Polar Bears an endangered species

Unbelievable stupidity by our Government Officials

Here are a few facts that were ignored by our most noble government officials in that most enlightened hall of wisdom, the Interior Department :
1. Polar Bear populations have been stable. Even the WWF admits that:

There are believed to be at least 22,000 polar bears worldwide, and about 60% of these are in Canada. They are found in 20 more or less distinct populations.

Polar bear populations can be found in northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Norway and Russia, and there have been reports that polar bear tracks have been found as far north as the North Pole, although scientists believe few bears travel beyond 82 � north latitude. The northern Arctic Ocean has little food for them.

The general status of polar bears is currently stable, though there are differences between the populations. Some are stable, some seem to be increasing, and some are decreasing due to various pressures. The status of several populations is not well documented.

2. The Arctic sea ice has recovered from recent losses.

3. Polar bears (and penguins and seals) survived the Holocene Maximum 8000 years ago, when temperatures were significantly higher than today.

Look at the list of recent decisions by our masters and weep for America:

1. Bailouts for those who borrowed too much
2. Bigger bailouts for banks who lent despite poor credit ratings
3. Ethanol boondoggle continues
4. No prospect of drilling for oil or gas in American territory

So, listing an unendangered species as endangered, on the basis of computer models that show the species might be endangered if the climates changes as predicted by computer models that haven't predicted anything, let alone the frigid winter we just endured, is about par for the course for Washington. Morons, one and all. That includes you, Newt.

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Is this a Rovian mind game?

Why did Bush's family choose a Black Obama supporter to officiate at his daughter's wedding?

This is so confusing. If Bush is the devil incarnate, as the typical hard-left Obama supporter would claim, why would he allow Senior Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell to officiate at Jenna's wedding?

Jim Miller notes:

It was not a story because most Americans are getting beyond race, so that having a president's daughter married by a black preacher requires no comment — even though it has never happened before.

(Incidentally, Reverend Caldwell is backing Barack Obama this year, which obviously didn't bother the Bush family.)

The conspiracy theorists might detect Karl Rove's hand behind this Machiavellian move. Would black people seeing a black man chosen to officiate at a white President's daughter's wedding undermine their support for Obama? Would it let them see that the party of Lincoln is color-blind?

The truth is probably simpler. Bush has chosen black people to occupy high positions in his administration. Powell, Rice and Paige come to mind. Bush's choices have been based on merit. Reverend Caldwell is a long-term spiritual adviser to Bush. Calrwell describes the relationship with Bush and his support for Obama in this beliefnet interview.

Bush impressed Bob Geldof with his compassion towards Africa, as reported in the Guardian:

Bob Geldof astonished the aid community yesterday by using a return visit to Ethiopia to praise the Bush administration as one of Africa's best friends in its fight against hunger and Aids.

The musician-turned activist said Washington was providing major assistance, in contrast to the European Union's "pathetic and appalling" response to the continent's humanitarian crises.

"You'll think I'm off my trolley when I say this, but the Bush administration is the most radical - in a positive sense - in its approach to Africa since Kennedy," Geldof told the Guardian.

The neo-conservatives and religious rightwingers who surrounded President George Bush were proving unexpectedly receptive to appeals for help, he said. "You can get the weirdest politicians on your side."

Former president Bill Clinton had not helped Africa much, despite his high-profile visits and apparent empathy with the downtrodden, the organiser of Live Aid, claimed. "Clinton was a good guy, but he did f*** all."

[my asterisks]Bush lives his faith. He sees blacks as fellow human beings, instead of a voting bloc to be bought off with government hand-outs. It's a pity that too many blacks are willing to be bought off.

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Wealth creators and wealth destroyers

Which support which party?

Trial lawyers support Democrats more than Republicans. There are some cross-overs. RINO Arlen Specter's son is a trial lawyer and Arlen has been a great friend of trial lawyers. Trent Lott's brother-in-law, Dicky Scruggs, is in deep trouble. Trent was not known for his opposition to his brother-in-law's profession. I leave profession without scare quotes just as I would leave Xaviera Hollander's profession without scare quotes.

