Is this a war? Illegals bring down chopper in Calif. Balloon Juice.

Ben and Jerry are paying the bills for Cindy's PR: at GOP and Ankle Biter.

A Chupacabra caught. What's that? Wierd. Here, with a photo. I'd love to see Free Market Fairy Tales take on a chupacabra infestation.

The Methodist Church tries the PR and advertising route. I am afraid they have it backwards.

Michael Yon: Gates of Fire. A gripping and terrifying report from the battlefield.

Mehan considers St. Thomas More (thanks, Prof. Bainbridge)

Mike Adams considers perversity at his university

Why union members are leaving the Dems. Right Thinking

How Pres. Ford banned assassinations by the CIA. (Will no-one rid me of this meddlesome Chavez?)

Studies prove men smarter than women. Duh. Woops, sorry sorry sorry, it must only be in England.

Time for new ideas for the Dems - not better marketing. Determined marketing didn't work for the Edsel, and it won't work for appeasement, pacifism, redistribution economics, contempt for tradition, hatred for the US, and moral relativism. Kinsley quoted in the Hasset article:

Even Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Kinsley, no fan of the Republicans, has noticed. ``It's true that the Republicans are the party of ideas and the Democrats are the party of reaction,'' he wrote earlier this month. ``Republicans set the agenda, and Democrats try to talk the country out of it.''

In Praise of Hitchins by Simon

Bainbridge on the Vioxx verdict, juror ignorance, etc., here.

An excerpt:

In any case, in her WSJ op-ed McCaughey offers an alternative that would retain the juries that Beldar praises, while still strengthening barriers against junk science and support for good science; namely, specialized courts:

The jury's verdict shows that our system is failing to provide justice reliably in medical cases. The remedy? Specialized state medical courts, where judges stop lawyers and hired-gun witnesses (for the plaintiff or the defendant) from misleading juries with theories disguised as science, something Judge Ben Hardin failed to do in the Ernst case. ...

Evolution, Religion, Cultural Matters

Lee Harris at TCS has written one of the most thoughtful pieces on this subject - a subject which I have been avoiding because I see no conflict between evolutionary theory and Christianity. But that is just me. Harris has many things worth saying about knowledge and culture. Excerpt:

Left unmentioned in the movie, however, is (Wm Jennings) Bryan's actual motive for coming to Dayton. He came not to defend his own theological creed, but his political creed. He believed that the people of a community should be permitted to control what their children were taught; he believed it was wrong for an elite outside of a community to come into that community and to commandeer the education of the children for its own purposes and to promote its own agenda; he believed that human beings had a fundamental right to imagine the world as they saw fit, and to teach their children to imagine it in the same way.

Before we scoff at this position, let us make a thought experiment. Suppose that tomorrow aliens of a vastly superior intelligence were to land all over the world. Because they have mastered technology that is far beyond our ken, and because their science is (literally) light years ahead of ours, there is no one on the planet who is in a position to evaluate or assess their enormous fund of knowledge. Would we, the human community, be willing to turn over our schools to this alien elite, and let them decide what to tell our children about the universe and our place in it? Would we say to ourselves, "Look at their superior knowledge-it makes ours look shabby and pathetic. Let's abandon our scientific tradition and simply adopt theirs, lock, stock, and barrel. So what if we don't understand it. So what if we can't even begin to understand it-at least, by taking it on blind faith, we will be able to believe the right things, even if we cannot hope to know them for ourselves."

But even this analogy is not strict enough. Because the alien elite in my thought experiment would also have to tell the leading authorities in our scientific community, "What you think you know is all wrong. Your so called scientific tradition is a joke, and should not be treated with seriousness or dignity-it just needs to be junked."

If an elite group of men enter into a community and claim to possess a truth that no one in the community can judge for himself, by the standards of common sense that the community normally falls back upon to make judgment calls about the ordinary questions, then this elite group may be said to possess a gnosis-a Greek word that we shall use to indicate a special source of knowledge that gives cognitive authority to those who have it, and where those who lack this knowledge are in no position to be able to evaluate it. For example, if you tell me that a long series of numbers add up to 123, and if I can check your addition by adding these numbers for myself, either in my head, or on paper, or by means of a calculator, then we are not dealing with gnosis, because we each are capable of adding the sum, and because we both recognize the legitimacy of the other's method: if our tallies conflict, we both agree that one of us has made a simple error in our calculations, and we will redo them until we find the error and are thus able to come to an agreement.

