Italics Mine - Two Years On

Italics mine was two years old on October 6th. I forgot about it until I got phone calls telling me the domain name I'd bought two years ago, Italicsmine.com, was about to expire; send money now. I didn't, the name is out-there, if anyone wants it.

Sometimes life slaps you upside-da-hade and sometimes it runs it's fingers through your hair. I have a new career and for someone my age that's very cool. Both of my brothers and some good friends got dusted from theirs when they turned fifty; In some industries your experience makes you too expensive and employers think they can get better value with a thirty something or two. I'm very fortunate.

My previous employer was based in Toronto and I was their Ottawa rep. They had reneged on several points which I considered conditions of employment, and had become somewhat abusive, so when I received the offer for my current job, there was a huge weight lifted off me, at least for a while.

Four days after I got the job offer my mother died. She had suffered with what is called dementia for about five years. I have a problem with the word; she was there and knew what was going on but had a severe problem of expression; as far as a listener was concerned she spoke gibberish for the last two years, but as far as she was concerned she wasn't. There were some days when she communicated flawlessly.

Her leaving has been very hard on my dad; they were two months short of sixty-two years together; he visited her every day at the nursing home. The last three years have taken a toll on him as the caregiver. The summer and fall are something of a blur to me with the new job and new family dynamic; I'm my dad's best friend now.

Both my sense of humour and sense of outrage have left me; hence the reduced number of posts over the last few months. It will be while before I return to blogging regularly; It holds no importance any more.

Perhaps I'll do it again when and if I get my mojo back.

Journalism; The Last Refuge of a Scoundrel

Mr. Steyn writes thus …

Did you see that video of the two Fox journalists announcing they'd converted to Islam? The larger problem, it seems to me, is that much of the rest of the Western media have also converted to Islam, and there seems to be no way to get them to convert back to journalism.

Consider, for example, the bizarre behavior of Reuters, the once globally respected news agency now reduced to putting out laughably inept terrorist propaganda. A few days ago, it made a big hoo-ha about the Israelis intentionally firing a missile at its press vehicle and wounding its cameraman Fadel Shana. Shana was posed in an artful sprawl in a blood-spattered shirt. But it had ridden up and underneath his undershirt was spotlessly white, like a summer-stock Julius Caesar revealing the boxers under his toga. What's stunning is not that almost all Western media organizations reporting from the Middle East are reliant on local staff overwhelmingly sympathetic to one side in the conflict -- that's been known for some time -- but the amateurish level of fakery that head office is willing to go along with....

It's striking how, for all this alleged multiculti sensitivity, we're mostly entirely insensitive to other cultures: We find it all but impossible to imagine how differently they view the world. Go back to that video in which Fox's Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig announced their conversion to Islam. The moment the men were released, the Western media and their colleagues wrote off the scene as a stunt, a cunning ruse, of no more consequence than yelling "Behind you! He's got a gun!" and then kicking your distracted kidnapper in the teeth. Indeed, a few Web sites seemed to see the Islamic conversion routine as a useful get-out-of-jail-free card....

One hundred ten years later, for the Fox journalists and the Western media who reported their release, what's the big deal? Wear robes, change your name to Khaled, go on camera and drop Allah's name hither and yon: If that's your ticket out, seize it. Everyone'll know it's just a sham.

But that's not how the al-Jazeera audience sees it. If you're a Muslim, the video is anything but meaningless. Not even the dumbest jihadist believes these infidels are suddenly true believers. Rather, it confirms the central truth Osama and the mullahs have been peddling -- that the West is weak, that there's nothing -- no core, no bedrock -- nothing it's not willing to trade. In his new book The Conservative Soul, attempting to reconcile his sexual temperament and his alleged political one, Time magazine's gay Tory Andrew Sullivan enthuses, "By letting go, we become. By giving up, we gain. And we learn how to live -- now, which is the only time that matters." That's almost a literal restatement of Faust's bargain with the devil:

"When to the moment I shall say
'Linger awhile! so fair thou art!'
Then mayst thou fetter me straightway
Then to the abyss will I depart!"

In other words, if Faust becomes so enthralled by "the moment" that he wants to live in it forever, the devil will have him for all eternity. In the Muslim world, they watch the Centanni/Wiig video and see men so in love with the present, the now, that they will do or say anything to live in the moment. And they draw their own conclusions -- that these men are easier to force into the car than that 16-year-old girl in Sydney was. It doesn't matter how "understandable" Centanni and Wiig's actions are to us, what the target audience understands is quite different: that there is nothing we're willing to die for. And, to the Islamist mind, a society with nothing to die for is already dead.

As the saying goes, ‘those who believe in nothing will fall for anything’. From the New York Daily News, Mark Corallo types out a sloppy little defense of his crowd's tendency to reveal classified information with impunity and pontificates about the reign of terror he sees coming down on reporters and winds up with this knee slapper....

“The press is the last line of defense in a free society.”

If that is indeed the case then it’s already to late. Free society’s defenses were breached back when Christine Amanpour sold her credibility and western soul to Sadam in exchange for daily face time from Iraq, and the ‘last line’ has apparently failed completely as witnessed by the conversions of the boys at Fox.

I think Western Civilization is something worth fighting for. Let me know if I’m being too extreme here but I think we need to sew a little ‘J’ on the lapel of every ‘journalist’ so we can spot them more easily as the circulate among us. I’d also like to see a national campaign to cull the herd. Perhaps during the fall hunting season we could institute some reality T.V. programming and take several from each media group, give them their last meal and a ten-minute head start. This being Canada we would of course regulate the event; limited licenses, clean-kill legislation, etc., you’d be permitted one typist and two cameramen, or perhaps two foreign correspondents or one national anchorperson per season. The selective loss of life would be reported by the media with the ‘tragedy’ controls turned up to eleven, but so be it.

The press is not the last line of defense in a free society; we are.

Ottawa River Sunrise 1

Oooooo 

About a month ago a large number of fish washed up on the shore. no apparent cause was noted at the time and it's not talked about much anymore. I have a theory.

Ottawa River Sunrise 2

Ohhhh 

My theory is based on something one of my neighbours told me four years ago (and he was in a position to know). At that time the twelve or fourteen, upstream hydro-electrical generating stations had their mandate changed from 'base load' operation to 'peak load' operation, that means they would only be used at the worst time for the grid, which is during very hot summer days.

Three days before the fish appeared the damns were open due to the summer demand. The water level went up about 12" and the shore line moved back about thirty feet, to the point it was at on July 1st, one month earlier.

Ottawa River Sunrise 3

Ahhhh 

Here's my theory; the fish died after getting trashed by going through some really big turbines. There are supposed to be cages and mesh to prevent them from getting sucked into them, but there are supposed to be lots of things in this world that work flawlesly and don't.

The fish were all bottom feeders, I don't know my fish but maybe they couldn't swim as hard as the top feeders when the water started flowing. There is no science to underline my theory but I don't think that makes it any worse than the ones about global warming.

Speaking of Fundamental Stupidity

James Judd is a top bureaucrat and appears to be in WAY over his head. He was appointed to the head of CSIS, Canada’s answer to an intelligence agency….

