InstaPundit.Com

August 08, 2008

GEORGE MCGOVERN: My Party Should Respect Secret Union Ballots.

A JOHN EDWARDS VICTORY LAP FOR MICKEY KAUS -- but he's promising more to come.

TEST-DRIVING the Nissan Cube electric car.

EDWARDS ADMITS THAT HE LIED ABOUT AFFAIR: But the real story is how the mainstream press, despite knowing or strongly suspecting that he was lying, covered for him.

There are two Americas -- the real one, and the one the press tries to fob off on us.

UPDATE: Big roundup here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tom Maguire: "I guess this means the LA Times is free to report on it." Better ask Tony Pierce, just to be sure!

Plus, from Ann Althouse:

Imagine if he'd gotten the nomination. What a selfish bastard — to run for the nomination while parading his cancerous wife about and knowing that if he won this story could have come out at any time — maybe in October — screwing up his party's chances!

Indeed.

MORE: Byron York:

Wow. The Edwards story has suddenly appeared on the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the networks — everywhere. John Edwards has somehow become newsworthy again.

Yeah, go figure.

THIS TIME THEY DIDN'T LEAVE OUT ED WOOD: A list of essential biopics.

VIRGINIA POSTREL: "Barack Obama is a real candidate running for the real presidency, not a fictional character, and I am not optimistic about his world view. Dreams from My Father suggests a deep-seated belief that economic and social dynamism inevitably and unrelievedly produce chaos, disorder, and despair." This is from a while back, but I had missed it when it appeared, and it's still timely.

LAYING THE HATE ON HYBRIDS: I dunno, though -- my Highlander Hybrid is pretty fun to drive, for an SUV. And I say that as a guy whose other car is an RX-8, so it's not like I'm comparing it to a Yaris.

THE GROWING THREAT OF antibiotic-resistant bacteria. "You might think this doesn't have anything to do with you. But you are one car accident away from being in a hospital. Also, the drug resistance mutations found in bacteria in hospitals will likely swap genetic material with other species of bacteria that are found more widely outside of hospitals." Yes, this is an extremely urgent matter that's being treated as a not-very-urgent matter.

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES PAYING ATTENTION to developing clean energy via nanotechnology.

ANOTHER NO-KNOCK RAID GONE BAD:

When the shooting stopped, two dogs lay dead. A mayor sat in his boxers, hands bound behind his back. His handcuffed mother-in-law was sprawled on the kitchen floor, lying beside the body of one of the family pets that police had killed before her eyes.

After the raid, Prince George's County police officials who burst into the home of Berwyn Heights' mayor last week seized the same unopened package of marijuana that an undercover officer had delivered an hour earlier.

What police left behind was a house stained with blood and a trail of questions about their conduct. No other evidence of illegal activity was found, and no one was arrested at Mayor Cheye Calvo's home in this small bedroom community near College Park.

This week Prince George's police arrested two men for orchestrating a plot to deliver marijuana to the addresses of unsuspecting recipients -- among them, Calvo's wife, Trinity Tomsic.

Yet neither county Police Chief Melvin C. High nor Sheriff Michael A. Jackson have apologized to him, his wife or her mother, Georgia Porter, for the raid that traumatized the family and killed their black Labrador retrievers, Payton and Chase.

Thursday, Calvo called on the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division to investigate the raid and other similar actions by Prince George's law enforcement. He said officers burst into his house without knocking or announcing themselves, in violation of the warrant they had.

We need federal civil rights legislation stripping officials of immunity in cases like this. Maybe now that they're raiding politicians' houses, we'll see some action.

UPDATE: Radley Balko has much more. Plus this: "I guess I'd just add that the national media coverage of the Berwyn Heights raid seems to be predicated on the assumption that the most troubling aspects of the raid—the killing of the dogs, the violent tactics, the lax investigation, the likely innocent victims, and the police obstinacy after the fact—are unusual. They aren't. The only thing unusual about this raid is that its victim happened to be an elected politician."

KATHY SHAIDLE: Ezra Levant 1, Canadian Thought Police 0.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: ONE THING OBAMA GETS RIGHT:

The underreported economic news of the week is that Barack Obama favors a stronger dollar. Even better, he thinks a stronger greenback would help to reduce oil prices.

That at least is what the Democratic Presidential candidate told a town hall forum in Parma, Ohio, on Tuesday. "If we had a strengthening of the dollar, that would help" reduce fuel costs, he said, according to a Reuters dispatch ignored by most of the media.

This ought to be a bigger story. . . . We don't know who is whispering in Mr. Obama's ear about the dollar, but he's on to a rich political vein. Americans know instinctively that something is wrong when the Canadian loonie is worth more than the greenback. Over to you, John McCain.

I wonder if this means he's getting advice from Austan Goolsbee again.

REPUBLICAN SENATORS blowing it on energy.

NECK AND NECK: "The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday again shows Barack Obama attracting 44% of the vote while and John McCain earns 43%. When 'leaners' are included, it’s Obama 47% and McCain 46%. With leaners, the candidates have been within one point of each other for eight straight days."

HILLARY CLINTON as Ronald Reagan?

GEORGIA UPDATE: McCain on "Russia's Aggression."

UPDATE: " Georgia 'under attack' as Russian tanks roll in."

