Beware tax credits

There is a proposal in South Carolina to allow parents who home school to obtain a tax credit to offset expenses. My daughters both home school and I am sure a tax credit would be welcomed, but I am dubious. Once the government gets you hooked with taxes they then gain more control over your education efforts and that is the problem with traditional schools.

Not that important

The following is the lead sentence in a story the New York Times felt was so important that it put it on page 19.

BAGHDAD, Nov. 7 — American forces have routed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Iraqi militant network, from every neighborhood of Baghdad, a top American general said today, allowing American troops involved in the “surge” to depart as planned.

Michael Savage on Islam

""I'm not gonna put my wife in a hijab. And I'm not gonna put my daughter in a burqa. And I'm not gettin on my all-fours and braying to Mecca. And you could drop dead if you don't like it. You can shove it up your pipe. I don't wanna hear anymore about Islam. I don't wanna hear one more word about Islam. Take your religion and shove it up your behind. I'm sick of you."

"What kind of religion is this? What kind of world are you living in when you let them in here with that throwback document in their hand, which is a book of hate. Don't tell me I need reeducation. They need deportation. I don't need reeducation. Deportation, not reeducation. You can take C-A-I-R and throw 'em out of my country. I'd raise the American flag and I'd get out my trumpet if you did it. Without due process. You can take your due process and shove it."

"What sane nation that worships the U.S. constitution, which is the greatest document of freedom ever written, would bring in people who worship a book that tells them the exact opposite. Make no mistake about it, the Quran is not a document of freedom. The Quran is a document of slavery and chattel. It teaches you that you are a slave."

As I understand it, certain Islamists are upset by his opinion.

Random Thoughts

1. Have we fixed all the bridges in the U.S. since the one collapsed in Minnesota? One doesn't hear much about our bridges from the politicians who were so concerned about the situation when the cars were in the water.

2. This economy is in real trouble and will be until the credit obligations issued by mortgage companies gets sorted out. If the Federal Reserve has to lower interest rates to cover for these mortgage problems with our financial institutions, the dollar will go even lower and if this keeps up, countries like China which have a lot of our dollars will move to another currency and then we will have real recession problems. Think about how damaging it will be when we have to buy oil at some elevated price with something other than dollars which are losing their pizzazz.

3. Rosie O'Donnell is rumored to be in line to host a program on MSNBC at 9:00pm against Larry King and Hannity and Colmes. It will be fun to read about how desperate she gets to boost ratings. I won't be watching.

4. I am constantly surprised how much interest there seems to be in who manages the New York Yankees and where A-Rod plays once he leaves them.

Rationed Medical Care

Giuliani is being criticized by the loony leftists like Paul Krugman of New York Times fame for stating that his prostate cancer cure was more likely in the U.S. than it would have been in England. The statistics he cited are complicated as all statistical comparisons are, but if you dig into it, you will find that Rudy was right and cancer survival is better here than in England. Any country with socialized medicine limits health care resources and that is why you have long waiting lists in Canada and England. In addition, you have fewer patients being screened in these countries with fewer PET scanners available, for example.

You don't really need to do any fancy statistical analysis to evaluate the truth of Rudy's statement, however. All you have to do is look at how many Americans go to Canada or England for cancer treatment compared to the number who come here. Don't look for Krugman to address that matter.

Pork Report

Here is a list of some of the votes against proposals by conservatives to eliminate pork earmarks from appropriations bills in the U.S. Senate. Liberals from both parties killed them all by the margins indicated.

• $100 million for the 2008 Republican and Democratic nominating conventions. Amendment failed 45-51.
• Adding sand to San Diego’s beaches. Amendment failed 12-77.
• Millions of dollars for bicycle paths instead of using the funds to improve bridge safety. Amendment failed 18-80.
• A visitors' center in Louisiana instead of providing shelter for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Amendment failed 11-79.
• Funds for a baseball field in Montana, the International Peace Garden in North Dakota, and a wetlands center in Louisiana. Amendment failed 32-63.
• $2 million for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York, requested by Charles B. Rangel. Amendment failed 34-61.

Liberals doing it to us in energy policy

The loony left is adept at demonizing "Big Oil" and threatens to tax it back to the stone age. Hillary wants those profits to fund some of her boondoggle give-aways. In the mean time, Beijing's PetroChina which is 90% owned by the Chinese government just became the first company to be valued at one trillion dollars. It is 4x as expensive as the Exxon Mobile Corporation the leftists in Congress decry as too large. Furthermore, of the dozen largest oil companies in the world, most are owned by governments that are either hostile to the U.S. or could be very rapidly. Think Saudi Arabia and Iran and Venezuela and Russia here. U.S. oil firms are using their profits to drill for oil. More than 4500 oil wells were completed in the 3rd quarter of 2007 which is twice the level of drilling in the 90s. Since liberals always seem to take actions contrary to the best economic interest of the U.S., it is only logical to expect them to try to tax them out of existence while other countries pursue energy sources aggressively.

BestView out of the loop

BestView is on the road and evidently has missed out on the latest brush fire not in California. The word is the L.A. Times is sitting on a hot political story and since it hasn't been published yet, it must be dem related. Most of the blogosphere has concluded it relates to Hillary's lesbianism and we even have her significant other identified. We don't have time to give exhaustive links to the story, but here is a good place to start. It is hard to know how much it would help Hillary with her base if the story gets out completely.

My French protest is over

French President Nicolas Sarkozy walked out of an interview with US CBS television news show 60 minutes, according to a clip of the show released Sunday in advance of the interview's airing. A clearly disturbed Sarkozy stood up muttering in French about the question, which was not heard, in a short publicity clip put on the Internet ahead of the 60 Minutes broadcast Sunday night.

Obama is catching on

From the New York Times:

Senator Barack Obama said he would start confronting Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton more forcefully, declaring Friday that she had not been candid in describing her views on critical issues, as he tries to address mounting alarm among supporters that his lack of assertiveness has allowed her to dominate the presidential race.

Hey, Barack, not being candid is called lying in her case.

Committing the Truth and Regretting it

You just have to love Joe Biden, the senator from Delaware who is running for President. For years he has let his mouth get him in trouble and it is always precious when this happens. The latest came when he met with the editorial board of the Washington Post and was asked about the failure of the Washington, D.C. schools. We all know the reason, but leave it to Joe to admit it. Here is the account in the Washington Post. As you read it, imagine the reaction if he was a Republican instead of a known democrat bloviator.

After a lengthy critique of Bush administration education policies, Biden attempted to explain why some schools perform better than others -- in Iowa, for instance, compared with the District. "There's less than 1 percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4 or 5 percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you're dealing with," Biden said. He went on to discuss the importance of parental involvement in reading to children and how "half this education gap exists before the kid steps foot in the classroom."

Harry Reid explains fires in California

"One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Tuesday, stressing the need to pass the Democrats’ comprehensive energy package.

What about these Senator?

