Out on a limb at Mike Lief.com

Main

July 31, 2008

Evil exists

What happens when you find out that evil -- real, malevolent, inexplicable evil -- actually exists in the real world? When you see something right out of an R-rated slasher film, only it's happening right in front of you, in the most mundane, ordinary place.

Like on the Greyhound bus.

[P]assenger Garnet Caton said the victim, who appeared to be about 19, was sleeping with headphones on when his seat mate suddenly began stabbing him as the bus traveled a desolate stretch of the TransCanada Highway, a dozen miles from Portage La Prairie.

Caton, sitting just one seat in front of the two men, said he heard no exchanges between them prior to the violence.

"We heard this bloodcurdling scream and turned around, and the guy was standing up, stabbing this guy repeatedly, like 40 or 50 times," Caton said from a hotel in Brandon, Manitoba, where he and other horrified passengers were taken.

Caton said the driver stopped the bus when he became aware of the savagery going on aboard and passengers scrambled off. He said the suspect appeared to be methodically cutting into the victim's body.

"When he was attacking him, he was calm ... like he was at the beach," said Caton. "There was no rage or, or anything. He was just like a robot stabbing the guy."

The bus driver, Caton and a trucker at the scene re-boarded to see what was happening.

Caton said he saw the suspect had the victim on the floor of the bus and "was cutting his head off and pretty much gutting him" with a large hunting knife.

The attacker turned toward them and the three men quickly left the bus, blocking the door as the attacker slashed at them through an opening. The three secured the door to prevent the man from fleeing. Caton said the driver disabled the vehicle after the attacker tried to drive it away.

As the three guarded the door with a crow bar and a hammer, the attacker went back to the body and calmly came to the front of the bus to show off the head.

Fellow passenger Cody Olmstead said the man "dropped the head and went back and started cutting the body." Olmstead said the man later taunted police and dropped the head in front of them.

Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh said 37 passengers were aboard, many watching the on-board movie "Zorro" when the violence erupted.

[...]

The victim had been on the bus since Edmonton. Caton said the attacker boarded the bus in Brandon, Manitoba, about 80 miles west of Portage La Prairie.

The suspect had been on the bus about an hour and initially did not sit near the victim, Caton said.

"He sat in the front at first, everything was normal," Caton said.

"We went to the next stop and he got off and had a smoke with another young lady there. When he got on the bus again, he came to the back near where I was sitting.

"He put his bags in the overhead compartment. He didn't say a word to anybody. He seemed totally normal," Caton said.

You just never know when the comfortable, gossamer-thin veil of everyday normalcy will be ripped asunder and tossed aside in a bloody, gore-flecked pile.

Evil exists, my friends, inexplicable, unfathomable. It doesn't want to be understood, doesn't want to be cured or fixed.

It just wants to be true to itself, even if that means gutting and decapitating a teenager quietly listening to his iPod on the bus.

Why do I support the right to carry firearms? Because we never know when we'll be faced with such moments, when we might have to act to save ourselves or the lives of others, and I'd prefer to have something more than a cell phone in my hand when the question must be answered: "What am I prepared to do to stop this?"

We owe it to our wives and children, to our community, to strangers on a bus, to be prepared for the day when our actions may save lives.

Like the folks on that rolling Canadian abattoir, we won't have advance notice of where or when the killers amongst us will indulge their bloodlust, let slip their masks and let us see the darkness behind their eyes.

But we can be prepared, do the best we can, and act, even in the presence of such senseless, random, incomprehensible violence.

Even in the presence of evil.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:45 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Extending submarines' reach

The Cormorant isn't just a bird that loves the water; thanks to the hi-tech boffins at Lockheed Martin, it's also a submarine-launched stealth UAV.

The videos of the concept in action are pretty impressive. The biggest flaw is the requirement for the sub to send out an ROV to grab the plane and haul it in. That's a lot of time to spend near the surface, especially in the vicinity of a floating target.

But it's still early; the next step is enabling the craft to swim back to the mothership.

This really has the potential to extend the eyes and ears of our subs.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:45 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

God bless Texas

The two pasttimes that define and pay tribute to our most manly ancestors are cooking dead critters over an open fire and maintaining proficiency in the use of firearms.

Wouldn't you figure it'd be Texans that'd figure out a way to combine both?

Found at Clayton Cramer's site.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 30, 2008

What do we know about Obama's politics?

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=302137342405551

The American electorate is suffering from a severe lack of information about what Barack Obama thinks about the United States, about capitalism, the free market, and the ability of citizens to decide for themselves how best to live their lives and spend their own hard-earned money.

Of course, the real story is that you'll not find the answers to these questions if you're getting your news from the mainstream media; most journalists seem utterly gobsmacked by the candidate's alleged charisma and charm.

Nor are you likely to learn much from the candidate himself; he seems dedicated to dissembling, distancing himself from his own beliefs, doing what he can to assume the guise of a traditional Democrat.

Investor's Business Daily has decided to begin filling in the blanks.

Before friendly audiences, Barack Obama speaks passionately about something called "economic justice." He uses the term obliquely, though, speaking in code — socialist code.

During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.

And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval.

"Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:24 PM

July 29, 2008

Air Force news

Interesting developments in the Air Force, beginning with a resignation and ending with a general dead of a gunshot wound.

William Anderson, an assistant secretary of the Air Force responsible for installations, environment and logistics, sent in his letter of resignation Monday.

As reported in Aviation Weekly Anderson's letter of resignation to Pres. Bush:

[E]xpressed his respect for ousted Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and Gen. Buzz Mosley, former chief of staff, hailing them as “forward-thinking people.” In his memo, he said he has reached the point “where I can no longer draw on a critical mass of leadership within the Pentagon who share your vision for the support necessary to lean forward to aggressively support” U.S. military troops. “I pray to God that the Washington brain trust sees the wisdom in supporting the visionary strategic thinking...[and] those who paint outside the lines.”

Honestly, if he hadn't resigned he should have been fired for saying, "I can no longer draw on a critical mass of leadership within the Pentagon who share your vision for the support necessary to lean forward to aggressively support” [the troops].

What a bunch of trendy, managerial-seminar claptrap. But probably emblematic of the bureaucratic mindset that bedevils the Air Force.

Then there's this news:

The Air Force suffered another hit with the July 28 announcement of the death of Brig. Gen. Thomas Tinsley, commander of the 3rd Wing at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, from a gunshot wound the day before at his home. Previously, Tinsley was Mosley’s executive officer.

Remember, Mosely was forced out, and now his XO is dead. I'm not saying the events are connected; it's just an interesting juxtaposition of events.

Difficult times for the Air Force brass.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 28, 2008

Biggest celebrity endorsement

Chinese basketball star Yao Ming was catching up on his reading this weekend while in the Beijing airport, waiting for his flight to a basketball tournament in Nanjing.

Yao Ming Mania!, a site devoted to -- what else? -- the obsessive study of the Chinese superstar, was curious what he was reading, so they took a closer look.

Say, something about that cover looks familiar. Wait a minute! It's the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem!

Not that, dummy -- check out the title and the authors.

I had no idea my publisher had sold the Chinese-language rights; that's a huge market, and a heck of a celebrity endorsement if Ming's countrymen are inclined to read a book about famous American civil rights trials.

Who knows, maybe Ming'll be inspired to become a rabblerouser. And I can add a Chinese-language edition to my collection of books I've written but cannot read.

I'm still not sure about the photo they picked for the cover: Orthodox Jews at the Wailing Wall? My people have always had a long-standing affinity for Chinese food; I had no idea the fondness was reciprocal, law and literature for moo goo gai pan and kung pao chicken.

Seems like a fair trade.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:43 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

July 27, 2008

Like a Belgian

I ran into a former colleague this weekend, a career prosecutor who is one of a kind. Eric speaks more languages -- common and obscure -- than an elevator-full of United Nations interpreters, knows more about Norse mythology than Odin himself, and is a walking compendium of 20th Century European history, philosophy and arts.

We were discussing books, Eric recommending some authors who'd tickled his intellectual fancy, when he uttered the quintessential Eric bon mot.

"I really enjoy this author; he's an Englishman who writes like a Belgian."

My glass stopped on its way to my mouth, the tasty pinot within surging toward the rim, as surprised by the stemware's sudden halt as I was by the impenetrable imagery of the description.

"Eric, can you tell me in something less than five minutes how an English author writes like a Belgian?"

He peered at me with a quizzical look from beneath his bushy grey eyebrows.

"Certainly. It's as if he were French, but just slightly less so."

One of kind, he is, one of a kind.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Scuba cat

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:16 AM

July 24, 2008

The Obamessiah's Berlin rally

So troubling in so many different ways, from the iconography of the poster, with its cult-of-personality style, reminiscent of the best mid-20th Century totalitarian propagandists, to the unseemliness of an American presidential candidate so clearly toadying up to ... non-Americans, a campaign appearance entirely consistent with Obama's self-proclaimed status as a "fellow citizen of the world."

I heard a series of German "man on the street" interviews; they lurve him, think he's the second coming of Christ (if Germans actually believed in God). I'm not exaggerating; one of the Germans said, "he's my new Messiah," presumably replacing Al Gore in the pantheon of bloviating lefty pols.

Obama's speech was filled with banalities, but this portion really gave me a headache:

The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.

All this talk of tearing down the walls between rich and poor, tearing down the walls between nations, sure didn't fill me with confidence that this man believes in capitalism, property rights, sovereignty, or the necessity of the United States controlling its own destiny -- much less its own borders.

Yikes.

I think Michael Ramirez had the best bottom-line take on Obama's foreign campaign.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:54 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

My counters are glow-in-the-dark good!

As if I don't have enough to worry about.

SHORTLY before Lynn Sugarman of Teaneck, N.J., bought her summer home in Lake George, N.Y., two years ago, a routine inspection revealed it had elevated levels of radon, a radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer. So she called a radon measurement and mitigation technician to find the source.

“He went from room to room,” said Dr. Sugarman, a pediatrician. But he stopped in his tracks in the kitchen, which had richly grained cream, brown and burgundy granite countertops. His Geiger counter indicated that the granite was emitting radiation at levels 10 times higher than those he had measured elsewhere in the house.

[...]

A granite countertop that emits an extremely high level of radiation, as a small number of commercially available samples have in recent tests, could conceivably expose body parts that were in close proximity to it for two hours a day to a localized dose of 100 millirem over just a few months.

