Monster of Montauk - the tizzy gets dizzy

This is a photo of a creature that washed up on the shore near Montauk, N.Y.

The animal looks like a bloated, hairless dog, except that it's got an eagle-like beak, a prominent brow ridge and a curiously elongated front paw.

Speculation immediately arose that it might be a hitherto unknown marine mammal, a sea turtle without its shell, an artful Photoshop creation or — cue the " X-Files" theme — an escaped experiment from the government animal-disease research facility on Plum Island, just offshore from Montauk.

So far, the photographer has not come forward or been otherwise identified. But,

Plum TV, a sort of upscale public-access network carried on Hamptons cable TV as well as in other tony summer resorts, promises an interview Friday with the original photographer as well as two other women who say they saw the animal.

And the carcass of the presumed beast has disappeared as well.

Obama post racial no more

Obama said in Missouri,

"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

All those other presidents?

Obama has now taken pains to point out on several occasions over the months that he is black. He is the only person in the country who is saying so. No one else associated with either his or McCain's campaign is talking about Obama's race. Only Obama is. And every time he does - every time - it is to accuse his opponents of racism. "I'm black, therefore McCain and Republicans are racists. And they're going to make sure you know that's I'm black." That's pretty much the summary of a big part of Obama's stump speech nowadays.

But the only person who has ever mentioned Obama's race is .... Obama. ABC news' Jake Tapper observes,

There's a lot of racist xenophobic crap out there. But not only has McCain not
peddled any of it, he's condemned it. ...

I've seen racism in campaigns before -- I've seen it against Obama in this campaign (more from Democrats than Republicans, at this point, I might add) ...

What I have not seen is it come from McCain or his campaign in such a way to merit the language Obama used today. Pretty inflammatory.

Obama was once acclaimed as the first real post-racial candidate, but now it's starting to look more and more as if Obama is a only a smooth-talking race baiter. He's proving himself to be a divider, not a uniter.

Or maybe his rhetoric is driven by fear. Even though the media were so focused on him when he went overseas that McCain was greeted by one (one!) reporter when he landed in New Hampshire, Obama has actually lost ground in the polls since his return, says Gallup:

The percentage of voters favoring Obama for president swelled from 45% in July 21-23 tracking, conducted at the outset of Obama's weeklong visit to Europe and the Middle East, to 49% in July 24-26 interviewing conducted at the height of publicity surrounding the tour. At the same time, McCain's support ebbed from 43% to 40%, and the percentage of undecided voters fell from 7% to 4%.

With Obama now back on U.S. soil and filling less of the nightly news, voter preferences have reverted to their pre-trip levels.

This despite a somewhat less than competent McCain campaign (the WSJ's Daniel Henninger actually asks today, "Is John McCain Stupid?"), which did, however, arise in response to this latest.

John McCain's campaign accused Barack Obama on Thursday of playing racial politics a day after the Democratic candidate predicted Republicans would try to scare voters by pointing out "he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

Obama "played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck," McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said in a statement. He called Obama's remarks "divisive, negative, shameful and wrong."

So if nothing else is working for Obama, maybe the race card will play. Problem is, he's used it long enough that he should have discerned it isn't working.

And that is troubling, too. For any man or woman truly astute enough to serve the presidency well should also be smart enough to drop campaign tactics or rhtetoric that harm the campaign. Obama hasn't done so. Draw your own conclusions.

Update: The WSJ's James Taranto also says that Obama is squandering his "post racial" mythos.

Update: ABC News: "Sen. Barack Obama's chief strategist conceded that the Democratic presidential candidate was referring to his race when he said Republicans were trying to scare voters by suggesting Obama "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." "

Why autos' fuel efficiency doesn't matter

The fuel efficiency of automobiles of course matters to their owner, but fuel efficiency does not matter significantly when it comes to reducing worldwide petroleum use. I speak of conventionally engined vehicles, not hybrid, cars. (They don't matter, either, but that's another story.) Here's why:

The stylish little car phenomenon is largely confined to the rich suburbs of rich polities and to urban singles/students with rich parents. By itself it cannot make much difference to global gasoline/diesel fuel use. Worldwide, the vehicular fleet, on the net, is expanding by 35 million units, annually. The rate of fleet efficiency growth is swamped by the rate of fleet population growth and by the even faster rate of passenger or freight miles driven growth.

Auto use is impelled by a hierarchy of needs: convenience, safety, status and fashion. In poor countries the convenience and safety value added from a car or car like mobile unit is so great compared with the fuel costs that they overwhelm the rise in fuel costs. Add to that the fact that autos are becoming much more affordable in the third world (e.g., the new Nano in India will cost less than $3,000 delivered to the customer …taxes, tags, retailer mark up included…..) making such a car affordable to hundreds of millions of families and small commercial operations in the Third World, thus greatly expanding the world auto market, as families and small/micro businesses graduate from bicycles, tricycles and motorized 2 or 3 wheelers. In rich countries, already sated w/convenience and safety, status and fashion impel auto use. People will often pay a lot for status and fashion. Hence worldwide gasoline/diesel use may see a modest decrease in the rate of growth: it will not see an absolute reduction in use.

Read the whole thing, it's short and to the point. HT: American Digest.

Can you say, "Lamborghini Murcielago LP640?"

I knew you could. That's the same model Lambo that Bruce Wayne drove in "The Dark Knight." And the greenie world is eyes-a-poppin' mad because some bozo in Qatar decided his Batman car needed a service, so he flew it to London.

Reports have suggested the 6,500-mile round trip for the two-door, Murcielago LP640 model would have cost its owner more than £20,000.

Friends of the Earth said the flight was "taking climate-wrecking behaviour to new heights". ...

Friends of the Earth Transport campaigner Tony Bosworth said: "With rising fuel costs and concern about climate change, most people are likely to find this type of wasteful and damaging activity outrageous.

"The pollution from driving a Lamborghini is bad enough, but flying one thousands of miles for a service is taking climate-wrecking behaviour to new heights."

A Lamborghini spokesman said that the company's network of authorized dealership is extensive enough so that no need fly a car anywhere to have it serviced. But he allowed that sometime a Lambo owner, distressed at the prospect of being apart from his automotive passion, might fly it somewhere along with him. "Should that happen, we will provide service support."

Well, of course, you proletariat nincompoops.

We haven't had so much fun with cars and planes since Paul McCartney's Lexus LS600 Hybrid was flown from Japan to England for him.

USS George Washington captain fired

The commanding officer of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, USS George Washington, has been relieved of command as a result on the investigation to a fire aboard the warship that injured dozens of personnel and set alarms bells ringing in Japan's government. Washington was recently assigned to be home ported in Japan, replacing diesel-powered USS Kitty Hawk, which is being retired from service.

The US Navy, releasing details of an investigation, said that a fire in May in waters off South America was caused when crew smoked near improperly stored flammable liquids.

A Navy statement on Wednesday said it was relieving Captain David C. Dykhof as commanding officer due to "a loss of confidence in his ability to command and his failure to meet mission requirements and readiness standards."

One sailor suffered first- and second-degree burns, while another 37 were treated for minor injuries, the Navy said.

Ken Griffey Jr. to be traded?

The sports world is all abuzz with the news that batting maestro Ken Griffey, Jr., may be traded from the Cincinnati Reds to the White Sox. Both teams' managers seems ready for the deal. Only problem?

According to sources, the Sox have a tentative deal in place for Griffey, but are waiting this morning for the veteran who has no-trade protection to approve the deal before the 3 p.m. deadline.

But Griffey is expected to okay the deal before 3 p.m. today.

Griffey, 38, is hitting .245 with 15 home runs and 53 RBI in 359 at-bats. Just as important to the White Sox, he has a .355 on-base percentage and will be a much bigger presence in the lineup than [first baseman Paul] Konerko.

Konerko, so the theory goes, will be less playing time as center fielder Nick Swisher is moved to play first, while Griffey takes over center. Swisher has been playing first base for most of the last month, anyway.

Watch Friday's total solar eclipse at home

There will be a total eclipse of the sun tomorrow, says Scientific American.

Sadly, this eerie, awe-inspiring event—known as totality—will be visible only from remote parts of the Northern Hemisphere: Starting in northern Canada, the moon's shadow, or umbra, will glide across the Arctic into central Asia. (View the path of totality at NASA's eclipse Web site.) "It is best to see the eclipse live," says Paul Doherty, a senior staff scientist at the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco. "If you don't want to travel," he says, "you will wait an average of 300 years for a total solar eclipse to come to you.

But that doesn't mean you can't share in the experience remotely. Doherty will be part of an eclipse expedition broadcasting the eclipse live via the Web from Xinjiang Province in northwestern China, near the Mongolian border, beginning at 3:30 A.M. Eastern time through totality at 4:09 A.M.

Three-thirty a.m.? Ya'll have fun.

Resignation

I just walked in the door and booted up the machine. Perhaps I need to go to the Negev more often.

After two years of stalling and stonewalling, Olmert finally resigned. True to the end, Olmert displayed a fundamental lack of any connection to Israeli culture or mindset. As one of the Ashkenazi elite, neither he nor his children have spent any time in the most important part of mainstream society--national service.

Olmert's tenure is marked by a general disdainful version of noblesse oblige characteristic of all Bandits, Roving or Stationary. As I have mentioned before, Israeli culture is dominated by military culture and the cross lines of affliation between service and civilian roles and personna. In the service, every (good) officer learns that loyal men will follow orders but will grumble in proportion to degree of outrageousness associated with bad ones.

Israelis have become "a nation of grumblers" who complain about almost everything, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday, during round-table discussions in the Knesset between representatives of the government and the social and business sectors.

"It's possible to identify the fraction lines - when we changed from a positive people to a nation of grumblers who complain in almost every situation," he said.

Maybe if Olmert had stopped pilfering the PX and listened to his "troops" more (as in, "Sarge, how are the men taking it?"), the country would not be in its current situation. US citizens might want to look more carefully at the way privileged characters, without basic service experience, look at how leaders respond to democratic citizenry "grumbles".

Obama's prayer affair - a view from Israel

The controversy thus far: Whilst visiting Israel on his overseas trip, Barack Obama went to the Western all of the ancient Temple Mount in Jerusalem to pray. A Jewish seminary student filched Obama's prayer note that he had inserted into the joints of the Wall and gave it to Ma'ariv newspaper, which published it.

The publication of the prayer became a scandal - not centered around Obama, but around the paper and the breaching of a very solid tradition and theology of prayers at the Wall should not be made public, at least not by third parties.

A Jerusalem attorney filed a complaint asking that a criminal investigation be launched. In response, Haaretz newspaper said that Ma'ariv newspaper announced that,

"Obama's note was published in Ma'ariv and other international publications following Obama's authorization to make the content of the note public. Obama
submitted a copy of the note to media outlets when he left his hotel in Jerusalem. Moreover, since Obama is not Jewish, there is no violation of privacy as there would be for a Jewish person who places a note in the Western Wall."

My blogging colleague, Rabbi Daniel Jackson of Israel, is moving and out of blogging access for the nonce. I sent him an email yesterday asking whether I was "speaking out of school" in my post discussing this development, where I wrote in the same post,

I would also say that Ma'ariv's rather outrageous claim that prayer of non-Jews don't enjoy privacy protection at the Wall simply will not hold up before rabbinic responses. One, there is a very deeply-rooted and truly genuine piety attached to prayers at the Wall, where (I dare say) almost all Jews understand that the prayers of Gentiles are honored by God as perhaps no other place on earth.

Daniel emailed me a response and I am posting it for him here:

Frankly, I find the whole seminary student (which seminary and which denomination) thing spurious and would not be surprised that Obama and company DID front the leak. An Orthodox person would never tamper with the prayer/petition of anyone. In fact, if anything has the status of a KORBAN (sacrifice) in our day it's that little piece of paper put in the Wall. When the prayers are cleaned out each year, they are treated as all sacred texts (torn prayer books, photocopies of Talmud, anything printed or written of sacred value) and buried in a Jewish cemetery. Moreover, the sanctity of a folded note (e.g., a letter in an envelope, sealed or not) is protected by Jewish Law--as in Thou Shalt Not Peek. In fact, that's the inside joke in Hamlet that the two Jews are too stupid enough to look inside the letter they are carrying to know that Hamlet as switched notes and 'sealed' their fate. Observant Jews don't peek. It's against the Law.

As for Ma'ariv, they were scooped by the British tabloids and Ha'aretz: see here. Ma'ariv also has a reputation for salaciousness that is unrivaled in The Land. Obama & Co had campaign posters stationed outside the inner area along the barrier as part of their photo-op. The whole thing smells of stunt. Never before has a personal prayer at the Wall, since the time of Hannah, been made public. It truly is a violation of Jewish Ethics. Unless this person knew exactly WHICH piece of paper was Obama's (did they search through ALL of the notes where he put them?), the only way to know is if it was leaked before hand. Like a magician's slight of hand, the Obama Crew knew before he put the note in the Wall what was in the note since they already had the text.

Naw; the whole affair smells and looks like the Duke's Tank Helmet. McCain acted like a mensch--he was visiting a friend's place of worship. In fact, the YouTube video with Lieberman is very symbolic--here's a Republican going to worship with a Democrat/Independent. From a Talmudic script, the appearance of two members of opposite political parties setting aside differences to pray together, and the non-Jew seriously watching 'how it's done' the Jew, is quite impressive.

There is a story in the Talmud about the proper intention of prayer (Jewish sources say the first to pray in a modern sense is Hannah). An OLD rabbi was praying when a Roman Official passed by and hailed the rabbi. The rabbi continued to pray and not respond to the Roman. The Roman became outraged and demanded that the old Jew answer him. He summoned his guard. When the rabbi finished his prayers, the official demanded an explanation. 'If you were standing before the Emperor while giving a report and someone hailed you, how would you respond?' 'Why, I'd finish my report and wait for Imperial dismissal.' 'So it is with me standing before the King of Kings, The Holy One, Blessed Be He.'

Timing is key here. From my limited time sequence, the note was released AFTER the photo-op turned sour. Sort of an attempt to say: look what he said. What is truly deplorable in Ma'ariv's response to this is that because Obama is Jewish, it doesn't matter if he did release the contents. In fact, because he DID release the contents shows complete contempt to both Jewish culture but to the entire essence of prayer itself. If Obama wishes to offer a public prayer--fine. But first to appear making a personal prayer and then publicizing it (it's okay, I'm not Jewish so I do not have to respect THEIR customs) is deplorable.

The fact that this issue is getting so many hits shows that to anyone looking at this situation, regardless of belief or creed, there is concern about the ethical nature of the man. In Israel, it is a done deal. Since 1967, dignitaries have come to the Wall, reached into the box for a "had-to kippa", and were photo-oped. But no one has had the chutzpah to broadcast what was in the note. But, on the other hand, no one is really that concerned--unlike some Democrats, Israelis are still waiting for the Messiah.

