you believe in, not only is that morally bankrupt, but it's also ineffective. Because fanatics despise a lot of things and the things they despise most is weakness and timidity. There has been plenty of evidence through history that fanatics attack weakness and retreating people even more savagely than they do defiant people.

Essay School

If 15-year-old Anna Zvagelskaya were a shoe, she writes, she would be pink, with a very pointy toe, a flared heel, straps and a diamond buckle.

It's five months before the application deadline at most elite colleges, and a year and five months before Ms. Zvagelskaya's application is due at Harvard, her top choice. But on a summer day here at Tufts University, the San Francisco high-school junior and a dozen other teenagers are enrolled in a two-week college-application camp, spending two hours a day in class -- and hours more each night -- crafting the essays that they hope will vault them to the head of the college queue.

"There are so many kids with perfect grades out there," says Ms. Zvagelskaya, who frets over "a few B's" on her transcript. "Your essay gives you an extra push, a chance to shine"...

Ah, that's it. These students aren't writing simple, well-crafted essays; they're writing artsy, confabulated crap in an attempt to avoid having to suffer the ignominy of a state school. Sheesh.

Support for my prediction

As I stated in the previous post on this blog, the response by some in the U.S. to the next terrorist attack will not be pretty. Two minutes after putting that opinion up, I went to Lucianne Goldberg's blog and read the following comment to an opinion piece published by Tony Blankley in the Washington Times. This is probably a very, very minority opinion now, but my prediction is based on the conclusion that his thoughts will be not only more prevalent, but acted upon:

"Things will get progressively worse until we finally get fed up and have the Big Raghead Roundup we should've had right after 9-11. We have all these unused military bases slated for closing- why not put all the Mohammeds in there until we can sort them out. This is a race war and a religious war and the socialists within our ranks are the most dangerous vermin who rot our structures willingly; ally themselves with our dire enemies. We ARE at the Gates of Vienna; where is our Sobieski?"

Terror Response

In the aftermath of the London bombings polls show that the British have widely increased support for a greater and more vigorous response by the government to preempt further attacks. This is a new position since the British have long been reluctant to intercede in a fashion which could be considered heavy-handed and certainly not in a way which could target a specific group such Muslims. I do not find this surprising and I am ready to predict that if the U.S. is attacked again in a small or large way, the reaction will be one where innocents of all religions will be victimized. In the U.S. we differ greatly from the British in that we have weapons and the Muslims who are currently refusing to choose sides in the war will find themselves right in the middle of one. In a way, this will be both unfortunate and fully understandable. Mosques will cease to exist and many Muslims will go to bed and simply not wake up the next morning.

A friend sent me this. Should be cool.

MARS SPECTACULAR!
The Red Planet is about to be spectacular! This month and next, Earth is
catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest
approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars
may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on
Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has
not come this close to Earth in the last 5,000 years, but it may be as long
as 60,000 years before it happens again.

The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within
34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest
object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear
25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest 75-power magnification

By August 27, Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye.


Mars will be easy to spot. At the beginning of August it will rise in the
east at 10p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m.

By the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise at
nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30a.m. That's pretty
convenient to see something that no human being has seen in recorded
history. So, mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grow
progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month. Share this with
your children and grandchildren. NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS
AGAIN

Alfred E. Newman

Hillary said Bush reminded her of Alfred E. Newman.

Tolerance in Great Britan

Various pundits are commenting on the fact that at least a part of the London bombing foundation was built by the preaching of the Imams or whoever in the mosques in England. The teachings of hate there could well be responsible if the bombings were home-grown as now suspected. I wonder how long the British would tolerate Christian evangelists using their pulpits over there to advocate the murder and decapitation of Islamists?

An interesting take on London bombing

1. I really, really don’t get the point about divorcing the “Muslim” label from the terrorists. The Bali bombing was carried out by radical Muslims from Indonesia. They were home grown and home indoctrinated.

   The Thai Bhuddists are getting their heads lopped off by Thai Muslims who live in the states bordering Malaysia. They are home grown Muslim radicals.

   There are many Indian Hindus who have been slaughtered by homegrown Pakistanis who learned to be radical Muslims in the madrasses of Pakistan.

   Most of these people do not share a common language.

   Our bad luck has been to meet up with the Arab radical Muslim terrorist.

   In every case of terrorism I have cited, the terrorist was not motivated by the ideology of fascism. The terrorist was driven by radical Islam.

   You can slice it and dice it any way you want to sleep better in your politically correct linens, but in the final analysis, the terrorists and suicide bombers are acting out of pure radical Muslim zeal. And if they can blow up a Jew or two, they are that much more delighted. So far as I know, Jews are still a religious classification.

   Comment by David Stacy — 7/9/2005 @ 7:25 pm

Source of Islamic Terrorism?

Sura 4-89: “They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus
be on the same footing (as they): but take not friends from their ranks until
they flee in the way of Allah (from what is forbidden). But if they turn
renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case)
take no friends or helpers from their ranks…”

Sura 9-29: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold
that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor
acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the
Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves
subdued.”

Sura 22-9: “As for the unbelievers for them garments of fire shall be cut and
there shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in
their bowels and skins shall be dissolved and they will be punished with
hooked iron rods.”

Sura 47-4: “When you meet the unbelievers, strike off their heads; then when
you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining
captives”

Muslims regard the book from which these obscenities were taken as the Literal
Word of God. They dare not dissent from that proposition, for that would
constitute apostasy, and Islam decrees that apostates must die.

Judith Miller

It seems almost surreal to follow a blog on Stephen Hawking with this one on Judith Miller. She is the New York Times journalist currently sitting in jail to the profound chagrin of the entire media establishment. She was asked by a grand jury to testify and she refused. So the judge said she would go to jail if she didn't comply and she chose not to based on a reluctance to reveal a "confidential source". The decision of the judge was upheld all the way up to the Supreme Court. The media think this is just awful since she didn't even write anything. Furthermore, it would be just dreadful if journalists couldn't keep those sources which they didn't just make up confidential. My question is why the journalists feel testimony before a grand jury would be revealing since those procedings are supposed to be secret. They may not be, but the journalists already must usually reveal the source to the editor(s), so the confidentiality is not absolute. I am a huge fan of the First Amendment, but my lack of respect for most journalists puts me on the side of those who don't particularly mind having old Judith in jail for failing to comply with the same laws the rest of us have to obey.

Stephen Hawking

This fellow may be the most interesting man on earth. His story is one we should all read. He wrote a book called "A Brief History of Time" which sold hundreds of thousands of copies and there aren't 20 people in the U.S. who read it and even fewer who could understand it. I didn't buy that book, but I did pick up a paperback of his a few years ago called 'Blackholes and Baby Universes" which I promptly skimmed and set aside. I set it aside so well, I just found it again today and started again to try to see what it was he contributed to science. Well, I rediscovered just how stupid I am and how impossible it is for me to comprehend such things as black holes. It is not Stephen Hawking's fault. He writes quite well. Here, is an example of his writing in which he is explaining how a black hole might be created.
"Imagine a star with a mass ten times that of the sun (I can't even do that). During most of its lifetime of about a billion years (say what?), the star will generate heat at its center by converting oxygen into helium. The energy released will create sufficient pressure to support the star against its own gravity, giving rise to an object with a radius about 5-times the radius of the sun (now he has really lost me). The escape velocity from the surface of such a star would be about a thousand kilometers per second (can't comprehend that). That is to say, an object fired vertically upward from the surface of the star with a velocity of less than a thousand kilometers per second would be dragged back by the gravitational field of the star and would return to the surface, whereas an object with a velocity greater than that would escape to infinity ( I have already confessed in a previous blog about my problem with infinity, but how does Hawking know that is where that object is going?)
When the star had exhausted its nuclear fuel, there would be nothing to maintain the outward pressure, and the star would begin to collapse because of its own gravity. As the star shrank, the gravitational field at the surface would become stronger and the escape velocity ould increase. By the time the radius got down to thirty kilometers (can you imagine the math necessary to get him to that measurement?) , the escape velocity would have increased to 300,000 kilometers/second, the velocity of light. After that time any light emitted would be dragged back by the gravitational field. According to the special theory of relativity, nothing can travel faster than light, so that if light cannot escape, nothing else can either. "

So there you have it. A black hole: a region of space-time from which it is not possible to escape to infinity. Next time you see Hawking's book on someone's coffee table, that is what it says.

