Read it.

It’s that time of the month again. Yes: it’s time for Life-form of the Month.

Read it.

Yet Another Example of the eternal truth that most poor people are going to wind up poor no matter how much money you give them. They’re poor because of defects in character, not because of some sort of bad luck.

Why do people use ’emeritus’ when they mean ‘retired’ or ‘former’? ‘Emeritus’ means ‘for merit’ — you can look it up — and certainly retired people can be given ’emeritus’ positions, but there is a distinction there that seems to be rapidly becoming lost.

Read it.

Everything bad is good for you, it seems.

This is why I don’t put any faith in the ephemeral pronouncements of ‘scientists’, because I’ve seen too many times when they’ve completely reversed themselves farther on down the road.

And this is why giving power to government bureaucrats is always a bad idea, because they take the latest trend in ‘scientific research’ and go rushing off to ‘do something about it’, typically making what might be a bad situation into one that is almost certainly worse.

Read it. And watch the video of the ‘peace activist’ stabbing an Israeli soldier.

Let’s be clear, this flotilla had nothing to do with humanitarian supplies, which could have been shipped by land. The flotilla, if successful, would have opened the door to military supplies to Hamas concealed in later shipments.

The flotilla was a collective human shield operation in which civilians, including reportedly including an 18 month old child, were put on the ships either to dissuade the Israelis from stopping the ships, or alternatively, to create an international incident. Prior to the flotilla launching, the leader of Hamas announced that it would be a triumph  regardless of whether the flotilla landed or was stopped by Israel.

When did ‘out of pocket’ come to mean ‘out of touch’ or incommunicado?

The Other McCain turns over a rock.

What you are seeing here is an attempt to delegitimize the United States in the same way Palestinian nationalists have attempted to delegitimize Israel. Like the “Zionism is racism” argument that Palestinians use to justify their terrorism against Jews in israel, the advocates of a Mexican reconsquista proclaim that the mere desire of Americans to control their borders — to have an orderly system of immigration — is “racist.”

What these activists are attempting to do is to propogate a racist/nationalist myth — a sort of fascism. What else to say about their claim that, because most Mexicans have some native ancestry, that this gives them to a right to reside hundreds of miles north of the homelands of their own peoples? It’s as if the Mayan Empire had belatedly laid claim to Arizona.

Read it.

The voyage is symbolic because Israel routinely allows food, medical supplies, etc., into Gaza. Israel has invited the activists to dock at an Israeli port, where the cargo will be unloaded, searched, and then shipped into Gaza. But that, the flotilla’s organizers say,  is a “ridiculous and offensive” suggestion. This is what passes for argument in the world of the Palestinians.

Now, Israeli naval vessels are moving to intercept the flotilla. They will tell the ships that they must proceed to Ashdod harbor or else be boarded. Israel’s Government Press Office also responded to the activists’ claim of hardship in Gaza by recommending the Roots Club in Gaza City. “We have been told the beef stroganoff and cream of spinach soup are highly recommended,” the Press Office said in an email to reporters.

Read it.

A US cage fighter ripped out the heart of his training partner while he was still alive after becoming convinced he was possessed by the devil.

Jarrod Wyatt also cut out his friend’s tongue and ripped off most of his face in a brutal assault that police said looked like a scene from a horror film.

They found the 26 year old standing naked over his friend’s body with body parts, including an eyeball, strewn around the blood splattered room.

I wonder whether this guy does requests….

The Other McCain points out a little-appreciated problem.

Read it.

Freeberg is not afraid to ask the hard questions.

I’d sure like to know what magical power, what birth star, blood line, what is it exactly? — What’s supposed to make these government regulators so much wiser than the people they’re regulating. I’ve talked and talked and talked to these “we need more regulation” people and none of them have ever been able to tell me.

Read it.

If you use an e-book reader, you need to know about Feedbooks.

If you’ve been hesitating to buy an e-book reader, you REALLY need to know about Feedbooks.

Jacob Sullum has an excellent piece on maintaining legitimate distinctions.

Libertarians such as Epstein, Bernstein, and Sanchez would like to have prevented this one exception from multiplying. “When you say, this is such a wonderful idea, let’s carry it over to disability,” Epstein says, “you create nightmares of the first order.” But if one thing can be confidently predicted based on the history of U.S. government, it is that exceptions made for one particular purpose will be extended to others, to the point where they become the rule rather than the exception.

Read it.

For best results, substitute tallow for the peanut oil. Trust me on this.

UPDATE: Some people are more serious about this stuff than others.

Read it.

Listen to the Crust talk to itself.

Follow the chain of logic here: State governments committed themselves to paying for everybody to go to college because of some vague feeling that it would be an ‘investment’. (Considering how much the degeneration of modern culture is caused by these college-educated people, I find this assumption ludicrous on its face, but let’s accept it for the sake of argument.)

