political-correctness : Duthie On...

The By Any Means Necessary strategy...don't let the people vote:

"The key to defeating the initiative is to keep it off the ballot in the first place. That's the only way we're going to win," said Donna Stern, Midwest director for the Detroit-based By Any Means Necessary.

There's something intensely wrong about groups that do not trust voters to decide issues, and it's no surprise that these groups are almost uniformly on the political left. Unlike most of her peers, Stern openly acknowledges that her preferred policy will fail at the ballot box, so the solution is to prevent that from happening. And in the process, they'll smear Ward Connerly, and assert that he's lying to petition signers:

"They ask people, 'Would you like to sign a petition to eliminate discrimination in Nebraska?'" Kramer said. "Well, gee, I don't know anybody who would be against that. It's such an offensive way to go about it."

Well, since the ballot initiatives that Connerly's group is pushing would "ban public agencies — including the University of Nebraska and state and local governments — from considering race, ethnicity or gender when hiring, selecting contractors or enrolling students" it seems to me that the question above is an entirely accurate way of putting it, which is why the bans are successful when put before voters. And also why folks like BAMN are terrified of them.

It is long past time that we stop using discrimination to right wrongs of the past. Affirmative action is discrimination that punishes the innocent, and does not help its purported beneficiaries. It is unjust, and it should end. Where racial or gender discrimination remains, let those guilty of it be punished under the law. But stop using discrimination to justify more discrimination, and lying and suppressing democratic action as a means of continuing an unjust policy.

Omaha.com Elections Section

Never mind that this guy wasn't elected, but is only governor because his predecessor had to resign in shame, nevermind that neither Paterson nor Spitzer ran on a promise to legalize gay marriage, and most of all, never mind asking the citizens of New York what they want:

David Paterson has unilaterally declared New York a gay-marriage-friendly state:

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Gay rights advocates had reason to celebrate on both coasts Thursday, with New York set to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere and California preparing to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples on June 17.

Hours after California issued a directive Wednesday authorizing that date, word came that New York Gov. David Paterson instructed state agencies — including those governing insurance and health care — to immediately change policies and regulations to recognize gay marriages.

Even if you're a supporter of gay marriage...is this really the way you want it implemented? By fiat? In a way that's almost guaranteed to generate far more opposition than if it was done through democratic means? I don't support gay marriage, but if the voters of New York or California, or wherever chose to implement that, that's their right in a federalist system. But in California (and other states before it) it's judges making the decisions, and now in NY it's the governor. What about the people? Don't they get a say in whether or not we completely redefine one of the bedrock institutions of society? Guess not.

The Corner on National Review Online

A powerful indictment of CO2 restrictions as a means to combat "climate change":

It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.

Read the whole thing, in particular the list of signatories, which includes several IPCC reviewers. Wonder why their opinions didn't make it into the Summary for Policymakers? Oh yeah, that's right, because the summary is written by policy wonks, not scientists, and the wonks are bound and determined to hype the so-called "climate crisis" at all costs. Yeah...OK.

Don't fight, adapt

Chictivism (shēk'tə-vĭz'əm)

n.

1. the fashionable support of a particular political or charitable cause
2. the attempt to improve ones social status with peers through political activism

see chictivist, Tibet, ribbons

There's so much wrong with this story that it's hard to know where to begin:

A powerful federal arts commission is urging that the sculpture of Martin Luther King Jr. proposed for a memorial on the Tidal Basin be reworked because it is too "confrontational" and reminiscent of political art in totalitarian states.

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts thinks "the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed statue recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries," commission secretary Thomas Luebke said in a letter in April.

By law, no project like the memorial can go forward without approval from the commission, the federal agency that advises the government on public design and aesthetics in the capital.

A model of the statue has been built in China. The project's chief architect, Ed Jackson Jr., huddled with advisers this week in Ann Arbor, Mich., to discuss ways to address the commission's objections before sculpting of the granite statue begins.

One question I have is why we need a "U.S. Commisson of Fine Arts" in the first place. But more shocking and important is the question of what on earth the foundation building the King memorial is thinking by having the statue built in China by a sculptor with a lifelong stipend from the Chinese Communist government. Should it be surprising to anyone that such a sculpture done by a man living on the payroll of a totalitarian government would be "reminiscent of political art in totalitarian states?" Well, duh!

The issue, however, should be less about the aesthetics of the design, and more about the message that is sent when you have a monument to a man who was dedicated to freedom being created in a place that is one of the least free places on earth, by a man in the employ of a totalitarian government. Sculptor Lei Yixin may be a fine artist, and perhaps he secretly yearns for a free China as I'm sure many Chinese do. But according to the story he's "known for his monumental works of figures such as Mao Zedong..." To me, that should've been a red flag, so to speak.

Perhaps this commission is trying to remedy that situation through the only tools they have. But it seems to me that the Chinese communist government has already been handed a propaganda victory here. They can claim with great pride that their house sculptor was chosen to memorialize King, and that there's no way that would happen if the lies others keep telling about their human rights record were true.

Really sad...and where are the donors who put up the money for this memorial? Why aren't they outraged?

Unhappy With 'Confrontational' Image, U.S. Panel Wants King Statue Reworked

Guess I won't be shopping at Whole Foods anytime soon:

Whole Foods Market won't offer plastic shopping bags at their stores after Earth Day this year. It is a savvy move for the upscale natural foods retailer, who estimates that by the end of the year the policy will have averted use of 100 million new plastic grocery bags at their 270 stores. It won't save the company any money-since the paper and multi-use bags that will replace plastic bags at their stores cost more to manufacture, stock and handle-but it is a savvy public relations move that will likely help to soothe the guilty environmental consciences of devoted Whole Foods shoppers who, like most Americans, believe paper bags are environmentally superior to plastic bags.