Read the whole thing.

Don't tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

George Patton

Brewton digs into Marbury v. Madison, here.

The BBC on Brother Roger's death, about which we posted yesterday.

The CAIR-Graham story, Dallas Morning News: 

My unease with this is the victory it chalks up for the kind of ideological thuggery that passes for public discourse at CAIR. If all criticism of Islam is hate speech, debate has no meaning. And until CAIR sprouts the guts to point fingers at the radical, murderous wing of its own faith, its claims of moderation are meaningless as well.

Read entire.

Australia: Love it or leave it. Right on! LGF has the story.

Chastity scholarships in Uganda. There's an idea. Any takers?

Prager on Marxism, materialism, etc:

First, devoid of religious meaning in their lives, for many on the Left, social change -- or as it is known today, "social justice," the term for left-wing social change -- has become their substitute religion and provider of meaning.

 Second, given that the only reality is material, any denial of materialism's supremacy disturbs the Left. The true leftist objects to the notion of poorer people leading happy lives. For the heirs of Marx, which is what the Left is, the "good" is not so much a moral, let alone a spiritual, category, as it is an economic one. Hence the left's preoccupation with economic inequality, taxing the rich, etc.

Read entire: Click here: Dennis Prager: The rejection of materialism (Part XXI)

UMass vs. Ole Miss: Not football or basketball - growing pot.

Kudlow is sanguine about oil prices. Read why.

Powerline bashes Joanie: C'mon guys. Pick on someone your own size. Try to remember Joan Baez in 1965.

Nyhan has some fun facts about Election 2008

Jaws in Ammagansett?

Housing Bubble

No doubt. Look at Shiller's graph, on Marginal Revolution. That is a Sell signal.

Daniel Pipes explains how terrorism is slowing the progress of radical Islam: before terrorism, they were quietly and successfully insinuating themselves throughout the world. Now, they are on the radar. Interesting. At Dhimmi Watch.

Wind Power: We know it kills birds. Now we find it slaughters bats too. Rather than being environmentally friendly, wind farms are nothing but a mass of knives spinning in the sky. Nuclear is where we need to be going - this idea is environmentally nuts. At Env. Economics

The "You dont speak for me, Cindy" Tour moves forward. At Move America Forward.

Eric takes an open-minded look at the Green Party and their positions. Classical Values.

The CT lawsuit against the Feds re No Child Left Behind and unfunded mandates - AG Blumenthal is doing it as a favor to the teacher's unions. Ex-Donk.

More Krugman-bashing. Every bit of it well-deserved for this lying and distorting propagandist. Patterico. And Baer adds his two cents at RCP: Click here: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-8_22_05_RB.html

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Yet one more example of why news blogs are necessary

Did you read in the paper that military recruitment is up? No, but Powerline has it, among others.

On TV tonite

The real truth about 9-11, Part 2, from National Geographic. Can you handle it? Thanks, LGF.

Cindy Summary, at Cao.

Barone's 2006 political almanac - good news for Repubs

The world's 100 top universities, via Normblog, by the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai University

College prep, from Atlantic Blog:

According to the NY Times, the ACT people say that fewer than a quarter of the students finishing high school who took their test are prepared for college in the four areas they test: reading comprehension, math, English, and science.

Read his piece. I disagree with his conclusion. I suspect that it means that only 1/4 of the test-takers should be college-bound. The remainder need more high school, which is what they often get in college.

Google Earth

Very cool. Thanks, RRWH: See the earth - any location, zoom in, etc., all in 3D. GoogleEarth. It's a free download.

American Princess on Feminism - (which is losing politically and losing $) - "It's so 1992": Because frankly, that jerk just about every girl knows, who sleeps with a different girl every week, is the daddy of three babies, and of many more "fetuses" who never saw the light of day, is not the kind of guy that's coming home with me. So why would I think being equal meant being like that piece of bar poop?

List of arrested Moslem fanatics in the US, to date. Dhimmi Watch

40% of Mexicans want to emigrate to US - and they will. Via Drudge.

