Bring It On meets ER ... the 411 on the most dangerous sport in women's athletics

Pompoms, Pyramids and Peril - New York Times:
"Emergency room visits for cheerleading injuries nationwide have more than doubled since the early 1990s, and the rate of life-threatening injuries has startled researchers. Of 104 catastrophic injuries sustained by female high school and college athletes from 1982 to 2005 — head and spinal trauma that occasionally led to death — more than half resulted from cheerleading, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research. All sports combined did not surpass cheerleading."

I was a bit surprised to read of the level of injuries in high school and college cheerleading until it occurred to me that there would be very few ER visits for sports women traditionally engage in compared to men's sports like football, basketball and wrestling.

The article points out that concerns about excessive injury claims led many schools to drop gymnastics and many gymnasts then turned to cheerleading and ratcheted up the physical challenges of that endeavor and it brought in more men who, being larger and stronger made higher pyramids and higher tosses possible.

If you haven't been paying attention to this trend, take a look at the film Bring It On or one of its sequels.

There is no denying that cheerleading nowadays bears little resemblance to what it was in my student days. When I was in high school in northern Virginia in the mid-50s, I attended most of our football and basketball games and only knew of one male cheerleader, a lone guy on the Yorktown High School squad. Cheerleading was more about loud yelling than gymnastics in those days. I even tried out for the cheerleading squad at UVa about thirty years ago when it was a nearly all-male school and we had no women cheerleaders - I didn't make it.

It is curious that while cheerleading was becoming more an athletic activity rather than an artistic perfomance at the student level, in pro sports they now have dancers rather than cheerleaders and a lot of these young women are very serious about dance. One of my cousins was a dancer for pro sports teams but is now back in university studying dance.

From Boob tube to YouTube, movie studios shift to web for bigger audience

Movie Trailers Bomb on the Boob Tube but Score Big Online - :

"In the world of online advertising, there's nothing quite like movie trailers. Apple gets upward of 2 million unique visitors a month for the trailer section of its website, which shows promos for everything from The Simpsons Movie to The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Not surprisingly, trailers also pull in large crowds on MySpace and YouTube; they're even a major draw for mobile users."

More evidence that there actually is some commerce in ecommerce. Movie studios are putting more emphasis on making trailers available on the web at the expense of television advertising. One reason, you can get people to watch much longer trailers (i.e., spend more time selling them on the idea of seeing the movie) at a reasonable cost.

Here's a link to the movie trailer-oriented website http://joblo.com/ mentioned in the Wired,com story.

Sky high property values in north Jersey keep our housing market afloat

Mortgage crisis hits million-dollar homes�|�US News�|�Reuters.com:
"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sheriff Leo McGuire presides over foreclosure auctions in Bergen County, New Jersey, where the bidding for a home reached $1.2 million last June -- a record for one of the wealthiest counties in the nation."

Although not quite the boom times of a year and more ago, the pressure of rising home values in the Jersey fringes of the New York metro area continues to encourage residents in those places, especially those at or near retirement, to move west along the I-78 corridor even as far as Berks County where I live (about two hours west of the Hudson River).

You can still find plenty of homes in a wide range of size and price offering semi-rural setting, woods, mountain views and similar amenities. Schools are generally safe, local traffic tolerable, taxes reasonable but getting worse. And, there are lots of golf courses.

More whining about income inequality

Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows - New York Times:

"Others argued that public policies had played a role in the shift. Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, an advocacy group for the poor, said that the data understates the widening disparity between the top 1 percent and the rest of the country.

"He said that in addition to rising incomes and reduced taxes, the equation should take into account cuts in fringe benefits to workers and in government services that middle-class and poor Americans rely on more than the affluent. These include health care, child care and education spending."

Of course, the advocates for more government meddling in the economy like Mr. Greenstein are anxious to bolster their case any way they can, even if it is less than fully accurate.

Assuming it were true that "health care, child care and education spending" were falling (if so, I hadn't noticed), how would you factor that in - subtract the dollar value of reductions in services consumed from the income figures for each income cohort? But how could that be appropriate when we don't include the dollar value of the services they do consume?

This study is based on IRS income data and doesn't even take account of welfare services consumed exclusively by those with the lowest incomes. Poorer persons and younger persons (the two tend to overlap substantially) produce more children so they consume more than their pro rata share of child care and education spending. (You might discount this for the poor quality of those government services, but that is a whole other can of worms.) This effect is magnified by the tendency of upper income persons who do have children to employ nurses, nannies, and governesses, and send their children to private schools. The rich are also not significant consumers of government-funded health care services.

As usual, a close inspection shows that what we get from the left by way of argument is less than meets the eye.

Our "ally" speaks and he sounds like an enemy

Saudi king slams 'illegitimate occupation' of Iraq - Yahoo! News:
"'In beloved Iraq, blood is being shed among brothers in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and ugly sectarianism threatens civil war,' Abdullah said."

One wonders, if the Arabs are so upset, why haven't they stepped forward to supply troops and police to help stop the "ugly sectarianism" in Iraq or even helped to train Iraqi troops and police.

Of course, a part of this is posturing by the Saudi king to maintain his family's claim to the leadership of the Arab world, and by that position to be the major force in the Muslim world.

Back in the heyday of the Baath socialist movement, Egypt's strongman Gamal Abdel Nasser tried to use his nation's position as the most populous Arab nation, with the largest armed forces and on the front line of the confrontations with Israel to seize the the leadership of the Arab world, for a time even forming a union with Syria called the United Arab Republic.