Unfortunately, the reality is that paper isn't better than plastic.

What's sad about this is that Whole Foods, which is run by a Libertarian, is now limiting the choices of their customers in a way that's likely to be harmful to the environment, because it plays to their incorrect preconceptions about which choice is better for the environment. While it's not surprising to see a company go for the easy profit rather than educate their customers, it's disappointing nonetheless.

Reason Foundation Commentary: Paper Grocery Bags Require More Energy Than Plastic Bags

Who would have predicted this:

Compact fluorescent light bulbs, long touted by environmentalists as a more efficient and longer-lasting alternative to the incandescent bulbs that have lighted homes for more than a century, are running into resistance from waste industry officials and some environmental scientists, who warn that the bulbs’ poisonous innards pose a bigger threat to health and the environment than previously thought.

Oh yeah, that's right...I did, almost a year ago:

So it seems to me that even granting the best possible assumptions for CFL supporters we are going to end up trading mercury emissions in US coal-fired plants for:

1. Mercury emissions from Chinese coal-fired plants
2. Mercury pollution at CFL facilities in China
3. Mercury pollution in the US waste stream

This just doesn't seem like a wise trade-off to me.

The article notes:

As long as the mercury is contained in the bulb, CFLs are perfectly safe. But eventually, any bulbs — even CFLs — break or burn out, and most consumers simply throw them out in the trash, said Ellen Silbergeld, a professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins University and editor of the journal Environmental Research.

“This is an enormous amount of mercury that’s going to enter the waste stream at present with no preparation for it,” she said.

Welcome to the party, folks.

Oh, and make sure to read the sidebar to the article, too, which contains the 11-step process the EPA recommends for cleanup after a CFL breaks. Thanks, but not in this house, at least not until the federal ban on incandescent bulbs kicks in.

One last thing...the article doesn't do the math, but here's an interesting quote:

Consumers bought more than 300 million CFLs last year, according to industry figures, but they may be simply trading one problem (low energy-efficiency) for another (hazardous materials by the millions of pounds going right into the earth).

Let's see...5 milligrams of mercury per bulb (.005 grams) x 300,000,000 bulbs is about 1.5 million grams of mercury, or 1,500 kilograms. That's one and a half tons of mercury that may potentially enter the waste stream or end up elsewhere in the environment. And that's before the federal ban on incandescent bulbs takes effect. That's a lot of mercury to trade for warming that may not even be happening anymore.

Shining a light on fluorescent bulbs - Environment- msnbc.com

Good for The Daily Show for taking on more than just conservative targets:

How can you possibly out-parody the self-parody that is Code Pink? The final moment of the video is just hysterical, and so representative of the clue-free nature of this debate. Also watch for the lib answer to the question, "so if we got rid of the police, we wouldn't have crime? (around 3:50). Priceless."

 Oops:

Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming
Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here.  The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Excuse me if I don't hold my breath for the New York Times headline on this, or for the Nobel committee to ask for AlGore's prize back.

DailyTech - Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling

This time, it's the U.S. Naval Academy, which is considering overhauling a traditional ritual contest in the name of "safety".

The Herndon Climb, which involves a "thousand first-year midshipmen struggl[ing] to conquer a 21-foot granite obelisk coated with 200 pounds of lard," has been a part of the academy for many years, but may now be revised "with...safety in mind."

As many of those interviewed for the story point out, it's rather absurd to obsess about the safety of a traditional contest in a school that prepares sailors to go to war. Oddly enough, no one other than the academy spokeswoman had anything approving to say about the move.

When even the Washington Post can't manage to find someone with something good to say about your politically correct idea, it's time to reconsider. Let's hope the Naval Academy does just that.

Is this what our future holds?

Robin Page compensated over 'race' arrest

A 64 year-old man was arrested for a "hate crime" for making a smart-ass remark at a country fair. It took 5 years and the use of the UK equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act for him to clear his name.

Bacon gift to Muslim officer costs Pc's job

A police officer, during a "secret santa" exchange, gave one of his fellow officers, who is a muslim, a pack of bacon and a bottle of wine as a joke. Granted, the joke was arguably in poor taste, but the recipient took it as intended, as a joke, and told superiors that he didn't have any interest in filing a complaint. Nonetheless, the officer was forced to resign. Not reprimanded. Not warned. Forced to resign. Over a gag, and one that the recipient didn't appear terribly bothered by.

Political Correctness is a form of mental illness, and it reigns supreme in the UK. Will it get that bad in the US? Only time will tell.

This is just plain outrageous:

They’re watching you right now.

They counted every beer you drank during last night’s Red Sox [team stats] game.

They see you sneaking out to the garage for a smoke.

They know if you’ve got a gun, and where you keep it.

They’re your kids, and they’re the National Security Agency of the Nanny State.

I found this out after my 13-year-old daughter’s annual checkup. Her pediatrician grilled her about alcohol and drug abuse.

Not my daughter’s boozing. Mine.

“The doctor wanted to know how much you and mom drink, and if I think it’s too much,” my daughter told us afterward, rolling her eyes in that exasperated 13-year-old way. “She asked if you two did drugs, or if there are drugs in the house.”

