Perspective Matters

I don’t know why John Stossel hasn’t been fired for competence yet.

“[O]ne reason that people are upset by gas prices is that the price is in your face every time you drive by the gas station. But it may surprise [you] that this year the price of lettuce, broccoli and apples increased much more than the price of gas. You probably don’t know that because they don’t post big signs like gas stations do. And think about what it takes to bring us gasoline. First, oil has to be sucked out of the ground, sometimes from deep beneath an ocean or underneath ice, or from places where workers risk their lives. And just to get to the oil means the drill has to bend and dig sideways through as many as seven miles of earth. What they find has to be delivered through long pipelines or shipped in monstrously expensive ships, then converted into three different formulas of gasoline, trucked in trucks that cost more than $100,000 each, and then the gas stations have to spend a fortune on equipment to make sure drivers don’t blow themselves up while filling the tank. Even after all that, gasoline is still cheaper per ounce than the bottled water gas stations sell.” —John Stossel

Yon Checks In

People on his list just got an email saying:

General David Petraeus has announced the beginning of a major offensive in Iraq.

I have satellite gear and should be posting daily updates.

If you haven’t yet, now would be a good time to bookmark his blog.

Meanwhile, he has posted the last of his four part series, Death or Glory. At the end he hints about future dispatches:

As these words go to print, I am entering into major combat along with U.S. forces against Al Qaeda.

Simon Cowell reads Buttle’s World

And he’s taken my advice to heart. Not only did Potts win the contest, but

Potts, who has also landed a record deal with Simon Cowell, the TV show judge, said of fixing his teeth: “I’m not sure about veneers but I do want to get the crown repaired. It would be nice to be able to smile naturally. I feel very self conscious about it at the moment. But whatever I do I’m not going to change who I am.”

You can see a more confident Potts in his deal-clinching performance of Nessun Dorma.

Mr. Cowell: Please make sure you get a good orchestra and engineer. I’m looking forward to this album.

Speaking of Beyond Parody

Even for someone who heads the UN this is pretty stupid.

I scanned the article and couldn’t find the part where it’s Bush’s fault. Must have been an oversight. Give them a day or two.

Major Offensive in Iraq?

Glenn Reynolds got some tantalizing email from Michael Yon, but I see no details yet on the latter’s blog.

Beyond Parody

Even Mark Steyn is almost speechless at the latest from the Episcopalians.

As funny as this is, it’s also scary. This is how a civilization dies.

The kind of soldiers we have

A Chaplain blogs an experience he had in Iraq which is quite telling. They’re all waiting to watch Superman 3, and there’s a glitch during playback of the national anthem.

Now, what would happen if this occurred with 1,000 18-22 year-olds back in the States? I imagine there would be hoots, catcalls, laughter, a few rude comments, and everyone would sit down and call for a movie. Of course, that is, if they had stood for the National Anthem in the first place.

Who’s in charge in Gaza?

Apparently it’s the Mikado.

(If you’re not a Gilbert & Sullivan fan, you have some research to do.)

If you call, they will listen

So says an email Michell Malkin got from a Hill Staffer regarding the upcoming attempt to re-introduce shamnesty.

The hope now lies with the American people. The American people have been speaking – and Senators are beginning to listen. Don’t give up now. It is clear that Senators are beginning to understand that this bill is not supported by a sizable and important segment of the American public – middle America. There are many Senators still on the fence that are being counted on to pass this bill. This is why today it is up to the people. If there is any hope – the American people must speak, and must speak loudly. Make phone calls to Senate offices, repeatedly, and non stop until the bill is defeated. Faxes and email – flood their offices. Fax in voided checks to the NRSC and the RNC with letters saying you won’t support them – and if you have ever given money before, ask for it back. Make very clear that this is the ultimate breach of faith and that there will be consequences.

Read the whole thing.

Pardon me

while I wipe a tear from my eye.

Trashy Art

Museum installations that are mere piles of trash would normally be filed under stereotypes for bad modern art. But this is clever.