Anwar Sadat and his successor Hosni Mubarak, by giving up on hostilities with Israel in exchange for massive subsidies from US taxpayers , have forfeited Egypt's claim to Arab leadership. The US-led invasion of Iraq directly eliminated Saddam Hussein as a contender for the mantle of Arab leadership and indirectly led to a lowering of the profile of the only other significant contender Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya.

So, whatever the rhetoric, Saudi Arabia's ruling family really owe the US a great debt. Or are we just fools? Maybe both.

On the other hand, check out Israeli pride minister Ehud Olmert's response to the latest interation of the Saudi-authored Arab peace initiative as quoted at length in Haaretz.

DHS can't keep up with growing deportation backlog

U.S. Can't Account for 600,000 Fugitives:
"... 'despite the efforts of the teams, the backlog of fugitive alien cases has increased each fiscal year since the program was established in February 2002,' the inspector general said."

This from a report on the fugitive operations teams by the Department of Homeland Secutity's inspector general (IG). As of last August, the number of immigration fugitives - those who were once caught, ordered deported, released from custody and then failed to report for removal from the US - stood at 623,292.

The report also notes that the records did not permit the IG to determine how many of those apprehended were picked up by the efforts of the DHS fugitive teams vs. those arrested for other reasons by state and local or other federal law enforcement officers.

As a former constable, I would love to see the feds give constables a crack at reducing that backlog. I have a strong suspicion my former colleagues could do the job more effectively and more efficiently than DHS. I understand that the feds have reservations about allowing just any state or local agency personnel to work cases designed to initially apprehend suspected illegals, but here we have a database of known fugitives, just the sort of quarry constables seek and find for Pennsylvania's courts every day.

New factor in an all but forgotten war

Tigers take fight to new level with first air raid : Mail & Guardian Online :
"The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said their first ever airborne attack was carried out by two light fixed-wing aircraft against the Katunayake air base where the military's supersonic aircraft fleet is located."

The Tamil Tigers now have an air arm. Already the only insurgency with a navy (they claim to have inspired the attack on the USS Cole), the Tigers 35 year quest to partition Sri Lanka has already cost more than 60,000 lives. This adds a whole new dimension to counter-insurgency operations.

Another doomed experiment in socialized agriculture underway in Venezuela

Venezuela's Chavez announces plans for 'collective property' under shift toward socialism - International Herald Tribune:
"'If Mr. Chavez really wants to help Venezuela's poor farmers, he must offer them technical assistance and sufficient financing because land doesn't become productive without investment,' said opposition leader Alfonzo Marquina. 'We're only seeing increasing shortages and more expensive products.'"

Alfonso Marquina is absolutely right. Merely putting a bunch of campesinos on a large plot of seized land and telling them they are a cooperative now is only setting them up for failure. In fact, I suspect that is El Commandante's plan. When the coops go bust, he will have an excuse to set up state-owned and managed farms. The campesinos will still be poor, the government will think itself rich, and poor Venezuela will still be importing food.

Agriculture, if it is to be anything more than mere subsistence, requires investment and education. Chavez could show he is serious about agricultural productivity if his government were increasing the budget for agricultural research, for extension work to teach best practices to farmers, and to establish a system of production credit.

The education component is vital. You cannot take a farmworkers who have followed orders all their lives and just expect that they all magically comprehend the big picture. A man can know a lot about animals from riding herd on them for many years, but that doesn't mean he has learned anything useful about when and how to market them and that is the difference between success and failure. Likewise, driving farm machinery to plant, cultivate and harvest doesn't make you an expert on when to sell immediately and when to hold the crop in storage or how to hedge with futures contracts.

My suspicion is that in a few years agriculture in Venezuela will be in serious decline as it is in that other socialist paradise Zimbabwe.

Financial woes for traditional media, especially newspapers

Drop in Ad Revenue Raises Tough Question for Newspapers - New York Times:

"Mark Fratrik, an economist at BIA Financial Network, said the February results were “not a blip on the screen.”

"“It’s fundamental, what’s going on with newspapers,” he said. “The younger groups, the most desired demographics, are just not reading them. They aren’t listening to traditional radio either, but I tell radio broadcasters that they’re lucky not to be in newspapers.”"

"...

"Newspaper circulation nationally reached its peak in 1984, when there were 1,600 morning and afternoon paid dailies with a circulation of 63 million. With the rise of cable television and, later, the Internet, newspaper circulation began to decline. Today there are 1,450 paid dailies with a circulation of 53 million. The losses have accelerated over the last two years."

Considering the sad state of American education, it is hardly any wonder that newspaper circulation is dropping like a stone. People who can't read don't read newspapers. Add to that the influx of immigrants who are not literate in English and the schools' enchant for teaching their children in their native language first.

The newspapers have been cheerleaders for all the fads that have messed up the schools, so they may be getting what they deserve. But, in the process, they have debased our politics as well, and that harms us all.

Negotiating with madmen - the ghost of Jimmy Carter stalks the Middle East

FT.com / World / Middle East & Africa - Iran may charge British sailors :
"The Iranian military said at the weekend the 15 personnel held near the Shatt al-Arab waterway dividing Iraq from Iran had committed “blatant aggression” and were being interrogated. The rhetoric in Tehran escalated, with some regime loyalists seeing a chance to use the case to help free five Iranian officials taken by US forces in northern Iraq in January."

The mad mullahs are still at it. When Jimmy Carter decided to tolerate the Iranian invasion of the US Embassy in Teheran three decades ago, he made it clear that the US would not insist on being treated with the minimum of respect that one nation demands from another. That was an act of war and we flinched. No wonder we are having trouble being taken seriously now.