“What!” I yelped. “Who told her about my stasher, I mean, ‘It’s an outrage!’ ”

I turned to my wife. “You took her to the doctor. Why didn’t you say something?”

She couldn’t, she told me, because she knew nothing about it. All these questions were asked in private, without my wife’s knowledge or consent.

“The doctor wanted to know how we get along,” my daughter continued. Then she paused. “And if, well, Daddy, if you made me feel uncomfortable.”

Great. I send my daughter to the pediatrician to find out if she’s fit to play lacrosse, and the doctor spends her time trying to find out if her mom and I are drunk, drug-addicted sex criminals.

We’re not alone, either. Thanks to guidelines issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics and supported by the commonwealth, doctors across Massachusetts are interrogating our kids about mom and dad’s “bad” behavior.

The idea that the AAP has any business routinely interfering in the relationship between parents and their kids, much less suggesting that doctors should put kids in the position of reporting on their parents perfectly legal behavior is breathtakingly arrogant. Unless there's some evidence of abuse or problematic behavior reported by the child, a doctor simply has no business asking such questions.

Any doctor who showed such a blatant disregard for proper boundaries would no longer be mine, or my child's. It's one thing to make an effort to protect children where there's some evidence of a threat. It's quite another to treat parents as though they are criminal threats until proven otherwise.

Doc, what’s up with snooping? - BostonHerald.com

Here's his deadpan take on the episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" in which Frank Gorshin and another actor run around in half black, half white makeup on their faces for the entire episode:

Some have speculated the episode may have been a commentary on racism.

It's stuff like that that makes me so impressed with Lileks. No further commentary necessary.

James Lileks on Star Trek Weekend 2007 on National Review Online

That's one of the few words that comes close to describing this: 

Brave New World Watch   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Guardian: 

Plans to allow British scientists to create human-animal embryos are expected to be approved tomorrow by the government's fertility regulator. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority published its long-awaited public consultation on the controversial research yesterday, revealing that a majority of people were "at ease" with scientists creating the hybrid embryos.

Researchers want to create hybrid embryos by merging human cells with animal eggs, in the hope they will be able to extract valuable embryonic stem cells from them. The cells form the basic building blocks of the body and are expected to pave the way for revolutionary therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and even spinal cord injuries.

The consultation papers were released ahead of the authority's final decision on the matter, which will mark the end of almost a year of intense lobbying by scientists and a fervent campaign by organisations opposed to research involving embryonic stem cells.

Using animal eggs will allow researchers to push ahead unhindered by the shortage of human eggs. Under existing laws, the embryos must be destroyed after 14 days when they are no bigger than a pinhead, and cannot be implanted into the womb.

Opponents of the research and some religious groups say the work blurs the distinction between humans and animals, and creates embryos that are destined to be destroyed when stem cells are extracted from them.

How anyone can not grasp that creating hybrid human/animal embryos is stepping over a very clear ethical and moral line is beyond me. That they report that a majority are at ease with such research suggests to me that the folks who were surveyed were not told clearly what's being done.

And the reporting that the embryos must be destroyed and cannot be implanted completely misses the point, which is that experimenting with the essence of human life, for no better purpose than extracting stem cells, particularly when there has been more demonstrated progress and promise from adult stem cells, is nothing less than a horror.

The Corner on National Review Online

OK, they are letting him go...but they insist on a name change: 

Who remembers playing with G.I. Joe as a kid?

For those of us who grew up with normal childhoods, instead of the moonbat-infested, politically correct childhoods forced onto kids today, G.I. Joe was the action figure to have. It was originally started in the 60s as a WWII soldier, with soldiers from other countries (Germany, England, and believe it or not, France), but saw its most successful sales during the resurgance in the 80s, with the Real American Hero, or RAH line. There was also a cartoon and a comic book series to help market the toy. The G.I. Joe team fought the COBRA Command, a terrorist organization. The man who would become Cobra Commander swore to overthrow the government and take over the world, as all good antagonists do.

...

G.I. Joe was unabashedly patriotic. Many fans were, of course, excited to hear about the new movie to be released by Paramount.

But of course, in the liberal land of Hollyweird, a Real American Hero is just unacceptable. Nope, it's gotta be a global hero. G.I. Joe will be a global operation, not an American one, and G.I. Joe now stands for Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity

Do these people have no shame at all?

G.I. Joe: "Real American Hero" no more (Wizbang)

Apparently Freeman Dyson (yes, that Freeman Dyson) doesn't buy into the hype on global warming:

My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.

Read the whole thing. I'll just say this...when you're arguing against as prominent a scientist as Dyson, you'd better have more convincing evidence than just computer models and selective real-world data (i.e. - citing declines in specific polar bear populations without noting that globally, polar bear populations are actually rising).

I really liked this bit as well:

As a scientist I do not have much faith in predictions. Science is organized unpredictability. The best scientists like to arrange things in an experiment to be as unpredictable as possible, and then they do the experiment to see what will happen. You might say that if something is predictable then it is not science. When I make predictions, I am not speaking as a scientist. I am speaking as a story-teller, and my predictions are science-fiction rather than science. The predictions of science-fiction writers are notoriously inaccurate. Their purpose is to imagine what might happen rather than to describe what will happen. I will be telling stories that challenge the prevailing dogmas of today. The prevailing dogmas may be right, but they still need to be challenged. I am proud to be a heretic. The world always needs heretics to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies. Since I am heretic, I am accustomed to being in the minority. If I could persuade everyone to agree with me, I would not be a heretic.