"We don't profile because it's fundamentally stupid and we don't have enough resources,'' said Judd. "From a national security perspective, we can't afford to have whole communities feel alienated."

Perhaps I’m the idiot here but I didn’t know ‘intelligence’ agencies were required to tell ‘entire communities’ what they were up to. Judd may be the wrong man for the job.

Other CSIS directives by Mr. Judd might be...

1 If a crime is committed with a gun, CSIS will not review the records of any sellers of firearms but will instead investigate the community of owners of no-touch car washes.

2 If an international crime is committed with explosives, CSIS will then, and only then investigate the firearm distribution community to determine if there is a connection between that community and the popular lap-dancing community.

3 If any Middle Eastern communities are implicated in terrorist activities, Mr. Judd will personally send a strongly worded message to the Danish community.

4 If a motorcycle organization is suspected of involvement in international drug trafficking, CSIS will open a dialogue with the biker community to insure that no member of that community is offended or affected by the investigation.

5 If Mr. Judd is removed from his job for being an idiot he will still be able to draw a spectacular pension while invoicing the government community for consultant work due to his expertise on activities involving “the ‘T’ word” communities.

Countries are made up of infinite groups of ‘communities’. Some have more clout than others. My community has very little clout. My community is offended that this clown was put in charge of anything beyond purchasing office supplies. My community has never been kowtowed to by CSIS and we’re deeply offended by that, and we understand that we apparently have a right not to be offended by anything.

Judd on torture;

“Like most Canadians, I find torture to be sort of morally repugnant ... and from an operational perspective it's not particularly reliable. Certainly in my own case, I'd probably admit to anything if I was tortured."

Now there’s the guy you want in charge of the intelligence community. Al Qaeda and NSA people take note; a couple of well placed bamboo shoots and Judd will sell us out like crap at a garage sale. I guess torture IS effective, you've just got to find the right person.

My community would cease to be offended by Mr. Judd if he were to move-on, career wise.

Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind?

Many thoughts to digest from Mark Steyn

Hence that statistic: Seven percent of British Muslims consider their primary identity to be British, 81 percent consider it to be Muslim. By comparison, in the most populous Muslim nation on the planet, 39 percent of Muslim Indonesians consider themselves Indonesian first, 36 percent consider themselves Muslim first. For more than four years now, I've been writing about a phenomenon I first encountered in the Muslim ghettoes of the Netherlands, Belgium and other European countries in the spring of 2002: Second- and third-generation European Muslims feel far more fiercely Islamic than their parents and grandparents.

That's the issue: Pan-Islamism is the profound challenge to conventional ideas of citizenship and nationhood. Of course, if you say that at the average Ivy League college, you'll get a big shrug: Modern multicultural man disdains to be bound by the nation state, too; he prides himself on being un citoyen du monde. The difference is that, for Western do-gooders, it's mostly a pose: They may occasionally swing by some Third World basket-case and condescend to the natives, but for the most part the multiculti set have no wish to live anywhere but an advanced Western democracy. It's a quintessential piece of leftie humbug. They may think globally, but they don't act on it.

The pan-Islamists do act. When they hold hands and sing "We Are The World," they mean it. And we're being very complacent if we think they only take over the husks of "failed states" like Afghanistan, Somalia and Lebanon. The Islamists are very good at using the principal features of the modern multicultural democracy -- legalisms, victimology -- to their own advantage. The United Kingdom is, relatively speaking, a non-failed state, but at a certain level Her Majesty's government shares the same problem as their opposite numbers in Beirut: They don't quite dare to move against the pan-Islamists and they have no idea what possible strategy would enable them to do so.

So instead they tackle the symptoms. Excellent investigative work by MI-5 and Scotland Yard foiled this plot, and may foil the next one, and the one after that, and the 10 after that, and the 100 after those. And in the meantime, a thousand incremental inconveniences fall upon the citizen. If you had told an Englishman on Sept. 10, 2001, that within five years all hand luggage would be banned on flights from Britain, he'd have thought you were a kook. If you'd told an Englishwoman that all liquids would be banned except milk for newborn babies that could only be taken on board if the adult accompanying the child drinks from the bottle in front of a security guard, she'd have scoffed and said no one would ever put up with such a ludicrous imposition. But now it's here. What other changes will the Islamists have wrought in another five years?

Absent a determination to throttle the ideology, we're about to witness the unraveling of the world.

Here's a similar thought from way back when by a guy named Matthew;

"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can't serve both God and Mammon.

And another similar thought from John Sebastian

Did you ever have to make up your mind
Pick up on one and leave the other behind
It's not often easy and not often kind
Did you ever have to make up your mind

/ G C G C / G C G E / G D C - / D - G - /

Did you ever have to finally decide
Say yes to one and let the other one ride
There's so many changes and tears you must hide
Did you ever have to finally decide

He's Got A Little List, He's Got a Little List

Logical Meme has a list of attacks by various missunderstood people. It's the kind of post you should print.

Speaking of lists....

"Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone,
All centuries but this, and every country but his own;
And the lady from the provinces, who dresses like a guy,
And who "doesn't think she waltzes, but would rather like to try";

"And apologetic statesmen of a compromising kind,
Such as--What d'ye call him--Thing'em-bob, and likewise--Never-mind,
And 'St--'st--'st--and What's-his-name, and also You-know-who--
The task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you.

From Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado

Cartoons

From Sea To Shining Sea has a round up of August cartoons.

Top Drawer Old Cock

The Wall Street Journal has a sobering look at the methods British used in identifing the suspects the rounded up and charged with planning an airliner incedent a few days from now. For instance ...

"This wasn't supposed to happen today," a U.S. official told the Washington Post of the arrests and terror alert. "It was supposed to happen several days from now. We hear the British lost track of one or two guys. They had to move." Meanwhile, British antiterrorism chief Peter Clarke said at a news conference that the plot was foiled because "a large number of people" had been under surveillance, with police monitoring "spending, travel and communications."
Let's emphasize that again: The plot was foiled because a large number of people were under surveillance concerning their spending, travel and communications. Which leads us to wonder if Scotland Yard would have succeeded if the ACLU or the New York Times had first learned the details of such surveillance programs.

And almost on political cue yesterday, Members of the Congressional Democratic leadership were using the occasion to suggest that the U.S. is actually more vulnerable today despite this antiterror success. Harry Reid, who's bidding to run the Senate as Majority Leader, saw it as one more opportunity to insist that "the Iraq war has diverted our focus and more than $300 billion in resources from the war on terrorism and has created a rallying cry for international terrorists."

Ted Kennedy chimed in that "it is clear that our misguided policies are making America more hated in the world and making the war on terrorism harder to win." Mr. Kennedy somehow overlooked that the foiled plan was nearly identical to the "Bojinka" plot led by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to blow up airliners over the Pacific Ocean in 1995. Did the Clinton Administration's "misguided policies" invite that plot? And if the Iraq war is a diversion and provocation, just what policies would Senators Reid and Kennedy have us "focus" on?

Reuters Redux

Ahhhh, the maistream media. This is a collection of the frauds presented by Reuters 'News' Agency. The sad thing is I don't think there's anything new here. This has been going on as long as 'news' agencies have been around. It's just being done by folks with a certain lack of sophistication. Former editors of Pravda must be shaking their heads.