Let's see, an increased risk of cancer if you sit at a granite countertop for hours on end.

Like I do when surfing the internet.

There's only one thing worse than getting cancer from your counters.

Cue up the lawyers.

Personal injury lawyers are already advertising on the Web for clients who think they may have been injured by countertops. “I think it will be like the mold litigation a few years back, where some cases were legitimate and a whole lot were not,” said Ernest P. Chiodo, a physician and lawyer in Detroit who specializes in toxic tort law. His kitchen counters are granite, he said, “but I don’t spend much time in the kitchen.”

Cripes. Is there nothing that's not bad for you?

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:15 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Scariest YouTube video ever

Donald Sensing wrote about the scariest video ever posted on YouTube -- that's what The Telegraph calls it -- and it's a corker. It achieves that distinction without being gross or gory, too, just a 20-foot-long snake and a slow pan across its scaly length.

Sensing also tells of the most frightening encounter he ever had with a wild beast; check it out.

About that snake: put your coffee down before hitting the PLAY button.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:10 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

What's up with that darn cat?

What's that crazy cat up to now?

?!?!

Do you have any idea what's wrong with that beast? I'm speechless. But then again, I'm a dog.
Hmmph. Cats.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 23, 2008

It's Wednesday!

Only a couple more days and I get to spend the weekend hanging out with my human pets! Life is good.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 21, 2008

Backyard visitors

Click image for larger version.

When I lived in the wilds of New Jersey (don't laugh -- it is The Garden State, after all) a tubular bird feeder was prominently placed outside my house, overlooking Lake Mohawk. The winter months were the best, the scarlet plumage of the cardinals standing out in stark relief against the crisp white of the snow.

A couple months back I finally put a feeder up in our backyard, hanging from the Golden Raintree tucked in the corner, filled to the brim with about eight pounds of striped black sunflower seeds.

Nobody came to feast on the bounty I had provided for days. A week passed, and I began to doubt that there was any interest in the free meal. Then, after almost two weeks, a sighting:

Houston, we have birdage!

Over the course of the next few months, the number of visitors waxed and waned, depending on the type of seed I put out, as well as other factors beyond the ken of humans.

After the last batch of sunflowers seeds disappeared down the gullets of my avian visitors, I switched to a different blend, curious what kinds of birds it would attract, whether it would be more or less popular than the previous mix.

Well.

The new batch was a HUGE success, drawing an overflow crowd to the 12-station feeder, birds swooping in to push aside their slow-poke competitors, tail-fluttering, wing-shaking birdfights seemingly taking place without pause.

These greedy buggers blew though eight pounds of bird food in 24 hours, sometimes looking nearly insensate, pausing to look around with seeds stuck to the outside of their beaks, spilling out of the corners, caught on the tip.

These birds were pigs.

I was standing in the kitchen this weekend when something on the feeder caught my eye. I picked up the binoculars to take a closer look.

Can you spot the bird that caught my eye? Click image for larger version.

"What the heck is that?" I asked the wife. "Doesn't look like anything native to Southern California."

I stepped outside to get a better view and the jittery sparrows took flight to safer environs, watching me from neighboring rooftops. But the fellow who'd caught my eye stayed put, not as easily intimidated as his less colorful peers.

Should I be looking for a very small pirate, too? Arrrgggh! And what's up with that Alfalfa-looking cowlick sticking up on the top of this guy's head? Hey, can a bird have a cowlick?

So, that's where pets go when they flee the coop: Mike's place.

I was able to get to within about 10 feet before the parakeet decided I was inside his comfort zone and took off, but he's been back several times since, hanging out with the other birds, scavenging their leftovers from the base of the feeder; it seems that his beak is the wrong shape to reach through the opening to get seeds, but there's plenty to keep him busy.

I'd like to see if I can get him to come to me for some food more to his liking. Time will tell.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 20, 2008

I'm sure it was more poignant on radio

National Public Radio, the reliably left-wing news propaganda radio show (paid for with your tax dollars), recently ran a piece on All Things Considered documenting the havoc being visited upon America's poor as a result of the faltering Ohio economy.

The segment focused on one family's plight.

A generation ago, the livelihood of Gloria Nunez's family was built on cars.

Her father worked at General Motors for 45 years before retiring. Her mother taught driver's education. Nunez and her six siblings grew up middle class.

Things have changed considerably for this Ohio family.

Nunez's van broke down last fall. Now, her 19-year-old daughter has no reliable transportation out of their subsidized housing complex in Fostoria, 40 miles south of Toledo, to look for a job.

Nunez and most of her siblings and their spouses are unemployed and rely on government assistance and food stamps. Some have part-time jobs, but working is made more difficult with no car or public transportation.

Nunez, 40, has never worked and has no high school degree. She says a car accident 17 years ago left her depressed and disabled, incapable of getting a job. Instead, she and her daughter, Angelica Hernandez, survive on a $637 Social Security check and $102 in food stamps.

Hernandez received her high school diploma and has had several jobs in recent years. But now, because fewer restaurants and stores are hiring, she says she finds it hard to find a job. Even if she could, she says it's particularly hard to imagine how she'll keep it. She says she needs someone to give her a lift just to get to an interview. And with gas prices so high, she's not sure she could afford to pay someone to drive her to work every day.

People tell Nunez her daughter could get more money in public assistance if she had a child.

"A lot of people have told me, 'Why don't your daughter have a kid?'"

They both reject that as a plan.

"I'm trying to get a job," Hernandez says. "I just can't get a job."

Hernandez says she's trying to get training to be a nurse's assistant, but without her own set of wheels or enough money to pay others for gas, it hasn't been easy.

Most of their extended family lives in the same townhouse complex. The only employer within walking distance is a ThyssenKrupp factory that makes diesel engine parts. That facility, which employs 400 people, is shutting down and moving to Illinois next year.

The only one with a car is Irma Hernandez, Nunez's mother. Hernandez says that with a teenage son still at home, the cost of feeding him and sending him to school is rising, and she can no longer pay for the car.

She's now two car payments behind.

"I'm about to lose my car," she says on her way to pick up one of her daughters to take her to Toledo. "So then what's going to happen to us?"

So Nunez and her daughter are mostly stuck at home.

The rising cost of food means their money gets them about a third fewer bags of groceries — $100 used to buy about 12 bags of groceries, but now it's more like seven or eight. So they cut back on expensive items like meat, and they don't buy extras like ice cream anymore. Instead, they eat a lot of starches like potatoes and noodles.

I can only assume -- given the ever-so-serious way liberals view the social injustice inherent in the capitalistic system -- that NPR was speaking without irony when they titled this piece:

For Some Ohioans, Even Meat Is Out Of Reach

And then ran this picture below the headline:

Angelica Hernandez (left) and her mother, Gloria Nunez, struggle to make ends meet on a very limited budget.

How shall I put this?

Let me be as sensitive as I can possibly be.

BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Good gravy! I'd have had a hard time mustering sympathy for two welfare queens who refuse to pull up stakes from their taxpayer-funded digs and head to where the jobs are if I had only listened to this on my radio, but let's just say that the photo really supersizes the stupidity of the piece.

My heart turned to stone when I read that the mother had NEVER HAD A JOB, but the thought that they're going to give up meat -- and presumably go ... hungry -- is rich.

I'd like to thank NPR for providing the most succinct argument for abolishing Social Security benefits and food stamps I've ever seen.

We have Asian refugees fleeing tyrannical Communist regimes land on our shores, neither speaking nor reading English, moving to whatever city offers economic opportunity, throwing themselves into the workplace, opening businesses, raising families, sending kids to college, and making the most of the American dream.

On the other hand, we have this gal, who has taken every advantage given to her by her hard-working father and turned it into a lifetime of indolence and sloth, paid for and supported by cash earned by people unwilling to dedicate 40 years to producing nothing.

Hell, this woman is being supported by some of those immigrants who arrived on our shores with nothing, other than their pride and willingness to work.

This is what we get for telling people there's no shame in being on the dole.

Only in America.

Only on NPR.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:28 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

US Air Force: War is hell (but why should the generals suffer?)

The Air Force has long battled a reputation as the most pampered branch of the U.S. military, it's ethos less macho warrior than safety-obsessed, politically-correct, and deeply dedicated to getting the latest gee-whiz hardware, while preventing the Army and Marines from acquiring their own close air support aircraft.

While the skill of Air Force pilots is second to none (other than U.S. Navy aviators), stories like this do nothing to help lessen the disdain felt by many in the military for their Air Force comrades in arms.

According to the Washington Post, it seems that top-level Air Force brass has diverted millions of dollars designated for the global war on terrorism -- and countless man-hours -- to design, redesign, and re-redesign "comfort pods," so the effete leaders of America's most metro-sexual branch of the military can travel in the manner to which they've become accustomed.

The Air Force's top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on "comfort capsules" to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules' carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents.

Production of the first capsule -- consisting of two sealed rooms that can fit into the fuselage of a large military aircraft -- has already begun.

Air Force officials say the government needs the new capsules to ensure that leaders can talk, work and rest comfortably in the air. But the top brass's preoccupation with creating new luxury in wartime has alienated lower-ranking Air Force officers familiar with the effort, as well as congressional staff members and a nonprofit group that calls the program a waste of money.

Air Force documents spell out how each of the capsules is to be "aesthetically pleasing and furnished to reflect the rank of the senior leaders using the capsule," with beds, a couch, a table, a 37-inch flat-screen monitor with stereo speakers, and a full-length mirror.

The effort has been slowed, however, by congressional resistance to using counterterrorism funds for the project and by lengthy internal deliberations about a series of demands for modifications by Air Force generals. One request was that the color of the leather for the seats and seat belts in the mobile pallets be changed from brown to Air Force blue and that seat pockets be added; another was that the color of the table's wood be darkened.

Changing the seat color and pockets alone was estimated in a March 12 internal document to cost at least $68,240.

In all, for the past three years the service has asked to divert $16.2 million to the effort from what the military calls the GWOT, or global war on terrorism. Congress has twice told the service that it cannot, including an August 2007 letter from Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) to the Pentagon ordering that the money be spent on a "higher priority" need.

Officials say the Air Force nonetheless decided last year to take $331,000 from counterterrorism funds to cover a cost overrun, partly stemming from the design changes, although a senior officer said yesterday in response to inquiries that it will reverse that decision.

