Read it.

A former federal security officer has admitted helping a man accused of running a drug ring evade security and smuggle money through the Buffalo Niagara Airport.

Minnetta Walker was arrested in March. She admitted Friday in federal court helping the man get around airport security scanners, The Buffalo News reported.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Read it.

When there aren’t any Jews or Americans handy, Muslims will cheerfully blow each other up.

That’s some fine Religion o’ Peace™ you got there, Mohammed.

Read it.

Of course not. They’re all dictators themselves; it would set a bad precedent.

Read it.

Obviously the product of separate but unequal schools. We must immediately insert as many white kids into black schools as it takes to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.

Oh, wait….

Read it.

Read it.

The 22-year-old television presenter says she wishes that she had been dissuaded from covering her body with “art” work. “Fourteen-year-old girls should not be allowed to have tattoos,” she tells Mandrake. “The ones I have from that age are more like prison tattoos.”

Let that be a lesson to us all.

My Maria

Read it.

Mohammed was “pissed off” at his classmates who were proud their parents worked for the National Security Agency and FBI. And so he spoke openly of his desire to kill them.

Just another one of those peaceful Muslims. I’ll bet his ambition is to move to Michigan when he grows up.

Read it.

This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain…

There is a curious argument used to paint the Tea Party movement and conservatives as racist.

The argument goes that since slave owners and segregationists invoked states rights, and since the Tea Party movement and conservatives invoke states rights, therefore the Tea Party movement and conservatives are racist.

Of course, there is no logic to this construct.  Just because one use of the 10th Amendment was for racist purposes does not mean that all other invocations of the 10th Amendment are racist.  Unless of course the 10th Amendment and our federalist structure itself is racist.

Nonetheless, it is a theme the Jesse Jacksons of the world push day in and day out in order to play the race card in favor of Democrats, in this case having a crowd repeat “big government is us by another name.”

By ‘us’, of course, Jesse Jackson (Lawn Jockey of the Crust) means himself and his tax-parasite friends.

Read it.

Which demonstrates that this ‘rebellion’ is just a coup d’etat against Khadafi, not a fundamental change. ‘Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.’ And Obama spent billions of your money on this crap, while bitching and moaning about Bush and Iraq and Afghanistan. A hoser and a poser and a half-blood twit, that’s our Barry.

Read it.

We have the technology.

Read it.

This story notes that al-Shabaab certainly seems to like their beheadings and amputations, but does not make the connection regarding their symbolic significance. The point al-Shabaab intends to make is that they are playing “by the book” as they fight to impose Islamic law.

Qur’an 47:4: “Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks…”

Are the enemies nominally Muslims? No problem. They declare their enemies apostates. The penalty for anyone who “changed his religion” is death, according to Muhammad’s own orders.

Qur’an 5:33: “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter.”

Qur’an 5:38: “As for the thief, both male and female, cut off their hands. It is the reward of their own deeds, an exemplary punishment from Allah. Allah is Mighty, Wise”

That’s some fine Religion o’ Peace™ you got there, Mohammed.

John Hinderaker at Power Line takes a look at more Crustian goofiness.

Bill Keller, Executive Editor of the New York Times–that’s roughly like being Captain of the Titanic, but some people pay attention to him anyway–has gotten a lot of notice with a list of questions that he poses to Republican presidential candidates, collectively and individually. There is much to be said about this. For example: Why only the Republican candidates? Has Keller or anyone else asked similar questions of Howard Dean, John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton or even Barack Obama, whose brushes with religious radicalism are notorious? Does anyone expect Democratic candidates to wax eloquent on religious issues? Not that I am aware of.

Read it.

That’s some fine Religion o’ Peace™ you got there, Mohammed.

Read it.

Berlin is the third largest Turkish city after Istanbul and Ankara, and a prime example of failed multiculturism. Citizens are starting to discuss vigilantism and whether or not they should establish armed patrols. Christians “have long called for a special auxiliary police made up of volunteers who would have uniforms, batons and handcuffs.”

Read it.

A man in China was left to die on the operating table after his doctors fled from a fire that had broken out in the next-door room, a hospital official in Shanghai admitted on Friday.

Let’s hear it for government-run health care.

