THE NEXT HENDERSON PRIZE TO BE AWARDED JULY 4, 2008
Friday, August 31, 2007
Barking Good Political Cartoon
Posted by Alan at 11:30 PM | |
Tony Snow Resigns
Good luck battling that cancer, Tony. And hope you get to sub for Limbaugh again one of these days.
Labels: Politics
Today's Personal Insult
Labels: Economics
Thursday, August 30, 2007
NFL Predictions
I hope Cowboys coach Wade Phillips realizes that those Jedi mind tricks don't work against Washington...
Bad News For Democrats
Posted by Alan at 8:55 AM | |
Attorney General Scorecard
Labels: Politics
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Did Larry Craig Break The Law?
Affirmative Action Means Fewer Black Lawyers
Posted by Alan at 8:10 AM | |
Holy Land Foundation Criminal Case Update
Labels: Crime, War on Terror
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
I Wonder How Many Other Liberals Would Find This Many Nice Things To Say About Bush?
In an interview with Conde Nast Traveler magazine now hitting newsstands, Clinton said Bush "has done three things that I think the world generally approved of: restoring cooperation with the Latin American countries, making a diplomatic agreement with North Korea instead of continuing to have a frigid standoff, and sending Americans to the conference to discuss the future of Iraq with the Iranians and Syrians.
"Those are, all three, things that signify we're trying to do better in the world."
...
Clinton also praised Bush for pressing for an end to the genocide in Darfur, and for seeking changes in the requirement that food for emergency assistance be purchased and shipped from the U.S.
Labels: Politics
Headline Du Jour
Posted by Alan at 12:12 PM | |
Phrase For The Day
Monday, August 27, 2007
You Doity Rat
Wait a minute, Hamas kiddie show icon Farfour was a rat...
Labels: Middle East, War on Terror
Blogging the Qur'an: Sura 4, "Women," verses 17-34
Click the "Koran" label to see all my posts on this series.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Quote Of The Day
- Cecil Trotter, in comments to this Rand Simberg post
Labels: Culture
Saturday, August 25, 2007
What A Wonderful World
Posted by Alan at 12:40 AM | |
Friday, August 24, 2007
Vietnam Quotes
Posted by Alan at 11:50 PM | |
Cool Architecture
(In the original I hyperlinked only the Argonath.)
Labels: Cool stuff
Thursday, August 23, 2007
More Musical Assaults From Europe
Posted by Alan at 9:30 AM | |
Who Has The Highest Cancer Survival Rates In Europe?
Labels: Politics
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
War On Tobacco Advances
Smoking will be illegal in most public places, including restaurants. The exceptions will be bars, bingo halls, retail tobacco stores, designated hotel rooms, outdoor patios at restaurants, sexually oriented businesses and private clubs such as fraternal organizations.
The city won't add inspectors to enforce the rules, and Public Health Director Dan Reimer said last week that the city will probably respond to possible violations only if someone makes a complaint.
The ordinance defines a bar as any establishment that gets at least 70 percent of its sales from alcohol.
Labels: Politics
Hasta La Vista, Baby
I have a question for that church. We know that the Bible says believers must submit to all authority, including that of the State. But there's a notable exception: when the State exercises authority it does not rightfully have. Rightful civil disobedience is a common theme to books such as Daniel and Acts. Tell me, what command of God do immigration controls violate?
Labels: Crime
Headline Du Jour
Posted by Alan at 7:25 AM | |
Monday, August 20, 2007
Ted Nugent For Michigan Governor?
Labels: Politics
Blogging the Qur'an: Sura 4, "Women," verses 1-16
Spencer begins by tearing down the claim that "Islam recognizes the full human dignity of women." Its proponents cite as evidence the beginning verse, which states that man and woman were created from a single soul. But do those two creations have equal worth? A certain hadith says no:
Next up is polygamy. Verse 3 instructs that men be allowed to take as many as four wives. This highlights one of the distinctions between Christianity and Islam. Christianity claims that God originally intended marriage to consist of one man and one woman (Genesis 2:24), but allowed some legal leeway for a time. He did not intervene to force his agents to disband their polygamous marriages, and the Law of Moses provides some allowance of the practice. What the law allows is not always good for us; the OT is replete with examples of the destructiveness of polygamy - Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon, to name a few noteworthy examples. Jesus preached God's original intent for marriage, directly quoting Genesis 2:24. GotQuestions.org has an excellent article on this issue.
Islam has to invent a different Jesus for him to serve as a prophet of that faith. Why teach marriage in exclusively monogamous terms if the last and greatest prophet Mohammed will be coming down the pike in a few centuries to preach that polygamy has a proper place?
Other topics include inheritance guidelines punishments for immorality.
Click the "Koran" label to see all my posts on this series.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
25 World's Weirdest Animals
I think some of these look like they should be Pokemón critters:
- Axolotl
- Dumbo Octopus
- Blobfish
- Platypus (mammalian cousin to Psyduck?)
