Saturday, May 21, 2011

Global warming story du jour

Mark Steyn: Leading climatologist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brings us up to speed on the latest settled science:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accused Western countries of plotting to “cause drought” in Iran by using high tech equipment to drain the clouds of raindrops…

“Western countries have designed plans to cause drought in certain areas of the world, including Iran,” Mr Ahmadinejad said in the city of Arak in Markazi province.

“According to reports on climate, whose accuracy has been verified, European countries are using special equipment to force clouds to dump” their water on their continent, he said.

By doing so, “they prevent rain clouds from reaching regional countries, including Iran,” Mr Ahmadinejad charged.

Iran has experienced several droughts in recent years.

After vajazzling comes pejazzling

As popularity of the body adornment trend has grown, it has become clear that it is not only women interested in the service.

According to salon owners, 40 per cent of customers requesting the body bling are men.

Dr. Milton Wolf (Obama's cousin) on Obamacare waiver corruption

If Obamacare is such a great law, why does the White House keep exempting its best friends from it?

Washington Times.

The Rapture starts tonight at 11PM Pacific time

The Rapture is at 6 p.m. on May 21, 2011, where ever it's 6 p.m. first, with the "fantastically big" world-ending event taking place on a time zone by time zone basis.

That means we can expect the Rapture to start when it hits 6 p.m. at the International Dateline at 180 Longitude -- roughly the (area) between Pago Pago, American Samoa, and Nuku'alofa, Tonga. We'll know it's Judgment Day because there will be an earthquake of previously unprecedented magnitude, Camping predicts.

So, according to these calculations, the Rapture will actually begin like a rolling brown out across the globe at 11 p.m. PST on Friday, May 20th. "Everyone will be weeping and wailing because they'll know in a few hours it'll come to their city," said Camping.

Ted Rall: MSM won't take my leftwing anti-Obama cartoons

Liberals' favorite political cartoonist:

It feels a little weird to write this, like I'm telling tales out of school and ratting out the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. But it's true: there's less room for a leftie during the Age of Obama than there was under Bush.

I didn't realize how besotted progressives were by Mr. Hopey Changey.

...

A sample of recent rejections, each from editors at different left-of-center media outlets:

· "I am familiar with and enjoy your cartoons. However the readers of our site would not be comfortable with your (admittedly on point) criticism of Obama."

· "Don't be such a hater on O and we could use your stuff. Can't you focus more on the GOP?"

· "Our first African-American president deserves a chance to clean up Bush's mess without being attacked by us."

I have many more like that.

What's weird is that these cultish attitudes come from editors and publishers whose politics line up neatly with mine.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

DSK and silly stereotypes about American and European morals.

Christopher Hitchens: Why is it that we cannot read any discussion of a political sex scandal, or a sex scandal involving a politician, without pseudo-sophisticated comments about the supposedly different morals of Americans and Europeans?

Thursday links

Feral Camels Plague Australian Outback.

Winner of the World’s Best Beard contest. Related, the best facial hair in the Civil War.

MacRecipes describes what MacGyver used to get out of trouble over the course of seven TV seasons.

Space beer.

Adult stars wonder if they made Bin Laden’s stash.

Crossposted at The Corner.

Atmosphere Above Japan Heated Rapidly Before M9 Earthquake

Before the M9 earthquake, the total electron content of the ionosphere increased dramatically over the epicentre, reaching a maximum three days before the quake struck.

At the same time, satellite observations showed a big increase in infrared emissions from above the epicentre, which peaked in the hours before the quake. In other words, the atmosphere was heating up.

Technology Review

AIPAC: Don't boo Obama

Attendees at AIPAC, the largest annual Jewish American conference, were told not to boo Barack Obama when he speaks there this month.

POLITICO.com

Egypt 'running out of food'

UPI.com: "food prices and related economic grievances played a big part in these upheavals, unprecedented in modern Middle Eastern history."

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Why Affirmative Action Should Stop

VDH on "the eternal truth that it is wrong to judge humans on their outward appearance or racial heritage — always."

"We have had about a half-century of racial preferences and often unspoken but real quotas for hiring and admission based on racial identity. If the original intent was to level the playing field for African-Americans and Latinos, who had been subject to systematic and often gratuitously mean discrimination throughout much of the American South and Southwest, nonetheless the current rationale for sustaining affirmative action has become a veritable nightmare of contradictions, biases, and incoherence that is now well beyond reform. Conservatives mostly believe this; an increasing number of liberals quietly think it."

via Jeff at Protein Wisdom, who has additional comments.

Mark Levin’s Summary of the Obamacare Litigation

The brief’s “Introduction and Summary of Argument” is one of the most succinct, elegant, and direct summations of the basic issues that are at stake:

This case is about individual liberty, state sovereignty and federalism. Indeed, whether there remain any limits on the power and reach of the federal government is the fundamental question before this Court. Appellant’s defense of the individual mandate, if accepted, requires the Court to disregard more than 220 years of Commerce Clause application and Supreme Court precedence, fundamentally misapply the Necessary and Proper Clause and disregard the Constitution’s requirements for the laying and collection of taxes.

The heavy-handed demands of temporary politicians who seek to change fundamentally and permanently the relationship between the citizen and government in a manner that no past Congress or Executive have undertaken and which the Constitution clearly does not allow must not be given the Court’s imprimatur. The District Court correctly rejected the individual mandate and its penalty provision as unconstitutional. …

The Commerce Clause is written in uncomplicated, plain English. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution provides that “The Congress shall have Power … To regulate Commerce with Foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” Congress can tax interstate commerce, regulate interstate commerce, and can even prohibit certain types of interstate commerce. There is nothing in the history of this Nation, let alone the history of the Constitution and the Commerce Clause, however, permitting the federal government to compel an individual to enter into a legally binding private contract against the individual’s will and interests simply because the individual is living and breathing. Such a radical departure from precedent, law, and logic has never been contemplated, let alone imposed upon, the American people.

Can adult stem cells cure AIDS?

Brown received stem cells from a donor who was immune to HIV. In fact, about one percent of Caucasians are immune to HIV. Some researchers think the immunity gene goes back to the Great Plague: people who survived the plague passed their immunity down and their heirs have it today.

Obamacare waivers - picking winners

Daily Caller: Of the 204 new Obamacare waivers President Barack Obama’s administration approved in April, 38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district.

Also, Mona Charen has an article on the subject today on NRO.

Are you emaciated and live in Atlanta? You could be a zombie extra on The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead is looking for extras to fill out their shambling horde. The only stipulations? You have to A.) be in Atlanta; and B.) already look like you're mildly deceased.

Former “alarmist” scientist says AGW based in false science

"The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic."

Links and discussion at Hot Air.

The grandchildren of Nazis

Coming to terms with guilt for crimes they didn't commit.

Worth reading.