Folks like Freeman actually make me look forward to being a cranky old man. Not that I would suggest that I have anything like his level of intellect, but there's definitely something admirable about the "I don't give a damn" irascibility that comes with age.

There's also this:

When I listen to the public debates about climate change, I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories. Many of the basic processes of planetary ecology are poorly understood. They must be better understood before we can reach an accurate diagnosis of the present condition of our planet. When we are trying to take care of a planet, just as when we are taking care of a human patient, diseases must be diagnosed before they can be cured. We need to observe and measure what is going on in the biosphere, rather than relying on computer models.

I think that captures the essence of the problem rather well. We have, today, a group of scientists, and the politicians who agree with them, who are demanding that we take draconian action on the basis of their asserted predictions of doom. Predictions which are based on computer models that do not adequately model real processes on our real planet, and whose inputs are based on a comparatively limited set of data. If it weren't for the fact that the liberal media agrees with them, these folks would've been laughed off the stage years ago.

Edge: HERETICAL THOUGHTS ABOUT SCIENCE AND SOCIETY By Freeman Dyson via BoingBoing

What is it with Al Gore...I mean, I've come to expect that he does not live by the conservationist message he preaches to the rest of us peons, but you'd think he would be at least a tiny bit embarrassed by all the attention:

ONLY one week after Live Earth, Al Gore's green credentials slipped while hosting his daughter's wedding in Beverly Hills.

Gore and his guests at the weekend ceremony dined on Chilean sea bass - arguably one of the world's most threatened fish species.

Also known as Patagonian toothfish, the species is under pressure from illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing activities in the Southern Ocean, jeopardising the sustainability of remaining stocks.

Of course, that would assume that Al Gore has any capacity for embarrassment, which seems unlikely.

UPDATE: According to this article, the Chilean sea bass in question was from "one of the world's few well-managed, sustainable populations of toothfish, and caught and documented in compliance with Marine Stewardship Council regulations." Duly noted. So on this particular charge of hypocrisy, it looks like Al may be off the hook, so to speak.

Gore's message loses bite | The Daily Telegraph

John Fund: 

Last week a federal district judge found direct evidence that the political machine in Noxubee County, Miss., had discriminated against voters with the intent to infringe their rights and that "these abuses have been racially motivated."

Among the abuses catalogued by Judge Tom Lee were the paying of notaries public to visit voters and illegally mark their absentee ballots, manipulation of the registration rolls, importation of illegal candidates to run for county office, and publication of a list of voters, classified by race, who might have their ballots challenged. The judge criticized state political officials for being "remiss" in addressing the abuses. The U.S. Justice Department, which sued Noxubee officials under the Voting Rights Act, has called conditions there "the most extreme case of racial exclusion seen by the [department's] Voting Section in decades."

Explosive stuff, so why haven't you heard about it? Because the Noxubee case doesn't fit the media stereotype for voting rights abuses. The local political machine is run by Ike Brown, a twice-convicted felon. Mr. Brown is black, and the voters who were discriminated against were white.

Judge Lee concluded that Mr. Brown retained his power "by whatever means were necessary." According to the judge, Mr. Brown believed that "blacks, being the majority race in Noxubee County, should hold all elected offices, to the exclusion of whites." (Whites are 30% of the county's 12,500 people, but only two of the 26 elected county officials.) Judge Lee also criticized top officials of the state Democratic Party for "failing to take action to rectify [Mr. Brown's] abuses."

Good thing OpinionJournal covers stuff like this...you know it won't show up in the NYT or the Post.

OpinionJournal - John Fund on the Trail

via Instapundit

James M. Taylor:

In his new book, The Assault on Reason, Al Gore pleads, "We must stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo-studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth." Gore repeatedly asks that science and reason displace cynical political posturing as the central focus of public discourse.

If Gore really means what he writes, he has an opportunity to make a difference by leading by example on the issue of global warming.

A cooperative and productive discussion of global warming must be open and honest regarding the science. Global warming threats ought to be studied and mitigated, and they should not be deliberately exaggerated as a means of building support for a desired political position.

Many of the assertions Gore makes in his movie, ''An Inconvenient Truth,'' have been refuted by science, both before and after he made them. Gore can show sincerity in his plea for scientific honesty by publicly acknowledging where science has rebutted his claims.

Read the whole thing for a short list of just some of the fibs in "An Inconvenient Truth." Inconvenient indeed.

Source: Alarmist global warming claims melt under scientific scrutiny :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Other Views

I'm pretty sure this is supposed to evoke sympathy: 

Mexican illegal immigrant Jose Madrid, 28, said he has been unable to find a construction job over the past six weeks because of the crackdown, and hasn't been able to send money to his parents and his 7-year-old son back home.

"We immigrants, we are leaving Panama City. People are afraid they will be deported," he said. "The companies don't want to hire illegal people. Now they're only hiring those with papers."

But while I'm sorry to see anyone suffer unnecessarily, I have little sympathy for the complaints of someone who came to this country illegally. The United States simply cannot provide for or solve all the world's problems, particularly not by ignoring our existing immigration laws.

The fact that one sheriff in Florida is fed up and trying to do something, particularly in the face of the disgusting and undemocratic maneuverings as the Senate attempts to ramrod an amnesty bill through Congress, despite overwhelming evidence that few in the country support it, is pretty amazing. Even more so is that given the comments above, it's effective, and being reported as such.

Just imagine if the feds actually got in on the enforcement business...