The whole thing is gummed up even more. yesterday, Eugene Volokh reported that Ma'ariv says it never claimed what Haaretz says it did. Follow? One does wonder why Ma'ariv, being a newspaper, would make a statement through a competing newspaper, rather than just print it.

Stand Up to Cancer telethon set for Sept. 5

It's unusual for the three major broadcast networks to agree to show the same program, but a fundraising telethon for cancer research will be so simulcast on Sept. 5.

"Stand Up To Cancer is an unprecedented collaboration uniting the major television networks, entertainment industry executives and celebrities, and prominent leaders in cancer research and patient advocacy in a major new initiative to move groundbreaking cancer research out of the lab and into the clinic," wrote the AACR in a statement on its website.

Cyclist and cancer survivor, Lance Amstrong will join along with Charlize Theron, America Ferrera and Jennifer Aniston among others, the Associated Press reported.

The event will air on ABC, CBS and NBC. It will also include musical presentations, as well as actors, athletes and journalists.

The LA Times reports,

Fox was invited to participate in the cancer telethon but declined. Fox called the telethon worthy but said it was focusing on "the global outreach of 'Idol Gives Back,'" its charity effort tied to its hit singing contest "American Idol."

I recall that a similar fundraiser was done for the victims of the 9/11 attacks.

Cheescake Factory has cheap cheesecake

In celebration of National Cheesecake Day, the chain is selling slices for a buck-fifty.

The Cheesecake Factory celebrates 30 years of service on July 30, marking National Cheesecake Day. The restaurant known for their more-than-generous portions will sell cheesecake slices for $1.50, a well-discounted price; many of their cheesecakes cost about $6 per slice.

The discounted dessert will only be available at The Cheesecake Factory on July 30 for dine-in guests. There is a limit of one cheesecake slice per guest.

Nick & Nickjr plan Olympic themed shows

let it not be said that the 2008 Olympic Gamnes offer nothing for the toddler group.

This coming August all eyes will be on China as the Olympic Games again lift up some of the world's most talented athletes and students of physical fitness. However, as the world turns their attention to countless displays of remarkable human achievement in just a couple of weeks, Nickelodeon will be dedicating some airtime a series of Games of their own, "The Fairly Oddlympics," to be exact. Although Timmy Turner and his many fairy friends will be holding their own variety of medal-honoring events, Nickelodeon will be airing a series of sports-themed episodes in the first full week of August 2008, commemorating the kicking off of the Olympic Games.

More at Animation Insider.

Soccer star Chase Hilgenbrinck to become priest

Major League Soccer star Chase Hilgenbrinck has announced that he is retiring from pro soccer to devote his time to the process of becoming a priest in the Roman Catholic Church.

MLS fans might have been startled to read the New England Revolution's announcement this week that the defender was ending his career in midseason to enter a seminary at Mount St. Mary's in Maryland, but the decision wasn't abrupt.

BLOG: Hilgenbrinck explains his calling

"It was something very personal to me. I didn't discuss it with anybody for a long time," says Hilgenbrinck, adding that it took a couple years to reflect. "I just discerned it through personal prayer for a long time, trying to come to a conclusion if this was really what the Lord was calling me to or not."

He started the application process a year ago, telling his family when he returned from Chile. Yet he also wanted his family to see him play in MLS. He was waived by the Colorado Rapids in preseason but landed in New England, where he appeared in four league games and Open Cup and reserve play.

Good on you, Chase!

Ryan Seacrest bit by shark

FoxNews reports,

Ryan Seacrest was taking a swim in the Pacific Ocean in Mexico on Sunday when he was bitten by a shark, he said on his KIIS-FM radio show Monday.

The "American Idol" host said he was "about eight feet out" when he felt something swim by him.

"I thought it was a stick," he said. "I wasn't sure what had happened."

Then, he said, "I saw it swim! He took a bite, and he left."

Seacrest, 33, said the shark's tooth "wasn't a great thing to find. It was like finding a splinter!"

Although he said he was "in pain," the "American Idol" host wasn't hurt too badly, but said he "needed to take an Advil."

Sharks have been known to attack swimmers in as little as three feet of water depth.

Judge Judy works through earthquake

Judge Judy, taping her show yesterday when the earthquake hit SoCal. briefly left her bench but not for long.

A popular television judge and her audience were a bit shaken by Tuesday's earthquake in California.

Judge Judy was in the middle of taping an episode of her show when the courtroom started to shake.

The clattering in the courtroom caused everyone to look for an exit.

Even Judge Judy left her bench.

After a few tense seconds, the quake tapered off and calm was restored.

Well, the show must go on! Here's the video.

Mel Karmazin and Sirius XM radio

The merger (actually, buyout) of XM Radio with Sirius Radio is now complete.

Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. completed its purchase of XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. in an all-stock takeover valued at $2.76 billion. The shares dropped on investor concern over new stock and debt offerings.The company will change its name to Sirius XM Radio Inc. and continue to be led by Sirius Chief Executive Mel Karmazin.

Existing radios will continue to work and subscribers may keep their current service package, Sirius said Tuesday. The combined company also will sell new programming packages that offer selections from both services and that give consumers the choice of which channels they receive.

I don't have satellite radio, having held off because precisely because of the fact that there were two competing networks. Guess I don't have an excuse any longer, but for me it would be entirely a "luxury" purchase, since I don't travel enough to justify the cost, really.

The WSJ offers some background info on how the buyout got approved.

California earthquake map

Click image for larger view.

This is a map published by the US Geological Survey showing the location of earthquakes in California and Nevada.

Maps are updated within 1-5 minutes of an earthquake or once an hour.

(Smaller earthquakes in southern California are added after human processing, which may take several hours.)

As you can see, earthquakes are quite normal in the region, but the vast majority are so light that they are not detected except by instruments. Not the case today, obviously.

Here is the shake map of today's quake in southern California, Los Angeles area.

The USGS's report of the main quake today is,

A moderate earthquake occurred at 11:42:15 AM (PDT) on Tuesday, July 29, 2008. The magnitude 5.4 event occurred 4 km (3 miles) WSW of Chino Hills, CA.The hypocentral depth is 14 km ( 8 miles).

No doubt more shakes will continue for the next day or two.

Oh no! Not Steak and Ale!

Along with today's closure of Bennigans restaurants across the land, Steak and Ale, owned by the same Metromedia Restaurant Group, is closing many of its stores and seeking bankruptcy protection, Bloomberg reports.

The closely held chains listed assets totaling as much as $778.9 million and debt of as much as $324.2 million in 38 separate Chapter 7 petitions filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Sherman, Texas.

Metromedia Restaurant is part of billionaire John Kluge's Metromedia Co. group. In June, the Plano, Texas-based chain operator said it would ask lenders to restructure its debt as the slowing economy hurts earnings. Two of its other chains, Bonanza Steakhouse and Ponderosa Steakhouse, haven't sought bankruptcy.

"Not all stores using these trade names have filed bankruptcy," Metromedia spokeswoman Leah Templeton said in a statement. "Stores operated by franchisees are not named as debtors in these filings."

US Senator Ted Stevens indicted

Republicdqn Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska has been indicted on seven criminal charges.

Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator and a figure in Alaska politics since before statehood, was indicted on seven counts of falsely reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in services he received from a company that helped renovate his home, The Associated Press reports.

The indictment (courtesy of the Anchorage Daily News) accuses Stevens, 84, of concealing payments of more than $250,000 in goods and services from an oil company,The Post's Carrie Johnson reports. The items include home improvements, autos and household items.

Another argument for term limits? Well, maybe, but the real argument is for the Senate to reform itself. But there is no one to compel it, so it won't get done.

Earthquake rocks California, Los Angeles

A temblor rated at 5.8 on the Richter scale struck southern California about a quarter past 11 a.m. The quake was centered near Pomona. CNN reports,

The quake's epicenter was about 2 miles southwest of Chino Hills and about 5 miles southeast of Diamond Bar, the USGS said. Chino Hills is about 30 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

The center was about 7.6 miles deep. In general, earthquakes centered closer to the Earth's surface produce stronger shaking and can cause more damage than those further underground.

A 5.8 magnitude quake is considered by the USGS to be "moderate," which can cause slight damage to buildings and others structures. About 500 can happen globally each year, the survey says.

Television news shows people milling about outside buildings but little damage. Developing . . .

Update: The US Geological Survey now (12:30 p.m. PDT) says that the quake was of 5.4 rating. There have been numerous aftershocks, none nearly as strong as the first quake.

Jim Crow apology from US House?

CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House of Representatives was poised Tuesday to pass a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for slavery and the era of Jim Crow.

The House is poised to pass a resolution that would apologize for slavery and Jim Crow.

The nonbinding resolution, which is expected to pass, was introduced by Rep. Steve Cohen, a white lawmaker who represents a majority black district in Memphis, Tennessee.

While many states have apologized for slavery, it will be first time a branch of the federal government will apologize for slavery if the resolution passes, an aide to Cohen said.

IIRC, Jim Crow laws were all local or state laws, not federal. I'm not sure why the US House would be apologizing for them - except perhaps for the fact that House Democrats turned back Republican-backed civil rights legislation for years and years before LBJ took office.

Bennigans restaurants bid bye-bye

Bennigans restaurants in all 32 states the chain operates will close today. Squoze News blog reports,

Bennigans was founded in 1976. The restaurant has locations in 32 states. There was day when Bennigans was the place to go, the place to be. In fact there was day when Bennigans was one of my own best customers in my family owned hospitality equipment service agency. The truth is I probably wouldn’t have given this news a second thought if it wasn’t for that fact.

Living in the sunshine state of Florida I recently visited a Bennigans for dinner and my how the times have changed. The food, the service and the ambiance were horrible. Large restaurant chains are very trendy and change with the culture, that is the ones that want to be successful. Bennigans fell off the map years ago and never really jumped back on,

As goes Bennigans, so may go Ruby Tuesday. The food and service at those restaurants has fallen off considerably, too, as have revenues and profits. I liked Bennigans but haven't been to one for as long as I can remember. I Like Ruby's too, with one quite close, but for the life of me I can hardly find a reason to go there.

BTW, speaking of restaurants, the Pizza Hut Bistro ads are not hype. A Bistro is only about four miles from my home. Its cuisine, while not as wide in selection as a full-scale Italian restaurant, is item for item just as good as anything I've had at, say, Macaroni Grill. And for less money.

NASA established 50 years ago

Today is the 50th anniversary of the establishment of NASA.

The driving force, of course, was the launch of Sputnik on Oct. 4, 1957, followed by its even weightier successors. In the midst of the Cold War, a country that aspired to global preeminence could not let that challenge pass. Although the United States already had its own satellite plans in place as part of the International Geophysical Year, the Russian events spurred the Space Age, and in particular gave urgency to the founding of an American national space agency.

Born in the Cold War, some have argued that today NASA is an agency without a mission. Maybe that's because the United States today has no idea of what it wants to do in space, or really whether it wants to be there any more at all.

Bush approves military execution

President Bush has approved the execution of a former Army private "convicted of a spree of rapes and murders in North Carolina in the 1980s."

The soldier, Ronald A. Gray, committed the crimes in the Fayetteville area while stationed at Fort Bragg. Gray has been on the military's death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., for 20 years. ...

In the military justice system, a member of the Armed Forces cannot be executed until the President “approves” the death sentence. Thus, unlike the civilian context, where the President may be asked to exercise his clemency authority to stop an execution, in the military system, the President effectively orders the execution. This is an important distinction.

Yes, but the president can also grant clemency, ranging from pardon to commutation.

I was present at Gray's court-martial. I was serving at the time as chief of media relations for Fort Bragg and XVIII Airborne Corps. Gray brutally murdered four women and raped eight, including the four he killed. One of the women, I recall, was a taxi driver from neighboring Fayetteville, whose body was found on the Ft. Bragg reservation. That gave the Army jurisdiction even though she was a civilian.

There was, as you may imagine, intense media interest in the proceedings. The courtroom where Gray was tried on the base was limited in spectator capacity, so we formed a media pool to cover the trial.

The panel (jury in civilian speak) was comprised of four officers and four noncommissioned officers. When an enlisted soldier is tried, s/he has the right to request that up to half the panel consist of other enlisted members.

The president of the panel, or jury foreman, was a colonel. The panel's deliberations, while not lengthy, were not brief, either. In the end it convicted Gray of all counts. For the sentencing phase, the trial counsel (prosecutor) gave a point-by-point summary of the crimes and why they deserved the death sentence. The defense counsel, unable to argue Gray's innocence any longer, gave an impassioned plea to spare Gray's life. But death Gray got.

Unlike civil courts, in the miltary-justice system unanimous votes of the panel are required to convict when the offense is a capital offense and the court-martial is convened with the authority to adjudge the death penalty. Furthermore, the sentence of death must be a unanimous vote of the panel. (Crimes for which the death sentence is authorized by law do not have to be tried in a death-enabled court. The general officer convening the court may withhold authority to sentence the death penalty.)

And importantly, a military panel may not take a straw vote. There is only one vote, and it is for record. There is no limit on deliberations, but there may be only one vote. Had Gray received only one "not guilty" vote on the panel, he would have been acquitted (each charge is voted individually, though). And had only seven of the panel agreed to the death sentence on the panel's single vote to sentence, Gray could not have received it.

No record of how individual panelists voted is retained. No one on the panel may be in the chain of command of anyone else on the panel. It is forbidden by Army regulations even to mention court-martial duty in an officer's or NCO's fitness reports. Promotion boards never know whether a candidate for promotion has served on a court (and frankly, wouldn't care anyway).

I was in the courtroom for the trial and sentencing. When the panel announced the death sentence, Gray blinked a couple of times and that was all. The military judge confirmed the sentence. Along with it Gray was dishonorably discharged from the Army and sentenced to total forfeiture of all pay and allowances from that day forward.

What I don't understand is why it has taken 20 years for the case just to land on the president's desk.

Obama campaign denies approving prayer for publication

The contentions over the publication of Barack Obama's prayer note he left at Jerusalem's Western Wall continue. Politico reports,

Obama spokesman Bill Burton flatly denied the contention that Obama's prayer, in the form of a note slipped into the Wailing Wall, was "approved for publication."

"That didn't happen," he said in an email. "We have neither confirmed nor denied the prayer to anyone."

This in apparent response to the claim of the publishing newspaper, Ma'ariv, that "Barack Obama's note was approved for publication in the international media" before Obama even arrived at the Wall.

Well, I already said that Ma'ariv was conducting a CYA exercise.

Princeton Review ranks green colleges

Princeton Review is now ranking colleges and universities by how "green" they are.