Of course the brunt of the latest outrage is being borne by an unfortunate band of British sailors and marines. But it's the same old game.

To all those fools and well-meaning knot-heads who are clamoring for more diplomacy with Iran, what planet are they on?

Earlier today I read an email sending around what was supposed to be a letter from a congressman to a constituent explaining his support of a resolution asking for more diplomacy with Iran and Syria. Since I can't vouch for the veracity of its authorship, I won't name the congressman, but the sentiment is fairly conventional. One of the arguments adduced for this course is the electoral prospects of reformers in Iran.

How can reformers ever gain any real power in Iran when the religious authorities maintain an absolute veto power over all candidates, public officials and laws? These mullahs are not the sort of shrinking violets we are accustomed to democratic societies who will sell out their principles and their country rather than endure some bad publicity. These men are absolutely convinced that, if they hang tough, they or their successors will rule the world. On the record of how they have been doing for the last three decades, they have every reason for such confidence.

The mullahs of Iran depend heavily at the present time on allies among the unrepentant communists of the PRC and the DPRK, as well as the crypto-communists of the former Soviet Union. But this is, to them, a passing phase. They have no respect for their allies of convenience and fully expect those infidels to cave in to them along the way to their eventual triumph.

I am not advocating an invasion of Iran, nor even necessarily air strikes and commando raids. The time for all that was when the US embassy was seized. Anyone who thought that by putting US troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq that we would be putting Iran in a vise just didn't think things through. All we have done is to pin down our own forces in a way that prevents them from being of any use against Iran.

What I am saying is that we are in a war, but not the war on terror that our leaders insist we are fighting. We are in a fight for the life of Western Christian Civilization. Our old enemies from the Cold War, the communists, are still around in most of their former domains and a few new ones; but now they are in alliance with a particularly militant brand of Islam which threatens to topple the current regimes of the Muslim countries it does not already control. The big change from the Cold War is that we have lost many of our allies. Britain and Australia are still with us, but much of Europe may well be lost to us already and what remains has little of material support to offer.

Out of the mouths of babes ...

LongmontFYI - Global warming on trial:
"LONGMONT — Humans don’t cause global warming, a jury of sixth graders at Trail Ridge Middle School concluded Thursday after hearing opposing arguments from their peers."

The vote in the classroom was 7-4 against AGW. Not a bad performance. I wonder what the result would have been if the degate had been on the more interesting questions - assuming there is a human-caused component to global warming, how large is it? will the solutions being bandied about have a significant impact? can the worst case scenarios constantly touted in the press be considered likely enough to guide policy at the expense of reductions in economic growth which also has serious, and not so speculative, negative consequences?

The good news is that the bad news could have been worse

Home Sales Rise Unexpectedly in Feb.: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance:
"The increase pushed sales up to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.69 million units, still 3.6 percent lower than a year ago. Sales fell by 8.5 percent for all of last year as housing hit a sharp slowdown after setting sales records for five straight years."

For a little added perspective, scroll down to my entry "What are these people thinking?" on March 23. There you will note that the overhang of existing vacant homes as of Q4 2006 was 16.7 million, so an annual rate of 6.69 million existing homes sold would only reduce inventories by less than half. And that assumes that all the new homes built this year will be sold. Meanwhile, new housing starts are at an annualized 1.525 million.

As lenders to the least qualified buyers begin some serious belt-tightening, my guess is that the smart money - if it stays in housing at all - will shift to rental property which has it's own pitfalls which I know quite well. All my years growing up - from about age four till I was in high school - my mother was resident manager of apartments in the DC suburbs while her mother was managing buildings in the city. And, as constable for over a decade I handled more rent collection and eviction actions than I could count.

Even the French are troubled by China's growing militarization

France Urges Greater Transparency from Chinese Army:
"The Chinese Navy has recently embarked on tests in the Pacific of the first of five nuclear submarines capable of launching nuclear missiles with a range of 8,000 km, according to the us Armed Forces. As for Wen Wei Pao, the Hong Kong daily financed by Beijing, it announced a few days ago that work has begun on the construction of China's first aircraft carrier, by 2010."

That little nugget quoted above was the last paragraph of the article. Note that a carrier is a force projection tool, as are the "boomers." Just where is this force to be projected? Taiwan can be taken without this expense, but Japan, the Philippines, and other interesting targets might require such leverage.

Not mentioned here, but seen in other recent coverage of the Red Chinese military budget announcement, the official Chinese military budget omits most big-ticket purchases which apparently can be found with difficulty, it at all, elsewhere in the government's accounting system.

Another "no man's land" becomes a terrorist haven

Tracking Down Jihadists in the Sahara:
"Armed bands travel around in the Sahel scoffing at the Algerian, Malian, Mauritanian, or Nigerian borders. The Jihadis, who allegedly number around 100, belong to the Salafi Group for Call and Combat, a guerrilla movement that came out of Algeria's Islamist insurrection of the 1990s. They joined Bin-Ladin's movement after their failed attempt to overthrow the Algerian regime by armed force. They recently took on the name of Al-Qa'idah in the [Lands of the Islamic] Maghreb to clearly show their determination to spread jihad throughout north Africa."

We are used to hearing of terrorist sanctuaries in Waziristan, even in the region of South America where the jungles of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina meet. Now the focus seems ready to shift to the north African desert.

Fighting the last war in the GWOT

Globalization of Terrorism Obliges Police Constantly To Adapt Response:
"The old continent has barely converted to the pre-emptive arrest of suspect terrorists, but the profile of the new extremists, sometimes disconnected from the terrorist networks, now makes this method less effective."

