Congressional Silly Season

We are getting down to the end of the congressional session before our politicians take the month of August off for a well-needed vacation---with the French and Germans. Democrats are in full throat calling for a raise in the minimum wage and liberal Republicans don't want to be in an election race where they can be accused of not giving a man his full due for a day's work, so they want to at least be able to say they support a "living wage", also. In order to do this, the leaders of the Republican majority have devised a bill which would raise the minimum wage to $7.25 over 3 years, but it is combined with a decrease in the estate taxes which the democrats can't stand since this is a "tax break for the rich". Of course, there is no way you are going to take more from a rich man's estate than he wants to relinquish. A wealthy man can always find a way to protect his accumulated assets from being confiscated by the government. By the same token, you are never going to force an intelligent business man to pay more in wages than his circumstances will allow. Liberals seem incapable of understanding that if someone is being paid $6.00/hour in an environment like ours when there is essentially full employment, that is all that job or person is worth and all anyone will pay. Tell a businessman to pay more and a job is lost. The democrats in the senate now say they will kill the house-passed measure and not permit an increase in the minimum wage to prevent the estate tax from being lowered. This will leave the senate democrats in the position of denying a benefit to millions (in their rhetoric) in order to extract more in tax from almost nobody. The status quo is probably as good an outcome as we can expect. On to the beach.

Porn Radio???

KFYE-FM hasn't budged from the Fresno-area radio dial, but it's about as far as you can get from the Christian music, sermons and Bible stories it was broadcasting until about a week ago.

Now it calls itself "Porn Radio" — "all sex radio, all the time," with a suggestion that people under 21 not listen.

Songs with little in common except suggestive titles and lyrics fill the playlist, including "Why Don't We Do It in the Road" by the Beatles, "Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye and "Nasty" by Janet Jackson. Tamer songs are heated up by adding recorded moans and groans.

A liberal's view of democrats

Peter Beinart is a liberal editor of the New Republic who concludes a recent essay as follows:

The Democratic Party's single biggest foreign policy liability is not that Americans think Democrats are soft. It is that Americans think Democrats stand for nothing, that they have no principles beyond political expedience. And given the party's behavior over the past several months, it is not hard to understand why.

Read it all here.

More on "How True"

A reader is finally setting me straight on the letter referenced below and I now have a link to the original. I am not sure where I got the erroneous version, but you can read the letter posted by David Bogner here. Sorry about the failure to attribute it correctly in the first instance.

Friedman's Mid-east musings

Thomas Friedman thinks we should either go to war with Syria or start talking to it. He says this attempt to isolate them is not working and we are missing a chance, however slim, to separate Hezbolla from Iran. Read the whole thing here.

"How True" may be apocryphal

One of the readers of Best View sent a note to the effect that he had checked with the newspaper and the letter reprinted in the entry entitled "How True" did not appear there. I regret that, but I still agree with the message. Now I don't have to feel so sorry for the poor Marine.

Troops????

From the Opinion Journal.


Support is building quickly for an international military force to be placed in southern Lebanon," the New York Times reports:

But there remains a small problem: where will the troops come from?

The United States has ruled out its soldiers' participating, NATO says it is overstretched, Britain feels its troops are overcommitted and Germany says it is willing to participate only if Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that it would police, agrees to it, a highly unlikely development.

"All the politicians are saying, 'Great, great' to the idea of a force, but no one is saying whose soldiers will be on the ground," said one senior European official. "Everyone will volunteer to be in charge of the logistics in Cyprus."

So let's see if we have this straight. The U.N. passes a resolution calling on Hezbollah to disarm. Then nothing much happens until Hezbollah enters Israeli territory to kill and kidnap Israeli soldiers, whereupon Jerusalem takes it upon itself to enforce that resolution.

Now the "international community" is calling on Israel to exercise "restraint" as rockets rain on Israeli cities and urging an "international military force" to impose a "cease-fire" without thinking through where that force would come from.

How True!

Nebraska Alliance - Times Herald Lincoln, July 19, 2006 Why the world should stand back and let Israel do what it has to do Dave Wilson, Capt. retired, US Navy When I was in the Navy, I once witnessed a bar fight in downtown Olongapo (Philippines) that still haunts my dreams. The fight was between a big oafish Marine and a rather soft-spoken, medium sized Latino sailor from my ship. All evening the Marine had been trying to pick a fight with one of us and had finally set his sights on this diminutive shipmate of mine. . . figuring him for a safe target. When my friend refused to be goaded into a fight the Marine sucker punched him from behind on the side of the head so hard that blood instantly started to pour from this poor man's mutilated ear. Everyone present was horrified and was prepared to absolutely murder this Marine, but my shipmate quickly turned on him and began to single-handedly back him towards a corner with a series of stinging jabs and upper cuts that gave more than a hint to a youth spent boxing in a small gym in the Bronx. Each punch opened a cut on the Marine's startled face and by the time he had been backed completely into the corner he was blubbering for someone to stop the fight. He invoked his split lips and chipped teeth as reasons to stop the fight. He begged us to stop the fight because he could barely see through the river of blood that was pouring out of his split and swollen brows. Nobody moved. Not one person. The only sound in the bar was the sickening staccato sound of this sailor's lightning fast fists making contact with new areas of the Marine's head. The only sound I have heard since that was remotely similar was from the first Rocky film when Sylvester Stallone was punching sides of beef in the meat locker. Finally the Marine's pleading turned to screams. . .. a high, almost womanly shriek. And still the punches continued relentlessly. Several people in the bar took a few tentative steps as though they wanted to try to break it up at that point, but hands reached out from the crowd and held them tight. I'm not ashamed to say that mine were two of the hands that held someone back. You see, in between each blow the sailor had begun chanting a soft cadence: "Say [punch] you [punch] give [punch] up [punch]. . . say [punch] you [punch]were [punch] wrong [punch]". He had been repeating it to the Marine almost from the start but we only became aware of it when the typical barroom cheers had died down and we began to be sickened by the sight and sound of the carnage. This Marine stood there shrieking in the corner of the bar trying futilely to block the carefully timed punches that were cutting his head to tatters. . . right down to the skull in places. But he refused to say that he gave up. . . or that he was wrong. Even in the delirium of his beating he believed in his heart that someone would stop the fight before he had to admit defeat. I'm sure this strategy had served him well in the past and had allowed him to continue on his career as a barroom bully. Finally, in a wail of agony the Marine shrieked "I give up", and we gently backed the sailor away from him. I'm sure you can guess why I have shared this story today. I'm not particularly proud to have been witness to such a bloody spectacle, and the sound of that Marine's woman-like shrieks will haunt me to my grave. But I learned something that evening that Israel had better learn for itself if it is to finally be rid of at least one of its tormentors: This is one time an Arab aggressor must be allowed to be beaten so badly that every civilized nation will stand in horror, wanting desperately to step in and stop the carnage. . . but knowing that the fight will only truly be over when one side gives up and finally admits defeat. Just as every person who had ever rescued that bully from admitting defeat helped create the cowardly brute I saw that evening in the bar, every well-intentioned power that has ever stepped in and negotiated a ceasefire for an Arab aggressor has helped create the monsters we see around us today. President Lahoud of Lebanon, a big Hezbollah supporter and a close ally of Syria, has been shrieking non-stop to the UN Security Council for the past two days to get them to force Israel into a cease fire. Clearly he has been reading his autographed copy of 'Military Success for Dummies Arab Despots' by the late Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Ever since Nasser accidentally discovered the trick in '56, every subsequent Arab leader has stuck to his tried and true formula for military success: Instigate a war. Once the war is well underway and you are in the process of having your ass handed to you. . . get a few world powers to force your western opponent into a cease fire. Whatever you do, don't surrender or submit to any terms dictated by your enemy. That would ruin everything! All you have to do is wait it out and eventually the world will become sickened at what is being done to your soldiers and civilian population. . . and will force a truce. Once a truce has been called you can resume your intransigence (which probably caused the conflict in the first place), and even declare victory as your opponent leaves the field of battle. This tactic has never failed. Not once. In fact it worked so will for the Egyptians in 1973, that to this day they celebrate the Yom Kippur War - a crushing defeat at the hands of Israel - as a military victory! No kidding. . . it's a national holiday over there! President Lahoud has already begun to shriek like a school girl to the UN Security Council to "Stop the violence and arrange a cease-fire, and then after that we'll be ready to discuss all matters." Uh huh. Forgive me if I find that a tad hard to swallow. He allowed Hezbollah to take over his country. He allowed the regular Lebanese army to provide radar targeting data for the Hezbollah missile that struck the Israeli destroyer. He has turned a blind eye while Iranian and Syrian weapons, advisers and money have poured into his country. And now that his country is in ruins he wants to call it a draw. As much as it may sicken the world to stand by and watch it happen, strong hands need to hold back the weak-hearted and let the fight continue until one side finally admits unambiguous defeat