Kyoto Update from G8

Tony Blair took his turn as head of the G8 this year to put global warming and Kyoto on the table--along with an equally idiotic plan to send more money to corrupt nations in Africa. Bush was forced to sit there and listen to all this nonsense for 2-3 days. Here are the facts:
U.N. forecasters see one to two degrees of warming over the next century. Even if every nation that signed on to Kyoto followed it slavishly, the expected warming would be trimmed by less than one-fifth of a degree. Reading the newspapers, you’d think that humans were the sole source of C02, dumping huge amounts into the atmosphere. Not so. Human sources account for 0.3% of the total; the rest — 99.7% — comes from nature. Man simply can't compete with volcanos, for example. But what about all the scientists who have reached a “consensus” on global warming? Well, professor Dennis Bray of Germany’s GKSS Forschungszentrum recently surveyed 530 top climatologists — experts with the most direct scientific knowledge about warming. Just 9.4% strongly agreed that “climate change is mostly the result of (human) causes.” Nearly a third were described as skeptical, while 9.7% “strongly disagreed.” In short, there is no consensus. Not that those who pushed Kyoto were serious about it in the first place. As much as anything, Kyoto was a hypocritical attempt by European nations to impose global controls over the U.S. economy, and regulate it to death.
After excoriating the U.S. for failing to ratify Kyoto, they failed to follow it themselves. The European Union is supposed to cut greenhouse gases 8% by 2010. But the European Environment Agency recently reported that emissions increased 1.3% in 2003, and that 12 of 15 EU members are out of compliance. Nevertheless, the EU’s parliament in May called for trade sanctions against the U.S. for not cutting back its C02 emissions. It is hard to escape the consequences of bad science.

Here it comes, folks.

BIRD flu, which kills more than half the humans that it infects, could be spread to Europe by migratory geese from China, scientists say.

An estimated 1,500 birds died two months ago at Qinghai Lake in western China and survivors could introduce the virus to parts of Asia beyond the Himalayas. There, they would come into contact with birds that use “migratory flyways” linked to Europe, according to a study published by the journal Nature.

The World Health Organisation estimates that that there is a more than 50 per cent chance that the bird flu virus will mutate into a form leading to a pandemic such as the Spanish flu outbreak in 1918 that killed 25 million people.

The Joint Influenza Research Centre of the Shantou University Medical College and the University of Hong Kong said in its study: “Our findings indicate that H5N1 (bird flu) viruses are now being transmitted between migratory birds at the lake.

“There is a danger that it might be carried along the birds’ winter migration routes to densely populated areas in the south Asian sub-continent, a region that seems relatively free of this virus, and spread along migratory flyways linked to Europe.”

Circumcision and AIDS

I didn't wake up this morning intending to make AIDS topic of the day on this blog, but the Wall Street Journal had an article which caught my interest. It seems there is a study just completed by French and South African researchers which clearly shows that male circumcision reduces the risk of AIDS by about 70%. This, of course, reduces the risk in women since their partners would be less likely to be infected. I won't comment on the scientific study itself, even though the approach they took seems valid, but it is interesting to consider what use is or can be made of this information. One problem is circumcision does not make one immune to AIDS so implementation must be accompanied by intensive counseling which would boil down to convincing an adult African man to undergo an alteration of his manhood which would not protect him absolutely. If the education is not completely successful, HIV transmission could actually increase by behavior based on the mistaken belief the operation conferred protection. Another problem is the chance the operation could be performed under less than sanitary conditions which could lead to complications which might set the program back considerably once word gets out. A final problem is that some tribes in Africa practice circumcision and others do not for cultural reasons. So, in order to implement the results of the research, the targets would not be easily convinced to participate. Put me down in the skeptical column. If you can'tconvince them to use condoms, circumcision seems to be a long-shot remedy to AIDS in Africa.

AIDS Drugs

"In previous negotiations, we managed to get the prices of these drugs reduced, but now we want to lower the costs even further". This was the statement issued by Dr. Paulo Roberto Teixeira who is Director of the Brazilian National STD/AIDS Programme. As a result, Brazil is preparing to allow its scientists to steal several pharmaceutical patents and produce their own versions of AIDS drugs developed by U.S. companies. Brazil has the 11th ranking economy in the world and yet it believes that other nations or companies therein owe it a medical version of the free lunch. Washington has no general duty to protect the profits of U.S. firms operating overseas, but we should seriously consider sanctions and other measures to prevent Brazil and other countries from developing and exporting generic substitutes which could destroy pharmaceutical innovation.

Flag Burning

The following observation of Mark Steyn summarizes my view on flag burning here on the 4th of July, 2005.

A flag has to be worth torching. When a flag gets burned, that's not a sign of its weakness but of its strength. If you can't stand the heat of your burning flag, get out of the superpower business. It's the left that believes the state can regulate everyone into thought-compliance. The right should understand that the battle of ideas is won out in the open.

Vaccines and Autism

Here is another hoax being inflicted on the naive and uninformed Mothers in the U.S. Because of the fact that children get their vaccinations at a time which is shortly before children are commonly diagnosed with autism, the spurious corellation has been made that the two must be related and lawyers focused in on thimerosal. This is a preservative once used in vaccines and even though there was never any evidence that it caused autism, greedy lawyers set about suing vaccine manufacturers for damages and now the mercury-based preservative is no longer used in vaccines. The Institute of Medicine issued a 214 page report which concluded, "The evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism." A similar clean bill of health was given by the European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organization. To those of us who have looked into the biology and chemistry of the relationship, this should be the end of the concern, but it isn't. Idiots like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. write error-ridden books and make hysterical claims which fuel the controversy. A big part of the fallacy surrounds his ignorance of ethyl- and methyl-mercury. The former, which comes from thimerosal is metabolized much faster than methyl-mercury and is known to be orders of magnitude less harmful. Ignorance on this subject is made especially clear by the vigor with which fearmongers rail against the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine which never contained thimerosal. Unfortunately, recent studies have shown that autism rates have increased after thimerosal use ended and childhood infections should not be allowed to threaten our younger population by withholding needed and effective vaccinations.

