Well, he can’t be right about everything

I’ve had minor disagreements with Rush Limbaugh in the past. Anybody would, of course. And there have been many times I wished he’d been wrong, like when he predicted that the Left would try to reclassify carbon dioxide as a pollutant. (I remember scoffing back at the radio.)

But now I can say that Rush is just flat out wrong about something.

RUSH: Drudge had as a lead item up there this morning on his page a story from the UK, Sky News: “Scientists Unveil Missing Link In Evolution.” It’s all about how Darwin would be thrilled to be alive today. “Scientists have unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossilised skeleton of a monkey hailed as the missing link in human evolution.” It’s a one-foot, nine-inch-tall monkey, and it’s a lemur monkey described as the eighth wonder of the world. “The search for a direct connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom has taken 200 years – but it was presented to the world today —” So I guess this is settled science. We now officially came from a monkey, 47 million years ago. Well, that’s how it’s being presented here. It’s settled science. You know, this is all BS, as far as I’m concerned. Cross species evolution, I don’t think anybody’s ever proven that. They’re going out of their way now to establish evolution as a mechanism for creation, which, of course, you can’t do, but I’m more interested in some other missing link. And that is the missing link between our failing economy and prosperity.

I think Rush has been a powerful force for good over the years. This stunningly ignorant statement, however, blows a giant hole in his credibility.

Rush has been filling in the vacuum left by absentee leadership at the party level. The Republican Party is in serious need of leaders who can see reality.

We’re Doomed

DOOOOOMED!

This Dr. Utopia Fellow Rings a Bell

Where have I heard his arguments lately?

Too bad the guy who bundled up this fine old cartoon bookended it with kind of lame commentary and defaced it with YouTube comments. It really speaks for itself rather well.

?siht si gnos tahW

The Link

This is really big news. Ida’s discovery was announced recently, but now you can go to a slick web site, www.revealingthelink.com, and learn a lot about what may be the most important fossil discovery of my lifetime.

I’m still not clear on why they call her our “earliest ancestor” when it seems she’s our “earliest common ancestor” with other primates. In any case, how wonderful for this prediction of Darwin’s to come true this year when we celebrate his 200th birthday.

Just Wondering

If, hypothetically speaking, Obama were a narcissistic, power-mad, America-hating fascist, what would He be doing differently?

Update:

He really is the Parody-Proof President. Good thing he isn’t a Republican or he’d get endless ribbing in the press for saying something this inane:

Appearing in the Rose Garden today to announce his plan to cap auto emissions, President Obama opened by saying, “What an extraordinary day. The sun is out, because good things are happening.”

Not Only as Ugly as a Prius

but the Honda Insight is a much worse car.

It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more.

Read the whole thing. It’s a hoot.

It’s “Laugh or Cry” Time Again With Joe Biden

Joe Biden’s mouth got behind his brain’s power curve. Again.

According to a report, while recently attending the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, an annual event where powerful politicians and media elite get a chance to cozy up to one another, Biden told his dinnermates about the existence of a secret bunker under the old U.S. Naval Observatory, which is now the home of the vice president.

Update:

And when his boss tries to be funny…

Brave, Brave Nancy

Pelosi stands tall in the face of the deceitful forces arrayed against her.

Perhaps if Pelosi hadn’t been tirelessly pursuing her job of “[changing] the leadership in Congress and in the White House—the Congress part,” at the time, she would have spotted and fired back at this misleading article. In fact, it may have proven a golden opportunity to first uncork the “CIA lied to me!” truth tornado. Alas, Speak Pelosi mustered a Herculean effort to resist the overwhelming temptation to respond, keeping her powder dry for another year and a half. Again—very cunning.

Bumper Sticker OTD

Heaven, as Explained by an Expert

Thanks to LGF for finding the most delightfully weird bit of filmmaking I’ve seen in a long time. As a bonus, it comes from someone with the simply awesome name of Estus Washington Pirkle.

As an agnostic skeptic I find the content simultaneously hilarious and sad. As a filmmaker I find the editing and camera choices mesmerising.

You’re wondering about, uh, the “other place”, aren’t you? Well, it’s worse than you thought. Lower resolution and more film scratches!

