jk Defends John Travolta

Instapundit calls it "More Celebrity Global Warming Hypocrisy." This Is London says With five private jets, Travolta still lectures on global warming. And I settled in for a feast of self rigorousness at a Scientologist’s expense. What a great Saturday.

Travolta owns five jets, and a mansion with a private runway. He logged 30,000 flying miles in 12 months.

But the hypocrisy charge is a little thin. At a gala glitteratifest, Travolta suggested that people "can do their bit;" that's hardly hectoring. He suggested alternative fuels; President Bush is Federally funding them. He wants to colonize other planets and build domed cities; that does not comport with Vice President Gore's solutions.

They excerpted the following quotes:

"It [global warming] is a very valid issue," Travolta declared. "I'm wondering if we need to think about other planets and dome cities.

"Everyone can do their bit. But I don't know if it's not too late already. We have to think about alternative methods of fuel.

"I'm probably not the best candidate to ask about global warming because I fly jets.

I give the man points for admitting his glass house (with private runway) and seeking technological solutions. He didn't tell anybody to live in a cave.

We now resume ThreeSources's anti-celebrity, DAWG denyin' editorial content in progress...

That Supply and Demand Thing

I glanced at this item in the Wall Street Journal this morning. But only after receiving a 91.7% gloat-free email from Josh at Everyday Economist did I think to relate it to a previous discussion at ThreeSources.

It seems that a record corn crop is being planted this year, the most corn planted since 1944. "The market reacted immediately this morning, fearing that a large crop would flood the market with corn. At the Chicago Board of Trade corn prices were down by 20 cents -- the daily limit -- to about $3.70."

Weather and additional Ethanol demand might keep prices up, as the article states -- but I'm inclined to trust the Chicago Merc more than a WSJ reporter. One has to admit that it is pretty classic demonstration: corn demand increases -> corn price increases -> farmers plant more corn -> corn replacement supply increases -> corn price decreases.

Corn planting will be higher this year in most farming states, taking away acres from soybean, cotton and rice production, the USDA said. Farmers in Illinois, North Dakota and Minnesota will each plant record-breaking corn crops for their states. Louisiana, a major rice-producing state, will plant 700,000 acres of corn this year, more than double the acreage in 2006, the USDA said.

Across the plains, farmers have placed big bets on where the price of corn will go in 2007. They are preparing to plant more corn than they have in decades, spending more on seed and fertilizer, investing in new equipment and buying crop insurance against the possibility of bad weather. Some are signing futures contracts to lock in prices now; some are holding off in the hope that prices will climb higher.

Somebody should tell Congress about this Economics thing, I think it's gonna be big.

Deniers

In a comment blog brother AlexC claims that "...90% of Americans believe in God." Personally I thought the figure was closer to 97 percent, so I googled the string american belief god poll and learned that the 97% figure comes from a University of Minnesota study that estimated atheists at 3%. Actual surveys put the number around 10%, in line with AC's claim.

The U of M study must be in error though because a recent Gallup poll, as cited by the LA Times Ed page, ranks atheism as the most objectionable of a long list of political negatives. (If 10% of people will admit to atheism, a greater number must secretly harbor the disbelief belief.)

In a Gallup poll last month, 53% of respondents said they would not vote for an otherwise well-qualified atheist — far more than wouldn't vote for a homosexual (43%), a 72-year-old (42%), someone married for the third time (30%), a Mormon (24%) or a woman (11%).

It is such a black mark that the "Secular Coalition for America" used a new word to replace atheist: "nontheist." [Shouldn't it be non-theist?]

"Nontheist," by the way, is the latest secularist term of art for folks "without a god-belief," replacing the traditional terms "atheist" and "agnostic." (The former believes there is no God; the latter isn't sure.) But the American Humanist Assn. — and who's not a humanist? — prefers nontheist because most Americans wrongly think that atheists are anti-theists: people who not only don't believe but also object to others' belief in God(s).

(For the record, I outed myself as atheist when atheism was less un-cool than it apparently is now.)

"Massacre?"

ThreeSources should collect the most overwrought statements about the US Attorney firings. I wonder if I am up to the task.

Honorable mention goes to Senator Leahy (Devil Incarnate -- VT) who wondered aloud in a Press Conference "what a witness was hiding" when that witness chose to exercise Fifth Amendment rights. This man is head of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and he equates 5th Amendment rights with guilt.

Elections matter.

But his eyebrowness was eclipsed by the Editors of The New Republic. An editorial today, Bush bends the law beyond recognition, compares the attorney firings with Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre.

In the historical race to the bottom that is Nixon v. Bush, the late trickster would seem to have the edge: He was an unimpeachable lawbreaker--actually, an impeachable one--a claim that doesn't quite stick to Bush. But, in the last month, Bush has been closing fast. While he may not have any second-rate burglaries under his belt, his record now includes his very own version of the Saturday Night Massacre, thanks to the purging of eight U.S. attorneys.

So, firing a prosecutor who is prosecuting you carries no weight with the boys at TNR. Just the same as what President Bush did. Months of emails and memos and document sifting by the Democrats have turned up no evidence of malfeasance. But -- hang on, this is the best part -- that's what makes Bush so bad, he hasn't broken any laws. Damn, what a clever cover:

It's true that his behavior in this episode may not runup the score in compulsory categories like obstruction of justice or lying under oath. But the fact that he has inflicted massive damage on the American system without apparently breaking many laws should earn Bush major style points.

I smell Rove here. What a fiendish plot, not breaking laws.

Murtha: The Draft Is Absolutely Needed

I could have sworn in 2004, a Bush victory would have led to a draft.

Sworn!

Murtha is a Democrat, in case anyone forgot.

(tip to Extreme Mortman who titles his post, Murtha, Wind and Fire)

Consensus

Josh at Everyday Economist picks up on an interesting comment that a reader sent to Don Luskin.

Now, let me get this straight.

When we are talking about climate change, “consensus” is invoked as the ultimate argument that this is, after all “settled science.” Breaking with that consensus gets one labeled anti-intellectual, anti-science. One is a “denier,” with its interwoven echoes of holocaust deniers and “being in denial” in the pop-psychological sense. It is prima facie evidence of being stupid or in the pay of big energy.

On the other hand, when we are talking about free trade, the argument that “99% of economists since the days of Adam Smith” are free traders, which might be taken to be “consensus,” appears to be unpersuasive…

In-freakin-deed.

Review Corner Red Alert

Don't. Don't. Don't purchase or rent "Happy Feet." Resist the allure of adorable, dancing animated penguins.

I found this to be the most offensive movie I have ever seen. Watching nature shows and kids' cartoons, one frequently is hit with an unmistakable subtext that people are bad and that we should extinct ourselves or move back to caves. In this movie, it is not subtext, it is the actual plot.

