This Guy Just Has To Win

This year’s Darwin Awards would seem to be a shoo-in.

Update:

I suppose suicide makes it a DQ. Wonder what his coworkers answered.

Update 2:

Not even original.

When Guns Are Outlawed

Guess what happens.

Score another one for people who can’t tell weapons from violence.

A Home for Jew-Haters

Guess where?

Update:

Charles Johnson at LGF seems to have kicked over a rock. Look here, here, here, and here.

Update 2:

Now it’s just getting silly. And the response is even sillier, albeit predictable.

Heh:

Over at Instapundit a reader writes:

The Community Blogs at Obama 08 are no more “official” than the rantings of BDS sufferers at an Obama rally. I have a blog there, just to prove how easy it is to get one, and Senator Obama has ZERO chance of getting my vote. You could have one. It’s as simple as signing up. There’s no vetting process of any kind.

Any nut with an axe to grind can post any offensive material on the Community Blogs, and the Obama campaign will be unaware unless someone raises a stink. In fact, it’s entirely possible that a McCain operative could go on the site, create a blog, post offensive material, and then leak the URL to LGF to “prove” how disreputable the Senator’s supporters are. Shades of Dan Rather!

Granted, it’s possible. I suspect the number of McCain operatives who think that way is pretty low. (I wouldn’t put it past some Hillary people right about now.) But isn’t offering your presidential campaign web site as a wide-open, un-moderated blogging host, you know, a bad idea?

I’m waiting to see a first sign of good judgment from this young man. But I’m not holding my breath.

Update 3:

Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.

Blind to our Enemies

Michael Ledeen has a must-read column on WSJ.

By now, there is very little we do not know about such regimes, and such movements. Some of our greatest scholars have described them, analyzed the reasons for their success, and chronicled the wars we fought to defeat them. Our understanding is considerable, as is the honesty and intensity of our desire that such things must be prevented.

Yet they are with us again, and we are acting as we did in the last century. The world is simmering in the familiar rhetoric and actions of movements and regimes – from Hezbollah and al Qaeda to the Iranian Khomeinists and the Saudi Wahhabis – who swear to destroy us and others like us. Like their 20th-century predecessors, they openly proclaim their intentions, and carry them out whenever and wherever they can. Like our own 20th-century predecessors, we rarely take them seriously or act accordingly. More often than not, we downplay the consequences of their words, as if they were some Islamic or Arab version of “politics,” intended for internal consumption, and designed to accomplish domestic objectives.

Michael Fumento

Call your office.

Those of us who read Fumento’s book a decade fifteen years ago already knew that the pandemic never existed, and was never likely to. Indeed, all AIDS statistics coming from Africa are highly suspect.

“They start it, we finish it.”

So say the British paratroopers in Afghanistan who made good on their taunt that the Taliban fight like women.

Major Loden said the battle showed that “contrary to popular belief this confirms that the Taliban are not mythical warriors”.

“This shows they cannot match us force on force. When they try and take us on they always lose. They start it we finish it.”

He added: “The ethos of the Parachute Regiment is all about being deep in enemy territory surrounded and destroying them regardless of everything they throw at us. So morale is exceptionally high.”

Remember that line in Band of Brothers? “We’re paratroopers. We’re supposed to be surrounded.”

We’re Doomed

Not only is the vast majority of legislators in Sacramento as crazy as loons, so is the vast majority of California  voters.

The Forces of Evil got their counterfeit eminent domain measure passed, and the good one failed.

We’re so hosed.

War on Photographers

Instapundit linked to an article by Bruce Schneier about clueless “authorities” unable to distinguish photographers from terrorists.

Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We’ve been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.
Except that it’s nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn’t photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn’t photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn’t photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren’t being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn’t known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about — the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 — no photography.

Watch this video, at least to the point where the Amtrak spokesman is being interviewed about how i’ts just fine to photograph the Union Station.

A friend who works here reported being seriously harassed by Rodeo (the city, not the livestock-taming activity) police and told to “get out and stay out” for merely photographing the refinery there. I told him that next time he shouldn’t shoot pictures while wearing a kaffiyeh and chanting “allahu akbar”. Seriously, the cop is just way out of line here unless, maybe, the photographer is a Middle Eastern male of military age.