Osteoporosis treatments work. Important, esp for women. Science Daily

Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger to perform together in Beacon, NY

The Bush Boom - why isn't it talked about? Kudlow.

Hawaiian Semi-Secession: Two ex-senators walk you through the BS, here. And the Hawaii Reporter reveals the BS. Is this worth a civil war? Doubt it, but it is truly a scam and a fraud.

Bad News: Single-adult households pass two-adult households in US. WaTimes

Neo-neocon on modern journalism, journalistic dishonesty, and journalism education:

The old-fashioned idea that a journalist is a mere reporter (or recorder) of the news has been replaced in recent years by the idea of a journalist as a writer first and foremost, and secondarily as an interpreter of the news and an exposer of truth. But why should we trust journalists with such a huge task, and how are we to judge whether they are doing their job well?

Please read entire.

Thought Police still at work: Stockton College. (Tell me, why is it that is is always schools with the Thought Police, when supposedly it's the Evil Repubs, and the Evil RC Church, and the Evil Boy Scouts, etc. who are the Fascists?) In FIRE: Click here: FIRE - Speech Code of the Month: Richard Stockton College of New Jersey

The "You Dont Speak for me, Cindy" Tour: Move America Forward

Clinton and the Truth - This jerk just can't help himself.

Hansen on guest-worker programs: Americans are not Spartans, and their workers are not helots. So honor and remember the noble braceros, but please don't bring back that age of heartbreak.

Read his summary of guest workers in the US. At VDH

Multiculturalism in Seattle, from Sound Politics:

Last month there was an article in the Seattle Times on a program where city public swimming pools have regularly scheduled hours for the exclusive use of Muslims: "Preserving modesty, in the pool"

It's Saturday evening, the end of a hot day, and a group of women and children have gathered at North Seattle's Meadowbrook Pool for their monthly swim ... The women and children — all Muslims — have been swimming in private once a month at Meadowbrook as part of a program organized by the North Seattle Family Center.

Read entire.

The Church is the one thing that prevents a man from the degrading servitude of being a child of his own time.

G.K. Chesterton

Bill Weld for Gov (of NY)? It's difficult not to like the guy. Click here: Weld Eyeing NY Gov Race

Star Parker on why blacks are moving away from the Dems (Click here: Star Parker: New ideas? ):

It is ironic that Democratic strategists cannot seem to grasp that the big-government themes and moral relativism that define their party disproportionately hurt lower-income groups. Reconciliation with the truth that traditional values and ownership are the best ticket into the American middle class will open the door to fresh thinking and new ideas in the Democratic Party and build new bridges to traditional Democratic constituencies. From what I see, this new Democratic think tank initiative amounts to rich liberal elitists looking for new marketing techniques for their same old ideas.

The Rolling Stones in 1972: Dr. Bob found some of his old photos: The Jack Daniels Tour.

Saskatchewan by SDA:

Since 1995, our provincial government has grown its payroll by 12,190 bodies and hiked the average wage by 22 per cent. The number of working people sticking around in Saskatchewan to pay these wages is in slow but steady decline. In 2002, 22.1 percent of Saskatchewan employees were on the public sector payroll.

At this rate - you do the math - when will it reach 100% ?

Immigration

Polipundit, a recent legal immigrant, wonders why Congress is considering guest-worker programs, when no-one is asking for them:

Even leaving aside issues of homeland security and respect for the rule of law, mass immigration on the scale the president is proposing is terrible policy. When white-collar workers get hurt because of a few hundred thousand temporary visas issued to high-tech workers, it gets a lot of attention. But what about low-income American workers who will face severely depressed wages because of the millions of low-skilled immigrants who will now be able to compete for their jobs? You can’t “outsource” a job at McDonalds to India or China. But now you’ll be able to hire an immigrant to do it at a low wage.

And isn’t there such a thing as an American culture that deserves to be protected by keeping immigration at reasonable-enough levels that immigrants will want to, be forced to, assimilate into the melting pot? Large “guest worker” programs have been miserable failures everywhere they’ve been tried, creating resentful racial underclasses and culturally-alienated urban ghettoes.

Read the whole post, here.

More Krugman bashing. It's fun, I guess: The Conspiracy...

