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Not a single person has died of hunger in Gaza. They die in the other parts of the world, like Kirghizia, but nobody cares. The rights of Palestinians are above the rights of, say, the Uzbek people as well as Sudanese Christians, Iraqi Kurds, Boers in Southern Africa, “Ahmadyya” in Pakistan and the Baha’i in Iran. Palestinians are the high caste of mankind because (fortunately for them) they are up against Israel, and the international community has its own rights and interests in this conflict.

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Even more about McChrystal: now it can be told. The story about him voting for Obama is not contrived. He is a political liberal. He is a social liberal. He banned Fox News from the television sets in his headquarters. Yes, really. This puts to rest another false rumor: that McChrystal deliberately precipitated his firing because he wants to run for President.

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Six months ago, Kevin Rudd was one of Australia’s most popular prime ministers in history. The brainy and intense Labourite had beaten four-time PM John Howard in a smashing victory and his Australian Labour Party was comfortably ahead in the polls. Today he’s gone, resigning mid-term rather than be dumped by his own party. What happened?

Gotta love Australians. They may be crazy but they’re not stupid.

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Senators Bernie Sanders, Tom Harkin, and Sheldon Whitehouse will introduce what they are calling (George Orwell, call your office) the Responsible Estate Tax, with a rate of 55% on estates above $50 million, and a 10% surtax on top of that on the value of an estate above $500 million ($1 billion for couples), Paul Caron’s TaxProf blog reports. At least Mr. Sanders is intellectually honest enough openly to call himself a socialist, which is more than can be said for Messrs. Harkin and Whitehouse.

Most civilized countries don’t tax estates but rather tax the inheritances as if they were income, which makes far too much sense for the American tax code. (Of course, the reason they tax the estate rather than the heirs is because they get to take their bite off the top, where the rates are higher.)

It’s also funny how the word “greed” is so often applied to the billionaires, but not to the politicians who want to take 65% of the money the billionaires have accumulated even after a lifetime of paying annual income taxes.

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A typical day at the Colosseum would start with hunting spectacles involving big cats, deer and ostriches, followed by public executions at lunchtime and ending with gladiatorial contests.

Where’s Russell Crowe when you really need him?

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Democrats are so cute when they actually have to cope with, you know, democracy.

The nomination by his party of Manning, S.C.’s finest, Alvin Greene, is embarrassing to Democrats, and they reacted as they have been conditioned to do. They blamed Republicans. This Manning-churian candidate, the Dems say, was funded by the GOP. As of this writing, no theories have emerged to explain why 60 percent of his state’s Democrats voted for him.

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The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is threatening to sue McDonald’s if the burger giant doesn’t stop selling Happy Meals, one of 1979’s greatest contributions to all mankind. In typical nanny-statist hype, the CSPI likens McD’s to a child molester….

Sounds like some people could use some Valium, much less a Happy Meal.

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You know it had to happen.

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In 1998 the pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced plans to build a giant new research and development center in New London, Connecticut. As part of the deal, city officials agreed to clear out neighboring property owners via eminent domain, giving a private developer space to build a fancy new hotel, apartment buildings, and office towers to complement the corporate facility. Five years ago today, in Kelo v. City of New London, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld this seizure of private property because it was part of a “comprehensive redevelopment plan” that would provide “appreciable benefits to the community.”

Half a decade has now passed and we know exactly how well Kelo worked out. The project that was used to entice Pfizer was never built, and last year the company announced that it was closing down its facility and pulling out of New London entirely. The only upshot of this atrocious decision is the nationwide backlash it sparked against eminent domain abuse, including several successful legal challenges and the passage of eminent domain reform in 43 states.

When the government is permitted to pick winners & losers, eventually the losers include everybody.

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Gotta love Australians.

George Will takes the Obamateur to the woodshed.

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Carbon nanotubes appear to be the Wonder Material of the modern age.