Hastert still doesn't get it

Dennis Hastert was on Fox yesterday and was asked about the FBI warrant to search the office of Congressman William Jefferson. House Speaker Dennie Hastert did not rule out getting involved in disgraced Congressman William Jefferson's latest lawsuit, though he indicated that he would not do it in defense of Jefferson; rather, he thinks Representatives have certain "prerogatives" written into the Constitution which demand a procedure for searching beyond, evidently, the standard warrant. So, in other words Hastert believes that if the Executive Branch goes to the Judicial Branch to get a warrant to search the offices of anyone else in the U.S. except a congressman it is O.K. That is nonsense as anyone who can read the Constitution will readily understand. It is sad to see the Republicans get to the belief they are entitled to things the others of us are not within just 12 years of getting a majority. It took the Democrats 40 years to get there and they were turned out in 1994.

I didn't know this

"I'd always thought marrying a blood relative as close as a cousin was immoral, and certainly risky if you plan to have kids. Conventional wisdom says only primitive people who live in isolated places marry cousins. It leads to stupid children. But that's a myth.
It's the sort of myth that leads to stupid laws. Half the states in America have banned cousin marriage, but there's no good reason for it. You can marry your cousin and have perfectly intelligent kids.
Take Albert Einstein -- was he intelligent enough for you? His parents were cousins, and he married his cousin. So did Charles Darwin and Queen Victoria. Worldwide, 20 percent of all married couples are cousins. "
From an essay by John Stossel.
Read the entire article here.

Congress at Work

For some reason, I just switched over to C-Span and our House of Representatives was voting on whether or not to make this School Bus Safety Week. All in favor vote Aye and all opposed vote Nay. This is a 5 minute vote. Next will be do we love Momma's fried chicken?

Outrageous!!

I don't have time this morning to comment on this article, but it is so mind-boggling that I probably couldn't do it justice.

Just Wondering

If there is anything really important to address, is there anything more worthless than the U.N.?

I am not exactly clear on what it is, but wouldn't soccer be a more exciting game if there was no such thing as "offside"?

Is there a country anywhere which doubts that if Israel feels its existence is threatened it would use the nuclear option?

Is there a more disgraceful example of political corruption in the history of the U.S. than the Big Dig in Massachusetts?

Feel free to comment if you disagree.

The French Reaction

This was entirely predictable, but is almost humorous in a way. Israel is invaded and some soldiers are killed and others are kidnapped. This is on one front. On this front (Lebenon) and another one (Gaza), rockets are lobbed into civilian populations from a territory handed over with no strings attached and no Israeliis were left behind. So how should Israel respond? Well, that response should be proportional.

"I find honestly -- as all Europeans do -- that the current reactions are totally disproportionate," he said in a live television interview on France's national Bastille Day. So spoke Jacques Chirac.

Who could have predicted that Israel would respond in a way that exceeded that which France would adopt? Some things never change.

Crime and Guns

Florida has no state law restricting assault weapons or rapid-fire ammunition magazines. Florida also does not require background checks at gun shows, does not require child-safety locks to be sold with guns, does not have any handgun safety standards to limit Saturday night specials and even forces police to let people carry hidden handguns in public."
Naturally, the anti-gun groups rushed to claim that tourists should not go there because they would most likely be shot by the lawlessness sure to result. Well, the Palm Beach Post just reported the crime rate in Florida is at an all-time low. Governor Bush attributed some of that to the gun laws.
Meanwhile, there is the report from Washington, D. C. that a crime emergency has been declared in that area and maybe it is not a coincidence that D.C. has the most strict gun laws in the nation. Of course, liberals find this concept impossible to comprehend and accept. It is the same phenomenon as lowering taxes raises revenues. They don't get it and evidently never will.

Gotta obey the law

This just in: Now let's hope the idiotic Republican leadership doesn't persist with the notion that Congressional Offices are sanctuaries for illegal activity.

Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan said members of Congress are not above the law. He rejected requests from lawmakers and Democratic Rep. William Jefferson to return material seized by the FBI in a May 20-21 search of Jefferson's office.

World Opinion

I was reading today that we need to close the detention facility at Guantanamo because of numerous calls internationally to close it. There must be something wrong with me since it would be hard for me to care less about the opionion of these other countries who would not hesitate to yell for us to come save their butts if military action was required. In addition, each of these countries have long lists of their citizens lined up to get into this country via the immigration route. I would tell them to go jump a stump. I am not even sure what that means, but we better keep this G-rated.

Liberals are so predictable

Last June 28 Bestview pointed out how the arrest of the home-grown terrorist in Miami would be challenged by those who would point out that they hadn't done anything wrong yet. Well, here is the New York Times first offering on this aspect of Bush's success which they can't abide.

The great Hollywood anti-war fast---Steyn

Here is some of Mark Steyn's take on the movie industries support for the Cindy Sheehan fast until the war is over. As mentioned in an earlier Bestview offering, some of our finest Hollywood stars will support her by not eating for an entire 24 hours. Read it all here.

At adjoining tables, other celebrities rushed to show their support for the anti-war movement: ''I'll not have what she's not having." Winona Ryder is telling waiters, ''Hold the haunch of venison.'' Keira Knightley is saying, ''Hey, I'll just go with the short stack this morning. And the low-fat simulated-maple syrup substitute.'' Ice T has given up iced tea. Disgusted by the callousness of the Bush war machine, William Powell and Myrna Loy have decided to go without the olive in their fourth martini. Willie Nelson is said to be gaunt and sounding croaky. Michael Moore, hovering dangerously at 300 pounds, has told friends, ''You can never be too rich but you can be too thin.'' Molly Ringwald's press agent has announced his client is starving for publicity. Tom Cruise was reported as looking physically shrunken, but then put his elevator shoes back on. Demonstrating yet again his strong personal commitment to political activism, George Clooney has delegated his rolling fast to his stunt double for insurance reasons. Yoko Ono has released a new all-star charity single of ''Give Peas A Chance.'' In the forthcoming Bond movie, 007 is tossed into a tank of ravenous sharks, but they refuse to eat him and, in a savage indictment of Bush foreign policy, sip their mineral water in a desultory fashion for 20 minutes before calling for the check. America's greatest living war hero and simultaneous anti-war hero, John Kerry, pledged his own passionate support for the crusade of his celebrity friends: ''I ordered the banana cream pie before I sent it back.''

Georgia Votes Finally Count

ATLANTA, Jul. 6, 2006 (AP Online delivered by Newstex) -- The state Supreme Court reinstated Georgia's constitutional ban on gay marriage Thursday, just hours after New York's highest court upheld that state's gay-marriage ban.

The Georgia Supreme Court, reversing a lower court judge's ruling, decided unanimously that the ban did not violate the state's single-subject rule for ballot measures. Superior Court Judge Constance Russell of Fulton County had ruled that it did.

Seventy-six percent of Georgia voters approved the ban when it was on the ballot in 2004.

North Korea

We need to do something to get the attention of these psychopaths. First we need to get our troops out of South Korea and then our options open up considerably. Next we need to see that Japan has nuclear capability. That would get China's attention which is the best vehicle to get Korea's attention.

Starving for Peace

Cindy Sheehan vows to not eat until the troops in Iraq are brought home. Some of the Hollywood idiots are supporting her by not eating for 24 hours. Bestview predicts Cindy will find a reason to eat before she starves to death.