Scandal goes on annan annan: Annan's brother. Here.

A Failed actor? Read the truth about Reagan's career,

GM Rice: Does anyone want it? Here.

Hypocrisy about illegal immigration: John Fund

Gambling and Alcohol Addictions: They are different. Here.

Military reservations are nature preserves?

Thompson on homeschooling - This piece made ne view it differently.

Now it's the Lutheran's turn to bash Israel. One by one, the mainline Protestants are turning on Israel. Hinderaker: Click here: Fences and a "Just Peace"

Johnny Cash's house still for sale.

Lunch with Chuckie "It's all about me" Shumer, here.

Sheehan updates you won't get from the newspapers: Michelle and Powerline and Solomonia (HT- Cons. Grapevine) and David Duke celebrates her anti-Semitism, here.

Abe Lincoln was burdened by a self-centered, not very popular, and not very likeable or warm wife. But was he gay? Or bi? Does anyone really care? Classical Values doesn't care.

Nuclear - I mean Nucular - Hypocrisy: OK for Iran, not OK for the US: Robinson

Getting real about Iraq: It's about time we recognized that Iraq will not be a mini-USA. Jihad Watch.

How wierd are you? Blogthings.

Another Guardian Leftist bites the dust: Cohen, in Blair.

The Commerce Clause: Brewton's consideration therof: View from 1776

Scotland has had enough multiculturalism: Dhimmi Watch

Austin Bay:

The truth is, after 9/11 we’re not engaged in nation building – we’re engaged in planet building (see here).  I completely agree with Hitchens on this point.  We should “consistently act” against internationalist totalitarian ideologies out of both principle and realism.  “…[I]f you don’t fight them now you fight them later...  We can't live on the same planet as them and I'm glad because I don’t want to.”

That’s precisely why I went back on active duty and served in Iraq.

Read entire.

A War for Oil? Who made up that lie?

Homelessness plummets in San Francisco: Here's why: (Am. Thinker)

ACLU will not rest until Christianity is driven underground - back to the catacombs?

Quoted in No Oil from Guardian Op-Ed:

The least attractive characteristic of the middle-class left - one shared with the Thatcherites - is its refusal to accept that its opponents are sincere. The legacy of Marx and Freud allows it to dismiss criticisms as masks which hide corruption, class interests, racism, sexism - any motive can be implied except fundamental differences of principle. . .

Read entire.

An in-depth legal consideration of the Air America scandal - CQ

The NARAL smear: Nyhan is good on this.

Moonbats on parade, at Livermore. Here.

Shape of Days re drugs:

Look, if you want to stand up and say that you think drugs should be legalized because you really, really like to get high, fine. If you wanna say that drugs should be legalized because you don’t give a shit about America, go right ahead. Free speech, free country. But don’t you dare try to argue that drugs really aren’t that bad for you.

Does the NYT deserve a break? Tapscott asks that we give Keller a chance. Seeing is believing and I aint seen nuthin yet.

Corzine's payoffs to girlfriends - jeez. He sure is generous. These stories can kill his chances in NJ.

Going back to school: The Hawk Man:

Dear Parent or Guardian:

On behalf of the faculty, staff, administration, and grief counselors of Rockwood District 603, please let me extend a warm welcome to you and your student for the upcoming 2005-6 school year at Rockwood Public Schools. In the enclosed information packet you will find your student's classroom assignment and schedule, a calendar of important dates, staff contact information, and a handbook of detailed first aid tips. Please read and review carefully. Your cooperation will help insure that your student enjoys an enriching and survivable year of educational opportunities.

Read entire hilarious piece.

Does the Left want us to Lose the War? Hitchins suspects so. He is getting wiser by the day.

Do "moderates" exist? Right Wing Nation has the polls.

What is an "evangelical"?  Evangelical Outpost knows. Good blog.

What's going on at the UN? Pennywit

The Energy Bill - Or should they just call it the Pork Bill? More pork than energy.

More planets? But what use are they? TCS

Piano Man remains a mystery. Very odd. Only in England.

Banning English in Denver libraries. Crazy, un-American, condescending, stupid, but right up the PC alley. Here. Are they saying the immigrants are too stupid to learn English, or are they saying that Denver is part of Mexico? One or the other...