ANOTHER UPDATE: Background at Strategypage.

RAND SIMBERG: I guess it really is all about the "O."

Plus, a complaint from TigerHawk: "It discriminates against one-handed people. I think the Obama campaign needs to make a reasonable accommodation for people who have lost one, but not two, hands."

THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER gets ready to fire up.

A JOHN TIERNEY TRAFFIC QUIZ. The book sounds interesting, too.

IN THE MAIL: None of the Above: Why 2008 Is the Year to Cast the Ultimate Protest Vote. The front-cover blurb from Michael Savage suggests that I'm not his target audience.

IN LIGHT OF THE EARLIER ITEM about "killing all the rich Westerners," I think it's time for another poll.

MORE ON GEORGIA, from Transatlantic Politics.

DAVE KOPEL AND BOB LEVY: What next for D.C.'s gun laws?

The Supreme Court ruled in June that provisions of Washington, D.C.'s gun laws are unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the city has responded with new regulations that are a flagrant attempt to circumvent the court's decision.

It's time for Congress to use the power granted to it in the Constitution to "exercise exclusive legislation" in the District and uphold its residents' constitutional rights. It can do so by passing the District of Columbia Personal Protection Act now pending in Congress, with a few adjustments. This bill, introduced on July 31 with 57 cosponsors, would prevent D.C. from passing regulations that discourage the private lawful use of firearms or otherwise suppress residents' Second Amendment rights. . . . Over the years, our elected representatives have adopted a court-centric view of the Constitution -- a view that decisions about constitutionality are properly left to the judiciary. But members of Congress also swear to uphold the Constitution. Congress can make good on that oath by restoring the right of Washington, D.C., residents to possess functional firearms in their homes.

Read the whole thing.

DON SURBER: "The Saudis' protest against Nissan is ironic."

OIL CONSUMPTION DROPS IN DEVELOPED COUNTRIES: "The Western countries will continue to cut back while Asian demand continues to grow. Eventually Western demand destruction won't be able to balance Asian demand growth. Then things will get ugly." Which is why we need to be working on developing new supplies -- especially from oil shale, and coal-liquification -- while we also work on longer-term replacements.

ANN ALTHOUSE: "When you set out to destroy someone's good name, are you responsible to the other people who happen to have that name?"

IT WAS THE BLOG THAT DID IT: Campfield wins despite being outspent 2-to-1. If he used spellcheck it would help even more . . . .

STRESSING AN OBAMA ASSASSINATION THREAT, while editing out a threat to Bush from the same guy.

I AGREE: Media's self censorship is a bigger scandal than Edwards. "Is it any wonder that nobody buys newspapers any more?" (Via Kaus).

TROUBLE IN THE CAUCASUS: "In a move which has put it squarely on a collision course with Putin’s Russia, Georgian troops continuing their campaign against South Ossetian separatists are reported by the BBC to be nearing Tskhinvali. . . . Moscow’s support for South Ossetian separatism, in part a reaction to Georgia’s efforts to get closer to the West potentially puts Russia and NATO on a collision course."

UPDATE: Reader Michael Cecire emails:

As a former Peace Corps Volunteer in Georgia, I can tell you with certainty that the ongoing hostilities in Georgia is neither anomalous nor a case of 'Georgian impertinence,' as many in the media will certainly imply in their coverage and comment. As one of the Bush administration's foreign policy success stories, and a resolute American ally, its efficacy is obviously always under the most unfair sort of scrutiny. This is a curious but unmistakable worldwide pattern - see Israel, Taiwan, Moldova, Kosovo, etc.

And to be clear, Georgia is now being invaded by a country that has been pushing, provoking, and violating the sovereignty of many of its neighbors for centuries. As for Georgia, Russia's posture has been decidedly hostile since Georgia's "ungrateful" secessions - first in 1991 and again in 2003's Rose Revolution which aligned Georgia with the West - with Russia responding over the years with a series of embargoes, blockades, and gratuitous support for separatists in violation of internationally recognized borders.

President Saakashvili is absolutely correct when he says that the current conflict is hardly about separatism; rather, the root of the issue is Russia's obstinate unwillingness to concede the sovereignty of its former satellites and imperial provinces. This situation, in reality, is hardly more than blatant Russian aggression against a small, Westernizing democracy flailing to extract itself from its suffocating geographic and historical proximity to Russia in all its forms - tsarist, Soviet, and currently oligopo-fascist.

Stay tuned.

HOPE, CHANGE, AND A NEW KIND OF POLITICS:

Nearly 10,000 of the biggest donors to Republican candidates and causes across the country will probably receive a foreboding “warning” letter in the mail next week. The letter is an opening shot across the bow from an unusual new outside political group on the left that is poised to engage in hardball tactics to prevent similar groups on the right from getting off the ground this fall.

Led by Tom Matzzie, a liberal political operative who has been involved with some prominent left-wing efforts in recent years, the newly formed nonprofit group, Accountable America, is planning to confront donors to conservative groups, hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions. . . . The warning letter is intended as a first step, alerting donors who might be considering giving to right-wing groups to a variety of potential dangers, including legal trouble, public exposure and watchdog groups digging through their lives.

No doubt they all go around exchanging Obama Salutes and clicking their heels; I hope they're appropriately attired. . . . .