My kind of Democrat

Governor Richardson of New Mexico was elected in 2002 and since then has cut the state's income tax to 4.9% from 8.2% and cut the capital gains tax in half. This has resulted in a 1/2 billion surplus fueled by a 27% increase in revenues. He says the Democrats need to be a party of growth rather than one of redistribution. If he gets the Democrat nomination for President, I may vote for him if John McCain runs against him. That would be a first for me.

Exaggeration? I don't think so.

A cycle of violence in the mideast??

Of all the conflicts in the world, the one that seems the most tediously and hopelessly endless is the Arab-Israeli dispute, which has been going on in much the same way, it seems, for 60 years. Just about every story you'll see will characterize Israel's invasion of Gaza as a continuation of the cycle of violence.

What is so remarkable about the current wave of violence in Gaza is that the event at the origin of the "cycle" is not at all historical, but very contemporary. The event is not buried in the mists of history. It occurred less than one year ago. Before the eyes of the whole world, Israel left Gaza. Every Jew, every soldier, every military installation, every remnant of Israeli occupation was uprooted and taken away.

How do the Palestinians respond? What have they done with Gaza, the first Palestinian territory in history to be independent, something neither the Ottomans nor the British nor the Egyptians nor the Jordanians, all of whom ruled Palestinians before the Israelis, ever permitted? On the very day of Israel's final pullout, the Palestinians began firing rockets out of Gaza into Israeli towns on the other side of the border. And remember: those are attacks not on settlers but on civilians in Israel proper, the pre-1967 Israel that the international community recognizes as legitimately part of sovereign Israel, a member state of the U.N. A thousand rockets have fallen since.

Read the whole thing here.

The Hamdan Decision

The best I can determine the chief result of this ruling will be to delay the trials of Guantanamo detainees until Congress or the Pentagon establishes a regime of military commissions that meets the court's approval. Now we have to listen to the liberals screech about how terrible it is that no terrorists will be let free and are being held without a trial for an unlimited period of time. Hopefully that time will be when the threat of terrorism is over.

Makes you go "Hmmmmm!"

Eleven insurgent groups, eight of which are being led by the 1920 Revolution Brigades, have issued a counter proposal to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's plan for national reconciliation. The insurgent groups have offered to quit the battlefield if the following conditions are met:

• The United States agrees to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq in two years.

• An end to U.S. and Iraqi military operations against insurgent forces.

• Compensation for Iraqis killed by U.S. and government forces and reimbursement for property damage.

As I read this we can make the following observations. First, the insurgents agree with the liberals in the Senate that there should be firm withdrawal date...albeit one further away than John Kerry wants. Secondly, we must be doing some good work on the military front if the insurgents want us to stop. Winners of a war seldom sue for a cease-fire.

Sad but true

"For too long the Palestinians have been protected from the natural consequences of their own brutality and bloody-mindedness, allowed by the Western world to make war while pretending at peace. This has only infantilized them, shielding them from the rightful consequences of their actions, encouraging them to become more vicious.

At some point there has to be a war to resolve this, a real war, with the other side fighting back. And one side needs to be decimated and humilated. That's how peace is made. Only when people truly feel the horrors of war are they willing to give it up."

This conclusion is offered by a blog that confirms what I have felt for some time. The terrorists in Gaza announced today that they shot a rocket tipped with a chemical warhead into Israel. It is doubtful that this is true, but the consequences of actually firing one intended to kill civilians in Israel would be profound enough to actually bring an end to the conflict in that region.

The Putin Solutiton vis a vis Guantanamo

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered Russia's special services to hunt down and "destroy" the killers of four Russian diplomats in Iraq, the Kremlin said.

Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Federal Security Service _ the main successor to the Soviet KGB _ later said that everything would be done to ensure that the killers "do not escape from responsibility," the Interfax news agency reported.

"The president has ordered the special forces to take all necessary measures to find and destroy the criminals who killed Russian diplomats in Iraq," the Kremlin press service said in a brief statement.

Bush, Roosevelt and Treason

The battle of Midway Island was the turning point of the Pacific War. Victory at Midway was possible because the U.S. had broken the Japanese naval code. The Chicago Tribune spilled the beans in a story that ran under the headline: "NAVY HAD WORD OF JAP PLAN TO STRIKE AT SEA."

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was furious. He knew that if the Japanese read the story, they'd suspect their codes were compromised, and change them.

The president "initially was disposed to send in the Marines to shut down Tribune tower," wrote Harry Evans. "He was talked out of that, then considered trying (Chicago Tribune publisher Robert) McCormick for treason, which carried a death penalty in wartime."

A grand jury was empaneled, but prosecution was dropped because the Japanese were still using the Purple code, evidently having missed the story. The publicity from a trial would clue them in.

So Col. McCormick escaped prosecution. But with what the Chicago Tribune had done in mind, Congress in 1950 added Section 798 to the Espionage Act of 1917. It reads in part:

"Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits...or publishes ...any classified information...concerning the communications intelligence activities of the United States...shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."

Section 798 applies specifically to what the New York Times did last December, when it published a story revealing that the National Security Agency was listening in on calls from al Qaida suspects abroad to people in the U.S.

Read it all here.

Bush can't win

There are two recent stories now being digested which point up how the Bush administration can't win with the press and liberal columnists. The first is the arrest of the clowns in Miami who are being charged with planning attacks on the Sears Building and other targets. It turns out they are largely unable in either assets or intellect to carry out their plans in all probability so the mantra now being advanced is to the effect that Bush is not really protecting us and the announcement of the capture of the Miami blacks is shear hype. What is the alternative? Well, we could have continued to monitor them until they actually acquired the means, but that would have meant we had to tie up resources for maybe years. The decision to go ahead and arrest them, prosecute them and lock them up seems to make sense to me. The liberal media is uspet that Bush can claim credit for an undercover effort that did not involve an "eminent" threat. Sound familiar?

Another example of how Bush can't win is in the revelation that billions were dispersed to folks who falsely claimed to be victims of the Hurricane Katrina. The reason for this was the decision by FEMA to go ahead and pay those who claimed money and support rather than make a detailed investigation of each claim while the media screamed that the cruel Bush administration was needlessly delaying help to poor starving blacks. I am not at all happy with the way funds were wasted, but some of it was unavoidable as best I can see.

How true

"A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company."
Gravina (1664-1718)

Unsolicited Advice

The Democrats really have a problem which this Republican would like to see remedied, but that is not likely. As long as the liberals who control the dems persist in their opposition to our efforts to confront islamofascism, they will not get anywhere politically. The recent votes in the Senate pretty much show that the democrat Senators are divided into two camps---Out Soon or Out Pretty Soon. What they should do is revert to the Democratic posture of the 40's when they were the ones who advanced the idea of promoting democracy through the projection of force if necessary. The Republicans took the opposite position and a quick look back at their fate will help explain how futile the liberal dem stance is today, in my opinion. During the cold war the liberals were considered soft on communism because they were. They exhibited core sympathy with the idea that communists redistributed wealth, advanced the working class, etc. Now, the liberals are widely thought of as being soft on a religious fundamentalism that represses women, kills gays, suppresses dissent through decapitation, and has no problem killing civilians to promote fear. Americans know instinctively that if we leave Iraq too soon the jihadists will be imboldened and consider that a victory leading to more terrorism in places not now at risk. So, the effort in Iraq is being carried on with a split in our body politic which will only slow its conclusion. This fits the classical definition of incompetence whereby an action which is advanced to achieve an objective produces the exact opposite result. The fastest way out of Iraq is to support the President and the only way to recapture any political power is to support what the liberals now oppose. Those of us who are conservative (as opposed to Republican) would like to see a different party in power, but not one advancing the idiotic positions of John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, and others who think we have a law-enforcement problem with some muslims and Bush lied.