Update:

My film-literate coworkers have let me know that this first clip is lifted from Dianne Keaton’s 1987 film, “Heaven“. That explains the great editing.

Read This Post Later

And don’t eat the marshmallow.

“This is where your parents are important,” Mischel says. “Have they established rituals that force you to delay on a daily basis? Do they encourage you to wait? And do they make waiting worthwhile?” According to Mischel, even the most mundane routines of childhood—such as not snacking before dinner, or saving up your allowance, or holding out until Christmas morning—are really sly exercises in cognitive training: we’re teaching ourselves how to think so that we can outsmart our desires. But Mischel isn’t satisfied with such an informal approach. “We should give marshmallows to every kindergartner,” he says. “We should say, ‘You see this marshmallow? You don’t have to eat it. You can wait. Here’s how.’ ”

Degree in English

Christopher Francese looks at Latin diplomas and says, “Neque Ego Haer Intellegere Possum“.

We Latinists have also been resistant to change. Like most keepers of arcane knowledge, we savor our rare moments of prominence.

I say this from personal experience: Once, the hardened leader of the local SWAT team asked me for a Latin version of his team’s credo, “The strength of the wolf is in the pack, the strength of the pack is in the wolf.” I told him: “Robur gregi in lupo, robur lupo in grege.” He thanked me and then said the nine most comforting words a SWAT team leader could say to anyone: “Let me know if you ever need a favor.”

Admittedly, this pales in comparison to the fame gained by the Columbia University Latin scholar who had the high honor of translating for the press the tattoo of the woman at the center of the Eliot Spitzer scandal from “Tutela valui” to “I use protection.”

This all sounds very exciting, but these stories of linguistic derring-do obscure the fact that Latin diplomas have outlived their usefulness.

Wolfram Alpha Is Here

Amazing.

Watch the demo. Then try it yourself when it goes on line later today.

Update:

Oh, it’s smart. Very smart.

A Good Argument Against Obama’s Spending Plan

Guess who said this:

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China. We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

“It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

Yes.

I Stopped Reading WorldNetDaily Long Ago

Maybe I should start again, now that they are trying to imitate my favorite newspaper.

Sing Along!

A Shockingly Bogus Ruling

Some idiot judge in England has ruled against Simon Singh on completely bogus grounds.

Yesterday the English High Court made an astonishing and highly illiberal ruling in the libel case brought by the British Chiropractic Association against Simon Singh.

The ruling was by Sir David Eady, the presiding judge. He has decided the “meaning” which should be given to the passage complained of in Simon Singh’s original article.

All we need now is for bogus CAM practitioners like Chiropracters, Accupuncturists and Witch Doctors to start intimidating people through the courts.

If John Galt Were a Blogger

would he use emoticons?

The Payoff

Michael Ledeen with a reminder of why Saberi was released by Iran.

Why does the Mafia release hostages? Because they have collected the ransom. So to all those who are looking for subtle reasons for the Saberi release, take it from someone who has been there. Iran collected its ransom. The mullahs aren’t subtle, they’re mafiosi. We probably won’t know for a while what they got, who delivered it, and who worked the deal. But anyone familiar with the workings of the Islamic Republic has to assume that there was a payoff.

I can just picture the meetings between the Mullahs and Obama’s people: It’s The Godfather without the Sicilian accents. Or the good food.

Imagine

Score one for the Catholics.

We Haven’t Heard the Last about Air Farce One

Ann Althouse asks the obvious questions about that idiotic flight over NYC. I was being too kind assuming the photo was meant to be taken from the ground, since no such photo has surfaced. The one that has illustrates that, while the F-16 is many things, an air-to-air photo platform it ain’t.

Who was on the plane, I wonder? Is Caldera under the bus to keep them secret?

“An FBI Clue”

Not long after 911 I was at a security training session with a member of the local bomb squad. He was teaching us how to recognize suspicious packages. When he brought out the lumpy manilla envelope with the wires hanging out he said, “This is what we call an FBI clue.”

He wasn’t kidding. Just now, and we’re talking well into the year 2009, the FBI has figured out that it should sever its ties with the terrorist-supporting Hamas front group CAIR.

Even still, the FBI apparently thinks that there may be something in the envelope besides a bomb. Like some candy, maybe.

The FBI’s decision to suspend formal contacts was not intended to reflect a wholesale judgment of the organization and its entire membership. Nevertheless, until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner.” [emphasis added]

A Very Descript Man

A poem to flame your passions.

If you like that, there’s more.

Death of a Thousand Cuts

The degree to which overarching government inserts itself into our lives is sometimes best measured by the smaller wounds. Case in point: Your yard sale is illegal.

Not Peace, But Hudna

The Arab word for a phony truce is hudna. And the West keeps falling for it. Charles Krauthammer doesn’t.

The Times conducted a five-hour interview with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal at his Damascus headquarters. Mirabile dictu, they’re offering a peace plan with a two-state solution. Except. The offer is not a peace but a truce that expires after 10 years. Meaning that after Israel has fatally weakened itself by settling millions of hostile Arab refugees in its midst, and after a decade of Hamas arming itself within a Palestinian state that narrows Israel to eight miles wide — Hamas restarts the war against a country it remains pledged to eradicate.

There is a phrase for such a peace: the peace of the grave.

Westerners may be stupid, but Hamas is not. It sees the new American administration making overtures to Iran and Syria. It sees Europe, led by Britain, beginning to accept Hezbollah. It sees itself as next in line. And it knows what to do. Yasser Arafat wrote the playbook.

Michael Ledeen has a good definition of peace:

Wars end when one side wins and the other loses. The winner imposes terms on the loser, and those terms are called ‘peace.’

A Moron Interviews a Liar

This is a sickeningly shameful performance by Fox News (which has apparently just come completely off the rails lately) wherein some idiot reporter who obviously has no idea what he’s talking about (which describes nearly all reporters) interviewing a smug liar. Casey Luskin is lying through his teeth here, and he knows it. Let’s see if we can count the lies.

I can’t embed the video here, so pop over to LGF and watch it. It’s under three minutes long. I’ll wait.

Back? OK. I’m not going to count the idiotic things the reporter said. Let’s just concentrate on the demonstrable falsehoods uttered by Luskin.

• “textbooks…censor the science that challenges Darwin”. FALSE. It is not censorship when you don’t print crackpot theories. It is not censorship when textbooks don’t print the phlogiston theory. That’s because there is no evidence to support it, and all available evidence points a different direction. Also, IDiots like Luskin try to hang the word “Darwinism” around evolution as if it were just another philosophy. In fact, there is no such thing as Darwinism except in the minds of creationists. There is only science, and there is so much evidence for evolution now that even if you discount everything Darwin ever wrote it would still have to be considered a fact.
• “this is not about teaching creationism”. FALSE. So-called Intelligent Design is nothing more than creationism in drag. This has been demonstrated multiple times, including in court, and with the Discovery Institute’s very own documents.
• “…evidence that challenges evolution.” FALSE. There isn’t any. And it’s not because scientists are hegemonic lemmings. Scientists go where the data lead. The problem is that now there is so much fossil and genetic evidence that it is completely overwhelming. Absolutely everything in modern biology depends on common ancestry, or evolution. When all of the evidence supports a hypothesis and none of it contradicts, it is called a theory. That means you can make predictions with it and treat it as a fact. If the DI has any evidence contradicting evolution they should publish it.
• Haekel’s Embryos in modern textbooks. FALSE. One of the few things he said that was true is that those illustrations were debunked decades ago. That would be why they aren’t in any modern textbooks. And the fact that they are false in no way falsifies the theory of evolution. This is just more fallacious thinking on the part of the IDiots. The mountains of evidence for common ancestry are in our DNA, not any old drawings. He’s shooting squid’s ink here.
• Darwin’s Tree of Life is full of holes, therefore evolution is wrong. FALSE. More selective quotations from the IDiots. It’s true that some scientists are questioning Darwin’s simple, branching tree. But, as I’ve pointed out before, evolution is not Darwin. Instead of a tree, life may be more of a web due to “horizontal gene transfer” or, simply put, interbreeding.

Other cases of HGT in multicellular organisms are coming in thick and fast. HGT has been documented in insects, fish and plants, and a few years ago a piece of snake DNA was found in cows. The most likely agents of this genetic shuffling are viruses, which constantly cut and paste DNA from one genome into another, often across great taxonomic distances. In fact, by some reckonings, 40 to 50 per cent of the human genome consists of DNA imported horizontally by viruses, some of which has taken on vital biological functions.

