Maggie's Farm

Post Modern vs. More God. Bruce Kesler. We wanted to write a comment on this piece, but haven't found time. Good read.

YouTube gets a competitor who won't take down conservative voices.

More funky architecture. Second Empire? Some people call it, erroneously, Victorian.

Bush will veto new hate crime legislation. That is the right thing. Crime is crime, and all of us criminals should be treated equally.

Another talk show guy - Boortz this time - targeted by the Left. But look at what he said! Same thing we say all the time. I am happy to see that Imus, although I am not a big fan - is sueing CBS in a big way. Heck - they hired him for his poor taste, so they shouldn't fire him for it.

How Satan created the Brit NHS. Samizdata.

Segolene gets desperate. What she forgets to mention, in her threats, is that the last bunch of riots happened with Chirac.

Re our post on Prostitution, Anyone? this week, a happy hooker gets fired by her DC law firm. Well, at least she still has some marketable skills.

A reminder from a piece at Powerline:

...al Qaeda itself has repeatedly said that Iraq is the biggest battlefield in their war against civilization. Here is Zawahiri, for example, writing to Zarqawi in July 2005:

I want to be the first to congratulate you for what God has blessed you with in terms of fighting battle in the heart of the Islamic world, which was formerly the field for major battles in Islam’s history, and what is now the place for the greatest battle of Islam in this era…

If you read our link to Ken Mehlman on Hispanic Repubs, maybe you missed our Dylanologist's frankly curmudgeonly if not acerbic comment:

Hispanics are not really a bloc. White hispanics tend to go for Republicans (e.g. Cubans in FL), while Mestizo Hispanics (Mexicans, Salvadorans, etc) break 65-35 in favor of the Democrats. Unfortunately for the Republicans, it is the Mestizo Hispanics that are the rapidly growing part.

It's not like Mehlman is a guy to take seriously with stuff like this anyways. Remember his big effort with all the high-profile black Republicans running last fall - Steele, Blackwell and Swann? After he tried to get cozy with the NAACP? All lost big-time. So I guess, now, it's back to Hispanics as the "crucial vote" for Republicans. How a bit a little pandering to white folks for a change, Ken? Take them for granted and they just might choose to stay home - let me refer you to November 2006 as a case in point.

Gladiator graveyard discovered at Ephesus. Pathologists tell us how they died. (h/t, Wasson)

Banning the words "mom" and "dad" in California. True Moonbattery of the finest sort.

John Edwards promises what Johnson "gave" us over 30 years ago. Surber. Guy seems out to lunch and out of touch.

Guns in Switzerland. Everybody owns them. Alphecca.

The Feinstein Scandal would be three weeks of front page news if she were a Repub. Do you doubt that for one minute? Indeed, it makes Cunningham look like an amateur.

Bored with the presidential campaign? Absolutely. Betsy too. Way too early to think about, unless life bores you.

Is a repeal of incest laws coming to Europe? Cramer.  Hey - that sounds very progressive. Do your own thing, dude. Taboos are so middle class.

Your tax dollars at work. The EEOC takes on The Salvation Army.

The Truthers and the California Freeway. Ace. (Hint: it was an inside job...all the hallmarks of Halliburton?)

Dems snub President Uribe. Why? Because he's not a socialist dictator? Colombia is becoming a shining island of sanity in a sea of garbage. Everyone in the US should be cheerleading Colombia onwards.

So how did the NYT do on their real estate deal? Not too well. Not much is working well for the NYT these days.

The ten prayers God always answers with a "Yes." Anchoress.

Bill Clinton's civil rights record. Jim Miller. But who cares?

Maybe the Repub politicians stink, but at least they don't come up with insanity like this.

A Man of Two Havanas. Trailer from the film at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Overfishing bothers me a great deal. We are eating odder and odder fish, too, and the stocks of the old standards are depleted. Did you even wonder what "Chilean Sea Bass" was? It's a Patagonian Toothfish. And "Orange Roughy" is a Slimehead. Can't imagine why they changed their names for the menus.

Another warmenist recants, and this one puts his money where his mouth is. Blair. Meanwhile Prince Chuckles wants a war against the climate.

DC editors don't want to post the madame's list of names. Why not? In NYC, the names of johns are printed in the paper. Well, somebody will, sooner or later.