Tribes in the Mideast

I read an essay the other day which I have been thinking about quite a bit. The problem is I can't find it now and don't even remember who wrote it so I can provide attribution. The point of it was to advance the premise that our attempts to bring democracy to Iraq is really a steep climb because these people are not constitutionally able to embrace it. His analysis was based on the historic reliance by these people on tribal society. He went all the way back to Alexander the Great, but the bottom line is these people are more comfortable with a tribal structure where they know their place and can rely on the fact that the others in the tribe will support them in all of life's endeavors from jobs to marriage to conflicts with others. Democracy requires more individual activity than these people with centuries of tribal loyalties can excercise. They need a strong man to rally around (like Saddam) and democracy as we know it does not encourage that. One General asked a tribal sheik what the U.S. military needed to do right after taking over Iraq. He was told to start reconstruction activity and get out as many pictures of George Bush as they could for the Iraqis to rally around. I am afraid the sheik was right and our go nice approach is doomed to a long insurgency conflict.

World Cup Soccer

I am really getting to like this soccer. Today Germany beats Sweden and the German fans proceed to have a riot with English soccer fans. Ghana beat someone the other day and the fans at home went crazy and as of last count there were 3 deaths during the celebration. This is going to get really good when someone actually wins something.

Kerry Does it Again

There are too many people watching our politicians now. In the good old days a comment meant to seem smart and insightful would not be remembered and used against a pol on some future date. Alas, poor John Kerry can't catch a break with the bloggers. Here is what ol' "I served in Viet Nam" Kerry said in 2003 to the Council of Foreign Relations:

I fear that in the run-up to the 2004 election, the administration is considering what is tantamount to a cut-and-run strategy. Their sudden embrace of accelerated Iraqification and American troop withdrawal dates, without adequate stability, is an invitation to failure. The hard work of rebuilding Iraq must not be dictated by the schedule of the next American election.

I have called for the administration to transfer sovereignty, and they must transfer it to the Iraqi people as quickly as circumstances permit. But it would be a disaster and a disgraceful betrayal of principle to speed up the process simply to lay the groundwork for a politically expedient withdrawal of American troops. That could risk the hijacking of Iraq by terrorist groups and former Ba'athists.

Kerry was against cutting and running before he was for it!

World Cup Soccer

I watched more soccer today than I ever have----cumulatively. This was only parts of 2 games, but it occured to me that some of the players have definite skills and admirable stamina, but one thing that was not obvious to me was the value of a soccer coach during a game. It doesn't seem to me that they do much actual coaching at this level. Another thing I quickly realized is Brazil has a better team than the U.S.

French Fried Nonsense

Most people have never heard of the Center for Science in the Public Interest but it is really worth learning about. It recently sued Kentucky Fried Chicken for using cooking oil containing trans fat. It is asking the court to make KFC use other types of oil and to inform its customers just how much of this is used. The suit says KFC's use of trans fat shows the company is beset with an "evil motive" and recklessly puts its customers at risk of a Kentucky fried coronary.

As you evaluate this situation to see which side you are going to be on, keep in mind that the reason KFC uses hydrogenated oils in the first place is because CSPI forced the company to quit frying their potatoes and chicken in beef tallow in 1988. Now the same group of idiots who harassed the company into switching to oils modified to remain solid at room temperature is suing to do the exact opposite. This is accompanied by a study by Dr. Scott Grundy who is director of the Center of Human Nutrition at Southwestern Medical School in Dallas which found the alleged link between trans fat and heart disease was too weak to warrant government controls or limitations.

I say bring back the old fries cooked in real fat.

Smokers

While on the recent trip, we spent a couple of days in Tunica, Mississippi at a casino. One of the things that I started wondering about was the high percentage of casino patrons who smoke relative to the number at other places where I find myself. I no longer go to bars, but I suspect casinos are maybe the last place where smokers are not discriminated against and treated like second class citizens. If that is so, smokers may go there to kill themselves without a hassle. On the other hand, it could be argued that a lack of common sense accompanies both smoking and gambling and persons who gamble against the house odds may also be inclined to gamble against the medical odds. I really wish there was such a thing as a smoke-free casino, but I have talked to managers of casinos about this and they all say there is no way any casino is going to alienate their smokers. I am sure that they know what is best for the gambling business.

Troop Support

On a recent trip we found ourselves in a large rotunda at the Atlanta airport waiting for a plane while I got on the internet. All of a sudden there was a chorus of applause and as I looked around the subject of the adulation was a group of our soldiers coming through on the way to a terminal. The applause was unanimous and continued until the last uniform was out of sight. Very moving.

Just when I thought it couldn't get more ridiculous

Take some nausea medicine and go read this article in the Washington Post whereby 41 high school students were actually named Valedictorian.

Ann Coulter is in the sweet spot

It is greatly amusing to watch the reaction to Ann Coulter's book on the Godless Liberals. As she pointed out in a recent article the fact that she called them Godless is not an apparent charge anyone wants to challenge. She called Bill Clinton a rapist. No problem. She made further charges relating to the shady acts by Hillary. No outrage. She called some liberal widows of the 9/11 terror attack "broads" and everyone gets an attack of the vapors. I just love watching the liberal media make her into a superstar when she should be ignored if their agenda is to be well served.

Something missing?

The Democrats have just issued their plan for "A New Direction for America" that never mentions al Qaeda, terrorism, or any aspect of national security. Is that a lack of ideas or a lack of interest? Maybe if we raise the minimum wage the terrorists will just go to work at the higher wage level and leave us alone. Here are their suggestions:

Democrats in Congress offer a New Direction, putting the common good of all Americans first for a change, and will:

MAKE HEALTH CARE MORE AFFORDABLE
Fix the prescription drug program by putting people ahead of drug companies and HMOs, eliminating wasteful subsidies, negotiating lower drug prices and ensuring the program works for all seniors; invest in stem cell and other medical research.

LOWER GAS PRICES AND ACHIEVE ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
Crack down on price gouging; eliminate billions in subsidies for oil and gas companies and use the savings to provide consumer relief and develop American alternatives, including biofuels; promote energy efficient technology.

HELP WORKING FAMILIES
Raise the minimum wage; repeal tax giveaways that encourage companies to move jobs overseas.

CUT COLLEGE COSTS
Make college tuition deductible from taxes; expand Pell grants and cut student loan costs.

ENSURE DIGNIFIED RETIREMENT
Prevent the privatization of Social Security; expand savings incentives; ensure pension fairness.

REQUIRE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
Restore the budget discipline of the 1990s that helped eliminate deficits and spur record economic growth.

Too much information

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal this past week about a scientist by the name of Bruce Lahn who is a Professor at the University of Chicago. The gist of the story is that he is a world renowned scientist in the field of genetics and spent several years analyzing DNA from various populations looking at how mutations over the past several thousand years might be linked to cultural development. Oops. The data did not suit the outcome desired by the politically correct crowd. Even though Dr. Lahn is of Asian descent, his findings that lead to maps showing mutations and brain size and accomplishments followed those who established themselves in Asia, Europe and the Americas exceeded those of the people who were analyzed in sub- Saharan Africa were not appreciated. The usual charges of racism were hurled at him and even his own school advised him to go into other pursuits rather than raise the ire of the critics who want nothing to confirm what we all strongly suspect--there is a genetic basis for behavior and intelligence. Dr. Lahn, who left China as a teenager, based his research on the premise that there was a small group of anatomically modern humans who left Africa some 100,000 years ago and once they reached the Eurasian land mass they continued to split up and became isolated from one another. Thus genetic analysis of these groups was undertaken to determine if various traits could be identified which developed differently. So, one finds lactose intolerance in Europeans, for example, is much less common than in the African gene pool. This could be explained by a theory which holds that drinking milk from domesticated dairy animals conferred a nutritional advantage which was not needed by those in Africa with different eating habits. Likewise, the African population has a resistance to malaria which is not observed in other populations to the North. These traits are perfectly fine to publish, but not theories which would hold that one gene Dr. Lahn found corellated with the appearance of art on cave walls and another appears in a group which occured 5,800 years ago and coincided with the development of cities and written language. It is not necessary to point out that none of this happened in the sub-Saharan African population left behind, of course.
Well, the uproar over this research is most interesting but not surprising. There is simply some research that the liberal establishment does not want done. The results could be awkward for these antiscientific protectors of African descendents and their argument is that the knowledge does not help anyone and could be "hurtful". As a scientist, I would like to see the results and doubt they should cause damage we can't handle. In any event, it is an interesting dynamic.