- Shoebill
- Yeti Crab
Labels: Curiosities
Friday, August 17, 2007
I Could Get In Trouble For This
"Not only are we going to the Antilles, we're going to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and Haiti and Cuba and the Caymans, and we're going to Yucatan and Texas and Louisiana. And we're going to Arkansas and Tennessee and Kentucky and Virginia, and then we're going to Washington, D.C., to tear down the White House! YEEEARRGH"
(Cultural reference, for those who need a reminder.)
Coincidentally, my hurricane namesake followed a path similar to that projected for Dean.
Full disclosure: I lived in hurricane-prone areas for 27 years of my life, and recall running from two of the storms.
Labels: Humor
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Rush vs. Hillary
- Rush Limbaugh (from his radio show years ago, quoted from memory), expressing the desire that government leave us alone and let us run our own lives.
"As I travel around America, I hear from so many people who feel like they're just invisible to their government."
- Hillary Clinton, expressing the desire that government keep a close eye on us and intervene to fix all our problems according to government prescriptions.
Labels: Politics
A Song Dedication For Merv
Monday, August 13, 2007
Blogging the Qur'an: Sura 3, "The Family of Imran," verses 121-200
Click the "Koran" label to see all my posts on this series.
Karl Rove Resigns
Labels: Politics
Merv Griffin (1925-2007)
I never watched his talk show (his competition was pretty stiff), but I spent many many hours watching Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Two of the best game shows around.
Many condolences for his friends and family.
Labels: Entertainment, Obituaries
Friday, August 10, 2007
Party Time
My question for the weekend is, if you were organising a dinner party and could invite six famous people around, alive or deceased, who would you pick?
Here are my choices:
Rush H. Limbaugh III
Thomas Sowell
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Thomas Jefferson
John Locke
Samuel Rutherford
Labels: Curiosities
A Southern Man Don't Need Them Around
Labels: Music
NASA Revises US Warming Data
- This is not the end but the beginning of the total reexamination that needs to occur of the USHCN and GISS data bases. The poor correction for site location and urbanization are still huge issues that bias recent numbers upwards. The GISS also has issues with how it aggregates multiple stations, apparently averaging known good stations with bad stations a process that by no means eliminates biases. As a first step, we must demand that NOAA and GISS release their methodology and computer algorithms to the general public for detailed scrutiny by other scientists.
- The GISS today makes it clear that these adjustments only affect US data and do not change any of their conclusions about worldwide data. But consider this: For all of its faults, the US has the most robust historical climate network in the world. If we have these problems, what would we find in the data from, say, China? And the US and parts of Europe are the only major parts of the world that actually have 100 years of data at rural locations. No one was measuring temperature reliably in rural China or Paraguay or the Congo in 1900. That means much of the world is relying on urban temperature measurement points that have substantial biases from urban heat.
- All of these necessary revisions to surface temperatures will likely not make warming trends go away completely. What it may do is bring the warming down to match the much lower satellite measured warming numbers we have, and will make current warming look more like past natural warming trends (e.g. early in this century) rather than a catastrophe created by man. In my global warming book, I argue that future man-made warming probably will exist, but will be more like a half to one degree over the coming decades than the media-hyped numbers that are ten times higher.
I am curious about one thing: assuming the data are correct (a claim which Coyote Blog's second point challenges), why are the warming trends far less acute in the US than in the world at large? Contrast the global and contiguous 48 US states temperature anomaly graphs.
Whoa, hold on a sec. NASA's global chart says the global temperature anomaly peaked in 2004. But the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorological Office (the source for Wikipedia's chart) says the global anomaly peaked in 1998, the same year it peaked in North America. Who's right?
Labels: Science
An Anniversary For Guitarists
Update: Fender Guitar Factory Tour, hosted by John Ratzenberger
Labels: Culture
Thursday, August 09, 2007
"Parade Of Victims"
MAN #1: After serving in Iraq for a year, I came home to find that my factory job at Maytag had closed and moved to Mexico. What will you do to keep manufacturing jobs like mine from leaving the country?
This question has two right answers, and Rush gave one of them:
It should not have come as a surprise to anybody that American corporations are relocating elsewhere. It is going to continue to happen. I have discussed this with many people. They have had similar things happen. This is no different than being fired in late life when your corporation still exists. I mean, it is what it is! You face reality. You have to go out and try to find something else to do. You are far more capable of doing other things than you probably believe, and what my job as president is going to be is to help inspire you and as many people in this country to assume the mantle of greatness the population in this country requires if we are to maintain it. We can all sit around and whine and moan what happened to us, but after a while, we have to get busy getting serious about the next phase of our lives.
Rush should have added something like this: "While there is nothing that government can do to change the fact that markets constantly change and thus jobs are inevitably lost in the wake of such changes, there is something that government can do to reduce the amount of overall job loss in this economy. We can reduce the excessive taxes and the excessive regulatory restrictions that discourage business startups and injure the profitability of existing businesses."
Labels: Politics
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Sis Boom Baa!