This in no way nullifies Darwin’s insight about natural selection and descent with modification:

…the tree concept could become biology’s equivalent of Newtonian mechanics: revolutionary and hugely successful in its time, but ultimately too simplistic to deal with the messy real world.

• “We don’t support the teaching of creationism”. FALSE. (See above)
• “The best science shows that there’s a scientific controversy over this.” FALSE There is absolutely no scientific controversy. Evolution is the only theory there is for speciation. There are no competing theories.

A minimum of seven falshoods in three minutes. Fox should be absolutely ashamed of this. It’s yet another data point to support my contention that no TV “news” program should be trusted about anything, ever.

Update:

Apparently this “Trouble with Textbooks” feature is an ongoing piece shilling for a book of the same name. If you got past the faux religion in part one, you’ll love part 2, which turns this book into an important-sounding “study”. Now, I’m sure that most textbooks are indeed politically correct, meaning in part that they have to be hostile to anything Judeo-Christian and friendly to Islam. But the relentless religious nature of these features on Fox really puts the phony “science” in this one into context.

There are more of these than I’m willing to watch. Knock yourself out, though.

Hobbit News

I’ve been following the story of the Flores “Hobbits” for a while. Some of this is new, though. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

So unless the Flores hobbits became more primitive over time — a more-than-unlikely scenario — they must have branched off the human line at an even earlier date.

For Jungers and colleagues, this suggests “that the ancestor of H. floresiensis was not Homo erectus but instead some other, more primitive, hominin whose dispersal into southeast Asia is still undocumented,” the researchers conclude.

Companion studies, published online in the Journal of Human Evolution, bolster this theory by looking at other parts of the anatomy, and conjecture that these more ancient forebear may be the still poorly understood Homo habilis.

Either way, their status as a separate species would be confirmed.

As Charles points out over at LGF this could cause some discomfort amongst creationists. And do watch the video. In spite of some cheesy parts, there are some good interviews and it does a decent job of painting a picture.

While the odds are against it, just how cool would it be to find these guys still alive?

Hail Montana

The state of Montana is challenging the Federal Government.

The Montana State Legislature recently passed legislation, which was signed into law by the Democratic Govenor Brian Schweitzer, which exempts citizens of Montana from federal background check requirements if a gun was made in Montana, sold to a resident of Montana, and intended to remain within Montana.

The idea behind this is that if the gun remains within the state then the commerce clause of the U.S. constitution does not apply and the Federal Government would not be allowed to regulate the sale or distribution of these firearms. This is an interesting concept, and is sure to generate a fight. This one could get really ugly, really fast.

What a beautiful idea. Who knew that legislators could actually think?

Oprah Tries To Kill Children

By promoting the dangerous lunatic Jenny McCarthy and, by extension, her anti-vaccine agenda Oprah is putting children in mortal danger. Jonathan Adler asks if Winfrey has no shame. That’s a strange question to ask about someone who puts herself on the cover of her own magazine every month.

A desperate grasp at a silver lining:

McCarthy’s quite dingy and can’t spell to save her life — “grimmess” for “grimace” in this blog post — so maybe people will stop taking her anti-vaccine ravings all that seriously and the Oprah-enhanced part of her career will be short-lived. For our children’s sake, I hope so.

I’m not so hopeful. Life-saving vaccination is under attack from many fronts.

Update:

I’m not crying wolf here.

Parental doubts about the safety of childhood vaccinations are leading to outbreaks of largely eradicated diseases like measles and whooping cough, doctors warned in a new report.

A U.S. measles outbreak last year — almost exclusively among unvaccinated people — has sparked concern about places where many parents opt out of having their children vaccinated.

Convincing people not to vaccinate their kids is the hight of irresponsibility. Anybody not vaccinating their kids should be arrested for child endangerment. In fact, they should also be arrested for assault, because their malfeasance affects all of the rest of us. If someone walked into a mall and started randomly throwing bricks at people they’d be cuffed and hauled away. How is this any different, other than disease is slower than bricks?