It turns out that a former coworker, Kevin Bjorke, has a site dedicated to fighting back. Check out PhotoPermit.org.

Schooling Obama

The clear-eyed John Bolton takes a stab at it.

Consider his facile observations about President Kennedy’s first meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, in Vienna in 1961. Obama saw it as a meeting that helped win the Cold War, when in fact it was an embarrassment for the American side. The inexperienced Kennedy performed so poorly that Khrushchev may well have been encouraged to position Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, thus precipitating one of the Cold War’s most dangerous crises.

We should drill in ANWR

But we may have an even bigger deal in Montana and North Dakota.

How large? In an unpublished research paper he wrote while working as a geochemist at the U.S. Geological Survey, Mr. Leigh Price (who died in 2000) calculated a mean estimate of recoverable oil from Bakken at a stupendous 413 billion barrels. This compares to Saudi Arabia’s proven reserves of 267 billion barrels.

More on Resveratrol

I’m liking the way this research is going.

Most striking was how the resveratrol, like calorie restriction, blocked the decline in heart function typically associated with aging, according to Tomas Prolla, a University of Wisconsin professor of genetics who helped lead the study.

In a Nutshell

As I’ve said before, I’ve lived through an awful lot of alarmism which has turned out to be exactly, totally, 180 degrees wrong (and never, once, right), which is enough to make me very skeptical of AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming). It’s too convenient a coincidence that every single thing we’re supposed to “do about it” lines up with Socialist dreams of a command and control economy.

Jonah Goldberg just posted an email from an apparent expert who has to remain anonymous (heterodoxy in this area can get you fired quickly). He sums up my main scientific objections nicely:

Global warming is happening – we are not in an ice age. Is anthropogenic global warming (AGW) happening? The data doesn’t support that case: it has been warmer in the past with less CO2; it has been colder in the past with more CO2. It is most likely that the CO2-IR system is saturated, i.e. there isn’t enough IR photons to raise the state of each CO2 molecule. The Gore-Hansen “CO2 tipping point” is physically impossible – the system would have run away to its end state long ago when the CO2 was 4000 ppm (10 times more than now and, btw, the earth was then in an ice age).

The claim that “The time scale for warming is long enough to be compatible with a decade of cooling,” is not true of the IPCC GCM ensemble predictions. They are already falsified at the 95% level.

Whether you believe these claims or not, please don’t allow the greens to “frame” the debate keep the focus on AGW, not global warming, much less climate change.

(Emphasis mine.)

Bwaaa-haaa-haaa

Oops. I mean oh, the poor dear.

Hillary for McCain

This campaign season is going to get weirder before it gets less weird.

Will I live to see The Singularity?

Kurzweil thinks so.

Are you depressed by the prospect of dying? Well, if you can hang on another 15 years, your life expectancy will keep rising every year faster than you’re aging. And then, before the century is even half over, you can be around for the Singularity, that revolutionary transition when humans and/or machines start evolving into immortal beings with ever-improving software.

I hope he’s right. And, what’s this? Maybe I get a 13 year boost soon.

Update:

Another aging researcher (love the ambiguity of that) says it’s a matter of when, not if.

The War is “Winding Down”

Michael Yon reports that the battle in Iraq could be essentially over by the end of this year. He emails:

Washington Post reports growing success in Basra by the Iraq security forces. Violence in Iraq is reaching an all time low, perhaps lower than at anytime in several decades. But make no mistake Iraq and it’s people have been ravaged by decades of war. Finally they are getting their chance at freedom thanks to the sacrifice of the men and women who have set them free from tyrants. With any luck, on my next trip to Iraq I will see little to no combat.

Meanwhile, there’s even good news from Afghanistan.

Missions by special forces and air strikes by unmanned drones have “decapitated” the Taliban and brought the war in Afghanistan to a “tipping point”, the commander of British forces has said.

Of course, the war can still be lost, as it has been lost in England and most of Europe, but we could win significant victories in the Middle East.

Behold The Italian Spiderman

Warning: You’ll never be the same after watching this.

How to Inspire Loyalty

Figure out what Scott McClellan did and then do the opposite.

All that aside, the revelations that you are “intrigued by Senator Obama’s message” and that you don’t know if you are a Republican anymore make me wonder if you ever had any convictions. If you were just drinking the Kool-Aid at the White House, have you now switched flavors with your newfound friends?

Update:

Bob Dole finds the outrage.

Indoctrinate U – the Clean Version

They got enough requests for a bleeped version that they made one. I guess some folks can’t handle the reality of modern campus life. It’s available on the Indoctrinate U web site.

Is GaffeMan Gore Dumb?

Remember when Algore saw the busts of our founding fathers and asked, “Who are these guys?” Obama seems to have a similar scissor-like grip on filmmaking.

But Liars Do Figure

Remember when the CDC announced that one in four teenage girls has an STD? Skepticism is a virtue, especially when dealing with the CDC. My favorite laugh line from this excellent article:

CDC officials try to stay clear of politics, Douglas said. They present scientific conclusions, he said, and “let the chips fall where they may politically.”

Especially if the chips fall in the CDC’s lap.

The one-in-four pitch certainly had an impact on Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, who told NJ that it persuaded her to push for an increase in the agency’s budget.

United Nations: Still Raping Kids

Yet another sordid tale of Blue-Helmet goons raping kids.

After research in Ivory Coast, southern Sudan and Haiti, [Save the Children] proposed an international watchdog be set up.

Ooh, good idea. Call an “international watchdog”. How about the UN?

“Peacekeepers”. Riiiiiiight.

Scum.

Walking the Line in Afghanistan

Long-time readers of Michael Yon will remember CSM Jeff Mellinger. Over 33 months in Iraq wasn’t enough, so he’s now in Afghanistan. Yon got permission to post a tribute Mellinger wrote to SPC David Lee Leimbach.

Read it as part of your Memorial Day. (Lest you think it’s too late, you can always use the original date of May 31.)

Awesome

A picture taken by a spacecraft – of another spacecraft parachuting onto Mars.

I mean, how cool is that?

Update:

Here’s the photo in context. The Phoenix is about twenty miles in front of the crater, giving you an idea how carefully they have to aim.

Obama honors our fallen heroes

And he apparently saw many of them in his audience.

The Nasty Little Man is a Traitor

America’s Worst (ex) President has committed treason as far as I’m concerned. The man is a walking outrage. I guess he’ll get locked up right after this other traitor, I guess.

Help Find John Alley

I don’t pretend that this little blog has much of a reach but, just in case, please keep an eye out for a missing person – especially if you or people you know are in the Pensacola, FL area. He’s the son of a dear friend of mine.

Tips can be submitted via helpfindjohn.info.

Update:

I’m very sad to report that John’s body was just found on the beach near the accident site. I know that the family racked up some expenses during the search, in case you’d still like to hit the PayPal button on the web site linked above. I’m sure that any surplus would go to John’s widow.

Last Update:

I received this announcement from John’s mom, who said I could pass it along.

John Harold Alley, 26, passed away on Saturday, 24 May 2008, in Pensacola,
Florida. He was a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force and was
stationed at NAS Whiting Field, Florida where he was in pilot training.

A memorial service will be held in the theater at NAS Whiting Field in
Milton, FL at 10am on Saturday, 31 May 2008, where he will be posthumously
commissioned a First Lieutenant and receive his pilot wings. A funeral will
be held in Bountiful, UT at the Bountiful Heights Stake Center (33 S. Moss
Hill Drive) at 11 am on Friday, 6 June 2008. A visitation will be held
Thursday evening from 6 to 8 at Russon Brothers Mortuary (295 North Main,
Bountiful). Interment will be in the Bountiful City Cemetery, with full
military honors.

A trust fund has been established for Emily and their child. Contributions
can be made by sending checks marked “Alley Family Trust Fund” to Air
Warrior Courage Foundation, PO Box 1553 Front Royal, VA 22630.

ID is dead. Long live the new ID.

Biologist Ken Miller gives a very interesting talk at Case Western: The Collapse of Intelligent Design: Will the next Monkey Trial be in Ohio?

It’s a good, long dose of common sense. Some of the science gets a little technical, but he’s a very good presenter (and funny) and anybody should be able to follow along and get the idea. He’s very personable and very clear. The whole video is about two hours long. The talk itself is one hour – I highly recommend it.

As he spoke I was reminded of John Derbyshire’s speculation that the West will eventually embrace evolution as it eventually embraced the round earth theory, and that creationism will find its home in Islam. In the Q&A Miller warns that what happened to Islam – once the seat of science and mathematics – could happen to us.

No matter how lame the questions were (and there are some windbags at that university) his answers were always illuminating and civil. I particularly enjoyed his response to the old Commie with BDS which comes at about 1:30 into the video.

Intelligent Design was, as Miller admits, a brilliant marketing term. Since the Dover decision it’s really dead. This talk makes it clear that ID is a fraud. But just as they (literally) did a global search and replace to rename Creationism as Intelligent Design, they are already coming up with a new avatar. Critical Analysis of Evolution is the next step. I mean, what scientist could be against “critical analysis”? In a few years, after Critical Analysis is exposed, I suppose their name will evolve again. May I suggest they go straight to “Mom and Apple Pie”?

If you haven’t yet seen the Dover decision, Judge Jones’ decision is very worth reading.

Dear Barry

Iowahawk has another hilarious chapter.

British Cultural Suicide Watch

Mark Steyn linked to this editorial from the Church of England. I’m going to paste the whole thing here because I don’t know how long the link will be good. (They offer no permalink that I can find.) Emphasis is mine.

If recent reports of trends in religious observance prove to be correct, then in some 30 years the mosque will be able to claim that, religiously speaking, the UK is an Islamic nation, and therefore needs a share in any religious establishment to reflect this. The progress of conservative Islam in the UK has been amazing, and it has come at a time of prolonged decline in church attendance that seems likely to continue.

This progress has been enthusiastically assisted by this government in particular with its hard-line multi-cultural dogma and willingness to concede to virtually every demand made by Muslims. Perhaps most importantly the government has chosen to allow hard-liners to act as representing all Muslims, and more liberal Muslims have almost completely failed to produce any leadership voices to compete, leading many Britons to wonder if there are indeed many liberal Muslims at all, surely a mistake.

At all levels of national life Islam has gained state funding, protection from any criticism, and the insertion of advisors and experts in government departs national and local. A Muslim Home Office adviser, for example, was responsible for Baroness Scotland’s aborting of the legislation against honour killings, arguing that informal methods would be better. In the police we hear of girls under police protection having the addresses of their safe houses disclosed to their parents by Muslim officers who think they are doing their religious duty.

While men-only gentlemen’s clubs are now being dubbed unlawful, we hear of municipal swimming baths encouraging ‘Muslim women only’ sessions and in Dewsbury Hospitals staff waste time by turning beds to face Mecca five times a day — a Monty Pythonesque scenario of lunacy, but astonishingly true. Prisons are replete with imams who are keen to inculcate conservative Islam in any inmates who are deemed to be culturally ‘Muslim’: the Prison service in effect treats such prisoners as a cultural block to be preached to by imams at will. Would the Prison service send all those with ‘C of E’ on their papers to confirmation classes with the chaplain?! We could go on.

The point is that Islam is being institutionalised, incarnated, into national structures amazingly fast, at the same time as demography is showing very high birthrates. Charles Taylor’s new and classic work on the Secular Age charts the rise of the secular mindset and what he calls the ‘excarnation’ of Christianity as it is levered out of state policy and structures. Christianity is now regarded as bad news, the liberal elite’s attack developed in the 1960s took root in the educationalist empire, and to some extent even in areas of the church.

Today the Christian story is fading from public imagination, while Islam grows apace. There needs to be some fresh thinking in this area where the claims of Christ are sensitively explained. Our church leaders must develop ways of explaining this, as our feature on mission and evangelism this week demonstrates.