Be that as it may, the fact remains that trial lawyers give most of their big bucks to Democrats. It is hard to think of any instance where the activities of a trial lawyer created any wealth for anyone except trial lawyers. I'd be happy to learn of such a case. Hint: The movie "Erin Brockovich" does not count as evidence. Famous trial lawyer John Edwards almost single-handedly destroyed the profession of Ob/gyns in his home state. It is hard to see how anyone but Edwards and a few lucky families benefited. Yet Edwards was a VP candidate in 2004. Luckily, even Democrat voters could smell a phony, and Edwards dropped out of the 2008 race, leaving two other phonies to slug it out.

But let's turn to a larger issue. What has been the most devastating blow to American manufacturing over the last decade? Japan? China? NAFTA? Bush?Unions? How about asbestos lawsuits? This 2002 post by Amy Ridenour indicates the scale of the problem:

Since January 2000, the wave of claims by healthy plaintiffs has pushed at least 20 companies that once sold or used asbestos products into bankruptcy protection.

The Mansville Personal Injury Trust, which pays almost all asbestos claims, reports that nearly 90,000 new claims were logged against it last year alone.

Over 1,000 corporate defendants have already been named in asbestos lawsuits. When insurance industry payouts are combined with corporate asbestos lawsuit-related costs, the total price tag is likely to reach a staggering $275 billion.

The latest wave of asbestos cases has the potential to do far more damage to America's economy than lawsuits related to the September 11 terrorist attacks and the collapse of Enron combined.

With 50,000 new claims filed by personal injury lawyers in each of the last three years, Wall Street analysts now estimate a total potential payout of more than $200 billion. That money they say eventually will be divided among 2.5 million plaintiffs and a handful of personal injury lawyers.

The nearly 50 companies already forced to seek bankruptcy protection because of asbestos litigation include such illustrious corporate names as Owens-Corning, W.R. Grace, U.S. Gypsum and GAF.

A host of other companies with only peripheral connections to asbestos - they relied on the experts of the day in handling the material - are now under full-scale attack.

Asbestos, it should be noted, was once considered an industrial godsend. Because certain varieties do not burn, conduct heat or electricity and are resistant to chemicals they were once widely used for making fireproof materials, electrical insulation, roofing and a number of filtering devices.

They include the Big Three auto makers (asbestos was once the mainstay of brake linings), most of the nation's electric utilities, shipbuilders oil refineries, construction firms, textile mills and even such far removed companies as Gerber, Campbell Soup and Gallo.

A study last year by the RAND Corp., the California-based think-tank, found more than 1,000 companies have been sued, and projects that more than half of all U.S. industries will wind up in asbestos courtrooms if lawsuits continue to be filed at their current rates.

Worse, many of the damage awards seem excessive at best. A prime example was a $150-million verdict returned by a rural jury in Lexington, Mississippi last October in a case against three companies. The money was divided among six plaintiffs and, of course, their lawyers.

None of the six workers had ever been in asbestos manufacturing or even distributed it. Indeed, they only handled products containing asbestos occasionally in jobs as laborers, janitors, maintenance men or plant workers.

Four doctors who examined them found no signs of any asbestos-related disease or condition in the men, and none of them claimed they incurred any medical expenses or ever lost a day of work due to asbestos exposure.

Such outrageous cases of "jackpot justice" ought to concern every American with money in an individual retirement account, a 401k or a pension fund. The chances are overwhelming that their retirement nest eggs includes stock in a number of companies already harmed, or on the hit list, of the asbestos lawyers.

As John Forelli, senior vice president at the Boston investment firm Independence Investment, told the Wall Street Journal in a February story, investors have been scared off by "tort lawyers and short sellers."

The Journal quotes Forelli: "Investors have lost a lot of money on this issue, there's no doubt about that."

The prospects of meaningful reform legislation passing a divided Congress anytime soon are slim at best. But judges and juries can help thwart the pending economic disaster by standing up to personal injury lawyers' attempts to enrich themselves by huckstering bad science and junk medicine.

Judges, particularly, bear a responsibility to weed out frivolous lawsuits filed on behalf of healthy patients so the truly suffering can be compensated for their exposure to asbestos. And so that the employees and stockholders of companies that never harmed anyone can be secure in their jobs and retirement funds.