The Great Fire of 1889 (40,000 acres)
The Rattlesnake Fire of 1953 (1,300 acres & 15 firefighters killed)
The Laguna Fire of 1970 (175,425 acres, 320 homes and 8 people killed)
The Oakland Hills firestorm of 1991 (1,520 acres, 3469 homes & 25 people killed)
The McNally Fire of 2002 (150,700 acres)
The Old Fire of 2003 (91,281 acres, 993 homes & 6 deaths)

Dem Convention

I am not sure how they got this schedule ahead of time, but congrats to Dr. Tony


Democratic National Convention Opening Schedule:

Schedule of Events:

7:00 pm ~ Opening flag burning

7:15 pm ~ Pledge of Allegiance to the U. N.

7:20 pm ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

7:25 pm ~ Nonreligious prayer and worship with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton

7:45 pm ~ Ceremonial tree hugging

7:55 pm ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

8:00 pm ~ How I Invented the Internet - Al Gore

8:15 pm ~ Gay Wedding Planning - Barney Frank presiding

8:35 pm ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

8:40 pm ~ Our Troops are War Criminals - John Kerry

9.00 pm ~ Memorial service for Saddam and his sons - Cindy Sheehan and Susan Sarandon

10:00 pm ~ "Answering Machine Etiquette" - Alec Baldwin

11:00 pm ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

11:05 pm ~ Collection for the Osama Bin Laden kidney transplant fund - Barbra Streisand

11:15 pm ~ Free the Freedom Fighters from Guantanamo Bay -- Sean Penn

11:30 pm ~ Oval Office Affairs - William Jefferson Clinton

11:45 pm ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

11:50 pm ~ How George Bush Brought Down the World Trade Towers - Howard Dean

12:15 am ~ "Truth in Broadcasting Award" - Presented to Dan Rather by Michael Moore

12:25 am ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

12:30 am ~ Satellite address by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

12:45 am ~ Nomination of Hillary Rodham Clinton by Nancy Pelosi

1:00 am ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

1:05 am ~ Coronation of Hillary Rodham Clinton

1:30 am ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

1:35 am ~ Bill Clinton asks Ted Kennedy to drive Hillary home

This is good news

PHILADELPHIA -- Thousands of black men turned out Sunday to support a volunteer effort aimed at reducing violence in this crime-plagued city, lining up for several blocks to register.

Volunteers who join street patrols as part of the "Call to Action: 10,000 Men, It's a New Day" campaign will not carry weapons or make arrests but will instead be trained in conflict resolution, organizers said.

"Nobody else is going to magically come into this community and get it done," said real estate developer Abdur-Rahim Islam, a lead organizer.

A bigger Australian Navy?

Australia's opposition Labor Party has questioned the need for female sailors to be given breast enlargements paid for with public money.

An armed forces spokesman defended the operations, saying they were carried out for psychological reasons, not to make sailors "look sexy".

Brigadier Andrew Nikolic said the "holistic needs" of service personnel were considered under defence policy.

But he said breast augmentations were not routinely funded by the military.

"We do consider the broader needs of our people, both physical and psychological," Brig Nikolic said.

"But that is a long way from saying that if someone doesn't like their appearance, Defence will fund things like breast augmentation as a matter of routine - that is just not correct."

He was speaking after one plastic surgeon said he had carried out breast enlargements on two sailors, aged 25 and 32, for A$10,000 (£4,200) each.

Brig Nikolic said such operations were only recommended after a medical evaluation.

But the opposition Labor Party said it wanted details on the cases.

I want it to snow---hard

My current fantasy is that it will start snowing in Cleveland, Boston and Denver this weekend and not melt until April. This would be welcomed retribution for the greedy buffoons who have extended baseball into November. Except for the federal government, very little in America has deteriorated so completely as baseball in my lifetime. This is abated, of course, by the TV networks and they can starve too as far as I am concerned.

More on the Watson Comments

This is a very good essay on the reaction to James Watson's statement that Africans as a whole are less intelligent than some other races. Here is a sample:

What is "racism"?

..... Well, it cannot be discovered by analyzing what has been said about Dr. Watson but, rather, by what is usually left unsaid. As was the case with the reception given to The Bell Curve, critics tend to take the position that the issue should not be raised, much less debated.

....

All intellectual inquiry, be it scientific or philosophical, should be a search for Truth. This search must be sincere and remain unfettered by agendas or dogmas, and we do otherwise at our own peril.

.....This is why the politically correct thought police are so destructive. When they criticize a man like Watson, not only do they rarely say his statements are untrue, but the Truth of the matter doesn't even seem to enter their minds. No, it doesn't because they are blinded by their agenda.

The Truth is that the outrage here isn't Dr. Watson's remarks; they're either true or not. What's outrageous is that we're suffering under the yolk of those to whom Truth means nothing -- the practitioners of a dark faith. They don't care if a statement is correct, only whether it's politically correct. They hate the Truth when it contradicts their agenda, and they'll stop at nothing to still the tongues of those who would dare voice it.

Read it all.

Looks like the botox is wearing off

More on Dr. Watson

The suggestion by James Watson of Watson and Crick fame that blacks are not as intelligent as whites has now come full circle in that he has been threatened and forced to retract his statement. Here is the threat:
Anti-racism campaigners called for Dr Watson's remarks to be looked at in the context of racial hatred laws. A spokesman for the 1990 Trust, a black human rights group, said: "It is astonishing that a man of such distinction should make comments that seem to perpetuate racism in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be looked at for grounds of legal complaint."
And the apology:
The DNA pioneer James Watson today apologised "unreservedly" for his apparent claim that black people are less intelligent than whites.

"I am mortified about what has happened," he told a group of scientists and journalists at the launch of his new book, Avoid Boring People, at the Royal Society in London.

"I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have."

"To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly.

Here is the situation for this and related racial distinctions that one might make. First, science is supposed to work by someone posing a question like whether or not there are differences in intelligence among races and then conducting well-designed experiments to answer the question. Well, the research has not been done to date because researchers are not allowed by society to do the research. As a result, you can't even ask the question. The main objection of the opponents is what do you do with the information---if the theory that there is a racial difference is substantiated? So, even though there is a lot of research conducted which is not "practical", racial differences fall into a special category. I think it is regretable, but it is what it is.

I called this one and it ain't over

London's Science Museum canceled a Friday talk by Nobel Prize-winning geneticist James Watson after the co-discoverer of DNA's structure told a newspaper that Africans and Europeans had different levels of intelligence.

James Watson provoked widespread outrage with his comments to The Sunday Times, which quoted the 79-year-old American as saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really."

He told the paper he hoped that everyone was equal, but added: "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true."

The comments drew condemnation from British lawmakers, scientists, and civil rights campaigners. On Wednesday The Independent newspaper put Watson on its front page, against the words: "Africans are less intelligent than Westerners, says DNA pioneer."

A really fun backyard BBQ

Watch out below

Here comes another storm by the politically correct crowd. They must rally mightily to counter an observation offered by someone with credentials sufficient for the public to consider it valid. There are some ideas which simply can't be allowed to be debated or even studied scientifically because the liberals have already made up their minds and evidence to the contrary is not even thinkable. A teaser is given below, but read it all here.

One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.

James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.