Get This Man A Recording Contract

Now.

I’m not generally a fan of operatic tenor voices. To me, Pavarotti is borderline unlistenable. No, sometimes he’s quite unlistenable. The only tenors I’ve actually enjoyed up to now are Placido Domingo and Andrea Bocelli – sometimes.

Paul Potts, for my money, leaves them all in the dust. He’s made me cry – twice – via just YouTube. No other tenor has made me cry even once. I can’t imagine how good he must sound in person, or in a well-engineered recording.

Once again, here he is singing Nessun Dorma.

Update:
Jonah Goldberg, who gets the hat tip for this in the first place, posts a letter which says well what I wanted to say.

His expression before he begins to sing is that of a man resigned to disappointment. Even when he smiles, his eyes convey a profound sadness. He has been a nobody all his life. He, and perhaps only he, knows he has greatness inside of him, but he is obviously a humble man, massively insecure, afraid of rejection, unsure of himself outside the cocoon of anonymity. But you get the feeling he also knows that this may be the one chance he gets to escape the cocoon, and as he begins to sing, you can see him fighting down his fear. I think that is the wellspring of the emotion that pervades his performance. He is fighting against a life of obscurity. By the song’s end, what was an average Joe has stepped up, beaten back his fear, and broken through. In those few seconds, he put the void behind him, and his life will probably be changed forever because he called up the courage at that moment to show what he was really made of. We saw greatness, long denied, finally being born.

Read the whole thing.

Another Update:
He’s had some training, as well as some amateur experience. None of that is surprising; neither does it detract from his performance a whit. Bottom line: He makes an album, I buy it.

I’m With Fred

He’s blogging.

Even though most of the posts are his ABC columns, I do get the impression that he writes his own stuff.

Grab the Hankys

You won’t believe this.

Peter Robinson interviews Fred Thompson

Peter, for those keeping score, wrote Reagan’s “tear down this wall” speech.

Fred is running for President.

They met the other day.
Peter wrote this on The Corner:

On Monday, former senator Fred Thompson spent half a day at the Hoover Institution, discussing policy with a roomful of Hoover fellows. In this, my first encounter with Thompson, I was hugely impressed—hugely. He proved relaxed, likeable, determined, warm, funny, and—a trait not always seen in candidates for high office—humble. (He reached into his briefcase, pulled out a three-ring binder, and then spent the entire session taking notes as assiduously as a college student.)

This Explains the Funny Accent in Sweden

Or something like that.

Worried about the West Nile Virus?

Don’t be.

An Atheist’s Defense of Religion

This is a very interesting article, and a pretty close parallel to my own thinking these days.

The obvious examples of secularized religions are communism, socialism, and fascism, each of which generally involves worshipping government by slightly different rituals or for slightly different reasons. As these convictions faded, faith in the welfare state, and especially environmental protection, has risen to take their place for reasons government should be worshipped. Environmentalist devotees claim that we will experience the apocalypse disasters, for which some people are rebuilding Noah’s Ark. These disasters can be prevented if we take the advice of prophets people who understand, like Al Gore. Of course, if we sin pollute a little too much, well, we can always buy indulgences carbon offsets.

It’s exactly right to call Algore’s brand of environuttism a religion, because it’s all about faith, transforming humans, and not remotely about science. My quibble is that, to me, Atheism is also a religion, because it relies on unprovable, ergo mystical, knowledge. But I think I know what kind of atheist he means.

Another way to put it, stated with intended irony, is “by their fruits ye shall know them”. I now judge the world’s religions by what sort of people they produce. Judaism and Christianity have, in the last few centuries, become what Douglas Adams called “mostly harmless”. The “Religion of Peace”, on the other hand, has some serious growing up to do.

And now, for something completely different

The song is strange. The video is stranger.

Must be the sexism

Because CBS’s continuing ratings drop for the “news” with Katie Couric couldn’t be because of biased, inept, dishonest reporting, or it being presented by someone who would be a bimbo even if she had been born a man.