Somalis in Nashville? Yes, and they are ripping us off.

Dust my Broom goes multiculturally sensitive: permits "New Canadian" with different views to beat up wife.

I take it as a good sign that the insurgents are killing each other. A "controlled civil war" could work to the Iraqis' advantage.

A Brando festival at The Shelf

An appendectomy via the mouth. Laparoscopic surgery was amazing, but this new NOTES is something else again.

Jeff Jacoby, via Austin Bay:

Senator John McCain, adamantly supporting the current “surge” in Iraq, says he would rather lose a presidential campaign than a war. Democrats, all smiles, prefer to lose the war and win the campaign. They’re not alone. In Iraq, Al Qaeda is smiling, too.

Today is Illegal Alien Rally Day - a day which mocks American sovereignty and which celebrates the exploitation of American soft-heartedness and soft-headedness.

Boortz has some hard-headed ideas about how to deal with it.

One of two Mexican families have relatives in the US, Drudge reports. Does that mean that if illegals are given citizenship, half the population of Mexico could move to the US? Remittances to families in Mexico is Mexico's second largest source of foreign currency, after oil, and far ahead of tourism.

Linknzona looks at the crime mess in the Southwest, created by illegals. Of course, they are all criminals by definition anyway.

We have 623,000 released alien fugitives in the US. Michelle.

From a year ago, Mark Helprin on The Unvarnished Immigration Debate in the WaPo. A quote:

Businesses large and small, careerists with Latin nannies, and those who want wages low, the unions suppressed and their gardens well tended have made common cause with their political opposites. The latter, who have embraced multiculturalism and bilingualism, and who, though they may be little blast furnaces of ostentatious compassion, are in their disdain for America as ruthless as commissars, would be delighted to see it changed any which way as long as it becomes unrecognizable. If you worry about the potential for California and the Southwest to calve like melting glaciers and cleave to Mexico, or vice versa, the left will mock your distress as it once mocked and reviled anticommunism. And in the same vein the equanimity of the business right is similar to the self-satisfaction of those who would have sold Lenin the rope with which he planned to hang them. This is the lobby, strange as it may seem, for illegal immigration.

Working in Mexico:  The following is a re-post from about a year ago. A comment from a director with Southwest Bell in Mexico City.

I spent five years working in Mexico. I worked under a tourist visa for three months and could legally renew it for three more months. After that you were working illegally. I was technically illegal for three weeks waiting on the FM3 approval.

During that six months our Mexican and US Attorneys were working to secure a permanent work visa called a FM3. It was in addition to my US passport that I had to show each time I entered and left the country. Barbara's was the same except hers did not permit her to work.

To apply for the FM3 I needed to submit the following notarized originals (not copies) of my:

 1.   Birth certificates for Barbara and me.

2.   Marriage certificate.

3.   High school transcripts and proof of graduation.

4.   College transcripts for every college I attended and proof of graduation.

5.   Two letters of recommendation from supervisors I had worked for at least one year.

6.   A letter from The St. Louis Chief of Police indicating I had no arrest record in the US and no outstanding warrants and was "a citizen in good standing."

7.   Finally; I had to write a letter about myself that clearly stated why there was no Mexican citizen with my skills and why my skills were important to Mexico. We called it our "I am the greatest person on earth" letter. It was fun to write. All of the above were in English that had to be translated into Spanish and be certified as legal translations and our signatures notarized. It produced a folder about 1.5 inches thick with English on the left side and Spanish on the right.

(The remainder of his note on continuation page below) 

A Thompson-Condi ticket? Hoho. Why not? I kinda like it.

Big Brother arrives in Orwell's UK. One camera per 14 people. Do the Brits know how sick this is? Why don't they try for one-on-one cameras, like the book? If I were David Cameron, I would run on removing them all, re-arming the citizenry, eliminating immigration, and tossing the EU into the smoking pit of hell... and using all the money they would save to build a decent Royal Navy.

And, speaking of the UK, can you believe they let the EU tell them what to do with their garbage? Complete weenies. We threw the Brits out of here because they put a tax on tea.

Melamine? In China, they've been putting it into things for years.

Woops. You won't see any corrections in the newspapers, but apparently there is no gender pay gap. That's the end of playing that victim card. Find another.