Read it.

Boko Haram continues its campaign to make Nigeria safe for Sharia, and unsafe for absolutely anything else.

Its selection of targets focuses closely on institutions and practices that go against the rule of Sharia. In these attacks, those targets included the law enforcement of the current government, and banks that may have been engaging in riba, the charging of interest.

That’s some fine Religion o’ Peace™ you got there, Mohammed.

Read it.

A Japanese company is taking the national campaign to reduce power consumption to extremes by prescribing an energy-saving haircut for all its staff.

I’m trying to think of what an ‘energy-saving haircut’ might be, and I’m drawing a blank.

Read it.

Two men were hurt by an explosion in the cab of their pickup. They said it was a drive-by bomb attack.

Hmm.

However, witnesses saw the men throwing something into a nearby field before the police arrived. Police later found unexploded mortar rounds in the field, and a “mortar-like device” in the truck.

Again, hmm.

All this occurred in Michigan, but my knowledge of the state’s ethnic geography is insufficient to determine how culturally-enriched Columbia Township is, or how likely it is the miscreants victims were adherents of the Religion of Peace. I suppose we’ll have to wait for the men to be charged and named by the police, if that ever happens.

Heartland of America, that’s Michigan.

Read it.

News flash to the media: Muslims have no problem with ‘mass executions’. Mohammed did it (per Wikipedia):

The Islamic Prophet Muhammad besieged the Banu Qurayza for 25 days until they surrendered.^[1] One ofMuhammad’s companions decided that “the men should be killed, the property divided, and the women and children taken as captives”. Muhammad approved of the ruling, calling it similar to God’s judgment^{[7][8][9][10][11]}, after which all male members of the tribe who had reached puberty were beheaded ^[2][12]. The Muslim jurist Tabari quotes 600-900 being executed.^[1][3] The Sunni hadith do not give the number killed, but state that all males were killed and 1 woman.^[13] The rest of the woman and children were sold in exchange for weapons and horses, according to Islamic sources.^[1]

… so it’s okay for all Muslims to do it. Just ask them.

Read it.

Why should they, when they know that Stupid Rich White People will do it for them?

Read it.

This would seem in line with what Baden-Powell had in mind originally.

Read it.

Last night I went out to dinner. But I didn’t pick where I was going, Ness did. The place was good. Score one for Ness.

You can easily search for different types of food, whether they’re broad or specific. And you can choose to search in other cities. Or you can alter the search settings to restrict a search by price and weed out bigger chains, for example.

When you find a place you like, you can drill deeper to get hours of operation, phone numbers, a website, etc. You can also save places to come back to later. And you can share restaurants with friends with the click of a button.

Just iPhone so far, but presumably an Android app can’t be far behind.

More here.

Read it.

A graphic from NASA shows sea levels have dropped 6 mm in the last 6 months, wiping out the rise over the past 2 years.

Well. So much for Global Warming flooding out all the Blue states. (Shucks.)

Read it.

 These days, of course, I would support Charlie Sheen over Obama. Obama has done for the economy what pantyhose did for foreplay. Obama has been perpetually behind the curve. If the issue of the day is jobs and the economy, Rick Perry is certainly the nuts-and-bolts kind of guy you want in there. Even though my pal and fellow Texan Paul Begala has pointed out that no self-respecting Mexican would sneak across the border for one of Rick Perry’s low-level jobs, the stats don’t entirely lie. Compared with the rest of the country, Texas is kicking major ass in terms of jobs and the economy, and Rick should get credit for that, just as Obama should get credit for saying “No comment” to the young people of the Iranian revolution.

And that’s all you need to know.

(If you’ve never heard Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, you’ve missed one of the seminal musical influences of our time. His song They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Any More is an encapsulation of all that is best about America.)

Read it.

Read it.

Environmentalists just aren’t happy with any technology that became useful after 1900. They want us to go back to riding horses and trains. Jerks.

Read it.

I am not making this up.

Read it.

There’s a gross injustice being perpetuated in Illinois’ public schools, and the CTU isn’t going to take it anymore.  In fact, the powerful teachers union is considering a strike in hopes that it would create so much public pressure that the Powers That Be have no choice but to correct this outrageous injustice.