A group of scientists at MIT have found a way to use carbon nanotubes to create a device that combines the strengths of batteries and capacitors, resulting in a battery than can both store a large amount of energy and put out a high rate of power. The ability to provide a better combination of high power and rapid discharge may help engineers tailor the batteries to a broader range of vehicles.

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Mr Suppes, 32, is part of a growing community of “fusioneers” – amateur science junkies who are building homemade fusion reactors, for fun and with an eye to being part of the solution to that problem.

He is the 38th independent amateur physicist in the world to achieve nuclear fusion from a homemade reactor, according to community site Fusor.net. Others on the list include a 15-year-old from Michigan and a doctoral student in Ohio.

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One guess as to who the attackers are.

Freeberg cuts to the chase.

Look how democrats run their own party. When there’s a position available, and there’s a person available to be appointed to it, all they seem to care about is whether he’ll be effective in that position. Nothing else matters. They want to win. If you’re available, and your skin color would inject some much-desired “diversity” into the ranks that’s missing now but you’re likely to fuck it up, then out you go. White, black, red, yellow, green, purple, gay, straight, male, female — if he can do the job, then what the hell, hire him.

It is quite alright, when a democrat runs up against some enemy of the democrats, to allow his passions to run unchecked and wild. They feel no shame about the fantasies they have about making that enemy sorry his parents ever met. It is commonplace that a democrat waxes lyrically about the day he’ll be able to waterboard Sean Hannity, and all of a sudden waterboarding isn’t quite so bad. I’d like to see my country defended with that kind of passion.

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One example from the 1964 Radio Shack catalog is the “Moderately priced, excellent stereo system” on sale for $379.95 (pictured below). That might not seem too expensive, except when you consider that the average hourly wage in 1964 was only $2.50 (data here). When measured in what is ultimately most important—the “time cost” of goods—that 1964 stereo equipment was actually very, very expensive. At the average hourly wage of $2.50, the typical American in 1964 would have had to work 152 hours (full-time for almost an entire month) to earn enough income (ignoring taxes) to purchase that “moderately priced” stereo system.

To help understand how expensive the 1964 stereo system really was, consider that a typical American today would earn almost $3,000 working 152 hours at the current average hourly wage of $19. Now imagine what you could purchase with a $3,000 budget for today’s electronics products, and you’ll begin to appreciate how fortunate you are today compared to the consumers in previous decades like the 1960s.

Steve Sailer is always worth reading.

One of the odd things about the topic of immigration is that the Canada, that beau ideal of progressivism, has always officially subscribed to the notion that the purpose of immigration policy is not to benefit immigrants but to benefit current Canadians, whereas in the U.S., that idea is considered almost unmentionable. Here, it’s considered just plain racist to point out that even illegal immigrants’ posterity aren’t likely to be big contributors to the common weal.

It’s also amusing that the author is concerned about the Harper government’s lack of enthusiasm for letting immigrants’ parents and grandparents immigrate. Immigration is publicly justified in Canada as providing the young workers who will pay for the pensions and free government health care of old Canadians. But, the immigrants themselves keep demanding that their aged parents and grandparents (!) be let in to provide them with uncompensated (and thus untaxed) child care.

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British and international boffins, having probed an Antarctic glacier which is thought to be a major cause of rising sea levels worldwide, report that increased polar ice melting may not be driven by climate change.

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

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And they undoubtedly think that Obama is bright and will bring us hope and change.

Weep for the Republic … while we’ve still got one.

Robert Samuelson takes a look behind the smoke and mirrors.

Just once, it would be nice if a president would level with Americans on energy. Barack Obama isn’t that president. His speech the other night was about political damage control — his own. It was full of misinformation and mythology. Obama held out a gleaming vision of an America that would convert to the “clean” energy of, presumably, wind, solar and biomass. It isn’t going to happen for many, many decades, if ever.