(Carnac the Magnificent reference)
Labels: War on Terror
SIx Candles
Labels: Blogs
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Did He Say Which Country's Military Voters Support Hillary?
Former President Bill Clinton says his wife has strong support among military voters and that the Democratic presidential candidate is up to the task of rebuilding the nation's military after years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I think she will do better than you think (with military voters) because she has an enormous amount of allies around the country in the military," Clinton told The Associated Press on Monday night following a private, $2,300-a-plate fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Florida Panhandle.
Labels: Politics
Blogging the Qur'an: Sura 3, "The Family of Imran," verses 64-120
Ironically, the book condemns the Jews for implementing legalistic dietary laws. For those of you who brought your Korans, turn to today's chapter, and read verses 93-95:
All food was lawful to the Children of Israel, except what Israel Made unlawful for itself, before the Law (of Moses) was revealed. Say: "Bring ye the Law and study it, if ye be men of truth."
If any, after this, invent a lie and attribute it to Allah, they are indeed unjust wrong-doers.
Say: "Allah speaketh the Truth: follow the religion of Abraham, the sane in faith; he was not of the Pagans."
Click the "Koran" label to see all my posts on this series.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Taking The Day Off
Labels: Blog
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Don't Flush That Koran!
Should someone named Ham be allowed to touch a Koran?
Labels: Humor
Low Approval Ratings
Posted by Alan at 12:40 AM | |
Friday, August 03, 2007
Ban The Burqa And The Niqab?
British research offers another reason to drop the burqa and niqab, finding that covered women and their breast-fed children lack sufficient amounts of vitamin D (which the skin absorbs from sunlight) and are at serious risk of rickets.
Is there a parallel in American culture that gives us a clue as to whether this is a good idea? Nuns' habits dont' count, because they don't cover the face. Klan hoods cover the face, though. Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan v. Kerik upheld a New York State statute that prohibits certain public mask-wearing:
S 240.35 Loitering.
A person is guilty of loitering when he:
...
4. Being masked or in any manner disguised by unusual or unnatural attire or facial alteration, loiters, remains or congregates in a public place with other persons so masked or disguised, or knowingly permits or aids persons so masked or disguised to congregate in a public place; except that such conduct is not unlawful when it occurs in connection with a masquerade party or like entertainment if, when such entertainment is held in a city which has promulgated regulations in connection with such affairs, permission is first obtained from the police or other appropriate authorities;
Burqas and niqabs appear to violate the law, since they are not worn for entertainment purposes.
In a 2004 FindLaw article, Rutgers lawprof Sherry F. Colb stated her objections:
In particular, the opinion was wrong to reject the Klan's First Amendment claim that masks constitute symbolic speech. And it was also wrong to reject the notion that an organization's members have a right to anonymity that might include appearing in public wearing masks.
I am an originalist, thus I reject the first claim. "Speech" is what every human in the late 1700s defined as speech: verbalized expression. If the Free Speech Clause were so broad as to cover even nonspoken expression, then the clauses protecting freedoms of the press, religious exercise, and redress of grievances against the government would all be redundant. In fact, just about every human activity can be interpreted as expression.
As for the latter claim, there is no Constitutional right to public disguise. That is an issue for legislators, not judges.
I suspect that the NY law also had in mind ski masks. Pipes' chief argument is the disguise-for-criminals concern; he cites specific examples of Islamic dress being used in such manner, and could bolster his case by noting that the burqa and niqab do not draw as much suspicion as the ski mask, making them a superior disguise. However, I suspect that if face-enclosing Islamic wear were criminalized, crooks would find other ways to disguise themselves without drawing attention. A mere hat and sunglasses hide a lot.
Labels: Law
CAIR's Ties To Terror
Posted by Alan at 8:40 AM | |
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
19 Candles
Update: Rush on why the 19th anniversary is such a big deal.
[RUSH:] I want to bring in a special guest, ladies and gentlemen, to explain the significance. Everybody thinks the 20th anniversary is going to be the big blowout, and of course it will. But the 19th anniversary is no slouch. We have an expert to explain the significance of the 19th anniversary of the EIB Network.
FARRAKHAN: In the background is the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorial. Each one of these monuments is 19 feet high. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president, Thomas Jefferson, the third president. And 16 and three make 19 again. What is so deep about this number 19? Why are we standing on the Capitol steps today? That number 19, when you have a nine, you have a womb that is pregnant, and when you have a one standing by the nine, it means that there's something secret that has to be unfolded. Abraham Lincoln's statute, 19 feet high, 19 feet wide. Jefferson, 19 feet high, 16, and the third president, 19, standing on the steps of the Capitol, in the light of the sun, offering life to a people who are dead.
RUSH: And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the significance of the 19th anniversary of the EIB Network. That was, of course, special guest, Calypso Louie, Minister Farrakhan, that's from the million man March, October 16th of 1995.
Labels: Media
716 Candles
Posted by Alan at 11:00 AM | |