When you're not offended, you will be bored to tears. Dancing penguins are cute for a few minutes, then the film jumps among dull, disjointed, and offensive -- with a little abject terror thrown in to make it inappropriate for toddlers who would otherwise be the only demographic intellectually unoffended.

A half a star, and I am being kind.

The Real Front Line in the Iraq War

I place great importance on the lessons of history. Unfortunately, having lived only since the early sixties (and having a mediocre public school education influenced by John Dewey) I wasn't aware of a counterinsurgency war in the fifties - fought by France and the Algerian government against Muslim extremists in that country - until today.

Arthur Herman, retired professor of History at George Mason and Georgetown Universities, explains on today's WSJ Ed page how the French ultimately defeated the combatants on foreign soil but were ultimately forced to surrender to them anyway.

What happened was this: while the French military had been concentrating on fighting the insurgency in the streets and mountains in Algeria, an intellectual and cultural insurgency at home, led by the French left and the media, had been scoring its own succession of victories.

(...)

Led by Jean-Paul Sartre, a campaign of denunciation got under way in which French forces were accused of being the equivalent of Nazis--an especially freighted charge coming only a decade and a half after World War II and the German occupation of France. Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre's companion, went so far as to say that the sight of a French army uniform had "the same effect on me that swastikas once did." Although many of the antiwar agitators were communists or leftist fellow travelers, their petitions and demonstrations included enough authentic heroes of the Resistance and eminent liberals like Francois Mauriac to bestow upon the movement a credible public image. The constant message it conveyed was that the true authors of violence in Algeria were not the FLN at all but the French, and that only when the latter departed would Algerians be able to sort out their destiny for themselves.

The French military and political leadership was completely blindsided by the attack. No amount of justification of the selective use of torture, not even the cancellation of the original authorization, could halt the criticism or stem the loss of public support for the war. Even as the FLN took to setting off bombs in France itself, leftist Catholic priests continued to raise funds for it, while those like Albert Camus who harbored doubts about the wisdom of handing victory to the terrorists were derided and silenced. The consensus that had informed French politics as late as 1956--namely, that abandoning Algeria was "unthinkable and unmentionable"--fell apart.

Divisions over Algeria doomed France's Fourth Republic. For its successor, the price of political survival was handing over Algeria to a totalitarian band that had lost the war on the battlefield but managed to win a stunning victory in France itself. The result was the massive flight of Algerian whites and, at home, a bloodbath as FLN terrorists put to death tens of thousands of Muslim Algerians who had been loyal to the French regime. Soldiers who had fought alongside the French were forced to swallow their medals before they were shot.

The "surge" is underway in Iraq. While long overdue it is, as Herman describes earlier in the piece, showing remarkable progress. [Read the whole thing.] But to avoid the same fate described above, America's domestic leaders need to initiate an intellectual surge on the home front. The survival of Iraqi patriots, and of America's ability to champion liberty anywhere in the world, hang in the balance.

Hope Congress Is Reading the NYTimes

Our 535 Bankers-in-Chief are posed to do to mortgage lending what they did to public corporate finance. Ruin it.

I am disturbed for a few reasons. The biggest, of course, is knowing that the market will heal its own problems faster, cheaper and better than will new regulation. Secondly, I am baffled by the phrase "predatory lending." In a better world, that would be an amusing joke: some evil banker in a blue pinstripe suit is lending too much money to people who shouldn't be borrowing -- put these guys behind bars!

Mostly, the Hayekian in me hates the idea that Congress is going to restrict the choices that people are offered. Reps Waxman, Dingell, and Frank are prepared to decide what financial vehicles are good and which are bad, when lenders, borrowers, and experiment should make those choices.

The NYTimes has a smart piece in the Business section today by University of Chicago Economics professor Austan Goolsbee. He looks at the people who have been able to buy a home because of innovations in subprime finance, not the small minority who are facing foreclosure:

When Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, gave his opening statement last week at the hearings lambasting the rise of “risky exotic and subprime mortgages,” he was actually tapping into a very old vein of suspicion against innovations in the mortgage market.

Almost every new form of mortgage lending — from adjustable-rate mortgages to home equity lines of credit to no-money-down mortgages — has tended to expand the pool of people who qualify but has also been greeted by a large number of people saying that it harms consumers and will fool people into thinking they can afford homes that they cannot.

Congress is contemplating a serious tightening of regulations to make the new forms of lending more difficult. New research from some of the leading housing economists in the country, however, examines the long history of mortgage market innovations and suggests that regulators should be mindful of the potential downside in tightening too much.

Regulators are not by nature mindful and are having hearings to work up to the high dudgeon required to craft the next SarbOx. These champions of the people are going to make home ownership a privilege of the rich to prevent the poor from facing foreclosure.

I am a subprime disciple. I refinanced my house to stay alive while I was funding a start-up. I got a decent loan with no income thanks to my home value and good credit rating. After said start up went bust, I refinanced again to cover losses and medical bills. I chose an interest-only mortgage. Interest only is frequently derided and will probably be the first financial instrument the 110th Congress makes illegal.

It's an awesome mortgage. I pay interest and escrow every month to keep Countrywide happy. The first year and a half, I paid higher interest debt, now I am getting around to reducing the principal. This was a good move and I am glad I had the option to choose it. Even now, I face an interesting choice. I should probably increase my tax-deferred 401K payments rather than pay down my tax-deductible home mortgage.

It's my choice. But I fear others will have their choices made for them by Congress. That is, those who can get a loan at all when this is over.

Hat-tip: Greg Mankiw's Blog

Professors Mankiw vs. Blinder

Like Don McLean in "American Pie" I get overwhelmed on occasion with bad news. The Senate has voted for surrender, and the Wall Street Journal news pages have endorsed a paper citing greater than anticipated consequences of free trade.

This is like President Bush capitulating to the DAWG crowd. Prepare to hear Senators Jim Webb and John Edwards intone "even the Wall Street Journal said..." Nobody will read this paper or understand it, but it will be taken as proof positive that Smith, Mises, Hayek, and Friedman were wrong. "Didn't you hear? I read that that had been completely debunked?"

I didn't have the chops to take Alan Blinder on, but I knew one of my betters would.

Greg Mankiw comes to the rescue in My Father is Darth Vader (Blinder was a professor of his).

For some reason, Alan does not respond to this rise in technology-driven offshoring as he would to a rise in policy-driven trade. But economic logic suggests that if he is to embrace tariff reductions as an economic positive, he should similarly embrace technology-driven trade increases an an economic positive. But instead of recognizing this change as primarily a force for good, he offers mainly hand-wringing. In doing so, he gives, perhaps unintentially, aid and comfort to the protectionists.