Like many Illinois citizens, the CTU has seen reports that three out of four state high school graduates are not ready for college.  And the union’s response has been, well … the CTU hasn’t really said anything about it.

You see, the fact that students are leaving Illinois’ K-12 public education system totally unprepared for college, the workplace or life in general – that’s not really the CTU’s thing.

Instead, the union is “upset” and feeling very “disrespected” because the Chicago Board of Education doesn’t have the money to pay CTU members the four percent pay raise they were promised in their contract.

The union is also steaming over the fact that more than 1,500 teachers have been laid off, some of which have been placed on a “secret” do-not-hire list, CTU President Karen Lewis told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Pay, benefits, working conditions – these are the things that the teachers unions are willing to strike over. If only 23 percent of Illinois high school grads pass a college-readiness test, well, what do you expect them to do about it? Lewis is quick to point out that union teachers are just simple “workers,” doing the best they can with the kids they are given. (It’s mostly the parents’ fault, anyway.)

Read it.

Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

Read it.

Perhaps there’s some hope yet for Canada South.

“We’re going to have to remind Lansing that our bars are in fact private property, so therefore they are now persona non grata as of Sept. 1,” said Stephen Mace, director of the group and a bar worker himself.

Yeah, well, good luck with that.

Read it.

George Carlin, where are you when we really need you?

Read it.

A new report from the Department of Energy’s research arm, the Energy Information Administration shows that “renewable” energy firms are heavily dependent on government support, says Robert L. Bradley, Jr., the CEO and founder of the Institute for Energy Research.

I guess that’s what they mean by ‘renewable’ — as long as they provide money and votes, Congress will renew their subsidies. (At your expense, of course.)

Funneling money into renewables is certainly politically popular.  But, at the end of the day, what exactly do green firms have to show for all that money?  The truth is, not much.  Wind power, for example, provides a paltry 1.2 percent of total domestic energy production.  That’s an increase of just 0.7 percent since 2007, despite billions of dollars in taxpayer resources.

Read it.

How many Muslims does it take to install Sharia in a country? Ten percent, according research shown in the article “Minority Rules: Scientists Discover Tipping Point for the Spread of Ideas.” If everybody else is discussing among themselves whether we should save the whales, decrease government spending, or bomb a terrorism funding dictator, and can not agree on central values, ways and goals, the tail can wag the dog….

Read it.

Jeremy Hill, a 33-year-old father of six, claims he killed the bear when it wandered in the yard where his children are playing. He faces prison over the death of a protected species.

Your tax dollars at work.

Read it.

The Obamas’ summer break on Martha’s Vineyard has already been branded a PR disaster after the couple arrived four hours apart on separate government jets.

There’s a carbon footprint for you. I’ll bet those jets weren’t powered by ‘green’ energy, either.

White House sources today claimed that the First Lady has spent $10million of U.S. taxpayers’ money on vacations alone in the past year.

‘Movin’ on up (movin’ on up)/ to the East Side … we finally got a Piece of the Pie.’

The magazine also reported that Mrs Obama, whose fashion choices are widely followed, had been going on ‘wild shopping sprees’, much to the distress of her husband, who, its sources reveal, is ‘absolutely furious’ at his wife’s ‘out-of-control spending’.

Hey, somebody whose makework job (created specially for her as a politicians wife) was bumped to $317,000 a year when her husband became a Senator (and was then conveniently abolished once she Moved On) isn’t about to flinch from a few perks.

Read it.

Read it.

Then I realized what had happened. Some computer had shown the airline that it was going was cheaper to bump and re-route everyone on our flight than to try to re-route the people on the Chattanooga flight. That way the airline wouldn’t have to put all of them up in a hotel. That made me feel a bit better about the safety of the airline, but not so good about our chances of making it to Florida on time.

Evidently the computer had said that our flight was one where they could put the fewest people in a hotel because almost everyone could reach their destination through other flights that afternoon. There was one destination that they couldn’t reach–Panama City Beach where we were going. In all fairness the people who helped arrange a hotel for us were courteous and friendly.  They gave us our tickets for the next day along with vouchers for the hotel and a few meals. I carefully checked the tickets to make sure we were all sitting together and discovered there were no seat numbers. I was told the seats would be assigned the next day.