Are doctors slaves? I enjoy it everytime someone asks this question about the Federal Government:

Name 10 private for-profit businesses that make a quality product or service.  Gee, how about Apple, Sony, Toshiba, GE, Home Depot, UPS, Wal-Mart, etc. etc.  You get the idea.  Now name 10 government run agencies that provide a quality service.  Gee there's the post office, uh no, not really.  DMV?  no.  VA hospital?   no.  Amtrak?  no.  OK, name one.

But, speaking of women, according to the UN Human Rights Commission, Israeli women are the most oppressed. Why? They don't do military services in tanks.  Which is worse, the EU or the UN? Get rid of both of these jokers.

Photo: Gwynnie claims to have taken this photo at his bird feeder, but I view it as a powerful argument in favor of global warming, wherever he took it. There is nothing at all wrong with wet tee-shirts, as long as you aren't a Mullah or an Imam or whatever. Not to worry. She will put her burkha on later.

Sandy Koufax is drafted, and out of retirement. Haaretz. Lefties are special people.

Taxes as % of GDP, by country.

To whom do the Dems wish to surrender in Iraq? Kudlow says it's to Al Quaida.

Martian warming update. Synthstuff

The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, by Iserbyt. (h/t, No Pasaran)

If Social Security is such a good deal, why do they have to make it mandatory?

Faux scandals. They may be faux, but it's relentless, dishonest, and damaging - and designed to create a general impression of sleaze. Powerline. I distrust people who seek power. I trust people who seek money far more.

The Cow Fart Chronicles. And Rightly So. On Maggie's Farm, we just stick a cow cork in there, to save Mother Gaia. Just don't walk behind one of those cows. We haven't tried it on the bulls, but if you'd like to help save Gaia, please come on up to Maggie's Farm and volunteer to stick a cork in a bull's behind.

Instead of a Gideon Bible...Blair

Biofuels will ruin the earth. Moonbattery. It reverses the hundreds of years trend towards lower carbon, higher hydrogen fuels. We've been saying that, but nobody listens!!! Except our loyal readers, most of whom seem to have some genuine conservation interests - as we do.

Five of the eight Dem candidates own guns. Done with Mirrors. Four of the eight believe there is a war with Moslem terrorists. I guess that leaves four who think...what?

Lawrence Wright on Al Quaida, speaking at Princeton yesterday. Interesting (or we wouldn't post it). Tigerhawk

A person who refuses to admit that she is plain nuts. She needs to be sensible and wear normal tin foil protection like everybody else. (h/t, Jules, who thinks her approach might be an improvement over tin foil hats. I prefer my tin foil hat - that is me in the photo on the left - which has thus far successfully protected me from Government Mind Rays. Jules wears one of those, as do John Hinderaker. Larry Kudlow, Michelle Malkin and George Bush - and so do I whenever I go outdoors. I have constructed a similar thing for my privates, to protect my seed from government intrusion. If I could only find a girlfriend who would understand my concerns...)

The Other Side. Opie sent us this trailer from the Tribeca Film Festival. The film is about immigration.

I tend to agree with The Barrister in his post yesterday than Ben Bernanke is slowing the American economy unnecessarily.

High taxes raise poverty rates. A look at Rhode Island, by Anchor Rising. Indeed. You either drive productive people away, or you tax people into poverty - so the govt can rescue them! My opinion: Help and encourage everyone to build wealth, and let them keep it and pass it down. That is the way to build a free people. Government dependency is not freedom - it is plantation life.

A primary school in Amsterdam will no longer discuss farms. Guess why?

Al Gore said this (from Michelle):

"Art, music, film, dance, poetry — all the arts — have long been our greatest tools to explore the regions of imagination that defy our efforts to think rationally about subjects that our emotions tell us are too painful to contemplate."

-- Al Gore at the opening of the Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday night

Huh? Does he mean that we can dance our way our of our Warmening denial?

Department of Irony: MIT Dean of Admissions resigns after being caught faking her resume.

The carbon offset scandal. Ace

Bruce Kesler has atty Bob Bauer asking why news corporations should have broader free speech rights than any other corporation. Quote:

[I]t is not clear why media companies’ "news function," which in the end is still a corporate money-making function, affords them broader free speech rights than other corporations—even nonprofit corporations….