As the population grew and more and more people took advantage of this freebie (Extend your adolescence for 4/6/8 years at taxpayer expense! Make more money when you get out than your parents ever dreamed of!), they discovered that, no, they couldn’t afford such an open-ended project.

When you can’t afford something, you either have to find more money or cut back spending. You can’t just wish yourself more money (unlike the Federal government).

The people riding the gravy train, of course, object to being expected to pay for their own improvement. (Mom! Dad! I need more money!) So this is all a plot by some unnamed set of villains to screw the poor. Women and minorities hardest hit, etc., etc.

I’m working on a concept here: How about the people who benefit from something are obliged to pay for it? And if they can’t pay for it, they don’t get it?

Read it.

Don’t say we never have useful stuff here.

Read it.

The secret of the strength and longevity of the Great Wall of China lies in the sticky rice that was used as its mortar, Chinese scientists have found.

Sort of changes your view of Chinese food, doesn’t it?

Read it.

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

Read it.

This strikes me as an important development.

Read it.

By all appearances, this is a moment of reckoning for salt. High blood pressure is rising among adults and children. Government health experts estimate that deep cuts in salt consumption could save 150,000 lives a year.

And that’s exactly all that the New York Times spends on what we Real People would consider the fundamental question: Is the purported link between salt and high blood pressure actually a fact? Or merely a suspicion? For the Times, saying “government health experts” apparently settles the question — a remarkable bit of handwaving from a publication that is disinclined to accept the word of “government experts” in any field where said experts disagree with the preconceptions of the Times.

I wish I had a nickel for every time that “government experts” were damned sure of X, only to be equally damned sure of -X five years later. And of course I an congenitally disposed to think that, if “government experts” say X, the truth is more likely than not to be -X.

But that aside, one would think that an article discussing the Crust’s attempts to strong-arm the public into using less salt would delve a little deeper into whether such fascist thuggery is actually in truth justified.

Since processed foods account for most of the salt in the American diet, national health officials, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and Michelle Obama are urging food companies to greatly reduce their use of salt. Last month, the Institute of Medicine went further, urging the government to force companies to do so.

But no.

Read it.

Last week, in what may be the biggest medical breakthrough of its kind in years, a group of scientists published results in The Lancet describing a completely new type of anti-viral treatment that appears to cure Ebola. They report a 100% success rate, although admittedly the test group was very small, just 4 rhesus monkeys.

So it’s not really a cure yet, but a major milestone suggesting that a cure is possible. Still, an amazing achievement.

Read it.

The interesting part is that the New York Times suffers from the same blindness that Peter the Great did: The conviction that change proceeds from the top, and the only question left to answer is what particular technique will produce the best results.

But other people don’t wear those blinkers:

“Competition produces innovation,” said Cliff Kupchan, a director at the Eurasia Group, a global risk-consulting firm based in New York. “I still don’t see a working appreciation of that.”

Read it.

In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta’s network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP‘s Deepwater Horizon rig last month.

But of course. Who cares what happens on the fringe of the SWPL world?

Read it.

Read it.

The real thing hasn’t been dug yet. But construction of the castle itself is under way. The first layers of hand-hewn rock are rising from a hillside clearing. The turrets are taking shape, and the arched entry that will one day support the drawbridge. You can hear the plink of chisels, the creak of wooden carts, and the grunts of local laborers who are building the massive fortress by hand, using only tools available in the 13th century.

This castle’s web site is here. The French castle’s web site is here.

“Most jobs in masonry last three or four months. Out here, we got 20 years,” says Mr. Fire Cloud, who hides his Dr Pepper in a burlap bag to keep the ambience authentic. “That’s job security.”

Read it.

Justin Amash is running for Congress as a Republican in Michigan. He’s currently a state legislator. And as part of his campaign for higher office [UPDATE: He’s been posting votes for a year], he’s posting every one of his votes on Facebook, with a short account of why he voted the way the did.

I’d vote for him, just to have him there as an exemplar.

Arnold Kling wonders where the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage came from.

Freeberg takes a look.

She is brilliant at what she does. But I’ve always had some reservations with what she does.

This is one of the most penetrating analyses I’ve seen in a long time. Read it twice.

Obama doesn’t have it. We haven’t seen Him actually maintain anything, besides relationships; and human emotions being what they are, with relationships you don’t work with the rewards or the wreckage of your work the day before. Obama, from the best information we’ve managed to seize about Him, seems to have spent a lifetime being blissfully insulated from the conditions of things.

Fer chrissakes, we don’t even have a story about a bicycle lovingly maintained, or a household pet. He doesn’t have the “guardian” personality. He is not, by personal inclination, a steward of something. There is no evidence whatsoever to indicate a refinement of the requisite skills, or a personal interest in refining them.