Moonves has quite the blind spot there.

Part 3

Michael Yon has posted the next installment of Death or Glory.

I found the British rations were good, but truth be known, our guys do eat a little better. Some American soldiers actually tell me that the Brits get all the good “kit” (gear), which is interesting because the Brits say the Americans get all the good kit. The Brits also think we level a city block in Baghdad every time someone shoots a mortar at us, but that’s not true. Meanwhile, the Americans think the Brits aren’t doing any fighting in Basra, and that’s definitely not true.

Signs of Hope in Rural China

How can you not love this guy?

Charms to Sooth the Savage Breast

An article at Modern Mechanix gave me an idea.

We’ve been going about this war all wrong. Instead of trying to fight the Jihadis, we should win them over with kindness.

I think we should start by exporting musical instruments to them. How about bugles? Very special bugles.

Hurra!

Register is finally out.

A film 500 years in the making

Morphing makes a comeback with 500 Years of Women in Art.

Journalists Change Sides on War

It is now clearly in the interest of all journalists to denounce the terrorists.

Yeah, right.

Celebrating the Centennial

of one of the greatest mass murderers in history, Rachel Carson.

The human costs have been horrific in the poor countries where malaria returned after DDT spraying was abandoned. Malariologists have made a little headway recently in restoring this weapon against the disease, but they’ve had to fight against Ms. Carson’s disciples who still divide the world into good and bad chemicals, with DDT in their fearsome “dirty dozen.”

Ms. Carson didn’t urge an outright ban on DDT, but she tried to downplay its effectiveness against malaria and refused to acknowledge what it had accomplished. As Dr. Baldwin wrote, “No estimates are made of the countless lives that have been saved because of the destruction of insect vectors of disease.” He predicted correctly that people in poor countries would suffer from hunger and disease if they were denied the pesticides that had enabled wealthy nations to increase food production and eliminate scourges.

How did this make it into the Times?

A Moment of Catharsis

Yes, it’s a rant. Yes, it’s light on substance. Yes, Harry Reid has it coming.

Yes, yes, yes.

This breath of fresh air brought to you by Dennis Miller.

By The Numbers

Jules Crittenden points out that our kill ratio in Iraq is roughly 10:1.

Chuck Simmins of TDW had been toiling away diligently, recording the deaths of terrorists as reported by MNF-I flaks. Turns out, they weren’t reporting them all. Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno had a press conference recently, largely ignored by the press, in which he reported 3,184 terrorists killed since January 2007, and another 1,018 wounded. Simmins took that number, subtracted the ones he had already logged to avoid duplication, and then averaged them out over the last six months. Turns out our soldiers are killing terrorists at a rate of up to 10 to 1.

See the helpful graphics from Terrorist Death Watch.
I guess the enemy is better than I thought, because I was expecting a lot better than 10:1. Of course, if we ever actually admit who’s fighting us and do something about it, I’d expect the ratio to change.

Guidebook for Taking a Life

The New York Times has finally noticed that Muslim extremists are killing people, and have printed this handy guide to Jihadi Etiquette (subscription required, or use bugmenot)

This jihad etiquette is not written down, and for good reason. It varies as much in interpretation and practice as extremist groups vary in their goals. But the rules have some general themes that underlie actions ranging from the recent rash of suicide bombings in Algeria and Somalia, to the surge in beheadings and bombings by separatist Muslims in Thailand.

This being the NYT, they couldn’t let this pass without some finger-wagging moral equivalence.

Islamic militants are hardly alone in seeking to rationalize innocent deaths, says John O. Voll, a professor of Islamic history at Georgetown University. “Whether you are talking about leftist radicals here in the 1960s, or the apologies for civilian collateral damage in Iraq that you get from the Pentagon, the argument is that if the action is just, the collateral damage is justifiable,” he says.

So, you see, killing innocent bystanders when your target is innocent bystanders is just like killing innocent bystanders when your target is the terrorists who target innocent bystanders. I’m sure glad we have the Times to set us straight.