Cordoba House, the Ground Zero Mosque

Intellectually, I think that most of the Muslims involved in this project are probably sincere, in their own notions of bridge-building. Emotionally, I feel that this "center" represents the enemy's taunting touchdown dance in our endzone.

And why name it "Cordoba House"? The Caliphate of Cordoba was an allegedly golden age in Spain, when people of many religions lived prosperously and harmoniously together, firmly under the rule of Muslims. Why not name the thing "American House" instead? America is a much better place where people of many religions live prosperously and harmoniously together, minus the being subjugated by Muslims part.

Death follows Wikileaks

Assange is giving us a wonderful lesson in why things are classified during war. His cavalier attitude toward the safety of the people he exposes to mortal danger, as if a really terrible context like a war provides justification for adding further risk to their lives (and his repeated, and thus far unsupported, accusations that Afghans who help us are criminals), is beyond immaturity and callousness, though—it is monstrous.

Julian Assange is the worst sort of moralist, one whose sense of justice is so selective (secrecy is of utmost concern for Wikileaks’ sources and employees, but not the government), and his comprehension of consequences so short-sighted and defined by ideology rather than fact, that he doesn’t care who he has to offer up to murderous @#!*% to satisfy his sense of moral outrage. It is the same morality that leads the ELF to destroy car dealerships using chemical explosives out of a concern for the environment.

A wrong is a wrong is a wrong

Okay, let’s take all the known facts about Ms. Sherrod and interpret them in the most negative light. Say she’s a self-satisfied civil servant who considers herself a civil master. She’s got a queen bee mentality, terming a farmer in need “acting superior”, when in reality he probably wasn’t kissing her @$$ smoochily enough for her. She’s an affirmative action quota hire who yells racism to tar her enemies and generally smooth her road in life.

If she is all that, then what happened to her would be just as wrong as it would be if she was otherwise. Breitbart ran with a juicy item straight from the Too Good To Check File, as have most of us at one time or another. I doubt that this is the hill he wants to die on, but in the long run it may turn out to be just that.

Yes, she is a bad mother...

First, she shacks up with this defective shitbird, whom she herself was afraid of. Then she leaves her to live with him in a barn behind his grandfather's house. Then she deploys to the other end of the country, leaving her alone with him. Then this. Idiot!

We are told by the cultural Left that a family is any random grouping of people who share a fridge, and who have sweet feelings for each other most of the time. So why, in these cases, does it so often seem to be this year's boyfriend (or ex-boyfriend) and not the natural father/husband who brings harm to the defenseless child? Or is it just me? Someone point me to a study, but that's the impression I get, browsing these awful stories.

I am so sick and tired of listening to single mothers going on about how they would do anything for their children--anything except give them a father who's married to their mother.

RIP to the poor tot...

Ten ways to brighten a service industry worker's day

Yes, the toughest day at work is better than the best day job-
hunting. So why not make the tiny effort necessary to make someone's
else's day less tough? Of all the things you can spend, good cheer is
the least expensive and the most easily restocked. Only a fool would
be stingy with it. So tuck into these, and then get out there and
spread the kindness!

* Say hello or thank-you to them in their own language.
You can brighten the day of immigrant workers this way. For example,
Ethiopians seem to run most of the parking garages, as well as many of
the convenience stores. I chatted with one once, and he taught me how
to say "Tah-dias", which roughly means "how's it going?" in Amharic.
So now when I roll out to pay the parking attendant, (assuming I can
identify them as Ethiopian), I'll salute them with that greeting.
They are pleased, and couldn't be more surprised if the drop gate had
spoken to them! The same is true of speakers of other languages--
Chinese, Japanese and Koreans are especially pleased not to be
mistaken for each other.

* Inquire after their well-being, beyond the formulaic "how are you
today":
In autumn of 2008, I telephoned a mutual fund I own shares in. This
was when the toxic assets bomb had just gone off, and the stock market
was free-falling in earnest. I was calling about an unrelated matter,
but I knew the poor cubicle inmate answering the phone must have had
to endure quite a lot of rage from investors that day. So I asked
him, "Everybody being civil to you today?" He laughed, and said "No!
You're the only one!" Thus, a brief acknowledgement of their humanity
and expression of concern for their wellbeing will lighten their mood,
if only for a few moments.

* Tip the wait staff adequately.
As you know, most of them earn much less than the minimum wage, and
rely on tips. The internet is awash with tales of stingy tippers, and
the occasional story of a generous giver. Certainly, bad service
should not be rewarded. But if you decide to tip, make it a real
reward. Can't afford it? Maybe tipping generously will keep you from
dining out so often, then; you'll save money that way.

* Tip the food delivery guy even more than that.
The waitress walks across the room to bring you your meal, and walks
back a few times to refill your drink. The pizza guy drives your meal
to your doorstep, which may be hard to find, or in a dangerous
neighborhood. Consider that, while his nightly pay for maybe three
hours work might seem nothing to sneeze at, he's probably putting four-
fifths of it into his gas tank at shift's end. He depends on tips to
make the job worthwhile. So pause before you fill out that check &
add some more, or grab a few more coins from the change jar. You
won't really miss it--you're already paying more to have food
delivered, remember--and it will put his evening in the plus column.

* Repeat or explain your request without irritation, if necessary.
Are they slow on the uptake? Nobody was born knowing how to work the
machine at the counter. A less than sparkling public manner today?
Maybe the person is trying to cope with some private anguish. Are
they hungover? At least they came in to work. Just remember: If
everyone in the world who was stupider than you were to be taken out
and shot for it, then you would be the stupidest person in the world.

* Josh with them, in an appropriate way.
If they nervously admit that "I'm new here", joke that you'll be sure
to give them an extra hard time, then.
Or this: Fast food counter clerk: "What would you like?" You: "Oh,
surprise me!"

* Transact complicated business yourself.
Yes, your tiny child, clutching a wad of singles and stammering
ferociously, looks adorable up there at the counter trying to place an
order. And the dumbest person on your staff doubtless could use the
practice in sorting out some transaction. But do the world a favor
and tend to these things yourself, when things are busy.

* Don't blame them for being short-staffed.
How many times have you seen this? Lines are backing up, because
somebody is out or the place was never adequately staffed in the first
place. The remaining workers are dealing with the crowd as best they
can, silently enduring the grumbles and glares of the impatient
public. Ask yourself: Why are you getting mad at the workers who
*did* show up for work?

* Praise them to their boss. This is much, much less of a hassle than
in the old days. Time was, you had to fill in and mail back a
postcard, or call a toll-free number. Usually the only people who did
so were people who wanted to complain. Nowadays, most every company
has a website, with an email contact on it. It's no effort at all to
shoot off an email: "Hey! You know the young stoner with the
muttonchops running the coffee frother at the Main Street location?
Well, he gave me extra whipped cream without me even having to ask for
it. I appreciate that!" It's easier than Facebooking, and pays
better karma dividends.

*And the old stand-by, pay with the smallest bill possible.
Having a string of people breaking big bills on them, on a day when
the bank is closed, is a definite stressor. Also, have your money
ready when your turn comes up. And empty your coin jar at the bank,
wilya? All matters of simple expediency which may not seem like much
to you, but which you would surely appreciate if the roles were
reversed.

Tattooed ta-tas

Breasts with tattoos are just hideous to me. Ladies, can't you think of a classier way of advertising your sexual availability?