Years from now we can tell our grandchildren we used to believe what we read and what we saw and hopefully they'll look at us like we were idiots.

Just in case anyone is interested, Reuters corrected another story today but without an apology. It turns out those evil Jooos didn't bomb a wedding yesterday after all.

When I Said Forty ... I Meant One

The Globe has a story of The Prime Minister of Lebanon revising the death toll caused by Israel downwards, from forty (40) to one (1). That's some revision.


Associated Press model in Lebanon. 

For no apparent reason The Globe and Mail ran the above picture of a woman running with the story about the PM correcting the death toll numbers, but they credit the shot to Lefteris Pitarakis of AP. Scroll down this blog. There's another image of this woman running in front of the same burned out building but from a slightly different angle. I stole & photoshopped that shot from a Yahoo News story. Only it was aReuters image.

Are Reuters and Associated Press the same organizaion?

You're Either With America or You're With The Photographers

Look who's back in Crawford Texas. Cindy Sheehan, the media's dancing bear of Bush outrage takes a well deserved break from her fasting to pose for (al)Reuters photographers.


Reuters model Cindy Sheehan. 

Yahoo News [!] has an impressive 49 images of the woman, all creditted to (al)Reuters of course.

Reuters Admits Image Altered

Reuters got caught publishing doctored images of the war in Lebanon, they added more smoke to a down town scene to make it look worse, but used the cloning tool and copied the buildings too. It's only done badly if you know it's done at all. I bought it the first time through.

To hear Reuters tell it, it was all the doing of a 'freelance' Lebanese photographer; you know the kind. Recall that it was a Reuters employee who sent death threats to Charles Johnson at little green footballs earlier this year. Such a nice organization.


Civilian quadruplets flee shelling.  

Personally I have my doubts about the image above. The fire just doesn't look real to me.

It's The Dirty Thirties All Over Again

Victor Hanson has a powerful essay this week called 'The Brink of Madness'. It's difficult to excerpt because it's too comprehensive.

It is now nearly five years since jihadists from the Arab world left a crater in Manhattan and ignited the Pentagon. Apart from the frontline in Iraq, the United States and NATO have troops battling the Islamic fascists in Afghanistan. European police scramble daily to avoid another London or Madrid train bombing. The French, Dutch, and Danish governments are worried that a sizable number of Muslim immigrants inside their countries are not assimilating, and, more worrisome, are starting to demand that their hosts alter their liberal values to accommodate radical Islam. It is apparently not safe for Australians in Bali, and a Jew alone in any Arab nation would have to be discreet — and perhaps now in France or Sweden as well. Canadians’ past opposition to the Iraq war, and their empathy for the Palestinians, earned no reprieve, if we can believe that Islamists were caught plotting to behead their prime minister. Russians have been blown up by Muslim Chechnyans from Moscow to Beslan. India is routinely attacked by Islamic terrorists. An elected Lebanese minister must keep in mind that a Hezbollah or Syrian terrorist — not an Israeli bomb — might kill him if he utters a wrong word. The only mystery here in the United States is which target the jihadists want to destroy first: the Holland Tunnel in New York or the Sears Tower in Chicago.

Yet the present Western apology to all this is often to deal piecemeal with these perceived Muslim grievances: India, after all, is in Kashmir; Russia is in Chechnya; America is in Iraq, Canada is in Afghanistan; Spain was in Iraq (or rather, still is in Al Andalus); or Israel was in Gaza and Lebanon. Therefore we are to believe that “freedom fighters” commit terror for political purposes of “liberation.” At the most extreme, some think there is absolutely no pattern to global terrorism, and the mere suggestion that there is constitutes “Islamaphobia.”

If you think I exaggerate the bankruptcy of the West or only refer to the serial ravings on the Middle East of Pat Buchanan or Jimmy Carter, consider some of the most recent comments from Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah about Israel: “When the people of this temporary country lose their confidence in their legendary army, the end of this entity will begin [emphasis added].” Then compare Nasrallah’s remarks about the U.S: “To President Bush, Prime Minister Olmert and every other tyrannical aggressor. I want to invite you to do what you want, practice your hostilities. By God, you will not succeed in erasing our memory, our presence or eradicating our strong belief. Your masses will soon waste away, and your days are numbered [emphasis added].”

And finally examine here at home reaction to Hezbollah — which has butchered Americans in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia — from a prominent Democratic Congressman, John Dingell: “I don’t take sides for or against Hezbollah.” And isn’t that the point, after all: the amoral Westerner cannot exercise moral judgment because he no longer has any?

In short, if we wish to learn what was going on in Europe in 1938, just look around.

Mel Gibson's Next Movie

Did you hear what they said Mel said. Oy.


Movie set for Ramadan release. 

After I photoshopped this I had reservations about posting it. I don't want to lend anything to a meme celebrated by dullards, but at the same time I don't want to let Mel off the hook.

Lebanon - The Story So Far

The September Tenth News Agency, also known as (al)Reuters has found another one of those 'experts' to weigh in on the hidden effects of America's support for Israel, well not even ... it's America's 'tacit' support that's going to cause further violence. Sheesh.

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration's tacit support for Israeli military strikes on Lebanon may have increased the danger of militant retaliation against the United States and U.S. interests abroad, some experts say.

What form this increased danger will take is not clear; an extra stick of dynamite in every suicide belt? Arabs states will try to wipe Israel of the map twice? The next attack on American soil will involve five hijacked aircraft? Their 'expert' doesn't say. The headline to this piece of drivel is 'Mideast violence may raise odds of US attack: experts'. As I understand it, if the odds of something occurring increase [become greater] then the likelyhood of that thing happening DECREASE. But then I don't write headlines for Al Reuters so what do I know?

But intelligence officials said the group [Hezbollah] was believed to have suspended hostilities against the United States in the 1990s. There was currently no evidence of an imminent attack or any sign Hezbollah had changed its policy, officials said.

Historical Note: Hezbollah 'suspended hostilities against the United States' the same day pigs learned to fly. You can look it up.

The United States could face spontaneous violence soon from local Islamist groups inspired by al Qaeda, or well-planned attacks over the longer term by professionals from Hizbollah or al Qaeda, former intelligence officials said.

Al Reuters is doing what it can to fan the flames of uncertainty, but then that appears to be their role in life.

Hezbollah has overplayed it's hand and none of the bit-players in the region seem to mind what's happening to it. Even today's National Post headline 'Majority Supports Israel' has Canadians on side, all be it 'tacitly'. The Post quotes and Ispso Reid poll indicating 64% of Canadians support Israel.

Some global and European whiners are only critical of Israel’s degree of response, calling it 'disproportionate'. Ben Stein isn't buying it.

From Mark Steyn's interview with Hugh Hewitt last Thursday... (scroll down)

HH: Mark Steyn, your assessment of the war against Israel, a week into it?

MS: Well, I think the interesting feature so far, really, is the poodles that didn't yap, to pacify Sherlock Holmes. Normally, by this stage, the public rhetoric of the Europeans and the Arabs would be ferocious. And instead, I think both of them have been very circumspect in public. And certainly, the ones I've talked to in private are in fact, in a strange way, and possibly unprecedented, at least in the last thirty years, they're rooting for Israel. Amazing.