The article cites examples of recent arrests in Europe which involved individuals and small groups embarking on careers in Islamic terrorism without any definite link to a higher leadership structure like Al Qaeda.

This is a serious part of the problem, but by no means new. The man who shot up the Israeli airline ticket counter at LAX was a classic lone gunman acting on his own. So was Sirhan Bishara Sirhan who said he shot US Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) on the night of the California presidential primary in June of 1968 because of Kennedy's position on the Israeli-Palestinian controversy.

It isn't enough to to wait for these folks to fall for the radical Islamic line and give themselves away. As Dr. Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum keeps saying, the answer to radical Islam has to be moderate Islam.

Of course, as the recent undercover TV report on British mosques makes clear, there aren't as many moderate voices of Islam, even in the West, as Western leaders like Bush and Blair keep telling us there are. I suspect Nicolas Sarkozy will have fewer illusions on that subject if he is elected to lead France.

French echo US concerns about extensive foreign commitments

French military concerned about burden of commitments abroad:
"Another of the military staffs' concerns is finding a balance between engagement abroad and plans for the future. Opex, which are often a mixture of policing and assistance missions, provide practical experience, but do not help to acquire new and modern expertise."

The number and length of commitments, as well as the overall size of the foreign commitments is troubling French defense officials as it does our own. Of course, France is a lot smaller than the US (about 1/5 our population and only about 70% of our per capita GDP) and they are reacting to commitments totalling less than 15,000 troops and under a billion dollars a year.

McCain pot calling kettle black

McCain Warns Against Spread of Socialism:
"MIAMI (AP) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain warned on Wednesday against the spread of socialism in Latin America and pledged to give the region renewed U.S. attention if elected."

It would be nice if McCain showed as much concern about the spread of socialism right here at home. How can he claim to be concerned about it in Latin America while we set such a lousy example in this country.

Gates' interests and Bush's not entirely congruent on immigration reform

Bill Gates backs immigration reform on Mexico trip�|�International News�|�Reuters.com:
"MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, the world's richest man, said on Tuesday the United States should reform its immigration laws and give more flexibility to higher-skilled foreign workers."

At the tail end of the story, it mentions that Gates recently told a Senate committee that the Asian scientists and engineers he employs routinely wait more than five years for a green card.

Of course they manage to work in Bush's proposal for a "temporary guest worker" program without mentioning that it has (a) nothing to do with Gates' desire to ease the way for high-skilled wotkers to enter the US and (b) alteady exists (the existing quota is perennially undersubscribed).

What are these people thinking?

Spring Has Sprung:

"Well… Did you see the housing starts data for the United States yesterday? Amazing! Astounding! And Incredible! Housing starts rose 9.0% in February to an annualized pace of 1.525 million units, slightly stronger than the "experts" calling for an increase to 1.50 million starts. What gives here? Do these builders not see the writing on the wall? Why on earth would they continue to start building more houses with all the houses sitting empty, unsold right now? "Volume" is not going to be the answer to this marketing equation!

"Per Census Bureau, in the fourth quarter of 2006, there were 126.6 million homes in the United States. Of these, 16.7 million were vacant. That is a whopping 13.2% of all U.S. homes that were sitting empty. And this was before the subprime meltdown really sunk its teeth into the housing sector!"

The above is from an interesting free investment letter called The Daily Reckoning.

With just over one house in 8 vacant, is there a need for the housing stock to grow by 9% per annum this year? I just don't get it.

Meanwhile, subprime lenders are already beginning to feel the pain of rising defaults. This thing has to blow sometime and the later it happens, the uglier it will be.

Putting little slices of your brain down the memory hole

ABC News: Erasing the Pain of the Past :
"But in their early efforts to understand the way in which short-term memories become long-term memories, researchers have discovered that certain drugs can interrupt that process. Those same drugs, they believe, can also be applied not just in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event — like a mortar attack, rape or car accident — but years later, when an individual is still haunted by memories of event."

The idea is to spare people the pain of remembering traumatic events. Despite the notion being condemned by the president's bioethics advisory panel, the National Institutes of Health is funding research along these lines. The article points to a government interest in helping veterans to deal with battle trauma.

One study mentioned in the article I find particularly troubling. It involves giving persons involved in auto crashes a drug or placebo during emergency room treatment. While this has the virtue for the researchers of administering the drug before the memory of the crash can be consolidated in the victims' memories, what happens when they later need to explain the event to their insurance company or the police?

As with many stories in the newspapers, especially those that deal with the government, the most interesting bit involves the elephant standing in the corner. No one ever mentions the elephant, but he is there just as big as life. In this story, the elephant is all the work the government has been funding in this field going back almost half a century.

Remember that LSD came from government research in chemically altering the mind. I once read that there was some suspicion that the Unabomber had been a test subject during his student days in Cambridge. The informed speculation is that the intelligence community would like to be able to erase memories of agents so that they cannot later be successfully interrogated if they fall into enemy custody. Perhaps they already can.

Suppose this work succeeds. It is a small step from helping people deal with debilitating psychological problems to eliminating inconvenient witnesses without the mess and bother of assassination. Big Brother is watching.

Litigious excess not limited to the US

Francophones sue Ishihara over anti-French comments | The Japan Times Online:

"The 74 plaintiffs, including foreign nationals residing in France and Canada, are each demanding compensation of 50,000 yen and a public apology from the metro government.

"In a meeting with support organizations of Tokyo Metropolitan University in October 2004, Ishihara said, 'French is disqualified as an international language because it is a language that cannot count numbers,' according to the suit."

Gov. Ishihara seems to be a lightning rod for this sort of abuse of the legal system. It's one thing to call a press conference and demand an apology just to embarass your political opponents, but slapping them with law suits and demanding money seems excessive to me.

The new and improved PRC

Web editor jailed for subversion -- Shanghai Daily | 上海日报 -- English Window to China News:
"A court statement said that in more than 60 articles, Zhang had slandered the government and China's social system to vent his discontent with the government."

For all the liberal apologists for the Chinese communists, I have one question. Since so much progress has been made, are you ready to go and live there now?

No surprise here

Study Finds One-Third in D.C. Illiterate:
"The growing number of Hispanic and Ethiopian immigrants who aren't proficient in English contributed to the city's high functional illiteracy level, which translated to 170,000 people, said Connie Spinner, director of the State Education Agency. The report says the district's functional illiteracy rate is 36 percent and the nation's 21 percent."

The DC school system went to hell about forty years ago when they fired an excellent superintendent named Hanson for a reason that we would now call political correctness.

I'm not surprised that DC has a literacy problem, and it's not all the fault of the immigrants. To start with, there are nearly 500 highly paid government employess in the Congress who can't find their way through the Constitution with a searchlight and a magnifying glass. And those are the people responsible for running DC.

Guerilla filmmaking for our side for a change

On The Fence Films :: El Uno De Mayo

Here you will find a link to a four minute film exposing the radical left sponsorship of anti-immigration reform rallies held on May Day 2006 in LA and NYC.

Plame lights up House hearing

My Way News - Plame Sheds Little Light in Leak Case:
"Columnist [Robert] Novak has said that former Deputy State Department Secretary Richard Armitage first revealed Plame's job to him and Bush's political adviser, Karl Rove, and CIA spokesman Bill Harlow confirmed it."

This short paragraph tells most of what needs to be remembered about this whole "Scooter" Libby vs. Joe Wilson affair. Armitage was the leaker and he was given immunity from prosecution by the prosecutor. Bob Novak revealed Plame's identity in the press and he was not charged. The CIA's PR guy confirmed Plame's identity to a member of the press - rather clear evidence that the Agency officially did not regard her status as "covert" at that time.

All of which leads us back to the $64 question - "Why the Libby witchhunt?" And, the answer that immediately springs to mind is that it was a better way to attack the Bush White House than going through Armitage at the State Department.

Guru sees US real estate crash impacting world markets

Top investor sees U.S. property crash | Reuters:
"'You can't believe how bad it's going to get before it gets any better,' [Jim Rogers] the prominent U.S. fund manager told Reuters by telephone from New York."

I am thankful that my own little development is nearly sold out. I plan to sit on the sidelines for a while even though the real estate markets continue to show signs of life in the two areas I know best - Greenville County, SC and Berks County, PA.

Turnabout is fair play - Michael Moore on the receiving end

An uncomfortable truth - Film - Entertainment - theage.com.au:
"The film shows Melnyk repeatedly approaching Moore for an interview and being rejected ..."

It's curious that Moore should react so uncharitably toward Ms. Melnyk. Earlier, Moore had given a very cordial few minutes of on-camera time to an ambush interview by conservative documentarian Evan Coyne Maloney of brainterminal.com - Michael Moore's Call to Arms.

However that came to be, it seems to have played a role in turning Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine from fans to critics of fellow documentarian Moore.

Of particular note, in my view, is the fact that GM head Roger Smith actually gave Moore an on-camera interview which he chose not to use in the final cut of his breakout film Roger and Me. What makes this particularly telling is that the film, as released, revolves around the theme that Roger Smith is inaccessible and Moore has to imagine how Smith would respond to the issues Moore raises about GM's role in the life of his hometown - Flint, Michigan.

BTW, Evan Maloney will be introducing his latest film on Sean Hannity's show Sunday evening on the Fox News Channel.

Can you spell kook with a capital K?

Fishslice:
"I have been kidnapped and have biotech device embedded in my body these devices operate digitally and are used to torture me. I suffer great and sustained continuous pain. I have people talking into a cell phone secreted in my body and have many of my bodily functions controlled by computer and hideous individuals."

For those of us toiling in our own small ways to make some serious use of blogs as an alternative source of news and commentary, it is necessary to remind ourselves that how we are perceived is also influenced by the certifiable cases.

I stumbled upon this poor soul through a comment posted on a Spanish-language news site where the infelicity of the Google machine translation made it hard to tell what was the kookery and what the defects of the translation.

Winter isn't giving up just yet

Warnings for Berks, Pennsylvania : Weather Underground:
"Because of the recent warmth... snow may be slow to accumulate at first. However... the snow could be of the wet and heavy variety... which would make clearing of roadways more difficult. Dangerous traveling conditions are possible from Friday morning into early
Saturday."

Just when we had a taste of spring this last week after frigid temperatures and the one of the worst traffic-snarling snowstorms in years a month ago, here comes another.

Actually, late season snows in March, or even April, are not that uncommon here and often dump lots of snow on this part of PA although it tends not to stay around very long.

AGW - Subtle media bias in action

United Press International - NewsTrack - Danish scientist: Global warming is a myth:
"It is generally assumed the Earth's atmosphere and oceans have grown warmer during the recent 50 years because of an upward trend in the so-called global temperature, which is the result of complex calculations and averaging of air temperature measurements taken around the world."