Sabotage

From Thomas Sowell.
Read it all.

People of Armenian ancestry in the United States and around the world are justifiably outraged at what happened in the Ottoman Empire -- and at subsequent governments in Turkey which have refused to acknowledge or accept historical responsibility for the mass atrocities that took place on their soil.

But the sudden interest of Congressional Democrats in this issue goes beyond trying to pick up some votes.

They want a resolution to condemn what happened as "genocide" -- a word that provokes instant anger among today's Turks, since genocide means a deliberate government policy aimed at exterminating a whole people, as distinguished from horrors growing out of a widespread breakdown of law and order in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

These are issues of historical facts and semantics best left to scholars rather than politicians.

If Congress has gone nearly a century without passing a resolution accusing the Turks of genocide, why now, in the midst of the Iraq war?

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this resolution is just the latest in a series of Congressional efforts to sabotage the conduct of that war.

Congressional Ethics

There is an interesting article today in the Washington Post. All this blather from the dems about how they were going to clean up the ethical mess left by the Republicans in Congress has resulted in a new set of laws regarding lobbyists and free meals and such, but as one might expect, there are "loopholes". For example, lobbyists can't take Congressmen to fancy dinners and ply them with liquor anymore. At a recent gala, however, over 100 congressional types attended a dinner at a cost of over $2500 per. How did this happen? Well, a charity sells the tickets to the lobbyists at a rate of say $25,000 per table and the corporation which buys the tickets with a wink and a nod tells the charity who they would like to have sit at their table. The charity makes the decision, of course, so it is perfectly legal for the exact Congressman to be assigned at the table where the request was made. Nobody is against charity, are they?

Read it all here if your stomach is strong.

A non-endorsement

"...Saying Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani"doesn't deserve to live," Palestinian terror leaders are threatening to harm the former New York mayor for his hawkish stance toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for his previous treatment of late-PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

"If I had the occasion to meet him (Giuliani), I would hurt him," said Ramadan Adassi, chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist group in the West Bank's Anskar refugee camp. "For the sake of the American people, Giuliani shouldn't be elected. He is a disgusting guy and I think Americans must think very hard about their future and their soldiers who will be killed when they come to elect their leaders."

Now we need him to endorse Hillary.

Peace Anyone

It would be impossible to discredit the Nobel Peace prize anymore than to give it to Al Gore and the U.N.

Political Intrigue

BestView doesn't usually concern itself with juicy gossip, but there is a story being ignored by the liberal media which begs for comment. It seems as if one Roger Altman, a close Clinton friend and a possible member of any new Clinton cabinet, is also a large owner of the National Enquirer which deals mostly in back alley gossip stories. The latest suggests that John Edwards had an affair with some public relations woman associated with his campaign.
This story is making the rounds of liberal blogs. It is the opinion of BestView that the story is probably not true for two reasons. If Edwards was a real threat to the Clintons and deserved their attention, he would simply have an accident or commit suicide like others who got in their way. Sex is not an activity which they feel is necessarily ignoble. The other reason we doubt the story is that Edwards is not man enough and his inclinations may well run the other way.

The Matthews Debate

For some reason the Republican candidates agreed to let Chris Matthews, the very liberal host of MSNBC's Hardball program to be the moderator in tonight's so called debate. This in spite of his obviously hostile and insulting performance in a previous debate. He asked, for example, for each candidate to give what they "disliked most about America". He recently announced that Bush had finally been caught in his "criminality". I don't usually watch these cattle-call appearances since they aren't real, but I will watch tonight to see which lets Jimmy Carter's former speech writer get by with idiotic and partisan questions. Any of them who don't seem able or inclined to take him on will not get my support.

Free Money

In typical liberal fashion at election time, some politician will offer free money to everyone. In 1972, George McGovern, arguably the most far-left candidate ever nominated, proposed giving $1,000 to every man, woman and child. Adjusted for inflation, that comes to almost $5,000 today. $5,000? Where have we heard that before? Well old Hillary wants to give that to every single baby born so they will have money to go to college. Lets look at this like Thomas Sowell did in "Inside American Education.

"The specific terms under which the government provides student financial aid virtually guarantees tuition escalation to unaffordable levels. . . . The federal formula . . . first determines the 'expected family contribution,' based upon family income, assets, number of children, and other measures of ability to pay.

"Federal aid begins where tuition and other charges exceed this 'expected family contribution.' A private college or university which kept its tuition affordable — that is, no greater than the 'expected family contribution' — could forfeit millions of dollars annually in federal money.

For example, if college X can provide a good education at $8,000 a year, while its average student's family can afford $9,000, then it loses opportunities to receive federal money. By raising its tuition to $12,000, it not only gets an additional $1,000 per student from their families but also an additional $3,000 per student from the government. In short, there is no incentive to keep tuition affordable and every incentive to make it unaffordable."

The cost? Clinton doesn't know. Will U.S.-born children of illegal aliens be eligible? No word on that yet. Who pays? Don't know. All we really know is it will not achieve its stated objective but it probably will appeal to Hillary's target audience which is mostly uneducated and doomed to superficial appraisal of her proposal.

Kill your golden goose

The loony left never fails. This time they want to expand a welfare program called SCHIPS (which provides health care for poor kids) to adults making as much as $83,000. That is not idiotic enough, however. In order to pay for the additional entitlement expenses they propose to raise the tax on cigarettes by an extra $0.61/pack. This makes some sense in that those who still smoke are not very smart, are also mostly poor and vote democrat. This is then a very regressive tax and the libs justify the tax by claiming that the tax will cause those affected to quit smoking, which if true would kill off the funding for the socialistic program they loudly promote. When this happens, you will find the money comes not from smokers, but from you.

Wow. Ann Coulter strikes again

On women:

If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it’s the party of women and 'We’ll pay for health care and tuition and day care -- and here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?'

On why global warming is religion on the left:

Because we can't prove them wrong for a thousand years, and I think the other thing about it is, it goes back to Chesterton’s statement: that when people stop believing in God, the problem isn't that they believe in nothing, it's that they'll believe anything. And that's what you constantly see with people who don't believe in God: They're always imitating the most ridiculous, primitive religions. And it is like a primitive religion, thinking if we just change these lightbulbs, we can change the temperature of the ocean. It's the craziest thing! Even primitive people wouldn't believe something that silly.

A Predictable Solution

There for a while it looked like the state of Michigan would have to shut down a large part of their government due to a budget impasse. At the last moment, however, they came to a solution which could have been predicted. They raised the income and sales taxes. Now that should help the economy.

Light shining on U.N. failure

When President Bush told the United Nations General Assembly this week “the American people are disappointed by the failures of the Human Rights Council,” his words could not have been more timely or deserved. He pointed out “This body has been silent on repression by regimes from Havana to Caracas to Pyongyang and Tehran — while focusing its criticism excessively on Israel.” On Friday, the Council piled the dung heap higher. It wrapped up another session in Geneva by adopting two more resolutions against Israel and no resolutions critical of the human-rights record of any of the other 191 U.N. member states.