PARIS ON THE POTOMAC: "Voters usually get what the voters deserve. But will that be the case in ‘08?"

A WHILE BACK, I reviewed Robert Zimmerman's The Universe in a Mirror for The Wall Street Journal. Now here's another review in The New York Times.

AIRLINES CUT 60 million seats for Christmas.

BILL ALLISON: Will Sens. Dodd and Conrad attend the financial literacy lunch? "Maybe the two should attend the event, Dodd to learn where he can look up the interest rate and Conrad for a primer on how to read a mortgage document." Heh.

STOPPING GLOBAL WARMING BY KILLING "as many rich Westerners as possible."

August 07, 2008

RASMUSSEN: "Americans overwhelmingly believe there is an urgent national need to find new sources of energy, and this need is more important that reducing current energy usage, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. With energy issues taking center stage in the presidential campaign, 81% of Americans see development of new energy sources as an urgent priority. Only 9% disagree. For nearly two-thirds (65%), finding new sources of energy is more important that reducing the amount of energy Americans now consume. Twenty-eight percent (28%) think reducing current usage is more important."

JEERING WHAT THEY SHOULD APPLAUD. And vice versa.

ROMENESKO on the Edwards allegations.

THE NEW OBAMA SALUTE. "We want to see it everywhere, but more importantly we want this sign to take the world by storm." I expect it to be enthusiastically adopted by Obama's troops.

UPDATE: A Pink Floyd angle.

MORE: Star Trek! "The group is impressed by Mr. Spock however, who gestures with an oval 'symbol of peace' the party makes with raised hands, and speaks of 'The One.'" (Thanks to reader Melissa Lambert).

MORE STILL: It's on YouTube!

And reader Neil Sorens emails: "As a video game developer, I have seen 'goatse' cleverly hidden in various game levels. The Obama O is far more blatant." Heh. If you don't recognize the "goatse" reference, think twice before googling it . . . .

FINALLY: Andrew Morse emails: "I'm confused: Why do the Obama supporters in the Star Trek video you posted keep referring to Bob Herbert in a derogatory way? Isn't he a pro-Obama guy?" Even space hippies have some standards.

BASED ON MY BROWSER HISTORY, I'M ANDROGYNOUS:

Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 50%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 50%

(Via Megan McArdle).

THE RACIST ADS MAY NOT HAVE WORKED: "In a contentious primary that garnered national attention this week, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen took a substantial early lead over his Democratic rivals." I like Steve Cohen anyway, and not just because of the swell John Fogerty tickets he gave me once.

COULD OBAMA STILL LOSE THE NOMINATION? There are still quite a few Clinton folks who'd like to see that, but I doubt it. On the other hand, after all the Obama-overexposure, Hillary would come in as a fresh face!

ALICE THOMSON: Suddenly being green is not cool any more. "Where only a year ago the smart new eco-warriors were revered, wormeries and unbleached cashmere jeans are now seen as a middle-class indulgence. . . . Espousing the green life, with its misshapen vegetables and non-disposable nappies, is increasingly being seen as a luxury by everyone."

OBAMA GETS MORE DONATIONS FROM EXXON THAN MCCAIN. "What's next, we find out that Obama is a puppet of Dick Cheney?" Or maybe the other way around . . . .

GREEN OR ELSE: E.P.A. Won’t Ease Requirements for Ethanol in Gas. "The Environmental Protection Agency rejected on Thursday a request to cut the quota for the use of ethanol in cars, concluding, for the time being, that the goal of reducing the nation’s reliance on oil trumps any effect on food prices from making fuel from corn."

MORE ON NIKKI TINKER from Christian Grantham.

And some further thoughts from Ta-Nehisi Coates:

Frankly, I've always doubted the power of Jew-baiting as a method of scaring up votes in any black community outside of ~~the tri-state area~~ Gotham. That's not because blacks aren't antisemetic, it's because--in the words of the great Jimmy Baldwin--they're antiwhite. Jew-baiting against a white Jewish guy in a majority black district, is like attempting a 360 dunk. Why go through all that when the the plain-old race-baiting layup will suffice?

To show off?

FARHAD MANJOO rounds up some web conspiracy theories about the anthrax attacks.

HMM: McCain takes lead on YouTube hits: "Mr. McCain has beat Mr. Obama's channel for seven straight days and 11 of the past 14 days, in a signal he intends to compete for the YouTube vote. That is a giant reversal. Mr. Obama had been quadrupling Mr. McCain's YouTube views and beat him every day since February, according to TubeMogul, which tracks online video viewing."

HEH.

ANNOUNCING THE World Fantasy Award finalists.

ANOTHER CASE OF Name That Party!

THE END OF the diet wars? I doubt it.

HMM: Fake names get voter registration workers investigated "Criminal investigations could be launched against at least six voter registration workers who tried to add dead, imprisoned or imaginary people to the voter rolls, according to the Milwaukee Election Commission and the organization that employed them."

PLUS, THAT SONG IS REALLY ANNOYING: The High Cost of a 'Free Credit Report'.

A VIDEOGAME VIOLENCE FILTER for Gears of War 2. So is this customization, or Bowdlerization?

BOINGBOING TV: Aboard the SS Jeremiah O'Brien. "It's not SteamPunk, it's just steam!"

