December 10, 2008
This is a remarkable case of how one man has expressed both of these in the midst of terrible tragedy that took away his entire family in an instant.
One day after an F/A-18D Hornet fighter jet fell from the sky and crashed into his two-story house in San Diego's University City neighborhood, Dong Yun Yoon returned to a home and life in ruins.Rescue workers sifting through the debris on Cather Avenue had found the bodies of his wife, two baby daughters and mother-in-law.
* * * "I believe my wife and two babies and mother-in-law are in heaven with God," Yoon said at a news conference afterward. "Nobody expected such a horrible thing to happen, especially right here, our house."
Yoon said he bore no ill will toward the Marine Corps pilot who ejected safely before the jet plunged into the neighborhood two miles west of the runway at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. "I pray for him not to suffer for this action," Yoon said. "I know he's one of our treasures for our country."
First, let me offer my deepest condolences to Mr. Yoon on this grievous loss. To lose one’s entire family in an accident that appears to caused by mechanical failure would seem to be enough to rock his love of country and faith in God – but it has not.
The unswerving faith that there is a life beyond this one, and that hs family has been brought into the presence of the divine is an inspiration.
The words of love and concern for a pilot who managed to escape his crashing plane exemplify the concern that each of us is called to show at all times – but that many of us fail to show under much less severe stress.
And the patriotic sentiment – that our servicemen and women are, indeed, our nation’s treasurs – is one which he could have overlooked in his hour of mourning without a word of reproach from anyone. And yet he stopped to include this acknowledgement, even though it was the crash of a military jet that tore his loved ones away from him. It takes a special sort of patriot to do something like that – one who loves his country when it is hard, not merely when it is easy.
And so I salute Dong Yun Yoon – a man whose example as a patriot and a man of faith we should all strive to follow.
Malkin provides contact information for those wishing to offer their sympathies to Dong Yun Yoon.
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December 05, 2008
Armed robbers pulled off one of the world's biggest jewellery heists at a famed Paris store, making off with 80 million euros (102 million dollars) in diamonds and valuables, investigators said Friday.A gang of four thieves -- two of them disguised as women -- on Thursday stole nearly all the jewels on display at the Harry Winston boutique just off the Champs-Elysees avenue, which attracts a wealthy international clientele.
The heist was well-planned, a source from the investigating team told AFP. The men knew the names of some of the shop's employees and the location of some hidden storage cases for jewellery.
Given the knowledge this gang had, you have to wonder if it is an inside job? Disgruntled employees, current or former? A mole at Harry Winston? Or just plain a good intelligence operation?
The even bigger question is what one does with $102 million in diamonds and other jewels. Where do you fence the stuff? And to whom do the proceeds eventually accrue?
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December 04, 2008
Gulf Oil CEO Joe Petrowski said on Wednesday that the price of oil could sink to $20 per barrel, and there is a chance gasoline prices could drop as low as $1 per gallon by early next year.Speaking at a South Shore Chamber of Commerce breakfast at LombardoÂ’s in Randolph, the Brockton native said that after speculators drove oil prices up, there is a chance that the market will overshoot on the way back down, resulting in much lower prices at the pump.
We still need to develop solar, wind, and other alternate energy sources. We still need to build nuclear plants. We still need to expand the use of clean coal technology. And we still need to heed the wisdom of those chanting “Drill here, drill now” in an effort to end our dependency on foreign energy suppliers.
UPDATE: Looks like Petrowski is not alone in his analysis.
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October 23, 2008
The woman who North Carolina prosecutors determined falsely accused three Duke lacrosse players of raping her at a team party maintains in a new memoir that she was attacked.
Crystal Mangum, who appeared publicly Thursday for the first time since making the allegations more than two years ago, says in her forthcoming book she is not "looking forward to opening old wounds" but that she had to defend herself.
"Even as I try to move on with my life, I still find it necessary to take one more stand and fight," she writes in the book, "The Last Dance for Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story."
"I want to assert, without equivocation, that I was assaulted. Make of that what you will. You will decide what that means to you because the state of North Carolina saw fit not to look at all that happened the night I became infamous."
Did you get that last line? “Saw fit not to look at all that happened that night”? Is she joking, or just delusional? She had a prosecutor so gung ho to believe her story that he was willing to violate basic rules of investigation, rules of evidence, and the law in order to get charges and convictions based upon a flimsy story and evidence that completely contradicted Mangum’s sordid tale. She had every authority in the county and on the Duke campus supporting her, even after her claims broke down under closer examination. She was able to stir up a lynch mob against the innocent, including “civil rights activists” who suggested that the accused young men should be convicted even if the assault did not happen as a form of reparations for past injustices against blacks.
And what is even worse is that the state of North Carolina didn’t see fit to file charges against her for the false report she made against the Duke lacrosse team. That’s the only example I can think of that would constitute a decision “not to look at all that happened that night” – the cowardly refusal to punish the individual who started the whole charade with her lies.
Don’t buy the book – she doesn’t deserve the money.
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October 22, 2008
But when I see an article like this one, I feel a need to remind folks that racist speech does have the protection of the US Constitution, as disgusted as we might be by it.
Take this case.
Commuters found fliers with the image of a white-hooded horseman holding a blazing cross placed on the windshields of hundreds of cars parked at a Long Island Rail Road station.The fliers were printed with messages such as "Join the Klan and save our land" and "We are of the United Northern & Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan are unapologetically committed to the interest and values of the white race!"
Suffolk County police are investigating who may have left the fliers, but says it's possible that no crime was committed. They say the dissemination of the fliers at the Deer Park station Tuesday could be regarding as an act of free expression.
It is that last paragraph that sticks in my craw -- "could be regarded as an act of free expression"? Seems to me that the correct position is should be regarded as an act of free expression, if not "must be regarded" as an act of free expression. After all, the First Amendment is meaningless if it only protects the inoffensive and non-controversial.
Oh, and for the record -- those involved in this little effort are nothing but scum.
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But when I see an article like this one, I feel a need to remind folks that racist speech does have the protection of the US Constitution, as disgusted as we might be by it.
Take this case.