This brings the total of anti-Israel resolutions and decisions adopted by the “Human Rights” Council — in only the first 15 months of its operation — to 14. Another four very weak decisions and resolutions have been applied to Sudan. And the Council finally decided to hold a special session of the Council on Myanmar. So adding up the highly selective concerns of the U.N.’s lead human-rights agency: 74 percent of the Council’s moves against individual states have been directed at Israel, 21 percent at Sudan, 5 percent at Myanmar, and the rest of the world has been given a free pass.

More here.

No Crocs with socks, George

Laura, you need to step in here.

African Failure

I read this morning that villagers in Zimbabwe are becoming sufficiently desperate for food in that country ruled by a despotic Robert Mugabe that they are rapidly eradicating wild animals in former private game ranches and preserves. Thus elephants, giraffes, leopards and other wild animals have been killed to an extent where it is now estimated that a full 60% of the country's entire wildlife population has been slaughtered for food.
The country reached this sorry state because the white land owners who knew how to use the land productively have been evicted and anti-market practices have been instituted which, of course, has its greatest effect on the blacks in that country. The world sits and watches this to no effect. The U.N. and a majority of Africa's leaders are particularly pathetic. When it became time for Africa to name a chair of the U.N.'s sustainable economic development commission, it turned to Zimbabwe for its representative. This is probably appropriate for a U.N. commission since Zimbabwe has no development at all, much less any which is sustainable.

Bush Advice to Dems

This story will be interesting to follow. If the top dems are listening to Bush about the world situation--especially in Iraq, they have two choices, it seems to me. First, they can attempt to minimize it or even deny it. Second, they can either acknowledge it or attempt to ignore it. If the net-nuts and others on the loony left latch onto the story, however, neither Hillary nor any of the others will be spared the wrath of the left.

Contrary Indicators

Those of us who spend our days managing stocks and watching the stock market know that certain individuals and companies and politicians are what we call contrary indicators. For example, if someone like Jim Cramer who has a program on CNBC says the market has bottomed and will go up from here, the odds are he is completely wrong and you should act "contrarially". Once he says you should buy a stock, you can bet (and many of us do) that it has had its run and should be sold. These individuals are invaluable. The same thing is true for politicians. There are some who are so completely inept and have such a perfect history of being wrong that it is almost uncanny. In that vein, I give the following as something to be looking for in the Middle East:

Former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday that it was almost inconceivable that Iran would "commit suicide" by launching missiles at Israel.

Speaking at Emory University, Carter, who brokered the 1979 Camp David peace accord between Israel and Egypt, said Israel's superior military power and distance from Iran likely are enough to discourage an actual attack.

"Iran is quite distant from Israel," said Carter, 83. "I think it would be almost inconceivable that Iran would commit suicide by launching one or two missiles of any kind against the nation of Israel."

Mystery strike revealed?

Israel has clamped a tight lid of military censorship over its air raid against Syria, but US officials tell CBS News the strike destroyed a building Israeli intelligence believed housed nuclear equipment.

The strike was launched on September 6th, three days after a North Korean ship docked at a Syrian port. US officials say the arrival of that ship triggered the strike against the building, which had been under surveillance by an Israeli satellite sent into orbit last June.

US officials "say they do not know for sure what was in the building, but they agree with the Israelis, there are signs Syria is trying to acquire a nuclear capability."

Yes, honey it is kinda sad.

The raid

BestView has been on vacation and now is the time to catch up on what seems to be a story being eclipsed by the latest O.J. travails. On September 6, Israel made an air raid on something in Syria. The nature of the event remains a mystery which is evidently unusual in the mid-east. The theories about what happened are fascinating. One holds the raid was a practice run for a coming attack on Iran nuclear facilities. Another claims the North Koreans moved some nuclear material/equipment to Syria to prevent its analysis by the U.S inspection in North Korea and the raid took it out. A less exciting theory holds that Iran sent some conventional weapons to Syria for delivery to Hezbollah and these were the target.
This air action is not as compelling to news outfits as criminal charges against O.J. but that may change in the near future.

Marching Orders

Osama is not happy with the dems since they haven't shut down the war being waged against al Qaeda. I suspect we should look for a better effort by Hillary's colleagues in Congress. At least we should have some apology that they haven't been more effective followed by a promise to do better in the days ahead.

More than I wanted to know

I presume Barack Obama's wife intends to humanize her husband with the following comments, but.....

Referring to their daughters, Mrs. Obama says: “We have this ritual in the morning. They come in my bed, and Dad isn’t there — because he’s too snore-y and stinky, they don’t want to ever get into bed with him. But we cuddle up and we talk about everything from what is a period to the big topic of when we get a dog: what kind?”

Political Islam

Here is a really well done essay on how the politics in Iraq is almost certainly doomed to undermine our military and pacification efforts over there. The author is an Iraqi who seems to have a great understanding of the problems in his country. Here is a sample from his recent post, but read the whole thing.

Islamists have failed to offer a chance for a better life whether when they were in the opposition or when they got to rule the country. I think that's why they try to sell the idea of death instead of life; they failed to offer a better life so they picked up the slogan of death and "martyrdom" to promise a better life, but in an imaginary heaven; not in real life.

Hillary Care

Two Ontario patients who had brain tumors removed in the United States because they say they couldn't get quick treatment are suing the provincial government over what they claim are unjustly long wait times for medical care.

Lindsay McCreith, 66, of Newmarket and Shona Holmes, 43, of Waterdown filed a joint statement of claim yesterday against the province of Ontario. Both say their health suffered because they are denied the right to access care outside of Ontario's "government-run monopolistic" health-care system. They want to be able to buy private health insurance.

Ontario's "monopoly" over essential health services and its delay in providing the services have left both patients to "endure significant financial, emotional and physical hardship to access such services in the United States," states the claim .

If liberals like Hillary get their way, these Canadians will have no where to go for timely medical treatments and neither will you.

What it takes to be a liberal

1. You have to be against capital punishment, but support abortion on demand.
2. You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.
3. You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are more of a threat than nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Iran or Chinese and North Korean communists.
4. You have to believe that there was no art before federal funding.
5. You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical changes in the earth's climate and more affected by soccer moms driving SUV'S.
6. You have to believe that gender roles are artificial, but being homosexual is natural.
7. You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.
8. You have to believe that the same teacher who can't teach 4th-graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex.
9. You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature, but PETA activists do.
10. You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.
11. You have to believe the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.
12. You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.
13. You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, or Abraham Lincoln.
14. You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides are not.
15. You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried is because the right people haven't been in charge.
16. You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drag queens and transvestites should be constitutionally protected, and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.
17. You have to believe that this message is a part of a vast, right-wing conspiracy.

Stolen from Blonde Sagacity

Be very afraid

The following is from John Edwards, but it is typical liberal thinking and I wonder how many want to live in a society like this where the government tells you you have to go to a doctor and not only that, you have to have certain procedures (mammograms). Just amazing. I will watch to see if any of the other dems disagree with him. The problem is nobody will challenge them on it.

Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.

"It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care," he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK."