More than ever, prospective students are judging colleges on their environmental stewardship along with the the traditional rankings of academics, dorm food, and the party scene, said Rob Franek, vice president of Princeton Review and the annual book's author. In the Review’s latest survey, 63 percent of college applicants and their parents said they wanted more information about a college’s commitment to the environment; a quarter of them said it would strong impact their decision to apply or attend a school.

'The Europeans Are Chasing Illusions'

Der Spiegel interviews Dutch author Leon de Winter.

Short breaks

1. Monica Goodling's testimony to Congress in May 2007 may not have been altogether true, say investigators.

Today the Justice Department's Inspector General released a new report concluding that political considerations -- namely how Republican were their credentials -- influenced the hiring of career prosecutors and immigration judges. And the report says that Goodling, who testified before Congress with immunity, was among the chief partisan cheerleaders.

2. Office Depot has signed a deal to be a NASCAR sponsor. Office Depot and Old Spice are "the new co-primary sponsors of Tony Stewart's No. 14 Chevrolet Impala SS NASCAR Sprint Cup Series entry beginning in 2009."

3. Robert Novak has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. Novak, a leading journalist and commentator for decades, was the key reporter in the Valerine Plame (non)scandal and investigation.

Beatrix Potter's birthday

The AP:

Today is the birthday of iconic writer Beatrix Potter, InEntertainment reports. The author of the famous book, "The Tale of Peter Rabbit," was born on July 28, 1866, and died December 22, 1943.

She had an "uncanny business sense" and proved it by producing "the first patented soft toy of Peter Rabbit in 1903."

And yes, it's Beatrix, not Beatrice Potter.

Obama's Western Wall prayer plot thickens

Publisher of Obama's Western Wall prayer says his campaign gave them the note.

As I wrote about here, the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv obtained a copy of the Barack Obama's prayer note that he left at the Western Wall in Jerusalem and published it - a grave breach of propriety, according to the rabbi who oversees the prayer plaza of the Western Wall.

A seminary student, identified in Israeli media only by the initial of his first name, has publicly confessed to taking the note from the Wall and giving it to Ma'ariv.

Now a Jerusalem lawyer wants police to conduct a criminal probe into the whole affair.

[Attorney Shahar Alon] petitioned the attorney general Sunday asking him to order a police investigation into the removal and subsequent publication of a personal note left in a crack of the Western Wall by U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama during his visit to Israel last week. ...

"By making the note public," Alon wrote to Mazuz, "the newspaper violated the law protecting holy sites, several clauses in the penal code and also infringed upon the basic rights of a person's honor and freedom."

But not so fast. The same Haaretz story has this intriguing info.

Ma'ariv issued a response Sunday, saying that "Obama's note was published in Ma'ariv and other international publications following Obama's authorization to make the content of the note public. Obama submitted a copy of the note to media outlets when he left his hotel in Jerusalem. Moreover, since Obama is not Jewish, there is no violation of privacy as there would be for a Jewish person who places a note in the Western Wall."

As for the Obama campaign, it's keeping its hands off the whole affair, neither confirming nor denying that the published prayer was Obama's.

I would also say that Ma'ariv's rather outrageous claim that prayer of non-Jews don't enjoy privacy protection at the Wall simply will not hold up before rabbinic responses. One, there is a very deeply-rooted and truly genuine piety attached to prayers at the Wall, where (I dare say) almost all Jews understand that the prayers of Gentiles are honored by God as perhaps no other place on earth. Two, there is the practical matter that Gentile tourists flock to the Wall to pray there, and the economic impact of removing privacy protection of their prayers can't be dismissed.

Anyway, Ma'ariv's statement that it published what was essentially a press release from Obama's staff does change the entire tenor of the affair, and makes the seminary student's confession and repentance somewhat curious.

More: What Suddenly blog (and a hat tip!) and Big Lizards blog.

Update: The Anchoress has some penetrating thoughts on L'Affaire Prayer.

Update: The more I think about it, the more I am skeptical of Ma'ariv's claim that Obama's staff was handing out the text of his prayer as he left the hotel to go to the Wall. Note that it is not Obama & Co. who say this, but a paper that might be subject to criminal investigation. I find it hard to believe, that if Obama really wanted his prayer to issued like a press release, that it would be so devoid of content relating to his host country, Israel. Surely, even in a campaign as gaffe-prone as Obama's, someone would have pointed out that a prayer for public consumption in Jerusalem would do well to mention one or both of Israel and the United States. At least i think so.

It's still a good question

In February 2007 I asked the iconoclastic question, "What if global warming is a good thing?" on my previous site (reposted on this site here.)

Now Popular Science asks much the same question: "Global Warming: Not So Bad?"

Can we do it?

Yes we can!

Question is, why aren't we?

Obama's prayer thief confesses

The man who swiped barack Obama's prayer note from Jerusalem's Western Wall has confessed to the deed, repented and asked forgiveness. FNC reports,

A student at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem apologized Sunday after admitting he and his friends stole a prayer note written by Barack Obama and inserted into the cracks of the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site.

The student, in an appearance on Israeli TV2, said he got in touch with the television network seeking help in returning the note to its rightful place. He added that he hopes Obama wins the U.S. presidential election.

“I am asking for Obama’s forgiveness. If he was offended by it… of course he was, this is not a nice thing to do. Nobody meant to … it was sort of a prank. I hope he will forgive us, and we hope that he will win the presidency,” said the student, whose identity was obscured by the television station.

The boy claimed he was not the one who took the note out of the Wall, but he was the one in possession of it afterward. He said a bunch of friends were at the Wall, and he is not sure who took the note out. One of his friends said he found it on the floor. Another said he took it from the wall. Later on, they tried to sell it to an Israeli newspaper.

The young man's face was in shadow on Israeli TV and he was identified only by the intial of his first name, the Hebrew letter Alef. JTA news agency repirted,

Channel 2's religious affairs correspondent said she had passed the note from the yeshiva student to the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which reinserted it -- deeply -- between the ancient slabs of stone.

I wrote my thoughts about the scandal here. Rabbi Jackson wote of Obama's visit to the Wall here.

The awfully busy God

Gerard Van Der Leun has a long and thoughtful post about why prayers are answered - or aren’t, as the case may be. Wisely admitting up front that, "We don't know much about God," Gerard basically says that God has free will as do we humans, and that,

Prayer is, in a sense, God's suggestion box; which is why many think that not all prayers are answered and why some, like the Tibetans, think that if you repeat a prayer often enough it gets noticed and answered. This irritating approach to prayer probably cost them their nation even though it hasn't shut them up. In general, it is probably not a good idea, but who am I to criticize? I'll leave that to the Dalai Lama who seems to be carrying on just fine.

But the main thrust of Gerard's piece about unanswered prayer" concerns God's work load.

He's one God who is running a very big universe. Perhaps He's got the whole thing franchised and He's running thousands of universes in a host of different dimensions, all with local variations to the main menu. We don't know. We can't know. But if you grant even one universe to this one God, you've got to admit this would be a very busy Supreme Being. Even being omnipotent and omnipresent and omniscient, You'd still have an In-Box beyond the human mind's capacity for bogglement. ...

The final upshot is that, even if God just steps away from his desk for a quick trip to heaven's free beverage machine, when He gets back he's confronted with at least 4,675,839 prayers presented as pink "While You Were Out Slips."

I submit that even the most omnipotent God cannot deal with incoming requests at this rate. ...

To me this is the most obvious reason that some prayers are answered while most are not. It's simply a question of time and resources, even for God.

Does it really happen this way? God knows.

Now, I like Gerard's writing a lot. He's a better writer than I am and an accomplished poet. I like Gerard personally, too, having corresponded with him for years, though we've never met.

All of which is an obvious preface to saying that I think he's missed the boat here. I will readily grant that prayers come to God at a rate that we can but poorly imagine - Gerard mentions the scene in Bruce Almighty where Bruce, a temporary deity, is so overwhelmed monitoring the prayer board that he freaks and hits the "yes to all" button. It causes no end of turmoil and even tragedy in the world, of course.

And I will not hide behind the old cliche that "God does answer every prayer, it's just that often the answer is no." This is true, but that's not what Gerard is getting at. He is addressing why so many prayers apparently get no answer at all. They are, as far as mere humans can tell, simply ignored.

But, "too fast, too many" is a reason I cannot accept. Here's why. The English philosopher-theologian Anselm of Canterbury, father of medieval scholasticism, postulated that God is “that than which no greater can be conceived." In philosophical inquiries that definition has withstood the test of time pretty well. (It was fiercely attacked at the time, but that's another posting.) After all, if there is a Supreme Being, then that being has to be, well, Supreme. There can be no greater.

So if God, the Creator of the universe, in unable to keep up with the workload of managing it, then I would not say that God is doing the best he can. I would say that the deity so described is not God.

Some polytheistic religions of the West did separate the Creator from the Manager and postulated that they are two distinct deities. Marcion in the second century was one of the chief intellectual figures of Gnosticism; he identified the God of Abraham as the Creator deity and the God of Jesus as a different deity. That is, the transcendent deity and the immanent deity were two deities. Gnosticism was finally overcome by the concerted efforts of early Church Fathers through strong counter-arguments.

But let us affirm here that the millennia-old traditions of the Jews and Christians is correct, that there is one deity who both created and manages the universe, and that this deity hear human prayers. For this post I'll ignore the issue that seems so important to some, whether God hears the prayers of non-Christians or non-Jews (depending on who is wondering, of course). Let me simply postulate that prayers are received by God.

Why are so many apparently unanswered? "Apparently" is a sort of dodge, of course, even though I do believe that some prayers do get answered in ways we may not recognize. But no more dodging. A couple my wife knew well a few years ago took the baby to the hospital because they found her in her crib not breathing. Life support, prayer vigils, the works. The infant died. Unanswered prayer? Definitely, and no dodging allowed that "the answer was no and God had a reason we can't comprehend." That answer lets both God and us off the hook too easily.

Besides, not all unanswered prayers are matters of life and death. I knew a Navy officer who earnestly prayed to pass her upcoming physical-training tests (maybe if she'd worked out more she wouldn't have needed to pray so much). Student pray before tests. And there is the phenomenon I've heard other pastors call the "weekly organ recital" - the Sunday listing of Aunt Erma's bad kidneys, Uncle Fred's glaucoma, and so forth.

God is not a cosmic vending machine for which prayers are the currency. The longer I spend in the praying business, the less I pray, or see the point in praying, for God to do something, darn it and the more I pray for him to lead me (us) to do something. I pray not that God will conform to my desires or needs of the moment, no matter how pressing they may be, but that I and others concerned in the prayer-situation be conformed more to God in the likeness of Christ.

Yet there is more necessary, I think. Prayer is only one part of engaging God. Remember Lieut. Dan in the movie Forest Gump? He lost both legs in Vietnam, would have preferred to have died, and finally tracks his old subordinate, Gump, to the Louisiana coast after the war. Dan joins Gump in running a shrimp boat. One day they are caught at sea by a sudden storm and Dan remains in the mast with the whipping rain and lightning all around, raising his fist to the storm and railing against God. Like Job, Lt. Dan is unable to dismiss such a God as delusion, even though it would be so much easier to do so. Finally, Dan finds his peace with God.

So many of us decline to encounter God except in storms of life or in pro-forma occasions such as a minute of silence now and then. Yet prayer is not simply some words uttered, no matter how heartfelt or sincere. Prayer is mainly a life lived out in godly ways for godly purposes. It surely can be no wonder that God refuses to acknowledge prayers seeking his miracles when we so consistently fail to acknowledge his call to us seeking our daily service. The conundrum of life-as-prayer is that we come less and less to ask God for an "answer" as for his presence come what may. Finally we realize that God with us and us with God is all the answer we really need.

Reposted from July 2005.

Let them enforce it

In 1832, the US Supreme Court ruled that the state of Georgia could not impose its state laws upon Cherokee tribal lands.

The decision, rendered by Justice John Marshall, declared the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation to be illegal, unconstitutional and against treaties made. President Andrew Jackson, who had the executive responsibility of enforcement of the laws, stated, "John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it now if he can."

The federal law affected by the decision was the Indian Removal Act, which formed the genesis of the "trail of tears," the eviction of most Cherokees from eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina and northern Georgia to Oklahoma.

It looks like Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas has an updated version of Old Hickory's remark. Gohmert is sponsoring a bill that would transfer Guantanamo detainees to the grounds of the Supreme Court in Washington.

The bill is HR 6615. Its title is “A bill to provide for the transport of the enemy combatants detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to Washington, D.C., where the United States Supreme Court will be able to more effectively micromanage the detainees by holding them on the Supreme Court grounds, and for other purposes.”

Andy Jackson would be proud.

Wind power generates more CO2

A study by James Oswald, an engineering consultant and former head of research and development at Rolls Royce Turbines, revealed that generating electricity from wind power does not do much to lower CO2 emissions.

Have you seen Obama's guns?

Man, Barack Obama must have an impressive set of guns. A German Bild reporter, Judith Bonesky, describes the scene:

He goes and picks up a pair of 16 kilo weights and starts curling them with his left and right arms, 30 repetitions on each side.

Sixteen kilos = 35.2 pounds. Understand that curling dumbbells is harder than curling barbells. That is, curling 16 kilos separately per hand is more diffucult than curling a single bar, with both hands, weighing 32 kilos.

If you think curling 16 kilos 30 times per arm is no big deal, then go to the gym and try it.

But wait! There's more!

Then, amazingly, he picks up the 32 kilo weights! Very slowly he lifts them, first 10 curls with his right, then 10 with his left.

Now we're up to 70.4 pounds per arm! I've been working out with dumbbells for two years, and I can hardly even hold a 32-kilo weight in one hand - it takes serious gripping power - much less curl it 10 times (700 pounds!)

I'm not saying no one can do this, or even that Obama did not. I know it can be done, but it takes a serious training regimen to get there. Maybe Obama has been lifting for the last 20 years and curling 70-plus pounds is just a light warmup for him. But really, people, are these the arms of a man who can curl 1,760 pounds per arm without a break?



I do not question that Obama is fit. He's in better shape than I am. But could it be that Judith Bonesky was in a wee bit in thrall to being in The Presence of The One? Here's a clue. The headline of the story is,

I worked out with Obama!
He curled 32 kilo dumbbells next to me +++ Barack is top fit +++ He didn’t sweat at all

Here's the final clue.

I ask: “Mr. Obama, could I take a photo?”. “Of course!” he answers, before asking my name and coming over to stand next to me.

“My name’s Judith” I reply.

"I’m Barack Obama, nice to meet you!” he says, and puts his arm across my shoulder. I put my arm around his hip – wow, he didn’t even sweat! WHAT A MAN!

"Arm around his hip"??? Is she serious? Uh, yes.