HH: Why is that?

MS: Well, I think because they have actually seen that...they've had a tremendous glimpse of their own future, and what has happened to Gaza, and what has happened in Southern Lebanon, and to Lebanon as a whole, and in effect, even to Syria, because Syria is, in fact, playing Mini Me to Iran's Dr. Evil at the moment, and that they've seen a terrible portent to where things could go, both for Jordan, for Egypt, for Saudi Arabia, and down the line, for certain European countries, too.

HH: What do you make of the Lebanese prime minister's on again/off again, we support Hezbollah, the Lebanese army will fight for Hezbollah, then it's not our war. What's going on with his game?

MS: Well, I think to a certain extent, he's hemmed in. And although he is the prime minister of Lebanon, Lebanon is effectively a state that's been hijacked. What he doesn't know is how popular the hijacking is. Lebanon has a very peculiar electoral system, essentially where the parliament is allocated on the basis of religious beliefs, and the census that determines who gets what seats, in part goes back to the 1930's. In fact, it's way out of date. Basically, if they were to redesign the Lebanese Parliament to reflect democratic reality, there'd be an awful lot more Hezbollah seats in there. That is just a sad fact. But as much as we like seeing those hot Beirut babes chanting for freedom in the streets not so long ago on TV, they look fabulous...fabulous looking women, Westernized women, chanting for freedom. There is a side of the Lebanese population that is solidly behind Hezbollah, and that is a problem for anybody in that state.

Israel's present is Europe's future and they know it, they just don't want to say it out loud and accelerate the process. Having Le Grande Poodle go quiet is almost unheard of in history.

Another story appeared today, well poll result really, but that's considered news in the MSM world. It's from The Washington Times, '50 percent of U.S. says Iraq had WMDs'. That's up from 36% last year. The story also reports that ...

Seventy-two percent of respondents said the Iraqi people are better off now than under Saddam Hussein's regime -- a figure similar to that of 2004, when it stood at 76 percent. In addition, 64 percent say Saddam had "strong links" with al Qaeda, up from 62 percent in October 2004. Fifty-five percent said that "history will give the U.S. credit for bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq.

The New York Times; (the paper of treason) isn't on-side of course, here are their headlines from yesterday;

Rice Makes Surprise Visit to Beirut

U.S. Government Plans Overhaul in Disaster Aid

Wary Iraqis Are Recruited as Policemen

Israeli Missile Hits Fleeing Family

Sixteen Volts

I'd like to draw your attention to a blog I've been reading for about a month.

Erasing History One Man at a Time

The good people at PBS (emphasis on the BS) have put up a web page for the kids about an Australian documentary called ‘Einstein’s Wife’. Apparently they want the youngins to decide for themselves that it was Mileva Maric who did the intellectual heavy lifting behind his 1905 papers on special relativity, the photoelectric effect and Brownian motion. Some outside the public broadcasting continuum disagree.

The PBS web site itself is a parody of scientific research. It asks, ‘Why was she erased from Einstein’s life history’, you’re required to accept the premise before moving on; no proof backing the assertion that she was ‘erased’ is offered.


Mrs. Eraserhead. 

Students are also asked to consider ‘the possibility’ that his wife was involved and then ‘consider the probabilities’. With one paragraph PBS has entered the realm reserved for on-line gambling sites.

The absurdity continues with ‘Did Mileva Maric collaborate with Einstein? You Decide! Take our online poll’.

An opinion poll is no way to determine what is true and what is false. But I guess if you’re rewriting history to suit your agenda, reaching a consensus amoung misinformed and disiformed students is as good a method as any for establishing a new order. I think the results of an opinion poll which gives Einstein’s first wife credit for his work could be scientifically considered as false positive.

Behind every great man there is a ‘public intellectual’ ready to accord his accomplishments to someone else. I first came across this ‘wife’ meme about ten years ago and didn’t know what to make of it. Now I think I do.

Go to Butterflies and Wheels for a comprehensive examination.

24 Hour Celebrity Fasting - Jeeeeeze

Apparently actors Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn and Danny Glover are going to fast with Cindy Sheehan until the American soldiers are brought home. Perhaps 'fast' isn't the right word here. They're acually going on rotating twenty-four hour mini hunger 'strikes'. They call it a rolling fast. Sheesh.


Duh. 

Glover looks like he's been carbo-loading for about six months and I bet Penn doesn't make it to sundown. And what good could possibly come from a herd of emotion based malcontents messing with their blood sugar levels? This has disaster written all over it.

Faster, Faster

The Wall Street Journal reports on ten years of increased speed limits in the U.S.

Nanny staters aren't going to like this....

Of the 31 states that have raised their speed limits to more than 70 mph, 29 saw a decline in the death and injury rate and only two--the Dakotas--have seen fatalities increase. Two studies, by the National Motorists Association and by the Cato Institute, have compared crash data in states that raised their speed limits with those that didn't and found no increase in deaths in the higher speed states.

Years ago 'conventional wisdom' said .....

Ralph Nader claimed that "history will never forgive Congress for this assault on the sanctity of human life." Judith Stone, president of the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, predicted to Katie Couric on NBC's "Today Show" that there would be "6,400 added highway fatalities a year and millions of more injuries." Federico Pena, the Clinton Administration's Secretary of Transportation, declared: "Allowing speed limits to rise above 55 simply means that more Americans will die and be injured on our highways."

Who to believe. Conjecturing media experts or your own lyin' eyes?

Neil Young Jumps The Shark

I heard Neil Young's latest effort last week; protest songs about M. Bush. Sheesh.

I got a chuckle out of the last cut, it's a hundred voice choir singing 'America The Beautiful'. Talk about appropreating a voice. It's a powerful song regardless of who sings it, but the notion that left-overs from the hippy continuum can sing it and somehow claim the moral high ground is ironic.

It's mixed with voice over clips of Bush. Paul Simon did the same thing with Silent Night, mixing in Walter Cronkite (I think) reading the news of Vietnam casualties. The cut would be infinately more powerful with clips of Iranian 'President' Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling for the destruction of Israel.

There's a reason Neil's giving this one away free on the internet. Amazon.com has ninety 'used' ones aleady.

Think I'll put on his buddy Dave Crosby's, 'I almost Cut My Hair', then go speak truth to power (man).

Update: The Left-Overs would be a good name for an aging hippie band.

What If

I found this at Lucianne.com They don't say where they got it or who produced it. No doubt it would have been published 230 years ago because ..... hey, the 'public' has a right to know.

Don't they?


A missed opportunity by the NYT. 

Another missed opportunity by 'The Times' might be ...

Allied Forces Illegally Reading 'Inigma' Coded Messages.

Lest We Forget

Yahoo News announced that Canadians celebrated the 139th Canada Day.

It's actually the twenty-fouth 'Canada Day', the first one was in 1982. Prior to that the day was called Dominion Day and the first one of those was celebrated in 1868 and there were 113 of them.

Sigh.

Whither The New York Times

This is why the blogosphere rules. Casandra over at Villianis Company has done some great work.

