UPDATE: Reader John Steakley emails, “Obviously an elaborate hoax, since Chicago has no guns.” You do seem to get these 32 shootings this weekend headlines from places with strict gun controls, don’t you? It’s almost enough to make you lose faith in the whole enterprise.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Phil Manhard emails: “It’s a quagmire! If elected president, I promise to bring all Americans home from Chicago by the end of the year…” These people have been killing each other for decades. There’s nothing we can do to make things better. Our efforts will only strengthen the covert cross-border influence of the cheeseites from neighboring Wisconsin.
MORE REVISIONIST HISTORY from MoveOn.org. We are in favor of the war in Afghanistan. We have always been in favor of the war in Afghanistan! Pay no attention to that petition in the Google cache!
BUT HE SUPPORTS THE SECOND AMENDMENT! Bob Casey: Obama Would Probably Find DC Handgun Bill Constitutional. “Why didn’t Obama answer the question at the debate instead of weaving and bobbing? Was it because he didn’t want to alienate PA voters, many of whom favor strong gun ownership rights? And, did he fail to tell the truth?”
MORE ASUS NEWS: “Asus informed us this evening that the Eee PC 900 will hit the store shelves in the U.S. on May 12th. The Linux and Windows XP loaded version of this 8.9″ version of the Eee PC will both cost $549.” I’d like to do a comparison with HP’s Mini-Note, which’ll be out about the same time, and around the same price. It’ll be available with XP, too, and I have to say it looks cooler for whatever that’s worth.
PAM MEISTER SAYS that if the feds are going to investigate CEO pay they should investigate others, too.
I think, though, that she misses two fields ripe for investigation: Nonprofit pay, and the finances of elected officials, who seem to become a lot wealthier while in office than their government salaries can account for.
Even though Memphis hasn’t suffered a terrorist attack, the city is using federal grants to fight crime, which might lead to the discovery of a terrorist suspect. Other cities are using federal money with similar programs.
Reading the whole story, it sure sounds like they’re just spending the money on stuff they do anyway, and calling it anti-terrorism because it “might lead to the discovery of a terrorist suspect.” Likewise, my posting of photos from Long’s Drug Store constitutes an anti-terrorism effort, since if there’s a terrorist eating lunch there, someone might recognize him. Where’s my federal money?
What are we to make of the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s drive-by shooting of Mark Steyn and Maclean’s?
The OHRC ruled it did not have jurisdiction to proceed with a complaint filed by the Canadian Islamic Congress and some law students over an excerpt from Steyn’s book that appeared in Maclean’s titled “The future belongs to Islam.”
That would have been fine if that’s all the OHRC did, but out of the other side of their mouth they condemned the article for being racist and Islamophobic. Unfortunately they made these findings without holding a trial or hearing legal arguments or evidence from Maclean’s.
Silly me, I thought courts and tribunals were supposed to hear both sides before they ruled on the merits of a claim.
Not these tribunals. They’re all about silencing inconvenient truths, apparently . . . .
OOPS: “As of today, we’re taking bets to see how long it will take before people realize that “GPS” does not stand for ‘Auto Pilot.’ . . . Piloting a coach through the Washington Arboretum — as the GPS instructed him — the driver ignored, or didn’t see, or didn’t believe (take your pick) the flashing lights and sign warning him that his 11-foot-high bus was too tall for the looming 9-foot concrete overpass.”
MEGAN MCARDLE: “I have to say, I don’t like to hear that Barack Obama is going slow on supporting Georgia against Russia’s land-grab. Russia not only attempts to exert economic and military hegemony over its neighbors; it has a distinct dislike for free elections.”
The EU Commission on Monday rejected claims that producing biofuels is a “crime against humanity” that threatens food supplies, and vowed to stick to its goals as part of a climate change package.
“There is no question for now of suspending the target fixed for biofuels,” said Barbara Helfferich, spokeswoman for EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas.
“You can’t change a political objective without risking a debate on all the other objectives,” which could see the EU landmark climate change and energy package disintegrate, an EU official said.
Their comments came amid growing unease over the planting of biofuel crops as food prices rocket and riots against poverty and hunger multiply worldwide.
UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told German radio Monday that the production of biofuels is “a crime against humanity” because of its impact on global food prices.
God forbid we should have a “debate on all the other objectives.” Read the whole thing.
On Friday, the An Yue Jiang, a Chinese ship carrying arms bound for Zimbabwe, left the port of Durban. Earlier, a high court refused to allow the weapons to be transported across South African soil.
