The Great Orator

I didn’t watch the dog and pony show tonight, but I’m reading a lot about how The One completely fumbled the one question his 300 advisors should have known he was going to get.

Whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is, you know, above my pay grade.

McCain HQ must have burst into applause and laughter, not necessarily in that order, upon hearing the Great Orator writing their ad copy for them. Regarding the answers, I’ll leave the theological question for others, seeing as how I don’t have a dog in that hunt. Which doesn’t mean there isn’t a moral case for being pro-life. But McCain’s answer comports with science, at least if you believe modern embryology textbooks.

When asked “At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?,” McCain answered “At the moment of conception.”

Even if the answer were wrong McCain’s would be better by dint of brevity and clarity.

The Peters Prescription

Thanks to Jonah’s Military Guys over at Castle Argghhh. Worth reading.

It’s from 2004. Anybody paying attention?

Meanwhile, closer to today’s date, Joe Honan reports that it’s good to be the sheik.

Him: “Can we leave now?”
Me: “No sir, the flight isn’t going to leave until later tonight. We need to bus you all to the landing zone after dinner.”
Him: “Well, can you just let us out at the gate? We’ll find our own way back.”
Me: “…..O.K…. how many of you Sunni leaders want to get left in the middle of Baghdad to find your way to Ramadi instead of flying with an armed escort?”
Him: “Oh we’ll all go and rent a couple of cars.”
Me turning to Gunny: “You know, I think this war is officially over.”

Maybe someone was paying attention after all.

Georgia On My Mind

Wow, the streets of Berkeley, near where I live, are just full of “No Blood for Oil” protestors burning Putin in effigy and condemning him for invading a sovereign nation.

Good for them.

Wait – you mean you haven’t seen them?

Huh. Go figure.

Vaccination: The Record

Mark Crislip has an excellent post on the number of lives saved by vaccines. And it ends with this very quotable line:

Green our vaccines? The only green you will see by getting rid of vaccines or decreasing their use is the grass growing on the graves of children needlessly killed by preventable infections.

He cuts Amanda Peet some slack for her off-the cuff “parasites” remark. I’d agree that it’s inaccurate. But people who refuse to vaccinate their children are every bit as reprehensible as parasites. Just calling them “child abusers” doesn’t cover it, because others suffer beyond their own unfortunate children.

If Clinton or Obama had done this

then I’d just be mad. But since Bush just did it I’m beyond mad.

To say that Dubya is a disappointment is really quite the understatement.

Update:

Playing shell games to make it look like payments didn’t come right out of the Treasury don’t help.

Getting Our Money’s Worth

In Iraq.

Greyhawk rewrites a WaPo lede:

“Government security contracts in the Iraq theater have cost taxpayers at least $3 billion since the war began, but offer substantial taxpayer savings, according to a report released Tuesday.” Of course, had they actually written that — it would be news.

An Insult to High School Kids

Prepare to roll your eyes at the dizzying intellects at the New York Times:

IF THE EDITORS OF THE NY TIMES WERE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS, THEY WOULD FLUNK.

Unduly harsh on the kids, don’t you think?

The Future is Here

I remember a Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk’s voice and maybe face was synthesized by a computer to make it appear he said something that he really didn’t. I remember thinking that was pretty far out, but that maybe some day we’d reach the point where photographic evidence wouldn’t be very convincing. That day  arrived years ago, pace fauxtography.

And now the day when video evidence doesn’t mean much has arrived. A very cool demo. Check it out.

Sons of Iraq

Uncle Jimbo is back in Iraq, reporting on the domino effect of the surge. Not the least of which are the Sons of Iraq.