He noted, for example, that women would be required to have regular mammograms in an effort to find and treat "the first trace of problem." Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, announced earlier this year that her breast cancer had returned and spread.

Edwards said his mandatory health care plan would cover preventive, chronic and long-term health care. The plan would include mental health care as well as dental and vision coverage for all Americans.

"The whole idea is a continuum of care, basically from birth to death," he said.

Leno gets it about right

"Speaking at a forum organized by Lance Armstrong on cancer research, Hillary Clinton told Chris Matthews if she is elected president, she will declare war on cancer, and then she will support the war on cancer for two years, and then she will be against it for a year, and then she will back out of it all together" -- Jay Leno, host of NBC's "Tonight Show."

China water

There have a number of articles written lately describing the serious problems the Chinese are having with pollution of their water supplies. Factory waste is dumped directly into the rivers and streams and the sanitation systems for their cities and villages are either overwhelmed or underdeveloped. This is a big problem for the Chinese and about the only way I see to keep it from being my problem is to very carefully look at fish we buy at grocery stores and avoid any from China and most from other countries. That would be my advice to everyone.

Unintended consequences

The U.S. Commission of Civil Rights has a report out on the effect of affirmative action on blacks in law schools. It should come as no surprise to anyone that all the efforts of these law schools to admit blacks in preference to more qualified applicants has resulted in fewer black lawyers than would have otherwise been realized. This is a typical result for mushy headed liberal actions. The reasons for this predictable result are given in this article by Michael Barone.

Good Morning America

Some statistics reflecting the impartiality of this morning show have just been released by Brent Bozell. Anytime a candidate is on this show it is free publicity and if you are a democrat, it is always positive. So far this year Good Morning America (GMA) has had 119 segments on the dems and just 51 on republican candidates. They have something called the Town Hall segment and there have only been two candidates on so far--38 minutes for John Edwards and 26 minutes for Hillary. That sounds fair. In addition, the only republican to receive more air time than Al Gore who is not running is the liberal darling of the mass media, John McCain.

You can't tell everything by just counting minutes. How about content? Well, when Guiliani and Romney were on they were asked about such things as mormonism and a messy personal life in the case of Guiliani. Compare this to the Claire Shipman description of Hillary and Obama as "white hot" and Hillary was an "unparalleled star" with a "hot factor" boosted by her "ever-popular husband". Shipman said Obama had a "fairy-tale family and personal charisma to spare."

We need to keep watching to see if future appearances by dems on this program induce a cinematic orgasm of historic proportion by Ms. Shipman.

Skybus

This article on a new air service is one I hope succeeds. It is based on a simple business plan which is similar to Southwest without frills. The planes fly into seldom used airports where traffic is not great so they will be on time more often and charge for everything. The lack of frills leads to seats available for as little as $10.00 per flight. Bring it on. Worth reading about.

Any more geography questions?

YouTube - Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina answers a question

California Green

Naturally our brethren in California lead us all in environmentalism and concern for all things green. I was just reading about a poll out there which found that 54% of the residents out there believe global warming poses a very serious threat to the state's future and quality of life. As a result, 13% carpool and 7% of them use mass transit. Me thinks the concern is largely academic for those folks.

Walls work

There was a great outcry a few years ago from the loony left here in the U.S. when the Israel wall was erected in an effort to deter bombers from entering. As with most of the leftist positions, the actual results show them to be dead wrong with since there are significantly fewer Israeliis who are dead. Walls work.

Where is Jesse????

When the Mike Vick fiasco hit the news the other day I found myself wondering when Jesse Jackson would find a light on a TV camera and dash up to give his racist take on the situation. Well, it didn't happen and I assumed old Jesse was lost in the wilderness somewhere. Now I find that Jesse has found a new country in which he can ply his racial blackmail tactics. Jesse is in London. As reported in this article, he got the idiot mayor of London to blubber in tears as he apologizes for the British role in the slave trade 200 years ago. Hopefully, he will stay in Europe if he is going to dwell on the past rather than go to Africa where he could actually confront problems which are relevant in the here and now.

Another Congressman in the real estate tar pit

Rick Renzi, an Arizona republican is dropping out of congress next year to fight charges which are being covered by a grand jury that relate to payment for a real estate deal he may have facilitated with legislation. As BestView has noted previously, congressmen of both parties simply can't seem to resist crooked real estate deals and don't seem to be learning from the fate of the several which are now in or going to prison.

Jatropha to the rescue

There is an article in the Wall Street Journal this morning about a plant called jatropha that grows wild in India and produces a golf ball sized bean filled containing an oil which can be converted to biofuel at a cost which makes it much more attractive than corn as a fuel replacement. The plant grows about anywhere and needs very little water. Many farmers in India are now being contracted to plant the thing for harvest and we will soon see if it makes sense to take the project to a large enough scale to make a difference.

Save your pity

There will be a lot of angst published in the next months about poor homeowners who are losing their property to foreclosure. Out on the streets, they are. We have to save them--bail them out. Well, not so fast. In the first place, many of them took out loans with no money down and paid nothing on the principal while they lived there. That is called renting. When the homes value did not increase enough for them to refinance at the time the mortgage conditions were reset as described when the loan was taken out, they are in the position of giving back a house they paid nothing for and are now looking for a place to rent at monthly rates they can afford. In effect, the people who are portrayed so pitifully in the media have lost nothing.

Ann strikes again

Here is another slice of Ann Coulter's latest essay. I just love her.

Liberals know they're losing the demographic war. Christians have lots of children and adopt lots of children; liberals abort children and encourage the gay lifestyle in anyone with a flair for color.

They can't keep up.

Population expert Nick Eberstadt recently speculated in The Washington Post that a principal reason for America's high fertility rate compared to Europe's is its religiosity. Well, that leaves liberals out.

The Democratic Party is in the fight of its life against a conservative demographic trend. Its only hope is to gerrymander America to make the poorest half of Mexico a state. Only a massive influx of criminals, wards of the state and rioters can save them.

This is why Democrats are obsessed with giving two groups the right to vote: illegal aliens and felons. With Arellano, they get two for the price of one. To liberals, building a wall across the Mexican border is a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

A mistake???

The lead attorney for pro football star Michael Vick said Monday that the Atlanta Falcons quarterback will plead guilty to dogfighting and related charges and will ''accept full responsibility for his actions and the mistakes he has made.''

This worthless thug brutally kills dogs and calls it a mistake. A mistake is when some idiot owner thinks Vick is worth millions a year to play quarterback.

Scientific Doubt

I was just trying to understand what I am sure is a very elementary explanation of some doubts which have developed in the science of cosmology (origin of the universe stuff). Here is a sort of summary of the situation from an article in American Scientist.

In its original form, an expanding Einstein model had an attractive, economic elegance. Alas, it has since run into serious difficulties, which have been cured only by sticking on some ugly bandages: inflation to cover horizon and flatness problems; overwhelming amounts of dark matter to provide internal structure; and dark energy, whatever that might be, to explain the seemingly recent acceleration. A skeptic is entitled to feel that a negative significance, after so much time, effort and trimming, is nothing more than one would expect of a folktale constantly re-edited to fit inconvenient new observations.