Ethanol

We are now passing laws which require U.S. motorists to use at least 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol by 2012. This is being touted as a measure which will reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We subsidize ethanol to the tune of 51 cents per gallon, in addition. All of this is mostly a sham. First, we need to realize that it takes 1.29 gallons of fossil fuel to produce one gallon of ethanol. This was recently found by research conducted by scientists from Cornell and Berkley. That is because it takes considerable fossil fuel to produce ethanol in the form of fertilizer to grow the corn, transportation of the crop to the distillery, transportation of the the ethanol to the blending sites, and so forth. So, the liberals who claim that if we use ethanol it will keep us from supporting the Saudis and the nasty oil companies who support George Bush are full of it.

Election Results

The election of Brian Bilbrey to take Duke Cunningham's seat in the 50th district of California on Tuesday is being greeted with a sigh of relief by the Republicans and I am only semi-happy. It would be pretty much a doom-like scenario if the democrats had taken this seat which is in a pretty solid Republican district. I would like to see the clowns in Congress get a wake-up call and do such things as pass some meaningful border control measures, some restrictions on earmark inserts into the budget process which waste money, make tax cuts permanent, and confirm some more appeals court judges. I am afraid they will read the California results as an "all clear" sign and go back to their business as usual mode. That could be all it takes to lose the House this fall.

A warning from the U.N.

"The prevailing practice of seeking to use the U.N. almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable....You will lose the U.N. one way or another."

These words were offered this week by the number 2 man in the U.N. He is Mark Malloch Brown and I have never heard from him. I just hope he is prothetic and that our loss of the United Nations comes sooner rather than later. I say send them to Paris.

Haditha Context

One of the most keen observers of the war in Iraq is a young man named Michael Yon. He has been imbedded with our troops over there for years now and his reports have been linked in this blog several times. His new report is a must read as we consider the yet to be revealed details of the so-called massacre being discussed in the liberal press ahead of the facts.

Ann's new book

Ann Coulter has a new book out and if you are wondering whether to buy, here is a sample.

Throughout the 2004 campaign, the Democrats were looking for a Democrat who believed in God—a pursuit similar to a woman searching for a boyfriend in a room full of choreographers. The religious outreach coordinator hired by the Democratic National Committee was Brenda Bartella Peterson, who had signed a brief to the Supreme Court advocating the removal of “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. Apparently, Madalyn Murray O’Hair was unavailable.

The religion adviser to John Kerry’s presidential campaign was Mara Vanderslice. She had previously been the religious outreach coordinator for Howard Dean—an assignment that would have required the patience of Job, whoever the hell he was. Vanderslice had spoken at rallies cosponsored by the radical gay group ACT UP, famous for a protest at St. Patrick’s Cathedral at which its members spat the Eucharist on the floor. She had been an organizer of violent protests in Seattle and Washington, D.C., when liberals reacted as any normal person would by smashing Starbucks windows and torching police cars because some bankers had come to town for a meeting. Vanderslice majored in “peace studies” at Earlham College. There she was a member of the Marxist-Leninist group that supported convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. That’s devoutly religious for a Democrat. In fact, by Democratic standards Vanderslice was a veritable C. S. Lewis.

The Silver Solution?

If I were still making even the slightest effort to maintain my credentials as a microbiologist, I would be on top of the latest news on antimicrobial products and technology rather than reading about it in the newspaper. But, I don't so I wasn't and I did. I would always mention in my beginning lectures on antimicrobials that heavy metals had antibacterial properties and would use such examples as organic mercury, gold, and silver to achieve disinfection.
Well, they have moved on in this area using a new science called nanotechnology to produce some really neat sounding new products. Silver nanoparticles are being incorporated into soaps and other consumer goods such as socks. The soap is called Cor and is the next in way to keep microbes off the skin. It had better work, however, since it costs about $115 a bar. My Dial would have to fail me mightily to induce me to switch, however. Toothpaste is said to be the next product to look for. Other products, however,are already here. Sharper Image sells a set of plastic food containers with imbeded silver which are intended to keep food fresher for longer. One owner reported keeping strawberries fresh for 14 days in such containers. Samsung has a washing machine launched in the U.S. which uses silver ions to sanitize laundry. The washer has a grapefruit sized drum which uses electrical currents to nano-shave two silver plates each time the washer is turned on. The resulting ions interact with the bacteria to disrupt membrane functions and very effectively reduce the bacterial count in your laundry ( hospital usage here?). The silver plates will last 10 years according to Samsung and even though they cost $1200 at Best Buy, for example, you don't have to use hot water to kill 99.9% of the microbes in your wash.
If you want to try the product and have a special need, you can go to WalMart and buy some sports socks with E47 (element 47 or silver which has an atomic number of 47). Supposedly they keep your feet warm in winter, cool in summer, and your feet don't stink.
We will be hearing a lot more about nanotechnology in general and disinfection products in particular.

Amen, Brother Sowell

When it comes to racial and ethnic minorities, liberal politicians and judges can make it literally a federal case to give IQ tests to black children. Among the facts that we would never have known if some people did not find ways around this taboo is that black IQs have risen in recent times.

The greatest danger to the liberal vision are facts about the consequences of liberalism itself and the laws, policies, and ways of life that the left has spawned.

That the black family, which survived centuries of slavery and generations of discrimination, has disintegrated in the wake of the liberal welfare state is only one example.

Liberals have been driven to the desperate expedient of attributing this and other social pathology in today's ghettos to "a legacy of slavery" -- even though black children grew up with two parents more often under slavery than today.

Blacks only a generation or two out of slavery also had higher rates of employment and lower rates of crime than today.

The illogic of the "legacy of slavery" argument only illustrates the desperate attempt to salvage the liberal vision.

Read the whole thing here

Terror Plot in Canada

Canadians have broken up a terror ring which was planning on blowing up a target in Ontario. Consider the identity of this group the next time you see a grandmother being wanded in the line at the airport. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service confiscated three tons of ammonium nitrate -- the same fertilizer ingredient that Timothy McVeigh used in the Oklahoma City bombing, only three times as much. Of the seventeen, 12 have been publicly identified, while five are apparently underage. The identified suspects are:

1. Fahim Ahmad, 21, of Robinstone Drive, Toronto, Ontario;
2. Zakaria Amara, 20, of Periwinkle Crescent, Mississauga, Ontario;
3. Asad Ansari, 21, of Rosehurst Drive, Mississauga, Ontario;
4. Shareef Abdelhaleen, 30, of Lowville Heights, Mississauga, Ontario;
5. Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43, of Montevideo Road, Mississauga, Ontario;
6. Mohammed Dirie, 22, Kingston, Ontario;
7. Yasim Abdi Mohamed, 24, Kingston, Ontario;
8. Jahmaal James, 23, of Trudelle Street, Toronto, Ontario;
9. Amin Mohamed Durrani, 19, of Stonehill Court, Toronto, Ontario;
10. Steven Vikash Chand alias Abdul Shakur, 25, of Treverton Drive, Toronto, Ontario;
11. Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, 21, of Robin Drive, Mississauga, Ontario;
12. Saad Khalid, 19, of Eclipse Avenue, Mississauga, Ontario.

Yes, they are connected to al-Qaeda. The group has been under surveillance since 2004. I sure hope their civil rights weren't violated by anyone.

Was this a message to Pat?

Tammy Bruce recalls that Pat Robertson attributed Ariel Sharone's stroke to God being unhappy with his Jerusalem policy. Now that Pat's airplane just crashed into the water up in Long Island it is only fair to ask if this is a wake-up call of some kind.

I agree with this

It's time for Dennis Hastert to go.

Rep. Hastert, R-Ill., ought to announce sooner rather than later that he will not be a candidate for re-election as Speaker of the House when the next Congress convenes in January, 2007. He should do so for reasons both principled and purely political. He should do so because, in practical terms, his effectiveness is reaching -- or probably has already reached -- an end.

Read it all here.

I have wondered about this

Cosmic Thoughts

I wonder if it is part of God's plan for old people to get so disillusioned with the changes in their world that they are not all that unhappy when the end of their time on earth comes around. An article in the paper today got me to thinking this may be so. It seems the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference has decided that, as of this fall, coaches whose teams win by more than 50 points will be suspended for the next game. This is so silly and depressing at so many levels that it's hard to know where to start in listing them. Suffice it to say that this score management scheme is concocted by the same morons who want to just hand out grades in school or pay people based on factors other than merit. We must avoid hurt feelings in some even if it means it makes others of us just want to take a bullet to get away from this idiocy.