I'd note that trial lawyers are still running prime-time TV ads trawling for potential plaintiffs. And donating to politicians depending on what donation brings the best return.

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McCain vs Obama

Or “Faith of My Fathers” vs “Dreams from My Father.”

Adam Yoshida. a conservative Canadian blogger with a keen eye on American politics, makes this very astute comment:

Indeed, if one wants to understand how this is going to play out – and why – I recommend that you read both Senator McCain’s book “Faith of My Fathers” and Senator Obama’s book “Dreams from My Father.” The former is the rousing memoir of a happy warrior, recounting how (combined) his Grandfather, his father, and himself served in three different wars – and doing so with good humour and grace. In contrast, Senator Obama’s book is a catalogue of the frustrations and resentments of a racially-confused man who was abandoned [by] both of his parents.

Two autobiographies, so similar in title, but so different otherwise. McCain is one in a long line of American heroes. Obama isn't.

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Iron Man - a review

Great fun, not too leftist

Iron Man

Bad guys:

Warlords in Afghanistan (No mention of the "M" word)
US Weapons manufacturers/dealers who sell to both sides

Good Guys:

US Military (mostly)
The hero

Acting:

Downey is at the top of his form
Bridges and Paltrow do good work

Plausibility:

A human body encased in an iron suit can withstand extreme G forces, such as hitting the ground at high speed, without damage. Hey, it's a comic book movie.

Violence:

Comic book, mostly. My wife covered her eyes only when it seemed a good guy was going to suffer something extremely unpleasant.

Best look at the future:

The computer resources that the hero uses looked to be a decade in the future. Very plausible and very well done in the movie. I loved the holographic design session. Mr. Gates, this is what Vista should have been.

Best lines:

"I was doing a piece for Vanity Fair"
"Sometimes I even take out the trash"

Product Placement Winner:

Audi. The hero drove an Audi R8 Supercar. The Heroine drove an Audi coupe. The family rescued by the hero drove an Audi SUV. Dell got a brief logo display.

Entertainment Quotient:

Well worth the $6.00. Don't wait for the DVD unless it is Blu-ray.

Lesson for Hollywood:

The folks want to see American heroes fighting on our side.

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Did climate change cause the 777 crash at Heathrow?

The evidence points that way

You saw the news stories. A BA Boeing 777, on its final approach to Heathrow, lost power and crashed. Luckily, everyone survived, but it could have been far worse. It struck me as very strange that a modern plane, like the 777, could suddenly lose all power, with no warning to the pilots. EU Referendum has a post that explains what may have happened. Some snippets:

From the investigation of the British Airways B777 crash, it has emerged that weather had been extremely cold that day en route from China to the UK. It had been so cold that some pilots had reported they had been forced to descend to lower altitude to keep their fuel from freezing.
...
Crucially, the BA 777 was on a more northerly flight plan out of Shanghai and would have been in the cold air mass longer than most aircraft.
...
at very low temperatures, wax crystals form in the fuel and "flowability" may be impeded
...
Jet fuel also contains some amount of water, and at very low temperatures it will freeze.
...
Thus the suggestion is that, with ultra-cold en route temperatures inducing clumps of paraffin or ice, and a cool engine during descent at flight idle, "perhaps the stage was set". Any blockages occurring at different times during the descent, and the simultaneity of the thrust loss, would have been seen only when (and because) the auto-throttle called for a thrust increment on the final approach.

The crash may well have been caused by colder than usual weather conditions. But, in Al Gore's world, that isn't happening. On the other hand, you can bet the airlines and Boeing are revising their procedures to guard against extreme cold fouling up fuel lines.

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Why should the Saudis pump more oil?

It's their investment in the future

President Bush is off to Saudi Arabia to discuss high oil prices and the impact on the world economy. Fat lot of good that'll do. Why should the Saudis pump more oil? Their known reserves are finite, so restricting production while prices are high makes economic sense. It conserves their resources while maximizing their profits.

They can also ask Bush why the US doesn't do more to increase domestic production. "You want more oil? Go find your own oil." The US has the oil resources. The politicians have lacked the guts to drill for it.