The decision capped a surprising turn of events. On Thursday, Themba Maseko, a spokesman for Pretoria, said that his country would not stop the shipment as long as formalities had been completed. Dockers of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, however, refused to unload the cargo, fearing that Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe might use the weapons against his opponents, who are locked in a post-election standoff with him. Mugabe appears to have lost his post in the March 29 presidential election but is unwilling to step aside. . . .
But let’s not call these South Africans “ordinary.†They have done more to stop Chinese autocrats from aiding Mugabe than their own leader, Thabo Mbeki–and than the most powerful individual on earth, President George W. Bush.
We should be sending guns to Zimbabwe, but not to Mugabe. On the other hand, the slam at Bush isn’t completelyfair:
More recently, police arrested an American, Peter Spitz, in Florida, for trying to sell ten Russian helicopters (apparently Mi-8s) to Zimbabwe. Spitz was caught in a sting, and he boasted of having 30 Russian made helicopters and warplanes in Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan).
He’ll stop weapons to Zimbabwe, so long as it doesn’t mean standing up to China.
TIGERHAWK: “Even the New York Times, which has done its level best to promote the myth of Iraqi incompetence, acknowledges that the government has won the battle of Basra.”
UPDATE: Related thoughts from T.M. Lutas: “This is progress. This is good. This is going to be recognized by the mainstream media (on their own schedule) sometime between November and January or, if McCain’s smart, he’ll force them to recognize it in the summer so by the fall, Iraq will be a net benefit for Republicans, not a drag.”
A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying South Korea’s first astronaut landed on Saturday in northern Kazakhstan 260 miles off its mark and 20 minutes late, Russian space officials said. . . .It was not the first landing of a Soyuz capsule that has gone awry. Last October, a technical glitch sent a Soyuz spacecraft carrying Malaysia’s first space traveler and two Russian cosmonauts on a steeper-than-normal path during its return to Earth.
Those already familiar with Michael Yon’s work might have one question regarding his book: Is it simply a printed version of his dispatches from Iraq published on his popular Web site (michaelyon-online.com)?
The answer: No.
The best of those stories are in the book, but they’ve been expanded with the passage of time and military details too sensitive to use immediately, and told in the same gripping style that can now truly be called page turning.
THOUGHTS ON HEART-RATE AND TRAINING: When I’ve trained with a heart-rate monitor, I think I’ve worked out harder and made more progress. Your results may differ, however, as it seems to be as much a matter of psychology as physiology.
I discovered to my horror just how much the Feds tax retirement including Social Security! Having collected taxes for my lifetime — including to this day — on self-employment to pay into the Social Security account, they hand me a miserable pittance compared to what I would have got had I simply put the money into a money market account; then they tax part of it away.
Same with retirement accounts. They tax Roberta’s State Teacher’s Retirement income. They tax my TIAA retirement income from my academic years. Incidentally, a few years of TIAA/CREF generated a very sizable fraction of the income I get from Social Security from paying into that all my life. I have taken the “minimum distribution” option from TIAA, so I could get a lot more; my theory is that Mr. Heinlein was right, we writers are professional gamblers, and it’s well to have your house and car paid for and sock something away for a bad year, because you are likely to have one. Robert ran scared all his life.
Clearly the government wants us to spend ourselves broke and throw ourselves on welfare. Then they will stop fining us every year. They fine us for speeding, for spitting in the streets, for doing things they don’t want us to do: they also fine us for improving our property, investing money to grow the economy, saving money; the implications are pretty clear?
As the Rainmakers sang, “They’ll turn us all into beggars ’cause they’re easier to please.”
I HAVEN’T SEEN BEN STEIN’S EXPELLED, and I regard “Intelligent Design” theory as pernicious twaddle. But it’s interesting to see Stein clobbering Morgan Spurlock in box office. At any rate, according to the comments, at least, there’s more to the film than I.D. twaddle.
MORE: I hate writing about this stuff because — pardon me while I speak plainly — the people on both sides of this issue are assholes. I mean, even by the low standards of Internet discussion. I’m getting email calling me a “theocon shill” for mentioning Stein, and email telling me I’ll burn in hell for calling Intelligent Design “pernicious twaddle.” Frankly, the rabid atheists and the rabid creationists seem an awful lot alike, and no proper hell could be truly hellish without the both of them yammering away at each other. Feh.
Related item here: “Despite the news media’s apparent insistence on clinging to their narrative of defeat and disaster in Basra, Nouri al-Maliki’s operation to restore control of the city to the elected government achieved its major goal today with the fall of the Mahdi militia’s stronghold in the city.”
And reader C.J. Burch emails: “Look for media operation ‘Save Sadr.’ To begin any moment now.”
TENNESSEE TAX TALK: “Sen. Lamar Alexander’s proposal to give Americans the option of paying a federal ‘flat tax’ instead of an income tax has drawn criticism from two of his prospective Democratic opponents.”
Congressman John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN) voiced his continued support for middle class Americans by signing onto legislation earlier this week giving the wealthiest taxpayers the option of returning more of their incomes to the federal government.
The legislation, H.R. 5783, the “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is†Act, amends the U.S. Tax Code to allow citizens to make voluntary donations above their normal tax liability to pay for federal government programs. The legislation was introduced on April 10 by Congressman John Campbell of California. . . . Wealthy liberals like Barbra Streisand and Warren Buffet have frequently complained that taxes are too low. This bill gives them the opportunity to voluntarily pay more taxes.
I’d rate prospects for passage as poor (and can’t you already pay voluntarily?), but prospects for amusement as pretty good.
Plus this: “I will echo Michelle Obama by saying that in my adult lifetime I have never been proud of Europe’s ability to create jobs or absorb immigrants. “
BIG, FAT, HAIRY DEAL: A new car that has gone 142 miles without a fuel purchase? Er, that would be pretty much any new car that’s delivered with a full — or even a half — tank of gas, wouldn’t it?
POLL: Britons Fear Racial Violence: “Almost two-thirds of people in Britain fear race relations are so poor tensions are likely to spill over into violence, a BBC poll has suggested. Of the 1,000 people asked, 60% said the UK had too many immigrants and half wanted foreigners encouraged to leave.” The multi-cultural progress meets with its usual success.
We have sold all 5,200 signed copies of my new book Moment of Truth in Iraq, but I am making a special trip very soon to the printer to sign 2,000 more. I apologize for the slight delay in shipping. Once I have signed the additional books they will be shipped immediately.
Also, Amazon.com has been sold out, but a couple of large shipments are on their way, and Amazon will have books again soon. Moment of Truth hit #6 on the Amazon Bestseller List and then went out of stock. Bad timing!
It’s great to be back in America, but I got measured today for new body armor and helmet. Won’t be long until I am back over there.
MICHAEL BARONE: The Rules Change for Obama. Now he’s being treated like a candidate, not a prodigy. He’s not pleased with the shift . . . . “The normally poised candidate looked irritated and weary.”
He needs to take the advice of Rocky Balboa: “If you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that!”
Sorry, but the whole Baracky thing just put this in mind . . . .
EARLIER I LINKED to a photo of yesterday’s inexpensive lunch-counter fare. Today, lunch was fancier:
From the Northshore Brasserie. It’s braised short rib over truffled polenta. Nice place, and surprisingly reasonable for lunch (15 bucks), though still much more expensive than Long’s Drug Store. [What, you're taking up Althouse-style cafe-blogging now? -- ed. Relax. It's just a phase.]
That’s why Obama’s comments were so off-putting. He effectively told the Iraqis, once again, that they weren’t worth anything to America. . . .
For as long as American leaders don’t treat Iraqis as important in their own right, the Iraqis will have no incentive to tie their long-term interests to America’s wagon. Should that matter? Both realists and idealists would probably answer in the affirmative. But where does Barack Obama stand? It’s hard to imagine that Iraqis see in him change they can believe in.
FOR ALL YOU KNOXVILLE EXPATS OUT THERE, here’s a picture of Long’s Drug Store, still in business, and still serving old-fashioned lunchcounter meals. The Insta-Wife and I had lunch there yesterday; the total tab was $8.90. Here’s what I had.
CNN personality Richard Quest was busted in Central Park early yesterday with some drugs in his pocket, a rope around his neck that was tied to his genitals, and a sex toy in his boot, law-enforcement sources said.
Best line from the story: “It wasn’t immediately clear what the rope was for.” (Via JWF). Really, with this sort of arrest on his record, he might as well just run for Congress. He’ll fit right in!
My first reaction was to laugh at the rope too. (And then to worry that kids might get the idea to experiment with rope and hurt themselves.) But now, I’m outraged that the public humiliation was out of proportion and unrelated to the offense.
It’s not illegal to walk around with a rope tied around you like that. (It was under his clothes, I’m assuming, but even if it wasn’t.) Being in a park after hours is a piddling offense. Don’t police normally just tell you the park is closed and let you walk away? That happened to me and my then-husband once, and we just got in the car and drove away, laughing at the police and saying, mock hippie-style, “The park is closed? You can’t close a park, man.” I’d have been shocked if the police had arrested us and searched us for that.
Good point. On the other hand, according to this report, Quest violated a rule of good sense that most hippies knew — don’t tell the cops you’ve got drugs in your pocket:
The police noticed Mr. Quest at 64th Street and West Drive at about 3:40 a.m., the official said. As he was being escorted out, he volunteered, “I have meth in my pocket,†according to an official briefed on the case. The police searched him and recovered a small amount of methamphetamine in a Ziploc bag.
So had Quest not volunteered that he had methamphetamine on him, he might have gotten precisely the treatment Althouse suggests, simply being “escorted out” of the park. And — assuming this NYT report is correct — why did he do that? Beats me.
The shower of indignation on Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos over the last few days is the clearest evidence yet that the Clintonites are fundamentally correct in their complaint that she has been flying throughout this campaign into a headwind of media favoritism for Obama.
Last fall, when NBC’s Tim Russert hazed Clinton with a bunch of similar questions—a mix of fair and impertinent—he got lots of gripes from Clinton supporters.
But there was nothing like the piling on from journalists rushing to validate the Obama criticisms and denouncing ABC’s performance as journalistically unsound. . . . The difference seems clear: Many journalists are not merely observers but participants in the Obama phenomenon.
It’s that thrill going down their leg. Meanwhile, Jules Crittenden comments: “Correct me if I’m wrong, but ‘gotcha’ suggests there’s something to be got.”
UPDATE: The press considers the left-wing noise machine much more powerful than the one on the right — but, of course, the press wants to be bulldozed by the left, really, so that’s a considerable advantage . . . .
ANOTHER UPDATE: Tom Maguire has some related thoughts.
MEGAN MCARDLE CRACKS, and shells out for an Amazon Kindle. I saw one at CES, and the screen was quite readable even in a semi-dark bar. I thought of ordering one, but for a while Amazon was so swamped by the demand that the wait for delivery was measured in weeks-to-months. They seem to have caught up now, so I eagerly await her review.
Jim Treacher got one a while back and emailed that he was reading InstaPundit: “It’s kind of an interesting experience. The hyperlinks work, as long as the wireless is turned on and there’s a signal. It’s kind of awkward to navigate, though, since you’re ‘turning pages’ instead of scrolling. There might only be 3 short entries per page. But that’s not so bad. At least I know there’ll always be something to read on it!”
The Kindle could be turned into a wireless web-browser without much trouble, it would seem, if you could get to the right pages. Maybe I should set up a page of links to gmail, hotmail, etc., just for Kindle users!
UPDATE: Treacher emails that the Kindle has a built-in browser: ‘You can navigate text-heavy sites like most blogs pretty well, and G-Mail is doable but a pain in the ass. You have to go to the ‘Experimental’ menu to use it, which is appropriate.”
MICKEY KAUS reports on Jerry Brown’s war on suburbs: “How many thousands in campaign contributions is Brown going to accept from apartment-house developers who are dumbfoundedly ecstatic to find left-wing greenies suddenly on their side. … It’s win-win! “
The Miami Herald story (“Pentagon Study: War is a ‘Debacle’ “) distorts the nature of and intent of my personal research project. It was not an NDU study, nor was it a Pentagon study. Indeed, the implication of the Herald story was that this study was mostly about current events. Such is not the case. It was mainly about the period 2002-04. The story also hypes a number of paragraphs, many of which are quoted out of context. The study does not “lay much of the blame” on Secretary Rumsfeld for problems in the conduct of the war, nor does it say that he “bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” It does not single out “Condoleeza Rice and Stephen Hadley” for criticism.
Other than that, I guess, they got some of it right. (Via Protein Wisdom, which notes that “the usual suspects of the Leftosphere” were taken in.)
BARACKY: The Movie. It could put Obama over the top!
UPDATE: Reader Nora Armstrong emails: “I clicked over and watched that clever Youtube video – it *is* well done – but I get the feeling, reading comments left by others, that they forget how the movie ends. Sure, Rocky goes the distance, but Apollo wins in a split decision! :-)”
SEVEN STATES THINKING OF LOWERING THE DRINKING AGE: They should. And the Federal government should get out of the business of trying to regulate state drinking ages, a subject of no legitimate federal concern whatsoever. it’s also telling that MADD wouldn’t even appear on camera to argue the other side.
Stuart Benjamin observes: “As a Yale Law alum, I wish I could say that the paper’s findings don’t ring true. Alas, I cannot.” Hmm. It’s been a bad week for Yale, hasn’t it?
FROM THE GLOBE-GIRDLING NETWORK of sometime InstaPundit correspondents who are also ex-girlfriends comes this mideast report:
Hey Glenn! My husband and I have just returned from 3 weeks in Egypt and Israel. We rode camels, cruised the Nile, climbed Mt. Sinai, floated in the Dead Sea, sailed the Sea of Galilee, AND I got a cool roman necklace at Har Megiddo. Anyway, it was fascinating to see how most of the Arab world is supporting Obama, while the Israelis that we talked to hoped that McCain wins. Here are a couple of photos from Old Jerusalem, showing Obama posters on the door of an antique shop.
When we arrived in Jerusalem, we were staying at the Ambassador Hotel in the Palestinian section. I ran out of hairspray, so I went down to the front desk to inquire as to where I might find a pharmacy. They gave us directions, and Steve and I walked about a mile. We found the pharmacy closed, but there was a Beauty Salon right next door, so we went in. Eight women leaped up and started yelling that “lalalalalala” sound, and screaming that Steve couldn’t be in there! They were Muslim women, with their headcoverings off because they were having their hair done. Poor Steve RAN out into the street, and the women invited me for coffee and sold me a can of the best hairspray I’ve ever used. It was one of the high points of my trip, but not one of Steve’s.
Oops. Cool photo. And who knew that when I was dating back in college I was actually, even then, helping to build the blog?
MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: “It is a constant source of wonderment that seemingly intelligent people persist in mythologizing Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.” Well, they pretty much stop seeming intelligent once they do.
As suggested by a Samizdata reader called Hugo, I am going to kick off a Friday discussion which takes the following line: “A barrier to people accepting libertarianism is the notion that we’d let people starve in the streets.” . . .
The one place where starvation of the poor is a likely occurrence, of course, is under collectivism. Just look at the great socialist disasters of the 20th Century.
ANTI-WAR FOLKS ARE CALLING FOR A DRAFT: Jules Crittenden says let them have it. And he has some thoughts on just how. I think he’s been reading Robert Heinlein again. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
“VISUAL SEXUAL AGGRESSION:” Earlier reports of an intrusive Maine statute seem to have been false. The InstaWife got in touch with the Maine Legislative folks and found out their side of the story.
TIBETAN GROUPS FACE SUSPICIOUS CYBER-ATTACKS. A precursor of Chinese tactics against enemy nations? “Security consultants say that some of the attacks involve computer servers in China that were previously used to target several United States military contractors.”
University of Washington scientists have uncovered details about the mechanisms through which dietary restriction slows the aging process. Working in yeast cells, the researchers have linked ribosomes, the protein-making factories in living cells, and Gcn4, a specialized protein that aids in the expression of genetic information, to the pathways related to dietary response and aging. The study, which was led by UW faculty members Brian Kennedy and Matt Kaeberlein, appears in the April 18 issue of the journal Cell.
Previous research has shown that the lifespan-extending properties of dietary restriction are mediated in part by reduced signaling through TOR, an enzyme involved in many vital operations in a cell. When an organism has less TOR signaling in response to dietary restriction, one side effect is that the organism also decreases the rate at which it makes new proteins, a process called translation. . . .
The researchers also tested a drug called diazaborine, which specifically interferes with synthesis of the ribosomes’ large subunits, but not small subunits, and found that treating cells with the drug made them live about 50 percent longer than untreated cells.
RANKING LAW SCHOOLS BY 1L attrition rates. This is a tough call. If you admit people with high LSATs and grades, not many will flunk. If you admit people with bad predictors, many, many more will flunk — but some will do well and become great lawyers, because the predictors aren’t perfect. But some will survive with scars. Until some time in the late 1970s, the UT law school followed the traditional pattern — near-open admission followed by flunking out about a third of the first-year class — and some of the alumni I’ve met from that era still have resentments and anger, even though they’re not the ones who failed. Our students today, now that we’re much, much more selective, are a lot happier. But what about the people who didn’t get in, but who might have made it?
YOU CAN ORDER YOUR ALL-ELECTRIC SHELBY COBRA if you want! And it’s cheap! Er, well, for certain values of the word “cheap,” values that don’t pertain to impecunious law professors. . . .
MORE ON THE ITALIAN ELECTION: “Berlusconi spoke of discipline, family values, hard work and individual generosity. Veltroni countered with his talk of solidarity, sharing and collective compassion.” Berlusconi won in a landslide. Is this a lesson for the U.S. candidates?
ANN ALTHOUSE: “So that’s what passes as insight at Yale these days? If I was going to get livid and horrified about something it would be that a great university sucks so many young women into the into the intellectual graveyard of Women’s Studies. Think what these women could be studying instead of this endlessly recycled drivel.”
FROM THE GLOBE-GIRDLING NETWORK of sometime InstaPundit correspondents who are also ex-girlfriends comes this mideast report:
