Death By Veganism

From the New York Times (speak of the devil) comes an Op-Ed by Nina Planck about the danger of feeding infants and small children on a vegan diet:

WHEN Crown Shakur died of starvation, he was 6 weeks old and weighed 3.5 pounds. His vegan parents, who fed him mainly soy milk and apple juice, were convicted in Atlanta recently of murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty.

This particular calamity — at least the third such conviction of vegan parents in four years — may be largely due to ignorance. But it should prompt frank discussion about nutrition.
I was once a vegan. But well before I became pregnant, I concluded that a vegan pregnancy was irresponsible. You cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on foods from plants.

Those who wish to deny children a proper diet should be aware that what may work for an adult may not work for a child who is trying to grow and develop.

A vegan diet may lack vitamin B12, found only in animal foods; usable vitamins A and D, found in meat, fish, eggs and butter; and necessary minerals like calcium and zinc. When babies are deprived of all these nutrients, they will suffer from retarded growth, rickets and nerve damage.
Responsible vegan parents know that breast milk is ideal. It contains many necessary components, including cholesterol (which babies use to make nerve cells) and countless immune and growth factors. When breastfeeding isn’t possible, soy milk and fruit juice, even in seemingly sufficient quantities, are not safe substitutes for a quality infant formula.
Yet even a breast-fed baby is at risk. Studies show that vegan breast milk lacks enough docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, the omega-3 fat found in fatty fish. It is difficult to overstate the importance of DHA, vital as it is for eye and brain development.
A vegan diet is equally dangerous for weaned babies and toddlers, who need plenty of protein and calcium. Too often, vegans turn to soy, which actually inhibits growth and reduces absorption of protein and minerals. That’s why health officials in Britain, Canada and other countries express caution about soy for babies. (Not here, though — perhaps because our farm policy is so soy-friendly.)

The vegan/animal-rights people remind me quite a bit of the global warming zealots. They are constantly spouting falsehoods and half-truths to try to prove their agenda, no matter what the facts may be. Many of them try to claim that the human digestive system is adapted only for eating plant food. That is utter hogwash. Humans are omnivores and their digestive systems are very different from those of true herbivores such as rabbits or cows.

What's even worse, there are the terrorist groups such as PETA, ELF, and ALF that are trying to force everyone to become a vegetarian.

Hat tip to small dead animals. And to the New York Times, for printing something of use for a change.

Mountain of the Week: Mt. Belukha

In the Altay mountains in Siberia

Blog of the Week: Dr. Helen

I just recently became acquainted with Dr. Helen's blog, and what I have read has been a delight. She has written a great deal about anti-male bias in academia, a problem I am all too familiar with.

Helen has a great sense of humor:

So Hillary Clinton went to Rutgers to kiss up to--I mean support--the women's basketball team. She addressed 700 students and faculty (the actual women players were too busy to meet with her--good for them) and urged the crowd to take a "Rutgers pledge," to say, "Enough is enough, when women or minorities or the powerless are marginalized or degraded."

My thoughts: As a woman, I would rather be referred to as a "nappy-headed ho" by Don Imus than called "powerless" by Hillary Clinton.

She is one fine nappy-headed ho.

Hey David, Do You Still Beat Your Mother?

I was just watching President Bush do a press conference. David Gregory, that scion of journalistic professionalism from NBC just asked him a question about the war in Iraq that was so leading, biased, and patronizing that it made no pretense at objectivity. How do clowns like Gregory get away with calling themselves journalists when all they are is political activists?

Furthermore, it is not surprising that all the leftwing yahoos should be upset about Fox News or the blogosphere because they are taking away their monopoly on reporting information about national political events. Ever try to take a bone away from a dog?

Thomas Sowell Scores Another Direct Hit

I always read Dr. Sowell's articles with interest, because he has a unique insight into the problems that face modern society. In a recent article, he adds his thoughts to the current debate regarding the proposed amnesty to illegal aliens:

The big talking point of those who want to legalize the illegal immigrants currently in the United States is to say that it is "unrealistic" to round up and deport 12 million people.
Back in 1986 it was "unrealistic" to round up and deport the 3 million illegal immigrants in the United States then. So they were given amnesty -- honestly labeled, back then -- which is precisely why there are now 12 million illegal immigrants. As a result of the current amnesty bill -- not honestly labeled, this time -- will it be "unrealistic" to round up and deport 40 million or 50 million illegal immigrants in the future?

The idiots in Washington want to do the same thing they did back in 1986, regardless of the fact that the amnesty of 1986 only made the problem worse, not better.

And Thomas hits the nail on the head again, regarding the sincerity of the amnesty proponents about enforcing our borders:

Incidentally, remember that 700-mile fence that Congress authorized last year? Only two miles have been built. That should tell us something about how seriously they are going to enforce other border security provisions in the current bill.