Commuters found fliers with the image of a white-hooded horseman holding a blazing cross placed on the windshields of hundreds of cars parked at a Long Island Rail Road station.The fliers were printed with messages such as "Join the Klan and save our land" and "We are of the United Northern & Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan are unapologetically committed to the interest and values of the white race!"
Suffolk County police are investigating who may have left the fliers, but says it's possible that no crime was committed. They say the dissemination of the fliers at the Deer Park station Tuesday could be regarding as an act of free expression.
It is that last paragraph that sticks in my craw -- "could be regarded as an act of free expression"? Seems to me that the correct position is should be regarded as an act of free expression, if not "must be regarded as an act of free expression. After all, the First Amendment is meaningless if it only protects the inoffensive and non-controversial.
Oh, and for the record -- those involved in this little effort are nothing but scum.
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Now they have dhimmified and kow-towed to CAIR and the rest of the Islamic grievance establishment.
The FBI said Tuesday that it had deleted the term because the FBI never meant to attach a label to the case. Special agent Mark White, media coordinator in the bureau's Dallas office, told FOXNews.com that the FBI changed the wording “because the statement was not meant to indicate that the FBI was ‘labeling’ anything."The person who wrote it up did not see the misunderstanding that [the original wording] would create,” White said.
And yet the FBI will continue to label certain incidents as “hate crimes” before such motivation is ever proven in a court of law. I don’t see the Department of Justice caving to hate groups the way they do to CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in at least one case related to the funding of terrorism.
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October 13, 2008
The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States recorded its largest drop ever as crude oil prices plunged and consumer demand continued to wane, an industry analyst said on Sunday.The Lundberg Survey released this weekend showed the average price of a gallon of self-serve regular down 35 cents over the past two weeks to $3.31. Mid-grade was $3.45 as of Friday and premium was $3.57.
On the other hand, I was getting gas at $3.41 the same week as Hurricane Ike. And IÂ’ve paid less than $3.00 a gallon every time IÂ’ve gassed up in the past week.
Given the current rate of fall, I am expecting to see $2.50 gasoline by election day – but still believe that we need to drill more in this country, including offshore and in ANWR. Indeed, I believe that we need to impose a special $1.00 per gallon tax in coastal states that do not permit offshore drilling under the same regulations as are permitted in the Gulf of Mexico.
Oh, yeah – and we still need nuclear plants (the one thing France is doing right) and greater use of wind power.
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September 29, 2008
THE GOOD: As I’ve mentioned once or twice, I’ve switched schools this year. My new school is located in a poor area of town, with most of my students being socio-economically disadvantaged by any measure. And yet when one of the “Points of Distribution” for water, ice, and MREs was established in the community by FEMA but no personnel were supplied to staff it, a couple of folks associated with my school were able to start making phone calls and turn out 130 students over the course of 3 days to help distribute the needed supplies. That is out of a total student body of about 1700 – not a bad percentage.
THE BAD: You know, we were all told that FEMA had learned lessons after Hurricane Katrina. Maybe they did – but only in regards to dealing with New Orleans. They’ve been no help with us, despite our having applied for aid early in the disaster – indeed, I have not received any of the paperwork they have supposedly sent to me, nor have I been able to get any assistance regarding finding a place to live.
THE UGLY: Here’s one that just makes me sick – and I believe I may have met this person at some point in the past, as the name sounds familiar. For that matter, I am friends with several administrators from this person’s school, and nearly ended up working there a couple of years ago. The behavior recounted here, though, is simply too repugnant for words.
Jacki Steinhauer is one of the lucky ones. She has no damage at her Deer Park home, she has power and she doesn't have to work since her school is closed."Life is great after a hurricane when nothing really happened to your house!" Steinhauer says in her blog, "The Secret Life of an Uninteresting Teacher."
The most recent entries brag about all of the free MREs she's been eating -- MREs that are meant for hurricane victims who have no food because they have no power. Some of those victims have no homes.The teacher has it down to a science, according to her blog: "I got Schlotsky's today for lunch and went again to the courthouse in Baytown to get my water, ice, and food. This time, there were different meals, but hopefully as good as the others. Then, i came home, emptied my trunk and then headed off for the Deer Park POD (Point of Delivery)."
"I think that I am falling in love with MREs. They are pretty darn good. I went around 5:30 to go get more MREs and actually got another box of real MREs, water, and ice," Steinhauer wrote on Wednesday. "Right now, I have five cases of water, two 20 pound bags of ice, four 10 pound bags of ice, and four boxes of MREs."
While stocking her pantry and frig with taxpayer-funded freebies, Steinhauer has become quite the MRE connoisseur.
"Yesterday I ate meatballs with marinara sauce, almonds, wheat bread with cheese sauce, pretzels, and the orange punch. Today's meal was chili mac, applesauce, a pop-tart, wheat bread with cheese sauce, fruit punch, and apple cider," she wrote. "It is so cool that you put a little bit of water in the bag with the food and in about a minute, there is hot food. This is great. I don't have school and getting free food!"
The good news? Her district has suspended her pending an investigation of whether or not her conduct constitutes a violation of the ethical standards set by the state and district for teachers – but once again she is getting a freebie off the taxpayers, since it is a suspension with pay. Too bad they couldn’t tell her that she didn’t need a taxpayer check since she has all those taxpayer-financed MREs to eat. In the mean time I’m living in a church hall, and have paid for every meal I’ve eaten since the storm by going to one of the many open grocery stores in the area – despite having had my home rendered unlivable for the next few months.
And to the pair of Bubbas I heard bragging about scoring MREs for hunting season -- may you not get your deer, may the birds fly elsewhere, and may you end up down-range of Dick Cheney on your next hunting trip.
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September 18, 2008
That is about to change.
This morning we return "home" from Austin, after deciding that it is better to be close than comfortable.
But we will not be in the house, which remains unlivable -- and will for the foreseeable future.
Instead, we will be taking over the "youth room" in the church fellowship hall about 2 1/2 miles inland from our house. It has the necessities of life, including a big kitchen -- and an offer to stay until we can make more permanent arrangements. That means no more long drives, and the ability to go back to school when it resumes (Monday, tentatively, but with 60% of the area without power I have doubts about that).
Besides, eventually we will probably be able to get an apartment or a trailer for us to live in until the house is repaired and we start filling it with new furniture.