The Dreadful Senate Immigration Bill

There is a very nice analysis of the Senate's monstrocity that is being advanced as a comprehensive immigration bill that is sadly being promoted with help from the ever more disappointing Bush White House. All in all the good guys have listed some 22 deficiencies in the legislation. Here are a couple.

The alien and their families who file applications for amnesty “shall not be detained, determined inadmissible, deported, or removed until their applications are finally adjudicated, unless they commit a future act that renders them ineligible with amnesty.” With tens of millions of applications, this amnesty, this provision essentially guarantees an illegal alien years of protection in the United States, even if they do not qualify for the amnesty."

According to Ed Meese, the current Senate bill would actually prevent police officers from arresting anyone based on the fact that they're in this country illegally.

Read them all here.

Amen

From Mark Steyn. Read it all here.

Last week, something very unusual happened: There was a story out of Washington that didn't reflect badly on the Republican Party's competence or self-discipline. It was about a Democrat! Fellow from Louisiana called William Jefferson. Corruption investigation. Don't worry, if you're too distracted by "American Idol," it's not hard to follow, you just need to know one little visual image: According to an FBI affidavit, this Democrat congressman was caught on video taking a hundred-grand bribe from a government informer and then storing it in his freezer. That's what the scandal's supposed to be: Democrat Icecapades of 2006. All the GOP had to do was keep out of the way and let Jefferson and his Dem defenders skate across the thin ice like Tonya Harding with her lumpy tights full of used twenties. It was a perfect story: No Republicans need be harmed in the making of this scandal.

So what does Hastert do? He and the House Republican leadership intervene in the case on behalf of the Democrat: They're strenuously objecting to the FBI having the appalling lese majeste to go to court, obtain a warrant and search Jefferson's office. In constitutional terms, they claim it violates the separation of powers. In political terms, they're climbing right into the Frigidaire with Jefferson's crisp chilled billfold. What does the Republican base's despair with Congress boil down to? That the Gingrich revolutionaries have turned into the pampered potentates of pre-1994 Washington, a remote insulated arrogant elite interested only in protecting the privileges of the permanent governing class. But how best to confirm it? Hmm. What about if we send the Republican speaker out to argue that congressmen are beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. law-enforcement agencies?

After all, the GOP's 1994 Contract with America stated pretty plainly that henceforth "all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress."

CBS strikes again

The media would love to help the Democrats with their "culture of corruption" campaign theme; unfortunately, the facts aren't cooperating very well. Which didn't stop CBS News from doing its best, in this story about the Justice Department standing firm on the documents seized from Congressman William Jefferson:

Top law enforcement officials at the Justice Department and the FBI indicated to their counterparts at the White House that they could not, and were unwilling to, return documents to the Louisiana Republican which were seized as part of a bribery investigation.

Jefferson is, of course, a Democrat. It's common for news stories about scandals involving Congressional Democrats to omit any reference to their party, but this really is going too far!

Credit to Powerline.

Watch what the Senate does

Some people are worried that amnesty will give illegal aliens the same rights that American citizens have. In reality, it will give the illegals more rights than the average American citizen.

Since most of the illegals are Mexican, that makes them a minority. Under affirmative action, combined with amnesty, they would have preferences in jobs and other benefits.

Those who set up their own businesses would be entitled to preferences in getting government contracts. Their children would be able to get into college ahead of the children of American citizens with better academic qualifications.

Illegals who graduate from a high school in California can already attend the
University of California, paying lower tuition that an American citizen from neighboring Oregon.

Under the supposedly "tough" immigration bill in the U.S. Senate, illegals don't have to pay all the back taxes they owe. An American citizen gets no such break from the government and can end up in federal prison, like Al Capone.

If an American citizen gets stopped by the police for a traffic violation and the cops discover that he is wanted for some other violation of the law, they can arrest him for whatever else he has done.

But if an illegal alien gets stopped for going through a red light and the police discovers that he is in the country illegally, in many communities the cop is forbidden to arrest him for that -- or even to report him to the feds.

If an American citizen forges a Social Security card in order to get a job, he can be arrested. Under a provision recently passed by the Senate, illegal aliens who forged Social Security cards not only get a pass, they get to collect Social Security benefits.

If you think this is a particularly astute take on the idiocy coming from the Senate, you won't be surprised to learn it comes from Dr. Sowell.

Read the whole thing here.

Misplaced Outrage

I just don't see Americans having much sympathy for the boo-hooing we are hearing from Congress about the FBI having the audacity to actually go to a judge and get a warrant to obtain information requested in a legal subpoena 8 months ago from a crook who just happened to be elected from the most corrupt city in the U.S----New Orleans. These same congressmen would be much better off supporting our investigative processes and stating that if one of their colleagues broke the law, or even gave the appearance of breaking the law such as being taped taking a bribe, they would support whatever discovery process is necessary. Once again, congress managed to place itself in a position completely opposite the American citizenry. To make it worse, the outrage they are expressing is based on a reading of the Constitution which can't be supported by anyone with two brain cells.

Can't make this up

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- A mock evacuation that was supposed to be part of a two-day statewide hurricane preparedness drill was canceled after a misunderstanding about who had jurisdiction over a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer park.

The two-day statewide drill that began Tuesday was aimed at avoiding the chaos that followed last year's deadly Hurricane Katrina, which hit the state Aug. 29 and killed more than 1,000 people. The drill is expected to continue Wednesday.

The mock evacuation was to take place in the state's largest FEMA trailer park in Baker, 10 miles from Baton Rouge. The park has more than 500 camper-style travel trailers that house about 1,500 people displaced by Katrina.

Officials are concerned about the safety of travel trailer residents in rough winds. There are more than 200,000 people statewide living in unfinished homes and mobile trailers.

But the Baker evacuation was canceled because of an apparent communication breakdown, said JoAnne Moreau, director of the East Baton Rouge Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

Just wondering

The federal government currently requires some counties to print ballots and other election materials in foreign languages -- a mandate which is, to say the least, a little curious. If someone must learn English to be a citizen, and only citizens can vote, why is there a need for bilingual ballots? The senate refused to address this matter in the legislation currently being crafted to gloss over the immigration problems we face.

It just isn't fair

The poor democrats were all primed to run this Fall on a charge that the Republicans represent a culture of corruption as represented by Delay and Cunningham. Now they have to deal with the fact that the FBI supposedly has a tape showing a democrat (William Jefferson,from New Orleans) taking $100,000 in $100 bills. This is on top of a resignation of the ranking member of the Ethics committee (Hallorhan of West Virginia) because he is under an ethics investigation by that same committee.
I guess they are going to be forced to fall back on the "Bush Lied" mantra.

A media quiz

Here are the first two paragraphs from a story this morning that I ran across. Now, after reading these words, guess what the political party affiliation of the ex-senator is. Here is a hint. If he had been a Republican, you would not have to guess.

The US Senate is looking into allegations that a former US senator urged Baghdad to give a US company lucrative contracts under the much-criticised United Nations oil-for-food programme.

This is the first time that a leading US lawmaker has been linked to the controversial UN programme, whose shortcomings have been an important element of the Bush administration's critique of the UN.

The U.S. Senate is not cutting it

Earlier today, the Senate voted 50-49 to kill an amendment to the immigration bill offered by Senator John Ensign of Nevada that would have barred illegals from getting Social Security credit for the time when they were working illegally.

Ted Kennedy argued that those who become legal permanent residents shouldn't be penalized because they were here illegally:

"Their money sits in the Social Security Administration waiting to be matched with an eligible beneficiary, and once those workers establish the eligibility, how in all fairness can we deny them the credit for their past contributions?" asked Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat.

But, as Senator Ensign pointed out, illegals often misappropriate other people's social security numbers, which has caused nightmarish problems for many citizens whose Social Security work records have been confused or even deleted entirely.