A traditional answer has always been that corporations in the business of news stay out of politics. This is plain nonsense, as conservatives point out in their case against NPR and the BBC, and as liberals now loudly charge against Fox….This much might be said for overtly political organizations: the audience is clear about what is being offered to them.

When you try to limit political speech, you open many cans of many worms.

Charming photo confiscated from Stumbling and Mumbling for the greater good.

Have you noticed, lately, to what extent talk radio relies on blogs for subject matter? Quite remarkable.

This is truly nuts. Is it not difficult enough to live in reality without hallucinogens?

May 1 will be a sad day in Caracas. NY Sun

Can we have an honest debate on immigration before Bush and the Dems push through their own plan? Blue Crab. As I recall, the last time there was "immigration reform" there was no debate either.

Judge is shocked - shocked. Doesn't everyone know how common these frauds are?

What career has the highest job satisfaction? Bird of Paradise

Why do 90% of blacks vote Dem? The Politics of Fear. A quote from the piece at Am. Thinker:

In the United States today remarkable strides have been made in the reduction of age-old hatreds and enmities.  The average American is a remarkably tolerant and inclusive person.  Why, the average American has even been taught to believe that Islam is a religion of peace.What a pity that liberals have exempted themselves and their political supporters from this advance in human societal relations.  But it is understandable.  You see, American blacks, gays, feminists, and academicians live in a world assailed on all sides by the menacing "Other:" Fundamentalists, theocrats, racists, sexists, classists, and homophobes.  And do they ever hate and fear the fundamentalists, theocrats, racists, sexists, classists, and homophobes that harass and oppress them.

The real cost of SARBOX. It has been a disaster, with financial needs running to London and elsewhere to escape. Luskin. A cure that is worse than the disease. Very damaging to New York City, in particular.

A revealing quote about the French Left from Segolene, from a collection of them at My Vast RW Conspiracy:

Dick Cheney's inner self revealed by mysterious halo. Althouse. Do we like and admire Dick? Yes we do.

A lost world of Britain located under the North Sea. Very cool.

Ex NYT Public Editor rips Times' coverage of Duke. Ace. Harvard Liberal Marvin Kalb skewers media coverage of 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War. Also at Ace. Bruce Kesler discusses Kalb's comments at Dem Project.

Reynaldo Bigone faces trial. Who? He was one of the bad guys.

More on the hedgies supporting Dems. Sister Todjah. Are most of these guys Dems, or are they hedging? 

Hackers Are Us is in trouble. So is a young Mellon.

"Stop this awful totalitarian EU legislation." Brussels Journal.

Hey, Brits: It's your tax money:

As for the former vice president, Gore has been hired as an adviser to the British government, which plans to send copies of his film to schools around England.

WalMart getting into the medical care business. Interesting. Doctors made in China?

DEBKAfile: Will AQ intervene in the French elections? (Always take DEBKA with a grain of salt.)

Tehran ripping down satellite dishes. Link for story with photo below at Freeborn John. Keep 'em poor and stupid: it's the only way.

From a piece at Atlas, quoting the excellent Paul Belien in the Washington Times:

"One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows from it," he (de Toqueville) wrote.

It is exactly the loss of individual strength that has been the disease of France ever since it inflicted upon itself the totalitarian revolution of 1789. The latter turned this once great nation -- which produced warriors such as Charles Martel, Saint Louis and Joan of Arc -- into what Tocqueville called "a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." In France the Marxist left and the Bonapartist/Gaullist Right alike favor strong centralist, patronizing authority. 

Image: Alexis de Toqueville

Bombshell cripples Haditha case against Marines. Glad to hear it. Just another example of press giving greater cred to insurgent propaganda than to our guys. h/t, Gateway

Post-Kelo, has there been any real eminent domain reform? Chequerboard says no.

Quoted in Thompson in The Right Kind of Prejudice:

Jasper has argued that “you have to treat people differently to treat them equally.”

Darn right. Treat me special - or else! Well, I guess I do hold doors for ladies, but I do not slam them in men's faces unless it is warranted.

Mindcrime. Three Danish lawmakers arrested for criticizing veils. Glad I don't live in Denmark - I'd be arrested because I am only in favor of the legally-enforced veiling, or paper-bagging, of the grossly unattractive. Veiling pretty women is a shame, and a crime against male humanity. Come and get me, Danish coppers - but bring an army with you. The photo of the Moslem lady on the right explains why I feel this way, for Danes who don't get it. (Quit pushing that button - doing so sends a direct link from you to the Danish Police Thought Crime Unit.)