I just saw Pelosi shrilling "Veto and drilling", implying that's all the President wants to do. With high gas/oil prices dominating the news, the best thing the Republican party could do is to adopt "drill our way to energy independence" as an election year slogan.

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The context the media ignores

It would certainly change perceptions of Obama if they provide context

My wife recalls seeing a demonstration involving the Reverend Jesse Jackson. He was marching along speaking directly to the TV cameras, making a speech. What the cameras didn't show were Jesse Jackson's assistant walking backwards, in front of Jackson, flipping the cue cards as Jackson spoke. The viewer would be impressed at how good Jackson was at speaking ex tempore while marching in a demonstration. Except that he wasn't.

I was reminded of that story when I read how poorly Obama performed without a teleprompter. That speech did not make the national nightly news.

Now Betsy notes how the Obama campaign is manipulating the crowds at his rallys. She quotes a Financial Times report:

About three-quarters of the 9,000 people who turned up to see Barack Obama at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday evening were black. Yet, the section of seating directly behind where he spoke was filled overwhelmingly by whites.

The Obama campaign would not say how seats were allocated but it appeared as though a conscious decision had been made to ensure that television pictures showed the senator against a backdrop of white faces.

The TV crews would do truth a favor if they showed the crowd, the whole crowd and nothing but the crowd. Of course, the producers and editors would be uncomfortable at letting the people know that Obama is winning because blacks are voting for him en masse.

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Global Warming acts strangely in both hemispheres

But, whatever happens, it is still human induced global warming

Tim Blair notes that Australia isn't exactly shriveling up in the heat. Here's just one of numerous reports of unusually cold weather across Australia:

“It’s raining here today, and there is snow on the hills surrounding Melbourne. It was the coldest April day ever recorded in part of the state.”

I lived in Melbourne for 15 years. I think it snowed in the hills once in that time. But April? That's not even winter down there.

Meanwhile, in the Northern Hemisphere, Donald Sensing cites remarkably similar reports. He writes:

On the heels of the coldest winter in the country since 2001 (and one of the coldest since national record-keeping began in 1895), we are more than three weeks into a spring that is little warmer. Here in Clarksville, Tenn., temps dropped below freezing last night and in some counties south.

Of course, the zealots have an answer:

German climate scientists have just published a study in the respected science journal Nature suggesting global warming has stopped and will not resume until at least 2015.

That's long term thinking. 2015! Wow. Over the last few million years, the Earth has occasionally been warmer that now; mostly it has much, much colder than any civilization has ever experienced. If we are thinking long term, thinking about how to stop an ice age should be at the top of the agenda.

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Killing our enemies is better than convicting them

Prosecutor Andy McCarthy understands that.

Rush Limbaugh interviewed McCarthy, the prosecutor who put the blind sheik away:

But you can't put the costs off forever, and I think we found that out on 9/11. The reason that it's so obvious, I think, that the criminal justice approach is too paltry a way to respond to this is: Why haven't we had another attack in seven years? Now, some of it is unquestionably luck. But a lot of it is the fact that we're killing and capturing terrorists. In a single day of combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, we will often take out more people than we took out in the eight years between the bombing of the trade center and the destruction of it. That is very meaningful in terms of confronting people who mean you real harm.

Reducing their numbers wholesale sure beats the criminal prosecution approach. I'd like to see a more vigorous approach than Bush has used. Putting radical mosques world-wide on the target list would do wonders. Which mosques are radical? Those where the Jihadists got recruited. Unfortunately, a lot of the targets would be on friendly territory.

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If Wright sinks Obama's bid, he wins

It will prove "America is racist"

"Racist America won't elect a black". That's what Wright will say.

The truth is, America will elect an African-American, provided he or she puts America first, and their ethnicity a distant second. Colin Powell and Condi Rice do that. They serve America first and pay no attention to the color of their skins. That is as it should be. They may devote time to influencing the African-American community but that is in a positive direction.

Obama tried to portray himself as a candidate who put America first, albeit from a socialist perspective, and appealed to "educated" whites. But then his association with Wright, an African American racist, became an issue that the MSM could not ignore. Nor could Obama. Nor could Wright.

Obama tried to distance himself from his 20-year association with his spiritual mentor. That was a tricky operation, especially since the spiritual mentor knows more about Obama than has been revealed in the media, so far. In addition, Wright has an ego at least as big as, if not bigger than, Obama's.

This puts Obama in an impossible position. Breaking with Wright puts Wright in the center of a media frenzy based on race. Sticking up for Wright puts Obama in the center of a media frenzy based on race. Obama's image as a post-racial candidate has taken a fatal battering.

Wright now seems to be hell-bent on dooming Obama. Consciously or not, Wright's recent activities have caused Obama's polling numbers to fall.

Hillary will benefit, maybe, but McCain will win.

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Laura Bush has solid accomplishments

Even if she wasn't elected

Lucianne links to a Newsbuster fisking of a hit piece on Laura Bush by that brilliant SF Chronicle columnist, Mark Morford. Unfortunately, NewBusters didn't do a good job of defending Laura Bush:

So why has Moford gotten his panties in a bunch? He thinks that Laura Bush wasted her eight years in office and didn't do anything to "make any real difference. A single issue. A single notable appearance. A single daring, interesting, engaging ... anything."

To which I ask of this fellow one thing: Who elected her to "do" anything?

To which I'll answer for him so he won't have to check in with some strong liberal woman to help him out: No one elected her to anything and she is not necessarily SUPPOSED to "do" anything with her eight years in the White House.

First Ladies have used their office to great effect. Eleanor Roosevelt comes to mind. Laura Bush has also been effective in her role, even if she flies under the media radar. Check her web site. Her schedule is full and she is using her position to promote worthy causes. The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Global Initiative is a case in point, and Mrs. Bush gave her time to that worthy cause. She isn't sitting around in the White House parlor powdering her nose. She has a brutal schedule, promoting causes dear to her heart, and ours.

Laura Bush recognizes that First Lady may not be an official position but it does carry great responsibility and power. She is doing a great job as First Lady. She is doing it in her way, quietly and effectively. Librarians are like that.

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Aren't high gas prices green?

So why do politicians talk about reducing gas taxes?

Both McCain and Clinton have talked about lowering gas taxes.

But, higher gas prices result in consumers reducing their consumption. They drive less or they trade in their gas guzzlers for more fuel efficient vehicles. Autoblog has a post on the impact of high gas prices on the SUV market:

The rocketing cost of gasoline, and diesel fuel, is having a ripple effect on the SUV market. With consumers trading in their behemoths by the thousands in exchange for more frugal transportation, dealers are stuck with a surplus of unwanted sport-utes sitting on their lots with values dissolving.

You can't be for reducing the national carbon footprint and against high gas prices without being a hypocrite or a fool, or both.

The real solution to higher gas prices is summed up in Robert Samuelson's column in the Washington Post:

Start drilling.

It may surprise Americans to discover that the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. By government estimates, these areas may contain 25 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion barrels of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves).

What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity. Americans favor both "energy independence" and cheap fuel. They deplore imports -- who wants to pay foreigners? -- but oppose more production in the United States. Got it? The result is a "no-pain energy agenda that sounds appealing but has no basis in reality," writes Robert Bryce in "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of 'Energy Independence.' "

Unsurprisingly, all three major presidential candidates tout "energy independence." This reflects either ignorance (unlikely) or pandering (probable).

You can't be for energy independence and against drilling in the US without being a hypocrite or a fool, or both.

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Gingrich, global warming sucker

How come such smart people are so gullible?

You've all seen the ad with Gingrich posing with Pelosi promoting the global warming zealots (morons?) agenda. Here are a few simple questions for both suckers (some questions have more than one right answer).