They may all come across the border

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Police enraged by the kidnapping of six officers club unarmed detainees. A bloody battle between steelworkers and police leaves two miners dead. Drug lords post the heads of decapitated police on a fence to show who's in charge.

Less than two months before Mexicans elect their next president, many fear the country is teetering on the edge of chaos - a perception that could hurt the ruling National Action Party's chances of keeping the presidency and benefit Mexico's once-powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party, whose candidate has been trailing badly.

Some blame President Vicente Fox for a weak government. Others say rivals are instigating the violence to create that impression, hoping to hurt National Action candidate Felipe Calderon, who has a slight lead in recent polls.

A poll published Friday in Excelsior newspaper found 50 percent of respondents feared the government was on the brink of losing control. The polling company Parametria conducted face-to-face interviews at 1,000 homes across Mexico. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

The conflicts are "a warning sign," said Yamel Nares, Parametria's research director.

Security is the top concern for Mexicans, and Fox has struggled to reform Mexico's notoriously corrupt police. Meanwhile, drug-related bloodshed has accelerated, with some cities seeing killings almost daily.

In April, suspected drug lords posted the heads of two police officers on a wall outside a government building where four drug traffickers died in a Jan. 27 shootout with officers in the Pacific resort of Acapulco.

A sign nearby read: "So that you learn to respect."

Fun with numbers

The New York Stock Exchange was founded on this date in 1792. That is 214 years ago. Today the DJIA was down 214. Enough of these anniversaries.

Long Term Worries

With all the attention being given to President Bush's too little too late plan for assimilating millions of Hispanic law breakers, there is an aspect to it that is not being given much thought. After Bush won reelection he spent an entire year trying to get the nation and our congress interested in doing something about Social Security and Medicare and the obvious demographic fact that we are, as a nation, growing older and our government has made very specific promises to those over 65. He failed in this effort, but we are faced with the inevitable clash that is going to come when we ask our young workers to support more and more elderly with higher and higher taxes. Now consider how much worse this is going to be when a larger and larger percentage of the workforce is low-paying, poorly educated, and essentially untaxed. We have constructed our tax code so that low incomes are largely exempt from income tax. Where is the money going to come from to honor our commitments to the elderly. It is going to be fun watching our gutless politicians deciding whether to screw the poor or the old folks.

Legislation to Support

Rob Andrews (D, NJ) and Mark Kirk (R,Ill) are two congressmen with a bill we need to consider seriously. This bill calls for a quarantine of gasoline imports to Iran. The Iranians have a lot of oil, but little refining capacity. They must import 40% of their gasoline from a Netherlands company which has storage and blending facilities in the UAE. The blockade of this gasoline making its way to Iran would seriously destabilize Iran and also be considered an act of war. If this seems to be a greater evil than letting Iran develop nuclear weapons in violation of an international treaty, the legislation may not appeal to you. It seems to me to be a fairly intelligent approach.

A letter I wish I had written

This supposedly came from a paper in North Carolina, but is now anonymous. I got it from Neal Boortz's blog. Very good letter.

To the Editor:

Recently large demonstrations have taken place across the country protesting the fact that Congress is finally addressing the issue of illegal immigration. Certain people are angry that the U.S. might protect its own borders, might make it harder to sneak into this country and once here, to stay indefinitely.

Let me see if I correctly understand the thinking behind these protests.

Let's say I break into your house. Let's say that when you discover me in your home you insist that I leave. But, I say, "I've made all the beds and washed the dishes and did the laundry and swept the floors: I've done all the things you don't like to do. I'm hard-working and honest ... except for that part where I broke into your house.

"According to the protestors, not only must you let me stay, you must add me to your family's insurance plan and provide other benefits for me and my family. My husband will do your yard work because he too is hard-working and honest ... except for that breaking in thing.

"If you try to call the police or force me out I will call my friends who will picket your house carrying signs that proclaim my right to be here. It's only fair, after all, because you have a nicer house than I do, and I'm just trying to better myself. I'm hard-working and honest .... ummmmm .... except for that breaking in thing.

"Besides. What a deal it is for me! I live in your house, contributing only a fraction of the cost of my keep, and there is nothing you can do about it without being accused of selfishness, prejudice and being anti-housebreaker!

Did I miss anything? Does this sound reasonable to you? If it does, grab a sign and go picket something. If this sounds insane to you call your senators and enlighten them because they are stumbling in the darkness right now and really need your help.

(Name? _______________)

Why the press hates the data mining of phone records

I doubt that this is true, but I wish it were. Treason via press leaks needs to be stopped, but this administration doesn't have the cajones to actually do what it takes to stop them.

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

More on climate changes

From the Washington Post yesterday:

New evidence from Canada and Alaska suggests that climate change, rather than human hunting, may have played the key role in a great die-off of mammoths, horses and other large North American mammals that began more than 10,000 years ago.

What was releasing all those terrible greenhouse gasses back then, I wonder?

Rap music deadly

I know that rap music is deadly to me and I will do almost anything to avoid it, but it seems that it is also a fairly risky business. On the periphery of my universe of interesting things lies the fact that a number of blacks in the rap music field wind up shot to death. Here is what a liberal editorial board editor from the Atlanta Journal and Constitution (Cynthia Tucker) has to say on the subject. It is fair to mention that this could well be the only thing she and I will ever agree on.

In the last 12 months alone, several young black men linked to rap music have been killed in disputes stoked by a code of conduct that finds respect in retribution and mistakes slaughter for strength.

The deaths have received at least cursory news coverage, a tribute to the celebrity status of most of the subjects. But there have been no sharp denunciations of the violence from the black institutions that matter, no groundswell of anger or disgust on black college campuses, no marches or demonstrations led by self-appointed black leaders.

Had just one of these young men been killed by white police officers, the machinery of black protest would have revved into high gear, with press conferences, marches and demands for justice. The relatively muted response to the string of dead rappers — the suspected perpetrators are mostly other young black men — suggests that a dead black man matters most when his murder can be used as political propaganda.

What is your carbon footprint?

Most people don't care enough to look at this situation rationally, much less mathematically, but there are those who will help you with the calculation of just what is required to save the planet from a 1 degree rise in temperature over the next century. First, you must buy the argument that it is greenhouse gasses (CO2) that are responsible and if you are going to reverse this warming trend which man brought upon the earth and portends doom for us all, we must reduce the amount of carbon we release into the atmosphere. Here is an exerpt of the results of the calculations which have been done. Read the whole thing here.

assuming all estimated warming since 1880 to be attributable to atmospheric carbon accumulation from human activity, using the land surface warming rate to avoid ocean heat take-up 'masking' the global rate and further assuming a linear temperature response, it would take 70 years of zero emissions to 'save' 1 °C. Using the more realistic logarithmic response and ridiculously high sensitivity blows that out to about 150 years while the realistic response to the most likely sensitivity suggests something over 450 years of zero emission are required -- all for just 1 °C!

Mark Steyn nails it again

The idiocy surrounding the NSA data mining activities is summarized wonderfully by Mark, as one expect. Here is a sample.

Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) feels differently. "Look at this headline," huffed the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "The secret collection of phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. Now, are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with al-Qaida?"

No. But next time he's flying from D.C. to Burlington, Vt., on a Friday afternoon he might look at the security line: Tens of millions of Americans are having to take their coats and shoes off! Are you telling me that tens of millions of ordinary shoe-wearing Americans are involved with al-Qaida?

Of course not. Fifteen out of 19 of the 9/11 killers were citizens of Saudi Arabia. So let's scrap the tens of millions of law-abiding phone records, and say we only want to examine the long-distance phone bills of, say, young men of Saudi origin living in the United States. Can you imagine what Leahy and Lauer would say to that? Oh, no! Racial profiling! The government's snooping on people whose only crime is "dialing while Arab."

Morgellon's Disease

I just ran across this which seems to describe a new disease. I once did research on a new infectious disease and have long been fascinated that they continue to pop up. This one is called Morgellon's disease and sounds like it will a fun study since it seems to respond partially to antibiotics. There is no indication as yet that it has a specific infectious agent, however.