The internal Air Force e-mails, provided to The Washington Post by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonprofit Washington group, and independently authenticated, make it clear that lower-ranking officers involved in the project have been pressured to create what one described as "world class" accommodations exceeding the standards of a regular business-class flight.

"I was asked by Gen. [Robert H.] McMahon what it would take to make the [capsule] . . . a 'world class' piece of equipment," an officer at the service's Air Mobility Command said in a March 2007 e-mail to a colleague, referring to the mobility command's top officer then. "He said he wanted an assurance . . . that we would be getting a world class item this week."

Air Force officials say the program dates from a 2006 decision by Air Force Gen. Duncan J. McNabb that existing seats on transport planes, including some that match those on commercial airliners, may be fine for airmen and troops but inadequate for the top brass. McNabb was then the Air Mobility commander; he is now the Air Force's vice chief of staff, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates nominated him in June to become head of the military's Transportation Command.

[...]

A military officer familiar with the program, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about it, likewise said that its extravagance has provoked widespread contempt among lower-ranking Air Force personnel. "This whole program is an embarrassment," the officer said, particularly because transport seating for troops en route to the battlefield is in his view generally shoddy.

[...]

Explaining his instructions to subordinates, McMahon said he used the term world class "in just about everything I discuss. . . . That represents an attitude." He said he wanted to "create an environment that whoever was riding in that would be proud of," the government would be proud of and "the people of the United States" would be proud of.

[...]

Air Force documents about the SLICC, dated June 8, 2006, emphasize the need to install "aesthetically pleasing wall treatments/coverings" -- in addition to the monitor, footrests and a DVD player. The beds, according to one document, must be able to support a man with "no more than 50% compression of the mattress material." The seats are to swivel such that "the longitudinal axis of the seat is parallel to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft" regardless of where the capsules are facing, the document specified.

In a draft document dated Nov. 15, 2006, that spelled out the requirements for the SLICC, the word "Comfort" was repeatedly crossed out with a horizontal line and replaced by a less cushy-sounding alternative, "Conference." McMahon said he thinks the term "comfort" was dropped from the name to distinguish it from pallets of latrines that could be loaded aboard military aircraft.

Although the program's estimated $20 million cost is nearly equivalent to what the Pentagon spends in about 20 minutes, the e-mails show that small details have so far received the attention of many high-ranking officers, including McMahon; Gen. Arthur J. Lichte, the current Air Mobility commander; and Brig. Gen. Kenneth D. Merchant, the mobility command's logistics director.

The leather and carpet color choices were made by McNabb, according to several of the e-mails exchanged by lower-ranking officers, although a spokesman for the general said those selections were McMahon's responsibility. The e-mails state that McMahon ordered that the seats be re-covered, and one e-mail complains that the contractor "would not swap out the brown seat belts for replacement blue seat belts." The changes delayed the project by months and added to its cost.

McMahon said he does not recall intervening on the leather color change, but said he was sure it was unrelated to the Air Force's color. He said that it was probably because blue would not show dirt as much as tan or brown would.

Blue leather doesn't show dirt? Really? Brown leather wouldn't look as good? And it has nothing to do with the general wanting Air Force blue leather in his aerial executive lounges -- while the troops make do in the cargo holds, spending hour after hour in their un-color-coordinated seats?

Well, I absolutely take Gen. McMahon at his word as an officer and a gentlemen, and I certainly don't think he's full of crap.

No, sir, not at all.

The men and women fighting for their country are owed an apology from each and every Air Force officer involved in this embarrassment -- before their immediate retirements.

Appalling. Reprehensible. Pathetic.

Air Force.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The pencil is mightier than the sword

Researchers have been exploring the different properties of graphene, found in flakes produced when you write with a pencil. It turns out that the lowly tool of scribes and schoolchildren produces one of the most amazing materials known to man.

Graphene crystals are atom-thick sheets of carbon atoms connected together in hexagons, like chicken wire.

Graphene flakes are produced every time we put pencil to paper – the graphite in pencils is simply a 3D structure comprising multiple stacked layers of graphene. And yet graphene was only isolated for the first time in 2004.

In the graphene "gold rush" since then, scientists have scrambled to uncover the material's properties and discover potential applications. The large surface-to-volume ratio and high conductivity already suggest uses in ultra-small electronics.

Now, researchers have discovered that graphene has remarkable mechanical properties too. Changgu Lee and Xiaoding Wei at Columbia University, New York, took flakes of graphene 10 to 20 micrometers in diameter and laid them across a silicon wafer patterned with holes just 1 to 1.5 micrometers in diameter, like a microscopic muffin tray.

The graphene above the tiny holes was unsupported, and Lee and Wei poked at these with the diamond tip of an atomic force microscope to see how readily the graphene deformed and ruptured.

They found that the graphene could be pushed downwards by 100 nanometres with a force of up to 2.9 micronewtons before rupturing. The researchers estimate that graphene has a breaking strength of 55 newtons per metre.

"As a way of visualising the force needed to break the membranes, imagine trying to puncture a sheet of graphene that is as thick as ordinary plastic food wrap – typically 100 micrometers thick," says James Hone, head of the laboratory at Columbia in which Lee studies. "It would require a force of over 20,000 newtons, equivalent to the weight of a 2000 kilogram car."

That strength puts graphene literally "off the chart" of the strongest materials measured, Hone says. "These measurements constitute a benchmark of strength that a macroscopic system will never achieve, but can hope to approach," he says.

In separate work, Tim Booth and Peter Blake at the University of Manchester, UK, are well on the way to bringing atomically perfect graphene out of the nanoscopic and into to the macroscopic world. Their team has patented a new method to produce free-standing graphene flakes up to 100 micrometers in diameter.

Using these flakes, Booth and Blake have also found that graphene is extraordinarily stiff. A crystal supported on just one side extends nearly 10 micrometers without any support – equivalent to an unsupported sheet of paper 100 metres in length. It had previously been assumed that graphene would curl up if left unsupported.

Graphene could be added to polymers to form super-strength composites, Booth says. "However, it is likely the most interesting applications will result from a unique combination of graphene's properties: transparency, electronic structure, stiffness, thermal conductivity," he says. "That could help achieve science-fiction applications."

I'm curious about that last bit, "science-fiction applications"; this stuff truly does seem to lend itself to the kind of things we've only seen in the works of Heinlein, Asimov and Clark, as well as Bob Kane.

From gossamer-thin, bullet-proof fabric to light-transmissive, electronically-active camouflage, graphene sounds like a discovery worth getting excited about.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 19, 2008

How not to act at your sentencing

This defendant showed something less than commonsense and restraint at his sentencing this past week; had he possessed those qualities in the first place, it's likely he might have chosen a rather different career path.

He reminds me of a fellow I once saw in our courthouse, being sentenced by a judge known to us as "The Time Machine." A former public defender, this member of the bench ran a strict courtroom, was a fair and impartial jurist when presiding over trials, but could be a crook's worst nightmare when it came time to impose sentence.

On this occasion, the defendant had been convicted of committing a misdemeanor offense (which one I cannot recall), carrying a potential maximum sentence of a year in the local lockup.

In an ordinary case, the judge would offer to place the defendant on probation for three years, with anywhere between 10 and 90 days in jail, depending on the guilty man's criminal history and the seriousness of the offense. However, sometimes the defendant refuses probation, preferring a "terminal disposition," where he can just do his time and walk out of the jail with no obligation to answer to a probation officer or submit to search terms and other restrictions on his freedom.

When this happens, the prosecutor often argues for substantially more custody time, sometimes even a "bullet" -- a year -- the maximum allowed by law for a misdemeanor.

In this case, the defendant refused probation, the DA asked for a year and the judge sentenced him to 365 days in county jail.

But wait, there's more!

The defendant had a half-dozen active probation cases to be dealt with, each one of them carrying unserved jail time.

The judge looked at the "kiss" sheet on the front of the first case's file and read the summary of charges, probation violations, time served and money owed.

Before he could speak, the defendant shouted, "Fuck you! Why don't you give me another year?"

The judge, without batting an eye or raising his voice, said, "The Court sentences you to 365 days, consecutive to the time already imposed."

Ignoring his public defender's increasingly frantic admonitions to shut up, the crook said, "Go ahead, give me another year!"

Without missing a beat, the judge peered over the top of his reading glasses, the next file in hand, and said, "The Court sentences you to 365 days in this matter, consecutive to any previously imposed time," then picked up the next file.

"Are you done, sir?" he asked the defendant.

"Fuck you!" came the reply, the public defender standing dejectedly next to his client, "Give me another year!"

And so it went.

By the time it was done, the crook had asked for -- and gotten -- about six years on his series of misdemeanors.

I guess he showed the judge who's boss.

"Ask and Ye shall receive," I believe the saying goes. Who knew? Sometimes, you can get what you want.

Time Machine, indeed.

Posted by Mike Lief at 03:15 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Narcissism, thy name is Obama

Poliical commentator Charles Krauthammer -- a physician and psychiatrist by training -- finds Barack Obama's sense of self disturbingly unmoored from the reality of his accomplishments (or lack thereof), veering into Messianism.

Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.

It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history -- "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" -- when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow." As Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.

Obama may think he's King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty.

[...]

He lectures us that instead of worrying about immigrants learning English, "you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish" -- a language Obama does not speak. He further admonishes us on how "embarrassing" it is that Europeans are multilingual but "we go over to Europe, and all we can say is 'merci beaucoup.' " Obama speaks no French.

His fluent English does, however, feature many such admonitions, instructions and improvements. His wife assures us that President Obama will be a stern taskmaster: "Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism . . . that you come out of your isolation. . . . Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."

For the first few months of the campaign, the question about Obama was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is?

We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives. Lord of the seas. And more. As he said on victory night, his rise marks the moment when "our planet began to heal." As I recall -- I'm no expert on this -- Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick. Obama operates on a larger canvas.

I must confess, the Obamessiah moves me in ways he probably doesn't intend. The man -- and his followers -- gives me the creeps.

Posted by Mike Lief at 03:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 18, 2008

Pelosi's not against looking for more oil ...

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 16, 2008

Cat in the hat box

Bogie spotted another instance of the strange, deeply bizarre character of cats.