My first thought was I will never be able to bend my mind in such a way as to understand all of this. However, my second thought is if the Einstein model is being held to scientific scrutiny and doubt by other scientists, it is not completely absurd to question the conclusions of Al Gore...even if he did invent the internet.

Back to 5th Grade

This story about Garner, N.C. paying $50.00 to fill vehicle tires with nitrogen instead of air suggests a refresher course in elementary school science which teaches that air is 80% nitrogen may be appropriate.

Biggest Phony Contest

This is open to everyone in the world. Here is my entry.

Sorry about that

Just ran across this from Australia. Evidently the decendents of some cannibals now apologize for killing and eating some Fijian missionaries in 1878. Evidently they promise not to ever do it again.

Mortgage Mess

BestView is back to say "I told you so." That is no great feat since any idiot could see that when people were buying houses with no money down and insufficient funds to pay the mortgage when the loan had an automatic escalator in the interest rate in 2 years, defaults were inevitable. Well, here they are. The logic at the time the loans were taken out went something like this. "Don't worry about the adjustment of the loan in 2 years. When that time comes, we will simply refinance the loan based on the increased value of your house." So, some families--especially in high housing markets like Florida and California--signed up. Well, now they go down to the friendly loan company and find the house on which they have been paying interest only on for 2 years will no longer appraise for the loan balance and the only way they can get a loan of any kind is to come up with 20% of the house value. Most of these people didn't have even 5% of the value when they took out the loan in the first place and sure don't have 20% now. In the meantime, the lending agency tells them that the house payment is going to go from say $2,000 per month to $3,000. Whoa! $2,000 was a stretch and now the only option is to give the keys to the bank and walk away to a rental unit of some kind. So much for the home owner. What about the mortgage lender stuck with a house instead of a monthly income? In some cases, he will have to renegotiate payments or become a real estate holder. In the worst case, the one holding the bag is the one who bought high yielding bonds composed of these mortgages which are now in default. These are called CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) and carry a high interest payment which depends on the homeowner making those monthly payments.

If you don't have such a mortgage or own a bond depending on CDO solvency, you don't have a problem. Or do you? Well, you may. The unknown consists of how much paper your pension fund owns, for example. If a significant percentage of their solvency depends on these mortgage payments, your monthly income could be affected if things get bad enough.

The markets are going to have to work through all this and there will be losers of vast amounts of money. Let's hope for the best.

Science and Society

In the modern world, science and society often interact in a perverse way. We live in a technological society, and technology causes political problems. The politicians and the public expect science to provide answers to the problems. Scientific experts are paid and encouraged to provide answers. The public does not have much use for a scientist who says, “Sorry, but we don’t know”. The public prefers to listen to scientists who give confident answers to questions and make confident predictions of what will happen as a result of human activities. So it happens that the experts who talk publicly about politically contentious questions tend to speak more clearly than they think. They make confident predictions about the future, and end up believing their own predictions. Their predictions become dogmas which they do not question. The public is led to believe that the fashionable scientific dogmas are true, and it may sometimes happen that they are wrong. That is why heretics who question the dogmas are needed.

As a scientist I do not have much faith in predictions. Science is organized unpredictability. The best scientists like to arrange things in an experiment to be as unpredictable as possible, and then they do the experiment to see what will happen. You might say that if something is predictable then it is not science. When I make predictions, I am not speaking as a scientist. I am speaking as a story-teller, and my predictions are science-fiction rather than science. The predictions of science-fiction writers are notoriously inaccurate. Their purpose is to imagine what might happen rather than to describe what will happen. I will be telling stories that challenge the prevailing dogmas of today. The prevailing dogmas may be right, but they still need to be challenged. I am proud to be a heretic. The world always needs heretics to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies. Since I am heretic, I am accustomed to being in the minority. If I could persuade everyone to agree with me, I would not be a heretic.


These thoughts are those of FREEMAN DYSON, a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton. They are especially worthy of consideration when reading the lay press describe the effects of global warming in 25 to 100 years. The book is HERETICAL THOUGHTS ABOUT SCIENCE AND SOCIETY.

An Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem

MJT: Why is Iraq such a mess? Is it the Americans’ fault?

Hammer: No. You can’t blame it on the Americans. Iraqis are number one at fault for this mess. They are greedy and will do anything for money. They are like people who were in jail for 30 years, were suddenly set free, were given money, then had their money taken away. What will they do next? They will kill for money. They are selfish.

They got selfish from Saddam. Iraqi people used to be different. I am the same person I always was, but most Iraqi people are different now. They feel that no one will help them so they help themselves.

MJT: Is there a solution to the problem in this country?

Charge money to the families of insurgents. Fine them huge amounts of money if anyone in their family is captured or killed and identified as an insurgent. Make them pay. You can put it into law. Within one week they won’t do anything wrong because they want money. Their familes will make them stop.

The militias pay them 100 dollars to set up IEDs. Fine them thousands of dollars if they are caught and their families will make them stop. Give them that law. Go ahead. Try it.

Read the entire interview with this Iraqi interpreter here.

Photoshop fun

It always amazes me how soon after some news event that the internet is flooded with something relevant. The latest is the Mike Vick indictment for dog fighting. This one is good.

Uphill climb

I just learned there is a group called "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)". Good luck with that.

The great energy hoax

The House recently passed something called "New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection". As we have learned over the years, politicians of both parties have an inate ability to provide the exact opposite of legislative effect in the title of major bills. This is no exception. It provides $16 billion in new taxes on oil companies. If you believe that higher taxes on oil companies will make them provide us more energy and not pass added costs on to consumers, you are as stupid as politicians like Nancy Pelosi think you are. She described this legislation as the "energy policy of the future". That would be sad.

No terrorism here

The following is a report of a little noticed incident in my neighboring South Carolina. It is described as not being related to terrorism, but I am skeptical. Who is hiding what and why?

Two men are being held in the Berkeley County Detention Center after police find explosive making devices in their car. The quantity of explosive making materials in that vehicle is unclear.

The FBI (website) reports that there is no known link to terrorism. The Berkeley County Sheriff's Office believes that among materials in the car's trunk were a bomb and bomb making materials that include chemicals, fuses, and igniters.

The men 21-year-old Yousef Megahed and 24-year-old Ahmed Mohamed were pulled over Saturday evening during a routine traffic stop near Myers Road and Highway 176. Few details about the suspects are known at this time. They are believed to be students at a Florida college. They are of Middle Eastern descent and are not US citizens.

Barbra's Travels

Though she's a big backer of environmental causes, and even offers tips for low-carbon living on her personal website, Barbra Streisand was busted by the British press for touring in a private jet with a massive entourage that required 13 trucks and vast amounts of laundry—in other words, for sponsoring a traveling CO₂ extravaganza. These loony Hollywood leftists never seem to disappoint.

More Corn?

