Optomism About the Middle East

With all the fuss and bluster about the Israeli fight for life going on, this sounds good.

Looking at the many countries who are, for a change, siding with Israel here I'm beginning to think that what's unfolding now is something that was prepared for, as part of the next stage in the war on terror -- isolating terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and punishing their patrons like Syria and Iran. If I'm right, that will be very good for the Lebanese, and, eventually, for pretty much everyone in the Mideast except jihadist loonies and their backers. I hope that's true, anyway.

LA Real Estate Sizzles

Zillow.com is your source for details about your neighbor's house - or the market in general. Here they compile property values in LA from hot to cool. If you prefer San Francisco, then go here.

Counting Votes Leading to $3 Gas

Starting with Carter, and including Clinton and the current Congress, the blame for three bucks a gallon gas lies with Democrats whose energy policy has been limited to punishing those who look for more of it.

The rest at Investor's Business Daily.

Don't Be Discouraged

Thomas Sowell says we are winning.

Forget Global Warming

Here is something serious to worry about.

The Earth could be about to turn upside down. The planet's magnetic field is showing signs of wanting to make a gigantic somersault, so that magnetic north heads towards Antarctica, and magnetic south goes north. Compasses will point the wrong way, and migrating birds, fish and turtles are going to be very confused.

Some experts have stuck their necks out to predict that we can expect the next reversal some time in the next 2,000 years. The process would probably then take anything between 100 and a few thousand years - not even a blink in the history of Earth. We can only guess what life would be like during that reversal. Anyone trying to navigate with a magnetic compass is going to have a tough time, but what is going to happen to all those birds, fish and other animals that migrate vast distances using their own internal magnetic compass? Will they have time to re-draw their magnetic maps and get new bearings?

The whole story here.

Nanny State Wrong Again

It's another summer weekend, when millions of families pack up the minivan or SUV and hit the road. So this is also an apt moment to trumpet some good, and underreported, news: Driving on the highways is safer today than ever before.

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

It didn't happen that way.

Free Minnesota

Whether Ed Felien is the Pulse of Minnesota or whether he is just feeling up the Pulse of Minnesota is unclear from out here in California but he proposes a new Declaration of Independence for blue states like Minnesota. After the preliminaries, he begins:

The people of Minnesota have a long list of unresolved grievances against this President and his compliant Congress and Supreme Court.

and concludes:

Therefore, be it resolved, we shall seek all peaceful and nonviolent means to disaster

You can fill in the blanks here.

At Least It's Not from Drilling

Musk oxen, the shaggy ice age relics that once vanished from Alaska, are dying in big numbers on the North Slope.

Mysterious deaths for the reintroduced musk oxen in Alaska - but only in ANWR.
Details in the Anchorage Daily News.

What Mexico Does Right

There are problems a'plenty south of the border but when it comes to elections Mexico scores a 10.

This city was voting to fill six seats, including that of the president and the mayor. Voters presented identification cards and were handed six large ballots, one for each open office. The names of candidates were also color-coded to assist the illiterate. Voting booths were small, waist-high writing tables enclosed by hanging plastic sheets printed with the reassuring words, "The vote is free and secret." Voters emerged from the booths, folded the ballots and slid each one into the box corresponding to the contested seat. To complete the process, thumbs were marked with indelible ink and ID cards were returned. Observers from each party monitored the flow.

I wonder why it's ok to show an ID to vote in Mexico but not here?

Danish Justice

Here is more evidence that the Danes take the defence of their principles seriously.

This week, for the very first time, a court in Europe sentenced nine members of the same family for the honour killing of a female relative.

Insanity Continued

Earlier I posted on the refusal of our national leaders to see that continuing the denial fpr any form of energy exploration in the US can only cause continued dependence on foreign energy. Here is an example of the convoluted reasoning that leads to this situation. Southern Californians are very aware of the decades-long effort to restore the condor to its historic place in the skies. They aren't very beautiful birds, particularly up close, but they are big and endangered. Now with a proposal to drill for oil in a tiny portion of the Los Padres National Forrest, we learn that the red legged frog, the steel head trout and the beloved condor may be affected. Therefore we should do nothing to make that oil available. And so it goes everywhere drilling is proposed. No matter how small the area affected, no matter how trivial the threat, we hear that this drilling must be stopped. From the LA Weekly, an example of how our energy policy is foiled by well-meaning people who understand threats to nature but not to their future.

The Definition of Insanity

..is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. In yet another example of the insanity of our elected leadership, let's look at our energy dependence. What should we be doing? Actually using oil and gas we know exists in the US might seem obvious.

Pierre DuPont calls it an adiction to regulation.

So expanding America's energy production is the obvious priority. Common sense would suggest that we should begin tapping into the estimated 102 billion barrels of oil sitting under America's Outer Continental Shelf and in Alaska. That domestic supply could replace America's importation of foreign oil for some 25 years.

But what we see from Congress is a continuation of the past 25 years blocking any new drilling.