Note that the paragraph I quote here appears without attribution in the UPI story and does a nice job of undercutting Prof. Andresen's argument. It also neatly slides over some points embarassing to the AGW alarmists - for example, the fact that the warming which began with the recovery from the Little Ice Age (and coincided with the takeoff in the Industrial Revolution when coal began to surpass water and animal power as the prime mover in industry) stalled from around the end of WW2 until the 1970s (remember the 70s was the time when we were warned of an impending ice age that has been sent down the memory hole).

So, you thought the Cold War was over, eh?

Bush Just Learned That Brazil Is No US Backyard Any Longer - Brazzil Magazine:
"Brazil already pursues an independent foreign policy, so the domestic political impact of the Iraq war is far less keenly felt here than in places like Britain. Lula has also been actively trying to diversify Brazil's trading partners, cultivating links in Africa and building the Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRIC) block into an emerging global force."

The French, it seems, have a saying for every ocassion. In this case, it is "plus ca change, plus ca le meme chose" - the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Election campaign heats up in Nigera

THISDAY ONLINE:
"The House of Representatives yesterday reacted angrily to the continued violence, wanton killings and destruction of property unleashed on law abiding citizens in the course of political campaigns with particular mention of Monday’s incident in Lagos
They also kicked against similar acts in other parts of the country and called on the police to rise to the occasion."

And you thought politicking in the US was too intense!

In other election news, the Independent National Election Commission complained that a spate of court orders mandating ballot access for additional candidates could force a delay in the elections. Meanwhile the armed forces have announced their readiness to handle any assigned duties with regard to the election, northern state governors pledged that voters would not be inhibited in exercising their franchise, and there was a nice photo of a bunch of pols dancing at a campaign rally.

Winfrey's school rules compared to prison

SA parents complain about Oprah school rules : Mail & Guardian Online :
"Oprah hand-selected the first class of 152 poor, mostly black pupils to attend her new five-star private school outside Johannesburg, boasting state-of-the-art science laboratories, a yoga studio and beauty salon situated over 20 hectares."

It seems parents, initially pleased to have their daughters attend the multimedia billionaire's $40 million academy, are disturbed by policies such as a two-hour visit one Sunday per month. The school claims not to want to interfere with relations between parents and students, but their actions speak much more clearly of their true intentions.

This is a perfect example of the mindset of elites who have justifiably been called "coercive utopians." Just because someone is richer, and maybe even smarter, than you doesn't mean they can do a better job of running your life than you can; and it certainly doesn't give them the right to do so.

Libya controls its borders, why can't we?

Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt | Restricted borders:
"Returning labourers say their decision to leave was a result of the new regulations enforced by Libya's Ministry of Manpower under which they are required to pay monthly 25 Libyan dinars in income tax, 14 dinars for insurance, 15 dinars for an Arab identity card and 60 dinars for an accredited work permit."

Seems like Libya can take steps to control foreign laborers who don't abide by the rules - including identity cards and receipts for income tax and health insurance - even to the point of making home visits to check paperwork. Why is this sort of thing too complicated for the US?

Unprecedented military mobilization in Cuba

granma.cu -Ra�l verifies progress made by Pinar del R�o Military Region :
"NEVER before, except during the Bay of Pigs invasion and the October [Missile] Crisis, has Cuban undertaken within its territory a mobilization process of such magnitude involving its permanent troops, reserves and Territorial Troop Militias (MTT) as the current Operation Caguair�n, General of the Army Ra�l Castro Ruz affirmed after observing the situation in the Pinar del R�o Military Region."

Naturally, this story from the Cuban government news service identifies the US as the most likely enemy. However, any unbiased observer might be forgiven for wondering if the real object was to prepare for possible domestic unrest that might accompany the death of Fidel Castro, as well as to solidify younger brother Raul Castro's grasp on the levers of power.

Guatemala also concerned about US treatment of its illegal migrants

Mercopress:
"'Just so you know, when we enforce the law we do so in a fair and rational way,' he [President Bush] said [at a joint news conference with Guatemalan president Oscar Berger]. 'People are welcome, but under the law.' He tried to dispel suspicions, high here, that application of the law in the United States can be cruel and discriminatory."

I guess it might have been poor form while in Guatemala City, and just before moving on to a meeting with Mexico's president in Yucatan, to point out that US treatment of illegal aliens from Guatemala is much better than the reception they get if they are caught in Mexico.

The story points out that there are hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans illegally in the US and only 18,000 have been deported over the last 15 months. That doesn't sound to me like our enforcement efforts are too vigorous.

Hollywood accused of making propaganda film to support Bush

Iran outraged by Hollywood war epic 300-Rest of World-World-NEWS-The Times of India:
"A cultural advisor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described the film as 'American psychological warfare against Iran.'"

Either Ahmadinejad doesn't believe this stuff or he is dangerously misinformed about how American culture works - probably a little of each.

Lighten up Iran. Maybe I missed it, but I don't recall the French government getting all in a snit because HBO's series Rome wasn't sufficiently flattering to their ancient ancestors in portraying the Gallic Wars.

New rat and old rat - handicapping the rat race

The Age Blogs: Sam and the City:
"Yet Dobbs reckons that a new study on the rat race (carried out by a psychologist and graduate student at Concordia University) seems to contradict the theory that women will only get lucky if they're part of the rat-race process."

I thought that bit about old cow and new cow - Someone Like You (2001) - was creepy. But here's a fairly serious discussion of human relationships based on the mating habits of rats in laboratory cages.

There are vast differences in the brains and endocrine systems of rats and men and millions of years of separate evolution. There is another important reason to be wary of such comparisons - the artificiality of the laboratory environment (for the rats, it seems to suit the researchers well enough).