He looked to me for answers, some explanation for what Pepper was up to, why the cat was spending hours at a time, lounging in a Fancy Feast box.

I had no answers for the hound; cats remain a mystery to me, their behavior much more ... alien than that of the unreservedly affectionate and playful canines. I guess I'll always be a dog guy; they're just so much easier to understand. Cats are from Venus, dogs are from Mars.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A post-Heller world?

Robert Levy examines what the future holds for Americans after the nation's highest court affirmed that Second Amendment actually protects the People and not the government.

In District of Columbia v. Heller, the final opinion of the Supreme Court’s 2007-08 term, Justice Antonin Scalia re-wrote Second Amendment jurisprudence. With a 5-4 majority, Scalia held unequivocally for Mr. Heller on two central questions:

First, the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm, unconnected with militia service, and to use it in the home for self-defense.

Second, all three of the D.C. laws that Heller challenged are unconstitutional: (a) the outright ban on handguns acquired after 1976, (b) the ban on carrying pre-1976 handguns from room to room without a permit, which cannot be obtained, and (c) the requirement that rifles and shotguns in the home must be unloaded and either disassembled or trigger-locked.

Much of the majority opinion and the dissent by Justice John Paul Stevens focused on contrasting interpretations of constitutional text, structure, and history. Without revisiting those arguments, about which volumes have been written, I’d like to comment briefly on four issues that received less attention in the opinions, but which have significant implications for the future. (1) What gun regulations will now be permissible? (2) Will the Second Amendment be “incorporated” so that it can be invoked against state and local governments? (3) Did a purportedly conservative Supreme Court engage in judicial activism? And (4) what happens next on the political front?

What Gun Regulations Will Now Be Permissible?

Justice Scalia accepted that the Second Amendment, like the First, is not absolute. He noted, for example, that concealed carry prohibitions had been upheld, although he stopped short of stating that all such prohibitions would be sustained under Heller’s reinvigorated Second Amendment. Ditto for the constitutionality of licensing requirements, which Heller had not challenged.

Scalia went even further in stating that the Court did not “cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” He added that he could also find “support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.”

It’s likely, therefore, that Heller was well advised not to antagonize the centrist(s) on the Court by demanding de-regulation of weapons like machine guns. Heller’s success was due in part to the moderate, incremental relief that he sought. Subsequent cases will have to resolve what weapons and persons can be regulated and what restrictions are permissible. Those questions will depend, in large measure, on the standard of review that the Court chooses to apply — an issue not resolved in Heller, despite considerable attention to that subject in various amicus briefs, including one from Solicitor General Paul Clement for the Justice Department.

Clement suggested that the Court apply a form of “heightened” scrutiny in reviewing gun regulations. Specifically, he advised the Court to consider “the practical impact of the challenged restriction on the plaintiff’s ability to possess firearms for lawful purposes (which depends in turn on the nature and functional adequacy of available alternatives).” Although Clement acknowledged that the D.C. gun ban “may well fail such scrutiny,” he professed concern that the appellate court had mistakenly applied a different “per se” test, which would preclude “any ban on a category of ‘Arms’ that can be traced back to the Founding era.”

Heller responded that the D.C. gun ban is unconstitutional no matter what standard of review the Supreme Court were to apply. Accordingly, the Court did not have to address the standard-of-review question. On the other hand, if the Court decided to tackle that issue, then Heller urged that “strict,” not heightened, scrutiny be the standard. To justify a gun control regulation under strict scrutiny, government would have to demonstrate a compelling need for the law, and then show that any restrictions were narrowly tailored — no more invasive than necessary to achieve the government’s objectives. Traditionally, the Court has strictly scrutinized all government regulations that infringe on a “fundamental” right — one that is “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty” or “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions.” Virtually all of the Bill of Rights qualify, and the right to keep and bear arms — indisputably fundamental — is no exception.

Ultimately, the Court agreed with Heller that D.C.’s ban on all functional firearms in the home is unconstitutional “under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights.” But the Court did not choose a specific standard, and may hereafter apply something less than the strict scrutiny standard Heller had suggested.

On the other hand, the Court categorically rejected “rational basis” scrutiny, which has been a rubber-stamp for virtually all legislative enactments. And the Court also rejected Justice Stephen Breyer’s “interest-balancing” test, which is no more than a repeat of the process that legislatures undertake in crafting regulations.

Something higher is demanded, said Scalia, when an express constitutional right is at issue. At a minimum, it appears that the Court will adopt some version of intermediate or heightened scrutiny, as urged by the Justice Department.

Imagine that: An enumerated individual right, deserving of something more than rational-basis scrutiny (legalese for "the gummint gits to do whatever it wants"). Keep reading; Levy's take on the future of Second Amendment politics and jurisprudence seems on target.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:05 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Corpse-shagging necrophiliacs lose one (but convince two judges)

It's no surprise that the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that it's illegal to have sex with a dead person, but you've got to admit it's a bit disconcerting that the opinion wasn't unanimous.

MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin law bans sex with dead bodies, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in reinstating charges against three men accused of digging up a corpse to have sex with it.

The court waded into the grisly case after lower court judges ruled nothing in state law banned necrophilia. Those decisions prompted public outrage in Wisconsin and on the Internet, where one blogger wrote: "Doing the dirty with the dead OK in Wisconsin."

Not anymore, the court ruled in a 5-2 decision.

Justice Patience Roggensack, writing a majority opinion with three other justices, said state law bans sexual intercourse with anyone who does not give consent whether a victim is dead or alive at the time. Dead bodies obviously can't give consent, she said.

"A reasonably well-informed person would understand the statute to prohibit sexual intercourse with a dead person," she wrote.

The decision brings Wisconsin's law in line with more than 20 other states who prohibit necrophilia or the abuse of a corpse, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. California joined that group in 2004 after prosecutors said they couldn't bring charges in some cases without an official ban.

The law in Wisconsin had been murky, and two dissenting justices insisted Wednesday that lawmakers did not mean to ban necrophilia but to allow assault charges when someone was raped and then killed.

This is the kind of stuff that makes people hate lawyers -- and judges, too -- and I say that as a member of the bar. I'd be willing to wager a hefty sum that no layperson would interpret the statute the way the two dissenting justices did.

Check out what these ghouls did.

The ruling reinstates attempted sexual assault charges against twin brothers Nicholas and Alexander Grunke and Dustin Radke, all 22. They face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Armed with shovels, a crowbar and a box of condoms, the men went to a cemetery in Cassville in southwestern Wisconsin in 2006 to remove the body of a 20-year-old woman killed the week before in a motorcycle crash, police said.

One of them had seen an obituary photo of the pretty nursing assistant and asked the others for help digging up her corpse so he could have sexual intercourse with it, prosecutors said. They used the shovels to reach her grave but were unable to pry the concrete vault open and fled after a car drove into the cemetery.

The men were discovered by a police officer responding to reports of a suspicious vehicle in the cemetery and charged with attempted sexual assault and theft.

A judge dismissed the assault charges, saying Wisconsin law does not criminalize necrophilia. An appeals court upheld that decision, ruling state law was ambiguous on that point but the most reasonable explanation was that it did not.

Those decisions were wrong, Roggensack wrote, because the law clearly says assault victims can be dead or alive.

[...]

In a dissent, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley called the conduct heinous and said it should be banned for public policy reasons. But she said lawmakers did not do that when they wrote the law in question in 1986.

Jefren Olsen, a public defender who represented Radke, said he agreed with Bradley's dissent and the majority opinion was "dead wrong."

Hey, Olsen, "dead wrong"?

Nice.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

JibJab: Time for some campaignin'!

Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today!

The JibJab boys have outdone themselves this year; their Hillary wields a mean frying pan, and nothing captures the essence of the man better than Obama riding a unicorn.

Good stuff.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Obama's (ahem) qualifications

Gregory McNeal points out that Obama's paltry experience doing anything other than campaigning underscores how woefully unprepared he is to become the leader of the most powerful nation in the world.

As we made clear in The Tank yesterday, when Americans vote this November, Obama will have just 3 years and 10 months of experience as a U.S. senator. As Jim Geraghty has now higlighted over in The Campaign Spot, Obama will have spent "almost half of the past decade campaigning for higher office." With experience like that, it is no wonder that he can't keep his policy positions straight; he's constantly angling and posturing for his next political move.

[...]

The theme that is emerging here is an Obama who is quite an effective politician, but whose calculating political maneuvering is impacting his credibility. His inconsistencies are also calling into question his decision-making. What we are beginning to see is someone who lacks sufficient time in any position and who is always looking to the next political accomplishment (remember that 2 years 12 days in the Senate). As a consequence of that political ambition, he lacks the core judgment to make principled non-political decisions and he lacks the humility to know when he should accept the advice of those with more experience. Obama can give great motivating speeches, but when the shroud of generalties and bombast is stripped away, his inexperienced core is revealed.

McNeal goes on to detail Obama's dizzying twists and turns, zig-zags and reversals, as he tries to square the circle and reassure voters that he has any idea that he knows what he's talking about.

Read it and tell me you're prepared to cast a ballot for the Chance the Gardener of the Presidential Campaign.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 15, 2008

Fallout 3

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:06 PM

July 13, 2008

Agapanthus extra

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:17 PM

Sunday Agapanthus

Agapanthus, ready for its close-up. (Click on image for larger version.)

Agapanthuses -- Agapanthii? -- with Sunflowers vying for attention. (Click on image for larger version.)

Taking a closer look at the previous photo. (Click on image for larger version.)

Posted by Mike Lief at 04:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tony Snow, 1955-2008

I first became acquainted with Tony Snow as the host of Fox News Sunday, where he subjected his guests to good-natured grillings, pushing for anwers, calling them on evasions, but never seeming mean-spirited, always with a sparkle in his eye and the sense that partisanship was no obstacle to friendship.

The roundtable discussion with political pundits was always fun, Snow moderating, his affection for liberal columnist Juan Williams (who often drives me to distraction) obvious to the most casual viewer, and the subject of a touching remembrance by Williams.

When Snow became Pres. Bush's press secretary, it seemed like a courageous pick for the president; after all, the TV host had been a vociferous critic of the administration, at one point referring to Bush as an "embarrassment" to conservatives.

But Snow proved an inspired choice, turning his press briefings into not-to-be-missed TV, sparring with his former colleagues -- usually in good humor -- deftly rejecting the premises of hostile questions, and giving eloquent and well-crafted answers that served his president well.