An excellent point from Rhymes with Right: The NYT opposes corporate political advocacy. What about them? They're a corporation too.

Blue Crab explains to Yale: Theater is imaginary. Just in case you thought it was real. Now, TV is real, of course.

The end of High School sports? You can make a case that kids should do their sports outside of school, but why is that any different from doing their chess, theater, dance, or music outside of school? Fortunately, such things are local choices.

An elegy to mudered England: View from the Right

Self-anointed Greenie Laurie David tore up her Martha's Vineyard natural vegetation to put in sod. Without a permit. Driscoll. These people are phonies.

The hedgies are lining up with Obama. The truth is finally emerging: Dems do not like Hillary, and so Obama is eating her lunch. They may like her socialism, but they do not like or trust her. Also, Obama states his plan for terrorism: pay the tribute.

Moscow's billionaires. They have their own neighborhood.

Would you go to a fat doctor?

Are eating disorders a spiritual disease? CSM

A developing scandal: Academics on boards of banks that want student loans. $600,000/year? Whoa. That's a nice income supplement for a Dean.

People are trying to save the South China Tiger. Only 100 left.

How come we can build walls in Baghdad, but not to protect our own borders? Linknzona

 Adding to blogroll under Economy and Economics: Hedge Fund.net. Interesting site.

Front Page mag interviewed Dr. Ted Dalrymple in 2005: Our Culture, What's Left of It. (h/t, David Thompson)

What does it mean to talk about "the gap between rich and poor"? Samizdata. Every Marxist attitude is based on the erroneous assumption that wealth is a zero sum game. Marx was not an economist.

The Guardian reassures you: Don't be fooled. France is still Leftist. My theory: They want Louis XIV back, but won't admit it.

If people are this uninterested and uninformed, why listen to polls? Betsy

Why should Canada try to go Greenie, when China does whatever they want? Small Dead Baby Kittens

Rick Moran encounters his first bidet.

The secret Gore campaign? Is it for real? (h/t, Jules)

An eco-chick. It's about fashion. Haha. Just so stupid.

The Fastest Texter tournament. Teen wins. Big surprise there.

Green power will ruin California open space. CSM

More border violence. CSM

Illegal immigration: An issue which damages both Dems and Repubs. Powerline

Mark Steyn on Hoplophobia. Never Yet Melted

Who gets shot every day in America? Youth gangs, and plenty of suicides.

Iowahawk did some fun cars for Earth Day.

Tragedy exploitation: Hatemonger

Dylan summer tour dates.

"Fighting back was not an option, #2." Big Lizards

Mark your calendar. May 5 is Free Comic Book Day

China's farmlands are in big trouble.

Honk if you're married and can't cope with anger. Dave Barry

Done with Mirrors took the time on Earth Day to post some graphs on climate.

Prejudice. GSN will begin production on a new game show based on the UK format Prejudice (the original show Prejudice also airs on BBC America).  According to Variety, the US version will be called Without Prejudice?, and is a sixty minute series. The network has ordered up 8 episodes. The game is about how the contestants are perceived to strangers, and they are awarded cash for each successful round they complete. 

Bedlam Revisited. Regarding the de-institutionalization of the dangerously mentally ill. Dr. Kellerman in the WSJ. A quote:

Penning up and carefully scrutinizing the killer was never an option. Not in Virginia or California or any other state in the union. Because in our well-intentioned quest to maximize personal liberty, we've moved conceptual eons away from taking the concept of dangerousness seriously.

 The best predictor of future violent behavior is past violent behavior, yet we regularly grant parole to murderers, serial rapists, chronically assaultive individuals and habitual pedophiles. Even when we do attempt to segregate low-impulse multiple offenders with effective tools such as with three-strikes laws, liberationist clamor never ceases.

 Talk to anyone who's tried to commit a dangerously violent child or parent for even a few days: A stranger with a law degree will show up at the hearing and paint you as a fascist. So it's far too much to expect anything resembling a decisive approach to those whose level of threat remains at the verbal level.

A random though, in light of all the of gun control authoritarian folks trying to exploit the sad VT story: Why don't we ban destructive books too? And blogs? After all, the pen is mightier than the sword, isn't it? Screw our Constitution, right?