Vaccines and Autism

Here is another hoax being inflicted on the naive and uninformed Mothers in the U.S. Because of the fact that children get their vaccinations at a time which is shortly before children are commonly diagnosed with autism, the spurious corellation has been made that the two must be related and lawyers focused in on thimerosal. This is a preservative once used in vaccines and even though there was never any evidence that it caused autism, greedy lawyers set about suing vaccine manufacturers for damages and now the mercury-based preservative is no longer used in vaccines. The Institute of Medicine issued a 214 page report which concluded, "The evidence fravors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism." A similar clean bill of health was given by the European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organization. To those of us who have looked into the biology and chemistry of the relationship, this should be the end of the concern, but it isn't. Idiots like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. write error-ridden books and make hysterical claims which fuel the controversy. A big part of the fallacy surrounds his ignorance of ethyl- and methyl-mercury. The former, which comes from thimerosal is metabolized much faster than methyl-mercury and is known to be orders of magnitude less harmful. Ignorance on this subject is made especially clear by the vigor with which fearmongers rail against the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine which never contained thimerosal. Unfortunately, recent studies have shown that autism rates have increased after thimerosal use ended and childhood infections should not be allowed to threaten our younger population by withholding needed and effective vaccinations.

Vaccines and Autism

Here is another hoax being inflicted on the naive and uninformed Mothers in the U.S. Because of the fact that children get their vaccinations at a time which is shortly before children are commonly diagnosed with autism, the spurious corellation has been made that the two must be related and lawyers focused in on thimerosal. This is a preservative once used in vaccines and even though there was never any evidence that it caused autism, greedy lawyers set about suing vaccine manufacturers for damages and now the mercury-based preservative is no longer used in vaccines. The Institute of Medicine issued a 214 page report which concluded, "The evidence fravors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism." A similar clean bill of health was given by the European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organization. To those of us who have looked into the biology and chemistry of the relationship, this should be the end of the concern, but it isn't. Idiots like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. write error-ridden books and make hysterical claims which fuel the controversy. A big part of the fallacy surrounds his ignorance of ethyl- and methyl-mercury. The former, which comes from thimerosal is metabolized much faster than methyl-mercury and is known to be orders of magnitude less harmful. Ignorance on this subject is made especially clear by the vigor with which fearmongers rail against the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine which never contained thimerosal. Unfortunately, recent studies have shown that autism rates have increased after thimerosal use ended and childhood infections should not be allowed to threaten our younger population by withholding needed and effective vaccinations.

Las Vegas for the 4th

If you live in Southern California, say Los Angeles, you are 270 miles on I-15 from Las Vegas and if you would like to spend the weekend prior to July 4th attached to a slot machine, you will have 75,000 others join you on the highway. This trek across the desert starting Friday afternoon takes 8 hours (about 33 miles/hour) and the last portion of the trip can be traversed at the more appropriate speed of 70 miles/hour. On large portions of the trip you are either stopped or crawling along at 20 mph. This trip is across desert with temperature commonly at or over 106 F. Gas stations and restaurants are often 60 to 70 miles apart so "comforts" are really appreciated when you get there. As one might predict, everyone wants to stay in Vegas as long as possible prior to going back to work after the mini-vacation, so the trip back is slower and I suspect the hangovers, lack of sleep and empty wallets make that a real fun trip for some. They really know how to have fun on the left coast, don't they?

The Placebo Effect

When I was 6 or 7 I developed warts all over my hands. Since we lived in little Weatherford, Oklahoma my Mother took me to a dermatologist in Oklahoma City where it was decided to spend a lot of time convincing me that the pills I was to take would make the warts go away. I was encouraged to take them faithfully and this therapy was reinforced by parental encouragement. After only a few weeks of taking sugar pills my warts were gone. This well-known phenomenon is called the "placebo effect" and for many years has been the source of consternation because it has confounded attempts by drug companies to establish the efficacy of new drugs. Now there is some interest in using the placebo effect to treat a "condition" where I think it shows great promise. This is in the so called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Millions of children now take Adderall or Ritalin for this and studies are now underway to see if sugar pills will be at least as effective or maybe serve as "enhancers" which can convince the children that their symptoms will moderate and their "attention" will improve when taken faithfully. I predict success and Mothers should try this first.

Small Mystery Solved

On our last cruise the dinner menu had two entrees which were available every night in case you didn't care for the other 5 or 6 which were offered that evening. One was salmon and the other was "ranch steak". On a cruise based in a foreign country with a chef from France or someplace, I knew I didn't know what a ranch steak was, but I didn't think much about it. If pressed, I would have guessed some form of NY strip. I saw some and that is what they mostly looked like. Now it turns out that the price of beef has risen to the point where some 20,000 restaurants are now offering "new steaks" which are carved from parts of the cow which were heretofore considered less desirable than the classic top loin and filet mignons. Here is a guide to the new menu offerings. A Flatiron or Flat Iron steak is from the shoulder and also called top blade steak. It can be broiled or cooked in a skillet and is said to be the second most tender steak after the filet mignon. One problem is the grocery stores sell a shoulder top blade steak which is not a Flat Iron and you really want the latter. It is recommended you consult the meat manager if confused. The Ranch Steak is a shoulder center steak and it is recommended that you marinate it to improve tenderness. If you see a Western Griller it is a bottom round steak and you gotta marinate strongly or braise (cook in liquid) in order to chew it. We have little round steak-looking cuts of meat where we shop that are nice and lean and they call them "beef tenders" or somesuch which I now learn are from the beef shoulder and despite their name are not as tender as the filets they are cut to imitate. Now I am off to look for some Flat Iron steak to cook this weekend.

The Slingbox

More than likely, this is the first place you will learn about a new device called a "slingbox" which I hope to have by nightfall. As I understand it, you take your $250 to Best Buy and get the little silver box which allows you to control your home TV and digital recorder from anywhere you can get on the internet. It sits between your cable receiver and your home broadband internet connection and then it pumps your TV programs out via the internet. It works with standard Windows PCs running Windows XP. There are no monthly fees or hookup fees of any kind. What is the virtue you might ask? Well, if you are traveling you can get online and watch shows you have recorded on you DVR or you can watch live shows with all the ease of sitting on you sofa at home with the TV remote. Now when I get stuck in a casino hotel which wants you playing slot machines rather than watching Fox News or golf, I can just use my laptop to turn on my home TV. If I am sitting in an airport, I can log on to the WiFi network and watch CNBC live to keep up with the markets. As I understand it, however, things can get sticky if someone is at home watching TV and you start changing channels from afar. Another problem I see is cruise ships don't yet have broadband access and TV on dial-ups at 60 cents per minute would not be satisfactory. Otherwise, count me in.

Journalists to Jail

The liberal elite at the New York Times and Time magazine are all upset that two of their reporters are going to jail rather than conform to a grand jury request that they tell who the sources are on specified aspects of a legitimate criminal investigation. If reporters didn't make up sources so often, perhaps more of us would sympathize. I say throw them in jail.

10 Commandments

It would be difficult to imagine a more ridiculous splitting of a baby than the two decisions handed down yesterday concerning the 10 Commandments. Displaying them in certain places may be a violation of something, but it is not the Constitution which forbids the establishment of religion. The justices must certainly realize this or they would not have contorted their decisions so grotesquely.

File Sharing Ruling by SCOTUS

By a vote of 9 to 0 the Supreme Court huffed and puffed and found that companies like Grokster which provide software which allows internet users to share music and movies can be sued by companies like MGM, Disney and Time Warner. What does this mean for those who share music and movies over the internet? Nothing. Technology will win and the sharing will continue despite all of these legal pronouncements. The reason is the software used by Grokster is easy for anyone to provide and someone will make it available for others to use. They may be in the U.S. or not. They may have assets to sue for in the courts or not---probably not. The content providers should just quit fighting it and learn how to make money off the technology like Apple did to some extent with iTunes. It will not be easy, but reality should be faced by these big companies.