Many conservatives -- me included -- wish Snow had been brought on much earlier in the Bush presidency; the administration often allowed its political opponents and a hostile media to define the terms of the debate, and hence, the administration's policies, thanks to a combination of the president's reluctance to linger on past events and the incompetence of his previous press secretaries.

I particularly enjoyed it when Snow would scold, chide and spank Helen Thomas, the irascible and incandescently partisan writer whose distaste for Republicans was palpable. And yet, even here, Snow's innate decency shone through. When he once said that Thomas had delivered the Taliban's view of world events, he quickly offered an apology, and when he heard that she'd suffered some health problems, asked that a friend let her know that he loved her and prayed for a speedy and full recovery.

His bout with cancer was terrible, borne with an awe-inspiring grace; there are numerous accounts of Snow reaching out to other cancer patients, offering unsolicited words of encouragement. It was heartbreaking to see the physical toll the illness took on the man, his thick head of hair gone grey and whispy, his face gaunt.

Today's Fox News Sunday played a series of excerpts from Snow's end-of-the-show segment, where he shared his thoughts on various issues of the day; it was a moving tribute, one that showed what it was that made him so respected by his colleagues and liked by the viewing public.

Snow wrote about his illness and his faith last year for Christianity Today; you don't have to be a Christian to find something of value in what he had to say.

Blessings arrive in unexpected packages—in my case, cancer.

Those of us with potentially fatal diseases—and there are millions in America today—find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence What It All Means, Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.

The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the why questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is—a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.
But despite this—because of it—God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.

To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life—and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many nonbelieving hearts—an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live—fully, richly, exuberantly—no matter how their days may be numbered.

Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension—and yet don't. By his love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.

'You Have Been Called'

Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet; a loved one holds your hand at the side. "It's cancer," the healer announces.

The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. "Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler." But another voice whispers: "You have been called." Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter—and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our "normal time."

There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived—an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tinny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.

The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing though the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.

There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue—for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.

[...]

Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love.

I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was a humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. "I'm going to try to beat [this cancer]," he told me several months before he died. "But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side."

His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity—filled with life and love we cannot comprehend—and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.

Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?

I'm not a Christian, but I'd like to believe that there is an eternal reward for men like Tony Snow.

May God grant him peace and comfort his family and friends.

Requiescat in pace.

Posted by Mike Lief at 02:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Scalia: Too many lawyers (and judges, too, says me)

Journalist John Fund writes in tomorrow's Wall Street Journal of an interview given by Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia to the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph, wherein the jurist spoke of the Court's role in deciding the outcome of the 2000 presidential race.

Scalia told the Telegraph interviewer that he'd have preferred that the Supreme Court stayed out of the campaign, but there was little choice, given Democratic candidate Al Gore's request to have the Florida Supreme Court force a change in the state's vote-counting process.

He said that he "of course" regretted that the Supreme Court had become involved. "But I don't know how we could have avoided it. Could we have declined to accept the case on the basis that it wasn't important enough?

"And you know bear in mind that the issue wasn't whether or not the election was going to be decided by a court or not. It was whether it was going to be decided by the Florida court or by the United States Supreme Court, for a federal election.

"So I have no regrets about taking the case and I think our decision in the case was absolutely right. But if you ask me 'Am I sorry it all happened?' Of course I am sorry it happened there was no way that we were going to come out of it smelling like a rose.

"I mean, one side or the other was going to feel that was a politicised decision but that goes with the territory."

He flatly denied there was any "partisan prejudice" involved in the 5-4 ruling, adding that "if you want to look for partisan decisions" then they could be found in the Florida supreme court's rulings.

That aroused my curiosity about the case; I haven't looked at the decision and dissents in years, so I re-read them, then checked out the transcript of the oral arguments.

I'd forgotten that seven of the nine justices agreed that the Florida Supreme Court's actions had given rise to a violation of the U.S. Constitution, but two of the seven disagreed with the majority about what the proper remedy ought to be, leaving five votes for stopping the recount being conducted in the counties most likely to go for Gore.

If you don't want to wade through all the leagalese, here's a one page summary of the question posed, the decision, and how the votes broke down.

According to Scalia, if critics of the Supreme Court's decision want to blame anyone, they ought to begin with the person who threw the political issue to the courts in the first place.

The 2000 presidential election debacle was the fault of Al Gore, who should have followed Richard Nixon's 1960 example and conceded without legal action, according to the Supreme Court's leading conservative judge.

"Richard Nixon, when he lost to [John F.] Kennedy thought that the election had been stolen in Chicago, which was very likely true with the system at the time," Justice Antonin Scalia told The Telegraph.

"But he did not even think about bringing a court challenge. That was his prerogative. So you know if you don't like it, don't blame it on me.

"I didn't bring it into the courts. Mr Gore brought it into the courts.

"So if you don't like the courts getting involved talk to Mr Gore."

The Telegraph provides some background on the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy race, noting that:

Mr Kennedy won Illinois by just 8,858 votes and there were also allegations of voter fraud in Texas, where he won by 46,257 votes. If Mr Nixon had won both states he would have reached the White House eight years before he beat Hubert Humphrey in 1968.

Mr Kennedy's Illinois victory came from Chicago's Cook County, where he won by a stunning 450,000 votes.

There have long been allegations that Mayor Richard Daley, a Kennedy ally, and his Chicago Democratic "machine" engaged in large-scale electoral fraud.

Mr Nixon conceded the election to Mr Kennedy rather than going to the courts.

Fund echoes the point made by Scalia at the tail-end of the interview that we've got too many darned lawyers in the U.S., that we are -- in the words of the jurist -- "over-lawed," and I'm adding a full-throated, "You're darn right!" to the mix.

"I don't think our legal system should be that complex. I think that any system that requires that many of the country's best minds, and they are the best minds, is too complex.

"If you look at the figures, where does the top of the class in college go to? It goes into law. They don't go into teaching. Now I love the law, there is nothing I would rather do, but it doesn't produce anything."

That's not quite true; lawyers become judges, and judges get to invalidate statutes, throw out voter initiatives, redefine the meaning of words -- "shall" means "may" and "may" means "must" -- and amending the Constitution on the fly.

It's like getting elected to Congress and the Presidency for life, without ever having to run for office.

How cool is that?

Yeah, definitely too many lawyers.

Judges, too.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:32 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 11, 2008

A response to Obama's call for greater linguistic diversity

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:04 AM

July 10, 2008

Jews: Our own worst enemy

Paul Mirengoff PowerLine

A new Gallup poll on religious belief and preference for president contains much to reflect upon. Like David Hazony, I took particular note of the views of Jewish voters. According to the poll, Jews who see religion as important in their daily lives make up 39 percent of the Jewish vote (an interesting fact in itself). These voters divide evenly between McCain and Obama. However, among the remaining 61 percent, Obama trounces McCain, 68 to 26 percent. When you add it all up, McCain gets about 33 percent of the Jewish vote, compared to 24 percent for President Bush in 2004.

You might think that even Jewish voters for whom their religion isn't terribly important would have serious reservations about a candidate who worshipped for 20 years under the spiritual guidance of a raving hater of Israel, and who himself apparently sympathizes with the Palestinians and, at least until political considerations intervened, favored transforming U.S. Middle East policy accordingly. But it seems that they don't, and I can't say I'm surprised.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:31 AM

OPEC: Ouch!

The video is funny, but I'm afraid the solutions listed on the NozzleRage webpage don't impress me, failing to push for increased access to domestic oil reserves and the construction of more refineries and nuclear power plants.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 09, 2008

Dems have fix for California woes: Bend over, grab your ankles

The Sacramento Bee reports that Democrats have come up with a novel way of solving the state's fiscal crisis: Tax the crap out of people who earn "too much" and those perverse entities that enslave workers and pay them a pittance, i.e., businesses.

Democrats on Tuesday proposed billions in tax increases on businesses and high earners to help bridge California's budget shortfall.

The proposed hikes include rolling back the dependent child income tax credit expanded in the 1990s, creating two higher income tax brackets for the state's biggest earners and increasing corporate taxes.

Ah, yes, screw the so-called rich, because they don't fork over enough of their hard-earned cash into the gaping, drooling maw of the spendthrift legislature, where their dollars can be converted into waste, fraud and abuse, the remaining bucks simply handed over to people who have done nothing to earn or deserve them -- other than voting for the redistributive socialist slimeball pols who will reward them for said votes.

Do I sound annoyed? Democrats used to understand that revenue shortfalls were eliminated by cutting taxes, not raising them. John F. Kennedy saw a massive increase in tax revenue when his proposed tax cuts went into effect.

Because Americans still have the freedom to vote with their feet and move to another state -- especially high earners and corporations -- the unintended consequence of such tax hikes is to create a voluntary exodus, leaving behind ... how shall I put this? ... those who add little to the state's coffers, but suckle mightily at the gummint teat.

In a rare example of intestinal fortitude, the nearly catatonic California branch of the Stupid Party (GOP) rouses itself from its ineffective torpor and does something.

The long-awaited list of revenue proposals faces near certain defeat, however, as Republican lawmakers have repeatedly said they are unified in their opposition to any tax increases. Approving a budget and increasing taxes requires a two-thirds vote, which means GOP support is mandatory.

Naturally, the Dems will not be deterred, desperately searching for a way to find enough votes to resume their taxpayer beat-down.

"I guarantee you it will be a troubled and very challenged proposal on the Assembly floor," said Assemblyman Roger Niello, a member of the two-house budget conference committee that finished its work over Republican opposition Tuesday. "After we're done (rejecting the tax increases), we can all go back to square one to figure out how we get a supermajority vote on this budget."

Super. Of course, it could be worse; earlier proposals from the Dems were even more confiscatory, pillaging more than $11 billion from taxpayers, as opposed to the paltry $8 billion they want now.

Hold on to your wallets -- here are the details.

Democrats have proposed before -- a 2005 move failed to receive a single GOP vote -- the creation of 10 percent and 11 percent tax brackets for high earners. The highest tax bracket now is 9.3 percent.

The plan unveiled Tuesday would impose a 10 percent rate on the portion of couples' incomes above $321,000 a year and an 11 percent rate on the portion of income above $642,000.

It would raise about $5.6 billion a year.