1. Over the last few million years the climate has been:

a) Just perfect, until George Bush became president
b) Mostly ice ages with Canada and and the northern states buried under massive ice sheets

2. If CO₂ concentrations increased ten fold:

a) the Earth would turn into Venus
b) the Earth would turn into a snow ball
c) plants would be happy
d) Mother Earth could start rebuilding its reserves of fossil fuels

3. If CO₂ was eliminated from the atmosphere:

a) Al Gore would be happy
b) All plants would be dead
c) All plants and animals (including us) would be dead

4. Which produces less CO₂?

a) Cooking using cow dung
b) Cooking using local vegetation
c) Cooking using a modern cooking device

5. Is subsidizing ethanol a good idea?

a) Yes
b) No
c) Yes, because it shows we care about global warming
d) No, because it diverts resources from food production

My answers are:

1. b
2. c
3. c
4. c
5. d

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Why McCain has a good chance of winning

It's because the base doesn't like him much

The GOP is on the outs with the voting public. That was demonstrated in 2006. A candidate that the GOP base wants is not going to get the crossover votes needed for victory.

The War in Iraq has gone about as well as most wars that America has won, i.e. poorly in the beginning, turning around as the Americans learned what was needed for victory, and then going into the home stretch, where complete victory was attained. In this war, America is starting to turn it around. McCain has supported the war but opposed the way it was being run. As the success of the surge filters through the MSM to the crossover voters, McCain is going to look like the best choice for CIC. He pushed for a change in strategy and, lo and behold, it worked.

The economy is in better shape than the MSM coverage suggests. The Democrats are pushing for the repeal of the Bush tax cuts. They don't seem to be aware of the impact this will have on middle America. McCain opposed the cuts, but only because they weren't matched by spending cuts. It was excessive spending that cost the GOP in 2006. McCain can come out on the right side for supporting spending cuts and tax cuts.

On immigration, global warming and economic populism, he is barely distinguishable from Obama and Clinton. The base hates that, but a lot of crossover voters will be pleased that a GOP candidate shares their concerns.

He's old but Obama is so green and Clinton so mean, it won't hurt as much as I originally thought.

McCain is a frustrating candidate. There is much to admire in him. Jim Miller documents his courage:

John McCain may not have known those exact numbers when he volunteered to be a carrier pilot, to be an aviator, but he must have known something about the risks of his chosen profession, even in peace time. And he must have known, from the terrible losses, just how much extra risk he was taking on, each time he went out on a mission over North Vietnam. In spite of that, he volunteered for combat, and volunteered for another carrier after a terrible accident on the Forrestal that almost killed him. In other words, he actively sought risks most* would flee from. Even most of those who are braver than average.

But he, and other naval aviators, kept going out on their missions — in spite of the fact that they thought their targets were virtually worthless. Which makes the courage shown by McCain and his fellow aviators even more extraordinary. They went out on missions they thought had no point, missions they thought would not contribute to winning the war. But McCain, and his fellow aviators, persevered anyway, out of patriotism, out of loyalty to each other, and out of what they called "professionalism", though that word hardly seems large enough to hold their concept.

How many men have as much raw courage as John McCain? There is no simple way to measure courage, no Courage Quotient test that we can give prospective naval aviators, so it is impossible to say exactly how extraordinary he is. But I will say this much: McCain is certainly one in a thousand, probably one in ten thousand, and possibly one in a hundred thousand, as far as courage goes.

And there is much that makes the base unhappy. His stance on illegal immigration is a prime example.

But, McCain is the one GOP candidate who can distance himself from Bush, appeal to the crossovers, and hold enough of the base to win.

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Back from Beantown

Nice place to run a marathon

I had an enjoyable time in Boston running the marathon and exploring the downtown. I relied on the MTA to get around and that worked well. I also walked a lot to help me recover from the race.

Now its back to the real world and the election. More posts to come.

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Politicians and self deprecating humor

It says a lot about the person if they can laugh at themselves

The Democratic debate was a deadly serious affair with nary a laugh to be had. One cannot imagine Obama deliberately telling a joke against himself. Jim Miller wonders if his wife even has a sense of humor:

Wonder if she knows any good lawyer jokes? In my experience, lawyers often know the best ones. But Michelle Obama doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humor. It's hard to imagine her saying, "Professional courtesy", or "Not enough mud", or any of the other famous punch lines to lawyer jokes.