BestView has mentioned this before, but the move to corn as a replacement for oil-based gasoline is a really bad idea. Support was recently provided by the World Resources Institute which confirms that corn production will lead to ground water depletion, soil erosion, and algae blooms in our water ways. This will be caused by the wide-spread use of pesticide and fertilizer. It takes 4,000 gallons of water per acre per day to replace evaporation in a corn field.Each acre requires about 130 pounds of nitrogen and 55 pounds of phosphorus. When we get the corn, it then must be refined into a product that produces 20-30% less energy than gasoline and it must be transported around the country by truck since it doesn't do pipelines well. And, of course, our food costs are driven up by the elevated prices of corn which is fed to cattle and chickens and hogs.

The move to corn is largely due to the fact that Iowa is the first primary state and both parties are electoral whores. If we really wanted to improve our energy independence we would expand our existing oil capacity like in Alaska where the dems are obstructing and off the coast of Florida where the Republicans have a block. Not a pretty situation.

Another example of education failure

Here in my neighboring county there are 7-8 middle schools and according to the standards commonly used all are in the category of "failing" or "needs improvement" or some such. At any rate, they are so deficient that parents with a letter telling them they can move their children to any other school in the district don't really have a choice better than the one they are already in. Well, now we have good news. One of the schools has permission to convert to a charter school and the administrators say this will be fantastic in terms of performance. Kids will start school earlier, go at least one hour longer each day, wear uniforms, be subject to greater discipline, and everyone will be amazed at the improvement. Sounds good to me, but this all begs some obvious questions. Why did it take 2 years to get permission to make this change and why aren't all schools doing this? The answers would probably make you cry.

A Senator in Stripes?

I just read that the FBI is closing in on Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, a Republican. They are searching his house and if we are lucky, they will get the goods on him and he will go to prison where he belongs for misappropriating our money for decades.

The Congressman reveals all

The following quote from the Washington Post by Congressman James Clyburn, who is the House Majority Whip from South Carolina, admits what many have been saying all along. For some time it has been known that the dems are politically committed to a U. S. defeat in Iraq. Here is the paragraph in the article.

Many Democrats have anticipated that, at best, Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker would present a mixed analysis of the success of the current troop surge strategy, given continued violence in Baghdad. But of late there have been signs that the commander of U.S. forces might be preparing something more generally positive. Clyburn said that would be "a real big problem for us."

Another report from Iraq

Here is the latest Michael Yon report from the front lines of Iraq. It has an interesting description of the unmanned flight vehicles we use over there. Well worth reading as usual.

Say it ain't so

As I understand it, the latest legal sleeze is going to be class action suits on the scale of those against tobacco, pharmaceutical, and asbestos companies. The target? Well, companies who produce goods and services which emit what the lawyers claim to be excessive carbon dioxide which, of course, harms us all via an increase in global warming, will be filed. As a start, lawyers in Mississippi, where such suits find compliant judges and juries, some oil and coal companies are being sued claiming that they knew their emissions caused the climate change that generated Hurricane Katrina. Sadly, the fact that the suit is lacking in so many ways (scientifically) probably enhances its chances of success.

Kelsey Briggs

Here is a picture of Kelsey with her Father. Kelsey died on Oct. 11, 2005, at her mother and stepfather's home near Meeker, Oklahoma. Evidence indicated she suffered repeated injuries in the final months of her life, including a broken collarbone, broken legs and bruises on her face and body." Both her mother and step-father have been convicted and sent to prison. Her story is documented here.

More government failure

We now have one more example of the failure of the federal government to function in even a modestly competent fashion. First FEMA could not put put some food and water on a truck and drive to the Super Dome on the same roads you could drive out of. Then the State Department could not issue passports to citizens who were forced to get them with new rules of travel, and now we learn that $1.1 billion in farm subsidies is being paid to dead farmers. These are examples of simple incompetence. Fraud is another matter and that is why we need to keep a close eye on the earmark usage by our elected officials. The latest example I have read about is an earmark put in the defense authorizing bill by Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska which would be given to a company which is wholly dependent on earmarks and which also just happens to employ Senator Nelson's son. What a mess.

Guess Who

The following quote was part of an Op-Ed published today. Guess who was the author. Some fire breathing right wing nut? No, this came from the liberal media's monster created out of Bush hatred---Cindy Sheehan. Read it all here.


The Democrats are the party of slavery and were the party that started every war in the 20th century, except the other Bush debacle. The Federal Reserve, permanent federal income taxes, not one but two World Wars, Japanese concentration camps, and not one but two atom bombs dropped on the innocent citizens of Japan -- all brought to us via the Democrats.

Pardon?

Today is the day that Dick Cheney gets to be President for about two hours when Bush gets his colonoscopy. It has been suggested that Cheney use that window to pardon his former Chief-of-Staff Scooter Libby. That would be delightful. He should do that and also pardon the border agents railroaded by Bush's Texas buddy, Johnny Sutton. The pardons would take about 10 minutes so he would have plenty of time to lob a few missles at Iran.

Hard to take

I just ran across a blog which is really hard to read, but you have to admire the lady. She evidently devotes her life to documenting child abuse and some of her examples will literally make you cry.
You can read it here.

Pit Bull Fighting

If you learn how the main news outlets obscure facts it is possible to see current news events more clearly. The indictment of Mike Vick for his role in a dog-fighting enterprise has forced the TV and newspapers to cover the illegal aspects of the activity. If you listen carefully to these reports you will hear them say dog fights and ownership of pit bulls is prevalent in certain "cultures", associated with drugs, and is glorified by some rap "artists" in the ghetto. You won't hear them come out and report that it is almost entirely a black activity. That wouldn't be politically correct even though it could be beneficial to curbing dog fighting for sport.

Who you gonna believe

Sometimes it confusing when trying to understand what is going on in Iraq. The lefty Senators like Majority Leader Reid say the war is lost and Bush's increase in troop levels which were just reached last month is a failure. Then one reads reports from the military leaders on the ground in Iraq that things are going much better in several sections with greater cooperation from the tribal leaders and their followers. Independent reporters like Mike Yon confirm the military assessment. I can understand how Reid and others might have a political stake in losing this battle in a larger war, but I it is not as clear why the military who are toiling in 125 degree heat would misrepresent the situation by 180 degrees. For this reason, I am going to side with the guys on the ground. The shame is Bush is so completely inept in describing the situation.

And I thought U.S. education was bad

Secondary schools will strip back the traditional curriculum in favour of lessons on debt management, the environment and healthy eating, ministers revealed.

Even Winston Churchill no longer merits a mention after a drastic slimming-down of the syllabus to create more space for "modern" issues.

This is in the U.K. and you can read it here.

Well, that was last week

During the June 28th, Democrat debate, Hillary Clinton said the following: "Nonviolent offenders should not be serving hard time in our prisons. They need to be diverted from our prison system."

In a press release that went out from her camp less than four days after the June 28th debate, Mrs. Bill Clinton said this about Scooter Libby avoiding prison:

"Today's decision is yet another example that this administration simply considers itself above the law. This commutation sends the clear signal that in this administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice."