Big business would lose its net operating loss deduction for three years, bringing the state another $1.1 billion, according to the Senate plan. And the plan would restore the franchise tax rate for businesses from 8.4 percent to 9.3 percent, raising $470 million.

Reducing the dependent income tax exemption would bring the state about $215 million in the fiscal year that started July 1.

[...]

The Senate's proposal would apply only to households with adjusted gross income more than $150,000 a year. It would lower the current allowable exemption for each child from $294 to $94 - the same amount currently allowed for a personal exemption.

Democrats rejected a more ambitious plan advanced by Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill who called for the dependent credit to be rolled back for all families, regardless of annual income. It would have raised $1.3 billion for then state.

Did you get that last part?

Democrats rejected a more ambitious plan advanced by Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill who called for the dependent credit to be rolled back for all families, regardless of annual income. It would have raised $1.3 billion for then state.

Let me translate:

Democrats ran screaming from the floor in horror, shocked and appalled by a proposal to eliminate exemptions from the coming tax increases, spreading the burden broadly, forcing everyone -- even the so-called poor and middle class -- to feel the pinch.

Can't have that, can we? Tax hikes only make political sense if it's some other dude stuck with the tab. Across-the-board increases for everyone?

That might make the electorate reconsider Democratic dominance of California politics.

Would that it were so.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:18 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 07, 2008

World's smallest violin alert

Yes, it takes a lawyer to create the perfect storm of misplaced outrage, asking the courts to address the outrageous -- nay, unfair -- burden placed upon the poor souls who happen to be hobos with a penchant for molesting children.

A strict new Georgia law is designed to keep sex offenders away from children by monitoring how close they live to schools, parks and other spots where kids gather -- and threatens them with strict penalties if they fail to register.

But what about the offenders who don't have an address?

Georgia's Supreme Court on Monday considered whether the law unfairly subjects homeless offenders to a life sentence if they fail register a home address.

The case involves William James Santos, a homeless man and convicted sex offender who was kicked out of a Gainesville homeless shelter in July 2006 and was arrested three months later on charges he failed to register with Georgia's sex offender list.

His lawyers say the law creates a guessing game for Santos and other homeless offenders because it bars them from giving a post office box or simply saying they are homeless.

They also argue that homeless offenders will become a prime target for the measure's tough criminal penalties, which call for a mandatory life in prison sentence for offenders who fail to register their address for a second time.

"These sex offenders, unfortunate enough to have no street address, are subject to life in prison," said Adam Levin, an attorney for Santos. "This gives Mr. Santos and every other sex offender with no address no other right but to fail to comply with the law."

Here's an idea -- try my seven-step program for avoiding a life sentence:

1. Stop being a bum. 2. Get a job. 3. Get an apartment. 4. Get an address (comes with #3). 5. Rejoin society. 6. Register with the cops. 7. Don't molest children.

Prosecutors warn that allowing offenders to mark themselves as homeless risks defeating the purpose of the measure. It could "invite sex offenders to not enter a lease, not purchase a property, to declare themselves homeless," said assistant district attorney Vanessa Sykes.

Sykes also contended the law can be interpreted to give the homeless some leeway to mark down a temporary address, such as a shelter.

The Santos challenge is among a growing number of cases targeting Georgia's sex offender law, which sponsors declared one of the toughest in the nation when it was adopted in 2006.

It bans sex offenders from living, working or loitering within 1,000 feet of just about anywhere children gather. That includes schools, churches, parks, gyms, swimming pools or one of the state's 150,000 school bus stops.

Since it was adopted, though, it has been under attack.

The Georgia Supreme Court last week heard arguments targeting the section that mandates a life prison sentence for sex offenders who twice fail to register. A federal lawsuit filed last month claims that a provision banning sex offenders from volunteering at churches is illegal. And federal courts are already considering challenges to provisions that would evict offenders who live near churches and school bus stops.

Santos' attorneys asked the court to declare the law illegal because it amounts to "cruel and unusual punishment." But they told the justices they hope the court's decision will at least give the homeless a "safety valve" to put down a general location, such as a street or a park.

"We're not asking for specific special treatment for the homeless," said Brett Willis, another Santos attorney. "We're just looking for a way to comply."

I'm fascinated by arguments that various modern punishments are "cruel and unsual," a violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as in this case, where the defense attorneys contend that a life sentence for a convicted child molester is somehow both cruel and unusual.

You do know that at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted, child molesters weren't granted probation.

They weren't given a jail sentence.

They weren't given a prison sentence.

They were executed. Every last one. Hanged. Shot. Escorted off this mortal coil.

What's changed since the late 1700s? If Supreme Court Justice Tony "Weathervane" Kennedy and his fellow travelers are to be believed, it's the amorphous concept known as evolving community standards.

Children being raped is apparently less outrageous to the highly-evolved 21st Century (liberal) mind, deserving of something less than a rope or a bullet -- and a lot less than life behind bars.

Now, they'll tell you that that's an exaggeration, a distortion of their position.

However, they're the ones arguing that severely punishing child molesters shocks the conscience.

So pardon me if I shed no tears for the plight of hobos having a hard time dealing with the consequences of being offered an opportunity to live outside prison walls, a pretty good deal, requiring them only to maintain an address, stay away from kids.

And not molest them.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

High-tech how-to for kick-ass ace-maker

Wouldn't it be cool if you could find a step-by-step assembly guide for the F-35 Lightning, America's latest sky-dominating fighter?

I'm not sure where to get the parts needed to put it all together, but the folks at Gizmodo suggested this shopping list for starters.

F-35 Shopping List

29,036 pounds of composite, aluminum, titanium, and miscellaneous alloys for the fuselage.

1 × Pratt & Whitney F135 afterburning turbofan.

1 × Rolls-Royce Lift System (for STOVL model).

1 × Multi-Mission Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar.

1 × Electro-Optical Distributed Aperture System, for full 360º situational awareness.

1 × Electro-Optical Targeting System + 1 × Sapphire Window.

1 × Helmet Mounted Display from hell.

1 × GAU-22/A 25 mm cannon.

1 × 8" x 20" Multi-Function (panoramic projection) Display System

Head on over to Gizmodo to check out photos from the assembly line; you can also download the high-resolution version of the chart, too.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Must-see movie alert

I rarely go to the movies anymore, preferring the respectful audience and razor-sharp screen images at my home, where I know loutish audience members won't be answering ringing cellphones, talking constantly and driving me batshit insane.

But there are exceptions to the rule, movies that benefit from being seen on a really big screen, and there are two opening soon that are on my list: Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, featuring the late Health Ledger's last completed performance in a bravura turn as the Joker, and Hellboy II, director Guillermo Del Toro's first film since his Oscar-winning Pan's Labyrinth.

There's an enthusiastic essay on both films over at Ain't It Cool News; the spoilers are in the second half, so you can safely read most of it.

If you’re a fan of film -- not just comic-book movies, and not just nerd genre movies, but film of any kind -- then you owe it to yourself to see both THE DARK KNIGHT and HELLBOY 2: THE GOLDEN ARMY in the theater, on the best screen you can find. These are big theatrical films, huge in scale, obviously high-tech in terms of film craft, but they’re more than that ... these films are art. Real art. Undeniable art. Adult films about adult ideas. Richly imagined, beautifully acted by some tremendous ensembles, these are both films that represent the very best of what can happen when the right filmmaker gets hold of the right source material and then makes all the right choices.

[...]

With both THE DARK KNIGHT and HELLBOY II, you can tell that the filmmakers are aiming high. They respect the audience and they respect the characters they’re writing, the worlds they’re creating, the moral landscapes they are dealing with. It’s almost disconcerting how little they bow to the conventions of the genre so far with these films.

[...]

The action sequences [in THE DARK KNIGHT] are inventive and grand-scaled, but the character scenes and the quiet headgames are even more engrossing. The score by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer is one of the year’s best, with the Joker’s themes coming across like razors being dragged across harpsichord strings. Wally Pfister’s photography is, as expected, stunning, and in particular, his work in IMAX is revelatory.

Oh, yeah, the IMAX. Have I said “Holy shit!” yet? Because if not ... holy shit. I’m sure you’ve read that Nolan decided to shoot six major sequences in the film in IMAX. This is the first time a major studio narrative film has lensed sequences in the format. The cameras are a nightmare to move, they hold only three minutes of film, and they’re so noisy it makes it almost impossible to record dialogue live. Even so, I’ll bet we see Nolan work in the format again, because the results are so immersive and startling that they’re worth whatever headaches are involved.

The way it works is the IMAX sequences are all projected full frame, so they fill the entire eight-story screen at a ratio of 1.44:1. When the IMAX sequences end, the movie pops into a 2.40:1 letterboxed ratio that’s still pretty damn gigantic. And for regular theaters showing the film, you’ll see everything at 2.40:1, although I’m willing to bet you notice a marked visual difference for certain scenes.

It’s not just the size of an IMAX frame ... it’s the clarity. It’s the way you get lost in it and no matter where you work, there’s some detail you can notice that might otherwise be lost. It’s the way each motion of the camera pulls you in and makes you feel like you’re moving with it. But more than anything, it’s the way the faces of the actors tower over you, the operatic emotion of this piece cranked up even further by the sheer scale of things.

When you look into someone’s eyes, you get a sense of who they are. And in IMAX? It’s like you can see right inside them, which only makes Ledger’s work more disturbing.

Take a look at The Dark Knight's trailer. Then head over to Hellboy's page and check out its trailer, too.

I'm going to try and see Dark Knight on an IMAX screen, and, if I'm lucky, I'll catch the other flick at Grauman's Chinese Theater, down in Hollywood, the kind of movie palace that makes a film into an event.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:26 PM

Star Wars meets Flashdance

Mandalorian Dance
Uploaded by PatrickBoivin

Honestly, this is the best stop-motion Boba Fett dance video ever.

Yeah, it may also be the only stop-motion Boba Fett dance video, but it's still pretty damn funny.

The folks at Gizmodo offer this as an alternative, Terrestrial update on the cheese-tastic Flashdance number.

Spandex, leg warmers and a 250-pound Bluto Blutarsky look-a-like. Ow, my eyes.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 06, 2008

Sunday sunflower

Posted within five minutes of being taken. Ain't technology grand?