After an uneventful (but not particularly restful) night in the hotel, we checked in our luggage and got our seat assignments. Unfortunately the person making the seat assignments decided that the best place for us to sit was in the very back–where the engine completely covers the windows and the kids can’t see out at all.  Maybe I didn’t adequately explain that yes we all needed to sit together and yes the ability to see out was somewhat important–something I had put a lot of effort into earlier when selecting our flights.

We finally did make it to the beach a day late. It was a nice week spent talking with family, watching dolphins, playing in the waves, making sand castles and swimming in the pool.

Read it.

British doctors say there is now conclusive evidence that they have found a genetic cure for children born with severely compromised immune systems.

Read it.

It is simply a fact that people who work hard, finish their education, get married, and stay married are rarely — very rarely — poor.  There is no other proven formula for lifting Americans out of poverty.  None.  Food stamps don’t do it.  Medicaid doesn’t do it.  Soup kitchens don’t do it.  Good intentions don’t do it.  Hundreds of billions of dollars of transfer payments have not budged the poverty rate.

Read it.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Islamic extremists are stepping up the creation of “no-go” areas in European cities that are off-limits to non-Muslims.

Many of the “no-go” zones function as microstates governed by Islamic Sharia law. Host-country authorities effectively have lost control in these areas and in many instances are unable to provide even basic public aid such as police, fire fighting and ambulance services.

The “no-go” areas are the by-product of decades of multicultural policies that have encouraged Muslim immigrants to create parallel societies and remain segregated rather than become integrated into their European host nations.

In this country, we call it ‘Dearborn’.

Read it.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Where is the outrage over that? Double standards abound. As the Israeli envoy Dan Gillerman said in 2008: “When Christians kill Muslims, it’s the Crusades. When Jews kill Muslims it’s murder, and when Muslims kill Muslims, it’s like talking about the weather. Nobody really cares about it.”

And as the late Samuel P. Huntington observed: “Wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Muslims have problems living peaceably with their neighbors. The question naturally rises as to whether this pattern of the late 20th century conflict between Muslim and non-Muslim groups is equally true of relations between groups from other civilizations. In fact, it is not. Muslims make up 1/5 of the world’s population but in the 1990s they have been far more involved in intergroup violence than the people of any other civilization….Islam’s borders are bloody, and so are its innards.”

But they aren’t terrorists, of course. Perish the thought.

Read it.

Reader Henrikaavik points us to a new Estonian-built anti-corruption app that is very much what I described in my previous post. Check it out at http://www.bribespot.com/. Can it change the world? Maybe.

Probably not. Such a device is useless in areas of the world — and there are still many — where what Westerners describe as ‘corruption’ is what the local culture perceives as ‘ordinary course of business’. Westerners (‘progressives’ especially) love to preach at the benighted, be they in Turkmenistan or Texas, but don’t realize that they’re broadcasting on a frequency to which their targets are not tuned. A total waste of time and effort. And then the Preachers get frustrated because these damned rubes just Aren’t Listening, and (since they generally control their governments’ policies) they do something spasmodic, like the intervention in Libya … which I predict will end badly (not that the ‘progressives’ who got us in this mess will ever admit it, much less apologize).

Citizens are rising up against their governments in an interesting variety of ways. We’re seeing everything from armed rebellions to hunger strikes to anti-corruption apps. Prior to our last U.S. presidential election, I personally funded and published online a survey of economists on the question of tax policy. That was a job our government should have been doing. In California, citizen groups put a lot of “propositions” on the ballot every election because our government isn’t capable of making laws that satisfy the public. Everywhere we look, citizens are chipping away at the power of government. And behind much of it is the Internet.

And yet every year brings a raft of new laws and regulations that further restrict what people can do, often in ways that defy common sense. However much citizens may be chipping away at the influence of government, the power of government is unfazed, and is arguably growing. Lawmakers face ever-increasing pressure to Do Something to justify their jobs and perks, and since those jobs and perks are very sweet, they’re constantly on the prowl for things they can stick the government’s noses into.

Thus every year brings a raft of stories about government employees acting stupidly, whether it be the silly results of ‘no tolerance’ policies in schools or shutting down kids’ lemonade stands (sometimes you can’t even give it away) or fining rabbit farmers absurd amounts of money for violating laws aimed at stage magicians. The amount of paperwork necessary to start a new business that actually employs people, and the number of regulations that need to be complied with, are constantly increasing the threshold that small businesses need to climb over in order to open their doors. That doesn’t look to me as if government power is being reduced very much.

And don’t get me started on the myriad ways that government employees can come up with to waste other people’s money. Building a rail line between points A and B for an absurd amount of money when it would be cheaper to track down every person who wants to travel between those two points and buy them a Prius and ten year’s worth of gas is just the tip of the iceberg.

I’m still waiting for the Holy Grail of citizen power in the form of a website that collects all of the best expert opinions on every subject, organizes them into point-counter-point debates, and keeps a rolling citizen opinion poll on each topic. That sort of system would, in time, become the real government, with our elected officials beholden to the majority opinions as they formed online. Interestingly, the key to making that sort of system work is the design of the user interface. The Thomas Jefferson of 2012 will be a user interface designer.

And who’s going to pay for it? The government won’t do it — it would reduce the power of the people who would be responsible for setting it up, so even if they appear to be doing it, they’ll make sure it doesn’t work (and that’s on top of the normal talent government employees have for screwing up even the most simple operation). Keynesian bullshit to the contrary notwithstanding, demand doesn’t automatically create supply; somebody has to be willing to pay for it. Even Scott Adams doesn’t have that kind of money.

And then there’s the cases where the government establishes impossible standards and then socks it to businesses who can’t do the impossible, such as this case, or the plan the Obamanation has to increase by over 50% the mileage that vehicle manufacturers are required to meet.

Read it.

We’ll swap you one of Obama’s kids for Prince Harry.

Read it.

Of course he does.

In an unusual claim, Stephenson said the university should have provided “reasonable accommodations” for his handicap of alcoholism, which the suit says his supervisors were aware of.

Stephenson was fired in September 2010 after an employee he supervised filed a complaint against him alleging he was abusive towards employees.

Kevin Williamson takes on the AGW fad.

I have not argued that scientific knowledge does not matter. I have argued that the scientific opinions of people who do not know the first thing about science do not matter.

Indeed.

For instance, a great number of scientists have a particular view of global warming. Richard Lindzen has reservations about that view. Professor Lindzen is an atmospheric physicist a full-on professor at MIT. Your average politician is not packing the gear to get in the middle of that fight.

I’ll give some credence to the global warming crowd when they convince me that they have the technology to determine the overall temperature of the earth to a tenth of a degree centigrade, and that a degree or two change in the overall temperature of a body the size of a planet is of any importance.

Read it.

Any day now, the U.S. Department of Labor, under former Big Labor treasurer and now Obama’s current Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, intends to announce a new definition for the term “Employer” that will protect her union boss friends.

John Lund, the union labor consultant who heads OLMS, intends to exclude all labor unions from the definition of employer, no matter how many employees the union has. There is one exception to DOL’s proposed rule, and that is that if the union is trying to organize employees of another union or influence its own employees, then the word “Employer” would pertain to union bosses.

That will certainly eliminate all those pesky lawsuits about Unions sweat-shopping their employees.

Why the change? Because John Lund wants to exclude himself and other union labor consultants from the onerous new “Employer” and “Labor Consultants” regulations that DOL is currently proposing.  If union bosses were covered by the ‘Employer’ definition, then Big Labor law firms like the NEA’s Bredhoff & Kaiser would be required to file the new reports in order to comply with its new regulations. This Employer definition change will effectively eliminate union bosses from ever having to disclose timely details of their payments to Justice for Janitors, Interfaith Worker Justice, or any other Big Labor front groups participating in their labor persuader activities.

Read it.

A man and his brother were walking down the street early one morning in New Jersey last week when a police officer approached and began harassing them for videotaping him.

The man said that Seaside Heights police officers not only snatched his iPhone from him, but that they handcuffed and beat up his brother on the street, then again later in jail.

Sounds like a guilty conscience.

Read it.

Be the first (and probably only) on your block….