Children in Iraq

I was just reading an E-mail from a soldier in Iraq :

Laurie Strange
Attn: Any Soldier
HHD, Task Force Cerberus
APO AE 09354

She was asking for small toys for the troops to give out in their area. Here is her justification for this request which was accompanied by a picture of a young boy holding a stuffed bear.

This notation is to update my information, this young boy is holding a heart and teddy bear from a nice gentleman and his family from Germany. This gentleman and his family were inspired by my e-mail to your website and decided to write me, I'm tremendously Blessed and I look forward to hearing from other great americans.

The gentleman asked me to give this gift to a child, because another soldier recently served in Iraq, met a child there and had given this child a gift and when the soldier and his convoy was approaching the same area where the little girl had received the bear from the soldier previously. The young girl stood in the street and would not allow the convoy to pass, the soldiers later found out that there was an IED (Explosive) up ahead of the convoy.

That sure sounds like a good reason to send toys to troops. You can do that to the address given above and read about other such requests here.

The Airbus A380

The new A380 airbus has long fascinated me. It should go into service soon and was flown at the Paris Air Show last week. The reviews are in and I am not sure I am interested in flying on it. The plane is really two large planes stacked on top of one another. The thing that I am looking forward to is to see how it is configured by the airlines which buy it. If they put in a bar and piano lounge and double beds and a casino, which is advertised to be in the works, I will be surprised. Here are the numbers. The Boeing 747 can fly 416 passengers and the A380 if generous with passenger comforts can fly 555 passengers. That to me is daunting if you think of getting that many folks on with all the carryon baggage and then think of the lines as you all try to go through customs upon arrival. The big problem is the company will pay $292 million for each plane and the possibility for them to go all-coach and fly 800 passengers will be tempting. That is a nightmare.

More Madness

I really should stop reading this nonsense, but here is another example of education gone terribly wrong.

Philadelphia schools will require all students to pass a yearlong African-American and African history class in order to graduate. In theory, studying "their" history will lead black students, who make up 65 percent of enrollment, to feel pride and will boost achievement and reduce violence in schools.

I guess the idea is that 21st century people should feel proud of what people who looked sort of like them did centuries ago, maybe.

Rove drives them crazy

Boy, the liberals hate Rove more than they do Bush and Delay and that is saying something. Now Karl Rove has suggested that liberals favored a legal response to 9/11 and conservatives wanted something more appropriate. This has brought all the Dems with mouths frothing out from under rocks to demand that Rove take it back and resign and that Bush fire him and maybe even have him executed by firing squad. Let's look at the facts and see whether the Rove statement has any basis in fact which could have justified such a statement. Here is one:

Here is a MoveOn.org petition offered less than 48 hours after the collapse of the Twin Towers (emphases mine):

Petition 1: "We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of the United States of America and of countries around the world, appeal to the President of The United States, George W. Bush; to the NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson; to the President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi; and to all leaders internationally to use moderation and restraint in responding to the recent terrorist attacks against the United States. We implore the powers that be to use, wherever possible, international judicial institutions and international human rights law to bring to justice those responsible for the attacks, rather than the instruments of war, violence or destruction."


Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), 10/1/01, Roll Call: "I truly believe if we had a Department of Peace, we could have seen [9/11] coming."

Al Sharpton, 12/1/02, New York Times, on the 9/11 attacks: "America is beginning to reap what it has sown."

Rep. Marcy Kaptur, 3/1/2003, Toledo Blade: "One could say that Osama bin Laden and these non-nation-state fighters with religious purpose are very similar to those kind of atypical revolutionaries that helped cast off the British crown."

I think the impetuous outrage now being advanced by the liberals will force us to review what was actually said and that will be just fine with me.

Live Longer?

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article today on longevity and how to achieve it. Since I am getting to the age where it seems prudent to look at how long the future is and how to make the most of it, I read it pretty well. Basically, it says you should avoid stress and maximize control over your life. Of course, the nags always want you to eat right, watch your weight, and excercise. Some of the most important things I learned are as follows:

1) at my age, 66, I can look forward to another 17 years of life on average.
2) only 1/3 of your longevity comes from heredity (I was hoping for more)
3) a waist line over 40 inches produces a dramatic increase in risk for a heart attack (hooray for my current 38)
4) 63% of men 80 to 102 years old are still having sex (that's nice)
5) excercise helps a lot, but only if you like it because if you don't like it, you get stressed
6) married men have less stress and a longer life span than single, but women only need close relationships (guess husbands don't relieve stress much)
7) an active family life and social relationships improve physical health in both man and animals
8) a good night's sleep is very helpful and allows stress to dissipate (hope naps help, too)

One thing not covered in the article is how a man is supposed to maintain any control over his life and be married at the same time. Could that be why a woman my age will live 3 years longer than I will? Probably.

The BiDil Debate

There is an interesting situation developing with the FDA considering an approval of a drug (actally two drugs in one pill) called BiDil which has been shown during trials to be effective in persons who said they were African-American but was not effective in treating congestive heart failure in Caucasians. Several aspects of this are causing controversy. First, there has never been a drug so convincingly shown to be effective against some disease in one race versus another. Some say this is because nobody has looked at clinical trials in that way before. One group of blacks is insisting that some other basis aside from race must be responsible and we should not look for biological differences between races. This position has always been advanced to counter any attempt to suggest that intelligence might have such a genetic distinction. Another group of blacks has reacted to the news as if it is evidence that the medical community for decades has ignored racial differences and failed to consider specific treatments of blacks to the detriment of the entire ethnic group. No wonder the FDA is tip toeing through this minefield and you will have to look really hard to find this situation discussed in the main stream media.

Report from Iraq

More towns in Iraqi's "wild west" are being pacified. The usual drill is not another Fallujah, but a government official meeting with local tribal and religious leaders, where an offer is made. Iraqi and American troops are coming. Neighborhoods that support the government will see little or no fighting as a search is made for weapons, bombs and the like. Neighborhoods that wish to resist will be hit hard. By now, everyone knows how smart bombs work. Increasingly, Sunni Arab leaders are being told, by their followers, that all this violence is not worth it. After Saddam fell, Sunni Arabs continued to believe in fantasies. For the last two years, the collective delusion was that the Americans had no stomach for guerilla war, and the Kurds and Shia Arabs could never get a government together. Today, Sunni Arabs who can get away on a little vacation, go north to the Kurdish north, or south to Shia Basra. In both places you can sit in an outdoor cafe without fear of a suicide bomb going off down the street. The Kurds and Shia have more jobs, more reconstruction and less crime. The Sunni Arabs don't want to live in their own mess any more. They don't want to live in a combat zone, especially while the Kurds and Shia are not.
Read the whole report from Iraq here.

Thinking vs. Feeling

First thing this morning I ran across an essay in a blog that seemed to cogently capture the ideological split in America today. Persons who arrive at positions on matters through "thinking" are certainly different from those who get there through "feelings". You can see for yourself if this is true by going here.

Social Security for Rent

I almost always get upset when I reach for the New York Times first thing in the morning, but today my gastric mucosa is being irritated by an article without any liberal bias that I can detect. As a matter of fact, if the NYT could be getting on the trail of the abuses resulting from our complete lack of border control. You can read the article here, but it primarily documents the practice whereby Mexicans work here for a few months a year and then go back to Mexico for a few months while drawing unemployment compensation. Then, while on the dole down there, they rent out their Social Security numbers to illegals who work here using them for a few months. Since they don't make enough to actually pay taxes, the one who rents the card out gets the tax refund claimed by the other person. Since legal American residents can lose their green cards if they stay out of the country too long, the practice is not likely to stop.