Update: Matthew Yglesias is skeptical, too. And a few of his commenters says that 10 curls of 70 pounds is "NFL lineman" stuff. Then there's this "beach babe" photo of Obama. Obviously, the man is good condition. But again - those are not the arms of a man who can curl almost 1,800 pounds without a break. But let me be clear. It is not Obama saying he did, it is a star-struck (love struck?), girly-girl German posing as a reporter.

Hard to argue with this list

It's the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movies of all time, arranged in 10 genres.

Obama's Western Wall prayer

When I first heard that Barack Obama's prayer at the Western Wall had been retrieved and published, I was somewhat upset at the classlessness of the Jerusalem newspaper, Ma'ariv, that did so. Then I learned that someone had retrieved that prayer note and had, apparently, given it to Ma;ariv. Then I learned that another paper had also been given the note (presumably a Xerox) but had refused to publish it.

Then, frankly, I got suspicious. No one retrieved McCain's prayer note when he visited there in March. In fact, I can't remember any public figure's prayer being published.

So the circumstances of the prayer's retrieval and disclosure simply do not pass the smell test for me. Some people met Obama at the Wall with Obama campaign posters - for a supposedly unannounced visit - and then, quite by accident, apparently, someone grabbed his prayer note and passed it off to at least two newspapers.

All accidental? Coincidental? Really? [Update, 7/28 - I am now highly skeptical that the Obama campaign was complicit in the publication of the prayer. See Obama's Western Wall prayer plot thickens and Obama campaign denies approving prayer for publication.]

Some background: The Western Wall is the only extant remnant of the Temple Mount of ancient Jerusalem, where King David located the first Temple to be built, although David himself did not build it. In 70 c.e., the Temple was destroyed by two Roman legions fighting Jewish Zealots in The Jewish War, as the Romans called it. The Temple was looted, burned, and its walls thrown down.

Remains of the Temple Walls - stones thrown down by Roman soldiers 1,938 years ago. These stones lie today next to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, a few hundred meters from the "Wailing" Wall, part of the Western Wall.

This is the part of the Western Wall that includes the prayer wall. Note that there is a public plaza in the foreground that is always full of people. The dark band just above the heads of the people in the shot is the top of a barrier (more like a screen, it's not a security barrier) beyond which is the prayer plaza.

The prayer plaza is segregated, men only on the left and women only on the right. To pass beyond the barrier men must wear a kippa, or Orthodox-style head covering (see Rabbi Jackson's post), women must cover their head, usually with a shawl or scarf. For those arriving without a kippa, as I lacked when I took these pictures last October, the administrators conveniently provide stacks of kippas made of cardboard at the entrance through the barrier.

The "tourist" kippa is functional and that's all. It absolutely marks you as just passing through. When I return to Jerusalem next June, my co-author and close friend, Rabbi Jackson, has promised to provide me with a decent kippa, probably to avoid being associated with a rube Gentile who would simply pluck one from the stack. (Which is what Obama did, unlike McCain last March, who brought a real kippa of his own.)

Just under my shirtsleeve, above, you will notice white fillings in the cracks between the stones. Those are prayer notes left by that's day's visitors. I was standing to the far left of the prayer wall for the picture. Moving to the right the wall was crowded and the cracks were stuffed solid with prayer notes.

At the end of each day, a team removes all the notes left that day, after which they are ceremoniously burned, "so that the prayers may rise to God" symbolically, through the smoke. According to Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz, "the rabbi of the Wall who accompanied Obama on his visit there,:

"the notes placed between the stones of the Western Wall are between a person and his maker. It is forbidden to read them or make any use of them." Ma'ariv's decision to publish the note "damages the Western Wall and damages the personal, deep part of every one of us that we keep to ourselves," he said.

I honestly cannot believe that one of the Jews keeping the Wall, who are among the most devout in the country, would have violated this very basic theology of the prayers at the Wall. So someone else removed Obama's prayer note. Who and why? Ah, that's the question.

Now, on to Obama's prayer itself. Here is the photo of the prayer published in Ma'ariv.

One correspondent emailed me to ask what did I think about writing the prayer on hotel notepad. Actually, I don't think I used paper that good, so I can't throw stones at Obama. You can bet that thousands of prayers written on hotel stationery or not that fancy get crammed into the wall every day. Besides, I would say that true prayer is written upon the heart, anyway: "A broken and contrite heart, O Lord, you will not despise," wrote King David. So I can't make big deal out of the paper itself.

As for the prayer itself: Caroline Glick, deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post, offered this observation:

This was supposed to be a private benediction, and it was extraordinarily improper for someone to take this prayer and sell it to the media. On the other hand, in the world of paparazzi, the exposure of the prayer was predictable, and Obama apparently constructed the prayer for public consumption. Like everything else about his visit, this was a carefully crafted statement, designed not to ruffle very many feathers. And like this prayer, there was nothing extraordinary about Obama’s visit. As you would expect from a politician, he tried to be all things to all people. And he probably succeeded.

Can't disagree with that.

Is the prayer too self centered, "all about me," as some have commented? Again, my prayer, which was much shorter, was almost exclusively about me. To go to the Wall, especially for the first time, is a very "focusing" event. It was, for me, a place of deep confession and contrition before God. I was made aware of my own helpless inadequacy before my Creator. I knew I was (and still remain) nought but a beggar for grace, with no standing before God on that day to bring grand petitions. "First, take the log from your own eye, then worry about the splinter in your neighbor's eye," a certain famous, ancient rabbi said. So I prayed for myself, and apart from myself only for the people of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

I would also note that there is not much room to cram a big piece of paper. I prayed with my lips much more than I wrote on the paper. Did Obama also? I cannot know, but must presume that if he approached the Wall with a modicum of faith, he did.

But the written record, (of which the circumstances of disclosure stinketh, I repeat) strikes me as a fully appropriate prayer, one that I would be more than willing to pray myself. There is not a single problematic sentiment. And it ends, "Make me an instrument of your will." How can anyone possibly pray or wish otherwise?

Update: Whited Sepulchre, who has "a deep spiritual kinship with the Senator," tries to "reconstruct the more honest prayer he may have slipped into the wall before this one."

No "bounce" for Obama

FoxNews.com reports that "The significant news coverage Barack Obama is receiving on his foreign trip has not translated into a bounce in his [poll] numbers."

Why? Nicholas Wapshott, writing at City Journal, says that the entire overseas tour has really just been "Obama's ego trip."

But Obama is treading a dangerous path. It would be rash to take a November victory for granted; if he has learned nothing else from his slim victory over Hillary Clinton, he should have learned that nothing is inevitable. He would not be the first front-runner to fall victim to hubris. Rather than revel in the adulation of adoring crowds, he would do better to confirm to skeptical American voters that he will not value the well-being of foreigners ahead of the interests of Americans. Only by stressing that as president he would, like his predecessors, put America first—thereby disillusioning the Europeans—will he be able to convince voters at home that he has his priorities right.

I don't think that Obama's speech at Berlin's Victory Column will do much convincing. It's not that I think it was a bad speech - in fact, in many places it was quite good. It's that Obama failed to speak to American voters rather than a German throng.

(OTOH, Don Surber counts the errors in Obama's Berlin speech.)

Alaska's shivering summer

Alaska is on track for the coldest summer on record.

I blame global warming. (HT: Don Surber)

A chill wind blows

I'm not sure which of these campaign posters chills the air colder.





I guess I'll have to go with the Obama poster because, as Jim Geraghty said, "Nothing says 'character reference' like a teeming crowd of thousands of adoring Germans chanting your name."

Sea levels are falling

Sea levels have been falling for the last two years. Tigerhawk has the charts.

I blame global warming.

Caption contest, Barack edition

"Yeah, Angela did ask me me out for a date, but the really funny thing is, so did Olmert!"

Leave your own caption as comment. Winner, if any, to be announced Tuesday.

Yea, verily, yea!

This is one of the best pieces of political satire ever.

The top 25 political speeches of all time

That's the rather ambitious title of a two-part Telegraph series (25-13, 12-1).

Somehow, "all time" in the paper's opinion doesn't include any years before World War 2. So, for example, there is no mention of Lincoln's speeches or, for that matter, Pericles' funeral oration for fallen Athenian soldiers.

Even so, the list and linked-to texts are well worth the reading. As might be expected, the list is pretty Brit-centric, but that akes me quibble over the rank ordering rather than the selections themselves. And I cannot argue with the top three:

3. Ronald Reagan, June 12, 1987, at the Berlin Wall:

... “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalisation: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
Full speech: Tear down this wall

2. John F Kennedy, June 26, 1963, at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.

Two years after the Berlin Wall went up, and a year after the Cuban missile crisis, his spine-tingling message of solidarity with encircled West Berliners – “Ich bin ein Berliner” - became an instant classic. “Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect. But we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in.”

1. Winston Churchill, August 20, 1940:

At the height of the Battle of Britain, Churchill gave his landmark speech in the House of Commons, paying tribute to the Royal Air Force pilots whose struggle was eventually to win the battle. ... "The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." Full speech: The Few

Sorry, but I think that the Telegraph chose the wrong Churchill speech to occupy the number one spot. The "never so few" speech was electrifying, no doubt - it addresses much more than the beleagured RAF - but I would nominate Churchill's "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" speech. Not only was it broader in scope, it is much better known outside Britain than the "few" speech.

The memory hole gets bigger

I know that you think you remember what I said when I was asked what you think I was asked when I was asked what I was actually asked. But what I say I said and what you think that I said are not the same as what I said when I was asked what I was really asked, as opposed by what you mis-remember that I was asked. In fact, I never said at all what you think that I said, for in fact I already said then what I am about to say now, and unlike your memory or even transcript or video of what you think I said then, what I am saying now is in fact what I said then.

It's the deceit. . .

As I wrote here, it's the deceit that makes hypocrisy, hypocrisy.

Against the Wall

We've been busy this week setting up an office/studio in Efrat, a wonderful suburb of Jerusalem. It's been difficult to pay attention to the internet websites, which is usual for us; however, we've spent a lot of time on the road between Efrat, Jerusalem, Netanyah (home of IKEA), and the Galil. Lots of time to chat with people in lines and traffic jams as well as overhear what a lot of different people are saying and are not saying.

Regardless of what the MSM is saying, Israelis are not talking about Obama. Although the Jerusalem Post online website (okay, we logged in whenever we could) regularly changed its frontpiece photo of Obama and some talking head. One gag moi shot of Obama with Peres walking together along a white colonade with Obama's hand on Peres's back? Another, ten minutes later, with Netanyahu; thirty minutes later with Livni or Barak or Shlomo the Pickleman (only kidding).

But, Israelis couldn't care. They know in their kishkahs that Obama isn't here for Israelis. Obama is here for the American Jewish vote. The rank and file Israeli knows that Obama is an outsider here as well as there. There is no connection. There is only coldness and calculation. The AP picture of Obama with Olmert in the Jerusalem Post was a joke--the Two Yo-Yo's, a good buddy called it. Obama isn't even attempting to look at Olmert.

Is Adam Sandler writing the script for these things? "Hi, boys and girls; see, I'm wearing a flag pin! In Israel; with a real Jew."

There is an acid test Israelis give to visiting dignitaries--a way to watch and measure. Everyone goes to the Yad Hashem to bear witness to the Shoah. Everyone goes to the Western Wall to bear witness to the vortex of Western Culture and Spirituality. The former is a private confrontation with enormity. The latter is a public experience of personal faith. It is the person at the Wall that Israelis watch--How does the stranger come to the perimeter of the sacred space?

For Israelis, the measure of a person is how they handle themselves in strange and awkward situations. At the Wall, there is a culture of response and a way of behaving that is both personal (a manifestation of what is within) and reverential (respecting the externalities). Every individual approaches the Wall from public space, through a barrier into an enclosed section in front of the wall. People in the public open piazza can see into the enclosed space in front of the Wall and monitor the dignitary's response.

The critical moment, the transition if you will, occurs at the barrier, not at the Wall. Everyone who enters the enclosed sacred space before the Wall must cover their heads: men wear a kippa or a hat, married women wear scarves or hats or wigs. If you are religious, you wear a kippa or a hat at all times--so you wear your own through the barrier to the Wall. If you don't have one, men reach into a box at the barrier and put on a rayon "skullcap", white or black. The meta-message is clear. The latter group of guys are wearing the kippa because they have to--sort of like a flag pin--returning it to the box when they leave.

Back in March, I wrote about McCain's tour of Israel before Easter. He went out of the way to learn about Israeli culture and customs and to understand what Israelis were experiencing. He convinced Israelis he was interested in Israelis. It was not how he talked with officials and notaries. It was how he went to the Wall. He didn't need a "have-to" beanie. He came prepared. He wore the Kippa Sruga of the Modern Orthodox, or central observant Jewish parties. Symbols are serious stuff. He knew he was an outsider, an not a Jew, but at the Wall, he tried and he watched how people responded to the sacred space.



Obama?

He reached into the box and took a white kippa. No matter how serious he appeared, lost in reverent prayer, he wore the "have to do it or you can't get in" hat. [AP photo; Jerusalem Post]

In the Global Village, the Medium is the Message, and there is no clearer medium in Israel than the cut of a man's kippa. From Efrat to Galil, Obama appears as another Carter--an outsider with no interest in Israelis.

When you've lost Howard Stern . . .

... you're in deep trouble, yes?

"Happy face fascism"

Universal National Service - that is, a no-deferment draft - is being seriously and financially supported by a new consortium of would-be dictators calling themselves Service Nation, which is set to spend a ton of money lobbying the government to create a program to force every young person into servitude by 2020.

Coyote Blog has the details and the links.

I wrote earlier this month that Barack Obama has already spoken in favor of renewing the draft.

Click this and ask yourself whether you're nervous enough.

Pallys not all gaga over Obama

The Arab world is not unified in supporting Barack Obama. Here is a cartoon from Ar-Risala in Palestinian areas last month, captioned, "The Wagon [that gets you] to the White House."



This is a cartoon by a West Bank cartoonist in Al-Ghad, headlined, "The American candidate."



This one is from Saudi Arabia.



Next, www.amin.org (An Arab media website serving as a platform for both cartoonists and columnists from all over the Arab world as well as providing a large index of Arab newspapers):



Finally, a non-partisan blast at both parties - Al-Hayat al-Jadida, June 5, Headline: "The way to the White House."



Many more examples at the Anti-defamation league's site, whence came these.

Want to see something really scary?

The Telegraph calls this, "The scariest ever YouTube video?".

The camera pans up the length of a 20ft snake, starting at the tail and edging slowly towards the head.



You know from the first shot how it's going to end, but that doesn't stop your heart from skipping a beat.

Prizes for those who manage to resist the urge to duck. Anyone seen anything scarier on YouTube?