Unless we shut down the economy, we need fossil fuels. More efficient light bulbs, energy-saving appliances, cars with higher gas mileage may all dampen energy use. But offsetting these savings will be more people (391 million vs. 305 million), more households (147 million vs. 113 million), more vehicles (297 million vs. 231 million) and a bigger economy (almost double in size). Although wind, solar and biomass are assumed to grow as much as 10 times faster than overall energy use, they provide only 11 percent of supply in 2035, up from 5 percent in 2008.

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What would we do without scientists?

Funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research….

‘There’s a grant for that.’

Michael Barone overturns a rock.

Thuggery is unattractive. Ineffective thuggery even more so. Which may be one reason so many Americans have been reacting negatively to the response of Barack Obama and his administration to BP’s gulf oil spill.

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Doctors weary of the low reimbursement rates and uncertainty surrounding Medicare are deserting the program in record numbers, USA Today reports. A host of medical associations report non-participation rates of as much as 31% (for primary-care doctors responding to an American Medical Association survey). Physicians say the reimbursement rates, which were 78% of private insurers’ average payments to doctors in 2008, make participation financially unfeasible. CMS reports a 97% overall participation rate but an agency official tells the paper that CMS is concerned about program members’ access to primary-care doctors.

Moe Lane puts the boot in.

Politically speaking, of course, it would look very, very bad for the White House if it got out that the man who designed the Democrats’ 2006/2008 Congressional strategy was planning to announce his resignation just after that Congressional strategy crashes, burns, ignites, explodes, and seeps toxic polysyllabic chemicals into the groundwater this November.  Not that a strategy of blustering denial will do anything except kick the can down the road for another four months, but they’ll worry about that later.

The Other McCain doesn’t really like much of anybody these days.

Sandy Goodman at the Puffington Host generates a truly useful idiocy in attacking another useful idiot, David Brooks, for his PBS NewsHour appearance Friday night.

The current crisis is Constitutional, economic, and legal. The difference between our President and Hugo Chavez doesn’t seem to extend much beyond accent.

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The French are all about interesting food.

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Slow news day. Obama doesn’t have any more dick left to step on, so pickings will be sparse.

Heh. Everything bad is good for you.

Kathleen Parker actually looks at the evidence. (What a shock.)

Granted, many children still have in-house fathers, but millions don’t. Some fathers have become alienated through divorce. “Baby daddies” never were invited to the commitment party. Still others are anonymous in the truest sense — mere DNA donors who made a deposit and picked up a check.

The latter are the subject of a new study — “My Daddy’s Name Is Donor” — about the offspring of sperm donors. Published by the Center for Marriage and Families, the report is the first of its kind since artificial insemination and single motherhood came into vogue. Finally, we have enough grown children from such arrangements to ask a few questions and draw some perhaps unwelcome conclusions.

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President Obama interrupted my Father’s Day with an e-mail announcing the launch of “The President’s Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative” and an associated Web site, Fatherhood.gov, which honestly I could have mistaken for an elaborate prank undertaken by some libertarian group trying to make the point that the next thing you know, Big Government and President Obama are going to try to insert themselves into the father-son or father-daughter relationship. Except that, sure enough, at the bottom of the Web site is language announcing, “This is an official U.S. Government Web site managed by the U.S. Department of Health &  Human Services.”

The Obamateur isn’t really high on the list of people I’ll take advice from on fatherhood.

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No sign of Tom Hanks or Harrison Ford. But they’ll keep looking.

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I have lived in the country all my life and I know what a pub means to a village or a hamlet. When I was a student, I used to work in a country pub, which I still think – thanks to the charismatic personality of the landlord – was perhaps the best I have ever set foot in. It was truly the centre of the village’s life; it had the atmosphere of a rather good club, though one without a waiting list or any sense of social exclusivity.

Apparently the old Britain is not yet dead.

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Your future under Islam.

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That’s certainly true for people who own cats.

Electronic Edition.

Sudden attack of nostalgia….