But our country's political establishment, from Congress to the press and the presidency, has worked for a quarter century to prevent increases in our energy supply.

And they are not about to stop now even though these policies take us farther and raather away from energy indepence.

Technorati Tag Congress energy

Who Watches Soccer in the US?

It's apparently the American intellectual.

Soccer has become a favorite pastime of the American intellectual. "Many people would say that soccer is the latte or the Subaru of the sporting spectrum," says Matt Weiland, who, with Sean Wilsey, is co-editor of The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, a new compilation that reads like a roll call of the soccer intelligentsia.

And Laer thinks he know why.

Yeah, all well and good, but if you as me (and since you're reading this, I guess you have) it's really just the intellectual elites' herd mentality. They won't admit to it, of course, but they are social wildebeasts, thundering along in tight packs of each other, swinging this way and that with remarkable unity. Today, they're hoofing for the World Cup.

Haircut courtesy of The Manolo

Technorati Tag world cup style

Bad News for Lincoln?

From the Providence Journal June 17:

More than 14,500 Rhode Island Democrats have switched their voter affiliations within the past six months to participate in the Sept. 12 Republican primary, a figure that experts say will probably help incumbent Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee in his campaign against Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey.

Anchor Rising has more.

Technorati Tag lincoln chaffee RINO

Lincoln Chaffee - Primary Update

Rhode Island bloggers sense desperation in the Chafee Republican primary campaign for reelection to his Senate seat. Chaffee is the quinessential RINO, opposing Republican posistions andjudicial nominations with impunity from Republican leadership and receiving money from the Senate Republican Committee while making a mockery of the Republican platform. Anchor Rising notes the lies that Chaffee is using in his campain against Steve Laffey for the Republican nomination. And check out the comments.

Technorati Tag lincoln chaffee RINO

Airbus Loses Altitude

Airbus is undoubtedly losing altitude while Boeing is gaining. In the past 18 months, for example, Boeing has been winning more new orders in the long-haul market. It is the success of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner that is forcing Airbus to move to an all-new design for its A350 passenger jet.

Meanwhile the 380 is requiring major overhauls at airports it will service. Read about it at the Financial Times.

Home Schooling Under Siege

Brussells Journal editor threatened with prosecution over homeschooling his child. It seems the Belgians regard homeschooling as parental neglect.

A chilling quote from his wife's post.

The fact that a growing group of children seems to be escaping from the government’s influence clearly bothers the authorities. Three years ago a new school bill was introduced. The new bill refers to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and it obliges homeschooling parents to fill out a questionaire and sign an official "declaration of homeschooling" in which they agree to school their children "respecting the respect [sic] for the fundamental human rights and the cultural values of the child itself and of others."

Technorati Tag home schooling

Up With Whole Foods

For years I avoided Whole Foods Market. I refuse to pay more for ugly organic produce and am repulsed by eco-freaks. One trip to Whole Foods, however, turned me around. The organic produce wasn't ugly. They have great fish - most markets fish is marginal- and gorgeous meats. They have bakery goods and prepared meals to take out and the stores are beautiful. So I shoped at Whole Foods until I moved 25 miles away from the only store in Sacramento. I never felt good about shopping there because I did not want to provide funds for crazy people. I refuse to eat Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream even though I know that the two lefties who started it sold out. Well now I feel better about Whole Foods.

On May 13, 2004, John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, spoke at FreedomFest in Las Vegas. He defended business and explained his path from lefty to the dark side.

Were we profitable? Not at first. Safer Way managed to lose half of its capital in the first year — $23,000. Despite the loss, we were still accused of exploiting our customers with high prices and our employees with low wages. The investors weren't making a profit and we had no money to donate. Plus, with our losses, we paid no taxes. I had somehow joined the "dark side" — I was now one of the bad guys. According to the perspective of the Left, I had become a greedy and selfish businessman. At this point, I rationally chose to abandon the leftist philosophy of my youth, because it no longer adequately explained how the world really worked.

Read the whole thing and head right over to Whole Foods.

HT Right Wing News

The Legalistic Left

Jay Tea has some thoughts about the left's dependence on the legal system for it's victories. He concludes with this comment about viewing the war through legal glasses:

the legalistic model for the war on terror is a comforting one. It is reassuring to think that no matter what happens, justice will prevail. That there is always a calm, reasoned, civilized venue for the settling of grievances. That the law is supreme, and that all men and women are equal before the bench.

Congress is Mad

Not angy mad but insane mad. They dither and rant about energy dependency on foreign oil and refuse to drill for the oil we know is here. No other country in the world is this crazy. Paul Dreissen compiles the insanity.

Canada is drilling in the Great Lakes. China and Cuba are planning to drill 45 miles off the Florida coast. In 60 years of drilling off our shores, there has only been one accident where significant oil reached shore (1969 off Santa Barbara). We cle
arly need the oil and gas. And yet Congress won’t budge.

But the governor of Oregon has the solution. It's the CAFE standards. All we have to do is legislate them higher and then nobody can buy anything but econoboxes