I personally have had a much scarier moment than that with wild creatures, up close and personal. About 20 years ago, my wife and I visited the North Carolina Zoological Gardens near Asheboro. There was a lot of habitat construction going on since the zoo was still pretty new.

The day was pleasant so I bought us each an ice cream cone. We walked along the temporary asphalt path, viewing animals and exhibits along the way. After awhile we came to the Bengal tiger's cage. It was maybe 25 feet wide and 15 deep, obviously temporary while the permanent, bigger habitat was being built.

This Bengal was a magnificent beast with a glossy orange coat and vivid black stripes. Cathy and I stood at one end of the cage (open to view on three sides) and admired the animal. It was pacing at the far end. Cathy and stood a foot or so outsidethe wire caging, 25 feet away from the tiger.

Then the tiger charged us. Faster than an eyeblink, it whirled and plunged directly toward us with a full-throated roar. My only enduring memory of the charge is an image of the tiger in full leap, paws raised above our heads, claws in full extension, its fearsome face mere inches away:



The tiger crashed into the steel meshing and dropped to the ground. With a contemptuous flick of its tail it turned and padded away.

Neither Cathy nor I had had the slightest opportunity to move before it was all over. I looked at her and she at me. My eyes were surely as wide as hers. I felt something cold trickling down my hand. Glancing down, I saw that I had squeezed the ice cream cone into a pulpy, gelatinous mush.

Airlines running the slots

The TimesOnline reports on the big environmental controversy across the pond: airlines flying mostly-empty planes on certain routes in/out of Heathrow in order to keep proprietorship of those routes. These routes are nicknamed "slots," and airlines are being accused of environmentalists of flying the slots even with few passengers aboard the planes.

Britain’s third-largest airline, bmi, will fly near-empty aircraft from this autumn to preserve multimillion-pound take-off and landing slots, The Times has learnt.

The rise in fuel prices and an expected slump in passenger numbers after the summer mean that many airlines will have to cancel flights, but bmi does not want to lose its coveted slots at Heathrow, which are valued at £770 million.

Airline executives are bracing themselves for their toughest winter yet as the credit crunch forces passengers to cut back on air travel and fuel prices continue to drive up costs.

The decision by bmi to fly “ghost flights” - short-haul trips with only a handful of passengers - is one of a series of plans being drawn up by airlines. Senior industry figures admit that other carriers will cancel domestic flights at short notice and gave warning of chaos ahead for business travellers. Rather than withdrawing from uneconomic routes, the tactic of cancelling individual flights is another way of retaining landing slots.

But as the paper explains elsewhere,

Under the "use-it-or-lose it" rules that govern the allocation of slots at Heathrow, airlines must use their slots 80 per cent of the time or forfeit them - at £25 to 30 million apiece, according to financial services firm Deloitte. As the credit crunch bites and passenger demand drops, using these slots efficiently may often be impossible.

Facing such maths, what is an airline to do? As David Robertson, Times travel commentator, says today: "It is better for a carrier such as Bmi to lose £20,000 per flight than to give up a £30 million slot."

Well, yeah. But until the system is reformed to enable airlines to keep slots even if they cancel a route (temporarily), then slot flying will continue to be practiced. Does anyone know whether the US air system has a similar issue?

Artwork break

I posted earlier the electronic tablet drawing my daughter made, Snowglobe. Here is another artwork break. This is a detail from a stained-glass window at the former building of Carr United Methodist Church, Durham, NC. This is the church my wife and I married in.


The scene is of Jesus standing with Pilate. The congregation has moved to another location, but the building was passed on to another UM congregation that consists mainly of immigrants from Africa.

Airport sleeping taking off

Travelers sleeping in airports is taking off, mainly because the planes aren't. As delays become more common, and airlines cut expenses, they are giving fewer hotel or meal vouchers to travelers waiting for a rescheduled flight.

Sleeping at an airport overnight, once almost a sport for the young and short of cash, has become a lot more common lately, affecting even older and professional travelers. And a big reason is that many airlines are no longer as generous with hotel vouchers as they once were. ...

And there is even a Web site, the Budget Traveler's Guide to Sleeping in Airports at www.sleepinginairports.com, which lists the best and worst airports to spend the night.

Gives a new meaning to the term, "tent city." I spent the night in the Philadelphia airport in 1989, after flying from Soto Cano Air base, Honduras, to McGuire AFB, NJ, aboard a USAF C-5 Galaxy cargo plane. I was ending my tour of duty at JTF-Bravo in Honduras, and the Air Force legally could fly us back to the States, but not within the US, since law forbade the USAF from "competing" with American airlines. By the time our shuttle got to the Philly airport well after midnight, the place had practically shut down. So my small group plopped into some seats and dozed off at our boarding gate. Believe me, once you've soldiered around the world, sleeping in a heated airport lounge in a padded chair isn't so hard to take. (Not that I'd want to make a habit of it, though.)

Fake interviews!

Obama controversy! Fake Interviews on foreign trip! Andrea Mitchell says Obama gave fake interviews in the Middle East. Andrea's bottom line seems to be that Obama gave interviews that she didn't get to attend. Meaning they were done with persons whom Andrea doesn't think have any business interviewing political candidates, which should be left to trained professionals like her. Jeepers, what arrogance. . .

But it's not the first time Obama has been connected with a fake interview. And the previous occasion generated outside the Obama campaign. Rue89 reports,

In its Summer 2007 issue, Politique Internationale, a well-regarded review founded by Dr Patrick Wajsman, published an interview with the US Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who is seeking the Democratic nomination to be US president.

The interview was quite a scoop for the French magazine, the senator, up to that point, had given few interviews to the foreign press. Obama discussed his campaign and gave an explosive assessment of the Iraq war:

"It is a defeat for the United States, indeed. And we will pay the consequences for this defeat for a very a long time.There is no longer any way to turn this defeat into victory. It is too late."

But soon, Politique Internationale found they had a problem.

Barack Obama never gave such an interview, ever. According to the magazine, the interview was conducted by Alexis Debat, "a researcher and specialist in issues of intelligence and counter-terrorism."

But Debat has a certain history of questionable integrity in some of his published work. So if you want to interview Obama but can't get past his handlers, you make the interview up! Maybe this is the new media trend.

Hey, it worked for this guy.

Update: Well, maybe Andrea has a point after all.

If the media covered other topics like they do the military

Then we'd see stories like this.

Obama math

Since we all know that mathematics is simply a social construction, it should come as no surprise that Barack Obama has a, well, unique arithmetic system.

First, in Obama math, there are 57 states, as we already knew.

And now, under the new math, two terms as president lasts 10 years.

Presidential anointee Barack Obama on Face the Nation -"The objective of this trip was to have substantive discussions with people like President Karzai or Prime Minister Maliki or President Sarkozy or others who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years."

Hat tip: American Digest's sidebar.

Caption contest

"Hey, wait! This is the ARCTIC! I knew we should have made that left turn at Albuquerque!"

Leave your own caption as a comment.

Then go and read the "Nutty Story of the Day: “Global Warming” is Killing the Penguins in Antarctica."

Not!

Global cooling for 30 more years

Wasn't it in July 1989 that the UN said we only had 10 years left to save the planet?

Meanwhile, geology Prof. Don Easterbrook says to get ready for 30 more years of global cooling:

Addressing the Washington Policymakers in Seattle, WA, Dr. Don Easterbrook said that shifting of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) from its warm mode to its cool mode virtually assures global cooling for the next 25-30 years and means that the global warming of the past 30 years is over. The announcement by NASA that the (PDO) had shifted from its warm mode to its cool mode is right on schedule as predicted by past climate and PDO changes (Easterbrook, 2001, 2006, 2007) and is not an oddity superimposed upon and masking the predicted severe warming by the IPCC. This has significant implications for the future and indicates that the IPCC climate models were wrong in their prediction of global temperatures soaring 1°F per decade for the rest of the century.

"Climate Blogs That Don't Necessarily Accept 'The Consensus'"

Climate Skeptic has the list.

Hello! Hello! Anyone There?

This has not been a good week for the State Department. For a place known as the best of the best staffed by the brightest of the brightest, you have to wonder if anyone is really home. After several years of pushing Syria out of Lebanese politics by fostering a democratic process, the Syrian-Iranian proxy, Hizbullah, now controls the country. For this, Condi stopped the war? Has the murderer-for-bodies deterred Hizbullah from their war making? Not at all. Hizbullah number 2 is calling for more kidnappings.

This is far from the biggest head scratcher. Not only is the State Department prepared to offer more US hostages for the Iranians to kidnap, but Iran was invited to sit down with the US and buddies to "talk through" their differences. Somehow, in some form of Group Think, it was decided that Iran would listen to reason and just give up building its nuclear weapons and abandon its intent to destroy Israel.

The presence of America’s third-ranking diplomat William Burns elevated the talks between the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany and Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili begun in Geneva Saturday, July 19 to a more serious level. Ahead of the meeting, a senior official in Tehran restated that suspension was “out of the question.”

While Washington has stressed Burns is there to listen, not negotiate, DEBKAfile’s sources reported it will be clear to Iran that it has a chance to end its international isolation by accepting the incentives on offer to freeze uranium enrichment. This outcome would leave Israel out on a limb with the menaces posed directly by Iran and its allies, Syria, Hizballah and Hamas.

European Union executive Javier Solana, who staged the encounter, positioned the American official opposite the Iranian side to avoid a joint photograph.

How nice that Solana wants to avoid giving Iran a photo op (as if being invited to Geneva isn't enough). So, Burns shows up to begin the process of mediation. What happens?

The presence of Burns had led to hopes of compromise on a formula under which Iran would agree to stop expanding its enrichment activities.

In exchange, six powers — the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany — would hold off on passing new U.N. sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

But doubt was cast over the value of talks less then an hour after they started, when Keyvan Imani, a member of the Iranian delegation,appeared to indicate that Tehran was not prepared to budge on enrichment.

"Suspension — there is no chance for that," he told reporters gathered in the courtyard of Geneva's ornate City Hall, the venue of the negotiations.

There also appeared to be little progress inside the talks.

Well, Dah! Is anyone awake in Foggy Bottom? What part of "we ain't stopping" is not understood?

Iran subscribes to the WADI school of nuclear power--We Are Dropping It. On the other hand, the Mullahs could really be Branch Dravidians in disguise using the WACO principle--We Ain't Coming Out.

Well, it least it only took US and European officials an hour to figure out what Iran meant. Jimmy Carter is still clueless after 30 years.

Antarctic ice at all-time high

Hennessy reports,

According University of Illinois’s Cryosphere Today, Antarctic sea ice is at an all-time high. (Yeah, I know “all-time” is relative, since records go back only 30 years. But the alarmists have no issue with treating 30 years as the sum of recorded history; why should I?)



On the other hand, Arctic sea ice had a bad week. Mounting evidence points to underwater volcanoes pumping superheated water toward the bottom of the ice as the major problem, but the hysteriacs will blame my cigarette smoke.

Volcanoes in the Arctic? Who'da thunk it?

ANCHORAGE — A volcano on Umnak Island in the Aleutians is continuing to erupt, with ash still shooting up to 6 1/2 miles in the air.

Alaska Volcano Observatory geologist Tina Neal said the volcano’s ash plume on Tuesday was going in a northeasterly direction, right over Dutch Harbor.

These volcanoes must be stopped! They are going to kill all the polar bears.

McCain falls asleep while being interviewed on TV

Republican presidential candidate John McCain, 71, just could not hang with Conan O'Brien last night, and nodded off right in the middle of their conversation. Oh, the humanity!

The peace is a mess, too

In late February 2003, before the invasion of Iraq, I wrote of, "The coming American Holy War," in which I outlined "a template that describes modern American war-making as drawing on both the Northern and Southern models," of which the American Civil War is the premier, though not only, example.

Without re-relating all that, I note only that my bottom line of the piece was this:

In Afghanistan, the national honor was avenged and our enemies were destroyed, though not all of them, of course. The Southerners way of war has had its day. The Northerners war is imminent. American Holy War is coming to Iraq, and its people will be freed. Afghanistan was Stonewall Jackson's war, Iraq will be Joshua Chamberlain's.

But the peace to follow will probably be a mess.

Now consider two pertinent points from this week. First, the op-ed in the WSJ by Kagan, Kagan and Keane that the war in Iraq has been won, though the victory has not been finalized.

All of the most important objectives of the surge have been accomplished in Iraq. The sectarian civil war is ended; al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has been dealt a devastating blow; and the Sadrist militia and other Iranian-backed militant groups have been disrupted.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government has accomplished almost all of the legislative benchmarks set by the U.S. Congress and the Bush administration. More important, it is gaining wider legitimacy among the population. ...

The blunt fact is this. In Iraq, al Qaeda is on the ropes, and the Shiite militias are badly off-balance.

We're not out of the woods yet, but the light at the end of the tunnel is now very bright - if, as the authors point out, we maintain our resolve.

The we come to Strategy Pages's succinct assessment:

July 16, 2008: The war is basically over in Iraq, but the peace brings with it a return to the corruption and inefficiency that has cursed this part of the world for centuries. There are other annoying habits, like demanding "compensation" for any real or imagined loss that might possibly be pinned on U.S. troops. It's also popular to demand, with a straight face, that U.S. troops fix utilities, schools and whatever else people want, but are unwilling to take care of themselves. Peace has not brought out the best in the Iraqi people. ...

The U.S. is negotiating, with the Iraqi government, a renewal of its authority to operate in Iraq. This authority expires at the end of the year. As part of the negotiations, the Iraqis are asking for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. This is popular with many Iraqis, especially those in the government who are getting rich by stealing oil money. As long as the American troops are in the country, auditors have armed protection and can be very effective at revealing the thefts and getting the thieves punished. This makes thieving government officials very uncomfortable. Corruption in general remains a major problem (as it is in all Middle Eastern countries). While many Iraqis would like to see clean government, they are usually not the ones who get elected (elections involve a lot of bribery and trading of favors.)

Read the whole thing. Yes, a mess. So far. But that may change, too.

Global warming "consensus" collapses

The so-called "consensus" about human-induced global warming ("anthropogenic global warming," or AGW) is collapsing like the house of cards it is.

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming "incontrovertible."

In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."

Hat tip: Don Surber. This revelation comes on the heels of some scientists' claims that global warming is out, global cooling is in.

Late last month, some leading climatologists and meteorologists met in New York at the Energy Business Watch Climate and Hurricane Forum. The theme of the forum strongly suggested that a period of global cooling is about emerge, though possible concerns for a political backlash kept it from being spelled out.

However, the message was loud and clear, a cyclical global warming trend may be coming to an end for a variety of reasons, and a new cooling cycle could impact the energy markets in a big way. ...

... Each weather guru, from a different angle, suggested that global warming is part of a cycle that is nearing an end. All agreed the earth is in a warm cycle right now, and has been for a while, but that is about to change significantly.