So homeward bound -- with a very heavy heart but a spirit that is not (yet) broken.
And I'll again point to the PayPal and Amazon buttons on the side if you feel moved to help with our recovery.
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) September 16, 2008
Yesterday was my first opportunity to see the place.
At first I was quite hopeful -- the back fence was down and the first pane of a couple of double-pane windows were broken.
And then I noticed the debris piled against the fence in the by the side of the house -- and my buddy Rick spotted the water line two feet high on the side of the house.
It appears the storm sewer backed up and sent water up from the street and into the houses on my side of the street (I don't know about the other side).
We took 2-2 1/2 feet in the garage, and 1 1/2 to 2 feet in the rest of the house. It is, dare I say it, a serious mess, and is going to require a serious rehab.
Thank God for flood insurance.
In the mean time, my district has canceled school until next week, and I'll have to see about finding more permanent quarters closer to home. Paula will remain in Austin for the time being, and I'll be in Houston with a friend trying to work on the house.
Prayer and moral support is always welcome -- as is a click on either the PayPal or Amazon boxes in the right column.
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D, and 
, and September 14, 2008
Not only are they not answering the number they told us to call for information, but it has been over 24 hours since they have bothered to update their website.
But not to worry -- they do have the manpower to block anyone from coming home to actually check on their property.
Sunday morning, residents of the tiny community of Seabrook near Johnson Space Center began trying to return home. They were met by a roadblock, and three Seabrook police officers standing in the rain, turning folks away. At times the line was six to 12 cars deep."It's gonna be a while," an officer shouted to one man as he made a U-turn. "Just listen to the news."
"Seabrook is a disaster area: no sewer, no infrastructure. It really isn't safe," said officer Charlie Skinner. "It's making residents pretty upset. I understand, but ... There's an order signed by the mayor. We can't let anybody in."
That's right -- the law-abiding folks who followed the mandatory evacuation order are not permitted home and are getting no information. The folks who flaunted it and stayed behind are being allowed to remain.
Seems to me that the approach being taken by the city officials in Seabrook is exactly what should not be done -- and the mismanagement of Mayor Renola, the City Council, the city manager, and the rest of the employees of Seabrook has been so bad that many people will refuse to evacuate in the future for fear of again being denied access to their homes by badge-and-gun wielding cops acting on orders from an unresponsive and unprepared city government.
Seabrook was once known as Recall City USA because of its frequent use of that tactic to get rid of unresponsive politicians. Expect it to happen again with the entire crew currently in charge.
UPDATE: Shortly after 11:00 PM, the city put out phone calls, emails, and updated its website to inform residents that those on the west side of town can return home after 6:00 AM on Monday -- but that the rest of us still cannot. Better late than never -- but it would have been nice for those impacted by this move to get a little bit of extra notice.
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September 13, 2008
This may explain why.
Two blocks from city hall, two feet off Highway 146.
And 2 1/2 miles from my house.
About 1/3 mile down Highway 146 from the above picture,
near the bridge to Kemah.
So we remain in Austin.
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September 12, 2008
The storm surge from Hurricane Ike and debris covers a street, Friday, Sept 12, 2008 in Seabrook Texas.
Incredibly, Ike's center was still some 200 miles away when this photo was taken. AP Photo/Kim Christensen
![080912-ike-surge-c-02[1].jpg](http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?s=environment&c=news&l=on&pic=080912-ike-surge-c-02.jpg&cap=The+storm+surge+from+Hurricane+Ike+and+debris+covers+a+street%2C+Friday%2C+Sept+12%2C+2008+in+Seabrook+Texas.+Incredibly%2C+Ike%27s+center+was+still+some+200+miles+away+when+this+photo+was+taken.+AP+Photo%2FKim+Christensen&title=)
This shot was taken about 12 hours before the storm is scheduled to make landfall -- about 1-2 miles from my house. This is a major reason why I am certain that my Darling Democrat, the Apolitical Pooch and I are hiding out in a hotel in Austin.
Word is that there will be a storm surge of 18-22 feet in our area -- and what you see there is at perhaps 8 feet.
I don't want to imagine what we will be going home to -- and can imagine that we might not have a home to go home to.
UPDATE: Additional photos from Seabrook, Texas -- H/T Houston Chronicle
Local resident walking dog -- about 2-3 blocks from picture at top of this post.
See that picture at the top? This would be the same spot, facing the other direction.
See that white house in the center at the very top of the picture?
That is in front of the location with the debris.
Resident wading about 1/2 mile from the debris picture, on a side street.
This would be in the extreme upper left of the photo just above.
Our house would be another 1 1/2 miles past this, at about the same point on a side street -- but with a bit more land (1/4-1/3 mile) between us and the water. Needless to say, I'm not taking much comfort in what I'm seeing here.
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September 10, 2008
Unfortunately, that is going to push a great deal of wind and rain this direction, as well as a storm surge.
It also means that there will likely be a storm surge up Galveston Bay that will flood low-lying areas. That means our house, which in 30 years has never taken so much as a drop of flood water from any storm. I have every reason to expect that run of good luck to end between now and Saturday.
I'm asking for prayers, good wishes and positive vibrations, according to your inclination and tradition -- not just for me, the Darling Democrat and the Apolitical Pooch, but also for my fellow Gulf Coast residents. Pray that this storm is directed so that it hits when, where, and how it will do the least damage to the lives of the least people.
I'll try to get back online tonight and update you on the evacuation. May it not be the sort of fiasco we experienced three years ago during Hurricane Rita.
UPDATE: WE ARE UNDER MANDATORY EVACUATION AS OF NOON TODAY.
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September 09, 2008
The pressure of staring down Hurricane Ike is on as the storm moves across the Gulf of Mexico on an uncertain path that has officials along the Texas coast waiting to decide which communities need to evacuate — and when.As of late Tuesday, Ike seemed set on coming to Texas, but it remained too early to know whether it would make landfall this weekend somewhere between Corpus Christi and Palacios, drop down into the Rio Grande Valley, or even make a hard turn that would bring it closer to Houston.
"When they get in the Gulf, they tend to do weird things, so we're going to keep watching it," said Francisco Sanchez, of Harris County's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. "We do have a bit of a sigh of relief."
