Embryonic Stem Cell breakthrough

is just around the corner!

Must be tied to sustainable fusion. And balanced budgets. And all that other stuff that is perpetually just around the corner.

Gun Rights in DC

Ramesh has an update on the Parker case, which may be on its way to the Supremes.

The case has split gun-rights activists in the past, with some of them fearing that asking the Court to pronounce on the matter could set back their cause if it leads to a disappointing answer. But Levy says he is finding less resistance now. Optimism about how the Court would resolve the issue has increased thanks to the replacement of Justice O’Connor by Justice Alito. Nodding to the political circumstances of the moment, he adds that “the Court is probably better than it’s going to be. So for folks who do want review the timing may be just right.”

Fred Thompson says

sing a hymn, and pick up a book.

Oh – that’s the Marine Hymn.

I’m really liking this guy.

The Realignment of America

Michael Barone reminds us that “demography is destiny“.

It has become a commonplace to say that population has been flowing from the Snow Belt to the Sun Belt, from an industrially ailing East and Midwest to an economically vibrant West and South. But the actual picture of recent growth, as measured by the 2000 Census and the census estimates for 2006, is more complicated. Recently I looked at the census estimates for 50 metropolitan areas with more than one million people in 2006, where 54% of Americans live. (I cheated a bit on definitions, adding Durham to Raleigh and combining San Francisco and San Jose.) What I found is that you can separate them into four different categories, with different degrees and different sources of population growth or decline. And I found some interesting surprises.

Unicorns

Daniel Pipes sees the seeds of our salvation.

Is it not telling that great numbers of moderate Muslims see danger where so many non-Muslims are blind? Do developments in Pakistan and Turkey not confirm my oft-repeated point that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam the solution? And do they not suggest that ignorant non-Muslim busybodies should get out of the way of those moderate Muslims determined to relegate Islamism to its rightful place in the dustbin of history?

The only way western civilization doesn’t get creamed is for the unicorns to win. We need to support them.

With Republicans like these

who needs Democrats? They’re trying to pile on to Nancy Pelosi for grabbing a little federal pork for San Francisco. Seems Pelosi’s husband owns properties that could benefit from a project at the Embarcadero. And the stupid Republicans are whining about corruption. How lame.

One of the properties is 5,400 feet away from the redevelopment site.

Guess what, New York Post. I can do arithmetic! That’s over a mile.

San Francisco is roughly square, and 7 miles on a side. Pelosi’s spokesman was right to say that “1.1 miles is a long way in San Francisco.”

So, Republicans, please stop going out of your way to look stupid. That Pelosi is corrupt is hardly front page news. How about going after her for the really damaging stuff she’s doing, like fraternizing with the enemy, unconstitutionally running her own foreign policy, and doing her damnedest to lose the war?

Oh, right. That would require backbone.

The Fort Dix Plot

Michelle Malkin has it all covered here. Kudos to the John Doe.

Charles at LGF notes that CNN, albeit in scare quotes, used the I-word. A crack in the wall, or a slip-up?

That John Doe better watch his back. CAIR and other terrorists will be after him now. If they can find time between their FBI training sessions.

Breitbart TV

Here’s a new site worth bookmarking: breitbart.tv.

I’d love to see every politician be interviewed in a long, single take the way Fred Thompson was. (Although Breitbart does need to fire the one-eyed, gimpy camera man.) This isn’t going to be a nail in the MSM’s coffin, it’s going to be a bag of nails.

Thompson provides a great lesson in subtext. Notice how he says “I’m running for president” a) without ever saying the words an b) in a way that makes you long for him to say the words.

Impressive.

Rattlesnake

Michael Yon is back with the amazing Brits on operation Rattlesnake. Why, as some of the commenters plead, don’t we get more reporting like this?

Probably because there are so few reporters like Michael Yon.

Will Britain heed the warning?

This video correctly sees a warning.

Will we heed the warning?

Diction matters

when singing.

Send a Message

An easy way to send a thought to the troops.

That Was Quick

The “youths” in Paris barely have their cars, uh “started” and the former newspaper known as the NYT is already trash-talking the new French president.

And what is the title of their “analysis” piece?

Nicolas Sarkozy: Winning the Chance to Prove His Critics Wrong

Only the New York Times can read an overwhelming election and decide that the winner has to prove people wrong!

Don’t know much about Sarkozy. But if the NYT is aggin’ ‘im, I’m fer ‘im.

Climate Change Watch

Reid Bryson, credited by some as the father of modern meteorology, has some pithy things to say about climate change. Like, duh, the climate changes.

Q: Could you rank the things that have the most significant impact and where would you put carbon dioxide on the list?

A: Well let me give you one fact first. In the first 30 feet of the atmosphere, on the average, outward radiation from the Earth, which is what CO2 is supposed to affect, how much [of the reflected energy] is absorbed by water vapor? In the first 30 feet, 80 percent, okay?

Q: Eighty percent of the heat radiated back from the surface is absorbed in the first 30 feet by water vapor…

A: And how much is absorbed by carbon dioxide? Eight hundredths of one percent. One one-thousandth as important as water vapor. You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide.

Pardon me

while I dab a little tear from my eye.

When Midieval Meets Mushy

The Misogynists were going to play the Multiculturalists, and the AP thinks the fact it was called off is wacky.

It’s getting hard to tell real life from a Leno monologue.

It doesn’t take much

Perhaps you wondered how much damage Richard Reid could possibly have done with explosives in his shoe. The FBI wondered the same thing, so they constructed an identical shoe bomb. The results are most impressive.

[Link to News of the World Removed]

UPDATE:
I should rename this post The Perils of Believing Newspapers. I thought that plane looked familiar. It is not, as the News of the World claims, an FBI reconstruction of the Reid shoe-bomb. It’s a much earlier test run on an L-1011 (PDF) They were trying to see if new luggage containers could mitigate luggage bombs.

Feel free to follow the LGF link above. Charles has the correction and a hat tip.

Is France waking up?

An incredible 85% voter turnout and a huge victory for Sarkozy. The press calls him “right wing”. My guess is that translates to “not far enough Left”. The Kos Kids moan:

It’s a disappointing development for our French friends and for the whole world. As many mistakes as Segolene made, I believe that she would have made a remarkable president. Sarkozy is poised to institute Le Pen-esque policies cracking down on those he has previously referred to as “rabble” and promised to clean out “with a fire hose”—anybody who doesn’t look and act French. If anything, this election proves that Americans don’t have a monopoly on reactionary politicians who get elected by using fear, division, and the politics of exclusion. Here’s hoping for a better result in the upcoming French parliamentary elections.

The “youths” seem even less pleased. Let’s hope they turn over control of the fire hoses to him right away.

I’m sure it sounds cuter in the original language

A Mickey Mouse-like character preaches Islamic supremacy to kids on “Palestinian” TV.

This is what the enemy looks like, folks. They want us all dead, or under Shari’a. (Same thing.)

Pants on Fire

Tenet, natch. Captain Ed gives him a break, though. Maybe Tenet’s not a liar.

Maybe he’s both a liar and an incompetent.

I will tell you three things

The guy who played the Giant on Twin Peaks has a web site for his Spherical Panoramas. How does Lileks find this stuff?

Forget Vitamin C

Apparently the supplement to be taking is Vitamin D. I’m not one to make lifestyle changes based on one study or two. But if we really do see results like this published this summer I may just order up some Vitamin D. According to FuturePundit, “A study coming out in June will report a more than halving of the incidence of cancer by taking vitamin D supplements.”

But perhaps the biggest bombshell about vitamin D’s effects is about to go off. In June, U.S. researchers will announce the first direct link between cancer prevention and the sunshine vitamin. Their results are nothing short of astounding.

A four-year clinical trial involving 1,200 women found those taking the vitamin had about a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence, compared with those who didn’t take it, a drop so large — twice the impact on cancer attributed to smoking — it almost looks like a typographical error.

Be prepared to jettison all that advice about avoiding sunshine to prevent cancer.

I’m Going to Miss Bolton at the UN

Our loss is the AEI’s gain. His thank-you speech for the 2007 Bradley Prize is priceless.

“I should note Senators Lincoln Chafee and Senator Dodd who did so much to help make me eligible for this award, and the prominent citizens of Pyongyang, Damascus and Tehran, who also pitched in simply by being themselves.”

Memo to Harry and Nancy

Why are you doing this?

I am an Iraqi. To me the possible consequences of this vote are terrifying. Just as we began to see signs of progress in my country the Democrats come and say, ‘Well, it’s not worth it.Time to leave’.

To the Democrats my life and the lives of twenty-five other million Iraqis are evidently not worth trying for. They shouldn’t expect us to be grateful for this.

Free The Film – Update

Michelle Malkin has a link to a petition. I know on-line petitions aren’t usually effective. But it’s chicken soup: What could it hurt? If it only annoys someone at PBS it’s worth the time it takes to click.

Defining “Fish Wrapper” Down

I can only hope that this hurts the putative newspaper, the LA Times, worse than it hurts, say, Fred Thompson.

Harlan Ellison is an optimist.

Laffer Watch

The boys a the Patriot Post say keep an eye on Georgia.

Georgia may be on its way to a completely new tax code, courtesy of state House Speaker Glenn Richardson, who proposed legislation this week to completely replace the old code. Currently, Georgia residents pay state and local property tax, estate tax, unemployment insurance and worker’s compensation taxes, business and occupational fees, intangible taxes and insurance taxes. All of that would hit the scrap heap in favor of a flat income tax of 5.75 percent and a matching sales tax. The present income-tax rate is six percent and the sales tax is 4.5 percent.

A familiar name is behind it all, as well: Arthur Laffer, economist of the Reagan era. Richardson has strongly advocated such reform, saying, “We must change the burdensome and antiquated tax system we currently have.” He is optimistic about this plan, which if passed by the legislature will be placed on the November 2008 ballot for voter approval. He says, “I believe the [Georgia] House tax reform plan will be the talk of the nation.” If it stirs up federal tax reform, all the better.

I still say that any income tax is a bad idea, but if it has to exist, it must be flat. The idea of a mix between flat income and a sales tax may just be political genius at work. It’s a giant step in the right direction, and probably an easier sell. Let’s hope for the best.

In Other Words

Here’s a terrific project from the Patriot Post guys – a modern English version of the Federalist Papers.

A Peek Inside a Master’s Head

Visualization can be a great way to catch a glimpse of how something complicated works – especially the creative mind. Watching the animated sheet music to Coltrane’s Giant Steps is a fascinating look into how he did it even if, like me, your sheet music reading skills are less than stellar and your music theory knowledge minimal. David Slusser, a coworker of mine and a mean sax player himself, said

Really nice, but music readers should take note that the sheet music switches from concert key (piano part) in the head (melody), to the Bb tenor part a whole step up when Trane starts soloing, and then back again for the out head. Otherwise this person did a great musical service. That’s pretty much what one hemisphere of my brain is doing whenever I listen to this piece (and I’ve been trying to play it on tenor for decades). It also brought out one great aspect of true jazz artistry…did you notice how the rests popped? They swung (the masters always used negative space – it’s just as important what and when you leave something out).

This geometric interpretation is also interesting.

How dumb can Cindy Sheehan be?

Pretty goram dumb, as it turns out.

(A little Firefly lingo there.)