This will be a big disappointment to Minnesotans for Global Warming.

What shall you risk?

Capt. Rick Rubel, USN-Ret., distinguished Professor of Ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy, offers an ethics thought experiment on "leave no one behind." What - and whom - does a commander risk in order "to bring home one wounded servicemember or a body?"

This becomes one of the most difficult moral decisions of command — losing an unknown number of lives to uphold the important code, "Leave no one behind."

This case is a peacetime scenario — which probably occurs more frequently than the wartime scenario and has the exact same moral decision at its core.

There are many cognates outside the military, too. The basic premise is not much different related to the Israelis' dilemma to get the remains of two Israeli army reservists, killed by Hezbollah terrorists in 2006, " their bodies being grabbed for the purpose of bargaining," as co-author Daniel Jackson reported from Israel yesterday.

Read the professor's scenario and ponder the very tough, and extremely short-term, decision-making that faces commanders in battle, or others in crisis.

New on my wish list

The latest entry on my "I gotta get me one of these" category is a submersible speedboat. Popular Science reports,

Nautical engineers have long dreamed of a craft that could race across wave tops like a speedboat and seconds later dive beneath them like a submarine. But crossing the two breeds presents a catch-22: Subs need heft to sink, but speedboats need to be lightweight to go fast. With an investment of nearly $2 million and years of research, former auto-shop owner Reynolds Marion of Lake City, Florida, has finally hit on a solution, a machine he’s dubbed the Hyper-Submersible Powerboat. When complete, it will reach speeds of up to 45 mph and dive down to 1,200 feet.

1,200 feet! As comparison, naval historian Barrett Tillman reported in Clash of The Carriers: The True Story of the Marianas Turkey Shoot of World War II that the safe depth for American submarines in World War II was only 300 feet, and that diving deeper was done only in extreme emergencies.

The sub-speedboat is not the first civilian sub by any means. Luxury submarine yachts have been on the market for years.

Ah, wouldn't it be nice?

(The 300-foot diving depth was for US Gato-class subs. USS Pampanito(SS-383), commissioned in late 1943, was designed to dive safely to 400 feet, although some of its class successfully operated deeper. Herbert Werner, a German U-boat captain in WW2, reported that no one really knew the maximum depth for their submarines, since the only way to find out meant that your hull got crushed immediately afterward. Looking at the picture of the speedboat-sub above, I personally would not want to test its claimed ability to make 1,200 feet below the surface. What might happen at 1,201?)

Professional Courtesy

There must be a million jokes about lawyers, sharks, and professional courtesy. They are all predictable and all center around the intrinsic nature of land and sea sharks. The key to a successful story of this genre, therefore, is not to see it coming.

My long time friend of over 38 years, Jon Miller, is a lawyer, mediator, and all round good guy. He is also a certified diving instructor who is active in reef preservation and ecology, especially off Belieze.

Recently he wrote about his encounter with a whale shark, which he recorded and just posted to YouTube.



I asked Jon about the encounter.

"Jon, how big is that sucker?"

"About 50 feet or so; you know a pretty small guy all things considered."

"FIFTY FEET! That's the size of most dive boats. It's practically the length of my caravan in the Galil."

"Naw. Besides it's a whale shark; they have baleen so they aren't interested in people at all--no risk; no worry."

"Oh come on, Jon. It's not like you can see one of these guy coming a long way off and say, 'oh, that's a whale shark'. Surely it must have loomed up as a big shark shadow--a big shadow at that. Weren't you scared, at least startled when you saw its form through the blue?"

"No, not at all."

"Really? Not even an extra thumpity thump of the heart?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Professional Courtesy."

Art work break

This is "Snowglobe," an original Photoshop Elements work by my 14-year-old daughter. She used a Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet to draw. Click on the image for a larger view.

Stop-Start on the way!

Awhile back I satirically posted about a nonexistent proposal in the Madison, Wisc., town council to "make it illegal for motorists to wait at a red traffic light with their engines running." (The post was prompted by a real city measure to ban drive-through service at coffee shop or restaurants.)

But now the magic starter is ready for the big leagues.

German automotive supplier Bosch has announced that it has provided nearly half a million start/stop systems for BMW and Mini since launching the system. Bosch also announced that three additional manufacturers will introduce its technology withing the next few months. If you didn't know, Start/Stop technology allows the engine to shut down when the car is not moving, for instance, during traffic jams or at red traffic lights. When the gear is engaged or the accelerator pedal is pressed, the engine automatically starts again.

Alas, it appears there is no retrofit possible to existing cars.

Clarity coming?

In the aftermath of the exchange of murderers and prisoners for two coffins, there is some chance that some clarity may emerge. In the case of the two reservists, The Jerusalem Post reports they were killed outright, their bodies being grabbed for the purpose of bargaining. Jewish Law mandates redemption of captives, alive or dead; a fact well known by Israel's enemies and exploited to the maximum. Already the Hamasniks are increasing the price for Shalit's release, the third soldier taken in 2006.

Despite the blatant exploitation of Jewish Law by her enemies, Israel will not abandon its practice to bring back the bodies of its fallen soldiers. That does not mean, however, that there is concensus on the price paid. This is especially the case here, where Hizbullah and the Lebanese government gave a hero's welcome to Samir Kuntar and his fellow prisoners. It is not so much the televised spectacle that digs at the collective Israeli gut. It is the apparent silence and impotence of the world community for two years to expose the truth about the fate of the two young men. All assurances about their welfare or where-abouts were lies.

It is difficult to convey the centrality of the IDF experience in Israeli life. It is more than a "draft" or "service". Perhaps it approaches the US cultural concept of the colonial minuteman--the citizen soldier ready to go in a minute.

Whereas the high school experience in the US intended to prepare the graduate to survive in the job world, Israeli the Israeli high school, and post high school, experience prepares the graduate to serve in the IDF. For three years, Israelis perform some sort of national service. Afterwards, they serve in the reserves for another twenty, like the two young men whose bodies just came home. Many volunteer as reserve police or firefighters or EMTs after they are "too old to go".

Every family in Israel has experienced the waiting, the loss, and the homecoming. Every family knows the cost of taking a firm stand against brutality and thuggery, both of which show no signs of abating in the future. Every person here, tonight, feels the tears of loss and asks the eternal mourner's question, so well phrased by E. E. Cummings, "how do you like your blueeyed boy Mister Death".

It is hard, therefore, for Israelis to squelch the dissonance felt with the decision to release Samir Kuntar. Full of radical chic, Kuntar and some buddies took a rubber boat across the Israel Lebanon border to the seaside resort town of Nahariya to hunt Jews. They found them in an apartment complex where they gunned them down. The Prime Minister's Office released a video document of the crime today on YouTube:



It is not the attempts of Hizbullah to deride the Israelis as fools that galls Israelis. Nor does it bother Israelis that the international community continues to believe that mediation will work with parties who have no intention of following through on any agreement they make. What grinds them is that they are going to have to catch Kuntar again.

Go Figure

In a deal engineered by a German, the remains of two Israeli hostages were exchanged for a convicted murderer with his own Wikipedia entry along with some Hizbullah remains. There is grief in Israel while Kuntar receives a hero's welcome for killing a policeman, a 31 year old man, and his four year old son. Until yesterday, most Israelis believed that the two captive IDF soldiers were alive.

Most Israelis are too appalled to speak. There is only dismay. Once again, coffins return while murders go free.

Is there a remedy in Gilead?

Let's hear it for hypocrites!

A few weeks ago I attended a seminar on how to connect with non-religious people. That's the new term for describing the folks we used to refer to as the unchurched. The presenter had arranged for four self-described non-religious people to form a panel for us. Curiously, to be called "non-religious," all but one attended a Christian church and the fourth followed Buddhism. In the Q&A they tried to clarify that what they meant, by calling themselves non-religious, was that they rejected the in institutions of religion, the formally-organized structures of denominationalism, and by strong implication, the basic tenets of historic Christian religion as well. Jesus, it seems, is whomever you wish him to be, rather than a first-century Jew of a particular context and religious heritage. (I wrote about that issue here.)

But at one point the panel and other attendees generally agreed that one of the main reasons the unchurched are well, unchurched is because church people are such hypocrites.

Alexius: Well, Paul, the reason I won't join your church here in Corinth is because there are so many hypocrites in it.

Paul: We always have room for one more.

The hypocrisy excuse for staying away from church has got to be the oldest there is. Which only proves what Mark Twain observed, "When you don't want to do something, any excuse will do." And to borrow one of Yogi Berra's malapropisms, If people don't want to come to church, nobody's going to stop them.

But I say, "Hooray for hypocrites!" If you're a hypocrite, you're just my guy or gal.

"Hypocrite" is derived from the Greek, "hypókrisis," or "play acting." It was the description for actors in the Greek theater and refers even more specifically to the masks that certain actors wore to denote different roles, multiple roles being quite common in ancient Greek theater. Members of the chorus - a sort of on stage narrator group - also often wore masks to correspond with the mood, emotion or tome of what they were singing or narrating.

So a hypocrite is literally a "mask wearer," one who hides who s/he really is. It is, as the Greek denotes, play acting. Jesus had a lot to say about play actors, and none of it good.

The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, part of the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple that was destroyed in 70 c.e. by the Romans. The Western Wall is all that remains of the Temple. Today, Jews of all religious convictions go there to pray. I prayed there, too, the same day I took this photo in October 2007.

One biting example,

"And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others."

That is, the men Jesus referred to made a show of praying in public so that they would gain the respect of others for being so pious. (Please note that public praying was quite normal in ancient Judea and is still done now in Israel. And it is the imperative practice in Islam. Christians pray in public, too, mainly at worship services, but also other occasions, say, the Indy 500.)

Jesus admonished his hearers that they should pray in private, so that God would hear them privately. His meaning, I think, was that prayer should be God directed, not human intended.

But no matter how you cut it, Jesus was pretty harsh on hypocrites. So how can I be rooting for them?

Because hypocrisy requires the hypocrite to believe in something or someone outside himself. Hypocrisy requires an aspiration to something higher or better than oneself. That is the meaning of the folk saying, "Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue." Hypocrisy is an imperfect, deficient attempt to be better.

Thankfully I have known very few non-hypocritical people. They were insufferable. They were entirely self centered, self directed, self oriented, self focused and just plain purely selfish. They recognized no cause, entity or belief higher than themselves, their own desires, wants or needs. You can see, I'm sure, that it is impossible for such people to act hypocritically because they are always looking out for No. 1 in every situation. They never pretend they are acting in someone else's interests. They don't seek others' approval because they don't fundamentally care about others or what they think.

Very, very rarely is this kind of person to be found in a church (or a synagogue, either, I would imagine). The church-attending hypocrites over which the seminar attendees clucked-clucked so sadly are not actually hypocritical in the usual meaning of the word: "a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess." Yes, they fall short of what they intend, but their striving is real, not phony, and they try to do better. If they are hypocrites, then so was St. Paul.

It is deceit that makes hypocrisy what it is. The true hypocrite wants others to think better of him/her than is actually justified. Absent this deceit, there is no hypocrisy, just error or human frailty. That's what the hypocrisy-excuse people don't understand - or pretend not to understand - about church people. What may appear to be church people's hypocrisy is almost always just simple failure to meet the standards of our faith rather than deceit. Why? Because the standard is so high:

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Mt. 5:28).

But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual transgression, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery (Mt. 5:32).

There are many such examples. So I say that if our churches are filled with such "hypocrites," then let's have many more. Vice is easy, virtue is hard. It's no hypocrisy to fall short of a very high standard and such an excellent goal. And I would suggest that the hypocrisy-excuse people have largely chosen the easy way over the hard way, and choose to call that virtue. So who are the hypocrites? Well, we always have room for one more.

So however we fall short of the standards of our faith, and fall short we certainly often do, we nonetheless seek a "more excellent way" and strain forward to what lies ahead, pressing on towards the goal.

It's to save the polar bears, ya know

BOHICA! (Bend Over, Here It Comes Again): EPA Could Regulate Lawnmowers, Speed Limit:

Want to mow your lawn? Better check with the Environmental Protection Agency first.

Last Friday the EPA issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) that would impose a number of unthinkable regulations on the economy and everyday life. One of many is regulation the emissions of a lawnmower. This would require the agency to create different regulations and units of emissions requirements for each gadget that pollutes. Page 337 of the EPA’s ANPR reads,

“[E]ach application could require a different unit of measure tied to the machine’s mission or output– such as grams per kilogram of cuttings from a “standard” lawn for lawnmowers and grams per kilogram-meter of load lift for forklifts.”

If one considers all the non-road greenhouse gas emitting sources that need to be regulated, this would not only be a daunting task that would require a great deal of time and human capital, but it would also be very costly. ...

Speaking of speed limit regulations, the EPA’s proposed rulemaking also notes on page 324 that “vehicle speed is the single largest operational factor affecting CO2 emissions from large trucks,” and that “every mph increase above 55 mph increases CO2 emissions by more than 1%.” The ANPR puts speed limiters on large trucks on the table as a means of reducing carbon dioxide.

The ANPR will now move through a 120-day comment period. During these four months, the EPA should strongly consider the inconvenience, misery and massive costs they will impose on the American public if the agency is granted this unprecedented authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Many commentators, including me, have been warning for a long time that the real basis of climate alarmism is just a naked power grab by socialists or their ideological allies to gain ever-increasing control over the way people lead their daily lives. I wrote in May that Climate Change long ago became a matter for True Believers:

Old-line socialists, faced with decades of the failure of political socialism, have jumped on the environmentalist bandwagon to keep socialism alive. Environmentalism has become a much better vehicle to achieve a rigid regulation of people's lives than political socialism ever was. After all, the fate of the entire planet is at stake! Environmentalism has already led some British members of Parliament to propose that the government regulate almost every aspect of buying and selling by private individuals. If this is not socialism, it is a distinction without a difference.

So there you are. At bottom, modern environmentalism has discarded scientific rigor to embrace something not much different than Leninism, the desire to control the major components of the way individuals live. From there it is a short step for environmentalism to Leninism's successor: Stalinism, the desire to control every aspect of the way we live. That's our future, minus the gulags. We hope.

What about the polar bears of this post's headline? remember, polar bears are the first species placed on the endangered-species list because of climate change, specifically the rise of atmospheric CO2, which is claimed to be destroying the bears' habitats. It is not true because there is no actual science to back it up, and because the polar bear population is actually growing overall. But no matter. The bears aren't the point. Increased regulation is. And boy, is the EPA going after it.

Update: Brendan O'Neill, writing in The Guardian (of all places), Greens are the enemies of liberty:

Environmentalism is instinctively and relentlessly illiberal, and it is doing more to inculcate people with fear, self-loathing and a religious-style sense of meekness than any piece of anti-terror legislation ever could. If you believe in freedom, you must reject it.