Source: My Way News - Fla. Sheriff Targets Illegals

As an American of Scots descent who was married in a kilt, this makes me both angry and sad. How far one of the cradles of western civilization and freedom has fallen:

Kilt wearers could face prosecution if they do not have a licence for their sporran under new legislation which has been introduced in Scotland.

The laws are designed to protect endangered species like badgers and otters, whose fur used to be favoured by sporran makers.

What's really disturbing is the government officials who think nothing of threatening to take people's possessions if they do not obtain the new license, even though their possessions may be perfectly legal:

A Scottish Executive spokeswoman said the new rules had been put in place to bring Scotland into line with existing European legislation designed to protect vulnerable species.

"The licence will allow people who possess artefacts made from these species in circumstances compliant with earlier laws to keep them," she said.

"This could be family heirlooms of various descriptions.

"Having a licence for such an artefact, proving it was obtained legally, will ensure they will not be prosecuted or have it taken from them under the new regulations."

Perhaps we can start selling some new bumper stickers:

BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | Sporran wearers may need licence

How else would one describe this:

Fairfax County middle school student Hal Beaulieu hopped up from his lunch table one day a few months ago, sat next to his girlfriend and slipped his arm around her shoulder. That landed him a trip to the school office.

Among his crimes: hugging.

All touching -- not only fighting or inappropriate touching -- is against the rules at Kilmer Middle School in Vienna. Hand-holding, handshakes and high-fives? Banned. The rule has been conveyed to students this way: "NO PHYSICAL CONTACT!!!!!"

I'm used to political correctness and foolish school policies, given how long I've lived in the proximity of the reality distortion field that is Washington, DC, but this policy may be one of the dumbest things I've heard in years. Read the whole thing, although you may risk lowering your IQ just by reading about school administrators who think this is a good idea.

Source: Va. School's No-Contact Rule Is a Touchy Subject - washingtonpost.com via Instapundit

Excerpt: 

Not only do I believe that trying to take the wildness out of boys is a doomed social experiment, but I'm certain that genetic scientists will eventually discover that males carry the Cowboy Gene. That's my name for whatever is responsible for all the wrestling in my house, and the dunking during bath time, and my 5-year-old's insistence on wearing his silver six-shooters to Wal-Mart in order to protect our grocery cart. I only pray that when the Cowboy Gene is discovered, some well-meaning utopian doesn't try to transform it into a Tea Party Gene.

Read the whole thing...it's wonderful.

Source: OpinionJournal - Taste

It's the simple ideas that no one cares about...at least no one who's more interested in pontificating about how we need to sacrifice our lifestyles to "save the planet":

SAVING THE PLANET -- or at least some energy -- with white roofs. It's worth a try! Megan McArdle has thoughts, and so does Mark Kleiman, who says that the idea is too simple and obvious to interest the political/policy community. "Just as a child is unlikely to be impressed with a highly efficient engine, because it fails to make a satisfyingly loud noise, or to trust a medicine that doesn't taste bitter, a political journalist is unlikely to be impressed with an innovation that doesn't cost a lot of money or create some other sort of major inconvenience or controversy."

Source: Instapundit.com -

Instapundit asks an important question: 

WILL ETHANOL LEAD TO FOOD SHORTAGES?

Ethanol is a renewable, homegrown fuel that can help lower U.S. dependence on foreign oil. But as more and more ethanol is made from corn, less and less corn is available for food production, and that’s causing some unforeseen problems.

Corn is a mainstay of American agriculture— it’s an important ingredient in cereals and baked goods, and corn syrup is used to make processed foods like candy, chips and soft drinks. But most importantly, corn is the major source of food for cattle, pigs, turkeys and chickens that are headed for the dinner table.

A recent study conducted by the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University (which receives funding from grocery manufacturers and livestock producers) reported that U.S. ethanol production could consume more than half of U.S. corn, wheat and coarse grains by 2012, driving up food prices and causing shortages. The study estimates that booming ethanol production has already raised U.S. food prices by $47 per person annually. In Mexico, protests have already erupted over the high price of corn tortillas, a staple food in the local diet.

Read the whole thing, but it seems clear to me that making ethanol fuel out of foodstuffs is a bad idea. Ethanol from waste biomass is another story.

Of course, the answer is obvious...ethanol is already diverting corn from food production and increasing prices. The idea that these problems were "unforeseen" only highlights what I've said before...the enviro-lefties (and politically connected farmers) pushing ethanol mandates are conveniently short-sighted when it comes to enacting their policy preferences. There are very few policy consequences that would be entirely unforeseen, given a reasonable economic analysis, and this one should have been predictable by even a cursory analysis.

Source: Instapundit.com -

Think environmentalists care about the world's poor? Think again:

H/T: Planet Gore

"But", one of Brumshagen's carpenter colleagues said of the model Ark, "I am not so sure that it will float."

So ends this ridiculous Reuters story about a group of environmental activists who are apparently rebuilding Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat. The activists (the news story doesn't mention whether they're actually believers in the Bible, or whether they're simply exploiting the story for their own ends) are attempting to highlight the purported danger of rising seas from global climate change by their carpentry efforts.

Of course, there are a few problems. One is the fact, not highlighted in the article, that even at the most extreme estimates of the IPCC, sea levels will only rise around 69cm (less than 2-1/4 feet, for those of you who don't do metric), which means that it would likely be several centuries before their ark would be borne off by the rising waters. If, that is, it could float (see above), which is another potential problem.

