Greetings to Mexico

¡Feliz Stinko de Mayo!

If you’re illegal, don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out if you don’t like things here.

Under the bandages King Tut is all man

The Chief is not sure why this is posted, but here it is anyway – from The Times of London:

An ancient riddle of the sands has been solved by modern hospital technology. The mummified remains of King Tutankhamun have been found to be, let us say, intact.

See the story for more details. Or not. No further comment.

Porter Goss abruptly resigns as CIA chief

CIA chief Porter Goss, assigned to rebuild the U.S. spy agency after huge intelligence lapses over the September 11 attacks and Iraq, abruptly quit on Friday after less than two years on the job.

Goss was put in to that job with the specific task of reorganizing and straightening out the mess at the CIA, and from all accounts he had been doing a pretty good job of rattling the cages of the “good old boys”.

In the relatively short time he was on the job there is no doubt a lot left undone. The Chief is NOT optimistic that the clean-up job will continue.

Islamic Bloc: We Respect Press Freedom But…

A bloc representing the world’s Islamic nations is marking World Press Freedom Day Wednesday by calling for urgent action to establish international law or a code of conduct aimed at preventing media from defaming religion.

OK. Since the Islamics consider that their religion is the only true faith, anyone else claiming that THEIR religion is true could be considered to be “defaming” Islam. which is then “unprotected” speech subject to suppression.

The Saudi-based secretariat of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) said in a statement it was committed to press freedom, but that journalists should be deterred “from premeditatedly vilifying, defaming and violating the rights of others.

After gong on at some length decrying all over again the Danish cartoon controversy, they must have seriously slipped up and allowed in someone willing, ready, and able to point out some of the very real problems in contemporary Islam.

British foreign office minister Kim Howells said Muslims, and some non-Muslims, had been “rightly offended” by the publication of the cartoons. But he also criticized some Islamic media for their handling of the issue, saying “the existence of anti-Western and anti-Jewish media and material in the Muslim world, some of it in state owned press, undermined as hypocritical the moral indignation that was expressed.” Howells said it was right that the issue of Islamophobia was addressed, but Islamic governments and organizations should also address problems that give Islam a negative image.

Howells said it was right that the issue of Islamophobia was addressed, but Islamic governments and organizations should also address problems that give Islam a negative image. He cited support for Taliban-type legal and social systems, “recent statements coming out of Tehran,” practices that segregate and subjugate women, and conspiracy theories about 9/11 being a CIA plot and polio vaccines being contaminated with viruses.

“And reports of raped women being punished and stoned, restrictions on other religions, including death sentences pronounced on Christian converts, poor human rights records and authoritarian, undemocratic environments all have a negative impact which we cannot ignore.”

Again…”By their fruits, ye shall know them.”

Howells also challenged views in the Islamic world that he said were wrong, such as the perception that “our foreign policy is deliberately anti-Muslim….The reasons for action in Afghanistan and Iraq had nothing to do with the faith of Islam but with the political and security issues that these countries posed.”

Helllloooo – is anybody listening? If YOU attack us, we fight back. It doesn;t matter whether you are Islamic, Confucian, Zen, or Zeus worshippers. OK? Get a clue!

Hamas chief says suicide bombings ‘a natural right’

European philosophers in the 17th and 18th centuries developed the concept that can be described as “natural law” or “natureal rights”, which was later expressed in the United States’ Declaration of Independence with the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This was a product of that same Western Civilization that is excoriated and degraded by many in the current culture wars. It is also held up by the oh so self-righeous Islamofascists as being the very embodiment of Satanic principles in the world today.

On the other hand, the attitude of these same Islamofascists turns the concept of natral rights on it’s head, defending NOT the right to life, but rather, the right to murder.

Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal has defended Palestinian suicide bombings as a “natural right”…”Our enemies … don’t understand that a suicide operation … is a natural right,” the exiled leader told students in Damascus, adding that Palestinians live “under Israeli occupation and have the right to fight and defend themselves”.

The Chief would submit that it’s a huge stretch to equated a right to defense, to the right to engage in homicide bombing against non-official, non-military targets. Oh yeah – I keep forgetting – according to the Quran there are NO civilians – only infidels who are by definition actively fighting Islam by refusing to accept total dhimmitude (religious and social submission)!

The situation with Islamofascism seems to be nicely covered in Matthew 7:
15 Beware of afalse prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening dwolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Khaled Mashaal, rope, tree. Some assembly required.