If Hillary jokes, it comes across as forced and scripted. Her husband, on the other hand, was a consummate politician, who could tell stories against himself. Here's a sample from the 1997 Radio & TV Correspondents’ Dinner:

I want all of you to know that, until recently, I had planned out a really dramatic entrance to this dinner. (Laughter.) And then, George Bush stole my thunder. (Laughter.) I mean, look at this -- this guy is 72 years old, he jumps out of a plane at 12,000 feet, he lands without a scratch. (Laughter.) I fall six inches, and I'm crippled up for six months. It's ridiculous. (Applause.)

Now, as you might imagine, my injured knee adds complications to my schedule. In fact, you know, just when I was on the way over here tonight -- (laughter) -- as you have seen, my press secretary, Mike McCurry, just handed me a note.

According to wire reports, former President Bush has just bungee jumped off the Seattle Space Needle. (Laughter.)

The Democrat's debate had serious competition from a couple of stand-up comedians. Mitt Romney gave the top 10 reasons why he dropped out of the race. Here's Number 4:

When his wife realized he couldn’t win the GOP nomination, my fundraising dried up.

Then Dick Cheney took the podium and delivered the best lines of the night. Heres one LAT report:

But Cheney said he’s become convinced of global warming, “or, as I prefer to call it, spring. I don’t want to sound like an alarmist, but it’s going to be a lot warmer.”

Still, he’s doing his part to cut back on carbon emissions: “Every time I rush to the hospital, I insist on a hybrid ambulance.”

Cheney said he’s been musing about his public image and asked his wife if she minded that people call him “Darth Vader.”

“Not at all, it humanizes you,” he said she responded.
...
But he told the media to “go easy on Sen. (Hillary) Clinton on the whole business of running from gunfire in Bosnia. She made an honest mistake. She confused the Bosnia trip with the time I took her hunting.”

It's hard to imagine Hillary or Barack laughing at themselves. Or John McCain, for that matter. That's why he needs a running mate with a sense of humor.

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Al Qaeda's sanctuary

Pakistan? No, England

Melanie Phillips explains how the British judicial system has turned England into a sanctuary for radical Muslims, and Al Qaeda:

This is the surreal situation following the Appeal Court judgment this week on Abu Qatada, who is currently in jail fighting deportation to his native Jordan, where he was convicted in his absence on terrorist charges in both 1999 and 2000.

The judgment, which overturned a ruling by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission that Abu Qatada should be deported to Jordan, ruled instead that he could stay because, if Jordan prosecuted him, the evidence against him might have been obtained through torture and thus be in breach of human rights law.
...
Between them, these judgments have left the Government's anti-terrorism strategy in ruins. Despite Tony Blair's declaration after the 2005 London bombings that "the rules of the game have changed" and that terrorist suspects would henceforth be thrown out of the country, not one such suspect has been deported.

In the case of Abu Qatada, this notorious godfather of terrorism who turned Britain into the European hub of Al Qaeda - causing foreign security services to dub it "Londonistan" - has now made a monkey of us yet again.

How on earth have we got ourselves into such an insane position?

The reason is the way the judges have interpreted the European Convention on Human Rights. In 1989, the European Court of Human Rights extended the scope of the Convention's prohibition against torture, making it impossible to deport suspected terrorists to any country suspected of abusing human rights.

And the English courts applied this ruling far more zealously than those in any other country.

This meant that, even if people turning up at immigration control presented a clear danger to this country, Britain let them all in if they claimed they would be ill-treated if they were sent back home. And by the same absurd reasoning, once they were in the courts wouldn't allow them to be sent back.

So, what are all these untouchables doing as they while their days on welfare? Perhaps this report provides a clue:

BRITISH police and security agencies are monitoring 30 terrorism plots, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said in extracts of a newspaper interview released today.

"We now face a threat level that is severe. It's not getting any less, it's actually growing,'' she said in an interview to be published tomorrow in News of the World.

"We task the police and the security agencies with protecting us ... There are 22,000 individuals they are monitoring. There are 200 networks. There are 30 active plots,'' she said.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour government is seeking to extend pre-charge detention of terrorism suspects to 42 days from the current 28-day limit.

But Smith faces a tough task steering the controversial provisions through parliament.

One would have thought 9/11 and 7/7 would have alerted the Brits to a problem. But, apparently not. What will it take? A dirty bomb attack in Central London?

