Friday, September 21. 2007
 Captain Ed:
It’s a particularly sad commentary on the Democratic Party that they cannot bring themselves to support the very commander they sent to lead American troops in battle by a unanimous vote. It’s not a case of a few fringe politicians like Bernie Sanders or Barbara Boxer, either. The Majority Leader, Harry Reid, and his chief deputy, Dick Durbin, refused to condemn the smear on Petraeus’ honor. Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd, both of whom want to become Commander in Chief over the military, chose to endorse MoveOn’s smear campaign against a man who has dedicated his life to defending this nation and serving presidents in a nonpartisan manner.
A Commander in Chief cannot dishonor the military: they are the only thing between us and the barbarians. What more can be said? As Bob Grant often says on the radio, "It's sick out there, and getting sicker."
The al-Dura case, it seems to me, matters a great deal. Sarkozy seems willing to let the chips fall where they may, unlike Chirac. Pallywood and Jihad in general have become expert manipulators of Western media (and eager liars), but this piece of probable acting helped create a firestorm which the truth, when it emerges, will never have the power to extinguish. Update on the story at EU Referendum.
Raw humor in bad taste: Language is questionable for work - depending on where you work. Note: Posting The Guy from Boston should not necessarily be construed as an endorsement of any of his views, but rather as a vigorous rant from a regular fellow.
 Mexican illegals flee to Canada. And France puts a halt to immigration. Raven
Ahmadinejad and ROTC at Columbia. Tigerhawk The NYT presents amazingly biased scare article about the Arctic summer ice melt, but concludes with this sentence (h/t, piece at Wizbang): Sea ice around Antarctica has seen unusual winter expansions recently, and this week is near a record high.
Hillary: "I am not a lesbian." From Insty: KATHLEEN PARKER: "The latest smack-down of former Harvard President Lawrence Summers should extinguish any remaining doubt that political correctness is the new McCarthyism."
Under-read rant of the week: The News Junkie on Big Soap, Big Tractor, etc. Image: From Theo's When it is OK to use the f word
Materialists and madmen never have doubts. G.K. Chesterton
Aimee at Historical Christian takes a detailed look at the past and present role of much-maligned and historically-abused indulgences (h/t, Dr. Bob). I do not know a lot about Catholic practice, but I liked what I read. I am a somewhat religious man. I worship and seek a relationship with a God of Truth and Mercy, through Jesus. I believe that sin is sin, and that action is required to undo it. I believe that sin alienates us from God and from our fellow humans. I believe that we are all sinners - but that's no excuse. Indulgences, which are a current Roman Catholic practice, are part of the way sin can be addressed. One quote: The practice of indulgences dates to the very earliest days of the Church, where it existed in nascent form (though the term “indulgence” did not come into use until later). It is based on revelation, is closely associated with repentance and forgiveness of sins, and the understanding and practice of it has and continues to develop. From the beginning it was a spiritual practice and did not involve money, but primarily involved prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to the poor. It wasn’t until around the 11th century (when Europe was moving from a barter economy to a money economy, and money became more widespread) that a donation of money to the Church according to one’s means, as a work of charity, began to be accepted as a spiritual practice that could result in an indulgence.
Read the whole, meaty thing. (It is fitting, but just by chance, that I post this on Yom Kippur.)
 Greenies turn against biofuels. Right they are. EU Referendum
A new cancer treatment? This is interesting. Does AQ take courage from the defeatists? Obviously. Yes, the people who use children as human shields. Any doubt that Iraq is a proxy war with Iran? Riehl Would Mexico allow us to do this in Mexico? Some, like Jawa, hate Rudy for his past gun stands. I will forgive him that, if he repents.
Thursday, September 20. 2007
Protein Wisdom begins with this quote from Hanson, What is stranger is why Columbia university tried to invite a terrorist to speak who denies the first holocaust and advocates a second one. This is not a matter of free speech but of common decency and the most elemental common sense.
and uses it as a starting point to lecture the great Hanson on his ignorance of Correct Pomo Thought. The amusing piece is here, in which it is clearly explained why Summers is banned and Ahmadinejad is welcomed.
Perhaps I spoke too soon when I wrote about Andrew Meyer, AKA Captain Fantastic the Don't-Tase-Me-Bro Cowboy the other day: No one anything like the people that were forced to choose between letting him carry on like the jerk he manifestly is, or removing him from the premises, will ever be heard from.
Jack Dunphy, the nom de plume of a policeman who works in Los Angeles, then writes it down for National Review, proves me wrong with a blast of reality from the trenches: There is an axiom in police work that goes something like this: If you have a lawful reason for wanting someone to behave in a certain way, first you ask him, then you tell him, then you make him. In the case of Andrew “Don’t Tase Me, Bro” Meyer, the man now enjoying the waning moments of his Warholian fifteen minutes, the asking and the telling came up shy of the mark for the cops, thus bringing on the making. And the Tasing.
Read it.
Speech Nazis shut down Larry Summers at Santa Cruz. That is from What Happens on Campus Cannot Stay on Campus, by Kesler. Just like Yale Law with the recuiters. Meanwhile, Columbia welcomes Ahmadinejad. It all makes ya wonder.
Name the top 15 languages of the world (Hint: 3 of them are Chinese languages). Dr. X
I wonder. So does Dick Morris (who is often wrong about things). Right now we have three leading candidates - Rudy, Fred and Hillary - all of whom are celeb candidates, as I see it. Only one of them has ever done anything difficult or substantial, and that is Rudy. (This is not Mitt Romney's year, I think, even though he is a very fine, smart, decent, effective fellow who could probably run anything - and who should maybe, in a perfect world, get elected. But this is the Year of the Celebrity. Even the likeable Obama is just a newly-minted TV celeb with an empty resume.)
"How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind." "Blowin' In The Wind," off The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The song was the last one performed at Dylan's show at the Ryman last night (see above photo, taken by the Dylanologist at the show as Bob and the band took their bows). The youtube below, however, is from the glory days of 2000, with Larry Campbell and Charlie Sexton backing up Bob on the vocals.
Star Parker was once a single mother on welfare, and knows whereof she speaks. Quote: The poverty that we see today is directly related to people having children outside of marriage and then not working to support those children. They started with the war on the Black family, and they totally destroyed this family. They spread this message of moral relativism and welfare dependency. Lots of liberals got hold of the Black community and started convincing them that there is nothing wrong with dependence on government — we started seeing the Black family destroyed. We saw welfare policy enter in with rules that say don't work, don't save, don't get married, and we'll fix all of your life problems for you.
Such a sad, sad story of the unintended consequences of efforts designed by naive intellectuals (who refuse, except for themselves, to understand the roles of incentive, perverse incentive, and disincentive in life) in league with self-seeking politicians. Whole piece at Moonbattery.
 More Vaclav Klaus on global warming. He is one of the sane people.
SISU, who appreciates a good segueway, on Roger Simon's piece linking OJ with 9-11/ Who will be the next Pavarotti? NY Sun A Jacksonian takes an in-depth look at terror in, and Middle East links to, Latin America. Vodka and pliers. Patients in the UK reduced to pulling their own teeth. Sheesh. Massive anti-war rally in DC fizzles. A funny report by a disappointed reporter in Sacramento News and Review. He does manage to explain that the lack of turnout was because anti-war sentiment is so strong...got that? (h/t, Driscoll) A jurisdictional issue? Lawmaker sues God. Yale's disgrace. Powerline
The kids are back at school, and the sailing dinghies they took their lessons in all summer rest on the beach, waiting to be put away for the winter. This is Long Island Sound last Sunday (thanks, reader). The way I see this fine photo is that the boats are a reflection of the row of clouds, and vice-versa - same as the sea and the sky. 
Wednesday, September 19. 2007
This is pretty good. h/t to Flares' links, which is a good new feature our friends are offering over there.
Can anybody survive without these two unless you live indoors (or unless you have enough gear, which is impossible)? Cabela's and Sierra Trading Post.
From Lee at Right Thinking: Here’s what I’d do if I was one of the candidates. We all saw John Stossel’s report the other night on 20/20 where he talked to the CEO of Whole Foods who, despite selling organic food to hippies and left-wing ...bags, is a staunch libertarian. He’s implemented a novel approach to providing coverage to his employees, and I’d come out with a comprehensive plan based on something along those lines. You could also have a bottom rung government health insurance coverage for the complete dickheads and morons of society who simply can’t manage their own lives. But every one of us knows someone whose lives have been adversely affected by our healthcare system. Hell, my own parents declared bankruptcy over my dad’s medical costs, so I know what this is like. So we have two choices. We can either get out in front of the issue with a superior alternative, or we can sit with our thumbs up our asses while the government takes over healthcare. If you like the service you get at the post office, you’ll LOVE government run healthcare.
I am waiting for Rudy and Fred to speak up on the issue eventually, but I know that Bush is already working on it. From a political-tactical point of view, it would seem almost essential to address the subject in some reforming manner which affords an alternative to the frightening systems of England and Canada.
"We can talk all we want about freedom and opportunity, about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but what does all that mean to a mother or father who can't take a sick child to the doctor?"
. That is Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, via Boston Globe via No Looking Backwards, glibly blowing off the foundations of the country. But heck, it's for the children. I guess children never survived until she decided to care about them. Is there a parent in America who "can't take a sick child to a doctor"? Show them to me, and we will have them arrested for neglect.
 Well, not exactly poisoned, but the majestic and beloved Eastern Hemlock (aka Canadian Hemlock) groves of the eastern US (range map here) have been under lethal assault by the Wooly Adelgid, a tiny bug native to Japan whose presence is obvious from the white cottony material on the bottom of the Hemlock needles. (photo below)
According to a report in Science Daily, the adelgid has killed 90% of the Hemlocks in the Shenandoah Valley. Help may be near in the form of a Japanese beetle that lives on adelgids, but maybe too late to save many of the groves. 
Overwhelmed by the rug rats? Try a Baby Cage (Infant Containment Device)
A quote from Students know less after 4 years of college: Harvard gets D+ on civics quiz, in the NY Sun: Students at many of the country's most prestigious colleges and universities are graduating with less knowledge of American history, government, and economics than they had as incoming freshmen, with Harvard University seniors scoring a "D+" average on a 60-question multiple-choice exam about civic literacy. According to a report released yesterday by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the average college senior at the 50 colleges and universities polled did not earn a passing grade. "At the most expensive colleges, they actually graduate knowing less," the executive director of the Jack Miller Center at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Michael Ratliff, said. "Colleges and universities are not directing students to the courses that would educate them. We want to know whether after getting $300 billion to do their work, universities are actually educating their students."
Indeed. I have noticed this myself.
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