Korean Scientists Develop Female Android

Standing 1.6 meters tall and weighing about 50 kilograms, she can understand others, speak, blink with her eyes and makes several facial expressions. But she is not human, rather an android developed by a team of South Korean scientists. It is only the second time in the world that an android has been developed – Japan made the first one.

The Korean robot can move the upper half of her body such as arms and hands but she cannot travel because her lower half is immobile. Baeg, who spent just 3 billion won in creating EveR-1 in a year, is looking to exceed his Japanese rivals by making the model move four limbs by late this year.

“For now, EveR-1 can be employed as a guide robot at museums and department stores or as an educational model to read books to children,” Baeg said.

“But we are looking further ahead _ we are working on upgrading the android with the aim of making it move its legs by the end of this year. It will be able to sit down and stand up by then,” he expects.

Hmmm. Anyone else remember the movie A.I.? The possibilities are…er…numerous. The Chief WON’T go there…use your own imagination.

Blair punished at the polls

Tony Blair’s UK Labor (Socialist) party got hammered in a cycle of local elections on Thursday. After months of repeated scandals and controversies, the voters gave the incumbants a seriously heavy hit.

Tony Blair will carry out a major Cabinet reshuffle today to relaunch his battered government after voters in the English local elections punished Labour for weeks of chaos and scandal.

With heavy losses likely to trigger calls for Mr Blair to name the day for him to leave No 10, Geoff Hoon, the leader of the Commons, confirmed that the Prime Minister would seek to reassert his authority with a bigger than expected reshuffle.

Good luck to him. He’ll need it! The Chief thinks it’s about time to stick a fork in Blair – he’s done. He’s been a good ally in the jihadistan wars, but his domestic policies have been pretty consistantly statist. Britain deserves better.

Silencing a Hornet’s Nest

This from Glenn, the master puppy blender himself:

It seems like a lot of people are trying to shut up bloggers all of a sudden. It also doesn’t seem to be working very well….

(Etc., etc. – see article for details.)

In conclusion, Glenn observes:

And that’s the lesson in all of these cases. As bloggers get more powerful, lots of people are likely to be tempted to try to silence them. This, however, is likely to turn out badly — like trying to stop hornets’ buzzing by smacking their nest with a stick. In all cases, the people who don’t like what the bloggers are saying should be responding with facts and arguments of their own, rather than trying to shut bloggers up. They’ll catch on eventually, but I suspect that it will take a few painful stings before the lesson sinks in.

Indeed.

Scientists gain insight into invisibility through a complex superlens

The Klingons used it to make their Bird of Prey spacecraft invisible. The Romulans used cloaking too and variants of this stealth technology hid the nasty alien in the Predator films and have been mentioned in Star Wars, Doctor Who and more besides.

Scriptwriters will be pleased to discover that this science fiction idea is deemed today to be closer to science fact than we realised, according to a paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.

Far out!

Sheriff to Start Posse Patrols to Curb Illegal Immigration Flow

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced that approximately 100 volunteer posse and Sheriff’s Deputies will soon begin randomly patrolling the desert areas and main roadways in southwest Maricopa County as a part of an operation to curb the flow of illegal immigrants entering the county.

What a concept! ENFORCE THE LAWS!

“There are so many illegals trying to make it into the county that it’s overwhelming my deputies, so I have called on members of my 3000 member volunteer posse to assist,” says Sheriff Arpaio. “It’s not only illegals we find and arrest out there, we’ve also made some recent huge drug seizures involving illegal aliens including nearly 100 pounds of methamphetamine and approximately three pounds of heroin.”

As far as the comments on the excessive cost of incarceration of illegals is concerned, Arpaio is already ahead of the curve on that one too:

Arpaio houses 10,000 prisoners in his jails, including almost 2000 in a tent city he erected in 1993. Tent City is being expanded to hold an anticipated increase in of inmates being incarcerated in the Maricopa County jails.

I like my dogs grilled or sautéed, reveals Danish prince

Is this an increase in the standing of alleged puppy-blender Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds? Is this something of concern to the Alliance of Free Blogs? If not, it SHOULD be!

Prince Henrik, the prince consort of Denmark, has shocked animal lovers by declaring that dog meat – fried or grilled – is one of his favourite dishes.

The 72-year-old prince, a Frenchman by birth, said his penchant for dog meat had developed from the time he spent growing up and studying in Vietnam.

AH-HA! Not only is he a “puppy lover”, but he’s originally a Frog (But of course!) and has links to the communist Vietnamese! What a combination! All that’s missing is a link to the anti-First Amendment Sen. McCain who was “trained” in authoritarianism by exposure to the example of none other than those same Vietnamese.

There may be further deveopments to this continuing saga, with disclosure of this possible web of conspiracy…then again, there may not be.

U.S. takes new view on DDT in Africa

DDT was banned in the US by an executive action of Nixon era EPA administrator William Rucklehouse, based on what he stated at the time were political, not scientific considerations. DDT is about as close to harmless to humans as a synthetic chemical can be. In spite of a plethora of enviro objections to it largely based on what is best described as “junk science”, it is also relatively benign in the environment, in spite of the 60’s propaganda masterpiece Silent Spring.

U.S. government officials are enthusiastically endorsing and funding the use of DDT in sub-Saharan Africa after years of resisting calls from scientists who said the insecticide would be the best weapon for fighting malaria, despite lingering objections by some environmentalists.

In the final analysis, there is nothing as good, or as cheap for controlling malaria-carrying mosquitos. This ultimate reality has at last trumped moonbat environmentalism in the interest of saving human life. (What a concept!)

The insecticide credited with eliminating malaria in the Western world years ago was outlawed in the United States in 1972 and is banned in most countries because of environmental concerns and unsubstantiated fears it can harm humans.

Score one for the good guys!

Why war comes when no one wants it

This is heavily serious stuff. It takes a bit of committment to read this piece, BUT, it makes some points that can only be ignored at our ultimate peril.

Robert Musil’s great novel The Man Without Qualities portrays Austrian aristocrats preparing the emperor’s semicentenary in the months before August 1914, when their world would come to a ghastly end. [The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil (Sophie Wilkins, translator). Random House: New York 1996 (paperbound)] The reader, of course, knows this, but the protagonists don’t. It is hard to read news from Washington these days without recalling Musil’s work. War will come, even though President George W Bush wants it as little as did Emperor Franz Josef.

After a depressing, but insightful and detailed historical recapitulation, the author (writing as Spengler) wends his way to the inevitable, and disquieting conclusion:

None of them wanted war, none of them expected war, yet all of them found war preferable to the consequences of avoiding war. If an Aeschylus were alive today to dramatize the outbreak of World War I, he could lift the chorus’ every line from the private dispatches of European leaders in July 1914. Like the old men of Mycenae observing Agamemnon’s return to the home where his unfaithful wife Clytemnestra would murder him, the old men of Europe watched in horror as peace slipped out of their hands.

If Kaiser Wilhelm II had had the presence of mind to attack France during the First Morocco Crisis of 1906 – while Russia was busy with Japan and England was uncommitted – the horrors of World War I never would have occurred (In praise of premature war, October 19, 2004). By the same token, if Washington waits too long to disarm Iran, the consequence will be a Thirty Years’ War in the Middle East quite as terrible as World War I. Harsh as it might seem, preemption – an aerial attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities – is the most humane solution.(Emphasis added.)

The only question is whether or not anyone in Washington or London has enough solid spinal material left to do what needs to be done. Based on the current domestic and foriegn policy fecklessness of both parties, the Chief is NOT optimistic.

Tractor Beam

The original graphic is from an undeterminable source, and was shamelessly lifted from the Skipper over at Barking Moonbat Early Warning System (BMEWS) I just couldn’t resist it – this is truly worthy of Douglas Adams!

Princely Warriors

TCS once again, with modern applications of some old truths that Kipling (and for that matter the republican Romans) would have understood without thinking about.

Proving leadership by leading troops into battle is the oldest trick in the book. Except that it’s not a trick — it’s real and it works. The motto of the Palmach, the legendary military unit in Israel’s 1947-48 War of Independence, was aharay, “follow me!” Historically, one of the strongest rationales for kingship was the monarch’s presumed military effectiveness. So in the modern era, as kings fell out of the habit of leading armies, their political power fell away, too.

After examining the historical background of involvement of the UK Royal House with the military since George II, it is noted that:

“…both William and Harry joined the Army. Moreover, both made it clear that they expect to go into action with their units, in Iraq or Afghanistan, where more than 100 British troops have been killed in action. As Harry said last September, “The last thing I said was there’s no way I’m going to put myself through Sandhurst and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country. That may sound very patriotic, but it’s true.” Actually, it sounds pretty good.

It’s safe to assume that press agents and spin doctors had a hand in getting this information out to the public, but so what? If it’s real, it’s real. Reality is the rock upon which spin shatters. Besides, the media saturation that William and Harry receive will cut both ways: Yes, they are stars, but being a star in a place like Iraq or Afghanistan — where the terrorists are tuned in, too — is risky. Stardom could turn into martyrdom. In the words of The Daily Mail, “If they share the fear and bear themselves well, they, the country and the monarchy will all be stronger for it.”

So there’s the lesson for today: Shared sacrifice is the key to legitimacy. As Shakespeare’s Henry V trumpeted at Agincourt, “For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.” That’s the brotherhood that keeps nations together and keeps dynasties in power. Oh, and by the way, the same lesson applies to other dynasties, too. The moment that members of a powerful family seem to have insulated themselves from the fortunes of a nation, their value to that nation is finished.

(Are you listening Senator Kennedy?)

The war in Afghanistan is popular enough, albeit obscure. The war in Iraq is unpopular. But here’s a prediction, based on history from both sides of the Atlantic: In the future, the most powerful political leaders on national-security matters will be drawn from those who went Over There and did their bit. Those future leaders may be hawkish, or they may be dovish, but if they stepped forward and said, “Send me,” they will be heard with respect in the years ahead.

Times have changed, as they always do, but some verities of political leadership never change. A nation, be it a monarchy or a republic, will always most admire those who serve their people selflessly — and riskily.

Interestingly enough, as of now, the officially titled British ruling class is acquitting itself better than the officially meritocratic American ruling class.

Hear, hear!

Energy Policy for Idiots

Tech Central Station scores again with this one.

READ IT AND HEED IT! (Pass it on as may be necessary.)

This essay is not meant to insult your intelligence. Instead, I am attempting to explain elementary economics to the most poorly-educated segment of our society, meaning people like Energy Secretary Bodman, Senator Bill Frist, Lou Dobbs, and Bill O’Reilly. Leave No Demagogue Behind.

Let’s go s-l-o-w-l-y. Start by asking yourselves these questions:

* Should the goal of U.S. energy policy be to raise long-term domestic energy production, or to reduce long-term domestic energy production?

* Should the goal of U.S. energy policy be to increase profits earned by Iran and other foreign producers, or to reduce their profits?

* Should the goal of U.S. energy policy be to increase consumer demand for gasoline, to leave consumer demand alone, or to reduce consumer demand?

Did you answer “raise long-term domestic energy production,” “reduce profits of foreign suppliers,” and “leave consumer demand alone” or “reduce consumer demand”? Very good! Those are very sensible answers. Before reading further, go back and repeat the questions and the answers five times, to make sure that they stick in your mind.

The piece goes on to spell out the realities of the curent oil situation. Check it out – it ain’t necessarily what you hear on the news, or from the politicians, pundits, et al. The conclusion is pithy and to the point:

Congress wants to treat American consumers like children, who should not have to deal with reality when it comes to the supply and demand for gasoline. It might be better to treat consumers as adults, and let us make grown-up decisions. These grown-up decisions probably will serve the country’s interest more than the infantile energy policies now under consideration.

Are you in the political/economic playpen, or not?

Drivin’ and Not Cryin’?

This piece over at Tech Central Station goes a long way towards putting the gas situation into a rational perspective. Taking note of the plethora of MSM moaning and bloviation about the price of gasoline, it is noted that

…what’s more interesting about these stories is what they don’t tell you. For example, AP reports that “surveys indicate drivers won’t be easing off on their mileage, using even more gas than a year ago.” Now why is that? If prices are rising, one would expect consumers would use less. The answer might be in some of the long-term trends that the short-term media lens is too cramped to see. While energy prices may be rising, energy itself is much less important to consumers and to the overall economy than it once was.

According to the Bureau of Economic Affairs, American consumer spending on energy as a fraction of total personal consumption has declined considerably since 1980. Whereas 25 years ago, one in every ten consumer dollars was spent on energy, today it’s one in every sixteen bucks. In other words, what it takes to heat and cool our homes and drive to and from our jobs and vacation destinations is relatively less costly than it once was.(Emphasis added.)

The inevitable result of this is extremely counterintuitive to the conventional wisdom:

This goes a long way to explaining why even while gas prices rise this summer, and while they will be higher than they were through the 1990s, people will still be driving more — it’s much more of a value than it was a generation ago.

The Chief and Mrs. Chief are planning a nice long road trip this summer, from the Dakota plains to the exotic realm the People’s Republic of Taxachusetts Massachusetts. While the proballe price per gallon is NOT fun to contemplate, even on teacher’s pay automotive travel is still very affordable, so there is personal truth to the above observations.

This is a good thing – I like to drive!