Gore is still at it

Al Gore has asked the international group of mayors (I didn't even know there was such a group) to fight for lower emissions of almost everything to prevent global warming. You almost don't have to know anything else about the subject once you realize this nonsense is being propagated by Al Gore. Here we have an idiotic idea being advanced by an idiot.

Here come the Indians

I was trying to watch the golf tournament yesterday afternoon on ESPN, but the national spelling bee was being covered and golf was delayed. It was down to the last 4 contestants and hard for me to miss the fact that they all seemed to be from India. Each spoke flawless English, however, and could really spell. Good for them. Each had a complete set of parents there with them and each student got a big hug from them when they were eliminated. Obviously, they were being raised right.
This morning, Tom Friedman who writes for the New York Times had an opinion piece connecting the recent rejection of the EU constitution with the exploding move of young people in India to the top of global competiveness in technology. As he says, the French are trying to preserve a 35 hour work week at a time when highly educated and motivated Indians are willing to work 35 hour days and they don't even expect 6 week vacations. As Friedman says, this is a bad time for France and friends to lose their appetite for hard work - just when India, China and Poland are rediscovering theirs.

Advice for Graduates

I just ran across a blog written by Mr. Sun. He put up some good advice for graduates that you can read here. An example is:

Contrary to what you may have heard about business, you should not think outside the box. You should get your green-as-grass self back in the box and don't come out unless it's to bring me some hot coffee and do my work so I can take credit for it. Welcome to the working world, Rookie.

Disproportionate Giftedness

You can read more about this ridiculous situation here, but in essence the Davis, California school board is upset that the procedures used to identify kids as gifted result in too few black and latino students being so named. Asian students predominated (surprise?). Despite such efforts as tinkering with the testing procedures and adding a teacher "reappraisal" which added students from the underrepresented groups, the problem persists again this year, the school board remains perplexed and one member was quoted as saying,"We have to come up with something better." Pathetic.

Medical Care for Mexico

Let's consider the case of Cristobal Silverio. He emigrated illegally from Mexico to Stockton, Calif., to work as a fruit picker. With him came his wife and three children, all illegals. His wife, Felipa, soon gave birth to a fourth child who was born prematurely and spent three months in a neonatal incubator. That cost San Joaquin Hospital more than $300,000. The Silverios are just one example of the hidden costs to American citizens of allowing an uninterrupted flow of “cheap” labor. There are other costs as well. “The influx of illegal aliens has serious hidden medical consequences,” writes Madeline Pelner Cosman, author of the report, adding that “many illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that American medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis.” Faced with what is becoming a national medical emergency caused largely by borders it has failed to secure, the federal government has announced a plan to reimburse hospitals for up to 30% of their unpaid bills for such care through 2008. Even that plan may have the perverse effect of attracting even more illegals. We are a compassionate nation. But in a world of limited resources, we cannot afford to be the emergency room for the whole world while U.S. citizens remain in need.

The French vote "Non"

Everyone seems to be interested in the vote by France to reject the proposed Constitution advanced for the EU. My interest in the French is fairly minimal, but with everyone so excited, I have made a small effort to see what all the excitement is about. The best I can come up with is the lower class of France voted no because it would likely infringe on the French "way of life". This could mean a lot of things, but the common interpretation is it would have perhaps required one to work longer than 35 hours a week with fewer holidays and shorter vacation times. Makes sense to me. What I don't really understand, and I don't care enough to investigate further, is why Chirac, who fought hard for approval, is now firing people in his administration in response to the rejection.Oh, well.

Koran Abuse

It seems to me the Koran in the hands of our guests in Cuba is causing way too much of a problem. The guards have been accused by the terrorists held there of disrespecting the Koran and this has an easy solution. As far as I know, we have no obligation to provide these to prisoners. Take them away and be done with the problem.

Stem Cell Research

Stem cell legislation is much in the news now and there are several points which need to made since you won't get an accurate account from TV or the newspapers in most cases. Much of what you hear and read will hold that Bush is pledging to veto stem cell reasearch legislation and as a result we will never cure diseases like diabetes and quadrapedics will never walk again. We need to keep in mind that Bush's decision applies only to federal funding of research involving laboratory-derived embryos. His position does not "ban" anything. He is simply refusing to allow federal funds to be used for research which millions of Americans find morally offensive. At the federal level, funding for stem cell research of all forms is being increased from $306 million to $566 million (using adult and umbilical stem cells). At the state level, California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts all have or will have large stem-cell projects. Some 70 companies, which will eventually profit from the fruits of this research, are also engaged in a wide range of research approaches. I am not sure that I would draw the line exactly where Bush drew it with regard to existing emryos which will be destroyed anyway, but he was elected and the line he drew is certainly logical. We just need to keep in mind that the position being taken by our President is not banning anything. Furthermore, one need not use federal money to do research.

Another Bad Idea

Just when I had decided they had done everything possible to destroy education in America, they have thrown another scoop of dirt on the grave. The latest idiocy is a decision that the children's classics like "Little Women" and "Treasure Island" are too hard to wade through for those children with poor reading skills. The solution is to retell these stories with simpler language and easier words. Ten of the literary classics have been published and 9 more are in the works. To date, 533 thousand copies have been sold. This suggests our so-called educators are buying into the publishers marketing nonsense that these books are for the student with learning disabilities. My sad hypothesis is the education establishment is so stupid that they find the books easier to read and thus choose them for their students.

Newsweek

My wife called Newsweek yesterday. The guy on the phone didn't even ask why we were cancelling.

Senate Rules

This is getting tedious with all the spin about whether or not the Senate should rule that a majority of those present and voting should be allowed to confirm a presidential nominee to a federal court. The democrats are loudly proclaiming that it would be a travesty if the rule were changed since the minority would not be able to filibuster judicial nominees. To get a firm grasp on just how specious that argument is, ask yourself this. If the Republicans do get such a ruling, do you think that when the dems get the senate back (and they will) and have a dem President, they will change the rule back so the republicans can then filibuster their nominees? The principle will not be so holy under those circumstances.

Tsunami Relief

As part of another great column, Mark Steyn gives us an update on the tsunami relief effort in the context of the John Bolton confirmation battle. Here is a tease, but you should read the entire column here

Thus, Bolton would have no problem getting nominated as U.N. ambassador if he were more like Paul Martin. Who? Well, he's prime minister of Canada. And in January, after the tsunami hit, he flew into Sri Lanka to pledge millions and millions and millions in aid. Not like that heartless George W. Bush back at the ranch in Texas. Why, Prime Minister Martin walked along the ravaged coast of Kalumnai and was, reported Canada's CTV network, "visibly shaken." President Bush might well have been shaken, but he wasn't visible, and in the international compassion league, that's what counts. So Martin boldly committed Canada to giving $425 million to tsunami relief. "Mr. Paul Martin Has Set A Great Example For The Rest Of The World Leaders!" raved the LankaWeb news service.
You know how much of that $425 million has been spent so far? Fifty thousand dollars -- Canadian. That's about 40 grand in U.S. dollars. The rest isn't tied up in Indonesian bureaucracy, it's back in Ottawa. But, unlike horrible "unilateralist" America, Canada enjoys a reputation as the perfect global citizen, renowned for its commitment to the U.N. and multilateralism. And on the beaches of Sri Lanka, that and a buck'll get you a strawberry daiquiri. Canada's contribution to tsunami relief is objectively useless and rhetorically fraudulent.

Look for this article in the MSM

Will the main stream media pick up on this story?

A French study of 2,837 births - the first to investigate the link between terminations and extremely premature births - found that mothers who had previously had an abortion were 1.7 times more likely to give birth to a baby at less than 28 weeks' gestation. Many babies born this early die soon after birth, and a large number who survive suffer serious disability.

Read the whole article here

Extremists thwart science

It turns out there are there are Islamic “Weapons of Mass Destruction” after all. In particular, biological weapons. But these mass killers have been developed within Islamic nations, and are doing most of their damage there. The war on terror has taken many American doctors to Islamic nations, and they have discovered a heretofore hidden AIDS epidemic. . . .

But it’s not just AIDS. In Nigeria, faith based paranoia on the part of Islamic clergy, and politicians, caused a polio epidemic, which is now spreading to other Islamic nations. The UN has been trying for years to wipe out polio (which has been eliminated in most Western nations). In the last few years, UN medical resources were massing to wipe polio out in one of the last places where it still thrives; northern Nigeria. But some local Islamic clergy got the idea that these foreigners and their medicine (polio vaccine) were actually out to poison young Moslem females and make them sterile. Yeah, it’s nuts, but it went over big in northern Nigeria and stopped the polio eradication program cold.

Sad correlation

The news, especially cable news, seems to move from one tragic missing/murdered child to another. We had a couple in Florida and now two girls in Illinois were murdered by the father of one 9 year old. The commentators on these news programs never seem to linger on the obvious fact that in essentially all cases the family is to some degree non-functional. A father was shacked up with a girlfriend when his child is taken and killed by a known child molestor living in the neighborhood. In another case a woman stays with a man who is just out of prison for attacking someone with a running chainsaw. He kills her child. He has some 19 felony and heavy misdemeanors on his record. In Georgia, a mother lets her two children--aged around 2--wander off and drown in a sewage pond. Her ineptidude as a mother was well documented by the state child welfare workers, but she evidently could not function as a caretaker for her children.
Until the underpinnings of the American family are strengthened, more sad stories like these are to come.

This is insane.

The Bush administration has now agreed to take some of our tax money and use it to pay for medical care for illegal aliens in several border states since they conclude this is a federal responsibility. The reason it is a federal responsibility is because the federal government refuses to provide border control and security. The guidelines, however, forbid hospitals from asking persons who present themselves for treatment if they are here illegally. In order to collect on this fund of money, they have to ask indirect questions, like where they were born and if they are eligible for Medicaid. What a pile of nonsense. Read more here

Sowell hits another one out of the park

This is a very brief overview of Sowell's newest book and, as usual, he gets to the essence of the problem with the black culture and the harm being done by the liberals in their support of it.

I love this

Every now and then I read something which summarizes a situation so perfectly I just have to share it. An example was in the Wall Street Journal today and the quote is from Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. who captured the current social security debate beautifully.

"First of all, Social Security and Medicare are the same problem--and that problem is how Americans under 50 can provide for their old-age consumption without engaging in wishful thinking about enormous taxes that future workers would be willing to pay to keep them happy in retirement."

GM on life support

Most of us will find it incredulous when GM goes into bankruptcy. I remember when all their new cars came out in September each year and everyone raced to the dealership to see that years models. The company,however, will go the way of the steel companies. Over the years both agreed to labor demands for larger and larger benefits and wages which were tenable when there was no global competition. That is no longer true--especially in cars and steel. Here is the data. If you take all the company's shares and multiply them by the market value of a share you get the equity value of the entire company. That is what you could buy the company for. In the case of GM that comes to 14 billion dollars. As George Will pointed out, that is less than the value of Harley Davidson. More pertinent to the GM case, they have health care liablities of 20 billion and a 90 billion pension fund. The situation at Ford is no better since they agreed to much the same labor demands. I am really glad I am not depending on either company for a pension check each month. On the other hand, the effect of these bankruptcy declarations on the economy and stock market could be traumatic.

What's Important

I have decided there is a large disconnect between what the people I happen to talk to in the course of daily contact think is a problem in the U.S. and what the TV and other major media are talking and concerned about. Right now, everyone but the people are talking about social security and what changes we should make and whether Bush is winning or losing on the issue. There is no interest in the subject as far as I can tell. The young people I meet should be concerned, but don't seem to have moved intellectually beyond the point where they are resigned to the fact it won't be there for them. The extractions from their pay for social security is painless and has always been there, so it is accepted. Young people have other concerns. Old geezers all seem to realize that the problem won't ever affect themselves and don't seem to have the energy to fight on behalf of their children and grandchildren. Likewise, the broad middle age group in America probably have other bigger worries financially than social security. They are focused on the next set of monthly payments, college tuition for children, and gas prices.
The one issue which I hear talked about during casual contact is not at all on the radar of the politicians and media. That is the complete breakdown of security on our borders. The President spent one hour answering questions from the press last Thursday and nobody brought up the subject. The liberals don't want to stop the influx of potential democrat voters and the conservatives don't want to seem cruel so the problem festers. So, the politicians ignore the problem. I predict that will change at some point this year. There will be some event which focuses the national attention on the disgraceful lack of enforcement of our border laws and I just hope it is not another 9-11 sized incident. If it is, President Bush will never have another night of peaceful sleep and his presidency will be forever held in the disgrace it will deserve. He stood on the steps of the capitol twice with his hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the laws of the U.S. He has not done it and neither have the 535 Congressmen and women who took a similar oath. A situation like this can only end badly.

Real Estate Bubble in Iraq?

• In a sign of growing economic confidence, the real estate prices in Baghdad are on the way up:
  

  Residential real estate prices in Iraq's capital have quadrupled in many parts of the city, says Ali al-Difaie, 54, manager of a government office that processes property deeds. Difaie and real estate agents say the rise is driven by an increase in income since the U.S.-led invasion two years ago and the liberalization of building and property laws... Statistics are hard to come by, but Difaie says an average 3,000-square-foot home in Baghdad's upscale Mansour district sells for $300,000 now. That is four times the Saddam-era prices. Prices are similar in other middle-class neighborhoods around the capital, Difaie says.

• The prices have initially risen following the liberation, but then were driven down by the security problems. Following the January election and improving security situation, the trend is up again.

Sad way to start the week

London - A 20-year-old Scottish woman is suing a hospital where she had an abortion in 2001 after one of her twins survived the operation.

Stacy Dow, who is raising her now three-year-old daughter Jayde with her parents, said late on Sunday she is seeking £250 000 (nearly R3m) to cover the costs of raising the child.

"I have got a child now that I wasn't planning to have and I believe the hospital should take some responsibility for that," she said.

She said the hospital in Perth, Scotland where she had her operation had failed "to take reasonable care to establish that the termination had been successful".

Dow was 16 when she learned in early 2001 that she was pregnant and immediately decided to have an abortion.

Although the operation was declared a success, she realised several weeks later after visiting a doctor that she was still pregnant with one of her twins.

She then gave birth in August of that year.

In a similar case in 2001, a 36-year-old mother from Stafford in central England received £10 000 compensation under an amicable agreement with a surgeon who had failed to end her pregnancy.

In that case too one of a pair of twins survived the operation.

A blog recommendation

I just read this blog from Ali in Iraq and I recommend it for those wishing to understand how Iraqis think.

Start your day right

Once in a while you get such a wonderful start on your day that you almost want to go buy lottery tickets. Today was such a day for me. One of the first articles I read today reported on a prank by three MIT students. They developed a computer program that produces academic gibberish. The program generates sentences taken from real papers but it leaves many words out and replaces them randomly with buzzwords common in computer sciences. It then adds meaningless charts and graphs. This in itself is just delightful, but these students actually got such a paper accepted at the Ninth World Multi-Conference on Systematics, Cybernetics and Infomatics scheduled to be held in Orlando in July. The title of the 4 page paper was "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy".
The conference has been the victim before. An Australian computer scientist described 3 papers which were accepted in 2002. One submission juxtaposed lines from two different papers and another tried to sabotage itself by stating the proposed method "does not work at all".
When word of the hoax reached the symposium organizers they refunded the $390 fee the students paid to attend the meeting and have the paper published in the proceedings. One of the organizers stated that he doubted the paper fooled anyone who actually read it. I love it.

Dissatisfaction with NCLB

I am certainly no expert on the details of the President's educational package known as "No Child Left Behind", but I am beginning to read more and more that makes me doubt it is such a good deal for this country. As I understand the logic of the legislation, the schools are to show progress in the testing results of all children in various schools in order to avoid the dreaded label of "non-performing". That certainly makes good sense at first blush. Now that it has been in effect for awhile, however, the education establishment is beginning to howl that certain groups are holding them back because they are not performing through no fault of the wonderful teachers, administrators, school boards, etc. If children from poor neighborhoods with poor parents, children with learning disabilities, and other sub-groups of students were not included, the test scores would be just fine, thank you. One might have predicted such a response by the failing teachers and schools, but now we have a problem with the Bush administration going wobbly, it seems. The new Secretary of Education, Margret Spellings, was recently quoted thusly:"From now on, more students with academic disabilities will be allowed to take tests that are specifically geared to their abilities...". This sounds to me like gobbledegook that means lazy or unintelligent children will no longer be held to the same standards as industrious ones and the tests will be dumbed down so everyone can pass. If that is the case we have a situation where the emphasis is on raising the lower echelon of student and none on helping the gifted students which this country is going to count on to lead this country in every way. If we don't devise a way to avoid a stifling of our gifted students in early grades, this country is going to suffer greatly. Furthermore, the students who have been the recipient of an artificial support system in the educational system will eventually be required to compete in a real world where they will hopefully be judged on achievement rather than activity. Hope I am wrong.

The Georgia SAT Adjustment

The education establishment in Georgia and other states in the South is embarrassed yearly by the relative deficiency in the scores of our students who take the SAT. School systems have come up with all manner of ways to excuse and defend this situation, but now they seem to have the answer which I understand other states have previously adopted. Our University system consists of some 26 institutions of higher education and from now on students will no longer have to have a SAT score to be admitted to some 15 of these schools. If you have a C average and tuition money, you can get in these schools. This solves all sorts of problems. Students who show little academic preparation can now be counselled to simply pass on the SAT experience and go straight to college where their deficiencies will presumably be addressed in a less public fashion. After all, a healthy minority of our enrollees into our very pestigious University of Georgia needs remedial work to overcome lack of preparation by our public schools now. Our high schools will not produce a higher quality product but I would look for our relative SAT scores to increase nicely and everyone will feel a lot better.

The Bolton Affair

The President has nominated John Bolton to be the Ambassador to the U.N. and the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee has failed to confirm his appointment so it can go to the full Senate. Best I can tell, his greatest sin according to the public comments from the democrats is that over the past 11 years, he was abusive to people who worked below him on the organization chart at the Department of State. He yelled at someone and in another case he asked that a guy who had lied to him about some intelligence report be transferred so he wouldn't be around Bolton anymore. Nobody can argue that a boss who is abusive to his underlings is a good guy, but some of the senators who are particularily excercised by Bolton's behavior (like Senator Dodd) were highly supportive of President Clinton of Monica Lewinsky fame. Maybe you can argue that their relationship wasn't abusive. The real problem, of course, is that Bolton is not a great fan of the way the U.N. has functioned and has suggested as much publically. Liberals can't stand that.

My conclusion on Pope Benedict is getting stronger

A homosexual advocacy group expressed "concern" that Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, "does not present a hopeful vision of the future or inspire optimism for affirming language, policies or outreach."

Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) noted that Ratzinger "authored a Vatican document condemning marriage and adoption by gay men and lesbians in July 2003."

A reminder from Glenn Reynolds

Sixty years after the end of World War II, there are still 62,000 American troops in Europe. They are stationed in 236 bases, including 13 training areas. The force has been reduced considerably over the years, especially after the Cold War ended in 1991, leaving over a quarter million American troops in Europe. But in 2015 there will still be 24,000 American troops over there, in 88 bases, and using four training areas. The 1st Infantry Division will return from Europe in 2006, and the 1st Armored Division will go home in 2008. Both of these units were originally sent to Europe in 1942. The only major combat unit that will remain in Europe will be the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which is stationed in northern Italy.
This is all because Ike went in without an exit strategy.

Habemus Papam

I don't use much Latin in my blog so the title of this one is a first. Since I am not Catholic, I do not have much knowledge of that religion's heirarchy so my ability to comment on Pope Benedict XVI is limited. It is hard not to notice all the interest in his selection by the news media who posted reporters in Rome to report on the color of smoke. For these reasons, I am pretty much a spectator and do not have much in the way of an opinion on the choice made by the 115 old men who gathered in the Cistine Chapel. Slowly, but surely, however, I am beginning to conclude they made a good choice. It certainly seems to be upsetting to the New York Times and others who make up the main stream media. It would be hard to find a better contraindicator than that.

Technical Assistance

Much of the past couple of days was spent on an effort to install a wireless router in our beach house so we can use the laptop downstairs where it is cooler in the summer and often more convenient than our loft where the computer is located. The first problem I had was with what I assumed to be Bell South who provides our DSL broadband service. It seemed to me that the modem wasn't working so I called their help number and before it was over I had talked to 2 of their phone representatives who gave me very detailed instructions to make changes in my computer and modem intended to solve my problem. Each of them was well-intentioned and mostly competent but there was a problem. I couldn't understand either of them since they were Indians from India and maybe in India for all I know. So, I spent the better part of 2 hours trying to hold on to the phone receiver, type, make attachment changes in the wiring of the modem, and react to instructions from someone speaking with an accent so strong I had to repeatedly ask him to repeat what he had just said. After all that, they came to the wrong conclusion and I made two trips of 45 miles each into Charleston to get computer attachments which later proved unnecessary when another Indian working for Cisco Systems solved my problem with dispatch and less of an accent than the other two at Bell South. Or maybe I am just understanding them better. At any rate, I sure do wish we could get English-speaking workers who had expertise in computer technology to work for what ever these companies pay persons who provide this service.

A "scientific" anniversary

Thirty years ago this month, Newsweek reported: "There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production -- with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now." The headline? "The Cooling World." That's right: Just 30 years ago, scaremongers were telling us about global cooling . The alarmists never stop. Reminds me of Y2K fears.

Mark Steyn

One of the best columnists out there with far too little public awareness is Mark Steyn who writes for the Chicago Sun-Times. His latest can be read here.

This is just a sample of the column which deals with our CIA and its problems.

The CIA, as I wrote a couple of years back, now functions in the same relation to President Bush as Pakistan's ISI does to General Musharraf. In both cases, before the chief executive makes a routine request of his intelligence agency, he has to figure out whether they're going to use it as an opportunity to set him up, and if so how. For Musharraf, the problem is the significant faction in the ISI that would like to kill him. Fortunately for Bush, if anyone at the CIA launched a plot to kill him, they'd probably take out G. W. Bish, who runs a feed store in Idaho.

The great bake sale kurfuffle

I am at an age where I am often the recipient of favors based not on some deserving characteristic, but only because of my age. Senior discounts are widely accepted even though they make very little sense for most of us and younger persons should find them objectionable. If you set up a business where you gave seniors some kind of preference, nobody would raise an objection. What if you started a restaurant where you gave a discount to armed service members? Again, no objections. Lower prices for children? No problem. Lower prices for blacks? Higher prices for Asians? Might be some comment there, but you would get a large black customer base relative to Asians, but the lawyers would most likely not get too excited. Black preferences are pretty much accepted today. We have had preferences for a long time in education and the black power base guards them tenaciously. All this makes it hard to understand why the administrations at numerous institutions of higher education (Northwestern and SMU, for example) are in a state of high dungeon fighting the bake sales on campus which sell cookies and cakes to blacks for less than the price charged to whites and Asians. This is called hate "speech" and a threat to campus tranquility. And, of course, any discussion of the difference between admission preferences and cookie preferences is strictly avoided.

More on Hagel

I have been doing some more reading on the personal accounts portion of Senator Hagel's social security proposal. If it passes, those workers age 44 and younger would have two choices. The first would be to take 4% of their payroll tax and put it into one of the investment choices currently in the Federal Thrift Plan. i am not sure if the worker can use more than one and when or if he can switch out of his choice into another, but they have that worked out for federal employees. The other choice is to simply elect the current social security system. A wrinkle I just learned of should answer some of the critics of the personal accounts. At retirement, the worker would be required to convert a portion of the retirement account into an annuity which when combined with the traditional Social Security benefit would pay the worker an amount which is at least 135% of the poverty level. The remainder of the account could be used to help with health care costs, pay college tuition for grandchildren, help children with a home purchase or simply retained for heirs. All of this seems reasonable to me, so it probably is doomed to be ignored.

A Math Lesson

I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal today that was a little depressing in that it really made me wish I hadn't avoided math so successfully when there was another option. This article discussed the fact that the prime number theory, called the "Reimann Hypothesis" was getting closer to being proved. This was advanced in 1859 by Bernhard Reimann and is now considered the most important unsolved problem in mathematics. There is even a $1 million prize to whomever proves it. Well, I am no threat to get the million since I can't even understand why they care if it is proved or not and I am also unable to understand the theory and the significance of prime numbers. One thing I read largely prevented me from studying the problem further. In her discussion, Sharon Begley made the point that there is an infinite number of prime numbers. O.K., I can accept that. But then she said the problem is "how big is that infinity?" Whoa. So now she is telling me some infinities are larger than others? Yes, and as an example she says the number of numbers divisible by 2 is infinite and so is the number of numbers divisible by 9. The first infinity is larger than the second. Furthermore, there is an infinite number of squares (4,9,16, etc) and cubes (8,27, 64, etc), but there are more primes than either of these infinite numbers. Here I am 66 years old and now they are telling me infinity is not just one big number out there somewhere. I pause here to think about all this.

The Hagel Plan

A good friend asked me what I thought of the Social Security plan advanced by Senator Hagel of Nebraska. I was vaguely aware that he had put forth one but knew nothing of its content, so I agreed to look at it. The details can be read here.
The plan is distinctive in that it is the only one out there. Bush doesn't have one and the dems certainly don't have one to compare with Sen. Hagel's, so about all one can do is look at the plan itself. The first thing every casual reader will notice is the retirement age would be raised to 68 from 67 in 2023. That is something the liberal demogogues will focus on in order to kowtow to their labor support, but it really is not too onerous since Hagel would leave the option to start getting benefits at age 62 for those who want to retire from labor intensive employment. They would get 63% of full benefits rather than the 70% that I get, however. Another feature of the Hagel plan is to revise the way Social Security benefits are calculated. We now use the wages earned over a 35 year period (up to a rising maximum) and the wage rate of current workers to determine benefit levels. Hagel would add a factor which accounted for what we can predict will be a rising life expectancy for the general population. This simply makes actuarial sense and is one of the problems the system faces now. Here again, the demogogues will protest in full throat that Hagel is going to reduce your benefits. That is true and inevitable if you don't have something to supplement your retirement funds. That is also why he proposes retirement accounts be made an OPTION for young workers (under 45 years old). It is the latter which the liberals oppose so vehemently. Hagel anticipates this and lays out in considerable specificity how the retirement accounts would work and they are largely proposed to mimic the ones now available to government workers via the Federal Thrift Saving Plans. There would be a Board which would manage the accounts and negotiate low administrative fees which should be low since the worker's money would only go into index funds which are naturally low fee ways to invest. In essence, the money would go into funds which invest in either stocks, bonds or a combination of both with very low risk profiles. Hagel even proposes a Default Account which would invest in say 80% stocks and 20% bonds when you are young and in later years would slide toward a more conservative mix of say 35% bonds and 65% bonds. The investment examples which Hagel gives have 10 year average returns of 5.45% to 11.9%, but his projections like all the others I have seen under estimate the potential of such accounts by ignoring the mathematical advantage over simple averages which are provided by dollar cost averaging. When you put a constant amount from your paycheck into a pool of money with unit costs which vary over time, you wind up buying more shares in the fund when stocks or bonds are down and fewer shares when they are up. Over a 30-40 year period, this can have an almost magical enhancement that is exceeded only by the phenomenon of compounding. Bush doesn't have the communication skills required to explain this to the country and the average individual is too ignorant of math to appreciate it, but if everyone did understand these positive aspects of investing, nobody could be against private accounts except liberals who don't want you to have any control over any aspect of your life except abortion.
In conclusion, I think the Hagel plan is quite reasonable in that it recognizes that something has to be done which lowers the benefits or increases the income for Social Security. His plan opts to decrease benefits slightly in the distant future and allows the worker to invest in himself and his or her heirs via a personal account which will more than make up for the reduced benefits. Since the amount you put into Social Security is now a tax (the money goes into the general revenues) the liberals will want to raise that rather than reduce benefits which are offset by investments. Another reason the liberals are so against private accounts, and you won't see this written down in a lot of places, is they know that their base is too stupid to opt in to something to provide intelligently for their retirement.

Obituary Lapse?

You have to search really hard to find any mention of the Cardinal Bernard Law matter in any of Pope John Paul's obituaries and career accounts. A few years ago, it seemed quite probable that Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston would have to face trial for his appalling collusion in the child-rape racket that his diocese had been running. The man had knowingly reassigned dangerous and sadistic criminals to positions where they would be able to exploit the defenseless. He had withheld evidence and made himself an accomplice, before and after the fact, in the one offense that people of all faiths and of none have most united in condemning. The church that has allowed no latitude in its teachings on masturbation, premarital sex, birth control, and divorce suddenly asks for understanding and "wiggle room" for the most revolting crime on the books. Cardinal Law isn't going to face a court, now. He has fled the jurisdiction and lives in Rome where he continues his work on a board which allows him to contribute to the process of appointing diocesan bishops. I suppose the consequences of this seemingly abhorent situation and Pope John Paul's contribution to it is being handled at a higher level now.