That hits the nail right on the head.

Read it.

Read it.

Ixtoc I was an exploratory oil well being drilled by the semi-submersible platform, Sedco 135F  in the Bay of Campeche of the Gulf of Mexico, about 100 km (62 mi) northwest of Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche  in waters 50 m (160 ft) deep.  On 3 June 1979, the well suffered a blowout resulting in the second largest oil spill and the largest accidental spill in history.

In the next nine months, experts and divers including Red Adair were brought in to contain and cap the oil well.  An average of approximately ten thousand to thirty thousand barrels per day were discharged into the Gulf until it was finally capped on 23 March 1980, nearly 10 months later.  Prevailing currents carried the oil towards the Texas coastline. The US government had two months to prepare booms to protect major inlets. Eventually, in the US, 162 miles (261 km) of beaches and 1421 birds were affected by 3,000,000 barrels (480,000 m3) of oil.  Pemex spent $100 million to clean up the spill and avoided paying compensation by asserting sovereign immunity.

Read it.

That will really confuse the aliens on the dark side.

Read it.

Always look up.

Read it.

Not something you see every day.

Read it.

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

Read it.

A definition of ‘romantic’ that few would recognize.

Read it.

Semtex looks a lot like honey, and the technology of detonating bombs via cellphone is well known.

Hmmmm.

Read it.

Some people need to get out more.

Read it.

Cynthia does good work, and deserves your support. Time presses, so climb on board.

Read it.

Why not? It’s like having a clown show up at your kid’s birthday party.

Check it out.

You’ve heard of Dancing with Wolves? Well, that’s nothing compared to Networking with Rodents.

Read it.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

A person in whom I have absolutely no interest has died.

Apparently this has come as a surprise to a lot of people.

Read it.

At last – technology for the rest of us.

Read it.

Not really news, but a useful reminder.

“It started off with an earmark that was placed into a defense bill years ago,” said Laura Peterson, who has been tracking the project for the nonpartisan watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

The money involved is not insubstantial. By some estimates, Congress has paid $3 billion to GE and Rolls-Royce since first setting aside money for a second engine in the mid-1990s, and it will take close to $3 billion more to have the engines tested, proven and in full production.

And top military brass say they don’t want or need it. One navy admiral told reporters it made no sense to try and carry spare parts two separate engines on an aircraft carrier. “Space is at a premium,” Adm. Gary Roughead said.

Read it.

Despite being directed to withdraw their requested earmarks, four members of the GOP caucus have refused to do so: Anh “Joseph” Cao (La.), Henry Brown (S.C.), Don Young (Alaska) and Ron Paul (Texas).

I guess Ron Paul’s own private copy of the Constitution has very good reasons for sticking to his guns here. I mean otherwise he’d be a rank hypocrite and his followers would be tools and we all know that isn’t the case.

Read it.

Fossella’s swift resurrection is a departure from the old playbook and a template for the new politics of sex scandals, a model coming predictably from New York and California. For all but the grossest sins (see Edwards, John) and weirdest public conduct (see Sanford, Mark), apologies are passé, retirement is for suckers, and chutzpah is the new contrition.

Bill Clinton was the test case for brazen survival, but more recent instances come with less baggage: Arnold Schwarzenegger brushed aside campaign allegations of sexual harassment like so many hostile robots in “Terminator,” Sen. David Vitter stayed in Congress after being caught paying prostitutes, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom weathered the ugly publicity over an affair with a top aide’s wife to emerge as the leading candidate for lieutenant governor, and Eliot Spitzer was rewarded for high-profile sins with a guest-hosting gig on MSNBC.

“We are living in an age when a recluse is just somebody who doesn’t have a sex tape on the Internet,” said Eric Dezenhall, a Washington corporate crisis manager. “Shocking us is an impossibility. Shame is a silly fetish, and chutzpah pays a bigger dividend than discretion.”

And this guy was a Republican, which just goes to show you that you can’t depend on labels.

Read it.

There’s a reason they call it ‘natural selection’.

Read it.

A golfer has defied odds greater than a lottery win by sinking an incredible two holes-in-one in a row during a single game.

I think I’d rather have the lottery win. But, then, I’m not a golfer.

Read it.

It would appear that not all of the surrender-monkeys live in France.

“The moderate Muslim voice has been squashed in America,” said Bruce Wallace, who said he lost a nephew in the Sept. 11 attacks. “Here is a chance to allow moderate Muslims to teach people that not all Muslims are terrorists.”

An assertion for which no evidence has been presented — indeed, all the available evidence is to the contrary. But there’s a reason they call it ‘invincible ignorance’.