HUH? “Ten days before Russian tanks and infantry invaded the democratic and pro-Western Republic of Georgia, the federal government’s Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) terminated all Voice of America (VoA) radio broadcasts to Russia, The Washington Examiner has learned. This means that throughout the still unfolding international crisis, a key communications tool that helped win the Cold War for the United States has been mute.”
JONATHAN ADLER: McCain on Water: Bad Politics and Bad Policy. “Someone should have reminded McCain that in Colorado whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting.”
REMEMBER, if you don’t support Obama it’s because you’re a racist. “Lurking just below the surface of any white person’s criticism of Barack Obama is racial bias.”
DISCOVERING THAT THE SUN RISES IN THE EAST. (See correction.) Hey, everything is news to somebody. On the other hand, David Levy emails: “And these are the folks whose superior education makes them fit judges for how we live ….”
Less attitude, more factual accuracy. Well, that would be nice, anyway.
BUT WITHOUT THE STUBBORN INTEGRITY: Andrea Mitchell as Iggy Pop.
Plus this: “It’s a good thing Obama is intent on running such a noble campaign and not resorting to those nasty tricks we know only Republicans play.”
MCCLATCHY: Tour of Tskhinvali undercuts Russian version of fighting. “As Russian troops pounded through Georgia last week, the Kremlin and its allies repeatedly pointed to one justification above all others: The Georgian military had destroyed the city of Tskhinvali. . . . But a trip to the city on Sunday, without official escorts, revealed a very different picture.”
I HOPE WE’RE NOT TOO MESSIANIC, or a trifle too — no, better not go there. We love to play the blues!
UPDATE: Ed Driscoll beat me to this. Oh, well.
PROTECTING GIRLS FROM sports injuries.
FAY COVERAGE CONTINUES, at Weather Nerd.
HEADLINE: “Florida Approaching Land.”
THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, PROTESTERS WOULD BE HERDED INTO SECRET JAILS. And they were right! City defends ‘secret jail’ built for DNC. “The makeshift holding center, dubbed ‘Gitmo on the Platte’ by activists, is located on city-owned property near Steele Street and 38th Avenue. Newly-installed security cameras guard the exterior, chain-link fences and barbed wire form cells inside.”
HERE’S MORE ON OBAMA AND ABORTION: An interesting question that could be asked of Obama is this — since black women get abortions at triple the rate of white women (according to this CDC study), is that troubling? Or just an example of freedom producing different results for different people?
I actually pretty much agreed with Obama’s view on abortion — to the extent that he articulated anything in particular — but this seems like it would be an interesting question to have answered.
A BLOG ON GLUTEN-FREE COOKING, from Jill Elise.
MICHAEL SILENCE on Tennessee’s antiquated primary system.
AT REDSTATE, debunking another Obama-is-a-Muslim story.
UPDATE: Is it just me, or have the right-leaning blogs been spending a surprising amount of time debunking bogus Obama stories like this?
SARAH PULLMAN on the joys (and proper pronunciation) of badminton. Loved it when I was a kid.
TOM VANDERBILT on traffic. “When you treat people like idiots, they’ll behave like idiots.” I’ve started reading his book by the same name, but haven’t gotten too far yet.
UPDATE: Reader P.D. Schran emails:
The article you link echoes my own experience, and not just with traffic. When my husband and I moved to Massachusetts a couple of years ago, we were amazed by the culture of poor driving as well as the uber-nanny-state government. We quickly decided that the motto of the Massachusetts driver must be “Damn the traffic laws, ME FIRST!” But whereas you link suggests that the modified driver behavior is driven by a lowered feeling of security, I don’t think that’s the whole explanation. (Yes, I do think it plays a role, but it’s not all the reason.)
I don’t think the nanny-statism and selfish driving behavior are unrelated. In MA we quickly noted that the locals regularly ignored laws they didn’t feel they wanted to obey – no big deal. We concluded that over-legislation was part of the problem. Make too many laws and you can’t possibly obey them all. So respect for the law declines in general.
That was borne out (yes, anecdotally) by our recent move to South Dakota. Here there is a much greater culture of personal responsibility, and the drivers are so much better! People regularly drive the speed limit – unheard of back in MA. Also, a number of street intersections here in the city don’t even have stop signs – you are expected to recognize this, and proceed accordingly. And drivers are careful and observant and reasonable. Hence my theory: – When you treat people like children, they behave like children. Treat them like adults, and they behave like adults. Pretty close to your post…
Interesting.
STRATEGYPAGE: Aegis Triumphant. “The U.S. Navy, capitalizing on the success of its SM3 anti-missile missile, wants to equip more ships with it. So far, the seagoing Aegis radar system has used SM-3s to knock down nearly 90 percent of the test missiles fired towards it. This includes shooting down a low flying space satellite.”
HOW HARD IS THE PRESS LEANING TOWARD OBAMA? The WaPo Ombud explains. “The disparity is so wide that it doesn’t look good.”
THE CARNIVAL OF CARS IS UP! Including a report from Mark Tapscott on test-driving an Audi R8.
TEST-DRIVING THE Silverado Hybrid Pickup. “And we tried something you can’t do with a Prius: We tooled around town with three people onboard — and a 20′ SeaRay boat out back.” Conclusion: “One wonders why trucks weren’t the first target for hybrid technology.”
LIVING the Car Lust lifestyle.
THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN RELEASES its new space policy, and Rand Simberg weighs in with some comments. “In any event, it’s a big improvement over his previous space policy, which was not a policy at all, but rather an adjunct to his education policy. Now it’s time for the McCain campaign to come up with one.”
WHAT HATH PUTIN WROUGHT? Germany Offers Support for Georgia’s NATO Bid:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is offering strong support for Georgia, saying the country is on track to become a member of NATO. Merkel flew to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi on Sunday, two days after she met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
Plus this: Ukraine to join in US-led missile shield in Europe:
Ukraine has agreed to take part in a missile defence system designed by the United States to protect Western countries. The government in Kiev defended its decision for military co-operation with the West, saying Russia cancelled a bilateral treaty with Ukraine earlier this year.
A few days ago, Poland and the United States reached agreement on the siting of missiles on Polish territory. These, together with radar installations in the Czech republic, make up the missile shield. Russia is fiercely opposed to the defence system and has threatened retaliatory measures.
It seems that Putin’s bullying is having precisely the opposite effect he intended.
UPDATE: Making Putin Pay. “In the past 48 hours, the West has begun to push back. If its leaders stay the course, they may yet turn Mr. Putin’s meager military success into a significant political defeat.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Randall Parker offers an innovative suggestion: “17% of the people in Ukraine are Russians. So that’s about 7.8 million people who could be offered financial incentives to move over the border into Russia. A lot of people. But NATO could offer money as a much cheaper way than weapons to make Ukraine a more secure place. . . . The Baltic states ought to consider buying out their Russian citizens. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania could avoid future trouble by paying Russians hefty sums of money to leave. Russia has massive open spaces. The influx would not create a strain since Russia is shrinking by 400,000 people per year.” I don’t think this’ll do the trick — and would you take that deal? I wouldn’t. Of course, that would make a point of sorts, too.
MORE: Kevin Drum thinks that Putin blew it:
My take, roughly, is that Putin screwed up. The West was never going to actively approve of the Russian invasion, but if Putin had limited himself to a short, sharp clash in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it would have been an almost unalloyed victory. The murky status of the provinces combined with the fact that Saakashvili sent in troops first would have kept Western reaction to a minimum, and Russia’s message would still have been sent loud and clear: don’t mess with us in our sphere of influence.
But then Putin got greedy — or just made a mistake — and sent Russian troops into Georgia proper. This was almost certainly militarily unnecessary, and it succeeded mainly in uniting virtually everyone in outrage against Russian aggression. Putin can pretend all he wants that he doesn’t care about Western opinion, but he obviously does — and what’s more, Western unity makes a difference in concrete terms too. Poland’s quick turnaround on missile defense is probably just the first example of this. The U.S. has gotten lots of bad reviews for its handling of the situation, but in the end, the countries on Russia’s border are more firmly in our camp now than they were even before the war.
Even militarily, Putin’s overreach might have been a mistake. Sure, the Russian Army is in better condition than it was ten years ago, but it’s clear now that its performance in Georgia was still only so-so, despite the fact that Georgia is a minuscule country and the Russians have had this operation planned and ready to go at a moments notice for weeks (maybe months). In the end, Russia is still basically Mexico with nukes, and their ability to project power even along their own borders is limited.
I certainly hope he’s right.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON on Obama’s disrespect for Clarence Thomas. “I don’t know why Obama chooses to insult a Supreme Court Justice at a religious forum, but his comments that Justice Thomas was not qualified to be on the Court were revealing. Why would Obama think, given his own credentials, that he was better qualified for President than Clarence Thomas was for the Supreme Court?”
UPDATE: Some related thoughts from Roger Simon. “John McCain is the single most prepared person to be President in my lifetime – and I ain’t young.” I would prefer him to have had more experience in the private sector, but yeah.
VICTIMS OF BARBARISM:
Saira Liaqat squints through her one good eye as she brushes a woman’s hair. Her face, most of which the acid melted years ago, occasionally lights up with a smile. Her hands, largely undamaged, deftly handle the dark brown locks. A few steps away in this popular beauty salon, Urooj Akbar diligently trims, cleans and paints clients’ fingernails. Her face, severely scarred from the blaze that burned about 70% of her body, is somber. It’s hard to tell if she’s sad or if it’s just the way she now looks. . . .
Liaqat and Akbar are among Pakistan’s many female victims of arson and acid attacks. Such tales tend to involve a spurned or crazy lover and end in a life of despair and seclusion for the woman.
Read the whole thing. It’s nice that there’s a foundation to help these victims. But one to hunt down and kill the attackers would be better, if not “nicer.”
FOOD POLICE: Michael Phelps vs. Michael Jacobson.
IN THE MAIL: Michael Novak’s No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers.
Russian troops beat the Georgians on the ground, not so much because of superior numbers, but because the Russians had more troops with combat experience, and very recent experience in fighting this kind of war. The Russians got this way by fighting a successful campaign just across the border, in Chechnya. . . .The Georgians did better in the air and at sea, even though they were greatly outnumbered there as well. Georgian warplanes shot up the Russians pretty badly (killing the commander of Russian ground forces, for example) before the Russians were able to shut down the Georgian air force. But in the process Russia lost at least four aircraft destroyed, and a number of others badly damaged.
At sea, Georgian missile boats hit several Russian warships, which had not been equipped with equipment, or crews, that were capable of dealing with this kind of threat. Two Russian warships were damaged sufficiently that they had to withdraw from the area. Within a few days, however, Georgia’s miniscule navy and air force were destroyed, largely by the much larger Russian air force.
The Russians ran a large scale Information War campaign, shutting down Georgian access to the Internet for several days, and blanketing the world media, and Internet, with Russian spin on what was going on in Georgia and why.
Read the whole thing.
MY TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Drug Task Force falsely arrests 2 separate people:
Twice in the past 18 months, agents from the 4th Judicial District Drug Task Force have moved to prosecute an innocent man or woman.
In both cases, agents mistakenly identified the accused as having sold drugs. In addition to what the wrongly accused have endured, the mistakes – along with the recent guilty plea of a task force agent who developed a drug habit and stole cash from suspects – have forced prosecutors to drop numerous charges against drug defendants in the district, which includes Sevier, Jefferson, Cocke and Grainger counties.
Attempts to interview the drug task force’s director, Mack Smith, have been unsuccessful.
Sigh.
BUY AMERICAN? Dan Riehl is unimpressed. Tom Maguire is puzzled. “Huh? John McCain is not American?”
DOG BITES MAN: Buffalo Police batter their way into wrong house. “Pennyamon alleges that after wrongly breaking into her apartment, police proceeded to strike her epileptic husband in the head with the butt end of a shotgun and point shotguns at her young children before admitting their mistake and then raiding the right apartment.”
Strict liability and no official immunity; that’s what we need in these cases.
PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE stands against class warfare.
VIA BOB ZUBRIN, a link to this conference on open fuel standards. Our interview with Zubrin on the subject is here. Plus, more on non-corn biofuels.
ARMANDO VALLADARES: Twenty-Two Years in Castro’s Gulag. (Via Ilya Somin, who notes: “I discussed the Cuban government’s massive human rights violations (the scale of which is still rarely appreciated) in this series of posts, where I also explained why its mostly mythical successes in providing health care do not come close to offsetting the harm caused by its political and economic repression.”)
A BLU-RAY SALE at up to 45% off.
PRETTY MUCH AS SOON AS IT’S NOT FOUR DOLLARS ANYMORE: Will the Power of 4 ($4 Gas) Fade?
A ROUNDUP OF REACTIONS to last night’s Obama-McCain event.
UPDATE: More: What exactly is Barack Obama’s problem with Clarence Thomas?
Was it that Barack Obama didn’t like Justice Thomas’s vote on the recent child-rapist case, Kennedy v. Louisiana? No, that couldn’t be it. Barack Obama agreed with Thomas on that decision. Justice Ginsburg, meanwhile — a liberal favorite on the Court, whom John McCain listed as one of his least favorite justices during the same forum — opposed giving child rapists the death penalty. So what’s so wrong about Thomas and so right about, say, Ginsburg, Senator Obama? . . .
Did Obama disagree with Justice Thomas on the recent cross-burning case, Virginia v. Black? Obama’s favorite justice, Justice Ginsburg, wrote that cross-burning bans are constitutionally suspect. Justice Thomas disagreed and wrote a passionate dissent.
(Via RedState).
MORE: Dan Friedman emails: “The Rick Warren Show is being positioned as a ‘forum aimed at evangelicals.’ The media, and the Obama campaign, should be so lucky. Check the ratings. Millions of American Jews, pagans, lapsed Catholics, Buddhists, atheists, Presbyterians, Hindus, Muslims, Shintos, and none-of-the-aboves were tuned in too because it was as close as we’ve come to a side-by-side demo so far.”
MORE NEWS ON FAY, at Weather Nerd.
NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Optimizing drug delivery with shaped nanoparticles.
BUT I THOUGHT THE ICE WAS DISAPPEARING? A Push to Increase Icebreakers in the Arctic.
IS CHINA HEADING FOR A HOUSING BUST? “Over the last five years real estate prices in China, in dollar terms, doubled on average to $50 per square foot and the country added 20 billion square feet of new residential property. But the once seemingly limitless real estate boom is going into reverse.”
MICKEY KAUS remains on the Edwards/Hunter trail, noting all the people who aren’t buying the story. Including Andrew Young’s mother!
BRIAN WANG: How long can Uranium last for nuclear power? A long time, he says.
EARTH2TECH: Wasn’t T. Boone Supposed to Be Earning Money Off Green? (Thanks to Jack Lail for the tip.)
CHEERING ON THE DICTATORS: At least they’re not Bush.
UPDATE: I suppose it’s worth pointing out that Bill Keller’s economic points are as weak as his political claims: “US currency notched up its 11th consecutive day of gains – its longest uninterrupted rise in more than 35 years – as markets became increasingly convinced that the US was best-placed to weather the global downturn.” Yet according to Keller we’re the globe’s economic basket case. Good grief. Oh, well, if Obama’s elected everything will be sunshine at the Times.
TOM MAGUIRE: “A powerful state-sponsored gymnastics program can get fake state-issued passports to document the eligibility of its athletes – who could have seen that coming?”
REMEMBER, IF YOU OPPOSE BARACK OBAMA, you’re a racist. Just ask Colbert King.
OBAMA JUST SAID CLARENCE THOMAS DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH EXPERIENCE TO SERVE ON THE COURT: Kinda ironic, huh? (Scalia’s qualified, but Obama wouldn’t have nominated him). Just turned off the TiVo and his appearance with Rick Warren was on.
UPDATE: Ouch: “Rick Warren seems more interested in being pals with whomever winds up president than getting real answers.” Will that hold true for his McCain interview, too? Probably.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Ann Althouse is liveblogging it.
MORE: Reader Jacob Allen thinks the criticism is unfair: “I think it’s important to remember that Warren isn’t going into this with a journalistic mindset. He’s a pastor, not a pundit. His purpose (no pun intended) is solely to provide the forum, ask the questions and let the audience judge the answers. I imagine he’d argue that the follow-up and critique is a job left to others–like KLo.”
STILL MORE: McCain’s answers are certainly a lot shorter.
MORE STILL: John Podhoretz thinks McCain did well. “If John McCain can perform during the three debates the way he is performing tonight with Rick Warren, he will win this election.”
I have to say that I think the format was very good, with the same questions and the candidates not hearing each others’ answers. It sort of sounded like a game show, but it worked.
FINALLY: Rich Lowry: “They both were very good, but in entirely different ways.” TalkLeft: “Obama held his own, I think, but McCain’s performance was the crowd favorite, my friends.”
And Allah goes to the video on Clarence Thomas. I’m standing by my call — biting the word in half isn’t the same as not saying it. In fact, it kind of underscores things that he recognized the error himself, doesn’t it? “Holy crap, I can’t say that!“
SO BLOGGING’S BEEN KIND OF LIGHT because last night I went up to Cincinnati to see my brother. His band opened for Jason Ricci and New Blood, at a benefit concert in Cold Spring. We had a good time, and 46 Long (named for their jacket sizes; both my brother and Blake are big guys — and, actually, that’s my size, too) did their usual great job. I’d never seen Jason Ricci, though, and his reputation as the Stevie Ray Vaughan of the blues harp is entirely justified. He was terrific, and not just in a way that impressed the harmonica geeks (“Whoa — he’s overblowing in third position! Awesome!”) but in a way that was like a force of nature. I remember the first time I saw Stevie Ray live, and it was a similar feeling. You can hear some tunes here. It was also kind of cool when a gaggle of biker chicks formed a spontaneous chorus on “Take a Walk on the Wild Side.”
Jason’s also a really nice guy; he even stepped in to run sound for my brother, which was awfully nice for the frontman of the headline act. I’d have been tireder than him, as I hear he’s doing 300 gigs a year. But you can tell he’s a true professional — the van had excellent tires. As Webb Wilder says, “Take care of the van and the van will take care of you.” There’s always an Econoline rolling to a gig somewhere . . . .
Ricci’s also got a hell of a stompbox rig for a harp player. (See below).
There’s actually a huge ferment of new techniques and equipment among blues harmonica players, mostly started by Ricci. My brother’s harpist, Blake Taylor, is also part of this movement. It’s kind of cool to see after years of things staying pretty much the same. And I think it says good things about America that an openly gay white guy with pink hair can be a blues god.
Anyway, if you get a chance, check out Ricci’s act. With 300 shows a year, there’s a good chance he’ll be in your neighborhood sooner or later. Or both!
MICHELE CATALANO POSTS the annual ‘elvis is dead’ apology to my mother.
A THREAT TO FLORIDA from Hurricane Fay. “At this point, Florida could be hit by a weak tropical storm or by a Category 3 hurricane, and these scenarios are about equally plausible.”
FINISHED THE NEW NAOMI NOVIK BOOK. It was good, though I agree with the reviewers who said that this story is getting a bit PC. Also read Days of Infamy, which wasn’t bad. Now reading Charles Stross’s Saturn’s Children, which so far I’m liking a lot. It’s kind of Heinleinesque.
GOOD FOR OBAMA: Obama to General Wesley Clark: Your Services Not Needed. Clark may be the most overrated man in American politics, which is saying something since he’s not rated all that highly . . . .
NBC: FIGHTING THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT with outdoor air-conditioning!
KOBE BRYANT explains patriotism to a journalist.
AN IRAQ UPSIDE: “The United States military is one of the most combat-experienced militaries in history. Virtually every officer of the line has led Soldiers and Marines on daily combat missions. Sergeants and Junior Staff NCOs have come up through the ranks not in garrison or on training exercises but in combat. Virtually every U.S. Rifle Platoon has something the Russian and Chinese military do not–experience in a gun fight.”
CHANNELING COLERIDGE with Major John Tammes.
THE TRUTH ABOUT “prorated” cellphone termination fees.
MORE SUBVERSIVE TOYS: Though this is a lot fiercer than the potato gun.
PHOTO-SCOOTERBLOGGING, from Les Jones.
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Going after the porkers, in the WSJ:
An albatross Republicans must haul around this year is that voters no longer clearly see them as the party best able to control government spending and taxes. GOP pork-barrel kings such as Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young are a big reason. Now allegations of corruption are swirling around both men as they face stiff challenges in Alaska’s Aug. 26 Republican primary.
Messrs. Stevens and Young have done enormous damage nationally to the Republican brand. They were champions of the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” a $223 million span to Gravina Island with 50 people on it, that became the butt of late-night comedians. But the jokes have been replaced with anger: Mr. Stevens was indicted last month on seven felony counts of lying about $250,000 in gifts he received from the head of the oil services company VECO, Bill Allen, who was seeking earmarks from the senator. Mr. Young has spent over $1 million in legal fees fighting a federal investigation of his ties to VECO. . . . Indeed, it was the power of the purse that Messrs. Stevens and Young wielded for so long that helped entrench the earmark culture among Congressional Republicans. Few dared risk their wrath. When he became chairman of the Appropriations Committee in 1997, Mr. Stevens proclaimed, “I’m a mean, miserable SOB.” When his “Bridge to Nowhere” was challenged in 2005, Mr. Stevens warned fellow senators “if we start cutting funding for individual projects, your project may be next.”
The real damage to the Republican brand has been the national party’s refusal to ease these guys out. They deserve to lose big in the primary. If they don’t, the Republicans deserve to lose the seats.
HERE’S AN UPDATE on the Equal Parenting Bike Trek.
ANGRY, BITTER LOSERS: Lewis Lapham keeps it classy.
IN THE 21ST CENTURY, A DIFFERENT KIND OF BIGOTRY: “The executives of a gay sex site are apparently more concerned about the perception that they’re associated with John McCain than McCain is about the association with them.” Heh.
UPDATE: Plus, a new kind of race-baiting. From Howard Dean. Okay, this isn’t really that new, anymore. . . .
OBAMA-KERRY? “I don’t even want to think about that.”
IN THE MAIL: The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin’s Secret Service. From the summary, it sounds like a spy thriller, but it’s a true story.
UPDATE: Does it have a happy ending? Well, not for the spy, who — despite his loyalty to Stalin and communism — winds up purged and dying in a gulag. So, kind of . . ..
REP. DANA ROHRABACHER has a great record on space issues, and his supporters are pointing it out. He’s been especially good on commercial space.
UPDATE: George Fillmore emails that he likes this from Rohrabacher, though it’s not about space.
MICHAEL TOTTEN IS on his way to Georgia. “If you have any story ideas that don’t involve me getting shot by the Russians, or if you know someone in Georgia I ought to meet, please let me know in the comments or by email.”
UNFORTUNATELY, MOST OF THE DOUBTS COME FROM THEIR DISMAL TRACK RECORD: F.B.I. Will Present Scientific Evidence in Anthrax Case to Counter Doubts:
Growing doubts from scientists about the strength of the government’s case against the late Bruce E. Ivins, the military researcher named as the anthrax killer, are forcing the Justice Department to begin disclosing more fully the scientific evidence it used to implicate him.
In the face of the questions, Federal Bureau of Investigation officials have decided to make their first detailed public presentation next week on the forensic science used to trace the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks to a flask kept in a refrigerator in Dr. Ivins’s laboratory at Fort Detrick, in Maryland. Many scientists are awaiting those details because so far, they say, the F.B.I. has failed to make a conclusive case.
Perhaps this will resolve the concerns.
IS THE DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM bad for men?
RUSSIA THREATENS NUCLEAR ATTACK ON POLAND? Don’t bite off more than you can chew, Vlad.
JUDGE NULLIFIES JURY.
RUSSIA SIGNS GEORGIA TRUCE: “Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a truce with Georgia on Saturday, a definitive step toward ending the fighting there despite the uncertainty on the ground reflected by Russian soldiers digging in just 30 miles from the Georgian capital.”
KIM ZIGFELD ON RUSSIA’S DEFENDERS:
To its credit, the Washington Post has run a number of op-ed pieces in recent days from Russophiles (including Mikhail Gorbachev) who wish to rationalize and support the Russian invasion of Georgia.
Not only does doing so remove any attempt by the Post’s critics to claim it is biased (it’s one of the world’s leading voices in opposition to the Putin dictatorship and has issued a series of blistering editorials condemning Russian aggression), but the very best way of destroying the Russophile position is to simply let them try to state it.
I have found the defenses unconvincing.
GETTING OUR MONEY’S WORTH, in Iraq.
HOW TO HOT-WIRE YOUR CAR.
WELL, GOOD: Texas school district lets teachers, staff pack pistols. (Via Nancy Matocha).
THE END TIMES ARE HERE: Chuck Woolery to Host Cat Game Show.
INDEED: “Maybe I’m missing something here, but if Achmed the Terrorist suddenly gets a perfect 2 inch hole that passes all the way through his head, with nothing but a sizzling noise, isn’t everyone going to know it was the US that done it?”
JAY LENO on the station wagon’s glory days.
BREAKING NEWS! Third donkey found wandering around Tenn. town. I probably should have put up one of those Drudge blue-light thingies.
ANSWERING QUESTIONS ABOUT DVD BOX SETS: Including why you can’t get a Terminator three-pack.
THE CREDIT CRISIS EXPLAINED: We’ve put giant subhuman apes in charge.
WAITING FOR MARS DATA: A nice article about my University of Tennessee colleague, planetary scientist Hap McSween.
TAKE A RIDE, RIDE, RIDE, RIDE, RIDE ON HEAVY METAL: Truck buyer uses $8,000 in coins.
SOLAR PANELS BY THE SQUARE MILE: But with this essential truth: “Photovoltaics eventually would need to be as cheap as paint or roof shingles to begin to make a serious dent in coal burning.” Which will probably happen, in time.
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH validates the “beer goggles” concept. I’ve performed a few experiments along those lines myself.
PULLING THE PLUG: The Air Force Cyber Command is no more.
IN THE MAIL: Ed O’Brien’s Time of Plenty: Romance and Roguery At the Dawn of the Great American Oil Glut.
ANOTHER INSTA-POLL, and probably the last one for a bit. Feel free to add suggestions in the comments.
HOLLYWOOD, POLITICS, THE MEDIA: It’s like one big 527. Documentary blames Clintons for 9/11 miniseries’ DVD holdup.
In Hollywood docudramas, when the phrase “miscarriage of justice” is employed, it usually applies to the film’s subject, not its creators.
But a new documentary called “Blocking the Path to 9/11,” to be given a screening tonight, makes the case that former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton have pressured television and studio executives into quashing the DVD release of ABC’s 2006 miniseries “The Path to 9/11.” The privately financed documentary argues that the Clintons, who decried the original miniseries as a right-wing hatchet job, are out to salvage their political influence and legacy at the expense of free expression.
They told me that if George W. Bush were re-elected, films that made the President look bad would be quashed. And they were right! They just didn’t say which president . . . .
HIT SQUADS TRAINING IN IRAN: “Iraqi Shiite assassination teams are being trained in at least four locations in Iran by Tehran’s elite Quds force and Lebanese Hezbollah and are planning to return to Iraq in the next few months to kill specific Iraqi officials as well as U.S. and Iraqi troops, according to intelligence gleaned from captured militia fighters and other sources in Iraq.”
NEWS FROM THE ART WORLD: Giant Inflatable Dog Poo Wreaks Havoc. Well, that’s art. I seem to recall Rubens having a similar problem, once.
SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER IS GOOD — unless, you know, it’s a communist power.
HERE’S MORE ON THAT HEATH SHULER LAND DEAL:
The project started in 2005 before Shuler decided to run for Congress, the Waynesville Democrat said Thursday. He had no contact with TVA about the project, and his name didn’t appear on the proposed swap because it was filed under the name of a limited liability company.
Highlands originally thought it had access to about 2,000 feet of shoreline, Shuler said, but the TVA development map turned out to be wrong. Instead of suing TVA, Highlands acquired docking rights from the owners of another piece of property, then swapped it with TVA, he said.
“The long and short of it was, if the maps weren’t incorrect, I never would have purchased the property in the first place†because it lacked docking rights, Shuler said.
Your tax dollars at work. Of course, a bigger scandal is Heath Shuler’s support for a 55 mph speed limit:
Record-high gas prices have triggered talk that it may be time to lower the speed limit on federal highways to 55 or 60 mph.
“I think that’s a great way to save fuel,” said U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-Waynesville, N.C. “I think it would be the right thing to do.”
Can we launch a recall drive? Meanwhile, without government nannying, Americans are driving less and using less gas.
If things are bad enough to adopt a 55 mph speed limit, they’re bad enough to stop letting members of Congress travel by military jet.
MICKEY KAUS continues to round up skepticism regarding John Edwards’ “Story #2.”
WHAT TO DO with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