During the late Victorian period, the science of animal behavior seemed to be making great strides based on observations made in zoos. Many years later, when dedicated researchers began to replace hunters and trappers as the principal sources of observation of animal behavior in the wild, we had to unlearn a lot of what had been learned from those observations in zoos.

Re-defining conspicuous consumption

Corriere.it:
"... a ceremony to lay the keel of a 134-metre yacht with seven decks and a small submarine capable of reaching depths of up to one hundred metres. The design has two helicopter platforms, a hangar for a private aircraft and a seawater swimming pool that can also be used for mooring small boats.The yacht will require a crew of about sixtyand delivery is scheduled for 2010."

An Italian shipyard facing declining orders for warships seeks new markets in catering to the yachting needs of people with net worth of a billion dollars or more, a tiny, but fast-growing segment of the population.

Vaclav Klaus wants to put environmentalism in its proper place

United Press International - International Intelligence - Czech Pres: Environmentalism is a religion:
"'Environmentalism should belong in the social sciences,' much like the idea of communism or other '-isms' such as feminism, Klaus said, adding that 'environmentalism is a religion' that seeks to reorganize the world order as well as social behavior and value systems worldwide."

The new and improved scientific method

Scientists threatened for 'climate denial' | Uk News | News | Telegraph :

"'Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened,' said the professor [Timothy Ball, University of Winnipeg].

"'I can tolerate being called a sceptic because all scientists should be sceptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal.'"

The article deals with personal villification and even death threats received by Prof. Ball and others who are outspoken critics of the official AGW doctrine. Science is supposed to make progress by experiments, observations, facts and logic. It cannot advance true understanding by means of lies, slander and violence.

A half century after he coined the term, people keep dredging up President Dwight D. Eisenhower's warning about the danger of power concentrated in the "military industrial complex" - and rightly so. But they almost never cite the next section of that same speech in which he warned of the danger of the scientific academic complex.

Eisenhower, himself a former president of Columbia University, thought it almost as dangerous to have too much power over science and scholarship concentrated in a few hands. This has come to pass where so much of academic research is dependent on financing from a governments and a few mega-foundations marching to the beat of a single, politically correct drummer. As the article quotes a former editor of New Scientist magazine, "Einstein could not have got funding under the present system."

There's seldom anything new from Hollywood

Environment - Movies - New York Times:
"Dumping Hollywood villains of the past — drug lords, aliens, North Korean dictators, even the news media — for an environmental bete noire carries risks for studios that don’t mind frightening viewers, as long as it’s all in fun. But it also hints at the possibility of more sophisticated entertainment, and perhaps even the kind of impact that “The China Syndrome,” with Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas, exerted on the nuclear power industry when it came out in 1979."

We have had movies before where the villain was some corporation raping the environment. Two that occur to me without doing any serious research would be the Steven Seagal vehicle Fire Down Below (1997) and Julia Roberts' Oscar-winning performance as Erin Brockovich (2000).

It's rather ironic that The China Syndrome should be mentioned in this context since the principal environmental impact of the success of that movie was an increase in the production of atmospheric CO2.

Turning up the heat on the AGW debate

My Way News - Warming Report to Warn of Coming Drought:
"... by 2080, hundreds of millions of people could face starvation, according to the report, which is still being revised."

The tone of this article is in line with a documentary I saw on HBO entitled "Too Hot Not To Handle." Both make the case for imminent and disastrous effects from climate change caused by human release of CO2.

The other thing the two presentations have in common is a distinct lack of clarity. For example, much is made of the absolute levels of carbon dioxide emissions in the US and Europe and the need to reduce them, but there is seldom any mention of the rising energy demand of fast-growing economies in places like China, India or Brazil. Nor do they point out what a tiny part of the total greenhouse effect is due to anthropogenic sources of global warming.

One of the most clever bits in the documentary is to point out that projected melting of glaciers in Alaska would raise sea level by a matter of inches. then to say that if all the glaciers of Greenland disappeared, sea level would rise a few feet, but if all the Antartic ice sheet melts, sea levels would rise over 400 feet. What is conveniently left out is any mention of the likelihood or timeframe for any of these eventualities.

Drilling in shop class

WTHR - Indianapolis News and Weather - School district: Sixth graders had sex in class:
"'...during school hours in a classroom with an experienced teacher present, two sixth graders completed the act of intercourse...at least ten students were witnesses. No disciplinary actions were taken against the teacher... All teachers were told to keep quiet.'"

The above quote was from a written tip received and investigated by the news staff at Channel 13 News, WTHR (NBC attiliate).

When I was that age, about all we did in shop class was make ashtrays. Well, smoking is out these days and sex is in, so who should be surprised when school officials in Warren Township, near Indianapolis, Indiana, confirmed that illicit sexual activity had taken place in a shop class while the teacher was present.

As bad as this is, there was an incident in a Washington, DC classroom a few years ago involving younger children, more participants and more kids in the classroom at the time. One has to wonder how much of this stuff is going on?

The middle school recommended the students be expelled, but did not report the incident to the Warren Township School Police. The channel's website report of the incident also indicates that schools are not required to report such incidents. Hard to understand in an age where we expect teachers, as well as healthcare providers and other responsible adults to report suspicions of child abuse including sex acts committed on persons not old enough to consent.

It's always about the children

My Way News - Children Stranded After Immigration Raid:
"Immigration officials said 327 of the 500 employees of Michael Bianco Inc., mostly women, were detained Tuesday by immigration officials for possible deportation as illegal aliens."

