Read it.

A Briton who was recognised as the world’s first genderless person has lodged an appeal after losing the official designation of gender neutrality.

Norrie was born a man and underwent gender reassignment surgery 20 years ago to become a woman. But doctors recently said because Norrie had stopped taking female hormones several years ago, they were unable to determine gender.

Whether it’s got a Y chromosome would seem to settle the question, but apparently not.

Steve Sailer does the comparison. His conclusions seems to be that Eclipse is a pretty bad movie that nevertheless tunes in to the zeitgeist more effectively than Knight & Day. (Full disclosure: Herself and I did Date Night with Knight & Day and had a great time; while there, we saw a trailer for Eclipse and weren’t impressed.)

A weaker novelist than Rowling, Meyer less understands the adolescent girl’s mind than shares it. Her Bella epitomizes teen self-obsession, the ambition to have every boy fight over you and every girl hate you for it.

Today’s butt-kicking babe films are particularly odd because current audiences also prefer girlier leading ladies than back in the Golden Age of such formidable femme fatales as Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Marlene Dietrich, and Katherine Hepburn.

Ah, those were the days.

In Eclipse’s funniest scene, Bella is livid after beefcake Jacob tries to kiss her, even though Jacob knows perfectly well that she loves Edward. So, like an Angelina Jolie heroine, Bella hauls back and socks Jacob on his square jaw. Jacob, whose neck is wider than his head, doesn’t even flinch, but Bella sprains her own wrist, leaving her whimpering in pain.

Bryan Caplan explains.

Judging everyone as an individual is expensive, and relying on statistical generalizations is a cheap and effective alternative.  You don’t clutch your purse when you see a bunch of little old ladies approaching on a deserted street.  You don’t offer a policeman a joint.  You don’t hire a guy with a mohawk as a receptionist at a law firm – even if he promises to get a hair cut.  Why not?  Because on average, little old ladies don’t commit violent crimes, policemen arrest people for possession of marijuana, and guys with mohawks have trouble with authority.

Read it.

Each year, nitrogen used to fertilize corn, about a third of which is made into ethanol, leaches from Midwest croplands into the Mississippi River and out into the gulf, where the fertilizer feeds giant algae blooms. As the algae dies, it settles to the ocean floor and decays, consuming oxygen and suffocating marine life.

Known as hypoxia, the oxygen depletion kills shrimp, crabs, worms and anything else that cannot escape. The dead zone has doubled since the 1980s and is expected this year to grow as large as 8,500 square miles and hug the Gulf Coast from Alabama to Texas.

Read it.

At last — the game you’ve all been waiting for!

Read it.

Clarence K. Carter is a former Indiana prisoner and aspiring lawyer who wants to become a lawyer without going to law school, which is required by Indiana law. So Carter is doing what you might imagine: he’s suing Indiana, claiming the law requiring law-school graduation is unconstitutional.

I’m sorry, but as a law school graduate I find this incredibly amusing. It’s all about status, of course; that’s why the degree that used to be Bachelor of Laws is now Doctor of Jurisprudence.

So far, the state isn’t budging on its requirement. “Our position is that the Rule 13 educational requirement is not only lawful but also is a reasonable precondition for those desiring to enter the legal profession,” said Bryan Corbin, the attorney general’s spokesman. “We intend to vigorously defend this rule from the plaintiff’s challenge.”

But Carter and his lawyer are going to keep arguing that Carter deserves the chance to take the test. “Who’s more qualified to practice law?” Carter said. “The person who graduated from law school but failed the bar exam, or the person who didn’t go to law school but passed?”

An excellent point. If law school qualified you to practice law, why have a bar exam?

The Other McCain is having entirely too much fun.

Joe Miller  is the Republican primary challenger to Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who was rated No. 5 on the Human Events list of “Top 10 Senate RINOs” (and that was when Arlen Specter was still a Republican).

Matt Welch is bummed.

Our grandchildren won’t believe our stories about the 1990s. Yes, there really was a time before the World Wide Web and ubiquitous portable communication devices in sub-Saharan Africa. Yes, you really could travel to some foreign countries without a passport, without a return ticket, without a credit card, and without entering multiple government databases. Yes, the Pittsburgh Pirates really did once play winning baseball.

But as the Bush-Obama era of bailout economics and Keynesian rehabilitation settles into something like cruising speed, perhaps the most fantastic fact to swallow will be that once upon a time the United States had a president who restrained government spending, balanced the budget, argued forcefully for the benefits of free trade, and declared that “the era of big government is over.” And he was a Democrat.

The biter bit.

AP is, of course, notorious for demanding payment for even thinking about one of their left-wing propaganda stories.

Read it.

Note how the 2010 election results mirror the 1864 boundaries almost precisely. If you are a Pole and live in a part of Poland that was ruled by Prussia in 1864, you almost certainly live in an area carried by Komorowski. If you live in one of the parts ruled by Russia or Austria, you almost certainly live in an area carried by Kaczynski, unless you live in a large city (over 100,000 people—those are the orange dots in the sea of blue).

That’s really freaky.

Read it.

‘Oh, before you get married? Have a plan for your divorce.’ Yeah, that’s a formula for success.

If you’re not comfortable making a commitment, don’t get married. Period.

Read it.

Monsanto Company, the Missouri-based biotechnology firm, has donated seeds to Haiti to help kickstart food production in the earthquake-ravaged country. In so doing, they’ve stirred up the kind of controversy that seems to follow the company. The 475-ton donation has sparked a storm of protest not only in Haiti but also in the United States. A coalition of Haitian peasant groups organized a protest march in June and have vowed to burn the donated seed.

This is not Monsanto’s first rodeo, as we Missourians would say, so the company has made it clear that no genetically modified seeds were included in the donation. This delicacy did not impress the marchers, who protested under banners of “Down with GMO and hybrid seeds.” Genetically modified seeds have long been controversial, but it’s a surprise to find that hybridization, around since Gregor Mendel’s time in the 1800s, can also inspire protest marches. Somehow, it doesn’t seem obvious that hybrid broccoli seeds are the 82nd Airborne of cultural imperialism.

Fine. Let them plant the seeds that they brought with them. Or starve. I fail to see what contribution Haiti has made to world progress or culture that would justify giving them two seconds’ thought, much less all of the handwringing we see in the lamestream media.

Read it.

Fashionably liberal rich people wake up to the fact that Democrat pols don’t hesitate to bite the hands that feed them.

Read it.

PowerPoint – it’s not just boring, it’s insecure.

Check it out.

Some days, even staying out of the water isn’t enough.

Read it.

East German communists helped fund the British miners’ strike in the 1980s, historians claim.

An uncharitable soul would take this as further proof that the leadership of organized labor are virtually communists anyway. But I would never do that.

Read it.

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

Reading some of the comments that students and professors make these days, drugs seem to be the kindest explanation.

Read it.

The Western defensive alliance NATO was a product of the Cold War. While it may have been a useful tool back then, the organization has so far proven utterly incapable of dealing with the tidal wave of Islamic aggression and Third World invasion through mass immigration that is engulfing the Western world. It is likely that there will soon be a concerted push by Morocco to retake the Spanish-ruled enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. How will NATO react to such a blatant attack on one of its member states? Will it respond in any meaningful way at all?

It is becoming increasingly evident to intelligent observers that the experiment with secularism in Turkey is failing and that the country is reemerging as a hostile Islamic power, the way it has been for most of the past 1,000 years. There are clear parallels between how the USA currently acts toward the Turkish neo-Ottomans and how Western European powers acted vis-à-vis the original Ottomans in the late 1800s. For example, there is the unholy practice of using smaller nations as bargaining chips to appease Muslims. The difference is that the USA treats all of Europe the way the British and French used to treat the Balkan Christians, by consistently pushing for Turkish membership in the European Union. NATO has actively supported the Islamization of Europe through its military actions in Serbia and Kosovo.

Read it.

Feldman, like other modern liberal writers who yearn for the Progressive days of yore, whitewashes Progressivism, so that it consisted solely of public-spirited regulation of corporations and the labor market. Meese and Oman note that the regulations in question weren’t always so public-spirited, but I’d add that Progressive regulation also included alcohol prohibition, coercive eugenics, housing segregation laws, bans on public schools, and other measures that people today across the political spectrum would agree were gross violations of individual rights. Resistance to these measures came primarily from the libertarian constitutionalists Feldman decries, not from his Progressive heroes. With that context, and in stark contrast to the way Feldman portrays things, the idea that property rights and limited government were a bulwark of individual liberty doesn’t seem quite so bizarre.

Read it.

France is considering forcing tourists and any others who shun government advice and travel to danger zones to foot the costs to free them if they are kidnapped.

What a remarkably sensible idea. Or, better yet, just leave them there.

Read it.

Greek inventor Archimedes is said to have used mirrors to burn ships of an attacking Roman fleet. But new research suggests he may have used steam cannons and fiery cannonballs instead.

Read it.

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

With the Clintons, it’s All About Them.

Read it.

Reminder for those who haven’t been paying attention: Islam is an oppressive totalitarian ideology with which no co-existence is possible.

Read it. (Link is for reference. Complete speech below. Thanks to hogan at RedState.)

One of the most superb speeches in the English language.

No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The questing before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free– if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending–if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained–we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable–and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace– but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Read it.

There are obvious actions to speed things up, but the government oddly resists taking them.

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

As the oil spill continues and the cleanup lags, we must begin to ask difficult and uncomfortable questions. There does not seem to be much that anyone can do to stop the spill except dig a relief well, not due until August. But the cleanup is a different story. The press and Internet are full of straightforward suggestions for easy ways of improving the cleanup, but the federal government is resisting these remedies.

It’s not hard to fathom. The federal government is  composed of agencies that, come hell or high wather (often literally) defend their turf whether or not it makes sense to Ordinary People.

Read it.

Hm. I don’t see a pocket protector….

Read it.

Read it.

We have paid public officials with tax money to paint out an American flag mural just before the Fourth of July, because it was on state property without a permit. Caltrans officials quickly pointed out that this wasn’t intentional disrespect, it’s just that murals aren’t allowed on state property without a permit, and this was just discovered, and of course once it was discovered they had to act. Aren’t you glad we’re getting the government we are paying for? Do you think that in these economic times we might do with fewer public officials whose job it is to enforce this regulation?

Read it.

The researchers hope that their work will end reliance on gases that can contribute to global warming.

And if you believe that one, they’ll tell you another one.

A temperature gradient can be generated by putting a stack of plates in the right place in a tube in which the sound wave is bouncing around. Some plates in the stack will get hotter and others colder.

All it takes to make a refrigerator out of this system is to attach heat exchangers to the ends of the stack.

Read it.

The governor has the authority to lower most state workers’ pay to the federal minimum wage if a state budget isn’t in place, a state appeals court ruled Friday, the second day of California’s 2010-11 fiscal year.

The ruling came one day after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered the state controller to cut pay for about 200,000 state workers to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

Watch it. Steve Martin is a believer? Who knew?

Read it.

For the mass audience, war-strategy games first appeared on the horizon in the 1990s when Sid Meier’s Civilization became a sensation among PC gamers. Part Sim City, part war-strategy game, Civilization inspired a crop of imitators, such as Age of Empires and Total War. Ultimately, though, they were all derived from a species of semi-obscure board games which had, for nearly 50 years, been toying with ideas about war-strategy and counterfactual history.

I’ve always said that playing Civilization is the only opportunity I get to use my MBA skillset.

Read it.

Sometimes it is good to work for the government.

Read it.

Color on color. Fail.

On the other hand, if they’re trying to express the rot that’s creeping into the UK — it just might work.

Watch ’em.

Obvious lacunae: Nothing featuring Toshiro Mifune. But they’re still pretty good.

Read it.

Read it.

Pakistan was founded, and remains, an explicitly Muslim state. Any pretense that it’s on our side is just that, pretense.

Read it.

The number of people who appear to be gaming the state’s health insurance system by purchasing coverage only when they are sick quadrupled from 2006 to 2008, according to a long-awaited report released yesterday from the Massachusetts Division of Insurance.

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

Freeberg performs an operation known in Biblical terms as ‘rightly dividing the word of truth’.

By “The Davids” what I mean in this case is Frum, although there are others. People who sell themselves as reformed or repentant conservatives, to other people who have no idea what a conservative really is and are never going to know. Conservatives who are “social moderates,” long to reach “across the aisle” — who voted for Barack Obama, not as a protest against the George W. Bush free-spending (heh!), but because “There’s Just Something About Him!”

Anyway. Brock, Brooks, Frum, Weigel — there’s just something about that name “David.” They get a business opportunity and suddenly, there’s an awakening. (Not with Weigel of course, he was busted in a scandal; not that he was fooling anybody.) Oh my! We have to do this one thing — elect Obama, pass ObamaCare, whatever. I’m still a conservative mind you! Although I’m ashamed at some of my fellow conservatives, because it’s true we’re all a bunch of bigots. Except me! But I’m still a conservative. Just a moderate one.

Master Cadfan says:

There was an autistic named Jobs
Who sold shiny baubles to snobs.
They waited in line
For his latest design
And gave him their money in gobs.

To which Master Tadhg responds:

Of course, a technology geek,
When spending his money, is weak;
But when puberty hits,
It will focus his wits —
And it won’t be the Droids that he’ll seek.

Read it.

Any country that lets Muslims cross its border has a death wish.

Read it.

Read it.

Note the ACORN symbol on the ‘Treasury Seal’. Guess they know where their power comes from, eh?

Read it. And watch the video.

Steve Sailer is never afraid to look Political Correctness in the eye.

The background is that the winners of WWII, America and Britain, kept their old-fashioned elitist colleges like Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and Cambridge old-fashioned and elitist. The losers, like Germany, France, and Italy, after the war trashed their great universities on the altar of egalitarianism by going to open admissions. (In the U.S., CCNY was the only famous college to take the Spirit of ’68 seriously enough to dump selective admissions.) Today, that’s why ambitious Korean and Chinese students want to go to American or British universities, not to Continental ones: We won The War.

Whereas imposing a quota will suddenly produce creative risk-takers. Right. That’s why Google was founded by Michelle Obama.

To an American, it’s amusing to hear the French come up with the exact same cliches and fallacies as Americans have been telling each other for 40 years. Indeed, there are problems caused by reliance on entrance exams in terms of selecting for creativity and the like. But quotas do zip to fix those real problems. It’s not like the American quota kids all flock to Silicon Valley and start-up their own firms. A quota won’t give France its own Silicon Valley.

“With the objective of a great social opening,” the U.S. has been trying to invent “a better measure of young people’s intelligence” for 45 years, but we keep finding out that the old tests we had before the Great Society worked fine. It’s the test-takers who turned out to be the problem, not the test. But why should the French government learn from the U.S. experience? The U.S. government never learns from the U.S. experience.

Read it.

This is the sort of serious, cutting-edge coverage that Rupert Murdoch has brought to the Wall Street Journal.

Scientists at P & G, with help from a Yale psychology professor, surveyed women, before and after using Pantene products, using a questionnaire that psychology researchers use to measure mood. They found women felt less “hostile,” “ashamed,” “nervous,” “guilty” or “jittery,” depending on the hair products they used, while at other times they said they felt more “excited,” “proud” and “interested.”

Hey, tenure doesn’t grow on trees, not even on Elm trees.

Read it.

Buying an $8.8 million California mansion months before announcing their divorce wasn’t the only puzzling real-estate transaction for the Gores.

A month after snagging the Montecito estate in October 2009, Al and Tipper Gore transferred nine properties in Carthage, Tenn., from their own names into a limited liability company.

The transfer on Nov. 30, 2009, came after an Oregon masseuse lodged a January 2009 police complaint accusing the former vice president of sexual abuse.

Coincidence? I think not.

Perhaps we will soon learn why the Gores have decided t0 split after all these years.

Read it.

In every state, people are free to feed others in their filthy, unregulated homes, it’s only when money changes hands that home cooks transform into a public health hazard.

Megan McArdle isn’t let marriage soften her brain.

I confess, I fail to see the liberal romance with Social Security.  I don’t mean the notion of making sure that old people don’t go hungry.  I mean an attachment to Social Security in its current form so strong that it interprets any change in benefit levels as tantamount to implementing an ice floe strategy.  The program was implemented in 1935.  What are the odds that its structure and retirement age are suitable for the current era?

Read it.

Next challenge: Congressional legislation.