And, of course, being symbolic, their ark isn't meant to bear anyone anywhere, so it's not full-size, which would require a good deal more effort than they're willing to undertake. But since the goal seems to be to feel good about themselves by chastising the world's politicians, it seems they've already won:

"A boatbuilding master said they would not have the courage to do this given the short period of time," said German carpenter Rainer Brumshagen. "But I had the feeling that it could work."

"It all feels very good with the energy people are bringing here, uniting those from different countries to work together."

I wonder how much carbon is being released in the process of felling trees, processing the lumber, hauling it up the mountain, and constructing this monument to liberal political indulgence...just askin', is all.

Source: Article | Reuters

Rich Karlgaard, in Forbes.com, discusses one of the most egregious cases of unintended (but utterly predictable) consequences in the brief history of the environmental movement, that of the banning of DDT in the wake of the release of Silent Spring, the book that is credited with starting the whole movement. It's author, Rachel Carson, has the status of a saint on the left, is lionized in the media, and even has schools named for her, such as this middle school in Herndon, VA (ironically, the location of a recent GOP primary for the Virginia State Senate).

As Karlgaard notes, the CDC estimates that malaria, which was nearly eliminated thanks to DDT, but has experienced a resurgence after the ban of DDT in the wake of Silent Spring, kills more than 800,000 children under the age of five each year. Which makes the naming of elementary and middle schools for Carson all the more ironic. The impact of the ban on malaria deaths merits just one line in the Wikipedia hagiography of Carson.

Karlgaard also notes the lack of interest by The Washington Post in this aspect of Carson's life and impact in their story today on her struggle with cancer:

Buried in paragraph 27, and paraphrasing the Congressman, The Washington Post concedes that "numerous" deaths might have been prevented by DDT.

Let's stop here. Any curious reader would ask, Just how "numerous" is numerous? Wouldn't you ask that question? The Post never asks that question. Why?

Because the answer devastates Rachel Carson and her followers. According to these CDC figures, malaria kills more than 800,000 children under age five every year.

Even acknowledging that there is some dispute about whether that entire figure can be laid at the feet of Carson and Silent Spring, it's simply astonishing how little desire for self-examination and reflection exists on the left. This makes it all the more clear that the environmental movement is not about the actual results...it's about feeling good about yourself, even if the actual result is other people suffering.

When I look at the current debate on global warming, it's utterly clear to me that those who advocate hugely expensive cutbacks in energy use and/or carbon taxes are utterly indifferent to the suffering that this would likely cause to those least able to afford it. Those who cannot, like Al Gore, simply buy carbon offsets and continue to consume far more than the average family, will be the ones who bear the brunt of the next set of unintended consequences. And as with Rachel Carson and Silent Spring, years from now when these consequences become obvious, few if any on the left or at The Washington Post (but I repeat myself) will be interested in examining how this came to pass.

via Instapundit

Ever the pedant, Andrew Stuttaford reminds Andy McCarthy, who had posted some commentary about Koranic support for wife-beating, that:

Nevertheless, it's worth remembering that there's plenty of savagery to be found in the Old Testament too. What really matters is not what was said or written back in the Dark Ages (or, in the case of the Bible, even earlier), but how those words are interpreted now, if, indeed, at all.

I'll let McCarthy's response speak for itself:

Yes, Andrew.  And I'll address that, too, the minute we have a global terror campaign motivated by an interpretation of the Old Testament.

Indeed.

Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker is the latest example of the asinine arguments put forth by those who wish to use the horrific murders at Virginia Tech to argue for more gun control.

After starting his piece by tugging at our heartstrings with the picture of cell phones ringing in the pockets of dead students, Gopnik proceeds then, in typical fashion, to blame the guns. Not the mentally unhinged attacker. Not the mental health system that allowed him to remain free and enrolled at VT, despite ample evidence that he was disturbed. Not the VT policy that ensured that none of his victims would be armed and able to resist him on an equal footing. No, it was the guns.

But that's just the standard idiocy. Gopnik goes even further. Among his arguments:

• "on a recent list of the fourteen worst mass shootings in Western democracies since the nineteen-sixties the United States claimed seven, and, just as important, no other country on the list has had a repeat performance as severe as the first." Sounds persuasive at first, until you consider that his stats are meaningless without a comparison of population size. And why is Gopnik's list limited to just Western Democracies? Perhaps because that allows him to omit mass killings that don't fit his thesis?
• "In Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996, a gunman killed sixteen children and a teacher at their school. Afterward, the British gun laws, already restrictive, were tightened—it’s now against the law for any private citizen in the United Kingdom to own the kinds of guns that Cho Seung-*** used at Virginia Tech—and nothing like Dunblane has occurred there since." Perhaps no repeat of Dunblane, but violent crime is on the rise in the UK, and banning guns doesn't seem to be stopping it. And Gopnik's point is belied by studies suggesting that concealed carry laws tend to decrease the likelihood of multiple victim shootings, and to decrease the severity of those that do occur.
• "The arc is apparent. Forty years ago, a man killed fourteen people on a college campus in Austin, Texas; this year, a man killed thirty-two in Blacksburg, Virginia. Not enough was done between those two massacres to make weapons of mass killing harder to obtain." Two points obtain here. First, Gopnik omits one significant difference between the University of Texas shootings and those at Virginia Tech. In the UT shooting case, civilians assisted police in attempting to stop the killer. Granted, in the case of UT it was the police who ultimately killed the UT sniper, but the fact that the sniper faced gunfire both from police as well as civilians may well have prevented him from killing more people than would otherwise have been the case. Second, Gopnik seems to have missed the fact that the UT shootings would not have been prevented under the gun control regime he envisions, in which handguns are outlawed, but rifles and shotguns remain available.
• "Nations with tight gun laws have, on the whole, less gun violence; countries with somewhat restrictive gun laws have some gun violence; countries with essentially no gun laws have a lot of gun violence." Since Gopnik doesn't note where he's getting his evidence for these claims, it's hard to verify their accuracy. But as noted above, the trends in Great Britain, Canada, and elsewhere suggest that the relationship he asserts between gun laws and gun violence is, in fact, the opposite in effect.
• "Semi-automatic Glocks and Walthers, Cho’s weapons, are for killing people. They are not made for hunting, and it’s not easy to protect yourself with them. (If having a loaded semi-automatic on hand kept you safe, cops would not be shot as often as they are.)" The notion that cops are shot frequently because "it's not easy to protect yourself" with handguns is ludicrous. Ignoring the simple fact that policemen are far more likely than the rest of us to face armed opponents intent on using their weapons is just another example of Gopnik's willingness to ignore facts that are inconvenient to his argument.