Posted by Mike Lief at 05:46 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Cabaret

If you've never particularly cared for movie musicals, thought the genre silly with characters bursting into song in public, strangers joining in, somehow knowing the lyrics and the dance steps, then I've got a suggestion for your viewing pleasure: Cabaret.

Adapted from the hit Broadway musical, the film version stars Liza Minnelli as an American singer performing at a Berlin cabaret in the waning years of the Weimar Republic. Minnelli begins an affair with Michael York, a bookish expatriate Englishman, their relationship taking place against an increasingly turbulent backdrop, as Germany seemingly spirals out of control, Nazis and Socialists brawling in the streets.

One of the major changes from the stage version is the elimination of songs used to advance the plot, that spontaneous bust-out-in-song style I mentioned before. In the film, director Bob Fosse confines most of the performances to the stage in the Kit Kat Club, his camera moving amongst the patrons, their shadowy silhouettes drinking and smoking, laughing and applauding, making the viewers feel a part of the audience -- which they are, in a meta sort of way.

The movies opens -- and closes -- with Joel Grey, the oily Master of Ceremonies, leering at the audience before bursting into song, greeting us at the beginning with Willkommen, the number that introduces us to the Kit Kat Club, as well as Michael York's character. Grey is a deeply unsettling presence throughout the film; perverse, entertaining and vaguely menacing, he also bears an uncanny resemblance at times to Joseph Goebbels.

Minelli and Grey provide some comic relief in Money, a catchy nightclub number that showcases their talents. It's just fun, adding to the sense that an evening at the Kit Kat Club really is a refuge from the troubles that lurk outside.

There's only one musical number that takes place off stage; it does involve people joining in and knowing the words to the song, but the scene is entirely logical -- and thoroughly chilling. The beauty of the singer's tenor, the increasing fervor of the delivery, and the enthusiasm of the crowd leave the viewer discomfited hours later by the realization that the tune is buzzing through your brain.

It's one of the few scenes in any movie that gives me goosebumps, no matter how many times I've viewed it.

You'll get what I'm saying after you watch it.

The film ends with Minnelli saying goodbye to her lover at the train station, unwilling to leave the goodtimes in Berlin to join him in England. She returns to the club, takes the stage and delivers a blockbuster performance, Life is a Cabaret. The Master of Ceremonies returns to close things out, delivering a corrupted reprise of his film-opening greeting, before leaving the stage in perhaps the most audacious ending to any movie musical.

"Cabaret" is not your typical feel-good musical, hinting as it does -- and must -- with the horrors that we all know were about to be unleashed upon Europe. I remember leaving the theater after seeing a stage performance in my teens, shaken, thinking that there could be no greater calling than hunting down the surviving members of the Third Reich. It's not every day a musical can evoke that kind of response.

Don't let me scare you off; this isn't Schindler! The Musical!; it's a smart movie that features terrific writing, great songs, and top-notch performances, all in the service of a very adult story.

If you only know Liza Minnelli as the troubled daughter of Judy Garland, her divorces a staple of tabloid journalism, rest assured this film will be a revelation.

Check it out.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Stupid Party's RINO of the Day

Will someone please save me from meddling, know-it-all busybodies, supercilious, smug, condescending bastards who live to tell people like you and me how to live our lives?

I am speaking, of course, about politicians, who exist to make public pronouncements about things they don't understand, proposing new laws accomplishing nothing useful -- other than to place greater limitations on our freedom to decide for ourselves how we want to spend our money, and, incidentally, turn over more power to the government.

And no member of the genus Feckless Crapweasel is more infuriating than the RINO.

"Mike, you're always talking about rhinos; why do gigantic African animals upset you so?"

It's RINO, not rhino, genius, as in Republican In Name Only. Politicians who call themselves Republicans, yet never seem to advocate smaller government, lower taxes, fewer stupid laws, and greater economic freedom.

Like this idiot, Sen. John Warner, who hails from the great state of Virginia.

"Shut up, sit down, and drive 55. Why? Because the New York Times will sing my praises for being an unusually-enlightened Republican when it comes to solving our energy crisis -- and telling y'all to drive slower is a lot easier than casting a vote to increase domestic energy production."

Warner sent a letter to the U.S. Dept. of Energy last week, asking the agency to look into the benefits of reimposing the hated national 55 mph speed limit on highways, which was repealed back in the 1990s.

As you may recall, the double nickel did nothing to help with the oil shortage during the 1970s, nor did it result in lower oil prices; all it did was foster nationwide contempt for the law and inspire at least one decent song from Sammy Hagar.

Warner's call for a return to a Federally-mandated speed limit is classic big-government, nanny state-style politics, the basic premise of which is that no one knows better what's good for you than the so-called experts in Washington, D.C.

In the months leading up to the final repeal of the national speed limit, so-called safety advocates lamented that the highways would be running with the blood of innocents, slaughtered by speed-crazed motorheads and maniacal long-distance truckers.

The reality is, however, that the overall fatality rate on highways dropped, thanks in part to a combination of safer, better-engineered cars and American drivers not being the morons that the safety Nazis thought we were.

From a conservative perspective, the Feds have no business telling us how fast to drive, especially as a means of supposedly reducing oil consumption; free market principles will help drivers determine whether or not they want to slow down.

There's an opportunity cost to driving fast: more fuel consumption, which means that drivers fill up more often and pay more at the pump. If the pain of allocating more of the household budget for gas is too great, some drivers will decide to slow down and spend less.

On the other hand, there's an opportunity cost to driving slowly over long distances: it takes longer -- sometimes a lot longer -- to get where you're going, and some consumers are willing to spend more money to tell the kids, "Yes, we're there yet!" sooner, rather than later.

I have had to make multiple trips between Southern California and the Sacramento area over the years, and the difference between 55 and 75 mph is 2 hours less time spent on the road. That's a big deal, and well worth the extra fuel cost that I'm willing to pay.

Republicans -- conservative ones, that is -- used to understand the concept of free market capitalism, believed that Americans were in the best position to decide for themselves how to do many things, including having the States pass their own laws. This was also once known as a key feature of Federalism, wherein the 50 states served as "laboratories of Democracy," where people are free to live their lives as they and their neighbors saw fit, in accordance with local desires, not the diktats of distant rulers in Congress.

But RINOS like Warner are far more interested in compromise, which seems to always be another way of saying, "let Congress control."

Warner is set to retire in January, the 81-year-old millionaire finally shuffling off the national stage.

Good riddance.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 05, 2008

They really seemed like a good match ...

Too bad about that lock.

This can't possibly be a real ad for Home Depot -- it must be a viral video for something -- but it's still pretty darn funny.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 04, 2008

Independence Day tribute to a fallen hero

Petty Officer Michael A. Monsoor was killed in battle in Iraq in September 2006, and posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in April. His funeral in Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego was attended by “nearly every SEAL on the West Coast,” said his grandfather, George Monsoor, Sr., who described his grandson as an “outgoing guy.” During the service, as Monsoor's coffin was taken from the hearse to the gravesite, Navy SEALs lined up in two columns. As the coffin passed, video shows each SEAL slapping down the gold Trident from his uniform and deeply embedding it in Monsoor's wooden coffin. The slaps were reportedly heard across the cemetery.

"This day is called the feast of Crispian:

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day"

Petty Officer Michael Monsoor, 1981-2006.

Requiescat in pace.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:37 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Death penalty for medical malpractice?

Actually, I think execution is too good for this butcher surgeon.

BUCHAREST — A court has ordered a Romanian surgeon to pay $795,000 in compensation to a patient whose penis he accidentally severed during an operation.

In July 2004, Naum Ciomu made a surgical error while operating on the man's testicles, severing the penis instead of making an incision to the testicle.

The Bucharest Magistrates Court ruled Friday that Ciomu had been 'superficial' in his approach to the operation, ordered the fine and handed Ciomu a one-year suspended prison sentence. The ruling can be appealed.

A piece of muscle from the man's arm has now been attached to where his penis was, but its function is aesthetic.

'You don't have to be an expert to realize that the 33-year-old victim does not have a good state of mind,' said Mihai Olariu, the victim's lawyer.

Being a man of the Old Testament, I'd prefer a below-the-waist variant on "an eye for an eye."

Cripes.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 03, 2008

Sunflowers

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The worst Supreme Court justice?

Patterico has some pretty solid reasons for his choice (and mine, too).

Rich Lowry:

Why did the Founders bother toiling in the summer heat of Philadelphia in 1787 writing a Constitution when they could have relied on the consciences of Supreme Court justices like Anthony Kennedy instead?

Kennedy is the Supreme Court’s most important swing vote and its worst justice. Whatever else you think of them, a Justice Scalia or Ginsburg has a consistent judicial philosophy, while Kennedy expects the nation to bend to his moral whimsy. With apologies to Louis XIV, Kennedy might as well declare “la constitution, c’est moi!”

Lowry’s sentiments find resonance in the statement of Justin Levine yesterday:

Kennedy has proven that he does not have the temperament worthy of the power afforded to those sitting on the nation’s highest court. I say this even though the practical results of his decisions will more often comport with my own views when compared with some other Justices of the Court. But if I had the power to vote one (and only one) Justice off the island, Kennedy would easily be the first choice.

I don’t know if I’d go quite that far — but he’s certainly the justice I respect the least. Kennedy is smug and patronizing; a toady to elite opinion. He is serenely indifferent to the chaos and turmoil his poorly reasoned decisions cause to the legal system.

His flowery and meaningless language provides litle guidance to lower courts, which are often thrown into confusion by his obtuse phrases — but no matter. The key is to be quoted in the New York Times, rather than to be understood by the judges who must carry out his diktats.

The ultimate clue to his result-oriented jurisprudence comes in the public reaction to the fact that Kennedy fundamentally misstated the extent of support for the death penalty for child rape. Linda Greenhouse says that Kennedy’s factual mistake related to “a central part of the court’s analysis.” Yet no legal observer believes, even for a moment, that Kennedy will change his mind, simply because a critical pillar of his analysis has been shown to be flawed.

Everybody knows that he decides on the result and reasons backwards from it.

Nobody thinks that the facts actually matter to him.

You want Kennedy to consider changing his vote? Show him that the editors of the New York Times decry his decision. But don’t bother the man with facts going to the essence of his analysis.

