Here we go again

Cold fusion, anybody?

Here’s hoping it’s not a repeat of the Fleishmann and Pons fiasco. If it’s real, it’s the biggest news of the decade. Or century.

But I’m not holding my breath.

Turning Point

The Mudville Gazette invites you to play Guess the Source.

This is, I think significant.

Meta

Enjoy some YouTube-flavored silliness.

Drawing the Line

When did medicine start to lose respect, and so-called “alternative medicine” start to ascend?

Let’s guess right about 1994.

It drives me crazy that my company’s health insurance plan covers witch doctors. (Chiropractors, Accupuncturists, etc.) And fans of these brujos get really upset when you criticize them.

Maybe it’s time to just offend some people. They’re being suckers, if not idiots. It’s frustrating to see truth in retreat.

OK, fess up.

Who’s been driving SUVs around on Jupiter?

Oh, why the hell not?

Worse things could happen than McCain picking a democrat as veep.

Jonah makes a good case. And, besides, then there’d be someone on the ticket to the right of McCain.

The Trouble with Monopolies

Monopolies, remember, can only be created by government force. So would someone at the Pentagon wake up?

Our military can buy Michael Yon’s book at Borders, but not on their own bases.

Over the past weeks, as my literary agent spoke to Anderson while they reviewed the book, Anderson told him that the desires of the base exchange customers would have no influence and play no role in their decision making process. Anderson also stated that even appeals from high ranking military officers could not persuade Anderson to carry a title. Apparently, in Anderson’s mind, they outrank the Joint Chiefs of Staff when it comes to doing business on military bases.

Laugh, Cry

The Bozos in Washington (and I include both houses of congress plus the White House) are in fine form.

At least the press is keeping things clear for us.

Mathemagic

If Arthur Benjamin says he’s giving an answer “off the top of my head”, believe him.

Environut Agenda Unmasked

The BAAQMD is dropping all pretense and revealing exactly why CO2 has been reclassified a “pollutant”.

So they can collect money.

Remember: No matter who wins the presidential election this year, we all lose. Because the next president will believe in this “global warming” hoax

Google Being Evil

Not only is YouTube a safe haven for Jihadists, Google is proud of it.

Keeping Islamist propaganda on line in the name of “free speech” is sophomoric suicide. Especially when they’re oh-so-quick to take down anti-Islamist videos. The left-wing nitwits who make Google policy have a long history of this kind of thing.

It’s just another example of why Buttle’s World moved to WordPress.

Enemy Territory

A friend of mine used to be in the Air Force. When he wanted to travel behind the Iron Curtain (back when it still stood) he was told not to take anything that could identify him as American military. That’s just common sense in “enemy territory”.

Now the Pentagon is having to give similar advice to personnel traveling in real enemy territory.

Update:

Uncle Jimbo has the right idea.

Big Update:

Perhaps it’s not as bad, or real, as we thought.

The Next Four Years

Here is the frustration I’ll be feeling for the next four years in a nutshell.

Obama, to nobody’s surprise, voted for the Farm Bill that he previously slammed as an effort by “the lobbyists” to give money away to agribusiness.

What changed? According to a spokesman, Obama’s harsh words for the Senate version referred to its “failure to cap subsidy payments.”

Here’s the thing: The Senate version of the Farm Bill capped subsidy payments at exactly the same level as the final version of the bill.

So McCain, writing in an op-ed, weighs in:

I am not opposed to providing a reasonable risk management for farmers. When farmers suffer from a natural disaster such as droughts or floods, we should assist them.

We should, Senator? Please point out just where in the Constitution “we”, meaning the Federal Government, is allowed to do so?

Nothing like “I’m not quite as big a liberal as my opponent” to fire up the base.

We are so screwed.

This Just In

Yet another shocking scientific study has determined that men and women may actually be, pardon my language, different.

“It’s the opposite of what we’d expect,” says Pinker. “You’d think the more family-friendly policies, and richer the economy, the more women should behave like men, but it’s the opposite. I think with economic opportunity comes choices, comes freedom.”

True for proper values of “we” and “you”, I suppose. Some who enjoy having a sacred ox to be gored are in a tither.

The concept of self-selection sets off alarms for many feminists. It seems to suggest that women themselves are responsible for the gender gap. It can also be an excuse for minimizing the role of social forces, including discrimination in the classroom and the workplace.

You mean the individual preferences of free people may actually affect what they do in life? What a concept.

This is what defeat looks like

to the enemy.

This is great news. So, shhhh! Don’t tell the MSM!

Beauty Is Where You Find It

Diet Coke + Mentos + EX-F1 Camera = Beauty.

A Tale of Two Michaels

One of them has class. The other one doesn’t.

Twofer

You really should read the spanking the NYT gets from Roger Kimball. But I’m sending you there via Instapundit because of the wonderful reference to the classics.

Obama Joke OTD

Courtesy of Agent Joan:

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old Texas rancher, whose hand
was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a
conversation with the old man.

Eventually the topic got around to Obama and his bid to be our President.

The old rancher said, “Well, ya know, Obama is a ‘post turtle’.”

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a ‘post turtle’
was.

The old rancher said, “When you’re driving down a country road and you come
across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a ‘post turtle’.”

The old man saw a puzzled look on the doctor’s face, so he continued to
explain.

“You know he didn’t get up there by himself, he doesn’t belong up there, he
doesn’t know what to do while he is up there, and you just want to help the
dumbass get down.”

Michael Reviews Michael

Michael J. Totten has a great review of Michael Yon’s book. Which, if you haven’t read yet, you must.

Rhetorical Question OTD

Is the Associated (with terrorists) Press good for America?

Sales Man

Heh.

NRCC Site Hacked!

Democrat operatives have hacked into the NRCC web site and are making blog posts under the name Tom Cole!

At least that’s what it looks like. And the RINO morons in D.C., assuming they read the comments (further assuming, I suppose, that they can read) are getting a keyboard lashing from the base.

If you search the page for the phrase “put a fork in it” you’ll know what I think.

Pile on!

Michelle Malkin has more.

Eye of the Storm

An exhibit of combat photographs taken by military photographers will benefit the Wounded Warrior charity.

As an unintentionally hilarious sidebar, read this LA Times article. They seem genuinely perplexed that someone could actually “take sides” in the war, scratching their pointy heads over a photographer – a woman, no less – who refers to “bad guys”. Go figure.

Funnier is their description of this photo:

SAN DIEGO-based Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Michael Watkins captured the spooky terror of the war in 2007, with a nighttime shot of heavily armed U.S. special forces standing by a door, with a barking German shepherd straining at its leash. Their high-beamed nightscopes cut into the darkness. Their faces are masked with night goggles that tint the photograph in ghoulish green desperation.

Would anyone willingly open the door to these scary trick-or-treaters?

I’m not sure what a “high-beamed nightscope” is supposed to be, but those green lines are infrared laser beams. They can only be seen with night vision devices, such as the one through which the photo was taken. That’s what tints the photograph green, dummies. It is assumed, or at least dearly hoped, that the bad guys inside aren’t wearing NVGs. In any case, if you’re someone who would “willingly open the door” you won’t find Special Forces all armored up on the front porch. Duh.

The LAT has to begrudgingly give the photographers their due – there’s some very nice work here. The contortions they go through are just indicative of how disconnected from reality so-called journalists are.

Totally, like, whatever

The most aggressively inarticulate generation?

GOP: Get a Clue

Mark Alexander rails against the dying of the Right.

Finally smelling the coffee, RNC Chairman Robert Duncan proclaimed, “This was a real wakeup call for us. We can’t let the Democrats take our issues. We can’t let them pretend to be conservatives.” First, what issues? And second, half the Republicans in Washington pretend to be conservatives, why shouldn’t Demos give that ruse a spin?

The realization that there’s a zero percent chance of getting a good president this year is depressing.

The Trinity of Hell

Just when you thought this presidential campaign couldn’t get any weirder.

What a dead culture looks like

If you need any more proof that England is dead, watch this video of hapless London police “confronting” a mob of barbarians.

Wikirabia

A tale of anti-Israel machinations at Wikipedia.

I suppose that if, say, Jews went rabidly violent whenever someone accuses them of being, oh I don’t know, violent they might be getting more “cooperation” in the world.

Neural Buddhism

David Brooks’ column has sparked a lot of interesting discussion. John Derbyshire got the ball rolling on The Corner with this and posted a reader’s response here.

I particularly liked this analysis by Steven Novella.

What resonated for me personally was his comment responding to a reader who claimed that agnostics are just atheists in denial. I quote Novella’s response liberally here because it perfectly echoes my own reasoning as I arrived at thinking of myself as agnostic rather than atheist. Emphasis is my own.

Here is my position – very briefly. It is important to distinguish between propositions that are false and those that are outside the arena of science. Those ideas that cannot be tested, even in theory, are simply not science, and they are unknowable (I am talking about factual claims, not value judgments).

Unknowable propositions are worse than wrong – they are unnecessary. As I said – deism is unnecessary. That doesn’t mean there is no god – it means that the notion of a god (depending upon how it is conceived, but the basic idea of a being outside the confines of our physical universe and its laws) is simply unknowable. It is simply wrong to say that we can know god does not exist. The only logically consistent position is agnosticism. But you can combine that with the notion that such unfalsifiable claims are unnecessary. If someone chooses to have faith in such a thing, like the FSM, I really don’t care – as long as they keep it pure faith and do not make any logical or empirical claims – that’s cheating.

Regarding the term agnostic – I would rather have the opportunity to explain to people why I am agnostic than to create the other misconception (which is absolutely used as often as possible by believers) that atheists have faith in the non-existence of god. You’re burned either way, and you will have to explain yourself, so don’t shy away from philosophical purism.

Or, in bumper sticker brevity, Militant Agnostic: I don’t know and you don’t either.

Seriously, though, note that the above implies that being an agnostic allows me to co-exist peacefully with faith, even if I don’t share it. I’ll never get into an argument about whether or not god exists, because I don’t think there can even be an argument. That may or may not be a comfort, depending on who you are.

Update:

I forgot to link to this post by Derb.