Even if the storm doesn't head directly to Houston, its winds and rains still could be dangerous, said officials, who cautioned residents not to let their guards down.
"We are still in the monitoring stage now," Houston Emergency Center spokesman Joe Laud said. "There is always that chance it could turn back east."
So right now it looks like (probably) no evacuation for me -- but I'm not canceling that hotel room in Austin quite yet, either.
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September 08, 2008
Over four winters, Harvard researchers matched hacking adults' visits to Boston-area emergency rooms with Census data for 55 zip codes. Flu-like symptoms struck first and worst in the zip codes that were home to the most kids.Every 1 percent increase in the child population brought a 4 percent increase in adult ER visits, researchers reported this summer in Annals of Emergency Medicine.
"The impact of kids and the flu is clear," says study co-author John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Children's Hospital Boston. "It doesn't mean the areas without kids are protected from flu. It just means they experience flu later and at lower rates."
Any parent can attest that youngsters are germ factories. It takes years of nagging before they cover coughs and sneezes. Little ones tend to pick their noses. Even teenagers aren't great hand-washers. Crowded schools, preschools and day-care centers act as incubators.
It's why we have little mini-epidemics at school every year -- and why teachers are eitehr decimated by something new or are gloriously immune after having been exposed to so much crap over the years. We all remember that first year of teaching when we got every byug that walked into our classroom.
And I suspect it is also not just that kids are less sanitary than adults, but also that adults let them inside our personal space more readily than other adults. Think about it -- we'll gladly pass around a baby or hug a sniffly toddler.
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September 07, 2008
That said, in this case the Congress must act as it is prepared to do in order to safeguard the rights guaranteed under the Constitution.
H.R. 6691 is the latest effort by the National Rifle Association to wrest jurisdiction over local gun legislation from the District's elected officials. It comes as city officials are in the midst of formulating permanent legislation to comply with the landmark Supreme Court ruling overturning the city's long-standing ban on handguns. Sponsors of the measure, 47 conservative Democrats and five Republicans, say that D.C. officials can't be trusted and so they are acting to ensure Second Amendment rights for city residents. It's a maddening argument considering that none of those who signed on to the bill would ever stomach letting Congress dictate local law to their constituents.Equally troubling is that the bill goes beyond the scope of the ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller authorizing gun possession for self-defense in the home. The majority opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia specified that a range of gun regulations are "presumptively lawful." But, if sponsors of H.R. 6691 have their way, the District would be barred from passing any law that would "prohibit, constructively prohibit, or unduly burden" gun ownership by anyone not barred by existing (and weak) federal gun laws. That would mean that the District couldn't require a vision test or shooting proficiency or education about gun safety for children. Gun registration would be abolished, as would the ban on carrying weapons -- even military-style rifles -- in public. It's a scary scenario in a city where political protests, presidential motorcades and visits by foreign dignitaries are routine.
The problem, of course, is that the city has for decades violated the civil liberties of its residents, and after being told so has imposed regulations nearly as burdensome and likely as unconstitutional as those struck down by the Supreme Court this past summer. As such, it is Congress' duty to step in and stop such violations of the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment in the one place where it has the clearest constitutional ability to do so -- the District of Columbia.
I'm curious -- would the Post's editors be quite so upset if the legislation in question were designed to protect the press freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment from a city government that showed them no respect? No, I didn't think so either.
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I'm talking this blurb:
MSNBC drops Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from anchor chair... David Gregory will anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night.... Developing...
You mean that utter lack of professionalism might actually have consequences at that discredited network? Granted, David Gregory isn't much of an improvement, but it is something.
Will the various NBC brands ever recover from the untimely death of Tim Russert this summer?
Hot Air is also blogging this one.
UPDATE: NYT has the story -- and here is the money quote:
In interviews, 10 current and former staff members said that long-simmering tensions between MSNBC and NBC reached a boiling point during the conventions. “MSNBC is behaving like a heroin addict,” one senior staff member observed. “They’re living from fix to fix and swearing they’ll go into rehab the next week.”
UPDATE 2: The NYT story on Trig Palin I mentioned above is up -- and it is a reasonably sensitive piece that talks about the pregnancy and how she has dealt with motherhood. And it pretty effectively slaps down the "Trig Trutherism" of Andrew Sullivan, Daily Kos, and the rest of the deranged left.
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September 06, 2008
Dallas police on Friday searched for a man who robbed a 7-Eleven convenience store in his wheelchair, stealing 10 boxes of condoms and an energy drink before rolling himself out the door, authorities said.
That would qualify as seriously weird.
But then you get this at the end of the article.
Cpl. Janse said he couldn't recall another robbery involving a person in a wheelchair. He believes the culprit was probably intoxicated at the time.
Well, maybe.
Condoms and energy drinks? I'd conclude he was looking for a bit of fun and some "staying power."
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Texas is infamous for the cavalier way that it applies the death penalty. Still, the case of Charles Hood, who is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday is especially appalling. Mr. HoodÂ’s lawyers have presented evidence that during his trial, the judge was having an affair with the prosecutor. Gov. Rick Perry should grant Mr. Hood a temporary reprieve, and if the reports of the affair are correct, Mr. Hood must be given a new trial.
Only one minor problem there, NY Times editors -- Rick Perry cannot do that in the way you want him to.
You see, the governor does not have that sort of power here in Texas. Call it a remnant of the days of Reconstruction where the power to grant pardons, reprieves, and commutations was so abused by one of the incumbents that the 1876 state constitution effectively removed that power from the governor. For Perry to grand more than a 30-day reprieve, it would require an affirmative vote of the Board of Pardons and Paroles. At best, Perry can grant Hood a single 30-day reprieve -- after which the execution proceeds with no further gubernatorial intervention possible, absent a recommendation from the Board.
But there is one other minor detail -- the romance issue was apparently raised before, and not seen as grounds for overturning the conviction due to the lack of evidence of any inappropriate conduct or rulings that prejudiced Hood's right to a fair trial. That was the ruling of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which this week dismissed an attempt by Hood to raise the issue again (Oh, yeah -- NYT doesn't mention the fair trial issue has already been adjudicated against Hood). I guess that in this case the folks in New York don't really care about that whole separation of powers thing.