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Obama is losing it

The more the public learns the worse he'll do

The late Kim Beazly was the eduction minister in the Australian Labor Party government of the 1970s. He once said:

When I joined the Labor Party, it contained the cream of the working class. But as I look about me now all I see are the dregs of the middle class. And what I want to know is when you middle class perverts are going to stop using the Labor Party as a spiritual spitoon.

The Australian Labor Party occupies the same position in the political spectrum as the American Democratic party. Obama's latest gaffe reveals a similar schism in the Democratic base. Working class white Americans were once the heart and soul of the Democratic party. They flocked to the party when FDR "rescued" the country from the great depression and went on to win WW2. Now they have been marginalized by the special-interest groups that compete for power inside the party.

If the Democratic party nominates Obama, this one quote will doom his candidacy with blue collar America:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

In 2006, the GOP found to its cost that it doesn't pay to offend your base. In 2008, as in 1980, the Democrats are going to learn the same lesson.

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Obama and Mugabe

What's the connection?

Prestopundit has done some digging into the views expressed by Obama's father:

If there is a mystery at the heart of Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father, one thing is not left a mystery, the fact that Barack Obama organized his life on the ideals given to him by his Kenyan father. Obama tells us, "All of my life, I carried a single image of my father, one that I .. tried to take as my own." (p. 220) And what was that image? It was "the father of my dreams, the man in my mother's stories, full of high-blown ideals .." (p. 278) What is more, Obama tells us that, "It was into my father's image .. that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself." And also that, "I did feel that there was something to prove .. to my father" in his efforts at political organizing. (p. 230)

It turns out Barack H. Obama senior believed in the socialist dogma that has done so much damage in Africa since the end of the colonial era. Prestopundit has turned up a paper that Obama senior wrote for the East Africa Journal (published July, 1965):

Barack Obama's father, a Harvard trained economist, attacked the economic proposals of pro-Western 'third way" leader Tom Mboya from the socialist left, siding with communist-allied leader Oginga Odinga

Some of his positions seem remarkably similar to the policies implemented by Robert Mugabe:

1. Obama advocated the communal ownership of land and the forced confiscation of privately controlled land, as part of a forced "development plan", an important element of his attack on the government's advocacy of private ownership, land titles, and property registration. (p. 29)

2. Obama advocated the nationalization of "European" and "Asian" owned enterprises, including hotels, with the control of these operations handed over to the "indigenous" black population. (pp. 32 -33)
...
5. Obama advocates an "active" rather than a "passive" program to achieve a classless society through the removal of economic disparities between black Africans and Asian and Europeans. (p. 28) "While we welcome the idea of a prevention [of class problems], we should try to cure what has slipped in .. we .. need to eliminate power structures that have been built through excessive accumulation so that not only a few individuals shall control a vast magnitude of resources as is the case now .. so long as we maintain free enterprise one cannot deny that some will accumulate more than others .. " (pp. 29-30)

6. Obama advocates price controls on hotels and the tourist industry, so that the middle class and not only the rich can afford to come to Kenya as tourists. (p. 33)

We know how well such policies turned out in Zimbabwe. His father was a "typical black socialist", yet Obama seems not to have made the connection between his father's positions and the disastrous consequences when African leaders have implemented policies based on those positions.

Note the reference to Oginga Odinga. During the recent unrest in Kenya, I noted Obama's partisan interest in Kenyan politics on the side of Raila Odinga, the son of Oginga Odinga:

It seems that the Hussein in Barack Hussein Obama is not so silent after all. Phillips links to Atlas Shrugs and cites reports of the close link between Obama and Odinga:

And here is the biggest non-surprise: Raila Odinga has, in his own words, a "close personal friendship" with Barrack Hussein Obama Junior.

When Obama went to Kenya in August of 2006, he was hosted by Raila and spoke in praise of him at rallies in Nairobi: Obama's bias for his fellow Luo was so blatant that a Kenya government spokesman denounced Obama during his visit as Raila's "stooge."

Obama still maintains his tribal identity. Does he also maintain sympathy for his father's religion?

And I might add a further question? Does he also maintain sympathy for his father's disastrous socialist politics?

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