Biggest ignored story by the MSM of the week: I found Saddam's WMD Bunkers.

Rutgers basketball team refuses to continue to be poster children for victimization. Good for them. They had already milked it enough. Time to regain some dignity and pride.

Spanish company makes more profits selling carbon credits than their products. Small Dead Baby Polar Bears. Time for me to build a virtual factory, with abundant virtual carbon pollution. Like farmers making money for not farming.

Brains made of toilet paper. Less well-endowed high school gals used to stuff kleenex into their bras, but they never stuffed toilet paper into their skulls. Cheryl Crowe wants to reduce use of toilet paper. Ahem. She is missing three basic facts: 1) Paper comes from tree farms,  2) Trees in the northern hemisphere appear to be worsening the terrifying global warming crisis which is causing me to lose sleep, and 3) Why does anyone (including me) listen to her at all?

Legal: Does it make sense to criminalize "agency costs"? Bainbridge. I doubt it, or people will not be willing to run companies. It's not an easy job, and requires a remarkable combination of talents.

The New York Times is headed for big trouble. I don't want the company to die. I want it to change. But I think they would rather die than change. Newspapers are not in trouble. Left-wing newspapers with bias on the front page are in trouble.

Mullah on women: Women who are badly veiled are like buses: Anyone may ride them. Equally nutty: Moslems do not permit mixing tomatoes with cucumbers. Talk about filthy minds - who would have thought of that? Sheesh.

Chavez' unique anti-crime plan. Unbelievable. NB: Venezuelans have been disarmed by gun control. Except their criminals, that is.

Was Cho taught to hate? Never Yet Melted. It's an interesting take on the story.

More on hatred. Good piece at Flares. If you are handed political power, do you really want to devote it to hatred? Is that wise?

Lieberman slams Harry Reid. Blue Crab. It seems to me that the US is "losing the war" only by a very strange definition. We are killing the terrorists, but the terrorists are only killing their fellow countrymen now, and not us.

Mayor Bloomberg said this:

"Using economics to influence public behavior is something this country is built on," he declared. "It's called capitalism."

Huh? Excuse me? We are "built upon" government power? WTH? I thought Bloomberg was a smart guy. Piece at Driscoll. I thought we were built on the idea that government power was a bad thing. Somebody needs to re-educate our Revolutionary dead, I guess. And the Mayor, too: If you're so rich, how come you ain't smart?

The Met's new Greek and Roman galleries. Multimedia.

A new medical website: Revolution Health, started by Steve Case

Hypocrisy: DC burns coal, installs fluorescent bulbs. Utterly meaningless "conspicuous virtue."

"Populist authoritarianism." Good phrase. Samizdata wants a new England.

Moslems to host countries: You Will Be Assimilated. Protein

Speaking of which, Moslem harem wives each get their own welfare check in the UK. SDA. Even though polygamy is illegal. I like this concept for my retirement plan: nice cottage in the Cotswolds, four pretty little fillies to keep me fed, happy, and entertained, and a pile of monthly checks.

More on little tiny houses. CSM. Makes sense to me.

Hillary is a ho, says Democracy Project. Aren't most politicians?

A transgender prom king? Gee, how modern! How progressive! How advanced! But I still can't understand what a transgender is, exactly, other than someone who defines themselves by their identity confusion.

Jon Voight: Another sane voice in Hollywood. h/t, Flares

Is the Iraqi government doing their part? Maybe not.

A Tale of Two Towns. One with a gun ban, and one without. Wizbang. Guns belong in the hands of honest folks.

Ivy League Insanity. Yale theater bans fake swords. It apparently has something to do with Virginia Tech. Are these people for real?

Feeling safe vs. being safe. This piece by Jack Kelly sounds like Dr. Bliss' piece.

Photo: Commercial fishing boats in Wellfleet, MA harbor

Applying reason to the water shortage in the western states. Coyote. It makes you wonder how many problems are govt-created, then "requiring" another layer of govt to fix them. If you chose to live in the desert, then pay market price for your water.

Why should a taxi driver who works two shifts get taxed at a higher rate than a lazier driver who works only one shift? Conspiracy to keep you poor and stupid.

The visiting father. Evangelical Outpost. Not good.

Roy Spencer is one of the voices crying in the wilderness on global warming. The young guys with academic careers at stake are afraid to speak out.