Oh, and by the way -- want the best example of how little respect the folks at the Times have for the unambiguous language of the Constitution? It is right here.
We believe the death penalty is, in all cases, unconstitutional and wrong.
However, the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution explicitly permits capital punishment. Unless we are to accept the argument that a part of the Bill of Rights itself is unconstitutional, their entire stance against the death penalty is based upon the belief that the opinions of the Editorial Staff, not the text of the Constitution, is (or ought to be) the Supreme Law of the Land.
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September 04, 2008
But I am committed to buy one book, as soon as it is published, even without reading it or looking at the reviews.
ItÂ’s title? W3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aU7EaDiaMDCiUT">"The Jewel of Medina."
A historical novel about the prophet Muhammad and his child bride that was pulled by Random House over concerns it would anger Muslims has been sold to another publisher, the author said Wednesday."We do have a U.S. publisher," Sherry Jones, of Spokane, told The Associated Press in an e-mail Wednesday. "We can announce that, but not the name until they announce it."
Jones' agent, Natasha Kern, said a publisher for "The Jewel of Medina" in the United States and the United Kingdom will be announced later Wednesday.
Jones said her debut novel will be published in October, two months after it was to have been published by Random House Publishing Group.
Random House caved in after pressure was brought to bear by a feminist Middle Eastern Studdies professer from University of Texas orchestrated a campaign against the work, leading Random House to conclude that the threat of violence was too great to justify the bookÂ’s publication. That act of cowardice was a disgrace to the publishing world, and to the notion that there should be a free exchange of ideas in the world. Instead, fear of the fanatical knuckle-draggers who murdered Theo van Gogh, hounded Salman Rushdie into endless exile, and rioted over a bunch of cartoons from Denmark was grounds for silencing the authorÂ’s voice.
I donÂ’t know if IÂ’ll like the book. I donÂ’t know if IÂ’ll read it all. But I will buy it.
After all, it is important to stand up to the forces of darkness that would impose the mores of seventh-century Arabia on the civilized world.
UPDATE: And the British publisher is -- Gibson Square, a small British publisher. They say the first run will be only 20K. I hope they are ready for a second run, given the interest the book has generated among friends of freedom in the English-speaking world. The US Publisher will be announced next week.
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September 03, 2008
A homeowner who saw his wife threatened at gunpoint by an intruder wrested the gun from the man, killed him and wounded another intruder, police said.The incident happened early today after two men kicked open the front door of the couple's home in this Fort Worth suburb.
Keith and Kellie Hoehn told police the men burst into their house and one of them pointed a shotgun at Mrs. Hoehn's head. She brushed the barrel aside, and a struggle ensued.
The husband got control of the gun and shot both men. The man who survived is being treated at a Fort Worth hospital.
I’ll be honest – the only problem I see here is that one of them is still breathing, and likely being treated in that hospital at taxpayer expense.
HereÂ’s hoping that the story is widely publicized and has a salutary effect.
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September 01, 2008
Google Inc. is releasing its own Web browser in a long-anticipated move aimed at countering the dominance of Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer and ensuring easy access to its market-leading search engine.The Mountain View-based company took the unusual step of announcing its latest product on the Labor Day holiday after it prematurely sent out a comic book drawn up to herald the new browser's arrival.
The free browser, called "Chrome," is supposed to be available for downloading Tuesday in more than 100 countries for computers running on Microsoft's Windows operating system. Google said it's still working on versions compatible with Apple Inc.'s Mac computer and the Linux operating system.
Sounds interesting, though I still love my Firefox. But I wonder -- will Google's new offering be able to shake IE's status as teh most commonly used web browser?
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Compare the article from the Chronicle to the article from the New York Post.
Interestingly enough, the Chronicle reporters managed to leave out this little tidbit from Irreverend Wright.
“This ordinary boy [Obama] just might be the first president in the history of the United States to have a black woman sleeping at 1600 Pennsylvania legally,” Wright said, referring to Michelle Obama, in a sermon at the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston.
Nah, nothing controversial about that. Nothing outrageous there. Let's leave it out of the article -- it doesn't reflect at all on Wright's message or the iconic black congregation that hosted him.
H/T Malkin
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August 27, 2008
National Guard troops stood ready and batteries and water bottles sold briskly as the New Orleans area watched as a storm marched across the Caribbean on the eve of Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary.With forecasters warning that Gustav could strengthen and slam into the Gulf Coast as a major hurricane, a New Orleans still recovering from Hurricane Katrina's devastating hit drew up evacuation plans.
Since Louisiana has a competent governor this time around, it appears that the state and the city will be ready to deal with whatever comes their way.
Of course, it could still head for Houston -- so I may yet have to bug out.
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At a forum on Sunday, when Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell called MSNBC "the official network of the Obama campaign," Brokaw said, "I think Keith has gone too far. I think Chris has gone too far."Insiders say Olbermann is pushing to have Brokaw banned from the network and is also refusing to have centrist Time magazine columnist Mike Murphy on his show.
I'm not necessarily a fan of Tom Brokaw, but I do respect him as a journalist. To argue that his criticism of The Sportscaster should result in a ban from MSNBC is the ultimate proof of the megalomaniacal view that Olbermann has of himself and his importance -- and his slavish devotion to the Obama campaign.
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August 20, 2008
The case itself seems pretty straight-forward (sorry about the term) to me.
When a high school senior told her principal that students were taunting her for being a lesbian, he told her homosexuality is wrong, outed her to her parents and ordered her to stay away from children.He suspended some of her friends who expressed their outrage by wearing gay pride T-shirts and buttons at Ponce de Leon High School, according to court records. And he asked dozens of students whether they were gay or associated with gay students.
The American Civil Liberties Union successfully sued the district on behalf of a girl who protested against Principal David Davis, and a federal judge reprimanded Davis for conducting a "witch hunt" against gays. Davis was demoted, and school employees must now go through sensitivity training.