Cloning racehorses. Great. But what about great pointers? Or me? Clone me, please. I'll have the other me pay the bills, go to work, do the dishes, and I'll go fishin'.  SDA

Yahoo News Outs CAIR. Here: Click here: Profile CAIR - Yahoo! News

Biological Pollution: Snakehead fish found in Queens, NY

Opie made me post this:  Discounted Ambriel Floyd Tees, here: Click here: Ambriel Floyd - Birds Tee

Western Canadians are ready to consider separation. The Canadian Civil War? I do not blame them one bit - they are not represented to their satisfaction. Here.

Pool of Siloam Found - What a find! Drudge has story.

Add this to the Department of Why Blogs are Needed: Who is reporting the story of the economy? Atlas

Brewton does Classroom Totalitarianism:

When people cannot be kept in ignorance, socialists sooner or later must resort to compulsion to enforce compliance with their catechism of social justice.  Classroom political-correctness and administrative thought-police are one such example, different only in degree from Stalin’s Soviet Union.

Read the whole thing.

Thompson on "America First":

To be sure, the majority of American immigrants — legal and illegal — come here precisely because they seek a better way of life. Contrary to left ideology, most immigrants understand that adapting to the cultural strategies of success in the United States is in their best long-term interests. Of all the tough immigration-related choices we collectively face, no imperative is greater than pulling out all stops to ensure that those who play by the rules in coming to America are clearly committed to the political and cultural norms of our national civic culture.

If Blair can sound like this, why can't our "leaders"? Read entire

NYT is Dancing to NARAL's Tune: American Spectator

In the Sunday Times (UK):

"Even for someone who agreed with you about the war in Iraq and the deception perpetrated by our government to prepare us all for it — the latest stuff feels suspiciously close to treason. It is hard to know whether we should laugh at Galloway or hang him."

Scott Johnson on the ACLU's War on the Boy Scouts: Weekly Standard

Iowahawk focuses on the culturally underprivileged in Crawford, seen through the eyes of reporters. A re-tread, still good:

It was a scene that would be constantly repeated throughout the first weeks of the Bush retreat; dozens of panicked media professionals wandering the streets of Crawford, searching in vain for alternative weeklies, gallery openings and Peruvian-Vietnamese tapa parlors, only to be met with blank stares and offers of free beer. The experience stunned many.

Virtue breaking out all over? David Brooks

Steyn on Almost Winning:

Republicans may see the increasingly arthritic, corpulent, wheezing, flatulent Democratic Party as a boon for them, but I don't. Two-party systems need two parties, not just for the health of the loser but for that of the winner, too. Intellectually, philosophically, legislatively, it's hard to maintain the discipline to keep yourself in shape when the other guy just lies around the house all day.

Aker takes on the "mainstream moderates":

Sometimes people call themselves moderates because they're not bright enough or interested enough to have positions on important issues. It's easy to see both sides, but it takes thought, knowledge and courage to decide which side is right.

And on the big questions, one side is always right. These are questions like whether we should have stopped the genocides in Rwanda and Cambodia, whether to sterilize and lobotomize the mentally ill, and whether it's good for the economy to have an income tax rate over 50 percent.

The Mainstream Coalition was about as bold as you'd expect a bunch of moderates to be in crafting their list their principles. They're for human rights, religious freedom and quality education, against saying mean things about homosexuals and racial minorities, against candidates who lie about their beliefs, and against requiring office-holders to belong to a particular religion.

This would only matter if anyone with power or influence were taking the opposite position on these things, and none are.

The Mainstreamers should add a little to their statement that a quality education is the cornerstone of freedom and democracy. Along with quality education, you need guns, a constitution, ammunition, private property, citizens who know how to use guns, judges who follow the constitution, gun factories and a separation of powers. And maybe a few more guns.

You need one more thing. A moral population. A religious citizenry.

Read entire, in Rapid City Journal

The Christian Left: One example here: Two thoughts about it: First, the Christian Right emerged in the 80s as a reaction against the Christian Left of the 60s, which seemed to have co-opted the religion and still dominates Protestant main line denominations. Second, interesting how the website is mostly about getting the govt. to do stuff - no surprise there. It's political, not religious, same as some parts of the Christian Right.