Last week The Times in it's unending attempts to slag M. Bush ran a story that the American Government was running a SECRET OPERATION which monitored fund transfers in an attempt to detect Al Quieda financing. The idea being that the SECRET OPERATION lacked congressional oversight and that it could possibly be illegal. They used the word 'secret' twelve times in their story.

The outrage that came their way was extraordinary. A few days later they ran an editorial that stated the program wasn't a SECRET after all, it's five years old, everyone knew about it; no harm done. Next outrage please.

Casandra did some searching in the New York Times archives and came up with an interesting article from last November....

U.S. Lacks Strategy to Curb Terror Funds.

The article critisizes the Government for not 'following the money' apparently the NYT didn't know about the program after all and urged the government to do exactly what it was doing when the Times decided to expose the program. This is called having it both ways.

Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Much, much stranger.

Casandra, you rock.

New Colloquialism Announced

The American Heritage Dictionary announced a revision to its collection of colloquialisms. As of last Wednesday the expression ‘dumber than a bag of hammers’ was replaced with, ‘dumber than Charlie Sheen’.


Mr. Sheen acting intelligent. 

The revision was as a result of complaints by the Stanley Tool Company after Mr. Sheen held a press conference suggesting that the collapse of the World Trade Center was and ‘inside job’.

Mr. Sheen's former ‘inside job’ provider Heidi Fleiss was unavailable for comment.

Liberal Party Announces New Leader

Ottawa – Senior Liberal Party officials announced today that they’ve ‘found their man’.

The announcement ended months of debate about who would make the best choice to lead the Liberal Party of Canada into the next election. The young man, an unidentified Quebecer, gained national attention by urinating on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier July 1st.


Uber Liberal. 

“The Liberal Party has been pissing on the Canadian Military for decades,” said party president Michael Eizenga, “It started with Trudeau and continued with Chrétien, but they did it literally, this guy actually pulled his unit out and did it in real time. He’s a natural for us.”

Spokespersons for the seven other leadership hopefuls said there was no way to compete with man from Montreal and all stated their candidates would have no qualms about standing behind him.

What's With The New York TImes?

I always use the term 'idiot press' to refer to the media. I do that because I don't take them seriously. Whenever I've read or heard something where I had first hand knowledge of the event, I find the coverage to be totally off the mark. I assume this is true for stories where I have no prior knowledge also.

The events of last week stun me. The New York Times is on the side of America's enemies; there can't be another explanation for their actions. Go here to read a sadly sarcastic summary of the 'paper of record'. This is scary.

They skipped the WMD thing last week too.

Pop quiz; which building in New York is least likely to be attacked by terrorists?

Oh, Oh Canada

TORONTO - The RCMP overcame tremendous odds and announced the arrest of seventeen youths chosen at random from all walks of life and holding a coalition of diverse opinions on everything from the Kyoto Accord and Soft-wood Lumber Agreement to who should be the Stanley Cup play-offs MVP. “Some are youthful and some are young, some are male and some are even young, youthful males, while others have just left puberty; you just can’t generalize” said police spokesperson P.C. Cave at a morning press conference.

The seventeen have been charged with obtaining explosives and plotting to murder polite Canadians.

In a poorly thought-out statement by local apologist and sorta-Christian Peacemaker James Loney, the seventeen were provoked by the backlash they believed their actions would cause.

Nine of the seventeen say they were tortured while in captivity by being forced to watch Celine Dion Specials on DVD, however the other eight admitted they didn’t really mind because “one of them cleared up the confusion about where babies come from”.

The Koran forbids ‘specials’ celebrating events marked on a solar calendar.

Has Western Civilization Gone Too Far?

I just updated my look with a few visits to various menswear shops.

Apparently it's now possible to smell similar to David Beckham.

No wonder all those tribal civilizations are so afraid of us.

This Might Be Fun

Gizmag is a great site.


Hanging below the kite is now considered 'twentieth century'. 

Kite Jousting; Opposing 'players' come flying at each other towed by boats that keep in separate lanes. Using only whiffle bats an water canon, they try to knock each other off their kites and into the water. If there is an impact it will be after the boats have past so serious injury should be minimal.

CBC To Re-edit Tommy Douglas Series

TORONTO - The CBC has pulled the first thirty-four episodes of “Tommy Douglas; Creator of Worlds”, due to harsh criticism by the historical community.


DVD removed. 

Historians in that community say the episodes where Mr. Douglas discovers the Panama Canal, ends World War II, invents the light bulb, founds the United Nations, conducts the first heart transplant, brings no-touch icing to the third world, and pilots a Swift Boat up the St Lawrence River allowing Wolfe’s men to scale the cliffs below Quebec City and defeat the French forces; while beautifully photographed are historically inaccurate.

A spokesperson for the CBC apologized for the inaccuracies and said the episodes would be re-edited to leave out the part about the light bulb.

Time Out ... Again

About a week ago I lost the use of my right arm below the elbow. I'd like to say I lost the feeling too but I didn't, it hurt like hell. Saturday I spent five hours at the hospital and they determined it was a pinched nerve, not my heart. They gave me anti-inflams and executive strength pain killers that served no real purpose as I didn't manage to fall asleep until Wednesday night.

I saw a sportsmed/nerve guy on Monday. On Tuesday I bought my own MRI in a converted Petro-Canada garage in Hull for $750.00 instead of waiting a month for the free OHIP one (note: no OHIP patients were delayed or injured in the making of this MRI). I missed seeing the specialist on Thursday and will see him on Monday.

That's it for blogging for a while. You might be surprised at how many things you need you right hand for. I know I was. I typed this post left handed, can you tell?

Calling Mr. Roger Scott

I've just been contacted by the widow of Rafiki Baha al-din Hariri, late of Beirut.

I'm supposed to contact Mr. Roger Scott (a diplomat) in London, UK regarding a large sum of money which is just sitting around.

Tel: 44-704-010-8974
or 44-871-733-8542
Mobile 011-874-763593-795
Fax: 44-207-152-9649

I'm kinda busy right now, but if there are any British folks reading this, could give Mr. Scott a call and tell him I'm interested in helping out. Apparently I get 20% off the top, I'll give whoever helps me out, half.

Deal?

This Is Not A Real Emergency

Appologies to Rene Magritte fans. 

The United Nations Tax Department

This is being done quietly. Starting next month The United Nations is collecting consumption taxes directly because some European governments think it should and have given it the go ahead. From a Town Hall article.

One of the U.N.’s more fruitful attempts at global taxation is the formal plan to levy a tax on airline tickets. In November 2005, Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, and Spain issued a joint statement calling for a ‘nationally applied, internationally coordinated’ tax to be levied on air transport travels. The French government has been the first one to bite the bullet, and from July onward, passengers will pay between one and 40 euros on all flights taking off in France……Chile has undertaken plans to do the same, with Belgium and Germany currently hovering in the wings to do so. Luckily, both Great Britain and the U.S. have resisted Mr. Annan’s calls for others to follow suit.

This tax on transnational commerce has a curiously American connection; Dr. Jeffery Sachs.

Dr Sachs has just authored the book, “The End of Poverty”, which has a forward by Bono, if that means anything to anyone. He’s apparently also a MTV personality and has hung out with Anjelina Jolie, whoever that is.