Let's be real honest here -- the principal was wrong in how he handled the situation. While I don't have a problem with his having the position he does on homosexuality (or even with expressing it), I do have a problem with the directive to "stay away from children. And while I don't have a problem with his telling the girl's parents (she was clearly "out" in the school setting, and it would not be unreasonable for a faculty member to discuss such public information with her parents), I do have a problem with his efforts to suppress the First Amendment rights of the students who supported her. And while I oppose "sensitivity training" as nothing less than indoctrination, I would thoroughly support a workshop on how to deal with bullying, harassment and student rights.
But I'm particularly bothered by this statement by a representative of the ACLU.
"I think a shirt that says 'I support gays' is very different from a shirt that says 'Gays are going to hell,'" said Benjamin Stevenson, an ACLU attorney. "One can be very disruptive for a child's self-esteem; the other supports other people and their ideas."
And that is where I have a problem -- the notion that schools should be censoring one side of the debate on a controversial social issue. I've seen it all too often -- support for homosexuality or abortion is OK, but support for traditional morality is banned as "hateful and intolerant". Apparently all it takes for the ACLU standard to be invoked is one student on the right (make that "left") side to be troubled by the message for it to be banned -- but if a conservative or Christian student were to object to the right (make that "left") views supported by the ACLU and d teh kid would be deemed a hate-monger and referred to a sensitivity class a brainwashing program.
For the ACLU to support such a message ban while also supporting the rights of the KKK creates the warped situation where the most extreme views are protected by the Constitution, but mainstream views are not. And for us to attempt to raise students to be responsible citizens fully aware of and prepared to exercise their rights by showing them that government actors are free to censor "unacceptable" speech at every turn is utterly absurd.
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And here is exactly the sort of stuff that we knew would happen in Red China during the Games, which is why freedom-lovers around the world called for the cancellation or boycott of the 2008 Tiananmen Olympics.
Two elderly Chinese women have been sentenced to a year of “re-education through labor” after they repeatedly sought a permit to demonstrate in one of the official Olympic protest areas, according to family members and human rights advocates.The women, Wu Dianyuan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77, had made five visits to the police this month in an effort to get permission to protest what they contended was inadequate compensation for the demolition of their homes in Beijing.
During their final visit on Monday, public security officials informed them that they had been given administrative sentences for “disturbing the public order,” according to Li Xuehui, Ms. Wu’s son.
While the women were released with an admonition that they could be sent to the camps at any time if they continued their efforts, at least half a dozen would-be protesters have been detained for the crime of seeking a protest permit.
So even though Mao's hardliners are dying out, the Maoist hard-line is not going anywhere.
H/T Malkin
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August 19, 2008
Just in time for the closing rush of the presidential election, MSNBC is shaking up its prime-time programming lineup, removing the longtime host Dan Abrams — its onetime general manager — from his 9 p.m. program and replacing him with Rachel Maddow, who has emerged as a favored political commentator for the all-news cable network.The moves, which were confirmed by MSNBC executives on Tuesday, are expected to be finalized by Wednesday, with Mr. Abrams’s last program on Thursday. After MSNBC’s extensive coverage of the two political conventions during the next two weeks, Ms. Maddow will begin her program on Sept. 8.
The scary thing is that, as skewed to the left as Abrams often was, he was at least professional in his approach most of the time. I'm not sure that we will see any such thing out of Maddow, whose time in the cesspool that is Air America should disqualify her from work in any sort of news organization.
But key to all this is that MSNBC is abandoning all pretense of ideological neutrality and balance. And in doing so, it raises serious questions about the entire NBC brand, given the cross-over work between the two networks in the NBC stable.
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August 17, 2008
A Houston police officer shot a man who was wielding a sword at him Saturday night, officials said.Police found the man in a driveway in the 3300 block of Hastings. The man, whose name was not released, approached police with the sword.
Officers retreated, asking the man to put down the weapon. Police said the man continued to advance toward the officers.
One of the officers shot him once in the chest.
HPD has already released the video of the incident.
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August 13, 2008
You know, the fact that oil production by OPEC is up, and oil prices have dropped by 24% to only $113 a gallon in the last month.
After all, if shortfalls and price hikes are the responsibility of the President, then so are supply increases and price drops.
Unless Democrats are willing to admit their claims were all a bunch of partisan hot air, and that they have been engaged in rank partisanship on oil rather than attempting to deal with the price of energy -- especially since Nancy Pelosi will allow no votes on offshore drilling, despite the fact the price began to drop when Bush dropped the Executive Branch ban on such drilling.
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There’s a huge concern among conservative talk radio hosts that reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine would all-but destroy the industry due to equal time constraints. But speech limits might not stop at radio. They could even be extended to include the Internet and “government dictating content policy.”FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell raised that as a possibility after talking with bloggers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. McDowell spoke about a recent FCC vote to bar Comcast from engaging in certain Internet practices – expanding the federal agency’s oversight of Internet networks.
* * * “I think the fear is that somehow large corporations will censor their content, their points of view, right,” McDowell said. “I think the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating content policy, which by the way would have a big First Amendment problem.”
"Then, whoever is in charge of government is going to determine what is fair, under a so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine,’ which won’t be called that – it’ll be called something else,” McDowell said. “So, will Web sites, will bloggers have to give equal time or equal space on their Web site to opposing views rather than letting the marketplace of ideas determine that?”
The implications of this are startling -- will Blogger or WordPress have to monitor their websites to make sure that they have not become too political in one direction or the other -- especially if a politicized definition of "fairness" and "balance" is being enforced by liberal political censors regulators? Will individual web sites -- like this one, for example -- be forced to open themselves up to views not supported by their owners, thereby cutting into their available bandwidth? Will certain bloggers be forced to flee to offshore web hosts in order to exercise the rights theoretically guaranteed by the First Amendment -- or will the physical location of the blogger lead to regulation of content no matter where the server is located?
Scary stuff -- and one more reason to oppose both the so-called Fairness Doctrine and Barack Obama.
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August 11, 2008
"I was taught when I was a young reporter that it's news when we say it is. I think that's still true -- it's news when 'we' say it is. It's just who 'we' is has changed," Carr said."Members of the public, people with modems, people with cell phones are now producers, editors. They can push and push and push on a story until it ends up being acknowledged by everyone."
And since the NY Times -- according to their own public editor -- didn't even deign to seriously investigate the John Edwards/Rielle Hunter story despite the easy availability of corroboration, it clearly wasn't news.