SOME QUESTIONS ANSWER THEMSELVES: Could Hillary Be Plotting Something?

UH OH: McCain's Latest Racially Subliminal Negative Attack Ad.

No, I don't know how it's racially subliminal, but no doubt Bob Herbert will show up to explain things soon.

ALWAYS LEAVE THEM WANTING MORE: "With Election Day still three months away, 48 percent said they're hearing too much about the Democratic candidate, according to a poll released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. Just 26 percent said the same about his Republican rival, John McCain. . . . At the same time, nearly four in 10 said they've been hearing too little about McCain — about four times the number who said so about Obama." All the pro-Obama hype in the press may have had the effect of making him seem over-familiar rather than revolutionary. Under the Feiler Faster Principle, this makes sense.

AND SMALLER BUGS TO BITE 'EM: "The debate about what counts as a living thing is fuelled today by the discovery of the first virus that is able to fall 'ill' by being infected with another virus."

THIS ISN'T REALLY NEWS: More profanity on left-leaning blogs.

GOOD FOR HIM: Barack Obama rebukes Nikki Tinker.

HMM: "America is no longer what it once was." And that's bad, apparently.

Does that mean he's coming out as the anti-change candidate now? Can you flipflop on change itself? . . . .

UPDATE: Reader George Pepper emails:

"The Republic is no longer what it once was." - Palpatine/Darth Sidious in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

Do you think anyone will notice?

I think they just did.

MORE: "It's not a gaffe, it's a theme."

STILL MORE: Emperor Palpatine -- or Bob Dole:

Let me be the bridge to a time of tranquility, faith and confidence in action.

And to those who say it was never so, that America's not been better, I say you're wrong. And I know because I was there. And I have seen it. And I remember.

Read the whole thing.

MORE STILL: "Darth Tedious?"

JAMES JOYNER ON THE NEW YORK TIMES AND THE HAMDAN TRIAL: "I’ve not been a fan of Guantánamo, the lack of minimal due process for those accused of being illegal combatants generally, or the treatment of Hamdan in particular. Further, I agree with the editorial’s larger point that the way in which Hamdan was convicted taints the process. That said, the accusation, without the slightest hint of proof or argument, that the jurors violated their oath to judge Hamdan according to the evidence and their conscience, without regard to the wishes of the command, is libelous. Indeed, the fact that the jury acquitted Hamdan of the most significant charge against him serves as prima facie rebuttal of that charge."

PACK THE PURELL: Is outer space teeming with microbes?

A DUAL-FUEL HYDROGEN-GASOLINE Mazda RX-9.

IN THE MAIL: David Freddoso's The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate. I haven't heard much about this book, but it's doing awfully well on Amazon.

WELL, THIS MAKES ME REALLY WANT ONE: "Apple apparently can disable App Store software remotely on your iPhone 3G. The iPhone calls home and poof the application is nuked."

THE STORY OF John McCain's divorce.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH: "I must have missed the memo in which it was announced that every socioeconomic problem that comes down the pike awaits only a regressive tax scheme to solve it."

ANOTHER CHANCE TO PLAY name that party! It's racist and antisemitic attacks on Democrat Steve Cohen from black Democrat Nikki Tinker, but the Times leaves out the affiliation.

Meanwhile, A.C. Kleinheider observes:

While putting a progressive Congressman’s beside an image of Klansman with a burning cross would appear to be all in good fun, suggesting that same Congressman, a Jew, is an interloper in the Black community is not.

As of this posting, Democratic insurgent Congressional candidate Nikki Tinker’s infamous Nathan Bedford Forrest ad remains featured on her YouTube channel. An ad suggesting that Congressman Steve Cohen was preventing black children from practicing their faith, however, has been removed.

Charming.

UPDATE: TalkingPointsMemo is more honest than the NYT:

This brutal new attack ad from House candidate Nikki Tinker, who is challenging liberal Tennessee Rep. Steven Cohen in tomorrow's Democratic primary, just might be the nastiest, most race-baiting (and Jew-baiting) ad of the entire cycle.

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on Tinker from Sharon Cobb, who doesn't like her much.

AUSTIN BAY interviews General Petraeus.

CANADIAN MP: HRCs are "kangaroo courts that selectively oppress Canadians." Well, yes.

SHOW TRIALS OF BUSH OFFICIALS IN A DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION? "They are serious."

ERIC S. RAYMOND ON ENJOYING A FIGHT: I think it's genetic, and I don't think it's limited to males. The Insta-Daughter -- the least violent of people, generally -- loves a fight once one gets started. Her eyes light up in a way that they do for nothing else. She's done various martial arts stuff, but it's that factor more than any real training that makes me feel good about her future out in the world. I credit her Scots-Irish side, as my mother is the same way . . . .

ROGER SIMON: Random House in Disgrace.

OUCH: "In her first week at market, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sold just 2,737 copies of her book KNOW YOUR POWER, according to NIELSEN BOOKSCAN." Hey, she's no Jonah Goldberg.

UPDATE: Ron Coleman:

The sad part for Pelosi is that the practice by which publishers bestow massive donations on their favored politicians via utterly unrecoverable publishing “advances” was barred by the House of Representatives. Therefore she could not get even a fraction of the phenomenal sweetheart advance paid to then Senator-elect Hillary Clinton for her various scribblings — which, while they were bought by many, still did not come close to earning out the advance paid by a publishing industry supposedly beset by economic crisis.

That means Pelosi must have really thought people would want to buy her book.

Chilling. That’s what enough time in Congress does to people.

Indeed.

ANN ALTHOUSE: What does Barack Obama really think about affirmative action?

SOME CRYONICS history.

OKAY, YESTERDAY'S PARIS HILTON POLL WAS A JOKE, but some people wanted a real one. So here goes:

UPDATE: Redone to add a "none of the above" option.

HOW THE BRITISH BLEW IT IN BASRA: "You can accuse the Americans of many things, such as hamfistedness, but you can’t accuse them of not addressing a situation when it arises. While we had a strategy of evasion, the Americans just went in and addressed the problem."

As Greyhawk comments: "From the get go, they tried very hard to not be American. They succeeded." And they got great press on how much smarter than Americans they were, until things were obviously in the toilet, at which point the problem became America's fault!

MICKEY KAUS: Waiting for the other Gucci to drop.

TALKLEFT: "On Morning Joe, Chuck Todd said that the 'feeling in Chicago,' presumably referring to the Obama campaign, is that Hillary Clinton is seeking treatment that she would never have given Barack Obama had the roles been reversed. If they REALLY believe that, then they are fools. If Hillary Clinton were the nominee, Barack Obama would have been the vice presidential nominee a month ago. I can not believe Todd is passing on this foolishness."

UPDATE: Satisfying that "incredible pent-up desire."

A PREEMPTIVE PLAY of the Race Card?

INFLATIONARY THEORY: "Of course, Barack could easily defuse this by admitting he was wrong, but as with the surge he will not. This is why Barack Obama’s team is scared to death of any debate format that doesn’t rely on teleprompters: he’s a walking gaffe-o-matic and too arrogant to admit when he’s wrong — probably partly because the MSM scrambles to explain his mistakes away."

CENSORING SKEPTICISM: Because it might lead the common folk astray!

SO ARE THESE INTUITIONS RIGHT, OR SPURIOUS? Whom do we fear or trust? Faces instantly guide us, scientists say. "A pair of Princeton psychology researchers has developed a computer program that allows scientists to analyze better than ever before what it is about certain human faces that makes them look either trustworthy or fearsome. In doing so, they have also found that the program allows them to construct computer-generated faces that display the most trustworthy or dominant faces possible."

WELL, I GUESS THAT'S GOOD: Third Rocket Launch Fails, but VC Cash for SpaceX Pours in Anyway.

August 06, 2008

OKAY, I MENTIONED IT IN PASSING EARLIER, but this Washington Post correction is worth quoting in full: "An earlier version of this story about campaign donations that Florida businessman Harry Sargeant III raised for Sen. John McCain, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton incorrectly identified three individuals as being among the donors Sargeant solicited on behalf of McCain. Those donors -- Rite Aid manager Ibrahim Marabeh, and lounge owners Nadia and Shawn Abdalla -- wrote checks to Giuliani and Clinton, not McCain. Also, the first name of Faisal Abdullah, a McCain donor, was misspelled in some versions of the story."

Next time, do some research to confirm what the Obama operatives email you, before you run the story on Page One. It'll work out to be less embarrassing in the end . . . .

GORDON CHANG: What to Look For as the Olympics Kick Off.

MICKEY KAUS: "Old MSM line: We demand photos! ... New MSM line: We demand high definition photos!"

HEH: "Can Obama laugh at himself?" "Of course not. That would be racist."

DAVID BARON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Mountain Lion in Bedroom Kills Family Dog.

Related thoughts here.

THE JOHN EDWARDS STORY seems to be breaking out.

CANADIAN "HUMAN RIGHTS" KANGAROO COURT UPDATE: Punished First, Acquitted Later:

My lawyers have just received a copy of a letter from the Alberta Human Rights Commission dismissing the complaint of “discrimination” filed against me by the radical Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities. They had complained that by publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in the Western Standard in February 2006, I had engaged in an illegal act.

Their complaint was identical to the one filed earlier by an anti-Semitic imam named Syed Soharwardy. Soharwardy abandoned his complaint this spring. You can see Soharwardy’s complaint here; it named both me and the magazine. The Edmonton complaint named just the magazine. My initial legal response is here.

The two complaints cost Alberta taxpayers in excess of $500,000 and, according to access to information documents, involved no fewer than 15 government bureaucrats. What a scam – on the part of the complainants, who were able to wage “lawfare” against an infidel without paying a cent; and on the part of the HRC, as a make-work project.

Fire. Them. All.

Good idea. Either that, or free-speech supporters in Canada are going to have to adopt Muslim extremists' tactics -- which seem to work -- and saw off a few heads. The rule of law is better, if people will let it work.

DUDE, I'VE ALREADY got "the physique of an American gladiator." So we're at least 1/3 of the way there . . . .

Anyway, this whole thing is old news.

UPDATE: Okay, technically it's the physique of an American gladiator who retired after the first season and now works at a beer-and-barbeque joint. But my arms are as buff as John Scalzi's!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Kevin Maguire emails:

I'm not sure how seriously we should take techology forecasting from someone who describes an IEEE publication as "A publication called IEE Spectrum". Not only does the "called" indicate that Last has no idea what IEEE and Spectrum are, he's one E short in IEEE."

I've had issues with Last for a while.

MORE: Heh. All I need to be that ripped is to give up beer. Not gonna happen.

IF ONLY WE HAD A HEALTH PLAN LIKE BRITAIN'S: Hospitals 'infested with vermin'. "Vermin were found in wards, clinics and even operating theatres. A patients' group said the situation was revolting."

MATT BAI: Is Obama The End of Black Politics? "The generational transition that is reordering black politics didn’t start this year. It has been happening, gradually and quietly, for at least a decade, as younger African-Americans, Barack Obama among them, have challenged their elders in traditionally black districts. What this year’s Democratic nomination fight did was to accelerate that transition and thrust it into the open as never before, exposing and intensifying friction that was already there. For a lot of younger African-Americans, the resistance of the civil rights generation to Obama’s candidacy signified the failure of their parents to come to terms, at the dusk of their lives, with the success of their own struggle — to embrace the idea that black politics might now be disappearing into American politics in the same way that the Irish and Italian machines long ago joined the political mainstream."

"FIND OUT WHERE HIS KIDS GO TO SCHOOL:" Just don't do the same thing regarding a "progressive" figure. That would be McCarthyism.

TIGERHAWK: The Hypocrisy Trifecta.

YOUR STATE DEPARTMENT AT WORK: I just wish they were willing to stand up to America's enemies this way.

AT AMAZON, a half-price sale on sports and fitness equipment.

UPDATE: Bill Quick: "Never buy this stuff new. There’s tons of barely used stuff out there."

I MISSED THIS EARLIER: Fact-checking the tire-inflation claim.

And I love this: "Whip Underinflation Now!" I want a button!

UPDATE: Reader Ric Manhard emails: "Maybe we should start inflating our tires with C02 and kill two birds with one stone." Brilliant!

MICHAEL TOTTEN: "A significant percentage of my travel expense income has come from those of you who signed up for recurring payments through a Blog Patron subscription. Blog Patron, unfortunately, has now closed. That cash flow has stopped up entirely. If you were one of my Blog Patron subscribers, please consider re-enrolling with a Pay Pal subscription so I will continue to have money for travel expenses. I would write these dispatches for free if I could, but I don't have a trust fund or any other independent source of wealth to keep me going."

I've donated to Michael, and if you like his work I recommend that you do the same.

FROM SKIN-CELL to neuron.

ANOTHER HOTDOG OF DOOM: It's called the "Homewrecker," and if I ate one I think I'd definitely be sleeping in the guestroom. Er, if I could sleep.

"COLLEGE BOWL" COOL: "Obama is making schoolwork, studying, and showing your braininess cool. That's good for the kids, people."

QUESTIONS FOR THE WASHINGTON POST FROM AMANDA CARPENTER: "Here's the rub. I can't find three out of these four donors on opensecrets.com, the online clearinghouse for donor information."

UPDATE: Ouch: "Note that this was a front-page story with names and dates and a picture of John McCain. And all of the operative facts were completely false. This is inexcusable."

WELL, HE IS RUNNING AGAINST HIM: Nader disses Obama.

A VERDICT IN THE HAMDAN CASE: "A jury of six military officers at Guantanamo Bay reached a split verdict Wednesday in the war crimes trial of a former driver for Osama bin Laden, clearing him of some charges but convicting him of others that could send him to prison for life."

I RESPOND to charges of "cultural relativism."

THE NISSAN ECO-PEDAL: A cool force-feedback accelerator device for producing more efficient driving. As I've said before, I wish my Highlander Hybrid had something like this, so you'd know when you were about to light up the gas engine. If -- as seems to be the case -- Toyota's anxious to make the hybrid driving experience as seamlessly like driving a gasoline vehicle as possible, it could be switchable. I'd like an "economy mode" that would run it as an electric vehicle as much as possible, toggleable to a normal mode where it would be, as it is now, seamless. They're a bit less enthusiastic about this approach, though, over at Autoblog.

THE WASHINGTON POST DOESN'T THINK MUCH of Obama's tax-the-oil-companies energy policy:

Mr. Obama wants a surtax on net oil company profits above a "reasonable" level. The tax would be set high enough to raise $65 billion over the next five years, and the revenue would fund a one-shot tax rebate that Mr. Obama would like to give to families and individuals this year.

Making Exxon surrender money that is now falling into its lap would not necessarily affect its longer-term plans or incentives. Indeed, some of Big Oil's "windfall" already will go to the government: The more profit the companies earn, the more corporate income tax they pay. But to add a five-year tax increase on top of that to pay for a one-year gift to voters would, indeed, increase the cost of doing business. That cost would be passed along in forgone investment in new production, lower dividends for pension funds and other shareholders, and higher prices at the pump -- thus socking it to the consumers whom the plan is supposed to help.

Yes, it's a case of robbing Peter to pay. . . er, Peter. Meanwhile, Obama remains stalled in the polls. Is there a connection? Just possibly.

AL GORE IS SAVING THE PLANET with a massive new houseboat! Thanks, Al!

ALEXA: A while back, I wrote: "Various readers complain about Henke's reliance on Alexa.com ratings. That's a fair criticism, to a degree -- the numbers are based on the rather thin network of people who've downloaded the Alexa toolbar to their browsers. If even a few dozen InstaPundit readers added the Alexa toolbar it would probably produce a noticeable upswing in the rankings of InstaPundit and the blogs I link to." I don't know how many people did this -- I got emails from a few -- but since then InstaPundit has gone up from 38,000+ to 19,000+, roughly doubling its Alexa position. This may demonstrate that Alexa is iffy, but thanks for boosting my ranking in the process of proving it!

RIGHT ON SCHEDULE: Pundits Begin to Worry About Obama.

IN THE MAIL: Professor Lewis Solomon's The Privatization of Space Exploration: Business, Technology, Law and Policy. An important topic!

PLUG-IN HYBRIDS AND THE GRID: In response to yesterday's mammoth post on the subject, a reader emails that there's a company working on this right in my backyard. Cool.

MORE ON ANTI-SCIENCE TERRORISM: After Attacks on Researchers, Caution and Steadfastness.

In many ways, the University of California at Santa Cruz was already prepared when firebombs ignited the house of one researcher and the car of another at nearly the same time early Saturday morning.

After all, it wasn’t the first attack against a Santa Cruz faculty member whose research involves experimentation on animals. Since that last incident in February, and more broadly over the past year, research universities, including the University of California system, have made more concerted efforts to coordinate their responses to threats, harassment and vandalism from self-styled animal liberation activists who many agree may be escalating their campaign.

Chris Mooney should write a book about this "war on science." Since it involves, you know, actual bombs and stuff . . . . And note that groups like PETA are trying to get information on researchers made public, almost as if they approved.

25 REASONS you may be a racist. And the "may be" part is really just being polite.

TIME FOR AN INSTAPUNDIT ELECTION POLL:

UPDATE: Michael Silence asks, What has this Presidential race come to? The same thing they all do, only sooner, I guess . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Results seem a bit McCain-heavy, but I see that RedState has linked.

MORE: Donald Sensing comments: "And what I think is really funny is how many respondents actually took the poll seriously and clicked for McCain. I wish I knew the ratio of Obama's supporters to McCain's who voted for Paris rather than their own candidate."

"NOTHING BUT EMPTY IDEAS:" Bad marks for both McCain and Obama on energy.

ARIANNE BALSOM is blogging from Antarctica.

AN ELECTRIC AIRPLANE FLIES at the Oshkosh Air Show.

FREE SPEECH UPDATE: You still can't write about Muhammad. Will other religious groups take the lesson that violence works? Because, in a world of the spineless, it does, and at very low cost. Thanks, guys, for establishing this incentive structure.

UPDATE: I am charged with "cultural relativism."

Part of the Islamic belief-system is the proposition that one who insults Muhammad should be killed. That is why Muslims so easily resort to threats of violence against those who say things about Muhammad that they don't like. No sect of Christianity teaches that the one who insults Jesus should be killed. In fact, they all teach that one should be patient and charitable with opponents. That is why Christians do not generally resort to threats of violence against those who say things about Jesus that they don't like. There are nuts in every group, of course, and that's why I say "generally," but there is no sanction in the core teachings of the religion for such behavior. And that's why Reynolds's earlier assertion that "sooner or later, you know, fundamentalist Christians are going to pick up on this lesson, engage in similar behavior, and make similar demands" is almost certainly false. The most virulently fundamentalist Christian can find no sanction in Jesus' teaching for the murder of his opponents any more than anyone else can.

It does not make every Muslim a terrorist to point this out, and it isn't bigoted to do so, either. It is simply to state a series of facts -- and if anyone wishes to try to prove that the facts I have asserted here are false, I welcome the challenge. Meanwhile, the relativism of Glenn Reynolds and so many others continues to hinder our response to the jihad threat.

Well, I believe in evolution, memetic as well as physical, and I think that if violence works, more people will use it, and the religious doctrine to justify that will follow. Am I right, or is Robert Spencer right? The world had better hope that Spencer is, since our spineless powers-that-be seem determined to conduct the experiment. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

MORE: Reader Dave Warner emails:

Robert Spencer writes:

"The most virulently fundamentalist Christian can find no sanction in Jesus' teaching for the murder of his opponents any more than anyone else can."

Maybe no one expected the Spanish Inquisition, but I would certainly hope that someone might remember it.

Yes, I get arguments that "no true Christian" would do this sort of thing but these seem like variants of the "no true Scotsman" line.

HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER RIPS BUSH:

A House Republican leader is lambasting President Bush on his decision not to call Congress back into session to deal with the energy crisis.

In a legislative update sent to GOP members and staff on Tuesday, Republican House Policy Committee Chairman Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.) accused "Beijing George" Bush of throwing House Republicans "under the bone-dry bus" on his way to the Olympics in China.

Ouch.

WE STILL HAVE Eliot Spitzer to kick around.

OOPS:

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (AP) — Democratic candidate Barack Obama criticized Republican John McCain on Tuesday for taking a page out of "the Cheney playbook" on energy, overlooking his own support of oil-friendly policies that the unpopular vice president helped to craft.

Vice President Dick Cheney, a former oilman, early in the Bush administration helped draft an energy policy that Obama asserted is biased in favor of tax breaks and favorable treatment for big oil. Obama's remarks were an attempt to capitalize on Cheney's unpopularity. . . .

However, Obama himself voted for a 2005 energy bill backed by Bush that included billions in subsidies for oil and natural gas production, a measure Cheney played a major role in developing. McCain opposed the bill on grounds it included billions in unnecessary tax breaks for the oil industry.

So is Obama more Cheneyesque than McCain? Well, probably not, but it's yet another campaign gaffe -- with the difference that this stuff is starting to get reported.

STEWART BAKER: Setting the Record Straight On Terror Watch Lists:

Pajamas Media recently posted a story in which CNN reporter Drew Griffin claimed that he was put on a TSA watch list as retaliation for a story he did on TSA. A lot of readers found it credible, judging by the comments. That’s unfortunate, since the story is quite simply false.

He had emailed me about that story when I linked it; I suggested that he write a response, and he has done so.

ANN ALTHOUSE: Paris Hilton does a pro-McCain ad!

Some related ad thoughts here.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: An Israeli in Kosovo.

INCONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION: Virginia Postrel offers a new theory of the leisure class. "Given that the richer your group, the less flashy spending you’ll do, conspicuous consumption isn’t a universal phenomenon. It’s a development phase. It declines as countries, regions, or distinct groups get richer." And among today's wealthy: "Their primary luxuries are time and attention. "

August 05, 2008

MIKE GRAVEL ADVISES FANS TO stalk a prosecutor.

BOB HERBERT demonstrates phallic ignorance.

You want a phallic symbol? Here's yer phallic symbol.

Plus, some penetrating analysis from Gerard van der Leun.

UPDATE: Even Herbert couldn't miss this. Good grief. But wait, there's more.

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE PICTURE, three months out: "Analysis of the battleground states this cycle reveals good news for Obama."

AALS BOYCOTT UPDATE: Professor Bainbridge posts An Open Letter to AALS Executive Director Carl Monk. (Background here). "It is especially critical that the AALS acknowledge that there is no issue of discrimination here. There is no evidence that the hotel in question discriminates against gays. Instead, this is viewpoint discrimination on the part of a handful of activists who are seeking to hijack the AALS for purposes of holding a boycott intended to punish someone with whose views on a contested issue of public policy they differ. . . . One can only imagine how the sponsors of the boycott would react if I and other like-minded faculty insisted that the AALS boycott a hotel chain that supported abortion by, say, donating money to NARAL."

UPDATE: Here's a big roundup at TaxProf.

HEALTHY FAST FOOD? Sure, but from Dunkin' Donuts?

BEWARE OF "ADJECTIVAL RACISM." It's everywhere, apparently!

BUT OF COURSE: Questionable campaign donations to Mr. Campaign Finance Reform. Say, has anyone seen Norman Hsu lately? Everything old is Hsu again! [You're not going to start with the Hsu puns again, are you? -- ed. No, that one was just for old times' sake.]

UPDATE: Dave Price emails:

"But records suggest that the Rocchios are not without resources. The couple listed an address in Flushing, N.Y., and also have an Arizona home." (Link).

It wouldn’t surprise me if it were legit. An “office manager” for executives can make six figures just like a high-powered personal assistant often does.

Also, I personally know guys with 7-figure net worth that drive beaters older than 1993. And some donate to the GOP.

It could be crooked, but it’s entirely possible it isn’t.

Good point.

OUCH: "Perhaps the reality is that Paris has a more substantive energy plan than Barack Obama." Well, unlike Obama she's worked in the private sector for years . . . .

SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT: Destroy the economy! "We are constantly battling against increases of wealth... There's a very fundamental problem here that no one really wants to talk about." Nice to know where some people are coming from, anyway.

IS THE BLOOM OFF THE ROSE?

BUSH GREETED BY CROWDS OF PRO-AMERICAN PROTESTERS IN KOREA. Funny, did that make the news?

UPDATE: Well, it made the news somewhere:

Mr. Reynolds

I'm no fan of the Beeb, but I should point out that on my way to work today (that would have been around 10:00 EST) I heard a BBC World Service piece on Bush's visit to Korea and the protests/counter-protests. I was surprised when much more time was given to descriptions of the pro-US demo than the anti-US one, including two interviews with participants. The surprise I felt of course underlines how much one assumes that the BBC - like other large western media companies - will let their bias colour their coverage, but this was a rather pleasant exemption. Perhaps the Korea/SE-Asia bureau is less rabidly anti-American than the western ones?

Bjarni Olafsson, Iceland

Lately, the British media generally seem less hard on Bush -- and less enthusiastic about Obama -- than their American counterparts for some reason.

GALLUP: "In a year when approval of Congress has reached a new low, just 36% of U.S. registered voters say most members of Congress deserve re-election. This is among the lowest ratings Gallup has measured in a recent presidential or congressional election year."

STAY TUNED: NASA, Scientists Not Ready to Give Up on Martian Life.

NOT BUYING BAYH: "Another bland, midwestern pretty boy."

BAD NEWS IS EVERYWHERE: Falling Oil Prices: The Downside. "Oil prices are falling sharply, and that's good news. But not nearly as good as you might think."