Arianna Huffington blogged Sources tell me that Judy Miller is telling friends that she has made a $1.2 million book deal with Simon & Schuster. I’ve heard from senior editors at the publishing house that the deal is still so hush-hush that word of it has not appeared in the memos that circulate among the editorial staff, keeping them updated on pending deals and acquisitions.
Now we know why she was willing to stay in jail so long
Monday, October 03, 2005
Judy Miller Lands a Book Deal
Mixed Responses
Hugh Hewitt blogged Harriet Miers isn't a Justice Souter pick, so don't be silly. It is a solid, B+ pick. The first President Bush didn't know David Souter, but trusted Chief of Staff Sunnunu and Senator Rudman. The first President Bush got burned badly because he trusted the enthusiams of others. The second President Bush knows Harriet Miers, and knows her well. The White House Counsel is an unknown to most SCOTUS observors, but not to the president, who has seen her at work for great lengths of years and in very different situations, including as an advisor in wartime.... Memo to the White House folks: It might be a good time to nominate Roberts' replacement on the D.C. Circuit, and to do so with a nominee that even the hair trigger critics of the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately caucus understand.
Betsy is disappointed: To say that I'm disappointed in the nomination of Harriet Miers is an understatement. I don't buy that we need people who haven't been judges before. If Bush thought she was so wonderful, then appoint her to a lower court and let her get some seasoning. I'm on record in RWN's poll of bloggers on whom we were hoping that Bush would nominate and not nominate that I didn't want to see a crony nomination. This nomination smacks of a cop out and it will upset many conservatives who thought they were voting for high quality judicial nominations when they supported Bush.
Incidently, in the RWN poll Betsy referred to, I mentioned in my initial post on Harriet Miers, and The Anchoress is the only one who guessed correctly.
Leonard Leo is excited: I have worked closely with Harriet in the past and I am very excited about the president’s pick of my friend. As White House Counsel, she has helped carry out the President’s promise to find and select judicial nominees such as John Roberts who will interpret the law rather than make it up. She played a key role in the Roberts selection process, and was a strong advocate for breaking the filibusters in relation to Judges Priscilla Owen, William Pryor, and Janice Brown, among others.
Michelle Malkin is Utterly Underwhelmed
Personally I trust GWB enough to at least wait for the hearings to decide what I think. Initially I hoped that he would nominate Janice Rogers Brown, because I know that the Dems would have fillibustered her, and I thought the Republican party could have gotten some good material off the CSPAN cameras that would be very useful in 2006 and 2008 showing Dems opposing the first Black Woman ever nominated to the USSC, but GWB probably know a lot more that we do about Harriet Miers, and I guess he figured he could get her approved while he might not have gotten Janice Rogers Brown approved. He may also trust what Harriet Miers will do more than he trusts some of the other possible candidates.
With Justice Stevens age (and seeing how he stumbled walking down the steps with the new Chief Justice, Bush may well have at least one more appointment. If he does, I just hope he doesn't waste it on Alberto Gonzalez.
Fuuture of Blogs
Kevin McCullough blogged that at the NYC Blogger Bash Scott Sala from SlantPoint said it is rare for the big blogs to link to him anymore (something more than one blogger can relate to since the election for sure). But he also noted that a lot of smaller blogs have simply begun to repeat the main stories they are finding at InstaPundit, HughHewitt, MichelleMalkin, and a handful of other top ten poli-blogs.
That is certainly not how to build a readership. Occasionally I will go to one of the biggies for an idea, but I usually start my day commenting on items I capture from the MSM and conservative sites like Townhall, OpinionJournal, and NationalReview, that I capture each morning for posting on my BushSupporter website. I then check out Memorandum, to see if I can find something to comment on, but I usually pick items that have only two or three blogs addressing it, rather than the BlogStorms that everyone is commenting on.It discourages him and has made him reconsider just how much time he can continue to give to material if his efforts have little chance of growth. Scott is not alone. Nearly every blogger I know has lower traffic now than they did just before the election of 2004. Only one major blog has really emerged into the highest ranks of the blogosphere in recent months and that distinction belongs to the continued meteoric rise of Malkin on the scene. In less than one fifth the time it took for Hewitt to assemble the readership he now has - with his access to 140 radio station audiences everyday - Malkin has shot well past him in daily readership - and technically she's a stay at home mom. But aside from Malkin, the growth in readership per blog HAS not continued in 2005 the way it exploded in 2004.
I would not worry too much about that. Just wait until 2006, it will pick back up, and grow even more.Michael Bates blogged I think Scott's observation about finding a niche is exactly right. My traffic is actually up over last year, thanks in part to the Tulsa Whirled's short-sighted decision to threaten me over linking to their website. I think most of it, though, is because there's a lot of room for growth in the niche I occupy. I mainly write about Tulsa, and there are a lot of Internet users in Tulsa that are just starting to discover blogs. My blogging and my political involvement gave me enough local visibility and credibility to give me opportunities on the radio and now as a columnist in an alternative weekly, which raises my visibility further and brings more people to the blog.