Amen, brother, amen. Brendan also observes elsewhere,

The most striking thing about the rise and rise (and rise) of the environmentalist ethos is how it has acted as a life support machine for the political and cultural elite’s contempt for the lifestyles of the lower orders, and how it has added a new scientific/end of the world twist to the authorities’ attempts to manage, control and change our behaviour and expectations.

Quite.

Oh, Nooooooo!

You just cannot make this stuff up: "Global warming may raise kidney stone risk"

Washington, D.C. - Global warming could do more than hurt polar bears: It could force a rise in kidney stones, scientists warned Monday.

"We see a relationship between kidney stones and temperatures everywhere," says study co-author Margaret Pearle of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. "Even in places with air conditioning, warmer temperatures mean more stones."

Hat tip: Gerard Van Der Leun, via email.

Iraqi govt. gets loyalty the old-fashioned way

They buy it.

BAGHDAD - It is a politician's dream: Handing out cold, hard cash to people on the street as they plead for help. Iraq's prime minister has been doing just that in recent weeks, doling out Iraqi dinars as an aide trails behind, keeping a tally.

The handouts by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and a handful of other top officials are authorized _ as long as each goes no higher than about $8,000, and the same people don't get them twice. Aides say they are meant merely to ease the pain a bit, and are motivated by a belief that better conditions will lead to more security.

An honest voter is one who, when bought, stays bought.

IAF in Iraq and Iran's New Arrow

As if one set of missile tests were not enough, Iran fired a second round of their new rocket at night and showed the heavy duty light show fireworks on national tv. Far out, dude; colors.

So, let's tally up the results of these two tests. The first rounds were fired in secret, landed in secret, but broadcast that they were successful. The second rounds were fired at night, landed in secret, and broadcast success. Pooling the sample suggests that the Iranian rockets have a 50% launch rate, an unknown landing rate, and virtually no data on accuracy, other that the unbiased reporting of the clerics running everything from command to latrine.

Perhaps the mullahs (remember when that term meant money?) should do us all a favor and actually show the world what they can do. Haven't they seen Dr. Strangelove? Don't they know that to have the Doomsday Machine work, you have to tell others first? Why don't they simply pick any two numbers in the universal coordinate system (they can check Google to find out how), tell the world where the target is and hit it--at least several times so it is not an error. Certainly that will make the folks in Gaza happy so that when Iran tries to hit Tel Aviv, they won't hit Gaza instead.

In short, it is becoming increasingly clear that the ONLY way Iran could hit the side of a barn is if their rockets are right next door--like Gaza or Lebanon or Syria.

Meanwhile, in addition to practicing their low altitude refueling operations, both YNETNEWS and the Jerusalem Post announced that IAF jets are showing up in Iraq where they are joyriding in the northern areas of that country. The Jerusalem Post says,

Israel Air Force (IAF) war planes are practicing in Iraqi airspace and land in US airbases on the country as preparation for a potential strike on Iran, sources in the Iraqi Defense Ministry told a local news network, Friday.

The report, carried also by Iranian news outlets, claimed that recently massive nocturnal activity by IAF craft was noted in several American held airbases, including measures by the US army to increase security around the bases

Nocturnal? Where have we heard this before? Ynetnews points out the obvious.

The sources estimated that should the Israeli jets take off from the American bases it would take them no more than five minutes to reach Iran's nuclear reactor in Bushehr.

Meanwhile, Iran unveiled their newest weapon based on years of research in the French National Library, Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris. An unnamed source suggests that after years of hanging out in the library and the cafes, it was discovered how the English defeated the French crusader armies not once, but three times.

Hey, if bows and arrows worked before, why not now?

As this picture shows, the Revolutionary Guard has trained several believers with this revolutionary weapon, the longbow, and given them cool clothes as well.

Ooo, men in tights!

Psychiatrists identify "climate change delusion"

No fooling.

PSYCHIATRISTS have detected the first case of "climate change delusion" - and
they haven't even yet got to Kevin Rudd and his global warming guru.

Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of our Royal Children's Hospital say this delusion was a "previously
unreported phenomenon".

"A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . . . He also . . . had visions of apocalyptic events."

"The patient had also developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead within days to the deaths of millions of people through exhaustion of water supplies."

But never mind the poor boy, who became too terrified even to drink. What's scarier is that people in charge of our Government seem to suffer from this "climate change
delusion", too.

Here is Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday, with his own apocalyptic vision: "If we do not begin reducing the nation's levels of carbon pollution, Australia's economy will face more frequent and severe droughts, less water, reduced food production and devastation of areas such as the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu wetlands."

And here is a senior Sydney Morning Herald journalist aghast at the horrors described in the report on global warming released on Friday by Rudd's guru, Professor Ross Garnaut: "Australians must pay more for petrol, food and energy or ultimately face a rising death toll . . ."

Wow. Pay more for food or die. Is that Rudd's next campaign slogan?

TEOLAWKI again

The End Of Life As We Know It looms yet again. OpinionJournal reports on the new doomsaying:

• "Hawaiian Volcano Spewing More Lava Than Usual"--headline, Associated Press, July 5

• "The Worms Crawl In"--headline, New York Times, July 1

• "Earth Begins to Kill People for Changing Its Climate"--headline, Pravda, July 4

• "Australian Researchers Warn of Global Cooling"--headline, DailyTech.com, July 1

• "Scientists Warn U.S. Is Unprepared if Asteroid Strikes"--headline, Seattle Times, July 5

• "Smallest Planet Shrinks in Size"--headline, BBC Web site, July 4

• "Report: The End of the Internet Is Near"--headline, FoxNews.com, July 6

First there was the supernova and galaxy-attack scenarios. Then the predicted return of the comet Genondahwayanung, which pretty much annihilated most life in North America when it came here the first time. And then the massive gas cloud speeding toward a collision with the Milky Way! Then we learn that the earth's atmosphere may detonate. And then the asteroids. Then the black hole death stars! Then we'll be swallowed whole by the sun. Then the intense beam of gamma rays coming our way. Then there was the fear that "human society is very quickly headed to a violent and disturbing end." I tell ya, I'm starting to think that sooner or later, every one of us is going to wind up dead.

Once again: "When seconds count . . ."

... the police are only minutes away." John Stossel:

The Cato's Institute's Tom Palmer, an early plaintiff in the D.C. gun case, told 20/20" he is alive today because he was carrying a handgun when he was approached on the street by some toughs. "They told us, 'We're going to kill you.' I showed them the business end of a pistol. They turned around, went away."

The four dissenting justices fear the Supreme Court's decision will unleash a flood of gun violence. Unlikely. "Criminals do not have a problem getting guns," Palmer reminded me.

It's law-abiding people who suffer when guns are banned. The victims of gun crimes are easy to count. What cannot be counted are the lives saved because would-be victims were armed. Palmer's confrontation is one of many that didn't make the news.

He asks, "If someone gets into your house, which would you rather have, a handgun or a telephone? You can call the police if you want, and they'll get there and they'll make a crime report and take a picture of your dead body.

"They can't get there in time to save your life."

Growing glaciers?

Let's blame global warming. No, really.

Driving less, but not slower

Various media have reported that gasoline consumption had fallen a few percentage points since the pump price started to spike earlier this year. But the decline has not been steep. Neither is the exact reason for the decline in consumption obvious. Possibilities:

1. We are driving slower, thus reducing fuel consumption.

2. Drivers are using fuel efficient vehicles more, leaving the pickup trucks, SUVs and gas guzzling cars parked in the driveway more while they opt to run arrands or make short trips in their Corollas or Civics. Or they've traded in their Fored Expeditions and Chevy Suburbans for relatively miserly autos.

3. We are more careful with trip planning and errand running and are therefore driving fewer miles, but not necessarily driving differently or driving different vehicles.

I think numbers two and three combine to account for the drop in gasoline consumption. A lot of people have reduced or stopped driving gas guzzlers; after all, SUV plants are being shuttered by manufacturers and sales of cars like the Honda Civic are up. And a ,lot of people ask themselves, "Is this trip necessary?" before hopping into the car to run an errand, choosing to postpone the trip until it can be combined with other driving.

But slowing down? Fuggidaboudit.

When I pulled on to the New Jersey Turnpike I set my cruise control at 66 mph (substantially faster than I would drive -- 55 or so -- if I wanted to maximize my fuel economy), got in the right lane, and started counting cars that passed me. I was passed by more than 40 cars before I came up behind another vehicle going more slowly than me, and it was a step van trying to exit. I gave up counting when more than 100 cars passed me without me passing anybody. At 66 miles per hour.

66 mph? Pokey! I drove Sunday 300-plus miles on the interstate, speed limit 70 most of the way, 65 the rest except for a few congested miles in a city. I use my Tomtom 920 GPS as my speedometer because it is much more accurate than the car's. (At interstate speeds, most cars' speedometers will read high.) I set the cruise control four mph higher than the speed limit. I was routinely passed. I didn't count cars, but the number of cars I passed was dwarfed by the number that passed me. And most of those who passed me blew my doors off doing so.

Whatever we're doing to use less gas, slowing down ain't it. Why? For business drivers, time really does equal money. For everyone else, time may not equal money per se, but the opportunity costs of driving slower to save gas are not being met, overall, by the savings gained from slower speeds.

When I return home this week, dropping my speed by 10 mph will add 48 minutes to the trip. If I got 5 mpg better fuel economy, I will burn 1.41 gallons less. At $3.85 per gallon, which is what gas sells for along the route in several places, I will save $5.43, or $6.78 per hour. It's very much worth that much to me to get back to my family more than three-quarters of an hour sooner, as well as get out of the car that much quicker.

So while I definitely am driving less often to save gas, I see no reason to slow down to do so.

Michael Silence also has some thoughts that pretty much correspond to mine.

Obama speaks in favor of a draft

See update at the end.

Get in the wayback machine and take a ride to the day Mrs. Barack Obama told a crowd,

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

Now flash forward to July 2, 2008, with Sen. Obama speaking at the University of Colorado:

So when I'm President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year. This means that by the time you graduate college, you'll have done 17 weeks of service.

We'll reach this goal in several ways. At the middle and high school level, we'll make federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs, and give schools resources to offer new service opportunities. At the community level, we'll develop public-private partnerships so students can serve more outside the classroom.

Mandatory service as a federal requirement, not by penalty of law? That's called a draft. I wonder whether Obama realizes he just poured a big truckload of concrete into the foundation of the home-schooling movement.

But the real issue is this: Obama is clueless of what the daily life and schedules of middle, high school and college students is like. He seems to think that these students just go to class six hours per day and then hang out in the 'hood, doing nothing. So they must have all this extra time that they can use for "public service," right?

Fact is, my high-school daughter will be up at 6 a.m. to leave before 7 for class. She will finish classes at 2:30 p.m. and then will have athletic practices, both semesters, to between 4:30-5:00. Then home, shower, dinner and homework until 9 p.m. and many nights later. Weekends? Soccer games and track and field matches for most of the school year, and for non-game weekends, I want her to have a day off. She will have earned it.

My sons are both in college full time. My eldest was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps, with Iraq service. Public service? 'Scuse me, he's sort of been there, done that. My second son is an athletic scholarship student in a Div. 1 NCAA, USNews top-30 university. His course load this coming semester is calculus, physics, chemistry and a medical-statistics course. So he has loads of time for Obaama's indentured servanthood.

I might also point out that my children, along millions of their peers, perform many different kinds of public service through existing school clubs and their church. But I guess that doesn't count since those services don't rest under the meaty federal thumb. Private-sector service doesn't count for Obama.

No matter. In Obamaland, all is well when the feds regulate ever more of our private lives.

Update: Jim Geraghty, whence the quote of the speech above, conveniently truncated Obama's speech. The Rocky Mountain News printed the entire text of the speech. Here is the section about college students that Geraghty omitted. This paragraph immediately follows the two quoted above:

For college students, I have proposed an annual American Opportunity Tax Credit of $4,000. To receive this credit, we'll require 100 hours of public service. You invest in America, and America invests in you - that's how we're going to make sure that college is affordable for every single American, while preparing our nation to compete in the 21st century."

Now, this entire proposal is very sparse on details but on the face of it does not seem to make the service compulsory. In fact, as stated, the college service is really a fee for service program, and at $40 per hour at that!

Nor - again, on the face of it - is there any compulsion about the middle and high school kids' service; the speech says that schools will have to develop service programs, not that students will have to enroll in them (but really, how long do you think that will last? As Jonah Goldberg observes in the LA Times, "In short, he'll make service compulsory by merely compelling schools to make it compulsory." Get ready for schools to have benchmarks of service enrollment to meet in order to keep federal dollars rolling in.)

So Obama's proposal is really the "camel's nose under the tent." When the rest of the camel muscles its way in, we'll be very sorry we didn't whack the nose when it appeared.

A final observation: under Obama's plan, we may rightly fear that American students will be

... reduced to a functional unit - to an extension of the collective form of labor. It [is] this extension of the collective form of labor that [makes] "demands of personal qualities such as team spirit, comradely mutual assistance, good organization and discipline, and the ability to put the interests of the whole collective above one's own." [Students' views will be] carefully prescribed from above, and any idndividual manifestations of a political or moral character [will be] simply not tolerated. ...

The glorification of [public service] labor and praises of its redemptive value [can]not conceal [how] the [students] and their lifestyle ... stood in sharp contrast to the high social status of the [political] elite, who has somehow managed to secure considerable privileges in representing the "best" interests of the [students themselves].

Link.

Flash! Plants like CO2!

Well, knock me over with a feather: "Higher CO2 levels may be good for plants: German scientists."

Increasing exposure to carbon dioxide appears to boost crop yields, Hans-Joachim Weigel of the Johann Heinrich von Thuenen Institute for rural areas, forestry and fisheries in the central city of Brunswick told AFP.

"Output increased by about 10 percent for barley, beets and wheat" when the plants were subjected to higher levels of carbon dioxide, Weigel said.

TA and USN targets? You don't say.

Not to be outdone by the Israelis, both Iran and the US Navy have begun their own war game exercises. Yesterday, July seventh, the Allies began a series of defensive maneuvers to protect oil and natural gas installations.

Monday, July 8 (sic), the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet announced American, British and Bahraini vessels were to launch a new exercise in the Gulf called “Stake Net,” to practice tactics and procedures for protecting maritime infrastructure such as gas and oil installations.

The exercise was launched in response to threats by more than one Iranian military chief to control shipping in the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz if Iran was attacked or its regional interests jeopardized.

The ball was picked up by the Revolutionary Guards which launched a retaliatory naval maneuver the next day.