Except for those damn bloggers who kept pushing the issue after the elitist liberal media declared the affair/love child to be non-news. They kept up the pressure until it became news.
Call it the democratization of reporting -- something that Carr and the rest of the elitist liberal media seem to be lamenting today.
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August 07, 2008
How many cheerleaders can cram into an elevator? Apparently not 26. A group of teenage girls attending a cheerleading camp on the University of Texas got stuck and had to be rescued after trying to squeeze into an elevator at a residence hall Tuesday night.One girl fainted and was treated at a hospital and released. Two others were treated at the scene.
The elevator doors refused to open after the pack of 14- to 17-year-olds descended from the fourth to the first floor, police said. Responding to a few panicked cell phone calls from the group, police and firefighters summoned an elevator repairman, who spent about 25 minutes extricating them.
Dumb kid stuff.
Right until the cable breaks.
Will there be consequences?
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August 06, 2008
Baristas at the new Belfair Espresso Gone Wild will have to cover up to meet the county's zoning laws.The stand's sister store in Gorst features scantily clad baristas and "pastie Tuesdays and Fridays." But the Mason County has ruled that such attire puts the stand in the category of "erotic entertainment," which is prohibited in the Belfair urban growth area.
The Belfair stand opened about a week ago, but it was temporarily closed shortly afterward when county planners determined there were code violations, according to county Commissioner Tim Sheldon.
It seems that there was a great public backlash against the unusual attire of the young women in question -- but also long lines of cars on Tuesdays and Fridays. Proof, I guess that there is a wide range of moral views in that community.
And interestingly enough, this isn't the only place in the Seattle area that such issues have come up. Must be a Pacific Northwest thing -- and I say that as a guy coming from a region that may have more strip clubs per-capita than anywhere else in the country.
But I also have a different question -- what about health and safety regulations?
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August 01, 2008
Exxon Mobil once again reported the largest quarterly profit in U.S. history Thursday, posting net income of $11.68 billion on revenue of $138 billion in the second quarter.
Oh, that is a very ugly number by itself. And if you look at it in isolation, what you appear to have are really bloated profits.
Until you break it all down.
You see, $11.68 billion is a mere 8.4% of the total revenue taken in by the corporation. Put differently, if you owned a company that did $100,000 in a quarter, you would have actually only earned $8400 during that time period -- which would mean that your annual income as a business owner would have been a paltry $33,600. So as you can see, the profit as a percentage of revenue is hardly exorbitant.
Now on the other hand, there are some other numbers in this article that you should consider.
In addition to making hefty profits, Exxon also had a hefty tax bill. Worldwide, the company paid $10.5 billion in income taxes in the second quarter, $9.5 billion in sales taxes, and over $12 billion in what it called "other taxes."
Got that -- Exxon paid $32.36 billion in taxes worldwide last year. Put differently, that means that 23.4% of revenues went to pay taxes. And going back to my hypothetical small business making $100,000 in a quarter, that would translate to $23,400 in taxes for the quarter or $94,600 in taxes for the year. O, yeah -- that would mean that the government would be taking roughly $2.78 for every dollar that you as a business owner made.
The other 68.2% of the revenue? That would be spent on business overhead -- including employee pay. I wish that the financial reports supplied broke out how much Exxon was contributing to the economy in terms of employee salary and benefits. I suspect it far dwarf that $11.68 billion in profit.
But then again, focusing on that number might put an end to the class warfare rhetoric of certain segments of our body-politic.
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Despite years of fog created by the NRA and right-wing organizations, that isn't very complicated: For the purposes of forming a state militia, you're entitled to keep and bear arms. Obviously, those would have to be the kind of arms in use in 1791, when the Bill of Rights was passed — the musket, the wheel-lock, the flint lock, the 13th century Chinese hand canon.
Well, Keith, let's consider some things:
- Every other time the Bill of Rights gives a right to "the people" it refers to an individual right.
- Every extant writing of the individual Framers indicates they saw the right to keep and bear arms as an inalienable right of the individual.
- No source dating to the 1790s supports your interpretation of the Second Amendment, while virtually all of the jurisprudence and legal writings of the first 150 years of the Republic supports Scalia's view.
- A quick review of the proceedings of the state conventions ratifying the Constitution (to which the Second Amendment was a response) presumed the right of private citizens to own and keep MILITARY-STYLE ARMS in their homes -- meaning that Scalia's opinion, if anything,failed to go far enough in protecting the individual right to keep and bear arms.
But fine, Bathtub Boy, let's have it your way despite all the evidence to the contrary. You certainly won't object to this interpretation of another amendment.
Despite years of fog created by the ACLU and left-wing organizations, that isn't very complicated: For the purposes of engaging journalism, you're entitled to freely operate a printing press. Obviously, those would have to be the kind of printing presses in use in 1791, when the Bill of Rights was passed — the hand-cranked, hand-set, hand-inked lead-type printing press and the quill pen.
And since we are going to agree on the understanding of the Bill of Rights as passed in 1791, let's not forget that insulting and critical comments directed against the President of the United States may legitimately be punished as sedition (remember the Alien and Sedition Acts), individual states may provide tax support to houses of worship, public sectarian prayer may begin any government proceeding, and capital punishment may be imposed for a variety of offenses, with no lower age limit for its imposition. Oh, yeah -- no abortion or gay marriage, either -- and sodomy may be punished as a crime.
Most of us, however, don't adhere to quite so extreme a version of original intent as you seem to -- or should I say as you pretend to, for you would never for a moment accept even a single proposition I put forward as parallel to your absurd proposition. Indeed, you would never accept even one of my parallels, even though your objections would completely undermine your position on the Second Amendment.
And there's the beautiful thing about our country -- they say anybody can grow up to be a an over-paid, under-educated, historically and legally ignorant buffoon with his own television show. And in Keith Olbermann, there's your proof, and every-damn-day's "Worst Person in the World"!
H/T NewsBusters, Right Wing News
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July 26, 2008
If the conflict in Vietnam was notable for open access given to journalists — too much, many critics said, as the war played out nightly in bloody newscasts — the Iraq war may mark an opposite extreme: after five years and more than 4,000 American combat deaths, searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic photographs of dead American soldiers.It is a complex issue, with competing claims often difficult to weigh in an age of instant communication around the globe via the Internet, in which such images can add to the immediate grief of families and the anger of comrades still in the field.