Michael's site is the main one I go to for Tulsa News, although I do check TulsaBloggers as wellIt's funny: I don't regularly read most of the big blog dogs that Kevin mentions in his entry. I used to, but it seems that ever since I created a special sidebar section for "News Blogs, Frequently Updated" I stopped checking them as often as before. Instead I find what they're saying via the lower-ranked bloggers that I read more often. I find myself more often exploring the sites of other bloggers who have linked to me, or who have written on some of the same topics, or bloggers that I've met in real-life, like Kevin and Scott and Karol.
A timeless argument about creation
Jeff Jacoby wrote in Townhall .... "It is absolutely safe to say," the Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins, a leading Darwinist, has written, "that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane."
And I suspect that many Democrats would say the same thing about the Democratic Party. And they would be just as wrong as Richard Dawkins. People with small minds just can't imagine anyone disagreeing with them.Liz Craig, a member of the board of Kansas Citizens for Science, summarized her public-relations strategy in February: "Portray them" -- intelligent design advocates -- "in the harshest light possible, as political opportunists, evangelical activists, ignoramuses, breakers of rules, unprincipled bullies, etc."
Again, it sounds like the tactics of the Democratic Party. If you can't provide reasonable arguments against those whose thoughts you oppose, call them names.Ironically, Charles Darwin himself acknowledged that there could be reasonable challenges to his theory of natural selection -- including challenges from religious quarters. According to the sociologist and historian Rodney Stark, when "The Origin of Species" first appeared in 1859, the Bishop of Oxford published a review in which he acknowledged that natural selection was the source of variations *within* species, but rejected Darwin's claim that evolution could account for the appearance of different species in the first place. Darwin read the review with interest, acknowledging in a letter to a friend that "the bishop makes a very telling case against me."
And the Bishop was right.How things have changed. When John Scopes went on trial in Tennessee in 1925, religious fundamentalists fought to keep evolution out of the classroom because it was at odds with a literal reading of the Biblical creation story. Today, Darwinian fundamentalists fight to keep the evidence of intelligent design in the diversity of life on earth out of the classroom, because that would be at odds with a strictly materialist view of the world. Eighty years ago, the thought controllers wanted no Darwin; today's thought controllers want only Darwin. In both cases, the dominant attitude is authoritarian and closed-minded -- the opposite of the liberal spirit of inquiry on which good science depends. If intelligent design proponents were peddling Biblical creationism, the hostility aimed at them would make sense. But they aren't. Unlike creationism, which denied the earth's ancient age or that biological forms could evolve over time, intelligent design makes use of generally accepted scientific data and agrees that falsification, not revelation, is the acid test of scientific validity.
Precisely. ID proponents accept completely those aspects (adaption of a species to its environment) of Evolution that can and have been proven, and since the creation of a new species has not been proven, and since it is a Secular Humanist (one particular religion) version of how that happened, ID proponents suggest an alternative approach, which is consistent with the beliefs of many major religions: Christianity, Judiasm, and Islam.In truth, intelligent design isn't a scientific theory but a restatement of a timeless argument: that the regularity and laws of the natural world imply a higher intelligence -- God, most people would say -- responsible for its design. Intelligent design doesn't argue that evidence of design ends all questions or disproves Darwin. It doesn't make a religious claim. It does say that when such evidence appears, researchers should take it into account, and that the weaknesses in Darwinian theory should be acknowledged as forthrightly as the strengths. That isn't primitivism or Bible-thumping or flying spaghetti. It's science.
Generals Are Upbeat on Iraq
Sounds good, and I am sure the MSM hope that they are not right.
Prosecutorial politics
Michael Barone wrote in Townhall Tom DeLay has been indicted by a Travis County grand jury under the direction of District Attorney Ronnie Earle in Texas for conspiracy to violate Texas campaign finance laws and has stepped down, "temporarily," he says, as House majority leader, as required by House Republicans' rules.... it is by no means clear that DeLay's associates violated the Texas law.
Earle does not expect to convict Delay. He plans on running for higher office, and since the Republican rules call for a person in the leadership to step aside on an indictment (not a conviction), he hopes that the Democratic party will support him because he got Delay out of the Leadership (at least for now). It is interesting to note that the Democrats do not have the same rule as the Republicans have. I guess that is because they are more likely to be indicted.Texas campaign law prohibits corporate contributions to state candidates. The charge is that DeLay's associates collected corporate contributions, sent them to the Republican National State Elections Committee, "a nonfederal component of the Republican National Committee," and that the RNC or the RNSEC sent about the same sum of money back to Texas candidates -- "exchanged" the money, in Earle's words at his press conference. But, unless DeLay's aides proceeded without legal advice -- highly unlikely these days for operatives of either party -- they were contributing money to a committee entitled to take and spend corporate cash, and then a committee that took only individual contributions sent money back to Texas candidates. That's not illegal unless the Texas law expressly forbids it. It is a general legal rule that criminal laws are narrowly construed, against the government. If the government wants to criminalize conduct, then it must do so very clearly. Otherwise, a citizen could be sent to jail for doing things he had no way to know were criminal. Was Earle acting out of political malice? There's strong evidence for that proposition, including some of his own recent public statements. It's true, as Earle's defenders say, that he has prosecuted prominent Texas Democratic officials and has gotten convictions in many of these cases. But when he first came to office and for many years afterward, there were very few Republican public officials in Texas, and the main political conflict was between liberal Democrats like Earle and moderate and conservative Democrats.
And are now Republicans.
Bush Nominates Harriet Miers
Most recently, Harriet Miers served as Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary. Prior to that, she was Co-Managing Partner at Locke Liddell & Sapp, LLP. Previously, she was President of Locke, Purnell, Rain & Harrell, where she worked from 1972 until 1999. From 1995 until 2000, she was chair of the Texas Lottery Commission. In 1992, Harriet became the first woman president of the Texas State Bar, and in 1985 she became the first woman president of the Dallas Bar Association. She also served as a Member-At-Large on the Dallas City Council. Harriet received both her undergraduate and law degrees from Southern Methodist University.
Right Wing News did a special blogger poll on 9/25, and here are the results.
| Blog | Who do you think Bush will choose> | If you were given the opportunity to make the pick, who would you choose? | Who are the choices you really hope Bush doesn't pick? |
| The Anchoress | Harriet Miers | Janice Rogers Brown | Alberto Gonzales |
| Balloon Juice | Michael W. McConnell | Emilio Garza, Michael Luttig | Janice Rogers Brown, Alberto Gonzales |
| Betsy's Page | Michael Luttig | Alice Batchelder, Emilio Garza | Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Miers |
| Captain's Quarters | Janice Rogers Brown, Michael Luttig | Alberto Gonzalez, Edith Hollan Jones | Edith Clement, Alberto Gonzales |
| Daily Pundit | Janice Rogers Brown, Alex Kozinski | Alberto Gonzales, Larry Thompson | Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Miers |
| IMAO | Mr. T, A special Unix command that compares laws to the Constitution | Priscilla Owen | Alberto Gonzales |
| JunkYardBlog | Miguel Estrada | Janice Rogers Brown | Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers |
| Patterico's Pontifications | Michael Luttig, Samuel Alito | Miguel Estrada, Michael W. McConnell | Alberto Gonzales |
| PoliPundit | Ann Coulter | Janice Rogers Brown, Michael W. McConnell | Alberto Gonzales |
| QandO | Janice Rogers Brown, Alex Kozinski | Edith Brown Clement, Michael W. McConnell | Alberto Gonzales |
| Red-State | Emilio Garza | Maura Corrigan, Julia Smith Gibbons | Alberto Gonzales, Priscilla Owen |
| Right Wing News | Janice Rogers Brown, Michael Luttig | Michael Luttig, Priscilla Owen | Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Miers |
| Sister Toldjah | Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen | Janice Rogers Brown | Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Miers |
| Villainous Company | Michael Luttig, Priscilla Owen | Michael Luttig, Karen Williams | Alberto Gonzales |
Monday, Ocotber 3
This Day In History
- 1226 St. Francis of Assisi died.
- 1863 President Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.
- 1906 One of the nation’s pioneer retailers, W.T. Grant, opened a 25-cent department store on this day.
- 1922 Rebecca L. Felton, D-Ga., became the first woman to be seated in the U.S. Senate. She was appointed to serve out the remaining term of Sen. Thomas E. Watson.
- 1929 The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes formally changed its name to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
- 1941 Adolf Hitler declared in a speech in Berlin that Russia had been ''broken'' and would ''never rise again.''
- 1951 New York Giants third baseman Bobby Thomson hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to win the deciding game of a three-game playoff series against the Brooklyn Dodgers, sending the Giants into the World Series.
- 1955 ''Captain Kangaroo'' premiered on CBS, and ''The Mickey Mouse Club'' premiered on ABC.
- 1974 Frank Robinson was named major league baseball's first black manager as he was put in charge of the Cleveland Indians.
- 1981 Irish nationalists at the Maze Prison near Belfast, Northern Ireland, ended seven months of hunger strikes that had claimed 10 lives.
- 1991 Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
- 1994 Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy announced his resignation because of questions about gifts he had received.
- 1995 A jury found ex-football player O.J. Simpson innocent of murder in the 1994 slayings of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman.
- 1997 Attorney General Janet Reno said she had found no evidence that President Bill Clinton broke the law with White House coffees and overnight stays for big contributors.
- 2001 The Senate approved an agreement normalizing trade between the United States and Vietnam.
- 2002 Five people were killed in random shootings in the Washington, D.C., area within a 14-hour period. Authorities began to search for the ''Beltway Sniper.''
- 1900 Thomas Wolfe (author: Look Homeward Angel, You Can’t Go Home Again; died Sep 15, 1938)
- 1924 Harvey Kurtzman (cartoonist; founder of Mad magazine; died Feb 21, 1993)
- 1925 Gore Vidal (writer: Myra Breckenridge, Burr; actor: Bob Roberts)
- 1941 Chubby Checker (Ernest Evans) (singer: The Twist, Pony Time, Let’s Twist Again, The Fly, Limbo Rock, Slow Twistin’ [w/Dee Dee Sharp])
- 1944 Roy (Roy Uwe Ludwig Horn) (illusionist: Siegfried & Roy)
Sunday, October 02, 2005
The Truth About New Orleans & Katrina
Amy Proctor blogged It wasn't Pres. Bush who was negligent in the rescue efforts in New Orleans, but Dem. Mayor Ray Nagin and Dem. Gov. Kathleen Blanco whose incompetence and negligence caused the additional and unnecessary suffering of their own constituents.
Absolutely. Nagin certainly screwed up, but I blame Governor Blanco for most of the problems. She wanted to hurt Nagin, for supporting her opponent in 2003, and she did not want to relinquish control to the feds. She would rather have the people of New Orleans suffer.In fact, just after the rescue effort in Louisiana and Mississippi began, only 13% of Americans blamed President Bush for the response. Most blamed the local government. ABC Nightline aired interviews with some of the victims of Katrina now repositioned in Texas just after Pres. Bush had met with them and given them comfort and aide. To them, hearing the President assuaged their concerns that the United States had let them down. Yet the media tried its best to influence the victims’ opinion against the President....
They do that all the time. They try to twist anything so they can blame Bush.The media is admittedly liberal and an accessory to this crime against the minority poor. Rather than investigate and report, they create news from unsubstantiated second, third and fourth hand reports or worse.... if it suits their prejudice. They also see poor blacks like those in New Orleans as hopeless deviants who need the Democratic party to give them their daily bread, while in reality it is the Democratic party that continues to suppress the ability of poor minority populations to succeed outside of the "compassionate liberalism" party.... The most important fact is that New Orleans is a Democratic stronghold with a Democratic mayor and a Democratic Governor. Similar statistics are consistent with large liberal cities like Los Angeles and New York City. Compare hurricane response to that of Mississippi, with it's Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, Texas, with it's Republican Gov. Rick Perry; Florida with it's Republican Gov. Jeb Bush. Examine for yourself the difference good conservative leadership can make. (great photo)
That is a very funny photo.
Why Louisiana Matters
Mary L. Landrieu editorialized in WaPo The Sept. 27 editorial "Louisiana's Looters" displayed a profound ignorance of the regional and national miscalculation of this national disaster. It's not just that people's homes are underwater; that happens with every hurricane. It's not just that roofs have blown off; those are the usual visuals of a storm of this nature. It's that an entire region vital to our national energy supply, security and commerce has been devastated.
South Louisiana is the anchor of America's Energy Coast, securing more than three-quarters of U.S. offshore oil and gas production -- a greater share of our nation's energy supply than even the kingdom of Saudi Arabia accounts for.
And the oil companies have record profits, so they can easily afford to rebuild anything that was destroyed.The ports of south Louisiana, including New Orleans, are America's gateway to the world, handling more than 20 percent of U.S. imports and exports each day, including more than 70 percent of all grains as they move from farms across the nation to markets overseas. And 40 percent of the seafood consumed by Americans each year comes through coastal Louisiana. But The Post dismissed the federal government's role in the rebuilding of these and other devastated sectors of our economy. It described an effort to rebuild the regional economy as extraneous, comparing it to a sports venue miles from Ground Zero in New York.
What WaPo said was "The bill even asks for $35 million for seafood marketing and $25 million for a sugar-cane research laboratory. This is the equivalent of New York responding to the attacks on the World Trade Center by insisting upon a federally financed stadium in Brooklyn."The people of Louisiana do not share this simplistic view. Nor would an Iowa farmer unable to bring his grain to market, or a Virginia mother who can't keep up with rising gas costs for the family car, or a Chicago seafood restaurateur trying to expand his business even as supplies are constrained.
None of those would build a major part of their city in a bowl that is 7 to 15 feet below sea level.It is important to note that we will not rebuild New Orleans out of our own sense of need or nostalgia. We will renew and restore New Orleans and the region because its existence is dictated by the needs of U.S. commerce.
U.S. commerce may need the Port of Louisiana, but it has no need for most of the rest of New Orleans. Some tourists may like the French Quarter, but it is above sea level, and did not sustain serious damage.The question is not whether Americans can afford to raise up Louisiana's economy; it is whether America can afford not to. The answer is clear: We must rebuild stronger, better and smarter than before.
Just as the Netherlands did after the devastating flood of 1953, we will build the world's strongest levee system. But rebuilding this region will take more than just higher levees.
I dont care how high and how strong you build the levees. If a hurricane goes right over New Orleans it would still flood an area 7 to 15 feet below sea level. If you are going to build levees, build them just to protect the French Quarter, and the rest of the land above sea level.We must also build a better education system in the region, while figuring out a way to maintain the education of 200,000 displaced children and 73,000 displaced college students around the country.
If they are smart they will build new lives where they are, and not return to the graft and corruption in New Orleans.We must build a better health care system in New Orleans and throughout south Louisiana, and we must figure out how to extend health care coverage to a million survivors whose employers are either gone, teetering on the verge of bankruptcy or dropping their coverage. We must provide the infrastructure and appropriate incentives for businesses and industry that are positioned to accept the risk of reopening their doors amid their unprecedented losses and the destruction around them.
Go right ahead, but do it with Louisiana money. Dont expect taxpayers in the other 49 states to subsidize you.Finally, The Post's editorial accuses our delegation of disregarding the "root causes" of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. But even a cursory amount of journalistic effort would reveal years of requests to stem the repeated cuts to our flood and hurricane protection programs
And the fact that they got the majority of the Corp of Engineers budget, but because of efforts by people like Senator Landrieu to redirect what money they were given to projects unrelated to flood control.-- most recently in a letter to the president in November -- as well as efforts to restore America's Wetland, our primary hurricane protection. A search of Post archives would demonstrate decades of unity on the part of our congressional delegation in seeking restoration of Louisiana's eroding coast, as the continued erosion increases the vulnerability of our coastal populations.
Despite this legacy of federal neglect, The Post criticizes proposals to give Louisiana greater control of the rebuilding effort. Let us be clear: Louisiana will be rebuilt by Louisianians. New Orleans will be rebuilt by New Orleanians. And the rest of southern Louisiana will be rebuilt under the leadership of the people who call it home.
Then they should use their own money. With all of the graft and dishonesty in Louisiana, no Federal Funds should be spent unless they are controled by Federal people.Certainly The Post, long a champion of home rule, should appreciate this enduring spirit.
Actually home rule says that residents of Washington DC should be able to vote. People in Louisiana already have the vote, they just use it to elect idiots.
Kiss Your Liberty Goodby
John Derbyshire wrote in National Review Online On Sept. 14, the US House of Representatives passed, 223-199, the ominous federal 'anti-hate' bill, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2005. It was inserted as AMDT.2662 into the Children's Safety Act. If approved unaltered by the senate judiciary, this legislation is ready for the President to sign into law.
Here is a summary of what the bill would make law: Although AMDT.2662 ostensibly empowers the government to assist states in prosecution of violent hate crimes, its actual effect will be much more far-reaching. AMDT.2662 will lead to enforcement of the working definitions of 'hate' and 'hate crimes' which are enforced by the many 'anti-hate' bureaucracies in countries throughout the western industrialized world. In such countries, it is now a "hate crime" to criticize members of federally protected groups such as Jews and homosexuals. Utilizing such definitions, 'hate crime' indictments have been made or are currently being pursued by Canada, England, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Australia and New Zealand. AMDT.2662 builds a foundation for a 'hate crimes' bureaucracy in America, also ending free speech...
I did a Google on "Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act" and read through some of the finds. I got a strong impression that:
(a) A big driving force behind this bill has been the "transgender community," rapidly developing into the #1 nuisance lobby of our age.
For example, see this(b) The main opposition is coming from Christian groups
Rense says Here are some of the specially protected groups which AMDT.2662 defends:
Homosexuals. Any public criticism of homosexuals will soon be considered a hate crime, just as it was for 11 Christians under the Pennsylvania hate crime law on Oct. 10, 2004. These Christians were arrested as "hate criminals" for preaching during a huge "gay pride" rally and faced 47 years in prison and $80,000 fines each.
Women. A woman who claims her boyfriend used a sexist word against her and raped her the last time they had sex, can press charges for a "hate crime" of rape. Punishment will triple the usual penalty, about 30 years in prison.
Jews. Already the Dept. of Global Anti-semitism, being established in the US State Dept., makes it "anti-semitic" to express "strong anti-Israel sentiment" against Israel or its leaders. It also says upholding the New Testament charge that Jews killed Christ is "anti-semitic." Under "anti-hate" laws in Canada and Europe, such statements are "hate crimes" punishable by harsh fines and imprisonment.
Sister Toldjah's 2nd Blogiversary
Sister Toldjah celebrates her 2nd Blogiversary.
Happy Blogiversary, and many happy posts to come
Mothballed Ship Fleets
These ships are not all destined for scrap. The Maritime Administration says a large number of their fleet were recalled to duty during the 1991 Gulf War to transport nearly one fourth of the equipment needed during that action. They continue to maintain these ships by oiling the engines, checking for leaks, keeping the interiors clean and watertight, etc.
You can see these mothballed fleets here and here [these are GE Files. You must have GE installed.] in Google Earth. The picture above is just a small sample of the ships to be found.
This is fantastic. GoogleEarth is a fantastic tool, and GEarthBlog has some very interesting ideas.
Piglet Banned in Britain
TheSun reported Novelty pig calendars and toys have been banned from a council office — in case they offend Muslim staff. Workers in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, were told to remove or cover up all pig-related items, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.
This is carrying political correctness to a new level. The Muslim religion, like the Jewish Religion, forbids them from EATING pork, but no one is trying to force them to eat pork. But why can't others have pig related pictures or figures. Britain was foolish to allow so many Muslims into their country, and to not monitor what they were preaching, but are they so afraid Muslims will bomb more subways that they treat their own citizens this way?LostBudgie blogged When asked about the ban, Winnie the Pooh's dear friend, Piglet, said ... * (QuickTime or other .wav player needed). This latest incident is just part of an ongoing initiative by some Muslims to force British society to conform to Islamic standards. Declaring the images of pigs to be offensive and anti-Muslim is the tactic of the day - and it appears to be coming along very well.
Previous U.K. successes include banning a 100 year old statue of a wild boar, police seizure of porcelain pigs displayed in the window of a private home, and the removal of a sign referring to "pork" at a British pub frequented by butchers. Along with Winnie the Pooh, some British schools have also removed or restricted the following "anti-Muslim" children's books...
The Three Little Pigs
Charlottes Web
Babe - The Sheep-pig
Cars and Trucks and Things That Go
Olivia Saves the Circus
Animal Farm
I wonder what they would say about Glenn Reynolds and TruthLaidBear's PorkBuster CampaignMuslim efforts to impose Islamic standards are not confined to the United Kingdom. Even in Orlando, Florida, a Christian employee of a business owned by a Muslim was fired for eating a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich.
Kathy Shaidle has launched a "Show Your Piglet!" campaign.
Tech Notes
WaPo reported Some Fraud-Wary Credit Card Customers Opt for Single-Use Numbers - John Roos used to be afraid to shop online. "I hate to give out my real credit card number," said the retired manager of a computer center.
But Roos, of New Rochelle, N.Y., recently bought a $500 TV online after he discovered a little-known credit card service that allows him to give Internet retailers a substitute credit card number for his account.
This sounds very interesting for people that are leary about purchasing on the internet.Offered to holders of Citi, Discover and MBNA cards, these "virtual credit cards," or single-use card numbers, are designed to give some peace of mind to consumers concerned about credit card fraud. Although the system slightly differs on each card, the principle is the same: For no extra charge, consumers sign up at the credit card's Web site, often downloading software on their computers. Then, when they're ready to shop, they receive a randomly generated substitute 16-digit number that they can use at the online store. The number can be used once or, in some cases, repeatedly at the same store. "The only people who know the real number are you and us," said Jim Donahue, spokesman for MBNA. Although initially designed for Internet shopping, the card number can also be used to buy goods and services over the phone and through the mail, but it cannot be used for in-store purchases that require a traditional plastic card. (Nor can it be used for purchases that require a credit card to be produced at the time of pickup, such as movie tickets.)
IndyStar reported Campers want electronic creature comforts
While other campers are riding bikes from the beach or barbecuing their dinners, John Liberski might spend hours trying to position his satellite dish so he can watch a NASCAR race in the comfort of his 30-foot-long recreational vehicle. Given the leafy tree canopy of Anastasia State Park, that is no easy task.
This is "roughing it"?????On a recent weekend, Liberski, 63, of Fort Pierce, Fla., finally hits pay dirt when he finds a small clearing on the edge of the campground road, where the dish is clearly visible to passers-by and campers. The neighbors don't seem to mind. After all, they came with their own electronic gadgets. Ted and Melinda Fryman of Lake City, Fla., have an entire entertainment center packed inside their recreational vehicle -- DVD player, computer, CD player and AM-FM radio, plus an antenna that lets them receive signals from five TV stations while they're camping near St. Augustine, Fla. If you haven't been camping lately, you might be in for a shock. The wilderness isn't what it used to be. Today's campers come equipped not just with bug spray and burgers, but cell phones, computers, televisions and video games. As electronic gadgets have become more portable, Americans have begun toting them everywhere -- even into the great outdoors. So private campgrounds and state parks are busily adding electronic amenities to keep campers happy.
BusinessWeek reported Yahoo preparing announcement on blog search
Look for Yahoo! to unveil a response to Google's blog search early next week.
This sounds interesting. Google's blog search is certainly useful.This from Bradley Horowitz>, director of tech development in the company's search group. He wouldn't provide details in advance. And it could be that Yahoo's announcement will cover only one aspect of blog or RSS search, and not the comprehensive release the search industry's waiting for. (Blogsurfers got a glimpse last summer of what Yahoo's cooking up when a test version of the company's RSS search leaked briefly
ZDNet reported Yesterday, I blogged about the official release of Skype for Windows 1.4, an upgrade that lets callers forward incoming Skype calls to another Skype account for free and forward calls to as many as three landline or mobile numbers for as little as 2 cents a minute. The new 1.4 also makes it easier for Skype users to import contacts from Microsoft Outlook directly into their Skype buddy lists and to make one-click calls to numbers and names from Internet Explorer and Outlook.
Why not Outlook Express?As I also noted, Skype’s new Personalise Skype offers users the capability of using original pictures, sounds and ringtones for as little as 1 euro ($1.20). Skype is positioning this feature as "a new and exciting market for content providers looking to deliver great applications to Skype’s global callers." Personalise Skype's initial content partners are American Greetings (think e-cards) Qpass (think micropayment authorization tech for ringtones) and WeeWorld (avatars).
SFGate reported Google Inc. has offered to blanket San Francisco with free wireless Internet access at no cost to the city, placing a marquee name behind Mayor Gavin Newsom's effort to get all residents online whether they are at home, in a park or in a cafe.
Why just San Francisco. Why not other cities, like Tulsa for example.The offer by the popular Mountain View search engine was one of more than a dozen competing bids received by the city before its deadline Friday. Officials will review the submissions and decide which, if any, of the candidates gets the green light to build the so called Wi-Fi service, which would be free or inexpensive for users.
What's Going On
Michelle Malkin blogged Power Line has obtained Lewis "Scooter" Libby's Sept. 15, 2005, letter to NYTimes reporter Judith Miller reiterating the waiver he gave her a year ago and urging her to testify before the grand jury. Take a look. Judy's story doesn't add up. Can you tell what's going on?
I believe the answer was in what she said when she was first released. She got a promise from Fitzgerald that he would not question her about sources other than Libby or matters other than her conversations with Libby. I looked all over to try to find a source that reported it, and finally found it in the Left Wing Talk Left: There are two components to Judith Miller's explanation for her decision to testify before the grand jury. One is her claim that by speaking to Libby on the phone the other day, she satisfied herself the waiver was genuine. The other is that she got a promise from Fitzgerald that he would not question her about sources other than Libby or matters other than her conversations with Libby..... So, I think Fitzgerald's agreement to limit Miller's questioning to Libby is a big deal. It probably was far more a factor in her decision to testify than the release from Libby. No one ever bought her waiver argument - and she always was up front about not wanting to talk about her other sources.
Busted!
Power Line blogged Every once in a while, I read something so good it makes me jealous--all I can say is, I wish I'd done it. Here is an example; Zombie Time examines a photograph that appeared on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, and thus was seen by many thousands of people. The photo is of an African-American teenager who participated in a San Francisco anti-war rally
She is wearing a bandana that says, "People of Color Say No to War," a sentiment with which the Chronicle agrees. Here is how the Chronicle captioned the photo:
Jasmine Williams, 17, a student with the leadership group Youth Together, joins the Iraq war protest in San Francisco.There is, however, much more to the photograph and the "leadership group" that the Chronicle didn't choose to show. Fortunately, Zombie Time was there to bring us the rest of the story. Check it out.
I agree. You absolutely must read what Zombie Time reveals.
The girl's protest contingent also sported Palestinian flags and obscene placards, and she is just one of several teenagers, all wearing terrorist-style bandannas covering their faces. But the bandannas are all printed with the same design. Was this a grassroots protest statement the teenagers had come up with all by themselves? Actually the teenagers are being stage managed by an adult wearing a t-shirt depicting the flag of Communist Vietnam. As Zombie Time indicated
The San Francisco Chronicle featured the original photograph on its front page in order to convey a positive message about the rally -- perhaps that even politically aware teenagers were inspired to show up and rally for peace, sporting the message, "People of Color say 'No to War!'" And that served the Chronicle's agenda.And for the MSM, the important thing is to promote their agenda.But this simple analysis reveals the very subtle but insidious type of bias that occurs in the media all the time. The Chronicle did not print an inaccuracy, nor did it doctor a photograph to misrepresent the facts. Instead, the Chronicle committed the sin of omission: it told you the truth, but it didn't tell you the whole truth.The truth, but not the whole truth, and not nothing but the truth.Because the whole truth -- that the girl was part of a group of naive teenagers recruited by Communist activists to wear terrorist-style bandannas and carry Palestinian flags and obscene placards -- is disturbing, and doesn't conform to the narrative that the Chronicle is trying to promote. By presenting the photo out of context, and only showing the one image that suits its purpose, the Chronicle is intentionally manipulating the reader's impression of the rally, and the rally's intent.
Such tactics -- in the no-man's-land between ethical and unethical -- are commonplace in the media, and have been for decades. It is only now, with the advent of citizen journalism, that we can at last begin to see the whole story and realize that the public has been manipulated like this all along.
Outrage vs Cleverness
TAPPED blogged One of the reasons the left has such a difficult time moving public opinion is that, all too often, it reacts with cleverness to situations where outrage would be a more appropriate response.
I seldom see the Left being anything but outraged, because they are outraged at being out of power. A little cleverness would be nice.Bill Bennett yesterday offered left bloggers a golden opportunity to make political hay, and what do we have? The spectacle of them explaining his remarks away in order to prove ... what exactly? That they, too, studied Latin and philosophy?
Maybe they were just unwilling to try to blame him for one sentence, when his next sentence said exactly what theoutraged Left is screaming.Let me break the significance of this down in strict political terms. The last time Democrats gained seats in Congress, in 1998, it was thanks, in part, to unusually heavy voter turnout by southern African Americans. John Edwards, who has since become a welcome voice for the poor and middle class, would never have made it to the national stage without their support. Furthermore, one of the very few times I've seen the GOP compelled to reach out to its base -- as opposed to the press corps -- about something a Democrat has said was after Howard Dean repeated, in a somewhat distorted fashion, a fact from Hillary Clinton's ground-breaking speech on abortion, in which she noted that abortion rates had risen in some states under Bush. Few things outrage the conservative base more than the idea that one of their own might be doing something to promote abortion.
And few things outrage the liberal base more than the idea that anyone might be doing something that does not promote abortion.So Bennett's comment is, essentially, a political twofer: a prominent values conservative talking about abortion in a way that could upset conservatives, and a statement that could scarcely have been better designed to outrage a critical part of the Democratic base.
Jonah Goldberg blogged It certainly reads to me like she's upset that liberal bloggers are being too intellectually honest. The upshot of Franke-Ruta's position seems to be that deliberately distorting Bill Bennett's intent and meaning is a small price to pay to villify him unfairly and for the added bonus of angering-up southern blacks in order to get limousine liberals like John Edwards elected. And if Matt Yglesias or Brad DeLong see it differently, they should just be quiet -- for the sake of the movement.
That kind of movement is best initiated by a dose of a strong laxative.I find this very illuminating. We get a lot of grief around here from time to time for supporting conservative politicians or figures -- including Bennett -- when liberals insist the only intellectually honest position is opposition and outrage. Therefore we must be operating in bad faith. And here we have someone at The American Prospect all but declaring that intellectual honesty is corrupting liberalism and its nakedly partisan ambition to attain political power.
If the objective is to excise intellectual honesty from liberalism, they are certainly achieving their objectiveNice movement she's working on.
Sun's Changes to Blame for Part of Global Warming
LiveScience reported Increased output from the Sun might be to blame for 10 to 30 percent of global warming that has been measured in the past 20 years, according to a new report.
The nut cases will probably still blame it on BushIncreased emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases still play a role, the scientists say. But climate models of global warming should be corrected to better account for changes in solar activity, according to Nicola Scafetta and Bruce West of Duke University. The findings were published online this week by the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
TimWorstall blogged See, we can say, it’s not just us capitalist bastards who want to drown Bangladesh. Old Sol himself has it in for them as well!.... So we end up with this slightly odd position. The more the current warming is a natural phenomenon (and assuming that it doesn’t simply reverse itself similarly naturally) the more we have to change our own behaviour to stop adding to it.
Another way of looking at it is that clearly 30% is beyond our control. Maybe the remaining 70% is as well. A group of scientists are screaming Global Warming now; it was not that long ago they were screaming Global Winter, and predicting a new Ice Age. Maybe it is just a cyclical change that has been going on for millions of years.
ClaytonCramer blogged Since we don't really have a clear understanding of the connections between solar output, surface temperatures, and consequent natural processes that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (for example, the carbon dioxide/limestone interaction), perhaps a little more humility is in order from the Kyoto Treaty proponents.
Sunday, October 2
This Day In History
- 1835 The first battle of the Texas Revolution took place as American settlers defeated a Mexican cavalry near the Guadalupe River.
- 1869 Political and spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in Porbandar, India.
- 1890 Comedian Groucho Marx was born in New York.
- 1919 President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed.
- 1937 Ronald Reagan, just 26 years old, made his acting debut with the Warner Brothers release of "Love is in the Air".
- 1941 German armies began an all-out drive against Moscow.
- 1944 Nazi troops crushed the two-month-old Warsaw Uprising, during which 250,000 people were killed.
- 1950 The comic strip ''Peanuts'' by Charles M. Schulz was first published.
- 1958 The former French colony of Guinea in West Africa proclaimed its independence.
- 1967 Thurgood Marshall, appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, was sworn in as associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Marshall was the first black Supreme Court justice and served until his retirement on June 27, 1991, at the age of 82. He had served in the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals (1961-1965) and as U.S. Solicitor General (1965-1967). Justice Marshall died on January 24, 1993.
- 1985 Actor Rock Hudson died at age 59 after a battle with AIDS.
- 1990 The Senate voted 90-9 to confirm the nomination of Judge David H. Souter to the Supreme Court.
- 1996 Mark Fuhrman was given three years' probation and fined $200 after pleading no contest to perjury for denying at O.J. Simpson's criminal trial that he had used a racial slur.
- 1998 Gene Autry, Hollywood's singing cowboy, died at age 91.
- 2002 A man was shot and killed in a grocery store parking lot in Wheaton, Md., the first victim in a series of sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C. area, that left 10 dead.
- 1869 Mahatma (Mohandas) Gandhi (political and spiritual leader: India; died Jan 30, 1948)
- 1890 Groucho (Julius Henry) Marx (“The one, the only, Groucho.”: TV host: You Bet Your Life; comedian, actor: one of the Marx Brothers of vaudeville and film fame: Animal Crackers, A Day at the Races, Duck Soup, Horse Feathers, The Cocoanuts, Monkey Business; died Aug 19, 1977)
- 1896 (William Alexander) Bud Abbott (comedian, actor:: Abbott of Abbott & Costello; Who’s on First?, The Abbott & Costello Show; died Apr 24, 1974)
- 1928 (George Emmett) ‘Spanky’ McFarland (actor: Little Rascals series, Our Gang comedies; died June 30, 1993)
- 1938 Rex Reed (movie critic; actor: Myra Breckenridge)
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