What Massachusett officials described as "a widespread humanitarian crisis" saw them scrambling to arrange care for up to a hundred children of the illegal aliens arrested. Still, federal authorities released 45 illegal aliens who said they were the sole caregivers to their children.

Make no mistake, I care about children. I especially care about the children of American citizens and legal aliens whose parents are priced out of the labor market by the cynical exploitation of illegal foreign workers in sweatshop conditions as described at the Bianco factory.

As for those children whose parents were arrested in this long overdue enforcement action, the federal authorities should fast-track their repatriation along with their parents to their home countries.

And by the way, there is a guest worker program under which persons form countries like Mexico can legally enter and work for a definite period and then return home. News reports indicate that the quota for this program remains unfilled year after year because people prefer to come here illegally and work here indefinitely.

Am I the only one ...

Automakers ask judge to dismiss global warming lawsuit:
"Copyright � 2007 by Bay City News, Inc. -- Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited."

Okay, Bay City, lighten up already. So I won't even quote your story directly.

Am I the only one to see the real reason this lawsuit should be thrown out? The article describes a suit against the American Big Three automakers and three of their Japanese competitors brought in federal court by the State of California claiming damage to the state from AGW attributable to auto emissions.

The defendant firms have cited as grounds for the court to dismiss that the question is political and pre-empted by federal regulations including the Clean Air Act.

The point should be that the state of California has for years enforced emission standards for autos which are more stringent than the federal standards. The state could have chosen at any time to enact further statutory controls to address concerns about CO2-caused climate change. The state must be debarred from pursuing this action which amounts to an unconstitutional ex post facto law.

OTOH, I would take a perverse delight in watching the state and defendants sparring in a court of law. The state would have to show: (1) that AGW exists, (2) that there is a causal connection between CO2 from autos and AGW, (3) the amount of damage caused to the state by AGW, and (4) the proportion of that damage attributable to autos manufactured and sold by the defendant firms. That could be lots of fun.

Eco-friendly sex toys?

Love-making gets green light from adult stores:
"... if shopping to save the planet is trendy, having sex to clear your conscience is at the cutting edge."

I'm at a loss to know why bamboo sheets are better than cotton, let alone silk, but I'm hardly an expert on sex. I also have some health questions about organic lubricants.

If we're really lucky, all this green sex stuff will decrease the fertility of tree-huggers.

My position is the same whether it's Greenpeace's guidelines or the Kama Sutra - if you need an instruction manual, you're probably not doing it right.

A former constable's observations on the issue of police training

FOXNews.com - Some States Put Untrained Cops on Duty - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News:
"In Mississippi, Greenwood Police Officer Casey Wiggins was captured by surveillance cameras at a high school in the Mississippi Delta in December, pointing his weapon at an unarmed student, 17-year-old James Marshall. Marshall, who was not disciplined by the school or charged with a crime, is suing for $2 million."

I saw the video of this incident on Fox News today and I was very disappointed that no one pointed out what the officer did right. The officer walked up to a group of male students in the hall and and a scuffle ensued. Officer Wiggins did not draw his weapon until he was on the ground flat on his back, at no time did he place his finger inside the trigger guard, and - when the students promptly backed off - he got to his feet and immediately reholstered his weapon. The entire incident was over in a matter of a few seconds.

It might have been better to have drawn pepper spray with his off hand while using his gun hand to secure his weapon in its holster, but this was a split second judgment and it ended well. Once you are on the ground, your options for self-defense are limited. Instead of suing the officer, Mr. Marshall's parents should have their son apologize for the incident.

As to the broader issue of waivers of training for police officers, that is not an issue here in Pennsylvania. Training must be completed before officers take to the streets. The state police operate their own academy as do many larger municipal agencies. Most smaller municipalities rely on hiring officers who have paid their own way to attend a state-certified police academy, some of which are run by community colleges. All must meet at least the state's minimum standards for faculty qualifications, length of training, subject matter, and proficiency. The state also has separate commissions specifying training standards for deputy sheriffs and for constables with the actual training being contracted out to various colleges.

US preparing air strike for Iran? A French analyst says "No"

United States cannot now launch military offensive against Iran:
"Since George W. Bush ordered the dispatch of a second air-sea group to the Persian Gulf, there have been growing rumours in Washington of possible US air strikes seeking to destroy Iran's nuclear potential."

A thoughtful analysis by Renaud Girard in Le Figaro of the considerable diplomatic, military and other obstacles to such a fool's errand.

The Great Hamburg Fire of 2007

 

It appears that at least two buildings were destroyed in a major fire in downtown Hamburg on Monday, March 5, 2007. In this photo you see the WFMZ-TV (Channel 69 in Allentown, PA) news crew speaking with the emergency management coordinator and police chief of the borough. More photos of the fire will appear on my photoblog, Keen's Photos (http://keensphotos.blogspot.com).

Leading French environmental scientist switches sides in AGW debate

Allegre's second thoughts:
"[Dr. Claude Allegre's] article cited evidence that Antarctica is gaining ice and that Kilimanjaro's retreating snow caps, among other global-warming concerns, come from natural causes. 'The cause of this climate change is unknown,' he states matter of factly. There is no basis for saying, as most do, that the 'science is settled.'"

Amazing to behold, but we have found an honest socialist in, of all places, France. Dr. Allegre's defection is a double blow to Al Gore and friends in that he is among the worlds experts on atmospheric processes and a former cabinet minister under the Socialist Party administration of Lionel Jospin.

Read the article and note the link to a series of articles on scientists who buck the trend in their fields.