Most individuals with this disease report disturbing crawling, stinging, and biting sensations, as well as non-healing skin lesions, which are associated with highly unusual structures. These structures can be described as fiber-like or filamentous, and are the most striking feature of this disease. In addition, patients report the presence of seed-like granules and black speck-like material associated with their skin.
While all of this is going on, it feels like bugs are crawling under your skin. So far more than 100 cases of Morgellons disease have been reported in South Texas.

Morgellons disease is not yet known to kill, but if you were to get it, you might wish you were dead, as the symptoms are horrible.

"These people will have like beads of sweat but it's black, black and tarry," said Ginger Savely, a nurse practioner in Austin who treats a majority of these patients.

Patients get lesions that never heal.

"Sometimes little black specks that come out of the lesions and sometimes little fibers," said Stephanie Bailey, Morgellons patient.

Read more about Morgellons here.

Buy American

Next time someone complains about all the U.S. jobs going overseas and tries to make you think you should buy a Ford, for example, rather than a Toyota, consider this. The Ford Mustang is built with only 65% U.S. or Canadian parts. The Toyota Sienna is assembled in Indiana with 90% local components. Now you can buy the better automobile with a clearer conscience.

Something else to worry about

Security services the world over have been considering the problem for several years, but no one has yet come up with a solution.

"We are observing an increasing threat from such things as remote-controlled aircraft used as small flying bombs against soft targets," the head of the Canadian secret services, Michel Gauthier, said at a conference in Calgary recently.

Models with a wingspan of five metres (16 feet), capable of carrying up to 50 kilograms (110 pounds), remain undetectable by radar.

And thanks to satellite positioning systems, they can now be programmed to hit targets some distance away with just a few metres (yards) short of pinpoint accuracy.

According to Gauthier, "ultra-light aircraft, powered hang gliders or powered paragliders have also been purchased by terrorist groups to circumvent ground-based countermeasures."

Japanese company Yamaha, meanwhile, has produced 95-kilogram (209-pound) robot helicopter that is 3.6 metres (11.8 feet) long and has a 256 cc engine.

It flies close to the ground at about 20 kilometres per hour (12 miles per hour), nothing but an incredible stroke of luck could stop it if it suddenly appeared in the sky above the White House -- and it is already on the market.

Read entire article here.

One of the things I didn't need a study to learn

James Felton, a professor of finance and law at Central Michigan University, and a colleague looked at ratings for nearly 7,000 faculty members from 370 institutions in the United States and Canada, and his verdict is: the hotter and easier professors are, the more likely they’ll get rated as a good teacher.

As some one once said, education is the only product where the consumer is out to get the least for his money.

No more stuffed geese?

I read this morning that Chicago has passed some kind of law which bans the serving of foie gras. The ban takes place in 90 days. California has passed some kind of legislation that bans foie gras in 2012. Evidently the mere thought of stuffing geese with food to fatten up their livers is sufficiently repugnant to the loonies out there that laws are being passed to bar the practice. We need to keep an eye on this sort of thing. Next thing we know they might try to ban humans from stuffing themselves at these all you can eat buffets.

This seems to be a problem

From an eye doctor. Read the whole thing.

The way HMOs make money is by charging patients a yearly fee for medical care, and then trying to keep the utilization of medical care as low as possible. They do this by denying certain treatments, medications, and tests. And, they usually pay physicians what is called “discounted fee for service”, which means they only pay a percentage of the physicans charges, rather than their actual bill. What this basically means is that physicians get shafted, not just because their bills don’t get fully paid, but because this giant bureacracy, which is geared towards denying as much care as it can, is between the doctor and the patient, preventing the doctor from caring for the patient the way they believe the patient should be cared for.

Trust me, it’s very frustrating to not be able to give someone the medication you want to, or to have to fill out a bunch of paperwork to justify a CAT scan or a consultation with another doctor because the HMO doesn’t want to have to pay for these things. So, that in a nutshell is why the trend is for doctors to avoid HMOs if possible, and I’d expect that trend to continue. And, as as unfortunate result of that, patients will find it more difficult as time goes on to find physicians willing to care for them. When you add in all the physicians who are dropping out of the Medicare program, there’s a real potential for some serious doctor shortages in certain regions of the country.

Musings

I don't really have enough time or inclination to pursue the question, but if Patrick Kennedy admitted to driving while impaired with drugs shouldn't that be just as illegal as driving while under the influence of a drug like ethanol?

The foaming at the mouth left was especially brutal when Rush Limbaugh was found to be addicted to pain killers and went into some rehab facility. I wonder if the Kennedy "problem" will be judged more kindly by the liberals.

More Kennedy problems?

All the news today is about Teddy Kennedy's boy driving his car into a barrier at 3:00am and then staggering around claiming that he had to go vote. The police then took him home after the supervisors big-footed the line officers and told them to back off. I think you can excuse the behavior of the mental midget representing Rhode Island more easily than you can the police. I wonder if the Cynthia McKinney run-in caused them to be more deferential to Teddy's baby boy? I don't know, but this is really fun to watch.

Libertarian Perspective

I just ran across this blog which is discussing an interesting topic, i.e. why should public sex be subject to governmental sanction--or societal, for that matter. You have to read the whole thing to get the full flavor of the argument, but I now find that I am intellectually a libertarian on the subject, but would just as soon not see people coupling like dogs on the park lawn. It is just hard to rationalize laws against it.

Good analysis of Bush foolishness

Here is a pretty good synopsis of the idiotic Bush response to the Mexican invasion . Read it all.

I understand that President Bush has a problem dealing with this problem. There are businesses, after all, that depend on a constant stream of unskilled workers. I say constant because we already have several million illegal aliens in America -- surely enough to pick our lettuce, bus our tables, wash our cars, and put the little mints on our hotel pillows. But this is the land of opportunity, and people don’t want to remain very long at the bottom of the food chain.

So George Bush promotes a worker program that is so idiotic, Republicans wish that a Democrat had come up with it, so they’d feel better about ridiculing it. Suggesting that after working in this country for a number of years, Mexicans will simply return to their country, and take their place at the back of the immigration line is perhaps the single most stupid, most naïve notion I’ve ever heard. Even a four-year-old would recognize Bush's brainstorm as amnesty in sheep’s clothing.

Sad

I just heard on the radio that someone did a survey of 18-24 year olds and only 14% could find Afghanistan on an unmarked map. Makes you want to cry.

A must read essay by Shelby Steele

This is a sample. Read the whole thing here. Very thought provoking.

White guilt makes our Third World enemies into colored victims, people whose problems--even the tyrannies they live under--were created by the historical disruptions and injustices of the white West. We must "understand" and pity our enemy even as we fight him. And, though Islamic extremism is one of the most pernicious forms of evil opportunism that has ever existed, we have felt compelled to fight it with an almost managerial minimalism that shows us to be beyond the passions of war--and thus well dissociated from the avariciousness of the white supremacist past.

Anti-Americanism, whether in Europe or on the American left, works by the mechanism of white guilt. It stigmatizes America with all the imperialistic and racist ugliness of the white Western past so that America becomes a kind of straw man, a construct of Western sin. (The Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons were the focus of such stigmatization campaigns.) Once the stigma is in place, one need only be anti-American in order to be "good," in order to have an automatic moral legitimacy and power in relation to America. (People as seemingly desperate as President Jacques Chirac and the Rev. Al Sharpton are devoted pursuers of the moral high ground to be had in anti-Americanism.) This formula is the most dependable source of power for today's international left. Virtue and power by mere anti-Americanism. And it is all the more appealing since, unlike real virtues, it requires no sacrifice or effort--only outrage at every slight echo of the imperialist past.

Where's the love?

Hamas has thus far failed to raise enough funds in the Arab and Islamic world. True, its leaders have been promised tens of millions of dollars by Iran, Libya and a few Arab countries, but the money has still not been transferred to Ramallah and the Gaza Strip. A drive by Hamas to collect donations from Arabs and Muslims has also failed because of the failure of Arab banks to cooperate.

Even if the promised money does arrive, Hamas officials note, it would hardly cover the amount required to pay March’s salaries.

In addition to the financial crisis, the Hamas cabinet is also facing a political and diplomatic boycott by most of the world. Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, who has just wrapped up a tour of a number of Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Libya, is about to return home with a suitcase full of promises and little cash.