Sinn Fein: Bad for Ulster and Bad for the Republic of Ireland

Not content to have ruined Northern Ireland, the marxist-terrorist group Sinn Fein is also running for office in the Republic of Ireland. Ruth Edwards writes about them today in the Independent:

What kind of deal would they want anyway? Having received a hammering for their plans to raise corporation tax to a level that would drive most businesses out of the country, they've taken refuge in uncosted economic policies: medical cards for all children, maximum class sizes of 20, 70,000 affordable homes and so on.
Every political party in Ireland would like to endorse such policies, but they know the money has to come from somewhere: the Sinn Fein leadership still inhabits a dependency culture that views the British treasury as Santa Claus. The richest political party in Ireland, it's raised millions from Irish-America, and many more from robbing banks, smuggling, fraud and selling know-how to Farc guerrillas in exchange for narco-dollars. Of course they don't understand the value of money. How can we expect them to?
Apart from minor deals (like getting rid of the Offences against the State Act), Sinn Fein will focus on making a drive for a united Ireland the major goal of Irish foreign policy, thus making reconciliation with unionists impossible. These old-fashioned nationalists want to keep their old-fashioned northern nationalist constituency happy, regardless of the consequences. McGuinness will keep laughing and joking with Ian Paisley until after the dust settles in the South, and then it will be business as usual.
In local councils up north, Sinn Fein has serious form: any time nationalists and unionists seem to be getting on too well, they wreck the peace with a motion calling for a united Ireland, the erection of a memorial to a local IRA killer or a demand for parity for the Irish language. Hardened by hatred, Sinn Fein politicians thrive on confrontation. As Fianna Fail will soon find out if it does a deal at national level, these are bedfellows who promise you a quiet night, but end up taking the duvet off you and kicking you out of bed.
Sinn Fein deny all this, but they are, of course, propagandists of genius. Look how they are airbrushing out of history the 2,000 the IRA murdered, while raising hell internationally over every corpse they can make political capital out of.
As I listen to Adams talk about making the prevention of suicide a priority, I think of those children who killed themselves because they had been tortured and mutilated by the IRA brutes who ran (and still run) their ghettoes. As he demands a rights-based culture, I think of Joe Rafferty, an innocent who had his most basic right - the right to life - removed by the IRA in Dublin in 2005 because he had annoyed one of its thugs. His sister, Esther Uzell, supported by other victims like Ann McCabe and the McCartney sisters, is standing in Dublin South-East to draw attention to what lies behind the smiling mask of Sinn Fein.
The Republic of Ireland is doing well. Sinn Fein will bring it trouble. Bad, bad trouble.

Ireland needs Sinn Fein about as much as Israel needs Hamas.

More on the Amnesty Sham

Michelle Malkin has more on the con job that is being laid on the American people:

Does this empty promise of the amnesty/deportation trade-off sound familiar? Why, yes, yes it does. Let me boil it down to fundamentals: Bush-Kennedy amnesty is the J. Wellington Wimpy plan:
"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."
Amnesty is the hamburger. Enforcement is the payment that will never come. I've reported this reality over and over and over and over and over again. All the leaked memos and graphs and analysis in the world, however, cannot sum up the deportation/enforcement/border security sham--and the mess at DHS--more clearly than the reality expressed by an illegal alien quoted by the Associated Press today:
"If I get deported and need to cross the border again, that's not a problem," he said.
It was true in 1986. It's as true as ever in 2007. Wimpy will get his amnesty burgers and the Beltway fools who keep deluding themselves about the false promise of immigration enforcement will be left empty-handed. Again.

The 1986 law failed because (1) The federal government has not been enforcing the law against hiring illegal aliens, and (2) The amnesty given at that time gave hope to illegals who subsequently came that there would be another amnesty.

Amnesty for Illegal Aliens? What a Stupid Idea!

After reading the blogosphere this morning, I can't help but be encouraged by the indignation coming from both the left and the right concerning the proposed blanket amnesty of illegal aliens. Kathryn Jean Lopez at NRO has some good quotes:

Mark Levin, on Wednesday night, implored: “Do these Republicans ever learn? . . . Do they understand that a majority of the American people, whether they’re Democrats, Republicans, or nothing, have had it up to here with illegal immigration and they don’t want to subsidize it?”

And furthermore, I want to know if the advocates of amnesty will continue to support the racist, so-called 'affirmative action' preferences for Latinos? If the USA is such a bad place for them, why do so many of them continue to flood into this country, sometimes even risking a long trek through the desert with inadequate water?

If Bush and his fellow idiots in Washington give amnesty to illegal aliens, it will cause millions more to pour into the country. And since they are given preferences over whites for college admissions, hiring, promotions, and government contracts, then whites will be pushed further and further back to the end of a longer and longer line.

I am sick and tired of hearing the lame argument that the illegals are only taking jobs that American citizens will not take. One of the main reasons why Americans don't want those jobs is because the wages are so low. And why are the wages low? Because there is an unending supply of unskilled labor coming across the border from Mexico.

The U.S. Senate is About to Throw Away Our Sovereignty

The bill currently being formulated in the Senate would grant blanket amnesty to all illegal aliens with its absurd Z-visa. See Michelle Malkin for details.

If you care about the USA, write your senator and ask him or her to vote against the bill.

Stamp of the Week: Cape of Good Hope Triangle

Anybody ready for the Boer War?

Volcano of the Week: Ojos del Salado

Tallest active volcano in the world. On the Chile/Argentina border.

Blog of the Week: Gateway Pundit

I strongly recommend reading Gateway Pundit. He has an excellent posat on the Bush-Blair meeting:

And, years from now, the world will look back and two giants will stand out.- Two men who were unfaltering in purpose and mission.- Two men and their allies who took out two of the most evil regimes in history.- Two men who, under incredible duress and constant abuse, freed 50,000,000 million suffering people, built democracies, and made the world more safe.

The sign of greatness is to stand up for what you believe, even when others are calling you a stupid, warmongering pawn of Halliburton who can't pronounce 'nukylar'.

Some of Blair's words at the conference:

Well, thank you very much, Mr. President, and thank you, as ever, for the kindness and graciousness of your welcome to me here at the White House. And thank you also for the strength of your leadership over the past few years. You have been a strong leader at a time when the world needed strong leadership. You've been unyielding and unflinching, and determined in the fight that we face together. And I thank you for that. And I also would take this opportunity of saying that I believe that the relationship between the United States of America and Britain is a relationship that is in the interests of our two countries and in the interests of the peace and stability of the wider world. And sometimes it's a controversial relationship -- at least over in my country. But I've never doubted its importance. I've never doubted that it's based on principle, on shared values, and on a shared purpose, which is to make our world a better, more free, more just place in which people of all nations and all faiths can live. So I would like to thank you for the strength also of that relationship over these past few years.

Washington State Climatologist Fired For Exposing False Claims of Shrinking Glaciers

The global warming cadre remind me a lot of islam. Anyone who dares question their orthodoxy is in trouble:

University of Washington climate scientist Mark Albright was dismissed on March 12 from his position as associate state climatologist, just weeks after exposing false claims of shrinking glaciers in the Cascade Mountains.
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels (D) had asserted in a February 7 Seattle Times editorial, "the average snow pack in the Cascades has declined 50 percent since 1950 and will be cut in half again in 30 years if we don't start addressing the problems of climate change now."
Albright knew from his research that the Cascade Mountains snow pack had not declined anywhere near what Nickels asserted, and that the snow pack has actually been growing in recent years.
Embarrassing Data
Albright sent emails to his colleagues informing them of the factual data.
At most, according to reliable datasets, the Cascade Mountains snow pack declined by 35 percent between 1950 and 2000. Moreover, even that number is misleading. Nickels and other global warming alarmists deliberately choose 1950 as the "baseline" for Cascade Mountains snow pack because 1950 was a year of abnormally heavy snowfall resulting in an uncharacteristically extensive snow pack.
Albright noted in his emails the current snow pack is only marginally lower than the long-term average since 1943. Moreover, the Cascade Mountains snow pack has been growing since the late 1970s.

I am an economist, not a climatologist. But I note some important facts about the climate change debate that lead me to believe, as does the Anchoress that the global warming zealots are not being sincere. First is the fact that Al Gore has two big houses that use an exorbitant amount of energy and that he jets around the world while expecting the little people to walk or ride bicycles. If he is not taking the matter seriously, as shown by his actions rather than by his words, then why should I? Second is the fact that much of the arguments made by the global warming advocates consist of outright lies, half-truths, and data-mining as done by Mayor Nickles in this example. Wasn't that 'clever' of him to choose 1950 as his base year, knowing that that was a year of exceptionally large snowfall?

SDA Has a Great Idea!

Why didn't I think of this?

Want to do your part?
Send a package of Kool Aid (unopened) to:

ROSIE O’DONNELL

The View

320 West 66th Street

New York NY 10023

Paybacks Are Hell

In an earlier post, I talked about how Rijkman Groenink, Chief Executive of ABN Amro bank in the Netherlands, has accepted the lower of two offers made for the bank. Now we hear that the chickens are coming home to roost for Groenink:

Separately, Rijkman Groenink, ABN chief executive, on Monday withdrew as a candidate for nomination to the supervisory board of Royal Dutch Shell.
Mr Groenink, who faces calls to resign from ABN, said he wanted to “fully dedicate” his attention to the bank. ABP, the giant European pension fund, indicated last week it was considering voting against his appointment to the Shell board at the energy giant's annual meeting on Tuesday.

Given two offers, one of which is substantially higher than the other, why would anyone in his right mind take the lower of the two? Clearly, the lower offer from Barclays has something in it for Groenink. Perhaps something we don't know about.

This is a problem in the USA as well as in Europe. Often the management of a company will make decisions in their own personal interest, rather than the best interest of the company. In such a situation, it is the right of the stockholders to throw out the management. The stockholders of Shell are wise to keep this self-serving jackass off their board.

Ottawa to Acquire 6 Arctic Patrol Ships

Sources say that the Canadians will undergo a drastic acquisition programme:

OTTAWA – A key federal cabinet committee has given the go-ahead for a plan to construct six corvette-sized Arctic patrol vessels, The Canadian Press has learned.
The cabinet priorities and planning committee approved the program to build the 100-metre-long, 6,000-tonne warships within the last 10 days, according to defence and political sources.
The patrol vessels, which are almost as large as the navy's frigates, are a step down from the armed Arctic icebreakers that the Conservatives promised in the last election campaign and will likely not be in service before 2015.
Nevertheless, said one political source "it'll be good for the military, good for Canadian industry and the Arctic is critical to our national interest."
Cabinet is said to have authorized a two-year definition phase in which the scope of the shipbuilding project will be laid out. Much of the cost of the new vessels – about $300 million apiece – is being put off until later years.
The vessels, which will be capable of smashing through "fresh ice," are expected to be based on the Royal Norwegian Navy's Svalbard class design, said a military source. That particular type vessel is armed with a 57-millimetre deck gun, missile-launching tubes and also has a helicopter pad.

How are those poor Canadians going to afford this? Won't they quadruple their defense budget?

Hatemonger Scores Another Hit

As I have posted before, Hatemonger's Quarterly is one of my favorite blogs. He has a great post today, that echoes my own experiences in academia:

Imagine you’re a miserable academic (pardon the redundancy) who works on such important topics as greengrocers in the medieval world or Hungarian breast-feeding. As you have yet to score tenure, you work plenty of hours on all sorts of professorial tasks: organizing lectures; grading papers; researching for unreadable articles; sitting on useless and thankless committees; &c.
As you might well have guessed, you’re not too keen on some of your students—most of them, actually. Despite the purportedly rigorous standards of your purportedly competitive home institution, the average undergraduate at your college is about as motivated as a corpse. And a lazy corpse at that.
Too busy working on making their livers resemble brown bananas, these students simply can’t trouble themselves to do the sorts of things one expects of average undergrads. You know, like attend class, stay awake, make a dent on your homework, study, and not rape anyone.

I can relate to all that. I have had students who would come to class only once per week, or even less. And they didn't see anything wrong with that. The only time they saw a red light was when they got their grades.

Ah, but these kids sure can complain. They spend about five minutes composing their five-page papers the night before they’re due, and thus they read like the work of an illiterate immigrant. But this doesn’t stop them from bitching about their ineluctably lousy grade. If these lowlifes spent half as much time on their work as they did on their kvetching, they might actually earn decent scores. But, of course, they don’t care that much.

How many times have I experienced this!? Students who would have aced the course if they had put as much effort into studying as they did into bitching. I recall one student who got a low grade on a writing assignment because he didn't follow my instructions at all. He emailed me and told me that it was necessary to have at least a 3.0 GPA to become an army officer. He wantedme to "understand that". I emailed him back and asked him if his superiors in the army would want him to follow instructions?

Hatemonger has a great idea:

And this, dear reader, is where our fantastic potential product comes in. We call it the Professor’s Revenge Service, and we’re sure it’ll be bigger in academic circles than Foucault was in the 1980s.
So, what’s the Professor’s Revenge Service, and how does it work? Well, if a particular student drives you bonkers, all you must do is call up the Professor’s Revenge Service and pay our flat-rate fee. We at the service do all the rest.
That is to say, we agree to videotape your horrid student on his first post-graduation day at his first post-graduation job. We’ll send you a high-quality DVD of your former student in action at his new miserable occupation. You’ll take great pleasure as you watch him, in the inimitable words of Tom Lehrer, slide down the razor blade of life.

Suppression of Civil Liberties in Academia


Now, from Hamline University in Minnesota, we learn of how student Troy Scheffler has been suspended because he complained about Hamline's ban on concealed weapons and also about the university's racist 'affirmative action' program:

Troy fired off his response: Counseling wouldn't make students feel safer, he argued. They needed protection. And the best way to provide it would be for the university to lift its recently implemented prohibition against concealed weapons.
"Ironically, according to a few VA Tech forums, there are plenty of students complaining that this wouldn't have happened if the school wouldn't have banned their permits a few months ago," Scheffler wrote. "I just don't understand why leftists don't understand that criminals don't care about laws; that is why they're criminals. Maybe this school will reconsider its repression of law-abiding citizens' rights."
After stewing over the issue for two days, Scheffler sent a second email to University President Linda Hanson, reiterating his condemnation of the concealed carry ban and launching into a flood of complaints about campus diversity initiatives, which he considered reverse discrimination.
"In fact, three out of three students just in my class that are 'minorities' are planning on returning to Africa and all three are getting a free education on my dollar," Scheffler wrote with thinly veiled ire. "Please stop alienating the students who are working hard every day to pay their tuition. Maybe you can instruct your staff on sensitivity towards us 'privileged white folk.'"

As is well known, leftists can't stand it when someone challenges their dogma. They returned fire at Troy in no small way:

On April 23, Scheffler received a letter informing him he'd been placed on interim suspension. To be considered for readmittance, he'd have to pay for a psychological evaluation and undergo any treatment deemed necessary, then meet with the dean of students, who would ultimately decide whether Scheffler was fit to return to the university.
The consequences were severe. Scheffler wasn't allowed to participate in a final group project in his course on Human Resources Management, which will have a big impact on his final grade. Even if he's reinstated, the suspension will go on his permanent record, which could hurt the aspiring law student.
"'Oh, he's the crazy guy that they called the cops on.' How am I supposed to explain that to the Bar Association?" Scheffler asks.
He has also suffered embarrassment. Scheffler obeyed the campus ban and didn't go to class, but his classmate, Kenny Bucholz, told him a police officer was stationed outside the classroom. "He had a gun and everything," Bucholz says. Dean Julian Schuster appeared at the beginning of class to explain the presence of the cop, citing discipline problems with a student. Although Schuster never mentioned Scheffler by name, it didn't take a scholar to see whose desk was empty.

If this country were run by the likes of Linda Hanson or Kristen Murtaugh, it would be a totalitarian dictatorship with no civil liberties whatsoever.

I tried calling Linda Hanson, to get her thoughts on the matter. Her secretary said that she was in a meeting all day. Her phone number is 651-523-2022.

Hat tip to Protein Wisdom.

Vegan Parents Sentenced to Life in Prison for Starving Their Baby

Animal-rights 'activists' are some of the most messed-up people in the world. And now we hear of the ultimate depravity:

ATLANTA (AP) - A vegan couple were sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for the death of their malnourished 6-week-old baby boy, who was fed a diet largely consisting of soy milk and apple juice.
Superior Court Judge L.A. McConnell imposed the mandatory sentences on Jade Sanders, 27, and Lamont Thomas, 31. Their son, Crown Shakur, weighed just 3 1/2 pounds when he died of starvation on April 25, 2004.
The couple were found guilty May 2 of malice murder, felony murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children. A jury deliberated about seven hours before returning the guilty verdicts.
Defense lawyers said the first-time parents did the best they could while adhering to the lifestyle of vegans, who typically use no animal products. They said Sanders and Thomas did not realize the baby, who was born at home, was in danger until minutes before he died.
But prosecutors said the couple intentionally neglected their child and refused to take him to the doctor even as the baby's body wasted away.

I hope no one is fooled for one second that these 'activists' are nice people. They are nothing but scum.

Yet Another Socialist Brainfart

Jonathan Freedland, writing in the Guardian, laments the recent defeat of Segolene Royal in the French elections. I was also sad to see her lose, although for different reasons. But Mr. Freedland sees a silver lining in this cloud:

Yet there are some signs, tentative for now but noticeable all the same, that movement is under way even in the US, inside the belly of the capitalist beast. They come partly in reaction to the ever worsening state of inequality in that country. You can pick your stat, ranging from the claim that just two men - Bill Gates and Warren Buffett - have as much money between them as 30% of the entire American people......

America's politicians have begun to notice. The Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards speaks of the "two Americas". Barack Obama tells audiences that not only is caring for the poor an American tradition, but that "those with money, those with influence, those with control over how resources are allocated in our society, are very protective of their interests, and they can rationalise infinitely the reasons why they should have more money and power than anyone else".

Mr. Freedland mentions the great wealth of Messrs Gates and Buffett, but fails to note that these 'awakened' politicians: Edwards and Obama, are also very wealthy. Although not in the Gates/Buffett class, they are both certainly wealthier than 99.9% of all Americans.

There is a big difference in the manner in which these two pairs of men acquired their wealth. Bill Gates was a pioneer in the microcomputer revolution, building the world's most successful software company from scratch. He earned his wealth by offering people value for their money. Moreover, he has compensated his employees quite well, thousands of current and former Microsoft employees are millionaires.

Warren Buffett built his wealth through savvy investing. Using the vehicle of Berkshire Hathaway, which is essentially a closed-end mutual fund, Buffett repeatedly selected companies with winning strategies. By doing so he provided a valuable service to the US economy. His stock picks ensured that capital flowed to some of the most efficient and productive companies.

I cannot heap such praise on Edwards nor Obama. Both men earned their fortunes by acting as parasites on the US economy, not by providing value as Gates and Buffett did. Edwards earned his fortune as a trial attorney, winning huge legal fees through medical malpractice suits, thereby driving up the cost of health care for people who are not wealthy.

Obama became wealthy by trading political favors for money, often through complicated schemes like the Clintons did. In a previous post to this blog, I linked to the story of how Barack made money from Chicago slumlords who were supposed to provide housing for the poor, but actually ended up cheating people.

Thus, there are two types of wealthy people. Those who provide value to their customers and those who act as parasites. In the parasite group we can include Bill and Hillary Clinton, who traded political favors for money, sending their daughter to elite private schools like Sidwell Friends and Stanford, while the children of the poor are confined to ineffective and unsafe public schools.

Unfortunately, I must include President Bush in the parasite class too. He had little success as a businessman but then traded on his father's status as vice-president and then president to become wealthy. Fortunately he put a stop to it when he became governor of Texas and has also refrained from graft and corruption as president.

The problem is that simpletons like Freedland can't understand the difference between a Gates and an Obama. If the USA were run like the former Soviet Union, people like Obama and Edwards would be members of the 'nomenklatura', the privileged class, whereas people like Gates and Buffett would be imprisoned or executed as dissidents.

Stamp of the Week: Swedish Three Skilling Banco Orange Error

It's supposed to be blue-green

Mountain of the Week: Mt. Logan

Tallest mountain in Canada

Yet Another Nail in the Coffin of the Global Warming Fraud

Get a load of this:

Reid A. Bryson holds the 30th PhD in Meteorology granted in the history of American education. Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Meteorology—now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences—in the 1970s he became the first director of what’s now the UW’s Gaylord Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies. He’s a member of the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor—created, the U.N. says, to recognize “outstanding achievements in the protection and improvement of the environment.” He has authored five books and more than 230 other publications and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world.

And what does he have to say about the theory that human-induced CO2 emissions are causing global warming?

Q: Could you rank the things that have the most significant impact and where would you put carbon dioxide on the list?
A: Well let me give you one fact first. In the first 30 feet of the atmosphere, on the average, outward radiation from the Earth, which is what CO2 is supposed to affect, how much [of the reflected energy] is absorbed by water vapor? In the first 30 feet, 80 percent, okay?
Q: Eighty percent of the heat radiated back from the surface is absorbed in the first 30 feet by water vapor…
A: And how much is absorbed by carbon dioxide? Eight hundredths of one percent. One one-thousandth as important as water vapor. You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide.

Shhhhhh.... don't tell the lefties.... they'll probably try to outlaw spitting.

Hat tip to small dead animals.

What Causes Bush Derangement Syndrome?

The Belmont Club has an interesting analysis of the reason for the rabid hatred of President Bush:

This secret guilt may stand at the center of the inexplicable hysteria with which the Left regard the neocons and President Bush in particular. Recently a Ramussen poll showed that "only four in ten Democrats will commit to the idea that George Bush did not know of the 9/11 attack in advance. Sixty-one percent of them either believe he did or are unsure." What could account for such a widespread belief in a bizarre conspiracy theory? Why do otherwise intelligent people insist, in the face of incontrovertible evidence that "fire does not melt steel" and embrace all kinds of ridiculous fantasies? I think the extreme demonization of George W. Bush and the neocons is psychologically necessary in order to restore a feeling of moral superiority to the Leftist universe. They would be guilt stricken without it. The more intelligent Leftists must be subconsciously aware of how monstrous the enemy is and secretly cognizant of how great is the betrayal of their own ideals. They can't confront this fact; cannot accept that they are delivering children, as Caroline Glick's example above shows, to cruel murderers. And in order to obtain some kind of solace and to have the effrontery to march in support of "freedom fighters" who are nothing but sadistic thugs, it is necessary for them to invent something worse; to make a caricature devil of GWB to place them once again, if not upon the side of angels, at least in the camp of the lesser evil. George Bush must be made nothing less than the moral equivalent of Hitler or else their ethical universe would collapse.

Hat tip to Uncorrelated.

Mourning for Greensburg

By now, most have heard of the tornado that leveled Greensburg, Kansas on Friday. I feel a special connection to the town, because I often hunt pheasant in the area and have stayed in the town many times. The people there were always very hospitable and welcomed hunters.

Anyone who wants to help may send a contribution to Red Cross disaster relief fund, Midway-Kansas Chapter, PO Box 3726, Wichita, KS 67201, or see their website.

Segolene 'dares' France to elect a woman

Our sultry candidate for the privilege of being the first female de Gaulle has 'dared' her people to elect a woman

BUOYED by last-minute endorsements from popular centrist Francois Bayrou and the mouthpiece of the French elite, Le Monde newspaper, a confident Segolene Royal exhorted voters to "dare" to elect their first woman president in tomorrow's run-off battle for the Elysee Palace.

Hey Segolene, I dare you to wear a thong bikini to the beach.

Next President of France?

Sacre Bleu!

Moon of the Week: Europa

A photo taken recently by the New Horizons unmanned spacecraft. Europa is one of Jupiter's Big Four moons (it has a whole mess of little ones). With a diameter of 1,900 miles it is close to the earth's moon in size. Covered with ice, and probably a liquid ocean underneath.

New Horizons is passing by Jupiter, then it uses the planet's gravity as a slingshot to send it to Pluto, where it will arrive in 2015.

(Photos from NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)

Mountain of the Week: Vinson Massif

Tallest mountain in Antarctica

Hey Lawrence, is This Guy Immoral and Irrational, Too?

William Gray, a meteorological researcher at Colorado State University had this to say recently:

Speaking to a group of Republican MPs, Dr Gray had harsh words for researchers and politicians who said man-made greenhouse gases were responsible for global warming. "They are blaming it all on humans, which is crazy," he said.
"We're not the cause of it."

And Gray goes on further to say:

He said research arguing that humans were causing global warming was "mush" based on unreliable computer models that could not possibly take into account the hundreds of factors that influenced the weather.
He said little-understood ocean currents were behind a decades-long warming cycle, and disputed assertions that greenhouse gases could raise global temperatures as much as some scientists predicted.
"There's no way that doubling CO2 is going to cause that amount of warming," he said.

Better watch it, Mr. Gray. algore and Lawrence Summers might call you 'immoral'.

Another Clinton Administration Official Brainfarts

Lawrence Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration, tells us that those who question the global warming dogma are scum:

With the accumulation of scientific evidence and its persuasive presentation to the public, the global warming debate has reached a new stage. Those who still deny that human activity is warming the planet, or claim that “business as usual” can continue indefinitely without profoundly adverse consequences, are increasingly seen as the moral and intellectual equivalent of those who deny that tobacco has adverse consequences for human health.

Very good, Lawrence. Those of us who find the evidence unpersuasive are not just stupid, we are immoral. Not only that, we are irrational:

The real question for debate is not whether something should be done – that debate is over among the rational.

The arrogance of the left has no limits.

The Clintons are Liars? Perish the Thought!

Can you believe this? A reporter for the Financial Times actually entertains the thought that Hillary and her husband might not always tell the truth:

The book [by Carl Bernstein] could revive the explosive charge, made earlier this year by David Geffen, a former Clinton donor and Hollywood mogul, that “the Clintons lie with such ease, it’s troubling”.

"Explosive?" As if this is something new? The left and their sock puppets in the media never cease to amaze me. Bill and Hillary have been lying their asses off for years. Bill repeatedly claimed that the Republicans in congress were trying to 'cut' Medicare spending when they were actually increasing it. Bill claimed that his fiscal policies caused interest rates to fall during his term, when they were actually rising. Hillary claimed that she made her own cattle futures trades when they were actually made by Tyson attorney Jim Blair. And all throughout, the idiots on the left gave them a pass.

The only time that the yahoos ever noted that Bill was lying was in regards to Monica. They use that incident as a red herring issue whenever someone complains about the Clintons' disregard for the truth, as if Monica is the only issue that Bill or Hillary have ever lied about. How many times did we hear something like "everyone lies about sex"? When it comes to substantial issues like Medicare spending or the economy, the lefties lose all ability to distinguish between truth and fiction.

That is why I have nothing but contempt for the left. Some of them are simply idiots. Others are not, but they think that everyone else is an idiot and repeatedly lie to them and talk down to them. And both groups will swallow almost any lie that the Clintons tell them faster than Monica could swallow.

Mexifornia, Five Years Later

Victor Davis Hansen has a followup to his book Mexifornia, in City Journal:

Since Mexifornia appeared, the debate also no longer splits along liberal/conservative, Republican/Democrat, or even white/brown fault lines. Instead, class considerations more often divide Americans on the issue. The majority of middle-class and poor whites, Asians, African-Americans, and Hispanics wish to close the borders. They see few advantages to cheap service labor, since they are not so likely to need it to mow their lawns, watch their kids, or clean their houses. Because the less well-off eat out less often, use hotels infrequently, and don’t periodically remodel their homes, the advantages to the economy of inexpensive, off-the-books illegal-alien labor again are not so apparent.

As my readers may have noted, I generally side with the Republicans on most issues. But as concerns illegal immigration, the Republicans are every bit as much to blame as the Democrats on this issue.

These class divisions cut both ways, and they help explain the anomaly of the Wall Street Journal op-ed page mandarins echoing the arguments of the elite Chicano studies professors. Both tend to ridicule the far less affluent Minutemen and English-only activists, in part because they do not experience firsthand the problems associated with illegal immigration but instead find millions of aliens grist for their own contrasting agendas.

And this problem will only get worse. Perhaps to the point where we are forced to take matters into our own hands, no matter what the clowns in Washington say.

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

The Dutch bank, ABM Amro, is for sale. The management of the company want to sell to Barclay's, a British bank, for 64 billion euros.

The stockholders of ABN Amro are justifiably angry about this, because a consortium of banks lead by Royal Bank of Scotland has offered 72 billion euros!

So why do the management of ABN Amro want to take the lower offer? This is yet another case of corporate management acting in their own self-interest rather than those of the stockholders.

Sheryl Crow Calls for Limitations on Toilet Paper Use

This is too bizarre to even make up. Not even in my wildest dreams would I have thought that an oatmeal brain "artist" like this woman could come up with something like this:

Crow has suggested using "only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required".

There's not much more I can say. For those of us who want to persuade others to oppose the agenda of the environwacko/global warming fruitcakes, all we need to do is ask them to listen to people like Sheryl Crow.

Barack Obama Cozies Up With Chicago Slumlords

His Earness is a typical limousine liberal. He lives in luxury while his constituents live in squalor. He supports all these great socialist programs that supposedly help the poor while actually making them poorer and more dependent on the government. The Chicago Sun-Times has a revealing article about his relationship with two slumlords in Chicago:

For more than five weeks during the brutal winter of 1997, tenants shivered without heat in a government-subsidized apartment building on Chicago's South Side.
It was just four years after the landlords -- Antoin "Tony'' Rezko and his partner Daniel Mahru -- had rehabbed the 31-unit building in Englewood with a loan from Chicago taxpayers. Rezko and Mahru couldn't find money to get the heat back on.
But their company, Rezmar Corp., did come up with $1,000 to give to the political campaign fund of Barack Obama, the newly elected state senator whose district included the unheated building.

It gets even better:

Much of the criticism has centered on two real estate deals involving Obama's South Side mansion. In the first, Obama paid $300,000 less than the asking price for a doctor's home, while Rezko's wife paid the doctor full price for the vacant lot next door. Then -- a few months before Rezko was indicted -- Obama bought part of that lot from Rezko's wife.

This reminds me of Hillary's sweetheart deal with Tyson chicken and the way they funneled bribe money to her through the cattle futures trading.

Blacks in America have been sold down the river by the likes of Jesse Jackass and Al Sharpton. What they need is a leader who will show them the way to individual responsibility and personal achievement. They don't need another limousine liberal like Obama who only wants to keep them on the welfare/affirmative action/public school plantation.

Coin of the Week: Scottish bawbee of Charles II (1678)

This coin was issued during the period when Scotland and England were two separate countries but ruled by the same kings: The Stewarts of Scotland. I bought a coin similar to this one when I was in Edinburgh two weeks ago. This photo comes from David Parrish's website.

The inscriptions read "Carolus II Dei Gratia Scotorum, Angleterre, France, et Hibernia Rex" (Charles II King of Scotland, England, France, and Ireland by the Grace of God), and "Nemo Me Impune Lacessit" (Don't mess with me).

Mountain of the Week: Shisha Pangma

Found in Tibet. Also known as Gosainthan. This is the fourteenth-highest mountain in the world.

Paul Wolfowitz Gets Smeared by the Left

Our Heroes on the Left have always been quite good at falsely accusing or exaggerating alleged misdeeds of conservatives. Now they have another scalp on their belt. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page reports:

The paper trail shows that Mr. Wolfowitz had asked to recuse himself from matters related to his girlfriend, a longtime World Bank employee, before he signed his own employment contract. The bank's general counsel at the time, Roberto Danino, wrote in a May 27, 2005 letter to Mr. Wolfowitz's lawyers:
"First, I would like to acknowledge that Mr. Wolfowitz has disclosed to the Board, through you, that he has a pre-existing relationship with a Bank staff member, and that he proposes to resolve the conflict of interest in relation to Staff Rule 3.01, Paragraph 4.02 by recusing himself from all personnel matters and professional contact related to the staff member." (Our emphasis here and elsewhere.)
That would have settled the matter at any rational institution, given that his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, worked four reporting layers below the president in the bank hierarchy. But the bank board--composed of representatives from donor nations--decided to set up an ethics committee to investigate. And it was the ethics committee that concluded that Ms. Riza's job entailed a "de facto conflict of interest" that could only be resolved by her leaving the bank.
Ms. Riza was on a promotion list at the time, and so the bank's ethicists also proposed that she be compensated for this blow to her career. In a July 22, 2005, ethics committee discussion memo, Mr. Danino noted that "there would be two avenues here for promotion--an 'in situ' promotion to Grade GH for the staff member" and promotion through competitive selection to another position." Or, as an alternative, "The Bank can also decide, as part of settlement of claims, to offer an ad hoc salary increase."
Five days later, on July 27, ethics committee chairman Ad Melkert formally advised Mr. Wolfowitz in a memo that "the potential disruption of the staff member's career prospect will be recognized by an in situ promotion on the basis of her qualifying record . . ." In the same memo, Mr. Melkert recommends "that the President, with the General Counsel, communicates this advice" to the vice president for human resources "so as to implement" it immediately.
And in an August 8 letter, Mr. Melkert advised that the president get this done pronto: "The EC [ethics committee] cannot interact directly with staff member situations, hence Xavier [Coll, the human resources vice president] should act upon your instruction." Only then did Mr. Wolfowitz instruct Mr. Coll on the details of Ms. Riza's new job and pay raise.

The problem is that all this is too complicated for the simple-minded sheep who blindly follow the fuhrers of the left and their court jesters in the media. But it is clear to anyone who cares to consider at all the facts that Wolfowitz acted properly.

So why is he being smeared? He has made a great effort to hold the World Bank accountable for the money it loans to third world countries. He is taking some people off their gravy train, just like the invasion of Iraq took some people off the 'oil for food' scam.

I am increasingly learning that whenever the Left starts howling about corruption, its more likely necessary to investigate them, rather then whoever they are accusing.

You Knew This Was Coming

The victims of today's tragedy at Virginia Tech have not yet been laid to rest, but the gun control freaks are already using the incident as an excuse to further their sick, misguided political ideals. Here are just a few from:

The Independent (UK)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
CBS News
The Independent (again)
New York Times

Their names are legion, for they are many. And I am sure that there will be many, many more. They can barely disguise their glee over the dead students' bodies for this opportunity to restrict our most fundamental freedom.

But of course, one thing these massacre sluts don't bother to tell you is that Virginia Tech is a gun-free zone:

A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly.
House Bill 1572 didn't get through the House Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety. It died Monday in the subcommittee stage, the first of several hurdles bills must overcome before becoming laws.

Last spring a Virginia Tech student was disciplined for bringing a handgun to class, despite having a concealed handgun permit.

(Jan 31, 2006)

The only effect this ban had was to make the students unable to defend themselves against the murderer. Do these idiots really think that someone who is capable of murdering 33 people will really care what some gun control law says?

Don Ho: 1930 - 2007

Tiny bubbles

In the wine

Make me happy

Make me feel fine

Tiny bubbles

Make me warm all over

With a feeling that I'm gonna Love you till the end of time

R. I. P.

Blog of the Week: Uncorrelated

One of my favorite blogs. Some words of wisdom from their posts today:

The left might also want to pay attention since no cultural and political ideology has done more damage to the prospects of western nations than socialism and its attendant lunacies.

To which I say "Amen".

Mountain of the Week: Mt. McKinley

Castle of the Week: Dunluce

On the northern coast of Ireland. Can't you just imagine the stuff that happened there?

Charges Against Duke Lacrosse Players to Be Dropped

It's about time. The case never had half a leg to stand on. ABC News is reporting the charges will soon be dropped by the special prosecutors who replaced the race-baiter Nifong.

Wouldn't it be nice if those 88 professors at Duke who signed a petition condemning the innocent young men apologized? Don't hold your breath.

En Garde!

Trying out a sword at CarrickFergus castle, near Belfast. The balance was good but rather long to handle well.

I'm Back

I had a magnificent seven days in Scotland and Ireland. I wish I could have stayed longer.

Things have improved greatly in Belfast and the rest of Ulster since the days of the War. The DUP and UUP (Ulster Protestant parties) are about to enter into a coalition government with the IRA/Sinn Fein in a few weeks. The local economy is booming.

I am naturally an optimistic person, but in this case my optimism must be tempered with the reality of whom my kinsmen in Ulster are dealing with. This is a photo I took in the Catholic section of Belfast, last friday. The author of the graffiti is calling the Israelis "nazis" and showing support for Hamas and Hizbollah, two prominent muslim terrorist groups with whom the IRA have had dealings before.

The IRA are a group of homicidal maniacs, just like their islamofascist allies. They are a marxist group that tried their best to destroy society in Ulster in the 1970s and 1980s. Have they changed their minds? We shall see what we shall see.