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The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists received its Royal Charter yesterday – its mark of approval from the Queen.

Charles Hughes, Master of the Company, told The Reg: “This is the culmination of three years’ work. It is a great honour and prestige to be awarded the Royal Charter and recognition of the importance of what we do. I hope it will encourage us all in our endeavors.”

The Information Technologists Company (ITC), established in 1985, works to promote the industry as a whole but is not a lobby group for specific issues. It is working with another company to set up a technology-focused school in Hammersmith and also works with Lilian Baylis Technology School in Lambeth.

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Needless to say, Texas is winning.

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Aren’t they sweet.

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Designated DDG 112, the ship is named in honor of Navy Lt. Michael Murphy, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions during Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan June 28, 2005.

A Navy SEAL, Murphy led a four-man team tasked with finding a key Taliban leader in the mountainous terrain near Asadabad, Afghanistan, when they came under fire from a much larger enemy force with superior tactical position. Mortally wounded while exposing himself to enemy fire, Murphy deliberately left his position of cover to get a clear signal to communicate with his headquarters. While being shot at repeatedly, Murphy calmly provided his unit’s location and requested immediate support for his element. He returned to his cover position and continued fighting until succumbing to his wounds.

Good to know that some traditions aren’t yet dead.

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When Stella Hardesty had taken all the abuse she could handle from her no-good husband, she took him out with a wrench. It was self defense, plain and simple, and Stella was acquitted. Nowadays she owns Hardesty Sewing Machine Repair & Sales and runs a little vigilante attitude adjustment service on the side. Word gets around, whispered from woman to woman. When a wife or girlfriend needs protection from the jerk she hooked up with in a moment of stupidity, she’s likely to hire badass Stella to pay the jerk a not-so-friendly visit.

I am actually motivated to read this book.

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This is the sort of original thinking that usually winds up getting somebody arrested.

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A lot of heavy thinking in one place. Check it out.

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Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

Stay with us here because this one isn’t obvious. Apple just launched its Find My iPhone app on the iTunes App Store — a service previously limited to MobileMe’s web interface. The App will find your iPhone or iPad or iPod touch should it be lost or stolen. So obviously, you don’t install it on your lost/stolen device, you install it on a different iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, yours or somebody else’s (try a Starbucks).

Uh, if I could afford two iPhones, I wouldn’t really sweat losing one of them all that much.

Freeberg speaks for me.

So this isn’t about the fact that BP screwed up…although, for the record, they most certainly did. If the cost of putting things right exceeds their worth, then I see no earthly reason why they shouldn’t be subjected to corporate euthanasia and parted out like an old car at a junkyard.

Leaving that aside though, Barton’s original statement was completely right. The precedent is horrible. In fact, the spectacle of the Congressman being bludgeoned into apologizing the very same day raises very disturbing possibilities. The appearance — to me, anyway — is that Republicans and democrats alike who work in the beltway are putting together a phantom industry. It is an avenue toward fantastic profits to be enjoyed by the non-producers.

Power Line looks at the Obamateur’s new slush fund.

Modern politics consists largely of promoting the interests of those who are aware they are getting money, in opposition to those who don’t realize they are paying it.

The Other McCain delivers a smackdown.

Whatever happened to young journalists learning their craft as reporters before trying their hand at punditry or criticism? I suppose it would be slumming for a Princeton grad to take a job as a staff writer for a newspaper, covering school-board meetings and such. But am I the only reader who resents being lectured to by 22-year-olds? I don’t care what your SAT score was, sweetheart. You’re not that precocious.

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Veteran Detroit techno producer Jeff Mills has solved the vinyl or CD conundrum with a new “hybrid” disc that plays in both. It’s a five-inch single with a CD stuck on the back.

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Seth Godin is always worth reading.

I think #3 is the dominant factor here.

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There is so much wrong with how Barack Obama has handled the Gulf oil spill, it’s almost hard to know where to begin.