Another huge part of the surge that seems to not be talked ENOUGH about are The Sons of Iraq.  These cats are the real deal.  They have had enough of these jackasses coming into their country and causing trouble, so they handle things themselves.  From what I have gathered they are the good ole boy network..the SOI are the locals and when  in the past guys in black masks would roll in and do their chickenshit destruction and these guys would stand down and let it go…..somebody somewhere grew a set and said enough.  They have in their own ways organized and in these villages and neighborhoods when the non-locals show up these guys roll up on them and handle things.  And I mean handle things.  One Iraqi I talked to told me of a guy who had been released from a local prison because terrorist’s get attorneys and rights and due process.  He returned to his neighborhood in the AO and a few days a local kid  later picked up a bottle of water that was rigged to an IED.  The child was killed.  The locals knew instantly that the same asshole released was a bomb-maker and immediately went to the home and snatched him up…a gunfight erupted and somehow the guy blew up later in the day…suicide vest out in an open field, I cant imagine that they helped him put his vest on, but who knows….hmmm. Iraqis handling Iraqi problems more on that later.

And there’s a bonus at BlackFive: The story of military bomb-sniffing dogs called SSDs.

So this Mullah walks into a bar…

Well, not exactly. But this shows how easily the thugs could be overthrown if we just had, you know, an actual policy regarding Iran.

Remembering the Bomb, Forgetting Why

Do read Rick Moran’s piece on the anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Terrorist Network Pwned

The sick bastards at al Jazeera (who threw a party for that child killer) thought they’d try to ensnare a bunch of “conservative” bloggers in a video trap. I first heard about when they contacted Charles Johnson. Didn’t work out as they planned.

They had similar luck with David Frum, except they accidentally replied instead of forwarding. (I guess Allah’s minions are still figuring out email.)

A few minutes later I received an unintended reply. The producer had meant to forward my message to her associates – but the forward button is so often hard to distinguish from the reply button!

From: Giti Sorayyapour <giti@outofofficefilms.com>
Date: August 7, 2008 10:40:17 AM EDT
To: David Frum

Subject: David Frum: absolute bastard!!!

I wrote back to thank the producer for her very illuminating reply – I could not have asked for a more emphatic confirmation of my suspicions of the production’s actual intentions.

I’m sure the program, if it’s ever made, will be fair and balanced.

Just When You Thought the TSA Couldn’t Get More Stupid

They decide to get more evil, instead.

If they win the only people with guns in the non-sterile parts of airports will be criminals and union goons who don’t know which end of a pistol to hit.

Perhaps They Were Inspired by Barry

They might have read how he won his first election by using technicalities to get every other name removed from the ballot. Or maybe they’re just similarly sleazy. Tom Matzzie heads a group called “Accountable America” which even the New York Times calls “an outside left-wing group“. They plan to intimidate the top 10,000 Republican donors into witholding money.

“We want to stop the Swift Boating before it gets off the ground,” said Mr. Matzzie, who described his effort as “going for the jugular.”

“Swiftboating” as you’ll recall is what the Left calls “people who knew our candidate telling the truth about him.” But they think it means “saying anything against our candidate.”

Charles Johnson calls it a protection racket. But it could backfire like John Kerry’s M-16. (Did you know he served in Viet Nam?)

Chris LaCivita, a Republican strategist who helped organize the Swift Boat effort, said Mr. Matzzie’s group was likely to have the opposite effect on potential donors, firing them up instead of discouraging them.

“They’re not going to be intimidated by some pipsqueak on the kooky left,” Mr. LaCivita said.

Derb Has a Dream

This Ought to Shut Them Up

I mean those who think the military courts are a puppet of the Bush White House. If an acquital on the most serious charge wasn’t enough, the sentencing ought to prove it.

Update:

It wasn’t entirely the judge’s fault.

Stuff Your Computer Knows About You

Well, sort of. Here’s a cute Javascript that analyzes your browser history and makes a good guess as to your gender.

Fortunately, I’m 96% likely to be male. What’s interesting is the male/female ratio of some of these sites. I’m still not clear on how they determine that, though.

Site Male-Female Ratio
google.com 0.98
yahoo.com 0.9
myspace.com 0.74
youtube.com 1
ebay.com 1.11
amazon.com 0.9
walmart.com 0.77
bestbuy.com 1.11
circuitcity.com 1.2
wunderground.com 1.22
linkedin.com 0.94
gizmodo.com 2.08
macrumors.com 2.08
slickdeals.net 1.27
gametrailers.com 1.53
godaddy.com 1.17
fatwallet.com 1.38
footlocker.com 0.72
jalopnik.com 2.13
engadget.com 1.7
tinyurl.com 0.83
compusa.com 1.7
joystiq.com 1.44
logmein.com 1.17
bmwusa.com 1.41

Some are not surprising at all.

The Case Against Barack Obama

I heard a little of David Freddoso on KSFO this morning talking about his book. I like to think I’m moderately well informed and paying attention, but there was a lot of stuff I didn’t know about. Like Obama’s first election in Illinois: He had his operatives spend a lot of time challenging petition signatures to get competitors tossed off the ballot. When election day rolled around, Barry’s was the only name on it.

And while even Babs Boxer was in Washington urging a unanimous vote to protect babies who survive abortions (passed 98-0), in Illinois a similar measure was up for a vote, thanks to a nurse with a conscience who could no longer stand the sight of tiny preemies left to die, gasping for breath, in dirty closets. Obama voted against the legislation which would define anyone born alive as a “person” in the eyes of the law. His reason? It could open the doors to lose abortion “rights”. So it’s not a stretch to say that Obama has voted for infanticide.

Why, as Lee Rodgers wondered, isn’t the McCain camp hammering Obama with this? That’s the most radical pro-abortion stance of any presidential candidate in history, even farther out than Boxer, for crying out loud.

One of the book reviews on Amazon is worth noting.

I am not going to agree with either side. All I wish to express as a former Cuban exile, is that Barack Obama and Fidel Castro share many personality traits, ie:
Both were abandoned by their fathers at an early age.
Both are charming, elocuent lawyers that say exactly what people want to hear at the right time and place.
One never led the nation to suspect he was a communist at heart, the other doesnt mention the word socialism when in reality this is exactly what his agenda stands for.
Neither Obama nor Fidel ever held a real job either in government or in private enterprise for they think of themselves as demigods unworthy of soiling their hands when their destiny is much larger than their own realities.

Censoring Skepticism

If you can’t beat ’em, shut ’em up.

Note that the proposal of censorship comes from a professor of journalism. It makes sense: his job is to teach morons how to be idiots.

Now he’s trying to backpedal. All you really need to know is in his masthead. What the hell is “environmental journalism” supposed to mean?

Shame on Random House

A gentle puff of wind from the general direction of Islam and Random House buckled. This kind of pre-emptive caving is despicable and cowardly.

As we learned in the Wall Street Journal today, the company has decided not to publish Sherry Jones’ historical novel “The Jewel of Medina” about Mohammed’s child bride Aisha.  The book was part of a $100,000 two-book contract with the author.

Shame on Random House!  This act of abject cowardice and de facto censorship is one of the most disgraceful incidents I can think of in the history of American publishing.

I hope Jones gets her novel published somewhere, even if it’s not very good. Mohammed’s pedophilia cannot be made taboo.

Amanda Peet: Anti-Bimbo

How refreshing to find a Hollywood actress with a head on her shoulders.

“It seems that the media is often giving celebrities and actors more authority on this issue than they are giving the experts,” Peet said. “I know it’s a paradox, but that’s part of why I wanted to become a spokesperson, to say to people, ‘Please don’t listen to me. Don’t listen to actors. Go to the experts.'”

What a refreshing contrast to that anti-vaccine Uber-Bimbo. I can’t say I’ve ever seen her act, but at least she understands what an actor is and isn’t. Good for her.

More Birds Leave the Wire

Jennifer Rubin writes about the former cheerleaders for The One who now wonder if there’s anything in his suit.

The bottom line: liberal pundits — following months of analysis by their conservative counterparts — had figured out that despite the best possible terrain for the Democrats to recapture the White House, the Democrats (with a whole lot of cheerleading from the mainstream media) have chosen a thinly experienced, irresolute, underachieving and obnoxious standard bearer. And his excuse-mongering just makes it all the more irritating.

Read the whole thing.

Discovery Institute Distorts Again

Apparently they have no sense of shame at the so-called Discovery Institute (which has yet to discover a single thing). They took a news article about how a software simulation doesn’t fully explain how evolution took place – an article which seems to conflate evolution with the origins of life, typically bad science reporting – and tried to twist it into some kind of admission that evolution doesn’t reflect reality.

I’m sure the scientists involved would be apalled, since they themselves dismiss the so-called Discovery Institute’s major thesis:

His conclusion? Although natural selection is necessary for life, something is missing in our understanding of how evolution produced complex creatures. By this, he doesn’t mean intelligent design – the claim that only God can light the blue touch paper of life – but some other concept. “I don’t know what it is, nor do I think anyone else does, contrary to the claims you hear asserted,” he says. But he believes ALife will be crucial in discovering the missing mechanism.

Get that? There’s no doubt that evolution took place, just that (not surprisingly) our understanding of how it works isn’t complete. And it specifically is not “God” – which the IDiots dismiss as a straw man in a childish fit of “am not!”. Anybody who doubts that ID is a religious claim is either uninformed or dishonest.

And the fine folks at the so-called Discovery Institute are obviously dishonest. Shame on them.

Paris for President

I voted for her in this poll before I even saw the ad. She was the “None of the above” candidate. But now you can see she actually has an energy policy, which is more than Obama can say. And I can’t say it’s any worse than McCain’s.

I May Be a Racist

But are you?

More on Rember

Dr. Novella, writing on the essential Neurologica blog, has more on the hope behind that new Alzheimer’s drug. He includes some good advice:

By the way – this is why it is very important to insist on an autopsy for any relative who dies with a diagnosis of AD – because they really have a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s type dementia, and autopsy is your one opportunity to get a firm pathological diagnosis, which is important for your family medical history. You owe it to the next generation in your family – do it.

Is McCain on Obama’s Six?

Perhaps, since getting inside the enemy’s OODA loop is what fighter pilots are trained to do.

So far the Obama campaign has been a one note campaign. Besides any tactic that is over used wears out its welcome. The “cry wolf” syndrome. I wonder which way they can turn now? The post racialist candidate has been branded a racialist. Where do they go from here?

Check Six, Barry. The Ohio Republicans just squeezed off a few rounds.

McCain Puts Pressure on Obama

Wow. When did the McCain camp get clever?

Obama’s Hungarian Initiative

Mary Grabar on why being force-fed the language of an invader isn’t such a hot idea.

Obama, the Harvard-educated lawyer, betrays his own leftist objectives and profound lack of intellectualism. Like his radical friend, education professor and leader of the former Weathermen Bill Ayers, he does not value learning for its own sake, but sees it as a political tool, another way to use education to advance social goals. Obama’s view of foreign language acquisition is the opposite of the one of conservative parents and professors who have advocated foreign language study for the benefit of the student’s intellectual advancement. Obama, the dour schoolmaster, tells us we “must” learn the language of the border-hoppers who have invaded our country. I think I know what it felt like when my aunt was forced to learn Hungarian.

Our daughter is bilingual. It’s a wonderful gift to give a child if you can. Sadly, schools in the U.S. tend to wait until kids are just too old to absorb language naturally to start offering foreign language courses. People like me who learn as adults will forever have that “funny accent” in the other language. Being bilingual is a big advantage for individuals.

It’s a really bad idea for countries, though. Grabar nails it here:

Obama needs to be reminded that the United States is not in Europe. In a country this large, with a historically diverse ethnic population, language becomes a unifier. The fact that English is the one language spoken in a country of this size provides evidence of our independence and unity. The acquisition of a second language here, consequently, is done neither out of necessity nor under duress. Rather, a foreign language is studied for its own sake — an endeavor that signals a sure sign of higher education and a higher standard of living.

Where do you work if you can’t spell?

Or string together a sentence?

Three guesses.