Racist satire earns Tea Party faction the boot

Good.

The National Tea Party Federation, an organization that represents the Tea Party political movement around the country, has expelled conservative commentator Mark Williams and his Tea Party Express because of an inflammatory blog post he wrote, federation spokesman David Webb said Sunday.

Appearing on the CBS program "Face the Nation," Webb said that Williams and the Tea Party Express -- which has held a series of events across the country to generate support for the movement -- no longer were part of the National Tea Party Federation.

"We, in the last 24 hours, have expelled Tea Party Express and Mark Williams from the National Tea Party Federation because of the letter that he wrote," Webb said of the blog post by Williams that satirized a fictional letter from what he called "Colored People" to President Abraham Lincoln.

Williams' alleged satire was not funny enough to be good, nor bad enough to be funny. It read like something dredged up from a usenet sewer. Thanks to this, more people will wonder if the Tea Party is not a pro-liberty movement, but rather the (barely) acceptable edge of the unacceptable stuff. No, this particular spat was definitely not fought on the plane of ideas....

The Blogosphere and its discontents

On the Internet, you read the fierce posts of political and ideological writers and wonder, Why do so many young bloggers sound like hyenas laughing in the dark? Maybe it's because there's no old hand at the next desk to turn and say, "Son, being an enraged, profane, unmoderated, unmediated, hit-loving, trash-talking rage monkey is no way to go through life."
-- Peggy Noonan, "Youth Has Outlived Its Usefulness", The Wall Street Journal, July 16th, 2010

Despicable Me

Took my kids to see it Sunday. A fun flick! They enjoyed the fart jokes, and I enjoyed the nods to movies like The Godfather. And the animation is just incredible--as is the animation on most kids movies these days. Gotta love Dilbert's pointy-haired boss showing up in a supporting role, too.

Battle of Britain, 70th anniversary

Hats off to Britain's heroes, who saved Western civilization in that long ago summer.

Compare and contrast

Obeying their religious tenets, Muslims in Kerala state, India, try to kill a suspected blasphemer. Obeying his religious tenets, the Christian victim forgives his attackers.

A scene from The Jihad

And what of my father? Had he, too, become a terrorist? One afternoon, I read a newspaper headline about a recent suicide bombing (or “martyrdom operation” as some in Hamas called them) that had killed many civilians, including women and children. It was impossible for me to mentally reconcile the kindness and character of my father and his leadership with an organization that carried out such things. I pointed to the article and asked him how he felt about such acts.

“Once,” he answered, “I left the house and there was an insect outside. I thought twice about whether to kill it or not. And I could not kill it.” That indirect answer was his way of saying that he could never personally participate in that kind of wanton killing. But the Israeli civilians were not insects.

No, my father did not build the bombs, strap them onto the bombers, or select the targets. But years later I would think of my father’s answer when I encountered a story in a Christian Bible that describes the stoning of a young innocent named Stephen. It said, “Saul was there, giving approval to his death” (Acts 8:1).

I loved my father so deeply, and I admired so much about who he was and what he stood for. But for a man who could not bring himself to harm an insect, he had obviously found a way to rationalize the idea that it was fine for somebody else to explode people into scraps of meat, as long as he didn’t personally bloody his hands.

At that moment, my view of my father grew much more complicated.

-- Mosab Hassan Yousef, Son of Hamas: A gripping account of terror, betrayal, political intrigue, and unthinkable choices, 2010

July 4th, 1826--the deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson

From Daniel Webster's eulogy of both men:

Neither of these great men, fellow-citizens, could have died, at any time, without leaving an immense void in our American society. They have been so intimately, and for so long a time, blended with the history of the country, and especially so united, in our thoughts and recollections, with the events of the Revolution, that the death of either of them would have touched the chords of public sympathy. We should have felt that one great link, connecting us with former times, was broken; that we had lost something more, as it were, of the presence of the Revolution itself, and of the act of independence, and were driven on, by another great remove from the days of our country's early distinction, to meet posterity and to mix with the future. Like the mariner, whom the currents of the ocean and the winds carry along until he sees the stars which have directed his course and lighted his pathless way descend one by one, beneath the rising horizon, we should have felt that the stream of time had borne us onward till another great luminary, whose light had cheered us and whose guidance we had followed, had sunk away from our sight.

But the concurrence of their death on the anniversary of Independence has naturally awakened stronger emotions. Both had been President, both had lived to great age, both were early patriots, and both were distinguished and ever honored by their immediate agency in the act of independence. It cannot but seem striking and extraordinary, that these two should live to see the fiftieth year from the date of that act/ that they should complete that year/ and that then, on the day which had fast linked for ever their own fame with their country's glory, the heavens should open to receive them both at once. As their lives themselves were the gifts of Providence, who is not willing to recognize in their happy termination, as well as in their long continuance, proofs that our country and its benefactors are objects of His care?

Thinking about graduate school...

Somewhere on the web there's a bitter spoof about graduate school, likening it to a living body's metabolism. Doctoral candidates (and their money) are ingested as raw material. They are transformed into low paid graduate assistants, metabolizing the workings of the school. They are then excreted as unemployable PhDs.

Christopher Hitchens announces he has cancer

THIS IS AN OLD POST: THE NEWS OF HIS PASSING IS BLOGGED HERE.



Sorry to hear it. This conservative Christian wishes that pugnacious atheist a swift course of treatment and full recovery. He may be an enemy of the faith, but over the past several years he has proven himself a great friend of civilization. Our best to him and his family during this time ahead.

A list of YouTube firsts

Here's the list I submitted to Listverse, which was not used. Someone may find it interesting anyway, so here it is.

Roundhay Garden Scene: The world's earliest surviving motion-picture film, from 1888. It was directed by inventor Louis Le Prince, and was recorded at 12 frames per second.


The earliest known footage of a live Genesis concert, from The Piper Club, Rome, 18 April 1972.


This is the oldest known footage of a Pope in existence. This film of Pope Leo XIII was created in 1896. The audio portion is the oldest known audio recording of Pope, also of Pope Leo XIII recorded in 1903. The audio is Pope Leo XIII chanting the Ave Maria in Latin.


The 30-second live-action introduction to this Betty Boop cartoon, filmed in 1932, is the earliest known footage of Cab Calloway.


Australia's earliest surviving film -- an 1896 movie known as "Patineur Grotesque" or "Humorous Rollerskater", features a clown on skates.


The earliest known recorded vocal performance of Spanish Catalan operatic soprano Victoria de los Ángeles was privately recorded in 1942.


This, the oldest surviving color videotape footage, from 1958, features an address by President Dwight Eisenhower.


This 1970 clip of “Border Song” is supposed to be the earliest surviving film of a performance by Elton John.

This game of footie is the earliest footage in existence of a Merseyside derby. The game took place on 27th September 1902 at Goodison Park with Everton winning Liverpool 3-1.


This Muay Thai boxing footage is claimed to be the oldest such still extant. Although it’s supposed to be from the 1920s, it has a narrator and a music track, so eh??? Possibly a ringer, but still plenty old.


The oldest film of the Madina Sharif, the Mosque of the Prophet, in Medina, 1938.


One of a collection of business comedy shorts from 1990; they are supposed to be the earliest performance clips of a then-unknown Stephen Colbert.

I like Listverse!

There are innumerable websites out there devoted to top 10 lists of one sort or another. But Listverse, which I discovered via StumbleUpon, seems to be the most "human" of the ones I've encountered so far. Most others I've seen are repackaged from other sites, or seem artificial in some other way. But Listverse is run by a real person in New Zealand, name of Jamie Frater.

All of which is a lead up to presenting a couple of list I submitted which were used on the site: 10 Notable Apologies From The Past Decade and 10 Generals Who Got In Trouble With Their Chiefs. A third list I submitted was poorly conceived and not used, no loss. I'm working on three other lists now, and hope to whip them into submittable shape in a few weeks. This is fun!

In sympathy...

Our best wishes go out to the family of Protein Wisdom's Jeff Goldstein, on the recent passing of his father. These are some photos from Google's LIFE Magazine archive, keyword search "father".

June 22nd 1941, Operation Barbarossa begins...

I Gervinus Rothling have emptied life not from a glass but from a magnum. Have known history as I know my own skin. Have crossed and recrossed Europe like Napoleon's hordes, have seen Salonika burning and the face of an old man floating, smiling in the Grand Canal. I have smelled new wheat in the Carpathians and eaten eel, salt-cold from the Tyrrhenian Sea. I have passed my hands over the stone roses in the cloister at Albi and over a woman's hair in a cellar in Kharkov. A magnum, a Jeroboam, till it was empty. God how we lived! Each terrible year like a hundred ordinary years, like a thousand. He was true to his word. A thousand-year Reich inside each of us, a millennium of remembered life. We have left nothing for those who came after. That's our real crime. They are ghosts, plump ghosts, lean ghosts, the whole generation of them. Not their fault. We left them the cold ash of history, the skin of the grape. But I wouldn't trade. I wouldn't.
-- George Steiner, The Portage to San Cristobal of A. H., 1979

Fun with Google

1. Take a look around you, and pick an object, any object that you see. Then, go to images.google.com and search that object with the world "novelty" in front of it. Novelty computer mouse. Novelty teapot. Novelty ashtray. Anything! A great shopping aid.

2. Take the first name of someone you know. Then go to google and search the phrase "______ is a real piece of work", filling in the blank with the name. Then search "________ is a gem" You can also do this with a relative term, like wife, nephew, sister, etc. For lovers of gossip!

A global warming data point is revised

Yes, that Antarctic glacier is melting faster nowadays. But the Pine Island Glacier melt may not be due to global warming. A submersible research device found that it had been sitting on top of a previously unknown rocky ridge, which had heretofore blocked its progress. Now the glacier has separated from the ridge, and so the glacier is flowing unimpeded, and hence faster, into the sea, and therefore melting faster.

It'll be interesting to see if this finding holds up, and how it is worked into the greater skein of climatology. I wish I understood the math, so I could follow this discipline more attentively.

Deepwater Horizon hasn't finished collapsing yet?

An anonymous but seemingly knowledgeable commenter elseweb says that the worst is yet to come.

All the actions and few tid bits of information all lead to one inescapable conclusion. The well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking. Now you have some real data of how BP's actions are evidence of that, as well as some murky statement from "BP officials" confirming the same. [...] To those of us outside the real inside loop, yet still fairly knowledgeable, it was a major confirmation of what many feared. That the system below the sea floor has serious failures of varying magnitude in the complicated chain, and it is breaking down and it will continue to.

What does this mean?

It means they will never cap the gusher after the wellhead. They cannot...the more they try and restrict the oil gushing out the bop?...the more it will transfer to the leaks below. Just like a leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it. When you open up the nozzle?...it doesn't leak so bad, you close the nozzle?...it leaks real bad,
same dynamics. [...]

This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer's immense bulk of 450 tons. In fact?...we are beginning to the results of the well's total integrity beginning to fail due to the undermining being caused by the leaking well bore.

The first layer of the sea floor in the gulf is mostly lose material of sand and silt. It doesn't hold up anything and isn't meant to, what holds the entire subsea system of the Bop in place is the well itself. The very large steel connectors of the initial well head "spud" stabbed in to the sea floor. The Bop literally sits on top of the pipe and never touches the sea bed, it wouldn't do anything in way of support if it did. After several tens of feet the seabed does begin to support the well connection laterally (side to side) you couldn't put a 450 ton piece of machinery on top of a 100' tall pipe "in the air" and subject it to the side loads caused by the ocean currents and expect it not to bend over...unless that pipe was very much larger than the machine itself, which you all can see it is not. The well's piping in comparison is actually very much smaller than the Blow Out Preventer and strong as it may be, it relies on some support from the seabed to function and not literally fall over...and it is now showing signs of doing just that....falling over.

Dear God, what a shit-shower this is....

Pigs fly, the underworld freezes, and...

...Dhimmi U. acts against the formerly untouchable Muslim Student Union. For years, the MSU has freely romped all over that campus, engaging in recreational disruption and threats against non-Muslims, especially Jews. But it seems that even the granola gobbling multi-cultists running the University of California-Irvine have had enough now.

In making the suspension recommendation, Lisa Cornish, UC Irvine's director of student housing, found that the Muslim Student Union had "planned, orchestrated and coordinated in advance" an effort to disrupt a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren on Feb. 8 about U.S.-Israeli relations. The recommendation was made in late May but not made public at that time.

Oren was shouted down repeatedly by Muslim students who stood up and delivered statements such as "Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech." Supporters cheered as the students were escorted away by police, and each time Oren attempted to resume his speech, another student jumped up with another outburst.

Eleven UC Irvine and UC Riverside students were arrested and cited for disturbing a public event, but none have been criminally charged. The Muslim Student Union claimed the disruptions were caused by individuals and were not organized by their group.

Backstory:

Isaac Yerushalmi, former president of Anteaters for Israel, which sponsored Oren's appearance in February, said the Muslim Student Union has been "involved in repeated attempts to silence Jewish voices on campus."

And irony fail:

[Reem Salahi, the students' attorney] said she worried the recommendation could jeopardize Muslim life on campus. Victor Sanchez, president of the systemwide UC Student Assn., said he was outraged. "It's almost impossible not to interpret this as a means of the university to silence dissent," he said.

Remember, class: The West "invades". Islam "spreads". Many if not most Muslim immigrants come here for a better life, and to get away from both the government oppression and the fundamentalist crazies that bedevil their homelands. It's not so different a story from that of innumerable earlier waves of immigration. But their children? The tenured radicals are teaching the Muslim kids to despise America and her works, same as they're teaching our children. But in the Muslim case, there's an alternative to the standard leftist bullet points the faculty pushes. There's the dream of a resurgent caliphate and sharia law, imposed on believer and infidel alike. The wreckage wrought by the Destructive Generation can often be repaired merely by prolonged exposure to the real world, and enough 1040s under one's belt. But when The West Is Evil And Must Be Smashed is proclaimed by your college education and your ancestral faith, then hmmm...???

Harrumphs of approval here and here and of course here.

Thus far, and no farther.

Paypal drops Atlas Shrugs for TOS violation

I don’t much care for Pamela Geller's over-the-cliff manner or ideas. (Like, what is she actually going to do with any Muslims who take her up on the offer of sanctuary for leaving Islam?) And Paypal is a private company, not a government agency. Still, the whole point of protecting freedom of speech is that unpopular speech is included in that protection. The New Black Panther Party is sporting a paypal button, as of tonight.

Maybe Geller will have to hit the lecture circuit, to make ends meet.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is still a remarkable woman...

...and a walking refutation of the Left's more dangerous multi-culti delusions.

"Well, she was black, so they could not dismiss her as a racist; she had lived in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, The Netherlands and the United States, so they could not call her an ignorant provincial hick; she was an avowed atheist, so they could not call her a Christian bigot on a crusade against peaceful Islam; and she was multi-lingual, articulate, and brilliant, so they couldn’t just call her stupid. All the pejoratives they usually apply to people who disagree with them wouldn’t work, and so they were left to confront her ideas, and those ideas stripped them naked, rent their garments of superiority and condescension into tatters at their feet, and left them angry and confused, whining to each other in the corners of the room, unable to say anything to her face. Their favorite weapons, ad hominem name- calling and sneering condescension, were disarmed."

Roundup of Helen Thomas fallout...

Comedy first:

"Everyone with a cell phone thinks they're a photographer. Everyone with a laptop thinks they're a journalist. But they have no training and they have no idea of what we keep to in terms of standards."

More than 25 thousand hate emails have been sent--to the rabbi who busted her.

"These are people that feel very mainstream about anti-Semitism and hate. They feel so proud of it. There is an arrogance about it. There is no shame," Nesenoff said.

An aspiring pundit you've never heard of, who is also a self-described non-observant Jew, uses the kerfluffle for a little self-promotion.

For some, the outragey part of the outrage was the outrage displayed by those outraged by Thomas' comments. Shorter: libs are never very comfortable when the peasants answer back, and often warn of a chilling of free speech, when it happens. Kim Priestap over at Wizbangblog parses one such instance.

What to do with the Helen Thomas Award For Lifetime Achievement? The question awaits the photoshop muse of serr8d or Darleen Click.

Liberal and progressive defenders of Thomas complained that she was taken out of context. Well, imagine this scene: A parcel of land is bought by, say, Wal-Mart. It is graded and prepped for the construction of a store. But, homeless people move in and set up a squatters' camp on the construction site. In the ensuing legal set-to, guess which side the libs & proggs would take, the self-same libs & proggs who want to kick the Jews--oops, the settlers--out of Israel altogether?

Thomas has been a long time hard lefty pretending to be an objective journalist. Throughout the Bush administration, it was hard to tell if Thomas was a White House correspondent or a reporter working for Al Jazeera. Now that she has put herself out to pasture, she can spend her time going to all those far left rallies where she can support illegal immigration, socialism and support Hamas all day long.

Don’t let the door catch your tail on the way out Helen!

Random Rock Bloggage

Everyone's seen this already, but it gets better every time I watch it. So, here it is once again. It isn't displaying properly, so double click it to proceed to its home at YouTube.



Perpetuum Jazzile, Toto, Africa

Liberals: "Unless the terrorists win, the terrorists will have won"

At a view clip of 100,000 hits in two days, chances are that you've already seen this Pat Condell video.



And if you flipped on the news today, you probably saw this news item:

Two New Jersey men were arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport as they were allegedly trying to board separate flights to Egypt on their way to join the terrorist group Al Shabaab and wage "violent jihad" against people outside the U.S., prosecutors said Sunday.

But possibly you didn't see this opinion piece by Richard Bernstein in the NYT last week.

“Fatwa on your head?” the ad reads, in a message apparently aimed at Muslims who want to convert to another religion or simply not to be Muslims anymore. “Is your family or community threatening you?”

Now, I don't trust histrionic blogger Pamela Geller, who is pushing this ad campaign, for much of anything. She still calls Obama a Muslim, for goodness sakes. Yet, capital punishment for apostate Muslims is no invention of hers. The Rifqa Bary circus was, well, it was a circus. But plenty of young Muslim women, not all of them overseas, have been murdered by male family members for less than whatever she was fleeing.

Read the piece yourself. The author concedes pretty much every salient point. Yes, radical Islam is a murderous plague. Yes, the much-hypothesized moderate Muslims are stubbornly silent about it. Yes, there is a stealth jihad lurking in the mosques of America. Yes, honor killing and capital punishment of apostates are uniquely Muslim horrors. But. But, but, but...Admitting those things, and then drawing conclusions from them, making your synapses fire in the same direction as a disdained Red Stater, well that's just too much, apparently. Much more comforting to fall back into the condescending--and safe--liberal habit of bemoaning the stereotypical "vicious cycle", instead:

If there are more terrorist attempts by Muslims on American soil, there will be more Americans paying for bus ads and other things to express their rage at Islam itself as well as at Muslims in America, and to encourage the idea that America is, or ought to be, its and their enemy.

This of course is exactly what the jihadists want them to do. The more we make all Muslims our enemies, the more enemy Muslims we are going to have.

No. Their attacks on us sprang from their own evil hearts, not from anything we did or said. 9/11 was not a wake-up call for me; Jihadists have been murdering Jews and Americans my whole adult life, long before that September morn. If there are more terrorist attacks on American soil, Muslims will be thanking God that the public's response will be no stronger than bus ads. They as well as libs know full well how religious minorities are treated in Muslim lands, and thus ought to realize the fundamental decency of the American people. But evil needs only the slenderest of excuses to urge itself into motion.

Thus far, and no farther.

Random Rock Bloggage

"Pure and Easy" would be a career high for most bands. For The Who, it's an outtake--a remarkable example of how scary fecund Pete Townshend's muse was at The Who's early 70s peak. I don't normally enjoy cover versions of their songs, but this band--who are they, anyway?--have really caught the spirit, IMHO.

Pack mentality

I'm reading internet guru Jaron Lanier's new book, You Are Not A Gadget. I confess that it's taken me some time to not be put off by Mr. Lanier's appearance: usually, the sight of white guys in dreadlocks holding forth on abstract social issues just sets my eyes rolling. But, I've managed to get past that reaction--he is a columnist in my favorite science magazine, after all--and so I've curled up with the book, respectfully listening to what he has to say. I may attempt a review of it for Amazon, later.

So I was reading along, and encountered this passage:

There are recognizable stages in the degradation of anonymous, fragmentary communication. If no pack has emerged, then individuals start to fight. The is what happens all the time in online settings. A later stage appears once a pecking order is established. Then the members of the pack become sweet and supportive of one another even as they goad one another into ever more intense hatred of nonmembers.

I've been online for fifteen years, and I confess that I am not innocent, in either sense of the word, of this phenomenon. To howl and spray-mark among like-minded peers is one of the attractions of forums on the internet, after all. As I grow older, I like to think that I've become more receptive to engaging people of differing views in a civil way, without turning into one of those apathetic types who just don't care anymore about what happens in the world.

But think of a real life pack, for a moment. Have you ever seen a nature doco, where the top hyena or baboon or whatever gets killed, and then the other beasties squabble for some time afterwards, until a new leader emerges, and then things settle down? Something broadly similar happened to one of my formerly favorite blogs, Little Green Footballs. Only instead of the leader being deposed, it was the pack.

I was banned from LGF about two months ago, details here, if you're interested. I haven't been back since. I don't do the stalker thing, and I couldn't see myself pressing my palms and nose up against the glass of the locked door. I've moved on, though I still miss many of the commenters there, of all political persuasions.

Back to the Lanier passage. The original cohort of commentators at LGF, as it hit the big time in the mid-Aughties, were right-wing anti-jihadists, including me. They grew in number and vehemence as LGF became more prominent. Now, we come to each stage of our lives as apprentices. For a long time, Charles Johnson the proprietor seemed to think it sufficient to feature a disclaimer at the top of the comments, and delete the more egregious comments occasionally.

But then came the now-famous revolution in his attitudes. He became more alarmed & repulsed by some of the people ranged alongside him than by the jihadists opposite him. A careful study of the evidence led him to accept the reality of human-caused global climate change. Didn't really bother me; I had always considered him as a real, thinking person, rather than just an internet brand gone all New Coke-y. But long-time participants started getting banned--the details are familiar to any likely readers of this piece--and the commentariat started shifting leftwards, by attrition and replacement. By the time I was booted, liberals and leftists were coming into the ascendancy, and conservatives were keeping their heads down, when not being banned weekly. The old pack had been dispersed, and a new pack was coalescing.

Sidebar: A certain prominent LGF commenter has acquired a reputation as an enforcer on the comment threads. If she's reading, she may think that I harbor resentment towards her. I do not. She didn't ban me; Charles did. She didn't "out" me; I was never hiding. She may remember the volleys of profanity she hurled at me on a number of occasions, and succumb to the natural tendency of projection, and imagine that I was equally hostile with her. It isn't so. It was quickly obvious that we were never going to be best buddies, she and I, but for all the times we crossed cursors, there were other quite friendly exchanges. If she tries hard, she may even remember instances where I made extra efforts to help her celebrate her new life together with one lizardoid, or to make peace with still another.

"...the members of the pack become sweet and supportive of one another even as they goad one another into ever more intense hatred of nonmembers." As the community stood early this year, most of the LGF commenters were decent folks, appreciative of the chance to engage people of opposing views in a mostly civil, mostly intelligent manner, most of the time. But there were enough of the afore-mentioned "enforcers" to make one feel that this balance was temporary, and unanimity would once again be the insisted-upon norm. Everyone would once again be running with the pack.

New cars, old cars....

I hope Chrysler stays in business and continues employing thousands of American workers. But you know, I wouldn't have another Chrysler vehicle if I won it in a raffle. First one I owned was my parents' hand-me-down Dodge Coronet 500. Loved it, but I crashed it one year shy of when it would've been an official antique. Next was a 1986 Plymouth Voyager. A 4-cylinder, it burned up the head gasket every 18 months. Next was a 1992 Acclaim. I took good care of it, but it fell apart like a Shriners clown car. No more for me. I can't afford cheap cars anymore.

So next I bought a used Ford Taurus. It was an off-rental vehicle. I've had it for twelve years, but for the past five it's been three hundred dollaring me to death. I'd have to say that I've gotten my money's worth out of it, but it's coming to the end of its service life. However, I had to get rid of my quote-unquote "good" vehicle recently, a Taurus wagon. The sedan is just worn out, but the wagon was just never much good in the first place. It was manufactured during a period when Ford was investing its talents into its truck and SUV line, and shirking on the car line. The last straw was when it developed multiple fluid leaks. I spent a fortune to fix it, and then not three days later the catalytic converter died. It would have cost double to fix that. I supposed I could have fought the dealership's service department over it, but I had had enough. I bid the old scow a tear-free farewell just three weeks ago, and breathed a silent wish that whatever jalopy lot buys it at the auto auction will not rip off anyone with it. And that's also the end of my ownership of Fords, for the foreseeable future.

Fortunately for me, Toyota's present woes presented a bottom-feeding opportunity, and I bought a new Camry at a decent price. I still see plenty of fifteen and twenty year old Accords and Camrys on the road. Tauruses and Acclaims and Voyagers of that vintage? Not so much, and it's obvious to me that the people driving those old junk buckets are living on nickels and dimes.

So, even though I have a great new vehicle, I still have to buy a replacement for my older Ford. At 150K+ miles, I don't want to wait for it to die. Later on this year I'll buy another new car. I'm thinking a Hyundai Sonata, equipped with a turbo. A turbo-charged Sonata--five years ago that would have sounded almost ungrammatical, wouldn't it? I'm not savvy enough to find & negotiate a good deal on a quality used car, I'm afraid. My wagon came from Carmax--the transaction was pleasant, as advertised. But I'll remember the trouble it caused me long after I forget the amount of money I saved, if any.

Ugh...

I heard Glenn Beck on the radio the other day, jeering over Al and Tipper Gore's divorce. Cheap, cheap, cheap...I would never wish domestic unhappiness on anyone, no matter what their politics.

A bit of marriage advice from an unlikely source...

From Eric Knight, Lassie Come Home, 1940

"Just afore we go in, Joe," he said, "I want thee to think on thy mother. Tha's growing up, and tha must try to be like a man to her and understand her."

"Now women, Joe, they're not like men. They have to stay home, women do, and manage as best they can. And what they haven't got--well, they've got to spend time in wishing for."

"And when things don't go right, well, they have to take it out in talk and give a man hot words. But if a man's really got any gumption, he gives 'em that much. For he knows a woman really doesn't mean owt by it when she natters and nags and lets her tongue go. So tha mustn't mind it when thy mother talks hard at me, or if she sometimes snaps at thee. She's got a lot to put with these days, and it tries her patience."

I am the breadwinner for our family, and am very grateful that the children have a stay at home mother. If she worked, we'd just spend it all on childcare anyway, so what's the diff?

But she does feel stifled and frustrated sometimes. She sees things that I do that she feels she could do better. And, as far descended into the vale of years as I am, I still bristle with a thin-skinned flush of adolescent defensiveness when that happens. I've slowly learned to just let her vent, quit congratulating myself for being patient under the birching, & try harder to see things her way. An ongoing struggle, one of the many little trials & triumphs that have bound us together.

A couple of generic Xanax tablets don't hurt either, some days... :\

Memorial Day event

Did anyone go to any of the commemorations? I went to the one in my area, and guess who the featured speaker was? General Russell Honore', the hero of the Katrina aftermath, the man who gave us the catchphrase "Don't get stuck on 'stupid'!"

Oil spill live cam

I can't watch. But, here's the video feed, in case you can. God, how awful this disaster is. And yet, we will surely drill the planet dry of oil before the Age Of Petroleum is over. We'll drill our ancestors' graves if we have to.
This is one video post of mine that I hope goes dark very, very soon.

They grow so fast...

My oldest became taller than her mommy this past winter. Seems like yesterday I was giving her horsey rides to her bed. (Actually it *was* yesterday. Oof!!)

And she's going to be an absolute stunner when she grows up. Tall, willowy figure; mysterious feline eyes, one of those soft horse-faces that Hollywood goes for nowadays, and for which Alfred Stieglitz would have abandoned Georgia O'Keeffe.

I sure hope I can guide her through her tween and preteen years safely. She's a great kid, smart & talented & no trouble at school. But, at home, it sometimes seems like she went straight from terrible twos to mouthy adolescence. Sometimes, when she flies into one of her little rages, she searches for something valuable to destroy. All the while I'm thinking, I hope she's well into adulthood before she discovers that the most valuable thing she could destroy is herself.

Still, childhood should be a journey, not a race. Her life is like anyone else's, a course of little trials and little triumphs. I'm so proud to see her grow and achieve; I hope to God that these years will instill resilience into her, for the road yet to come.

Just an early Father's Day thought....

Nic-jacked!

My nic, The Sanity Inspector, has been forged by a racist on usenet, who is spewing his filth in my two favorite groups. Grrr... Fortunately, everyone there knows me well enough to realize that this is not me. Hope Google's net cops can have these things taken down pronto.

California bleeding jobs

Here's a striking list of companies that have bugged out of California. The authors of the list obviously have an agenda, but it's still appalling to see so many employers seeking less onerous places to set up shop. Enjoy your granola, greenies...

Thomas Friedman once again wishes to be king--I mean, China--for a day

The thing that admirers of what they imagine to be benevolent despots forget is this: When dictators close off the public input loop and just bull ahead, they can do as much untold harm as whatever good they might do. There was no public brake on the Soviet Union's industrial diktats, so they wound up with dustbowls, Chernobyl, and the withered Aral Sea. There are villages in China whose groundwater is poisoned by industrial chemicals--and the voiceless inhabitants are forbidden to move away. Friedman & Co.'s daydreaming that surely they, their own anointed selves, would get things right, betrays a monumental lack of respect for the American people, and an equally monumental inflated sense of their own probity.

Draw Mohammed Day

I'm not participating, because I'm not altogether comfortable with gratuitously insulting The Prophet just to make a point. (I'm also not participating because I can't draw.) This dealy-bob puts me in mind of a scene from Israel's war of independence, from the book O Jerusalem:

"Lieutenant Fendi Omeish took a last look through the 25 pounder's gunsight. It was pointed straight at the center of Notre Dame's façade. "Try not to hit Mariam," he told his Moslem gunners, who had, too, a certain veneration for the Virgin. Then he ordered the shelling to begin."

Gallant, that. I do hate and fear the prospect of creeping shariazation. But I'd rather fight battles like this on more consequential issues. No, Muslims; you can't have a separate swimming pool. You don't get your own break room and extra time off during the day. Yes, Muslims; you have to remove your veil to have your driver's license taken. Yes, you have to take that taxi fare even though he's just come out of a bar. The law of the land of the free trumps your stern Dark Ages total plan for everyone else's life. Cope, or leave. Or as the Old Testament says, "Thus far and no farther will you come. Here your proud waves must stop."

Ringo! Oh, Ringo!

I win the bad timing daddy award of the month. My son had been sporting a splendid Beatles mop all spring, until I finally sat him down in the kitchen and sheared it off. The next week he got his assignment for the Living Wax Museum at school, where he writes a report on someone and dresses up like that person. His topic? Ringo Starr.

Saudi woman beats up virtue cop

Good. Hope she doesn't wind up getting lashed. This doesn't bring back the schoolgirls that these gendarmes forced back into a burning school because they were under-dressed. But it's something.

Zimbabwe preparing "ark" for North Korea's dictator

Via One Free Korea, comes news that dictator Robert Mugabe is rounding up wildlife from a preserve, to send to Kim Jong-il for a private zoo. International animal lovers are in an uproar, and rightly so. But, cynical me thinks the following: The outrage is only because wildlife is being affected. Mugabe is a lefty dictator. If he were sending, say, human prisoners to NK, to be committed to forced labor there, he'd get a complete pass from Western proggs.

Happy Fifth Birthday to YouTube

Congrats to the most influential website of the past half-decade!

Prize quip left on the guest comments: "This congratulation not available in your country."

Random Rock Bloggage

Mother's Finest, from their late 70s peak. Download this rascal before the German copyright polizei have it taken down!

No praying over government food?!?!?

Who can ever forget the turbulent political climate, that time years ago when we had a big national referendum and voted to excise "...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" from the Third Amendment to the Constitution? The marches, the shouting on the Sunday roundtable shows, the raucous townhall meetings, the impassioned op-ed columns. Well, at least they let us vote on it, even though it didn't go our way.*

Doesn't make things like this go down easier. Who would ever expect that people would be forbidden from praying out loud, while chewing on federally-funded chicken florentine.

Georgia Seniors Told They Can't Pray Before Meals

Tim Rutherford, Senior Citizens Inc. vice president, said some of his staff recently visited the center and noticed people praying shortly before lunch was served. Rutherford said his company provides meals like baked chicken, steak tips and rice and salads at a cost of about $6 a plate. Seniors taking the meals pay 55 cents and federal money foots the rest of the bill, Rutherford said.

"We can't scoff at their rules," he said of federal authorities. "It's a part of the operational guidelines."

Rutherford said the moment of silence was introduced to protect that funding. He said although the change may have been misinterpreted, perhaps his company could have done a better job selling it.

"It's interpreted that we're telling people that they can't pray, but we aren't saying that," he said. "We're asking them to pray to themselves. Have that moment of silence."

Step by step, inch by inch, ratchet turn by ratchet turn...


*As if!

Via What's Wrong With The World

Hispanic teacher exhorts Los Angeles students to revolution

Despicable, of course.

My objection to illegal immigration is this: The United States is a nation of laws. Mexico, and no few other latin American countries are governed para la mordida. Having millions of people living here who, more from acculturation than malice, have no respect for the law, can't help but spell trouble down the road. A societal ethos of honesty, integrity, and fair play becomes quite conspicuous in its absence.

The La Raza revanchists only make the situation more stark, in my mind.

Nanny statism strikes again

Financially, California is over the guardrails and plunging down the cliff side towards the rocks and booming surf. Businesses and productive citizens are fleeing as fast as their U-Hauls can take them. So, the stewards of Santa Clara felt that this was high time to do something about...Happy Meals. Nevermind how popular McDonalds is with people of all ages. The granola-gobbling hippies (I can't help but presume) running that county have deemed that the public cannot be trusted to use their own judgment of what to put into their reckless tummies.

Happy Meal toys and other promotions that come with high-calorie children's meals will soon be banned in parts of Santa Clara County unless the restaurants meet nutritional guidelines approved Tuesday by the county Board of Supervisors.

"This ordinance prevents restaurants from preying on children's' love of toys" to sell high-calorie, unhealthful food, said Supervisor Ken Yeager, who sponsored the measure. "This ordinance breaks the link between unhealthy food and prizes."

Legislation like this is not intended to right any wrong. It is not intended to ameliorate any ill, although it is necessarily pitched as such. Rather, it is intended to remake the world more to the suiting of people who feel it to be their calling to remake the world. Just because. It's a picture-perfect example of what has been termed Punitive Liberalism, a way to cut down to size one of those big players that everyone hates, except for the public.

We are frequently told by our new masters that we simply don't understand our place in the functioning of society. In former times, it would have been this kind of society that didn't understand its place in the functioning of us. Yet, here we are. They won.

Goldman Sachs Senate Hearings

The fat cats have been bawled out by the Senators, and are now testifying. Their statements remind me of the saying, "Every snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty."

Random Rock Bloggage

I saw some of this Canned Heat performance from 1973 on Comcast's On Demand channel a couple of months ago. Now here they are on YouTube. Nothing brings back the early 70 like a group of furballs moaning the blues, especially when accompanied by a blues legend. Great stuff!

What I saw at the revolution...

"Now he was master of China. His coming [to Hangzhou, near Shanghai] had been suitably prepared. A famous turn-of-the-century estate called Water and Bamboo had been picked for him. It was adorned with ponds and bamboo groves, and vines and palm trees, and enjoyed a panoramic view over the Western Lake. Villas next to it, and the hills behind it, were all incorporated into a single enormous estate, covering 36 hectares. The hill behind was hollowed out to provide a nuclear shelter. Mao stayed in an exquisite building, combining classical Chinese and exotic foreign styles, with pillars, doors and decorations which had been lovingly shipped in piece by piece by the original owner. But shortly afterwards, Mao had it torn down and replaced with his usual nondescript identikit structure. The creaking of the old timber had rattled his nerves with thoughts about assassins. He only felt safe in a reinforced concrete bunker."
-- Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story

New 4G Apple iPhone

What a modern world we live in, eagerly awaiting the latest glowing rectangle...

Random Rock Bloggage

A funny mashup of The Beatles and the spoof group The Rutles:

The morality of communism?!?!?

So the other day I clicked onto P.Z. Myers' Pharyngula blog and read this entry, about a three-way presentation featuring him, a liberal priest, and a communist. My eyebrows shot up on that bit alone. Not that he consented to share the air with the priest, but with a communist. Communism is the most murderous form of government ever devised, vengefully doing away with more of humanity than all the inquisitions and such in all of history. I would have refused to appear on such a program, or would have ripped off my lapel mike and walked off, upon learning that a co-speaker was a proponent of such a system. By now I know you can't argue with an epiphany. Everyone rightfully execrates race hatred and ethnic hatred. However, it's class hatred that has racked up the big league body count in this past century.

Dr. Myers was milder, and more ambivalent:

[Sunsara] Taylor's position was very similar in a lot of ways — that we need to change the world through liberation of the oppressed, and the way to do that was through revolutionary Communism. In her case, though, the philosophical justification wasn't at all superfluous — Communism was the best strategy for bringing about change. We had a little set of questions we'd worked out before the event, and she had the advantage of us all in providing the most coherent answers to them…I just don't think she's entirely right. I don't like the idea of a revolution led by a vanguard, I'm more of an evolution driven by the education and inspiration of the masses kind of guy.

It's as if he's unaware that communism isn't a hypothetical thing. It existed. It held the reins of government in many countries. It killed tens of millions of people, and ruined the lives of tens of millions more, and warped the inner lives of tens of millions more than that. This happened.

Oh, turns out he is aware:

I find it a little hard to excuse some of the human costs of communism, but then science also has had human costs.

If you want to call that weak tea "awareness." I know nothing of Dr. Myers' personal politics, and so will not speculate. But for someone who bangs on so much about the depredations of Christianity over the centuries, there's no valid reason for him to soft pedal the exponentially greater harm done by communism.

He continues:

The quest for social justice is a humanist ideal, and it's also front and center in communism and liberal religion; you can be either of those and also be a humanist. I wouldn't exactly call them complementary, but I would call them compatible.

It's as if he has never heard of the monstrosity known as Lysenkoism, wherein science most certainly did conflict with communism. And came out quite the loser, in fact. Could Dr. Myers envision himself among the scientists in the communist era, being required to sign declarations denouncing colleagues that had been singled out for victimization by the Party? Could he imagine seeing colleagues be executed for having taken an insufficiently marxist opinion of the formation of sunspots? Could he imagine himself having to parrot the precepts of "scientific marxism" at political indoctrination sessions? Could he imagine himself fleeing for his life to the West, once his life became unbearable under communism? Incredible...

Scrolling through the comments, I see that some of these same facts are known to a few of his commenters. There's also a few people floating once again the lie that Lenin's communism was a good idea perverted by his successor Stalin. No. The only difference was in degree. Stalin upped the body count thanks to his longer reign. It was the fulfillment, not the perversion, of the original revolution. Few of them seem to have any problem with the fundamental premise that there are people worthy, booted and spurred, to ride their fellows in the cause of "changing the world". And why is that? Who are they to change the world? It was here first. They'll have to present more credentials than their own ignorance of history.

Finding and verifying quotations on the web

Try to use a proprietary database like LitFinder, if you have access to one. If you're stuck searching the web though, here's a way to improve your chances. Google your phrase or keywords, and add "filetype:pdf". This will exclude all the html web sources like Brainyquote and ThinkExist, which are not rigorously sourced. The resulting pdf files will often be from actual print publications, wherein you will have a better chance of finding a solid source. You can also do filetype:txt, which will net you online texts from The Gutenberg Project and similar sources.

Freaknik returns to Atlanta

Grrr, these aren't displaying properly. Click on the pics for the full view.




It probably won't be so gigantic as it was in the 90s. But the black students' spring break was a huge phenomenon back then. There were so many thousands of kids, cruising the downtown streets, videotaping each other. Atlanta was not equipped to handle so many partiers, unlike a more traditional spring break destination like Daytona Beach. And also, let's face it, a lot of the commuters from the topside 'burbs were creeped out at being stuck in the middle of such vast crowds of black people. Nevermind that it was the local thugs who caused most of the actual trouble.

Anyway, I hope the city is better prepared this time, and that all involved have a great holiday. Here are some pictures I took of Freaknik in the 90s.

Happy Income Tax Day!

England, however, as it has never been blessed with a very parsimonious government, so parsimony has at no time been the characteristical virtue of its inhabitants. It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.
-- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

Conclusions of the report on the Climate Research Unit & their data handling

Via Stoat science blog

Conclusions1. We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it. Rather we found a small group of dedicated if slightly disorganised researchers who were ill-prepared for being the focus of public attention. As with many small research groups their internal procedures were rather informal.

2. We cannot help remarking that it is very surprising that research in an area that depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians. Indeed there would be mutual benefit if there were closer collaboration and interaction between CRU and a much wider scientific group outside the relatively small international circle of temperature specialists.

3. It was not the immediate concern of the Panel, but we observed that there were important and unresolved questions that related to the availability of environmental data sets. It was pointed out that since UK government adopted a policy that resulted in charging for access to data sets collected by government agencies, other countries have followed suit impeding the flow of processed and raw data to and between researchers. This is unfortunate and seems inconsistent with policies of open access to data promoted elsewhere in government.

4. A host of important unresolved questions also arises from the application of Freedom of Information legislation in an academic context. We agree with the CRU view that the authority for releasing unpublished raw data to third parties should stay with those who collected it.
Submitted to the University 12 April 2010

A quote by Marcus Aurelius

Think of the myriad enmities that have vanished with the men who held them and fret no more.

What can Israel do for Holocaust survivors?

Slip 'em a little folding money:

On the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, the cabinet is slated to approve in its Sunday meeting a significant reduction in electricity prices for 7,180 needy Shoah survivors. According to the plan, the State will fund about half the cost of each survivor's first 400 kWh. The percentage of the final reduction will be determined by the ministers of welfare, finance and infrastructure along with the Electricity Authority.

My first automotivational poster

Finally got around to playing with this gadget. I don't even remember where I went to produce it. The photo is ripped off from Britain's Daily Mirror. You're welcome to it, just shoot me a little link love, if you would.

Racism

In the small Southern town I grew up in, there is a monument, erected in the mid-1930s. It is a memorial to the men from that town who lost their lives in "The World War", i.e., WWI. There is an alphabetical list of names down the front, and another list of alphabetical names down the back. At the top of the back list, there is a gouge, where an engraving has been erased. Know what it used to say, before it was chiseled out?

It used to say "Colored".

That's what racism is, and that's the attitude and practice that was beaten out of the hearts of most people during the Civil Rights Movement. The academic vice of screaming louder and louder over less and less just trivializes the real battles that came before.

How much do people need to know about politicians' private lives?

Would Britain have won World War II faster if the public had known that Winston Churchill ate nine bananas a day? This segment from a British chat show concerns an incident where Prime Minister Gordon Brown wept during an interview.



Former National Review columnist Florence King used to deplore this sort of sentimentality years ago. Emotional incontinence, indeed. If she's still on the scene somewhere, no doubt she'd be agreeably appalled to see this American phenomenon spreading to Britain.

Newsweek: Catholic priests are no more pedophiliac than anyone else.

The priesthood is being cast as the refuge of pederasts. In fact, priests seem to abuse children at the same rate as everyone else.

That isn't the alibi I'd care to be sporting, if I were a priest. They are held to higher expectations that "everyone else", after all. Yet, so desperate are the defenders of the Catholic Church for good press, that as of this writing New Advent has this headline at the top of their webpage, emblazoned in Victory In Europe point font. I don't think they realize how sordid or at least sad their trumpeting of this story make them look.

"...the closer approximation of knowledge and aspiration"

"It is absolutely certain that the world will once again some day achieve what it has often had and often lost--the closer approximation of knowledge and aspiration--so that its religious system may satisfy the soul of the saint without disgusting the intellect of the scholar. What is uncertain is whether this achievement will be made by any form of organised Christianity or is reserved for some movement which cannot at present be recognised."
-- Kirsopp Lake, Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity, 1920

That was 90 years ago, where do we stand now? And what are our prospects?

A bit of good advice from C. H. Spurgeon...

...who was a theologian in Britain about 150 years ago. This quote boosted from here.

“A man who is to do much with men must love them and feel at home with them. An individual who has no geniality about him had better be an undertaker and bury the dead, for he will never succeed in influencing the living. . . . A man must have a great heart, if he would have a great congregation. His heart should be as capacious as those noble harbors along our coast, which contain sea-room for a fleet. When a man has a large, loving heart, men go to him as ships to a haven and feel at peace when they have anchored under the lee of his friendship. Such a man is hearty in private as well as in public; his blood is not cold and fishy but he is warm as your own fireside. No pride and selfishness chill you when you approach him; he has his doors all open to receive you, and you are home with him at once. Such men I would persuade you to be, every one of you.”

C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to my Students

You needn't be a pastor to put this advice to good use. Almost any daily contact with the public at large will go the better for it.

Rainbow Eucalyptus

What in the world could cause nature to produce this?

The Jawa Report and the Mudville Gazette...

...take down the Wikileaks narrative of the helicopter attack on insurgents. Here and here and here.

We've come too far to let the news media lose this war for us now, as they long to do like their sainted Vietnam War predecessors did.

P. J. O'Rourke on foreign aid, from World Affairs Journal

A hundred years ago, when foreign aid was unthought-of (except as a tribute or bribe), we were a respected and admired country. After a century of philanthropy, everyone hates our guts.

A laser that traces boundaries, physical and drawn

I don't see a way of embedding this clip, so click here:

http://www.yourdailymedia.com/media/1249932113/Crazy_Weird_Lazer

"That's our neighbor!"

The proprietors of Froynlaven make a discovery on Oscar night:

Yep. Turns out, the guy that lives two doors down won for best cinematography for Avatar. Go fig. We've waved a couple of times, but that's about it. His trash barrels look a lot like ours. However, now when I see his trash barrels, I will see the barrels of someone who has won an Academy Award.

Those are some amazing barrels.

Mark Twain

"A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when at last it comes."

Farewell to my account at Little Green Footballs

Today I have come to the end of the road with LGF, where I've been a regular commenter since summer of '02. I was canceled for my defense of a notorious cartoon posted by a guest blogger over at Protein Wisdom, where I've been a regular commenter since '02 and a guest blogger since '06. The cartoon post & my response was too much for Charles and several others, and so, once some other commenters brought it to his attention, my account was revoked.

I will keep LGF in my blogroll over there, because it is still one of the best forums out there for conservatives and liberals to meet & interact on even terms. Not being willing to overstate my significance in the grand scheme of things, I would have to say that this is still true even with my absence.

I won't be showing up on any quote-unquote stalker blogs, in case anyone's interested. Which is not at all the same thing as avoiding ex-LGFers, since there are so, so many of them out there.

So, to all lizardoids, fair winds and following seas.



Addendum: Looking more closely, it seems that Charles was unaware until now that I had been posting at PW, and that that by itself would have been the deal-breaker. Kind of strange, since I never hid my comings and goings, posting everywhere under my own nic, and have stuck to pretty much the same political sites for the better part of ten years. So, it looks like the law of averages caught up to me.

I still stand by the rest of this post, though. YMMV.

100 Chinese miners rescued

An unexpected ending to the usual depressing set-piece. Over 100 miners rescued after being trapped for a week in a flooded Chinese mine. A nice change of pace from the usual narrative, from the Land Of Disposable Labor.

In which G. K. Chesterton foresees much of the 20th Century

This is the whole danger of our time. There is a difference between the oppression which has been too common in the past and the oppression which seems only too probable in the future. Oppression in the past, has commonly been an individual matter. The oppressors were as simple as the oppressed, and as lonely. The aristocrat sometimes hated his inferiors; he always hated his equals. The plutocrat was an individualist. But in our time even the plutocrat has become a Socialist. They have science and combination, and may easily inaugurate a much greater tyranny than the world has ever seen.
-- from All Things Considered, 1908

On recent ugly developments in certain blog wars...

Before thou reprehend another, take heed thou art not culpable in what thou goest about to reprehend. He that cleanses with blotted fingers makes a greater blur.
-- Francis Quarles

When the elephants fight, it's the grass that is trampled.
-- African proverb

Contre la Frenglish!

One of the never-ending chores of the Académie Française is policing the French language of all the borrowed English barbarisms that keep sneaking in. It's been going on for decades, as English solidified its hold as the world's language. Now here they are again, voting on French equivalents for Internet Age terms.

Years ago I read of a similar effort, for a similar reason. How were they going to accomplish it? "Avec un task-force."

Health Care Reform: the worms in the apple emerge

MSNBC tries to debunk objections to the HCR law. The headline says "myths", but they're forced to admit that most of them have something to them. "Partially not true". "Mostly false". Squirm baby, squirm...

Update: Over the course of the day, they changed "myths" to "fears". Smart media liberals...

Happy Good Friday

"Romantic love is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ’s love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ’s love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering which Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one."
-- Frederick Buechner

Via Lent & Beyond.

Another liberal arts major enters the job market...

In 1594, being then seventeen years of age, I finished my courses of philosophy and was struck with the mockery of taking a degree in arts. I therefore thought it more profitable to examine myself and I perceived that I really knew nothing worth knowing. I had only to talk and wrangle and therefore refused the title of master of arts, there being nothing sound or true that I was master of. I turned my thoughts to medicine and learned the emptiness of books. I went abroad and found everywhere the same deep-rooted ignorance.
-- Jan-Baptista Van Helmont, 1648 (a posthumous collection of works), in Jacques Barzun's _From Dawn to Decadence_, 2000