Yes, Lowry is right. Even though Kennedy very often gets the result right, he is the nation’s worst justice. He is a model of what a justice should not be: drunk on his own power, yet at the same time, utterly powerless in his groveling to the dictates of elite opinion.

You can despise the results reached by a David Souter or a Stephen Breyer, but at least you can respect them.

I can’t respect Justice Kennedy.

I don't think Patterico goes far enough. As I said when Kennedy granted habeas rights to brigands held by U.S. forces, decisions like these undercut whatever presumed legitimacy the courts hold in the eyes of the public.

When Kennedy decides to tell the Legislative and Executive branches of government, as well as the legislatures of the 50 states and their governors, that they're wrong, based upon his evolving standards of (in)decency and misreading of the national consensus and existing law, and then gets four of his colleagues to join in, he brings the entire institution down with him.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:13 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 02, 2008

E pluribus unum pluribum

The slow-motion dismantling of the United States as an idea continues, the latest sign that those who once sought integration into American society now prefer segregation and disdain comes from Denver.

Mayor John Hickenlooper's annual State of the City address may get more attention for what wasn't included than what was.

At the start of the event Tuesday morning, City Council President Michael Hancock introduced singer Rene Marie to perform the national anthem.

Instead, she performed the song "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," which is also known as the "black national anthem."

When she finished, the audience responded with mild applause. The national anthem was never performed.

Marie told 9NEWS she kept her plans to switch songs quiet until the very last moment. She says only she, her husband and a friend knew she was going to sing something other than the "Star-Spangled Banner."

She says she wanted to express her love of her country by mixing the lyrics of "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" with the melody of the "Star-Spangled Banner."

"When I decided to sing my version, what was going on in my head was: 'I want to express how I feel about living in the United States, as a black woman, as a black person,'" said Marie.

Hickenlooper's staff picked Marie to sing the national anthem. The mayor says he believes Marie did not intrend to offend anyone or make a political statement.

When asked if he was offended, Hickenlooper said, "You know I was more confused and I think I was more – what I was, was disappointed and confused and that's why I wanted to talk to her."

City Councilman Charlie Brown took to talk radio Tuesday afternoon to criticize the absence of the national anthem at the State of the City proceedings.

"There is no substitute for the national anthem, period," Brown said. "And that's what really bothered me. You know when we fly the flag, the American flag, it's always the highest flag, as it should be. And that didn't come across today, that didn't happen today."

In hindsight, both Brown and Hickenlooper say they should have stopped Marie or began singing themselves.

Marie says if she had the benefit of doing it over, she would sing the same song.

When asked if she would apologize for what happened she said, "No I do not."

First, can you think of a better example of the if-it-feels-good-do-it ethos, as well as the it's-all-about-me-24/7 lifestyle than this woman?

"When I decided to sing my version, what was going on in my head was: 'I want to express how I feel about living in the United States, as a black woman, as a black person,'" said Marie.

Newsflash!

No one gives a crap about how you feel, what's going on in your head, your deep thoughts on gender and race -- not there and not then.

The National Anthem is a unifying cultural artifact, traditionally sung at the beginning of public events (much like the Communist "Internationale" is at meetings of Moonbats) as a means of reaffirming our status as American citizens, part of a great nation founded upon the idea that freedom -- as it had never been experienced before -- was something worth fighting to preserve.

Forty years after Francis Scott Key penned the lyrics to the "Star Spangled Banner" on the back of an envelope as he watched a battle during the War of 1812, Americans were once again fighting and dying to preserve the Union, to prevent the nation from flying apart. Brave men fought and with much blood and sweat, steel and shot, ensured that E pluribus unum -- Out of many, one -- was more than the motto of a failed nation.

I find it dispiriting that E pluribus pluribum fails to rouse much in the way of righteous anger. That pathetic excuse of a mayor should have cut that woman off and had her escorted out, then led the audience in the anthem.

Instead, all we got was a Milton Milquetoast, "I was confused and disappointed" whinge.

Given that shame is a foreign concept in modern society (unless you say something deemed politically incorrect), it's just perfect that the singer feels no remorse and would do it again.

Who was it that provided the definitive rebuke to the race pimps, more than 40 years ago?

Right, the Rev. Martin Luther King, who said that he dreamed of the day when his children "would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin."

Thanks to Marie Whats'ername and her fellow pigmentocentrists, that day is nowhere near.

But at least we still have the Pledge of Allegiance, right?

Never mind.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:00 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 01, 2008

2nd Amendment ascendant

As GFWs* wail, gnash their teeth and screech in outrage over the Supreme Court's decision declaring an individual, Constitutional right to possess firearms, Steve Chapman asks the key question: How did gun control lose?

It looked as though ever-stricter gun control was the wave of the future. But the future had different ideas. What happened? Three main things:

• Gun control didn't work. In the 1990s, despite its draconian ban, Washington became the murder capital of the United States. Chicago's homicide rate, which had been declining in the years before it banned handguns, climbed over the following decade.

During the time the federal assault weapons law was in effect, the number of gun murders declined—but so did murders involving knives and other weapons. When the law was allowed to expire in 2004, something interesting happened to the national murder rate: nothing.

• Laws allowing concealed weapons proliferated—with no ill effects. In 1987, Florida gained national attention—and notoriety—by passing a law allowing citizens to get permits to carry concealed handguns. Opponents predicted a wave of carnage by pistol-packing hotheads, but it didn't happen. In fact, murders and other violent crimes subsided. Permit holders proved to be sober and restrained.

People elsewhere took heed, and today, according to the NRA, 40 states have "right-to-carry" laws. As those laws have spread, the homicide rate has fallen sharply from the peak reached in 1991.

• The 2nd Amendment got a second look. In 1983, a San Francisco lawyer named Don Kates published an article in the University of Michigan Law Review arguing that, contrary to prevailing wisdom in the judiciary and law schools, the Constitution upholds an individual right to keep and bear arms.

Numerous legal scholars, spurred to examine the record, reached the same surprising conclusion. Before long, even some liberal law professors were coming around.

In 2000, Harvard's Laurence Tribe published a new edition of his influential constitutional law textbook, asserting that the 2nd Amendment had an undeniable meaning: "The federal government may not disarm individual citizens without some unusually strong justification consistent with the authority of the states to organize their own militias. That assurance in turn is provided through recognizing a right (admittedly of uncertain scope) on the part of individuals to possess and use firearms in the defense of themselves and their homes . . . "

Of course, I prefer a simpler explanation, one that is true to Occam's Razor:

The plain text of the Second Amendment secures and safeguards a preexisting right of the People to self defense; that the Bill of Rights was designed to protect the People from governmental tyranny; and that it requires Olympic-class mental gymnastics and intellectual dishonesty of Herculean proportions to argue that the Second Amendment was intended to protect the right of the government to control and disarm the People, to render the same People -- who are the beneficiaries of the protections enumerated in the rest of the Bill of Rights -- supplicants and subjects of the government in the Second Amendment.

*Gun Fearing Wussies, courtesy of Kim Du Toit.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New Navy uniform leaves this swabbie cold

050220-N-6932B-008 Kuwait Naval Base, Kuwait (Feb. 20, 2005) - Gunner's Mate 1st Class David K. Bartlett, assigned to Inshore Boat Unit Two Four (IBU-24), Squadron Two Five, is one of 30 volunteers from IBU-24 putting the Navy's newest concept uniforms to the test as participants in Task Force Uniform. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 1st Class Richard J. Brunson (RELEASED)

Petty Officer Gerald Lief models the traditional Navy working uniform -- dungarees, chambray shirt and dixie-cup -- somewhere in the Sea of Japan during the Korean War.

Well, it looks like the Navy has officially decided its time to ditch dungarees and dixie-cups in favor of a copycat camo uniform.

Five years after canvassing the fleet for suggestions on new and more practical uniforms for the 21st century, the Navy has started rolling out a year-round service uniform for Sailors E-6 and below and a Battle Dress Uniform, or BDU-style, working uniform for all ranks.

[...]

The new Navy working uniform (NWU) replaces the utilities, wash khaki, coveralls, woodland green, aviation green, winter working blues and summer whites.

With a digital print pattern incorporating Navy blue, deck gray, haze gray and black, the NWU is a wash-and-wear 50/50 nylon and cotton blend. The majority of Sailors surveyed preferred a BDU-style uniform, one that doesn't show spots, stains or heavy wear like a solid color uniform and allows mending of small tears in fabric, saving money in replacement costs.

Worn with a blue cotton T-shirt, the new Navy working uniform comes with an eight-point cover, a black web belt with closed buckle and black smooth leather boots, with black suede no-shine boots for optional wear while assigned to non-shipboard commands. Cold-weather options include a unisex pullover sweater, a fleece jacket, and a Gore-Tex parka.

"Besides reducing the seabag and providing ease of maintenance, a camouflage-style uniform puts us more in line with our sister services in terms of our appearance," said Master Chief Arthur Rivers, assistant head for the Navy's Uniform Matters Office.

In the future, Sailors operating in tactical environments, including expeditionary Sailors and SEALs, will wear either woodland or desert digital patterns.

The year-round service uniform for E-6 and below includes a short-sleeve khaki shirt for males and an over-blouse for females, made from a wash-and-wear 75/25 polyester and wool blend, with permanent military creases, black trousers for males with beltless slacks for females and optional beltless skirt, and a black unisex garrison cap. Silver anodized-metal rank insignia will be worn on shirt and blouse collars and cap, replacing the rating badge with a collar device that can be taken on and off a uniform and easily updated upon promotion. The service uniform's non-vertical match – tops and bottoms are different colors – is in line with equivalent uniforms of the other service branches.

Great. Nearly a hundred years of tradition out the window, so sailors can look more like soldiers.

Will someone explain to me why men working aboard warships need camo working uniforms? And why a camo pattern that incorporates colors and patterns designed to blend with ocean, ship and sky?

"MAN OVERBOARD!"

"Where is he?"

"I dunno; that new uniform is so stealthy."

"Yeah, and it hides stains, too."

"I like all the pockets"

"Me too."

"Say, what ever happened to Smitty?"

"Oh, yeah. Hmmm."

Great idea. The article mentions that SEALS and other Naval types operating ashore will get camo patterns with terrestrial color schemes, so it seems that the only folks who will be hiding in plain sight with these new uniforms are the men in the fleet.

What a wasteful boondoggle.

Posted by Mike Lief at 05:44 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack