Judicious Asininity

Did climate change cause the 777 crash at Heathrow?

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....

Why should the Saudis pump more oil?

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...

The context the media ignores

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...

Global Warming acts strangely in both hemispheres

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...

Killing our enemies is better than convicting them

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...

If Wright sinks Obama's bid, he wins

"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...

Laura Bush has solid accomplishments

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...

Aren't high gas prices green?

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...

Gingrich, global warming sucker

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)...

Why McCain has a good chance of winning

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...