He’s been written about in, and for, the New York Times who call him a shock tharapist. Froma back-slapping 1993 piece ...

“IT IS ALMOST TIME for Sachs to board a Swissair jet for Zurich (business class). There he will connect for the 6,000-mile flight for Sao Paulo, where he has been invited to spend a few days proselytizing shock therapy. Then it's on to Tokyo. Sachs, who seems to spend a quarter of his life on airplanes, usually orders the vegetarian plate.

But before leaving, he squeezes in an hour for cruising the Arbat, a once-quaint shopping street that has become a flea market. Tourists can buy everything here, from trash art to Red Army colonels' caps to a pensioner's family jewels. And the raw bargaining brings a rare glimpse of the material side to Sachs. "My wife hates it when I shop for bargains," he confides -- his gain, she reasons, must come at the expense of sellers who live on far less.

Unless the sellers see her coming of course; then they’ll live on far more. As P.T. Barnum noted; "there’s a sucker born every minute". This is liberal guilt: the idea that success for one means failure for another. It's a disease found in Western Civilization, the tendency to feel bad about doing well.

A bargain is a subjective appraisal, only you decide if you got a bargain. It’s even possible to think you got one even if the seller takes you to the cleaners. To Sach’s wife if you get a bargain, someone else must be getting an unbargain.

A bargain makes you feel good, however to the liberal mind this pleasure is a signal to feel sad for the rest. Philosophically it’s the Ionian concept of opposites, ‘reasoned’ by those with a guilt complex. In practice it’s the American Dream turned on it’s head; The pursuit of unhappiness.

Sachs has been called one of the worlds’s “Top One Hundred ‘public’ intellectuals”. (public means socialist).

Some who think little of Sach’s and find his math and track record underwhelming.

“There is much that is unattractive about the book, besides its ideological purpose. The End of Poverty is one part self-congratulatory memoir of Sachs’ roles as advisor to the governments of Bolivia, Russia, Poland, India, China and part world-historical tract justifying the ultimate rationality of neoliberal capitalism (if it is properly applied to “sick” countries by “clinical economists” like himself).

Yes, the ending of “extreme poverty” (after creating so much of it), in twenty years would be a triumph of neoliberal capitalism.

It is notoriously “difficult” for economists to determine the value of unwaged reproductive “services” even in a fully monetarized society, it certainly is even more so in a form of life where the unwaged portion overwhelms the waged. Consequently, the surveys that are used to determine the monetary value of “goods and services” the poor consume are so unreliable they can add or subtract hundreds of millions from the category of extreme poverty on the basis of an arbitrary accounting change…

So back to the United Nations angle…

Of course, France’s projected annual revenue of $248 million (from airline travel) is not nearly enough for the U.N.’s aspirations and the finger-pointing – largely toward to U.S. – is really gathering steam now. Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to Secretary General Annan on the Millennium Development Goals, has gone as far as to say that the U.S. is coming up short in its global aid commitments to the tune of $65 billion a year. Of course, Dr. Sachs is a vocal proponent of globo-taxation to make up the difference. At the 2002 International Conference on Financing for Development, Dr. Sachs helpfully points out that: “A global tax on carbon-emitting fossil fuels might be the way to begin”.

Kyoto was his idea and he acknowleges it's nothing but a wealth transferring scheme, not a save-the-planet scheme.

Is this is the way of the new world order? Countries awarding the United Nations (one dictator, one vote) the authority to levy taxes on transnational activities originationg with-in their borders. The mythological Boston tea-party is associated with the phrase, "no taxation without representation".

It may be time to start planning the next party.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Courtesy Powerline, here's a sad story about winning.

The football committee of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, which governs high school sports, is adopting a "score management" policy that will suspend coaches whose teams win by more than 50 points.

A rout is considered an unsportsmanlike infraction and the coach of the offending team will be disqualified from coaching the next game, said Tony Mosa, assistant executive director of the Cheshire, Conn.-based conference.

"We were concerned with any coach running up the game (he probably means 'score' - ed). There's no need for it," Mosa said. "This is something that we really have been discussing for the last couple of years. There were a number of games that were played where the difference of scores were 60 points or more. It's not focused on any one particular person."

Leo Facchini, New London's athletic director, called it unfair to single out his coach.

Facchini said he and Cochran tried to pull in the reins during New London's 90-0 drubbing of Griswold last season by trying to get both sides and the timekeeper to agree to run a continuous clock.

Some states, including Iowa, continuously run the game clock in the second half if a team has a 35-point lead. The Connecticut committee rejected a similar proposal because members thought it would unfairly cut into backups' playing time.

So it's the winners fault for being good, not the losers fault for not being good. Anyone else see something wrong here? What's the winning coach supposed to do, dress injured players against the basement teams? Why not just name your team 'The Victims' and be done with it.

The Workaround
1) Stuff happens; your team is so much better than the other one that you're forced to fumble in your own end zone every second time you get the ball. This will make the losers feel good about themselves on the bus ride home; hey at least it wasn't a route.

2) Your team doesn't have a chance of beating State in the play-offs, but if you throw the last game of the year and lose by fifty-one points their coach gets suspended. The point threshhold is arbitrary, in football it only a 7 - 1 scoring advantage; What about tennis kids who lose two sets of six games, 40 - love? Doesn't anyone care about them?

3) Update: Dismiss the loser coach, thus raising the bar.

4) Update II: Allow the losing team to concede or say that any team enjoying a 7-1 scoring advantage is automatically awarded the game.

5) Update III: Apply it to the NBA.

Will this mean the end of cheer-leading as we know it?

Boo, hoo, shame shame,
we went out and won the game.
This rule cut's us down to size.
No more tears in loser's eyes.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee're SORRY.

Press Boycott Press Conference

OTTAWA - Yves Malo, president of the parliamentary press gallery held a press conference yesterday to announce that the press were boycotting press conferences.

The announcement however went unreported by the press due to confusion amoung reporters who thought they were supposed to boycott all press-conferences, including Malo's.


Yves Malo announces something. 

Malo then held a second press conference to clarify the press's position to reporters and explain that they were only to boycott press conferences held by the Government and not press conferences held by the press themelves, however that press conference also went unreported due to the reporters initial belief that there was a boycott on.

Later in the day, an exasperated Malo held a third press-conference announcing that the boycott was being lifted temporarily to allow reporters to attend a re-scheduled second press-conference where he would clarify once-and-for-all which press-conferences were to be boycotted and which ones weren't.

The rescheduled second press conference will be held today at 12:00 PM at the Bare Fax on York Street where it is expected to have a better chance of attracting the attention of boycotting reporters.

Chimps, Orangutans Can Think Ahead

OTTAWA - Experiments on orangutans suggest humans aren't the only animals who can think ahead, Orangutans and bonobos - small apes closely related to chimpanzees - have shown that they can remember which tools they need to retrieve a treat.

In an experiment, the apes had to use a metal hook to retrieve a bottle of grape juice. To pass the test, the subjects had to pick which tool was needed to get the juice and remember to bring it back with them some time later.

The news was welcomed by senior Liberal Party officials who said they will use a similar the test to choose their new leader.

Madonna Crucifies Herself In L.A. Tour Opener

We should be so lucky. al Reuters has the story.


Madonna; still clueless after all these years. 

"Later on, she donned a crown of thorns and suspended herself from a giant mirrored cross to deliver the ballad "Live to Tell." Video screens showed images of third-world poverty and reeled off grim statistics."

I wonder if any of the statistics she quoted involved the percentage of non-elected governments or state instituted religious practices in the countries featured in the above noted 'images of third-world poverty'.

"Billboard magazine has forecast ticket sales could reach the $200 million range, making it the most successful tour by a female artist. Cher holds the record with $192.5 million from 273 shows on a "farewell" world tour that began in June 2002 and lasted almost three years, according to Billboard.

"Madonna, on the other hand, is scheduled to play fewer than 60 dates on this tour. Similarly, her $125 million-grossing Re-Invention tour in 2004 and the $75 million Drowned trek in 2001 were also relatively brief.

Perhaps the third world is poor because entertainers are hoarding all the money?

RCMP Uses Intimidating Wheels - CanWest Exclusive

Appearing directly below a banner add for the new Pontiac Montana SV6, one of CanWest’s typists hammered out a childish little rant about the RCMP using a General Motors SUV in the Prime Ministers motorcade, or in CanWest speak; ‘parade’. For your amusement I’ve added some missing text.

CanWest Petty News Service; Ottawa Citizen
Tim Naumetz, (with additional material by Italics Mine)
Published: Monday, May 22, 2006

OTTAWA – (I think) Prime Minister Stephen Harper's motorcade has acquired a presidential look and (one of my very liberal friends) thinks the big black SUV now 'cruising' at the rear of the entourage is a bit too remindful (?) of President George W. Bush.

And (hopefully) its gas-chugging (?) potential raises other issues (we can attack him with), even for a prime minister who ditched the Kyoto accord, says New Democrat Pat Martin.

(Does the CanWest/NDP continuum think the RCMP should be following the Prime Minister in a Prius? I sense an M. Asper op-ed piece.)

(metaphor alert)
The SUV ‘surfaced’ two weeks ago behind the 'armoured' limousine, and a lead car, that 'ferries' Harper about town. The motorcade takes Harper even (sic) from his Langevin Building office across Wellington Street to his Centre Block space on Parliament Hill.

The drivers are 'armed' RCMP officers, but the addition of the SUV makes the entire motorcade look like a Secret Service (they're American) operation (to me).

Bush has had black SUVs in his motorcade for several years (connect the dots people, Harper=Bush).

The 320-horsepower (that's too much) V8 (4 will do) Chevrolet Tahoe now ‘embedded’ (like those turncoat reporters) in Harper's parade is made in the U.S. (he’s out-sourcing Canadian jobs) GM Canada truck plants assemble Silverado pickups.

As has been said (by me in a pub) of the SUVs in Bush's 'procession', the new black wheels add an ‘air of intimidation’ to Harper's motorcade.


Chevy Tahoe without 'Air of Intimidation' package. 

"It looks like something Darth Vader would be driving," says (Utopian fantasist) Martin. "We've got this gas-guzzling behemoth (The Centenial Flame ?) touring around with the prime minister (destroying the ozone, depleting natural resources and frightening the children. Doesn’t anyone care about the children except Ken Dryden?). It looks tough (to me), it looks quasi-military (to me). Is that the kind of image the prime minister wants to project (to me)?"

(When you look at something and see something else it’s called ‘projecting’. I do it all the time, when I look at the Ottawa Citizen I see bird cage liner.)

Officials at the Defence Department (?) and Emergency Preparedness Canada (?) could not say whether security levels have changed because of Canada's decision to engage an army battle group against the Taliban in Afghanistan (connect the dots people; the war; Bush's war, military vehicles in the streets, Hitler, duh!!!).

Do you believe this drivel? This is what passes for news in Canada. Ya' think CanWest wish the Liberals were still in power? Me too.

I want to get some of those 'intimidating' wheels for my Buick, then go spin donuts in the Ottawa Citizen Parking lot. Ye-haw.

Congressman's Freezer Found To Contain $90,000.

WASHINGTON (CNN) --Newly released court papers said FBI agents found $90,000 in cash in Louisiana congressman William Jefferson’s freezer.

Investigators stated that an August 2005 they searched Democratic Rep. William Jefferson's home and found $90,000 in cash in the congressman’s freezer. The money was divided among various frozen food containers, according to the affidavit. Agents told a judge the money was part of a $100,000 payment that had been delivered by an informant in the bribery probe.


16.7 cu. ft. upright. 

Jefferson stated he had no idea his freezer was involved in a bribery scheme and said he couldn’t believe it was doing anything illegal, adding it was broken when he bought it. A family friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the fourteen year old Kenmore upright, hasn’t been running properly since being defrosted and often required maintenance.

The discovery comes just days after authorities announced finding thirty-five thousand dollars in the Congressman’s dryer. The eight-term Louisiana congressman said he’s ‘devastated’ by the idea that two of his oldest appliances could be involved in anything illegal but said he’s been traveling a lot and hasn’t been able to give them the attention they deserve.

Neighbors, also speaking on condition of anonymity said it was a quiet freezer that never aroused any suspicion and generally just sat in the garage humming.

South Korean Scientist Claims To Have Cloned Ray Nagin

Which one is the original? 

Disgraced South Korean scientist, Dr. Hwang Woo Suk (yes that's his real name) was in New Orleans last night to celebrate the election of one of his creations.

Ray II was narrowly elected Mayor of New Orleans yesterday while Ray (the original) stayed in Houston and watched the outcome on CNN. "I think it's good for my clone to get he feet wet, so to speak, in politics," said Nagin (I) at a press conference.

Party insiders said they were originally worried that having two Ray Nagins might confuse voters but later realized they were talking about the residents of Luisiana.

Please Bear With Us

UK protesters go naked over Canadian bearskins

Oh no. Does this mean Bridget Bardot and whats-her-name from Baywatch are coming back?

LONDON (Reuters) - Around 100 animal rights campaigners stripped naked in central London on Sunday to protest the use of traditional bearskin hats worn by military guards on ceremonial parade.

Wearing nothing but bear masks and carrying placards saying "Bears Slaughtered for the Queen's Guards -- Indefensible", the group gathered to call on the Queen and the Ministry of Defense to end use of the foot-high bear pelt hat known as a busby.

"The Ministry of Defense has blood on its hands while it allows bears to be slaughtered for ceremonial caps when beautiful synthetics are available", says PETA's Anita Singh.

Ursus americanus (eatus anythingus). 

These folks seem to think that these creatures are being gunned down for the sake of British Military tradition. They aren't they're being killed because their population would be out of control if they weren't.

A mother and her two cubs just trashed a friends bird feeders last week on their stroll through the area. The day after they fixed them the bears showed up and did it again. When you live in the country you understand that somethings must be killed. When your an activist living in the city of London apparently you don't understand anything; taking your clothes off? Sheesh. Please don't anyone tell McCartney.

Here's a good place to learn about Canadian bears.

Black bears are typically North American animals. Their population is estimated at over 450,000 in Canada alone. Black bears live in almost all kind of habitats, from the dense southern forests to the northern arctic tundra. The average weight of a mature black bear goes anywhere from 200 to 450 pounds, although some trophies weigh over 500 pounds. In the wild, black bears can live up to 15 years. The sow has a very low reproduction cycle, and gives birth to 1 or 2 - sometimes 3 - cubs once every 2 years.

Hats off to Canadian bear hunters; you perform a valuable service to our country.

Just so you know: It is illegal to possess a bear gall bladder in Manitoba.

Iran - A Primer

Don't feel bad if the whole Iran/Middle East situation confuses you. The mavens of conventional wisdom present it that way for a reason, they have deadlines and a penchant for the visual which eclipses context.

If you want to understand the bigger picture, stop whatever you’re doing and go read Mark Steyn’s essay ‘Facing Down Iran’ in The City Journal. If you don’t have time right now, bookmark it and go back later or better yet print it out and read it later. Television is a visual medium but it could never present a picture this big and this detailed.

... "As clashes of civilizations go, this one’s between two extremes: on the one hand, a world that has everything it needs to wage decisive war—wealth, armies, industry, technology; on the other, a world that has nothing but pure ideology and plenty of believers....

... "In a short war, put your money on tanks and bombs—our strengths. In a long war, the better bet is will and manpower—their strengths, and our great weakness. Even a loser can win when he’s up against a defeatist. A big chunk of Western civilization, consciously or otherwise, has given the impression that it’s dying to surrender to somebody, anybody. Reasonably enough, Islam figures: Hey, why not us? If you add to the advantages of will and manpower a nuclear capability, the odds shift dramatically....

.... "What, after all, is the issue underpinning every little goofy incident in the news, from those Danish cartoons of Mohammed to recommendations for polygamy by official commissions in Canada to the banning of the English flag in English prisons because it’s an insensitive “crusader” emblem to the introduction of gender-segregated swimming sessions in municipal pools in Puget Sound? In a word, sovereignty. There is no god but Allah, and thus there is no jurisdiction but Allah’s.

If you can read the essay and still cling go a belief in the doctrine of 'Soft Power', then read it again and again until you don't.

Koranic Fish Discovered In Erie Pennsylvania

A fish with markings that resemble Arial Bold text has been found by Kenyan officials touring the United States.


Koranic fish discovered in Erie PA. 

"This changes everything" said Muslim scholar el Moe al Sharpton. "First the seventy-two virgins turn out to be raisins now we find out we've had the big guys real name wrong all these years. Oy."

The discovery follows last weeks disappearance of a fish in Kenya which even Western scholers admit could be a message from Allan.


Missing fish. 

Developing ...

"We're journalists, not bloggers"

Well it looks like someone has a chip on his shoulder and that someone is Brian Ross and he's a journalist. So there.

ABC News has him on a web site called 'The Blotter', and just to make sure everyone knows he's not a blogger he says it twice.

We're journalists, not bloggers. But we do have a blotter.

We decided to create this space as a place to break stories, update stories and feature analysis and outside comment. We also want to recognize the excellent investigative work done by other journalists elsewhere.

It's meant to be our take on the old-fashioned police blotter, where events of note were recorded as they unfolded.

We have one of the most accomplished groups of investigative reporters in the business and this space gives us another outlet to bring important stories to the public.

One of the 'investigative' stories is about the new Apple iPod Store (?) and another about a disgruntled air marshall.


Not a blogger, not blogging. 

In an exclusive interview with ABC News' Brian Ross, to be featured on ABC News' 20/20 broadcast tonight, Pickard says he cannot perform his undercover mission to safeguard American aircraft from terrorist attack because of poor management policies.

"I'm here because the people need to know if the terrorists do their job right and prepare like they did before 9/11, they will figure out a way to win because we are not undercover," Pickard tells Ross.

Pickard tells Ross that air marshals can be easily identified during boarding procedures at airports and that his efforts to bring about change within the service have gone unheeded.

And Pickard is not alone in saying that, as we found in a three-month 20/20 investigation going undercover and talking to dozens of current and former air marshals and high ranking officials, including the former head of the Atlanta office Don Strange.

"I would say that any well trained terrorist or organization could identify every air marshal at every airport," Strange told Ross.

Ross managed to mention himself four times in five paragraphs. I guess that would be the J school training on display.

The premise here is that a highjacking is more likely if the air marshall is visible. This makes no sense to me but I'm not a journalist. Are bank robberies more likely in banks with armed guards standing around? I don't think so, a visible presence is a deterent. So the complaint by the air marshall stikes me as flawed from the get go.

The real goal of this story appears to be bash the government. Read the comments; sheesh. They all dump on the Gubmint and M. Bush for not being able to protect the people. Gubmint bad.

Journalist Ross screens the 'outside comment' and only publishes the most recent ones which agree with the premise or trash the government. I left a comment at 8:04 PM, however it never made the cut. The next comment was at 8:24.05 PM and was supposedly by another air marshall who withholds his name out of fear of reprisal from the government. Government bad.

My comment;

"The last highjackers were prevented from accomplishing their goal by The Flight 93 Militia not flying policeman. The next one will be stopped by the passengers also. Only fools and Europeans think the Government can protect them."

Ross is correct about one thing. He's definately not a blogger, bloggers don't screen comments to weed out opposing views, we may delete them later but for the most part even the snarky ones tend to remain.

Apparently he's won journalism awards.

Presidents Unpopularity Above Average

Everyone who gets their news from the mainstream folks KNOWS M. Bush is the most reviled president ever; and we all know tthey wouldn't say anything that wasn't true. Again today UPI reports he's at a record low with 33%.

Fortunately the Power Line guys did some researh and put things in context. This is the unpopularity of the past seven presidents ...

*Johnson: 35%
*Nixon: 24%
*Ford: 37%
*Carter: 28%
*Reagan: 35%
*Bush I: 29%
*Clinton: 37%

I thought I'd average them, so I did and I find that the average low point for the last seven presidents is 32.14%. Dubya's above average; who'd of thought?

Osama Video

The twelve Danish Cartoons have nothing on this ....

Somewhere there has to be an mullah with a laptop going around pressing play and going out of his mind.

The American Military's Next Problem

The United Nations can rent big hotel rooms like rock stars, drive around in white 4x4's like 'Juice', meet, study and report the situation like .... the UN, but when it comes right down to it there is only one organization on the planet with the equipment, manpower and know how to help those in trouble; The American Military.


Mount Merapi; T minus ...? 

"In one of the villages in the shadow of Merapi, holy men and hundreds of people lit incense and set rice, fruit and vegetables floating down a river in a ceremony they believed would appease the spirits and prevent an eruption.

"It's bound to help," Parsi, a villager who like many Indonesians using only one name, said after the ceremony. "Everyone around here believes in this. It is in our blood."

Although most Indonesians are [required to be] Muslim, many also worship ancient spirits, especially in Central Java province.

"All the things we are doing here are to try to make us safe," said Assize Asyhori, an Islamic preacher who took part in the ceremony. "Only Allah knows if Merapi will explode."

I think we all know it's going to explode just as we all know who's going to clean up the mess; The Great Satan hisself.

If Canada is going to be of any help, we should put a deposit on some Russian air-lift capacity now.