Gopnik saves his most asinine assertion for last:

There is no reason that any private citizen in a democracy should own a handgun. At some point, that simple truth will register. Until it does, phones will ring for dead children, and parents will be told not to ask why.

Ignoring, for the moment, his gratuitous invoking of the memory of the dead to put off criticism of his arguments, one must be awed by the audacity of his claim. No reason for a private citizen to own a handgun? Self-defense? Guess that doesn't count in Gopnik's world, despite much evidence that handguns are used for self-defense every day. Deterrence? Nope...Gopnik won't see that either. And what about the Constitution? Fuhgettaboutit...a moldering piece of paper written by a bunch of old white guys can't stop Gopnik from achieving his heaven on earth.

The "simple truth" is that people like Gopnik are willing to trade our safety for their feelings of moral superiority. A lousy trade, in my view.

Is it the elite New Yorker, with the clipped, shrill phrasing, or the down-home Southern girl on display here?

Well, I guess since her husband has been lauded as the first black president, perhaps she feels entitled to insult a black audience with a little put-on drawl. Don't hold your breath for statements of outrage from Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson on this one. Hill will get a pass on this, thanks to her impeccable liberal credentials.

Banning "realistic" stage weapons at Yale.

Because I guess banning real weapons didn't leave students sufficiently defenseless against an insane gunman. Or perhaps because we all know that violent theatrical productions are the root of all violence in our society. Ridiculous.

This is just plain idiotic.

Besides, we already have a Department of Peace. It's just better known by its proper name, the Department of Defense. Perhaps just to annoy these people, we should go back to the original name, the Department of War.

Jonah makes some similar points to my post from yesterday, but says it better than I could.

Jeez, I'm not sure which of these guys is more irritating, but the specter of Imus apologizing on Sharpton's radio show was bad enough...now Imus is chiding Sharpton for not apologizing to the Duke Lacross players.

While I'd certainly agree (and pointed out earlier this week) that Sharpton is hardly a model of racial probity, for Imus to be the one pointing this out after having attempted to use Sharpton to mitigate the effects of his foot-in-mouth disease is kinda pathetic.

In fairness, Imus is spending a lot of time noting that none of this would be happening absent his saying something stupid. Still, I personally wish they'd both shut up and go away, as I have little patience for either of their antics.

OTOH, I have a buddy who is a big radio fan who found the whole thing immensely interesting and fun (in an "inside baseball" kinda way). More power to him, but it's because of guys like Sharpton and Imus that the media got away with abusing the truth in the Duke non-rape case. That's where the real harm comes in...not with the hurt feelings of some college athletes, but in the continued poisoning of our society that allows three young men (no angels, given having hired strippers for a party, but not rapists either) to have their lives destroyed on the unfounded accusations of a single person, with a presumption of guilt because of the color of their skin and their social status.

Isn't that what the civil rights movement was supposed to end?

In an earlier post, I pointed to an article on American Thinker about the problems with compact fluorescent bulbs, and also proposed a spoof of the "got milk" ad campaign to highlight the issue of mercury in CFLs.

Now, American Thinker has been kind enough to pick up the graphic and put it on their homepage. My thanks to AT for their interest.

You be the judge.

This pretty much sums up my take on Imus' stupid and offensive remarks.

H/T Instapundit

American Thinker has the story.

Perhaps we should start an ad campaign...Got Mercury?



Feel free to pass the above image along, if you're so inclined.

UPDATE: I wanted to add a link to the Wikipedia article on CFLs, which confirms the 5mg figure cited in the graphic I created, and which is referred to in the article I link to. Note that the Wikipedia article also claims that the overall output of mercury from a CFL should be less, given the theoretical reduction in emissions from coal-fired power plants, than using incandescents. I find this conclusion dubious both in its merits and in its applicability to me personally.

On the merits, the conclusion assumes a direct reduction of emissions from coal-fired power plants, an assumption that isn't necessarily justifiable, as it may not take into account the percentage of US power being generated by non-coal sources, the additional power requirements in China due to the need to add manufacturing capacity for more CFLs, and other issues. And given that China is hardly a paragon of environmental responsibility, one would reasonably assume that both manufacturing of CFLs and powering of the plants are likely to be dirtier there than they would be here in the US.

On applicability, even if one accepts the argument that the overall mercury load represented by CFLs is less than that of incandescents, one has to look at the problem of waste handling. If an incandescent bulb in my home breaks, I need only worry about finding and cleaning up all the sharp glass. If a CFL breaks, I have to worry about toxic heavy metals. If the mercury load from incandescents is largely or entirely based on emissions from coal-fired plants, it's much easier to deal with by improving scrubbers or other emissions technologies, compared to figuring out what to do with potentially millions upon millions of spent CFLs, not to mention educating consumers that they cannot safely just throw them into the trash.

So it seems to me that even granting the best possible assumptions for CFL supporters we are going to end up trading mercury emissions in US coal-fired plants for:

1. Mercury emissions from Chinese coal-fired plants
2. Mercury pollution at CFL facilities in China
3. Mercury pollution in the US waste stream

This just doesn't seem like a wise trade-off to me.

...and other tactics to discredit those who don't toe the catastrophic global warming line:

PowerLine blog has a great example of the full range.

It says something about the poverty of argumentation on the side of the supporters of catastrophic global warming theory that they, and the media, must distort the views of those who oppose their doom-mongering. And worse, these tactics make it harder to have a reasonable debate on reasonable steps we could be taking today, at significantly less cost than things like Kyoto, to improve the lives of real people, right now (note that which steps should be taken by whom...and whether by private parties or government entities...is the subject of a separate, though related, debate).

Folks like Bjørn Lomborg are to be thanked for trying to focus the debate on where we can best use resources, rather than on hyperventilating about CGW and carbon emissions. I may not agree with all of Lomborg's priorities, but at least he recognizes that wasting hundreds of billions of dollars to prevent a miniscule amount of warming is a phenomenally stupid choice, and one that will inevitably result in more deaths and misery than would otherwise be the case.

Not surprisingly, political hacks like Al Gore have steadfastly refused to have a head-to-head debate with Lomborg, perhaps because they're well aware that it would highlight the weakness of their arguments, and in Gore's case, his rank hypocrisy in being a prolific energy consumer while urging the rest of us to life a more austere lifestyle.

H/T Planet Gore

So says Michael Crichton in an interview with Scott Burgess.

Crichton has a remarkable facility for breaking things down to their essence, and this interview is no exception. I doubt he's the first to say it, but the notion merits repeating, often and loudly...science is not, nor should it be, a matter of consensus. We don't vote on science, we form hypotheses, and test them to weigh their merits.

The global warming bullies don't want anyone to upset their apple cart, so they attempt to browbeat their opponents with consensus. Does that suggest confidence in their hypothesis, or the opposite?

Via Planet Gore

If you live in Loudoun County, VA, you should be aware of the activites of a group calling themselves "Mainstream" Loudoun.

This is a group that fought against internet filters in Libraries (because we all know that the Constitution protects our right to download porn in public places), and is currently fighting tooth and nail to prevent abstinence from being a part of the sex ed curriculum in Loudoun County public schools.

Barbara Curtis, who writes a monthly column for the Loudoun Times-Mirror, has been writing about Mainstream Loudoun, and also about how they're discussed in the local news.

Loudoun residents who are truly in the mainstream would do well to follow Barbara's blog for the latest developments.

H/T Planet Gore

Ann Coulter is at it again. I should state up front that I am a sometime fan of some of Ann's antics, and that I think she is very smart and possessed of a biting wit.

She is also, alas, prone to descending into sophomoric stunts designed to outrage and grab attention, the most famous being her post 9/11 column in which she claimed:

we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.

Her most recent attack/stunt, being used as a fundraising tool by its target, was as pointless as it was juvenile, essentially saying that she'd call Edwards a "faggot" but for the fact that "you have to go into rehab" if you use the word.

While anyone who's read this blog should know that I have little patience for political correctness and the thought police, I also think that being offensive for the sake of being offensive is something we should grow out of after...oh, I don't know...the teenage years at the latest.

I would expect a child trying to get attention to misbehave in ways that are deliberately provocative. Ann Coulter is not a child, and she's not stupid. She's a grown woman, and she should start acting like it. And if she won't, she should be shunned. National Review caught a lot of flak for dropping her column in the wake of the "convert them" flap, but what people may not remember is that Ann made the choice to turn their disagreement with the column into a public pissing contest, and basically forced their hand.

FWIW, I don't really think that Ann Coulter thinks John Edwards is a "faggot," nor do I think that Coulter hates gays. I just think that she was looking for something with which to be outrageous and offensive, and that happened to be what she latched onto. It was pretty clear from the little nervous laughter that the statement received that the "joke" fell flat, as it should have.

While I don't necessarily think that Romney, or anyone at CPAC, needs to denounce Coulter, I do think that anyone thinking about inviting her to a high-profile event needs to consider carefully whether they want a ticking time-bomb, or a witty pundit. Unfortunately, too often, it's hard to tell which one you'll get with Ann Coulter.

UPDATE:
K-Lo on The Corner makes an excellent point:

I agree Ann's unfunny joke speaks to and feeds into a hurtful bigotry and helps to caricature proponents of traditional marriage. But the Edwards campaign has had it's own bigotry issues closer to home — on staff — so if I were him I'd be cautious milking it.

She's referring, of course, to the vile anti-Catholic statements of Edwards fired/not-fired/resigned official blogger, which were easily on par with Ann's comments, in terms of bigotry and offensiveness and, as K-Lo notes, were made by someone who was hired by the Edwards campaign after those statements were made publically on her blog. Not that that will stop Edwards, but it certainly does suggest somewhat of a double-standard in terms of which groups are OK to deliberately offend.

That's the question Bill Hobbs looks into, and makes a pretty good case that it may be an "inconvenient truth" behind Gore's activism.

H/T