Amen to that last fear. Today and yesterday were bad days for freedom.

"Milton Friedman" Giuliani

I fell completely into the Rudy-Oh-Eight fold last Monday night. He appeared on Kudlow & Company and hit every question out of the park. Stephen Moore was also impressed, suggesting we might call him "Milton Friedman Giuliani." Larry was ready to throw in Mises and Hayek. There's a clip from the show posted on Reason Magazine - Hit & Run where David Weigel talks about the appearance and a rumor that Steve Forbes is signing on with Hizzoner.

It's easy to forget with the dulcet tones of Arthur Branch massaging our ears, but Rudy Giuliani is still the frontrunner for the GOP nomination. Two nights ago he appeared on Larry Kudlow's goofy CNBC show* and talked almost exclusively about economics, at one point sounding like he regretted his days as a grandstanding, trader-busting U.S. Attorney.

* Weigel explains: "*I like Kudlow's economics, but he's way too prone to linking movement in the stock market to things traders don't care about but right-wingers do. " I can see plenty of areas where a pure, big-L libertarian would break camp with Kudlow. But it is an astonishing aberration to have a show like Kudlow's on TV. Kudlow & Company is about the only place you're going to hear classical-liberal economics espoused.

Giuliani was outstanding on every question. My friends are enjoying the Sen. Fred Thompson boomlet, and I think highly of the Senator (though I have never seen his TV show). Thompson's continuing support of McCain-Feingold bothers me more than Giuliani’s unfortunate position on guns. It seems far more likely that the next President would be involved in campaign finance than in gun rights.

UPDATE: Forbes endorses Giuliani. and will serve as campaign co-chair and senior policy advisor. Hat-tip Instapundit

UPDATE II: Cultural illiterates like me will need to be told that Arthur Branch is "a fictional character on the long-running TV crime drama Law & Order, portrayed by former United States Senator Fred Dalton Thompson." -- Wikipedia.

Betting on the Lottery

Not powerball. More and more parents are forced to pin their hopes of their children's future on a charter school lottery.

John Stossel showed some footage of one of these on his TV special, "Stupid in America." I found it to be one of the singularly saddest things I have ever seen on television. People who cannot afford to move to another district or attend private schools show up for a government lottery to award the scarce seats in a public charter school.

The Wall Street Journal Ed page today suggests that New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver attend one of these lotteries. Silver opposes raising the caps that New York places on such schools.

The public charter school, which opened last year, is holding an admissions lottery at 6 p.m. to fill 105 kindergarten slots for next year from the 500 or so families who've applied for them. Harlem Success was founded by Eva Moskowitz, a reform-minded Democrat who formerly served as a New York City Councilwoman specializing in education issues.

In an interview this week, Ms. Moskowitz described the naked emotions on display at such lotteries, which are a common method for deciding who gets to attend these independently run public schools. "I thought I knew a lot about school choice and ed reform," she said. "But until I'd done the lottery last year I didn't understand the desperation.

"Unlike their middle-class counterparts who can use real estate to determine where their kid is going to school, my exclusively black and Latino parents' only option is to go through this process. And literally, people are praying and shaking and hoping to get into a school."

You lose the Colorado State Lottery, you're out a buck. You lose this lottery, you've lost a chance at getting a good education for your child. This is unconscionable.

CornHuskers For Surrender

ThreeSources friend The Everyday Economist, emails a link to this article and suggests that "Somewhere, Osama is smiling."

Sad to see the US Senate voting for defeat. Curious to me was that the reasonably red state of Nebraska supplied both the switchers that allowed this one to pass.

Similar legislation drew only 48 votes in the Senate earlier this month, but Democratic leaders made a change that persuaded Nebraska's Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson to swing behind the measure.

Additionally, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a vocal critic of the war, sided with the Democrats, assuring them of the majority they needed to turn back a challenge led by Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.

Insert your own Taranto joke about Senator Hegel, I would be surprised if many of the good people I know in that great state will be happy that their two Senators gift wrapped this present for enemies.

More Mommy Party

ThreeSources friend and commentress Dagny (who may or may not forgive me for that intro) made a superb point about "Why Mommy is a Democrat."

Dagny asked -- properly -- "Why would anyone consider it a good thing, or even an appropriate thing for a government to perform the same functions as a Mommy?"

David Boaz of the Cato Institute runs with that riff in a TCSDaily column, It Takes a Hillage

Even when the government doesn't step in to take children from their parents, Clinton sees it constantly advising, nagging, hectoring parents: "Videos with scenes of commonsense baby care -- how to burp an infant, what to do when soap gets in his eyes, how to make a baby with an earache comfortable -- could be running continuously in doctors' offices, clinics, hospitals, motor vehicle offices, or any other place where people gather and have to wait," she writes. The childcare videos could alternate with videos on the Food Pyramid, the evils of smoking and drugs, the need for recycling, the techniques of safe sex, the joys of physical fitness, and all the other things the responsible adult citizens of a complex modern society need to know. Sort of like the telescreen in Orwell's 1984 -- or the YouTube video.
[...]
Too often these days, the government treats adult citizens as children. It takes more and more money from those who produce it, doling it back to us like an allowance, through a smorgasbord of "transfer programs" ranging from Head Start and student loans to farm subsidies, corporate welfare, unemployment programs, and Social Security. It doesn't trust us to decide for ourselves (even in consultation with our doctors) what medicines to take, or where our children should go to school, or what we can access through our computers.

Many conservatives want to be your daddy, telling you what to do and what not to do, and many liberals want to be your mommy, feeding you, tucking you in, and setting your curfew. But the proper role for the government of a free society is to treat adults as adults, responsible for making their own decisions and accepting the consequences.

What a concept.

Don't Use Yesterday's BusinessSpeak

If you have a meeting today, be sure to show how hip and up to date you are: use the word "bucket."

Business Types Get a New Kick Out of the 'Bucket' (Paid link, sorry!)

Suddenly, the humble bucket has become a trendy fixture of corporate boardrooms and PowerPoint presentations. It is pushing aside other business-speak for describing categories or organizational units, such as silo and basket.

"People are using it everywhere now," says Tom Rath, a management consultant and author of "How Full Is Your Bucket?" His book, which has been translated into more than 20 languages since its publication in 2004, advocates praise in the workplace. Mr. Rath's consulting firm has even begun selling readers metal buckets to place on their desks. Their purpose: to receive "drops" of praise from colleagues for a job well done.

Iran Hostage Crisis - Day 3

We can only hope that the 15 British servicemen taken hostage on March 23 by Mahmoud and the boys will be released unharmed faster than the 52 Americans taken hostage at our own embassy during Jimmy Carter's presidency. This certainly seems to be a return to form by the Iranian president who, many claim, took part in that very kidnapping in 1979.

For his part, British PM Blair is getting tough. "The Iranians should not be in any doubt over how seriously we take this act, which was unjustified and wrong." At the same time, an American lieutenant commander echoes a question that occured to me when I first heard of this: "Why didn't your guys defend themselves?"

"I don't want to second-guess the British after the fact, but our rules of engagement allow a little more latitude. Our boarding team's training is a little bit more towards self-preservation."

"The unique US Navy rules of engagement say we not only have a right to self-defence but also an obligation to self-defence."

"They had every right, in my mind, every justification to defend themselves rather than allow themselves to be taken. Our reaction was, 'Why didn't your guys defend themselves?"'

Asked whether the men under his command would have fired at the Iranians, Commander Horner said: "Agreed. Yes."

If they had a reputation for defending themselves, perhaps they would not have been the target of Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elaborate plot to manufacture an international crisis.

The Yoke

In case you were wondering...

[The Tax Foundation] find that America's lowest-earning one-fifth of households received roughly $8.21 in government spending for each dollar of taxes paid in 2004. Households with middle-incomes received $1.30 per tax dollar, and America's highest-earning households received $0.41. Government spending targeted at the lowest-earning 60 percent of U.S. households is larger than what they paid in federal, state and local taxes. In 2004, between $1.03 trillion and $1.53 trillion was redistributed downward from the two highest income quintiles to the three lowest income quintiles through government taxes and spending policy.

It still ain't fair... the poor hardly pay any taxes!

Read all here.

Speaker Pelosi's Big Win

I almost put scare quotes around win, but the war appropriations bill was a win for the new Speaker. It was a loss for the country and for freedom, but elections matter and I'm afraid that's a dichotomy we'll need to get used to.

The Wall Street Journal Ed Page scare quotes the victory metaphorically (free link). Most notable is how hard this victory was to achieve. The clear mandate she thought they had received last November took a little greasing -- well, larding -- to push through.

The lengths that Democratic leaders had to go to win their "triumph" betrayed its cynicism. To get her narrow majority of 218 votes, Ms. Pelosi and Appropriations Chairman David Obey had to load it up like a farm bill: $74 million for peanut storage, $25 million for spinach growers, $283 million for dairy farmers--all told, some $20 billion in vote-buying earmarks of the kind Democrats campaigned against last year.

Even at that price, they could win over a mere two Republicans: antiwar Members Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland and Walter Jones of North Carolina. We hope GOP primary voters note those votes well. Given how the war hurt so many Republicans last November, this GOP solidarity is notable and a credit to the minority leadership.

Bravo to the house GOP caucus; Leader McConnell, you're up next, slay this porcine perversion.

Mister Gore Goes to Washington

Reuters: Glad-handing like the lifelong politician he was until losing the 2000 presidential race to George W. Bush, Gore called his return to Congress "an emotional occasion."

As a former Washington insider, Gore knows how to play the game:

Former British journalist Lord Christopher Monckton of Brenchley says he was not surprised Gore intentionally violated a rule requiring him to submit his written testimony 48 hours before the congressional hearings.

And Gore fillibustered during Sen. Inhofe's allotted 15 minutes, trying to avoid more pointed questions like, "Are you ready to change the way you live," as Gore himself asked viewers at the end of his propaganda movie.

Or, just wait until the committee chairmen are Democrats so they will do your bidding for you: "Boxer is the kindest bad-ass on Capital Hill, always finding new ways to remind us of how fantastic she is. Like this Wednesday, when she smacked down Senator James Inhofe for trying to cut off Al Gore during his testimony on global warming. Best part -- when she waves her gavel in Inhofe's face to remind him who's in charge."

And we don't expect MSM outlets like CNN to call attention to the veeps antics:

Brianna Keiler: "Wow. All right. That was quite an exchange. And, you know, we were expecting something from Senator James Inhofe. He is a critic of global warming....We thought maybe it might be with him and former Senator, former Vice President Al Gore, but it ended up between him and Senator Barbara Boxer. She really got a stinger in there, I will say."

Don Lemon: [Laughs, then quietly] "Good for her."

But just what is Gore up to here? What is behind his zealous crusade? Carbon dioxide? Bovine belching? Listing of icebergs as an endangered species? At Real Clear Politics Robert Tracinski tells us:

This, then, is the essence of Gore's complaint: there are too many humans and they are too well off.

Gore can fix that. He ends his speech by calling, among other things, for an immediate freeze on carbon dioxide emissions--which is to say, an immediate freeze on the generation of additional power--to be enforced by massive new "carbon taxes." On this proposal, he piggybacks the whole leftist welfare-state agenda, demanding that most of the money from these carbon taxes be "earmarked" for "those in lower income groups."

He concludes by saying that his plan will "discourage pollution while encouraging work." That's a very pleasant way to describe a global economic collapse into the unrewarded drudgery of a pre-industrial lifestyle.

Tracinski concludes, however, on a positive note:

But Al Gore is not getting it all his own way. In New York's Newsday, Ellis Hennican describes a three-on-three debate held last week in New York City, in which opponents of the global warming hysteria (...) took on some of the scare's defenders. The interesting thing about this debate is that the organizers polled the audience before and after the event. The result? The number of people who thought that global warming is a "crisis" dropped from 57% to 42%.

That's why folks like Al Gore have to keep claiming that there is an iron-clad "consensus" on global warming and that the debate is "over"--because the moment the debate on the scientific merits of global warming is actually allowed to begin, the alarmists start to lose.

Better Living Through Activism

Mmmmmm.... Hamnation

Elizabeth Edwards

The crazy rightwing nut jobs on the WSJ Editorial Page hit the perfect tone in the Edwards' announcement:

In today's nasty and polarized politics, we weren't surprised to see some of the cranks on the Web criticize John Edwards for announcing that his Presidential campaign will continue despite the return of his wife's cancer. By these lights, he is supposed to retire from public life and tend to her full-time.

Shouldn't that be up to the two of them? By the look of their press conference yesterday, Elizabeth Edwards wouldn't want her husband to give up his pursuit of the Democratic nomination despite her diagnosis. They seem to be in it together, and to like each other besides.

The decision to continue also reflects the changing reality of cancer and its treatment. The spread of Mrs. Edwards's breast cancer to her bones means that she probably can't be cured in the sense of being declared cancer free. But with improving treatments and new, less toxic anticancer drugs, she could live her currently active life for many more years. "I don't expect my life to be significantly different," Mrs. Edwards said yesterday, in a demonstration of fortitude that is itself a lesson for the rest of us. God speed.

It is hard to think of a politician with whom I have more fundamental disagreements. But their announcement was classy and well done. I hope his candidacy gets pummeled to the ground in short order mind you, but I wish the two of them the best.

The Mommy Party

I remember a little hubbub when this book came out, but I never saw it up close and personal.

My brother emails a link to the site and some sample pages.

I'm rendered speechless by the three sample pages, you'll have to do your own commentary. But it really does make you appreciate all the porn on the Internet.

It Ain't Fair

First, a joke...

A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of St.Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him.

He asked, "What are all those clocks?".

St.Peter answered, "Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on Earth has a Lie-Clock. Every time you lie the hands on your clock will move."

"Oh," said the man, "whose clock is that?"

"That's Mother Teresa's. The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie."

"Incredible," said the man. "And whose clock is that one?"

St. Peter responded, "That's Abraham Lincoln's clock. The hands Have moved twice, telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire Life."

"Where's Hillary Clinton's clock?" asked the man. [of all the questions to ask St Peter -ed]

"Hillary's clock is in Jesus' office. He's using it as a ceiling fan."

The Hill (not Hillary)...

Former President Bill Clinton yesterday complained that “it’s just not fair” the way his wife, presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), is being depicted for her controversial Iraq war vote.

Speaking to hundreds of supporters on conference call, the former president said, “I don’t have a problem with anything Barack Obama [has] said on this,” but “to characterize Hillary and Obama’s positions on the war as polar opposites is ludicrous.

“This dichotomy that’s been set up to allow him to become the raging hero of the anti-war crowd on the Internet is just factually inaccurate.”

Of all things that give me the chills about a second Clinton presidency, it's the aforementioned spinning.

He said he had re-read the Iraq resolution last week, and that his wife had voted only for “coercive inspections.” Clinton justified his wife’s refusal to apologize for her vote by explaining that she was acting out of concern that future presidents might need similar language authorizing “coercive inspections to avoid conflict.”

“It’s just not fair to say that people who voted for the resolution wanted war,” Clinton said.

Ahem... pardon my language.

The title of the f*cking resolution is "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq.

I guess you could technically argue that it doesn't say "invade Iraq," but it certainly says it's possible... and that's without even reading the text.

Besides, the only reason the coercive inspections were even happening were the thousands of American soldiers massing in Saudi Arabia.

Nobody called that 2002 resolution anything but the war declaration. Grr. Who is she kidding? Senator Kerry famously quipped "I voted for it, before I voted against it!" when defending his vote.

Who is fooled by the triangulation?

The Rapidly Advancing 2008 Primary Date

Governor Rendell ought to amend his plan to move the Pa primary to February, because Florida is looking at end of January.

Hoping to muscle Florida into a pre-eminent role in picking next year's Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, the state House voted Wednesday to leapfrog almost all the other states and set a Jan. 29 primary, with an option to go even earlier.

One of these days, the political class is going to realize, we're all growing tired of a campaign season that's a year ahead of schedule.

Guns and the Courts

TrekMedic passes along this Steve Chapman article about the affect of the 2nd amendment court decision last week.

So if this decision is upheld, it will not change our treatment of guns very much. Complete bans would be off-limits, but they are already rarer than white buffaloes. Most other gun-control laws would remain on the books, and anti-gun groups would be free to press for additional ones.

The only obstacle would be the one that has stymied them in the past: insufficient public support. It wasn't the constitutional right to keep and bear arms that induced Congress to let the federal ban on "assault weapons" expire, or that persuaded 40 states to allow the carrying of concealed handguns. Those choices were the product of sentiment among citizens and legislators who see most restrictions on firearms as futile at best and dangerous at worst.

The bad news for gun-control advocates is that the Supreme Court may adopt an expansive view of the Second Amendment. The worse news is this may represent the will of the people.

The conventional wisdom is that gun-control issues cost Algore the 2000 election. Democrats know it's a loser. It's about time.

The Best Blog Post Headline Ever

Send Hoyers, Guns, And Money

Hoyer seen yelling at staff…
Eleanor Holmes Norton in a daze of disbelief…
Pelosi missing in action while trying to round up votes for the supplemental.
Tension is building.

And you thought things were bad in Baghdad

Though I am a faithful Extreme Mortman reader, honor dictates that I offer the hat-tip to his Glennness

Efficacy

Cancer is in the news again today. "Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., announced today that his wife's cancer has returned, but that his presidential campaign will go on." Mrs. Edwards' cancer is apparently a metastasis of her breast cancer, thought effectively treated in 2004 with radiation and chemotherapy. And the metastasis site is now within bone, which makes it difficult to treat: The bone is one of the most common places where breast cancer spreads, and once it does so it is not considered curable.

When it comes to cancer, the present day "standard of care" as it's called - radiation treatments and chemotherapy - is brutal on the body and bleak in long-term prognosis. Cancers are very rarely referred to "cured" but instead are said to be in remission. The good news is that the scope and quality of cancer fighting research is truly impressive in this nascent age of genetic science.

The bad news is that no new treatments have thus far been approved by regulatory bodies which do much more than to extend a patient's life by a few months or years. What's more, the cutting edge pharmaceuticals being developed are monstrously expensive - on the order of $10,000 per week with treatments required for life in some cases.

But in February 2007 something different came to light. A biomedical researcher at the University of Alberta, Canada, Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, published a research paper in the journal 'Cancer Cell' that showed "Cancer Mitochondria Are Hyperpolarized and Have Suppressed Oxidative Metabolism, Both of which Are Reversed by DCA."

"DCA" or dichloroacetate, is a simple compound that has apparently been approved for treatment of certain rare metabolic disorders in children. It is also a long-standing compound and can't be patented. Nonetheless, unless Dr. Michelakis' team's discovery is another cold fusion debacle, it could be a safe and powerful new treatment for this devastating disease. If true, this could also be an incredible threat to the big business of cancer cures.

But the more pressing concern is what is happening with DCA today among current cancer patients, some of whom are considered "terminal." They are treating themselves - illegally - with this unproven compound.

Desperate cancer patients are self-medicating with a cheap compound that has yet to be tested in humans, despite dire warnings of potential toxic poisonings.

Predictably, the medical establishment and government regulatory bodies reactions range from extreme caution to total fear of the unknown. But for someone with no hope left, what's to lose?

Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, the cardiologist whose academic paper sparked the worldwide fervour, said people shouldn't take DCA until clinical trials prove it is safe on humans and actually shrinks tumours as it did in rats.

In clinical trials to see how DCA works in metabolic disorders, children took the drug and showed no signs of toxic poisoning. But when similar trials were done on adults, most had to discontinue using it, since they developed severe peripheral neuropathy, Michelakis said.

The damage to the peripheral nerves caused imbalance and finger numbness. Michelakis said if people take DCA along with other cancer treatments, the consequences could be lethal.

Even for those who say they have only six months to live and nothing to lose, Michelakis said it's not worth it. "You can die earlier and in much worse shape," he said.

Jim Tassano, a biologist in Sonora, Calif., and a University of California chemist have begun making DCA and selling it over the Internet. "Are there side effects?" Tassano said. "Absolutely, but compare that to radiation."

This is a complicated moral situation, one on which I've had difficulty forming an opinion. I think though my attitude is best expressed by an opinion on "thedcasite.com" which asks, "Is DCA worth trying?"

We absolutely think so..

The risks of a DCA-based therapy are trivial compared to those of accepted cancer therapy. Isn't radiation bad for you? Doesn't radiation cause cancer? What does a man feel like after he loses sexual function when a doctor cuts the nerve near his prostate gland? How does a women feel after having her breasts removed? Have you ever seen someone after a chemo treatment so sick they cannot get out of bed for days? What is like to be told that there is nothing that can be done for you, to just go home and die? Why is all that okay? Why would anyone opt for the cutting, burning and poisoning of their bodies when they could drink a tiny amount of sodium dichloroacetate every day for a few months, live a totally normal life and pay only a few hundred dollars? What is there to lose? A reversible neropathy? A risk of cancer that is probably vastly less than the risk radiation therapy places upon you?

That is the allure, the great hope that DCA gives us.

There is a problem, and it is not DCA.

Quarter Mile

Well... someone can't be troubled.

Seems the New York senator and former President Clinton fired up the motorcade to drive a little under a quarter-mile from a fundraiser to a Lebanese restaurant just down the street. I imagine the traffic tie-ups from the motorcade didn't help cut back on those dastardly carbon emissions from all the cars and buses on Connecticut Ave. either.

You can't very well have a former president walking down the block after all...

The Anti-Gore

I thought I would only keep my OpinionJournal Political Diary subscription through the election. I enjoy it though I wish they would move it to a web delivery system instead of email. I have written enough letters to suggest this I'm sure I have my own "crank" folder at Dow Jones.

Elections are now eternal -- politics certainly is. So I'll be forking over the $3.95 month for a bit. Here's John Fund today:

You could never tell from the news coverage, but there was a second witness on global warming yesterday on Capitol Hill.

Normally Bjorn Lomborg would be just the kind of figure to intrigue the media -- an openly gay vegetarian from Denmark whose book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" is an international bestseller. Mr. Lomborg, a professor of statistics, believes global warming is real and man-made but that command-and-control solutions to curb industrial activity are ruinously expensive and that resources would be far better devoted to adapting to a changing climate. Tackling such massive public-health problems as the lack of clean drinking water for the world's poor, he says, would deliver much greater bang for the buck than trying to influence climate.

In his testimony, Mr. Lomborg, casually dressed in Adidas and a black polo shirt, argued that "statements about the strong, ominous and immediate consequences of global warming are often wildly exaggerated." He urged fellow environmentalists to realize that "climate change is actually one of the issues where we can do the least good first."

But Mr. Lomborg was sandbagged by the filibustering Mr. Gore, who insisted on giving a 30-minute opening statement before the House committee. During his verbose answers, Mr. Gore invoked the Battle of Thermopylae in ancient Greece as well as homespun anecdotes about growing up in Tennessee. By the time he had finished, the hearing was ready to adjourn for lunch without calling on Mr. Lomborg. He sat in the empty hearing room munching on a meatless Subway sandwich and marveling at the madness of the media crowds, whom he correctly doubted would return for his testimony. Nonetheless, he is optimistic that "common sense" will eventually prevail on climate policy. "The science isn't there, and the politics behind the current 'crisis' can only keep it aloft for so long," he once told me.

The problem is, having observed the hot air and posturing in the hearing room yesterday, the supply of political humbug churned out by the American political system may exceed even Mr. Lomborg's generous estimates.

No Toilet Paper

What's wrong with people?

Especially these people.

Welcome to Walden Pond, Fifth Avenue style. Isabella’s parents, Colin Beavan, 43, a writer of historical nonfiction, and Michelle Conlin, 39, a senior writer at Business Week, are four months into a yearlong lifestyle experiment they call No Impact. Its rules are evolving, as Mr. Beavan will tell you, but to date include eating only food (organically) grown within a 250-mile radius of Manhattan; (mostly) no shopping for anything except said food; producing no trash (except compost, see above); using no paper; and, most intriguingly, using no carbon-fueled transportation.

Mr. Beavan, who has written one book about the origins of forensic detective work and another about D-Day, said he was ready for a new subject, hoping to tread more lightly on the planet and maybe be an inspiration to others in the process.

Environmentalism is a new religion.

There's no toilet paper. Crazed.

Good Enough for Thee

Heh.

Well then don't play

Colorado Rep Marilyn Musgrave (R-Atlantis Farm and environs, I believe...) has a good record on spending and the war, and I was happy to see her win a close re-election in 2006. But she opens herself to the old joke "We've established what you are. We're now quibbling over price."

She may just go ahead and vote for defeat in Iraq so that she can bring home some Federal jack to her constituents:

"She hates the games the Democrats are playing," said Guy Short, chief of staff to Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.), a staunch conservative who remains undecided, thanks to billions of dollars in the bill for drought relief and agriculture assistance. "But Representative Musgrave was just down in southeastern Colorado, talking to ranchers and farmers, and they desperately need this assistance."

If you hate the game so much, Rep Musgrave: don't play.

Hat-tip: Instapundit, one of whose readers wonders "Um… I thought the Democrats had a 'mandate' on Iraq? Why do they need to buy votes?"

Don't Interpret -- Abolish!

I was thinking of ThreeSources friend TrekMedic251 from Is This Life? JohnGalt posted about the DC Court ruling upholding the Second Amendment and TrekMedic commented "how soon before the knee-jerk reactions from the "let's talk" liberal crowds??" I linked to a WaPo editorial and commented "less than 24 hours."

But this is a piece of work. Benjamin Wittes writes in TNR:

It's time for gun-control supporters to come to grips with the fact that the amendment actually means something in contemporary society. For which reason, I hereby advance a modest proposal: Let's repeal the damned thing.

Wittes starts out applauding the NYTimes and WaPo editorials we ridiculed. He then quotes liberal and conservative jurists supporting individualist interpretations of the Amendment. He's convinced, as few in the TNR coffee room are, that the Second Amendment actually allows Americans to bear arms.

If, on the other hand, the amendment really does as Silberman, Tribe, Amar, and Levinson essentially claim--and I suspect they are all more right than wrong--then it embodies values in which I don't believe. I grew up obsessively shooting .22 caliber target rifles at summer camp in the Adirondacks. I like guns well enough in rural areas. I don't like them in cities. I don't believe that the Constitution ought to prevent my hometown of Washington, D.C.--which has a serious problem with gun violence--from making a profoundly different judgment about how available handguns should be than the New York legislature would make for the hamlet near my old camp. Guns, in other words, present a legitimate policy question on which different jurisdictions should take very different approaches--including, in some areas, outright bans.

I certainly hope the Democratic party takes this up in the 2008 election. The netroots crowd will love it, and middle America will be reminded what nanny-staters the party of Jackson has become. I think the GOP would win 260 seats.

What Engineer Gap?

There's certainly no lack of engineers at ThreeSources -- how about the nation as a whole? We keep getting told that we are underproducing this valuable commodity (they obviously haven't met some of the engineers I have) compared to China. But The Numbers Guy says "It depends on how you define 'engineer.'"

Motor mechanics and shipbuilders are counted in China’s official statistics, as are recipients of two- or three-year degrees, according to an article in the new issue of Issues in Science and Technology, the magazine of the National Academy of Sciences. By this definition, Chinese universities may have awarded more than 517,000 degrees in engineering, computer science and information technology in 2004-2005, nearly four times the U.S. total, but the article questions the quality of those degrees. “Graduation rate increases have been achieved by dramatically increasing class sizes,” according to the article, and only graduates of the top-tier universities have much credibility in the job market.

I don't want to join the China-bashers, but I'd add that is wise to take government figures with a grain of salt, and totalitarian regimes' figures with a mountain. Counting degrees seems dubious whomever it favors. I know many people with engineering degrees who do not -- and honestly could not -- perform engineering work. Two of ThreeSources's leading lights perform engineering work without any degree.

I will agree that a good way to fix a gap is to let foreign graduates stay in the US.

Hat-tip: Everyday Economist

WSJ Imitates Tom Tancredo

I'm afraid JK ain't gonna like this... (and no, it's not about illegal immigration.)

Way back in July of '05 Tom Tancredo was asked, "Worst case scenario, if they do have these nukes inside the borders and they were to use something like that, what would our response be?" Tom's response can be paraphrased as, "Nuke Mecca."

On this morning's WSJ editorial page, board member Bret Stephens writes:

What would a sensible deterrence strategy look like? "Even nihilists have something they hold dear that can be threatened with deterrence," says Max Singer, a collaborator of the great Cold War theorist Herman Kahn. "You need to know what it is, communicate it and be serious about it."

Would it hinder Islamist terrorists if the U.S.'s declared policy in the event of a nuclear 9/11 was the immediate destruction of Mecca, Medina and the Iranian religious center of Qom?

Twenty months ago JK found such a suggestion "completely off the table" and that it's "irresponsible to discuss it."

About this Stephens says, "One needn't have answers to these questions to know it requires something more than pat moralizing about the terribleness of nuclear weapons or declaring the whole matter "unthinkable." Nothing is unthinkable."

I fully agree with Stephens that, "the question of what to do after a nuclear 9/11 is something to which not enough thought has been given. We urgently need a nuclear doctrine--and the weapons to go with it--for the terrorist age."

For my part I still stand by The List.

A Question for War Opponents

Today's Democrats can be divided into three groups:

• Those who regret supporting the war;


• Those who never supported the war;


• Those who would not have supported the war if they "knew now what they knew then."

I'll concede that there are some Democrats who still support the war, but they have no representation in party leadership, so I dismiss them.

I encourage everybody to read Michael Totten's amazing report on progress in the Kurdish north. He compares a visit there fourteen months ago to a recent visit. Erbil, the "capital" city of Iraqi Kurdistan (Totten eschews the scare quotes) is a bustling and booming metropolis, rivaled in growth and construction only by Dubai. Totten notes plans for the tallest building in Iraq, as well as mobile-phone billboards (with attractive, unscarved females!), construction -- all the signs of commercial life.

Kurdistan’s rise flips Iraq on its head. The Kurds are ahead, but they started from nothing. Under Saddam’s regime they had the worst of everything – the worst poverty, the worst underdevelopment, and worst of all they bore the brunt of the worst violence from Baghdad. 200,000 people were killed (out of less than four million) and 95 percent of the villages were completely destroyed.

The Kurds seem happy and well-adjusted. Scratch the surface, though, and any one of them can tell you tales that make you tremble and shudder. Everyone here was touched by the Baath and by the genocide. If living well is the best revenge, the Kurds got theirs.

“You see this place now with its government, its democracy, and its system of laws,” my guide Hamid said. “It wasn’t like this even recently, believe me. Before, it was a jungle.”

It is an awesome read. Totten is not very optimistic on Baghdad or Anbar, and the desire for Kurdish independence, which I have supported for years, has some troubling repercussions.

All the same, the liberation of the Kurdish North from Saddam Hussein is a huge success -- dare I say "Mission Accomplished?" This region is showing its neighbors the advantages of freedom and plurality as it gives hope and opportunity to its citizens. This could not have happened without coalition troops.

I ask all those who have abandoned -- or who proudly proclaim they've never given -- support to the mission if the liberation of the Kurdish North is not in and of itself a good reason for war. And if you think I'm going too far with that, how can you deny the opportunity for freedom to the rest of Iraq? It is a credit to the coalition troops that they gave opportunity to all Iraqis. Some have embraced it and some have elected to pursue tribal vendettas and brutal power struggles.

But you cannot read this and call the war a mistake and a failure.

Hat-tip: Insty (all my links today are: Coals to Newcastle...)

Hillary's Drones

Seen this yet?

Hat tip: Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends

Thr Real Enemy

JohnGalt thinks it is Plato, and Arnold Kling thinks it is Karl Marx. I have suspected that it is John Lennon. But I think we all must admit that the true philosophical leader of the forces of darkness and anti-modernity -- is Yoko Ono.

Oleg Atbashian, who grew up under Soviet totalitarianism has studied "The Gospel of John and Yoko" extensively, and narrowed it to these theses:

1. A collective hallucination can create objective reality.
2. “The fenceless and doorless world is soon to come.” Obviously it’s a good thing.
3. Middle America is stupid and “afraid of youth and the future.”
4. People work not because they’re glad to have a job but because they’re being bullied into working by the “tyranny and suppression of the capitalists.” (Karl Marx called and left a message).
5. Immature youth are “the aware ones”; traditional education and thought discipline is the enemy.
6. Material reality is evil.
7. “Come together rather than claim independence.”
8. “Feel rather than think.”
9. Immature and irresponsible behavior is a virtue.
10. Possessions are immoral. “Any possession that is more than what you need belongs to someone who needs it.”
11. A worldwide revolution (“progress”) is inevitable, and such a future “cannot be anything but brightness.”
12. To resist the revolution is immoral because it prolongs people’s suffering.
13. A society based on competitiveness and logic produces “hypocrisy, violence, and chaos.”
14. A society based on love rather than reasoning will produce “balance, peace, and contentment.”
15. To remove evil from this world men must be feminized (if you liked this one you will also like “The DaVinci Code” which is a 500-pages-long regurgitation of this very doctrine).

I was certainly brought up on this crap. Although I have aggravated some of my blog brothers and sisters with my rejection of Objectivism, I do credit Ayn Rand with showing me the fallacies in that way of thinking. Atbashian opens the piece with a Rand quote -- she remains a powerful antidote to Onoism.

Like Kling's Folk-Marxism, I see a lot of what drives my leftist friends in this, and recognize that anybody my age in America was inculcated in this nonsense.

Hat-tip: instapundit

Maybe Sanford?

Hmmm...

Gov. Mark Sanford says he’s not running for president in 2008.

That’s the official line.

But nearly every week there’s another sign that Sanford might be running for something.

Real live pigs in Congress is what we'd get with a Vice President Sanford.

Read it all.

MS Benefit

I met Linda Storey last night. She and her daughter, Jessica, have a band which I saw at Nissis. I learned of her in the Wall Street Journal last year for her benefit concerts and her MS advocacy. She's asked me to play a song to open the benefit and I invite y'all to stop by:

Trilogy Wine Bar
March 24, 2007
9 PM

2017 13th Street, Boulder
(between Pearl & Spruce)

The next Rockin' Out MS concert to raise funds for the Colorado Chapter of the National MS Society and our non-profit CASE for MS, will be in Boulder on March 24th at the Trilogy Wine Bar. We are excited this time to have our guest artists, Nina Storey, Tim Hanauer, and Linda & Jessica Storey to perform for this event. Shaul Turner, news anchor from Fox News, will make a special appearance Our tradition of hosting a silent auction during the event will continue.

CASE for MS organizes and promotes Concerts for the National MS Society, cutting edge research for Multiple Sclerosis and our organization CASE . We Advocate for individuals and families affected by MS and other disabilities. We Support musicians who have MS, and we Educate the public through the media and community events about Multiple Sclerosis.

Karl Popper Is Not Post Modern Enough

The science is settled. It's just "Post Normal Science."The Belmont Club explains

Wikipedia shows that the curious term used by Mike Hulme, who argues Global Warming can only be met by something called "post-normal" science has a history of use in the environmental movement since the late 1980s and early 90s.

Not just for the English Department anymore -- eeech!

Hat-tip: Samizdata

It's Okay, SIlence

Friend of this blog, Everyday Economist, is quoted at length in a USA TODAY article debunking huge productivity losses in March as workers' attention turns to college hoops.

Wayne State University economist Josh Hendrickson says there are several flaws in time-theft estimates. For one, the computers used to goof off are largely responsible for the huge jump in productivity over 20 years, he says, and idle workers may be doing the company a favor if they surf rather than distract busy co-workers.

The biggest flaw, Hendrickson says, is the presumption that workers have no downtime. Time wasted on March Madness is likely being stolen from time wasted elsewhere, he says.

ThreeSources readers are a year ahead of the game, having read my post in 2006. ThreeSources readers are much better looking as well, but we'll save that for another day.

Sorry, SugarChuck, Gonzales outlasts Gonzaga. Good luck with your Blue Devils, Silence!

She don't hear so good

Terri at I Think ^(Link) Therefore I Err thought it was Friday Calf Blogging. The little calf is going to ruin the planet with greenhouse gases, but she sure is cute.

Mitchslapped

Hugh Hewitt's (superb) headline for a complete posting of the Senate Minority Leader's superb remarks:

“It is unprecedented in the powers it would arrogate to the Congress in a time of war; it is a clear statement of retreat from the support that the Senate only recently gave to General David Petraeus; and its passage would be absolutely fatal to our mission in Iraq. “Previous resolutions proposed by the Democrats were a mere statement of opinion, or sentiment. This one has a binding quality. It would interfere with the President and General Petraeus’ operational authority to conduct the war in Iraq as he and his commanders see fit. It would substitute for their judgment the judgment of 535 members of Congress.

My favorite Senator recalls statements from Clinton, Reid and Biden against timetables, and forcefully rolls the vote and the debate.

Must read.

Allegedly...

No doubt this is good journalism and in keeping with the NYTimes Style Guide, but this grouchy hawk rolled his eyes at this Headline:

Suspected Leader of 9/11 Attacks Is Said to Confess

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, long said to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed to them at a military hearing held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Saturday, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon yesterday. He also acknowledged full or partial responsibility for more than 30 other terror attacks or plots.

We can't be sure, mind you -- it's just a rumor about something somebody might have said he might have said. Again, it is probably correct to phrase it this way. It just seems to me that the NYTimes is able to find its certain declarative voice on the important topics of the day, like Bush Administration malfeasance, gender discrimination at golf clubs, and the importance of shutting down Guantánamo and releasing all those innocent freedom fighters.

Contest

Here's your chance to take an all-expenses-paid trip with Nick Kristof, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times.

This year, Nick will be traveling with two people, a student enrolled in an American college or graduate school and a middle school or high school teacher.

To enter you must write an essay no longer than 700 words explaining why you're the right candidate for this trip.

Second prize: Two trips with Pulitzer-Prize winning NYTimes columnist, Nick Kristof. I dunno, a night of cocktails with MoDo maybe, but carrying Kristof's luggage? Not me, man.

UPDATE: Sorry, I forgot the link.

Club For Growth Freedom Awards

The Club For Growth released its 2006 Scorecard and Economic Freedom Awards. We complain about politicians, but it is worth recognizing some of those who are doing it right:

SENATE	SCORE			HOUSE	SCORE
Tom Coburn (R-OK)	100			Jeff Flake (AZ-6)	100
Jim DeMint (R-SC)	100			John Shadegg (AZ-3)	100
John Sununu (R-NH)	100			Jeb Hensarling (TX-5)	100
Mike Enzi (R-WY)	99			Trent Franks (AX-2)	98
Sam Brownback (R-KS)	98			Mike Pence (IN-6)	97
Jon Kyl (R-AZ)	94			Steve King (IA-5)	94
Jim Bunning (R-KY)	94			Randy Neugebauer (TX-19)	92
John Ensign (R-NV)	94			Lynn Westmoreland (GA-8)	92
James Inhofe (R-OK)	94			Scott Garrett (NJ-5)	91
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)	93			Chris Chocola (IN-2)	90
Judd Gregg (R-NH)	92
Wayne Allard (R-CO)	90

I may be different than some, but I would score that as Colorado 1, Pennsylvania, 0.