Free markets and globalization: Is it time to re-think it? I doubt it, but it's good populist boob bait.

Can America trust the BBC? Video. (h/t, Instapundit)

Black-on-white crimes don't make the headlines. A disturbing example at Riehl. And with black-on-black crime, Drudge reports the new code of ethics. A quote:

These "rules" are contributing to a much lower percentage of arrests in homicide cases -- a statistic known as the "clearance rate" -- in largely poor, minority neighborhoods throughout the country, according to Prof. David Kennedy of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "I work in communities where the clearance rate for homicides has gone into the single digits," says Kennedy. The national rate for homicide clearance is 60 percent. "In these neighborhoods, we are on the verge of -- or maybe we have already lost -- the rule of law," he tells Cooper.

A Belgian imam: “Soon we will take power in this country. Those who criticize us now, will regret it. They will have to serve us. Prepare, for the hour is near.” The suicide of Europe continues apace, at Gates of Vienna

Circuit City is laying off their most experienced. A damn shame, but I think they are trying to fend off bankruptcy, in which case all of the jobs would disappear. Their business model doesn't work anymore. Look at The Wiz - gone. It's the constructive destruction of the wisdom of the marketplace.

Huge biofuel refinery planned for Alberta. Article does not mention 1) Its effect on food prices or, 2) how much fossil fuel the refinery will require to operate. (h/t, reader)

Thompson getting ready, it would appear.

78% want a path to citizenship for illegals.

Harry Reid offers immediate unconditional surrender to Al Quaida in Iraq.

Cho was ruled mentally ill before his hospital discharge. You cannot just lock people up because they are ill.

Mark Steyn is worried about the testosterone levels of the West:

We do our children a disservice to raise them to entrust all to officialdom’s security blanket. Geraldo-like “protection” is a delusion: when something goes awry — whether on a September morning flight out of Logan or on a peaceful college campus — the state won’t be there to protect you. You’ll be the fellow on the scene who has to make the decision. As my distinguished compatriot Kathy Shaidle says:

When we say “we don’t know what we’d do under the same circumstances”, we make cowardice the default position.

Besides Brendan Nyhan, who is following Hillary's polling negatives? Obama, Kerry, and Gore, for starters.

Berserkers not limited to the USA. Cramer

Take a look at these fences Spain uses to keep out illegals. Flares

Jason Whitlock calls on Sharpton, Jackson to step down:

Rather than inspire us to seize hard-earned opportunities, Jesse and Al have specialized in blackmailing white folks for profit and attention. They were at it again last week, helping to turn radio shock jock Don Imus’ stupidity into a world-wide crisis that reached its crescendo Tuesday afternoon when Rutgers women’s basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer led a massive pity party/recruiting rally.

Hey, what Imus said, calling the Rutgers players "nappy-headed hos," was ignorant, insensitive and offensive. But so are many of the words that come out of the mouths of radio shock jocks/comedians.

Imus’ words did no real damage. Let me tell you what damaged us this week: the sports cover of Tuesday’s USA Today. This country’s newspaper of record published a story about the NFL and crime and ran a picture of 41 NFL players who were arrested in 2006. By my count, 39 of those players were black.

You want to talk about a damaging, powerful image, an image that went out across the globe?

We’re holding news conferences about Imus when the behavior of NFL players is painting us as lawless and immoral. Come on. We can do better than that. Jesse and Al are smarter than that.

I missed the details of the Supreme Court abortion decision. They upheld a federal law, not a state law as I had supposed. We Americans have abundant God-given rights and freedoms, but perhaps the freedom to commit infanticide was not among them.

Chimp intelligence. NYT Science Times. OK,OK - give them the right to vote.

It looks good for Sarkozy. Captain Ed

Having it both ways with global scare pollution: Wizbang. More hurricanes or fewer hurricanes - it's still warming that causes it.

Guns down, gun crime up in Britain. Riehl

And, on the same subject, Dr. Ted Dalrymple on The British Way of Murder at City Journal. A quote:

Britain is experiencing a spate of murders that suggests a population increasingly unable, or unwilling, to control itself. A recent survey suggested that the British are now more prone to knife-fights than any other people in Europe. Guns have also become fashionable, despite—or is it because of?—stringent laws against them.

"Let's begin the healing process and move on." Such pseudo-psychobabble. Dr. Sanity agrees with me, of course.

A Soros organization, Media Matters, had him targeted.

Why, I wonder? Imus is a moderate Lefty, and always talked like a Dem when he talked politics. Too moderate? Or just a chance to show what sort of power Soros can wield?

I think George Soros owns the Dem Party, but he has countless projects which he supports. As a general rule, if Soros is for it, we're agin' it.

The European press blames Charleton Heston for the VT massacre. Personally, I blame the anonymous 11th century Chinese fellow who invented gunpowder.

The only halfway sane quote I read in there is from Germany's Bild:

"Now we will probably begin discussing the overly lax gun laws in the United States. There, buying a machine gun is often easier than getting a driver's license. And a new ban on violent games and killer videos will also be put back on the agenda. But in the end, nothing is likely to happen. And the next killer already lives somewhere among us. But we have little reason to point an accusing finger at the Americans. Despite strict gun legislation, we (in Germany) have experienced the school shootings in Erfurt and Emsdetten. We have to consider the problems in our society. And we have to take care of our fellow humans."

But "buying a machine gun"? Good luck. At least the writer is willing to note that they have school shootings in Germany, too. When people talk about "problems in society," though, my eyes glaze over: these cases are about mental disorders, not "problems in society." 

The blaming theme is already getting to be too much, and the upsurge of the predictable agenda journalism is macabre. I think it is all just a diversion from the normal human reactions of horror and sadness.

One year ago, Virginia Tech's General Assembly defeated a resolution to permit legal gun carrying on campus. Also, Blame the Guns at Michelle. Some people just can't put their political agendas aside for 24 hours to pray for these people and their families.

I like this thought from today's piece at Democracy Project:

As Judith Klinghoffer says, “I know I am going to get hate mail and I may be rushing to judgment. But it all seems to follow such a familiar pattern,” in writing “As Sheep To The Slaughter Yet Again” at her History News Network blog.

Of course, standing up to bullies is no longer the expected even of trained fighters. How can one expect young people at a university to behave more courageously than British marines confronting Iranian bullies? We better. For as Gandhi expected, in the current atmosphere bullies are multiplying and the price of continuing to go as sheep to slaughter is getting higher and higher by the day.

As individuals, as nations, we see natural running away from vicious challenges to our decency, our way of life, and our very lives. We see those few brave enough to stand against the door denigrated and deserted by their effete critics, while barbaric acts they try and fight to prevent or punish are ignored, excused or even supported.

VT, Flight 93, Iraq are around the corner from all of us.

Hillary never read the 2002 pre-war intel report. Too busy doing what?

Obama's income. Everyone always wonders how politicians get so rich on their already comfortable salaries.

Army Strong. Heart transplant doesn't slow down this reservist.

The allure of conspiracy theories. Eject, Eject. (h/t, Dr. Sanity)

Like France, Sweden now has Moslem neighborhoods that the cops cannot enter.

Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of The Federalist Society?

From Roger Simon:

From Drudge: "SHARPTON VOWS MORE: 'It is our feeling that this is only the beginning. We must have a broad discussion on what is permitted and not permitted in terms the airwaves'."

How about this? How about we don't allow on our airwaves self-serving racist blowhards in three-piece suits who had anything to do with the Tawana Brawley case?

Photo: Why the Sam Neil still shot today? A lady reader claimed that our cheesecake to beefcake ratio was far too high, and threatened us with Al Sharpton's goon squad unless we posted Sam. So, naturally, following the footsteps of the courageous Don Imus, we folded like a cheap camera.

Driscoll says Va Tech is a gun-free zone. So is Washington, DC. The story only gets worse.

Pat Buckley's obit at NRO (presumably written by Bill).

Bending over backwards to make Moslem accommodations at schools.

Foucault and the Ayatollah. David Thompson. The Left-Jihadist alliance always confuses me.

Another endangered species: Sane children. Tim Blair on kids afraid they'll die of global warming.

Re our pieces on the dirt dunes and corn growing, another unintentional consequence of corn Ethanol: Meat shortages.

Atheists at war with each other. I thought religion was supposed to be the cause of all conflicts. OK, maybe atheism is a religion too, if they have schisms and heresies.

Maybe the Dems can re-use this Canadian advt: Dust my Broom