More education idiocy

Teachers in public education will quickly proclaim that the added burden and disruptions imposed by the requirement that children with disabilities be put into classes with more normal students is a big factor for their failure to meet expectations. I think this is a big factor and these students should be largely excluded when they adversely impact the overall teaching effort. Parents of such students would object, but the greater good should prevail. Anyway, there are efforts afoot to give some relief in this regard. Here in Georgia, vouchers have been authorized for parents of children with disabilities to utilize private schools which might have smaller classes, better trained teachers, etc. Many of these private schools have applied to be included in the program. Even though in many cases if just one student from a classroom was removed to a private program, the improvement in the teaching atmosphere would improve exponentially. Sounds good, doesn't it? Well, not to our teachers. They are fighting it because it might be a slippery slope to a broader use of vouchers which might, of course, lead to everyone knowing how big a failure public education is in Georgia. Pathetic.

Subsidies

The next time you look at your tax return think of farm subsidies. Farmers have been pocketing $20 billion a year in tax payer handouts for such things as corn which brings $4 per bushel which is double that of 2005. These farmers get 1/2 of all farm subsidies. Another travesty is the sugar program. This program keeps the price of sugar artificially high and costs us $1.9 billion per year. More than 1/2 of it goes to the wealthiest 1% of our plantation owners.
All of the recipients of farm subsidies are not farmers, per se. Among corporations which receive them are ExxonMobile, Chevron, International Paper, and Caterpillar. The farm lobby in Washington is pretty effective.

Medical Terrorists

For some reason the media seems not to be able to grasp the fact that several of the terrorists recently arrested in England for a botched bomb plot were physicians. Since I have had over 30 years of close contact with thousands of medical students it is not all that surprising to me. I have found many truly brilliant and dedicated students in our medical school and in fact most of them were as talented as the the selection process intended. However, I have also known liars, cheats, nymphomaniacs, sociopaths, and if you told me a latent terrorist was in there, I could easily believe it. A southern state medical school, however, is less likely to have a terrorist than a country with socialized medicine who can't attract enough people to the profession because of limitations placed on their income and stature in society. To satisfy their medical staffing requirements they have to recruit large numbers of foreign doctors and the fact that most are Islamic is proving unfortunate for the U.K.

Hormones

I had a research project a few years ago that involved hormonal effects on an infectious disease that I established in animals. Before it was concluded I was convinced that hormones and their myriad affects are exceedingly tricky and long accepted beliefs are quite possibly wrong. What reminded me of this was an article today which reviewed other reports I have read recently which disputed the conclusions reached in 2002 with respect to risk associated with treating menopausal symptoms with estrogen. Back then we read that there was an increased risk of cardiovascular incidents in women who used estrogen. Now it is recognized that the analysis of the data was flawed to the extent that age was not taken into proper account. Now the conclusion--from the same data--is that for women in the age range of 50-59 there is a 30% lower risk of dying if estrogen is taken with progestin. Older women do in fact have a greater risk from the same drugs. This is just another example of why I question every single report of scientific research I read--especially in the lay press.

It is just outrageous

The loonies are just irate that Scooter Libby will spend the same amount of time in prison for lying under oath to a federal grand jury as Bill Clinton did for lying under oath to a federal grand jury.

A message from Zawahiri

Here is a quote from the latest message sent by Ayman Zawahiri, the number 2 man in al Qaeda. As many of us have suspected, the dems are making the terrorists happy.

"You must be patient and steadfast." "Rejoice, for victory is near, with Allah's permission, and the herds of crusaders have begun to split up and their sole concern has become searching for a way out."

Flags in Minnesota

I just read in the Wall Street Journal that Minnesota has passed a law that makes it a crime punishable by a fine of $1,000 and 90 days in jail to sell a U.S. flag made somewhere other than the U.S. Since the Supreme Court has ruled that you can't ban or at least punish flag burners, it now possible to burn a flag made in the U.S. and go to jail for selling one made in Shanghai. Ain't this a great country?

New terror worries

It seems to me the recent attempts to set off car bombs in London and Glascow may signal a move to less ambitious plots which would be easier to bring off and thereby harder to preempt. The overall consequence of a single Islamic idiot throwing a hand grenade into a crowded mall is potentially enormous. If that happened, of course, it would be protrayed gleefully by the loony leftists as a Bush failure to keep us safe.

For the record

Democrats in the new leadership of the House said they would work 5 days a week now that they were in control. Well, so far, they have done so on six of the 21 weeks. Better than I would have thought when one considers the usual promise record of politicians.

Integration Outrage

The liberals are just outraged that the Supreme Court took a tiny step toward agreeing with the law of the land that you can't discriminate on the basis of race. This is very confusing to me. The Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP and all their loony left newspapers seem to feel that little black kids can't learn anything unless they are forced into a classroom with little white kids. This is in spite of several decades of evidence that forced integration has not resulted in any great educational benefit. My gut feeling is no kid learns a whole lot in a modern day classroom vis a vis "the old days", but I am almost certain they don't learn anything riding in a bus.

What makes this situation all the more puzzling is how the races segregate themselves when given an opportunity. I saw one of those shows on prisons in the U.S. the other day and the minute prisoners get locked up they group up into racial packs. Blacks with blacks, Asians with Asians, Latinos and whites in their separate groups. Now I am reading that blacks out in California are demanding and getting separate graduation ceremonies from universities. Seems like integration is only really important in public schools. It is all very strange.

Air Safety

Reading about the terrorists activity in Europe today reminded me of a recent transatlantic flight we made on British Air. We were in a 767 seated in a cabin just behind first class. This was called something like enhanced economy and we did have larger seats and more room. There were about 12 rows of us in this cabin and our rest room was toward the rear of the plane, just behind a curtain in front of another cabin which was regular economy. Just outside the rest room was an exit door and thus a little area where you can stand and stretch or just wait for the rest room to be vacated. I get antsy on long flights, so I often like to stand and stretch and since I am an old man I probably use the facilities more than younger males. At any rate, I was standing in this area and found myself looking back over the cabin. The interior lights were dimmed and as I looked over the cabin, most people were either asleep, reading or watching their little entertainment screen. Everyone, that is, but one man sitting on an isle seat about mid-way back in the cabin. He was interested in one thing and one thing only. That was me standing by that exit door. I think he was working on that flight and I was glad to see him doing what I imagine good air marshalls do.

Spending your money

Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, Mark Rey, was in Corning Wednesday morning at the Big Flats Plant Materials Center to annouce the award of nearly $20 million in Conservation Innovation Grants to fund 51 research projects across the country designed to refine new technologies helping dairy and other agricultural producers cut back on their greenhouse emissions and cash in on governmental incentives for the research.

One million dollars of those grants will come to New York State.

The U.S.D.A. is now taking applications from large dairy farms across the state who want to participate.

The agency reports that cow and hog manure produce methane, which is a greenhouse gas.

The main focus of the grant-funded research in New York State would be to tarp off areas where farmers dump cow manure, commonly called manure lagoons. Researchers would then prevent those gases from entering the atmosphere, measure how many units are produced, and farmers would receive cash incentives, called "Carbon Credits," for each unit produced. They would also receive annual payments for use of their properties.

You can read the whole article here, but it gives new meaning to the term "hog-wash".