While the Bush administration faced criticism for overt political manipulation in not permitting photos of flag-draped coffins, the issue is more emotional on the battlefield: local military commanders worry about security in publishing images of the American dead as well as an affront to the dignity of fallen comrades. Most newspapers refuse to publish such pictures as a matter of policy.
But opponents of the war, civil liberties advocates and journalists argue that the public portrayal of the war is being sanitized and that Americans who choose to do so have the right to see — in whatever medium — the human cost of a war that polls consistently show is unpopular with Americans.
A story is handed down in my wife's family.
Her mother's cousin was among those who landed on D-Day, and survived that initial onslaught. Five months later, in November, he was killed in battle.
A few weeks later, shortly before Christmas, his mother was glancing through a copy of a magazine at the neighborhood newsstand. Suddenly, she fainted dead away. By awful coincidence, she had turned to a picture of her son (or what appeared to be him -- it could obviously never be confirmed), dead on the field of battle in Europe.
She never recovered from the shock, and joined her son with the Lord much too soon.
You can see why I would prefer that we NEVER see pictures of the mangled bodies of our precious military dead.
For that matter, I recall the trauma of seeing wounded servicemen screaming in pain on television newscasts during Vietnam -- and breaking down in tears because I wasn't sure that the injured man was not my own father, who was serving there at the time.
I respect the notion of "the public's right to know" -- but some in the press adhere to a truly warped version of this doctrine. The reality is that there are some things that we really don't have a right to see, as a matter of public decency.
Did the American public have a "right" to see JFK's autopsy pictures by the day of his funeral?
What about those same shots of MLK, during the first week of April, 1968?
And one of the most tragic stories of the assassination of RFK involves one of his sons, watching the assassination of his father over and over again, alone in his hotel room, seeing his wounded father cradled in the arms of others as he lay dying in that hotel kitchen.
For all we had a right to know in each of these cases, is there a moral limit beyond which our public voyeurism should not be permitted to intrude? And does that not include media self-restraint in the case of those killed in war?
So let me be clear -- if the media will not restrain itself, I've got no problem with the US military refusing all cooperation with a given photographer, reporter, or news organization. For while our free press may be free to cover the war how they see fit -- superficially, seditiously, insensitively -- they are NOT entitled to the assistance and cooperation of the US military to do so.
By the way -- there's a "must-read" at NewsBusters on this same article, which includes additional commentary by one of the soldiers quoted in the article.
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July 24, 2008
Now Congress is considering the issue again -- and maybe, just maybe, sanity and common sense will prevail.
For the first time in 15 years, members of the House are holding hearings about the policy which is aimed at maintaining discipline and unit cohesion in the military. Last year, Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee tried, but were prevented by members of their own party who were not eager to revisit the issue. This year the Military Personnel subcommittee manage to put it back on the calendar.
Now let's consider the views of Rear Admiral Jamie Barnett, a recently retired military professional who served our country for over three decades.
A hearing of a House Armed Services subcommittee yesterday offered a critical opportunity to break the silence surrounding how military preparedness has been hurt by the 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" policy barring gay men and lesbians from serving openly. The military has spent more than $363 million since 1994 to throw out gay men and lesbians whose expertise we desperately need, including expensively trained and hard-to-recruit linguists, jet pilots, cyber-warriors, doctors and combat-tested master sergeants. This purging of talent takes place at the same time the military, in order to meet its manpower quotas, feels compelled to increase the number of waivers it grants to people who have had problems with the law -- in some instances almost twice as many as in years past.
* * * "Don't ask, don't tell" also damages our nation's ability to recruit the best and the brightest. Competing with industry is hard enough already. The military estimates that only three in 10 high school graduates are qualified to serve; the "don't ask, don't tell" policy further reduces the pool of eligible recruits.
And that is a serious reality check for anyone concerned with national security -- we are throwing away qualified volunteers who we need because of their sexual practices. It makes no more sense to disqualify someone for consensual homosexual activity that it does for masturbation or preferring something other than the missionary position.
And add to the above statement the signed letter from 28 retired flag officers, and you start to see a pattern.
“We respectfully urge Congress to repeal the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy,” their communiqué reads. They argue that “As is the case in Britain, Israel,” and other countries where gays may serve truthfully, “our service members are professionals who are able to work together effectively despite differences in race, gender, religion, and sexuality. Such collaboration reflects the strength and the best traditions of our democracy.”
Indeed, as I pointed out some time back,
we have an all volunteer military. Nobody is "forced" to be a part of it. Individuals voluntarily chose to submit themselves to military discipline and military policies.If anything, [the pro-DADT] argument is much more suited to arguing that the desegregation of the military by Harry Truman was unwise and inappropriate. After all, that happened during the days of the military draft, when there wre thousands of American men involuntarily serving and being forced to live in circumstances not of their choosing. Many of them, especially those born and raised in the segregated South, had no desire to live and work as equals with blacks -- much less find themselves under the command authority of those they had been raised to view as "niggers" who were inferior to any white man. Truman ordered desegregation to happen, and made it clear that those who could not accept the policy should be prepared to leave the military. And it worked.
Now for this to work, there would need to be certain rules in place -- but one's based upon common sense, not fears and biases. Deroy Murdock put it very well in National Review.
Sexual orientation should be irrelevant while inappropriate sexual conduct — gay, straight, or otherwise — should be punished.
I don't know anyone, from the most flaming gay activist to the most prude supporter of DADT who can reasonably argue with that notion. Let's set reasonable boundaries -- no sex in the chain of command, no sexual harassment, no sexual assault, etc -- that apply to every member of the US military. Any one with a normal set of moral values knows roughly what those boundaries ought to be -- we need to make them explicit and enforce them.
But what we don't need is folks like this driving the policy question. And if Elaine Donnelly is correct, that there are religious members of the armed forces who could not serve with homosexuals, then I would submit that they are lacking in their patriotism, unfit for duty, and deserving of a dishonorable discharge -- just like Donnelly's faux national security organization.
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