Tuesday, too, the New York Times ran an article called “Nearer to the Bomb” by nuclear physicist Peter D. Zimmerman, former chief scientist of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He wrote that all of Iran’s activities, especially in uranium enrichment, are evidence that its “near-term ability to make nuclear weapons is gathering strength.” He further warned that once Iran begins enriching uranium to weapons grade on an assembly-line basis, “it could transfer this material to groups such as Hizballah and Hamas.” They could then “fabricate low-technology nuclear explosives with yields nearly as high as the bomb which destroyed Hiroshima.”

Today, Iran began their own exercises with missile squads and the Revolutionary Guard.

The Web site of the elite Iranian force posted a statement late Monday announcing the military drill, which it said involved "missile squads," but did not say where it was taking place. Iran's guards and national army hold regular exercises two or three times a year, but the statement did not say whether this drill was one of them or if it was a special exercise.

The Iranian Web Site quoted guard official Ali Shirazi as saying that Israel's coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv and US warships in the Gulf would be among the first targets if Iran comes under attack.

"The Zionist regime is pushing the White House to prepare for a military strike on Iran," Shirazi was quoted as saying. "If such a stupidity is done by them, Tel Aviv and the US naval fleet in the Persian Gulf will be the first targets which will be set on fire in Iran's crushing response."

Of course, what is not said here is that the US Navy and Tel Aviv are targets anyway--when the Iranians get and use their A-Bombs, these are the addresses to which they will be sent.


Speaking of addresses, there was an old routine by Carol Burnette about a visiting monarch interviewed before her address to a joint session of Congress. As she gets more and more snockered, she begins to giggle about "'dressing" the Congress. Today's AP file photo of the Revolutionary Guard in the Jerusalem Post brings back Ms Burnette's routine, prompting one to wonder just where did they get those cute headbands and color coordinated outfits. Of course, what with the world of digital fauxtography, as near as I can tell, this picture suggest the Guard is made of 16 or 17 guys, at max, dressed up like Girl Scouts.

Jesus' resurrection rebutted! Let the pile-on begin!

Gosh, I guess now I'll have to call my bishop and lay down my ordination orders. It turns out that Jesus' disciples just made up the whole Easter-resurrection story by appropriating a century-old legend that the angel Gabriel was supposed to have said rebel named Simon, who was killed by the Romans in 4 BCE.

The source of this quotation is an ancient stone tablet upon which is written (not engraved) 87 lines of text.

JERUSALEM: A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.

It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah. But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.

There is no reason to believe that the stone is a fake. Despite the fact that sections of the text are obscure, the pile-on to prove that the stone somehow disproves Jesus' resurrection has already begun. I got an email just this evening from a PR guy asking me to interview two novelists who think the stone buttresses their claims that not only is the story of Jesus resurrection a fraud, the Church has known it all along. Sound familiar? It should, since that premise is one of the hoariest of religious fiction. Quite literally, "nothing to see here, move along" when it comes to this unoriginal attempt to knock over orthodox Christianity. This is, in fact, the exact premise of Robert Ludlum's 1976 novel, The Gemini Contenders:

A train winds through Italy towards the Alps with a precious cargo on board. The cargo is a box containing papers that could destroy the Christian world.

Ho hum. But back to the stone. Time Mag quotes Israel Knohl, an expert in Talmudic and biblical language at Jerusalem's Hebrew University:

But, as Knohl told TIME, maybe the Christians had a model to work from. The idea of a "dying and rising messiah appears in some Jewish texts, but until now, everyone thought that was the impact of Christianity on Judaism," he says. "But for the first time, we have proof that it was the other way around. The concept was there before Jesus." If so, he goes on, "this should shake our basic view of Christianity. ... What happens in the New Testament [could have been] adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story."

Okay, so? Now, to be fair to Knohl, he does not say that the stone's presumed text (there is more than one way to translate it than Knohl's way) disproves Jesus' resurrection, only that the idea of a messianic resurrection existed before Jesus was even born. And the idea of a suffering messiah is found in the Isaiah 53.

Bible Archaeology Review has posted both the Hebrew text and an English translation online. It's mighty thin gruel to make such as grand a banquet as Knohl and some others are cooking up. Here are the lines in question, as presented by BAR:

7. Who am I(?), I (am?) Gabri’el the …(=angel?)… […]
78. You(?) will save them, …[…]…
79. from before You, the three si[gn]s(?), three …[….]
80. In three days …, I, Gabri’el …[?],
81. the Prince of Princes, …, narrow holes(?) …[…]…
82. to/for … […]… and the …
83. to me(?), out of three - the small one, whom(?) I took, I, Gabri’el.
84. yhwh of Hosts, the Lord of(?)[ Israel …]…[….]
85. Then you will stand …[…]…
86. …\
87. in(?) … eternity(?)/… \

All the rest - that the presumed angelic prophecy was given to or in description of a Jewish rebel against Rome named Simon, whom the Romans killed in 4 BCE, and that the unintelligible gaps refer to Simon's resurrection - all that is simply speculation and interpolation. However, Knohl will have a news-covered presentation later today in Jerusalem to explain his hypothesis.

Furthermore, as practically any Christian who has attended Sunday School for more than a month can tell you, the Jews' belief in the resurrection of the dead was deeply rooted by the time of Jesus. Not all Jews believed this, notably the Sadducees did not, but most did, notably the Pharisees.

To the apostle Paul - a "Pharisee's Pharisee," by his own description - it was the general resurrection of the dead that was of primary importance. Jesus' resurrection was important, for Paul, only as it related to the general resurrection yet to come. Hence, Jesus is the "first fruit" of the general resurrection, the pathfinder and the proof that God's promises are true. if someone had said to Paul that there was already a concept of a dying and rising messiah before Jesus came along, Paul would have almost certainly have answered that God was no doubt preparing the people for the message of the resurrection of Jesus so that they could more quickly embrace his rising as God's seal of promise.

Knohl does make a very important point, related at the bottom of the IHT run of the story.

Knohl said that it was less important whether Simon was the messiah of the stone than the fact that it strongly suggested that a savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus. He notes that in the Gospels, Jesus makes numerous predictions of his suffering and New Testament scholars say such predictions must have been written in by later followers because there was no such idea present in his day.

But there was, he said, and "Gabriel's Revelation" shows it.

This is a crucial point. As New Testament scholar Ben Witherington puts it,

Most radical Jesus scholars have argued that the passion and resurrection predictions by Jesus found in the Gospels were not actually made by Jesus-- they reflect the later notions and theologizing of the Evangelists.

But now, if this stone is genuine there is no reason to argue this way. One can show that Jesus, just as well as the author of this stone, could have spoken about a dying and rising messiah.

Knohl continues,

"His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come," Knohl said. "This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel."

Where does Knohl seem to get the idea that Jesus' passion and rising are unconnected to the redemption of Israel? Not from the Gospels, which present Jesus as weeping precisely because he realizes he will not bring about Israel's redemption. Furthermore, more than anything else, the long line of Jewish prophets had excoriated Israel for the sinfulness of the people, which they usually describe in graphic detail. That the redemption of Israel can be somehow unconnected with the forgiveness of the sins of the people is simply unsupportable by the Jewish Scriptures. Furthermore, Jeremiah's prophecy to which Jesus specifically related his suffering and resurrection says, at the end, "I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more."

In short, I agree with Dr. Witherington (and implicit in Knohl's words) that the stone's (disputable) text reinforces that the quotes of Jesus in the Gospel in which he speaks of his own death and resurrection are true quotes rather later retrojections. The stone seems to confirm, rather than rebut, the Gospel accounts.

$1,000,000,000 more per day

That's how much more Americans are paying for gasoline at the pump than we did five years ago.

A gallon of regular gasoline now costs $4.108, a tenth of a penny more than the
previous day's high, according to AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and
Wright Express. Diesel is also at a record, of $4.801, up nearly a penny.

Americans are now paying more than $1 billion more for gasoline per day than they did five years ago, according to an OPIS report Monday. In June, the world's largest oil consumer spent about $47.38 billion on the motor fuel — nearly three times as much as in 2003.

Fred Rozell, retail pricing director at OPIS, said retail gas costs will likely continue to rise. He joined a number of analysts in predicting oil prices still have further to climb, and said that could push prices at the pump up by as much as 25 to 30 cents per gallon more before the end of summer.

"It doesn't look like there's anything that's going to drive (oil) prices down at this point, even reduced demand," Rozell said. "There's so much momentum with money going into commodities right now, it's going to continue to go up."

History Lesson

The G8 is meeting to discuss the plight of the poor. Good luck. It is, however, poor timing for such a gab-flab.

This week marks the anniversary of the Evian Conference, held July 6 to July 15, 1938, to discuss the situation of German Jews attempting to flee the Nazi regime. The US Holocaust Museum says this about the conference

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, responding to mounting political pressure, called for an international conference to facilitate the emigration of refugees from Germany and Austria, and to establish an international organization to work for an overall solution to the refugee problem. In early July 1938, delegates from 32 countries met at the French resort of Evian on Lake Geneva. Roosevelt chose Myron C. Taylor, a businessman and close friend, to represent the U.S. at the conference. During the nine-day meeting, delegate after delegate rose to express sympathy for the refugees. But most countries, including the United States and Britain, offered excuses for not letting in more refugees. Only the Dominican Republic agreed to accept additional refugees.

It was clear from the outset that nothing would be decided. In fact it was a media coup for Hitler and the Nazi state. The Nazis could now claim, and they did, that they offered the world their Jews but none accepted them.

Before adjourning, the Evian Conference established the International Committee on Refugees (ICR) and commissioned it to "approach the governments of the countries of refuge with a view to developing opportunities for permanent settlement," and to persuade Germany to cooperate in establishing "conditions of orderly emigration." The ICR, however, received little authority and almost no funds or support from its member nations, and it had virtually no success in opening countries to refugees. The advent of war cut short its efforts to arrange with Germany for refugees to bring some property out with them, and the committee soon slipped into inactivity. Months earlier, it was already clear that the ICR and the Evian Conference had accomplished virtually nothing.

The Evian Conference stands in historical perspective as a critical turning point. At the conference, the world's democracies made it clear that they were willing to do next to nothing for the Jews of Europe. Several months later, Kristallnacht signaled to the world that Jews no longer could live under Nazi rule, while at Evian, the world had shown it would not make room for those Jews. The world's doors, closed at Evian, remained shut throughout World War II.

At the root of the conference's failure was a twofold not unlike the problem found with Iran's stated intent to build a nuclear weapon and use it to destroy Israel. Holding aside questions of bigotry, in both cases, a Stationary Bandit has squared off against an international community that, because of the Free Rider Problem, appears powerless to do anything about. Hilter knew that if he offered German Jews--go ahead, take 'em--no one would; so who would stop him from his "final solution" or from further territorial expansion? Besides, he gave Chamberlain his word.

The same, alas, is true for the intended beneficiaries of the current round of G8 talks. Little if anything will come out of this year's Evian Conference, except the ubiquitous sales of bottled spa water.

It is against this backdrop that the Iranian crisis continues to escalate. As Iran's Stationary Bandit increases his hold on domestic conditions and his rhetoric reduces to calling Israel and the US cowards, the West continues to offer talks and sanctions that neither have substance nor deterrent effect.

The difference, however, between the world's poor and Israel is that the latter is not a helpless player in this scenerio. In fact, the former represent the ultimate crisis of free riding--they are too many to pressure the G8 to give up the goods. Moreover, any monies made available will 100% be used to create infrastructure and studies--lots of studies with wonderful overhead Power Point charts. Maybe the G8 will economize and had the problem over the World Bank.

Israel's situation is different. Israel is the addressee of Iran's nuclear devices. Iran shows no interest in talking now; there is absolutely no indication that this situation will change after they use their weapons; there is little to no indication that the Western powers will do anything to retaliate--other than talk. This is what happened 70 years ago and it is what is happening now.

But, Israel is not a Free Rider. It is not relying on others to do its dirty work. There are no pipe dreams of a domestic Iranian revolution to clean house nor is it hoping it can reason or talk them to death. Israel will strike and strike hard. If it does not get the job the first time, it will get it done the next time after that. The price of liberty is paid in blood. Israel knows this all too well.

What's the lesson learned from Evian--Never Again.

Bottom story of the day

The Telegraph: "Moon mistaken for UFO "

Police in Wales were called to investigate a mysterious flying saucer, only to discover it was the moon.

Not a flying saucer:



The (prank?) caller obviously was not up to speed on the cutting edge of science: "Astronomer dismisses talk of aliens visiting Earth from outer space."

In other non-news, a fire department in Newark was called to investigate a lion in a tree in a quiet suburb, only to discover it was a tabby cat, and fish and wildlife commission members went to Percy Priest lake in Nashville to harpoon a Loch Ness monster-like creature, only to discover it was a small-mouth bass.

Not the Loch Ness monster:

Windows Service Pack 3

You can see it here.

A fool and his money . . .

You know the rest. Ever since I read Popular Mechanics' brief article on their test of supposed fuel-efficiency enhancers, I've been fascinated with all the pitches out there for "higher mpg" devices or supplements or addons. Note, please, I am not testing any, just reading their ads and reviews.

Whilst searching this morning on eBay Motors for wiper blades for my car, some auctions for "performance chips" came up. Basically. these are clip-on resistors that are claimed to increase engine horsepower (though not necessarily mpg) by "fooling" the engine into enriching the fuel-air mixture as if the air temperature was not much above freezing. Ergo, more horsepower.

Now, the thing here is that this could actually work, but further reading on the Internet revealed that if it works, it will work at fairly narrow rpm ranges and the power increase will be not much.

I also found a page on the fuel+engine bible site that asks this obvious question:

If these devices work, why do the manufacturers not put them on their cars as
standard? Surely selling a Subaru equipped with a device that gives 8% better
economy than the equivalent Nissan would be a killer sales pitch? Well the
answer is blindingly simple : these devices don't work.

Well, duh. And the site has good busts of the most popular scams out there. Including the "MPT Smogbuster," whose distributor tried to buy a Blogad on my previous site, back when I ran Blogads. It actually claims to project holographic frequencies into the gas tank after you tape it - yes, tape it - to change the molecular structure of the gasoline. Naturally, I rejected the ad application.

Useful links:

http://www.fuelsaving.info/debunk.htm

Gas Saving Products: Fact or Fuelishness? (Federal Trade Commission)

FTC Halts Bogus Claims For “Fuel Saving” Device

Heard the One About the Farmer’s Ethanol?

The Price of Liberty

It has been a week since Admiral Mullen, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made his whirlwind tour of Europe and Israel. It would appear that the tour was more of a squall line of tornadoes rather than a single whirly-dervish. The MSM has been working overtime to downplay what happened or exactly what the message is. Did the Admiral return preaching peace or preparation.

MSNBC carried two pieces, from its wire sources, about the Admiral's assessment. The first makes very plain that the Admiral is a man of peace and staunchly against any action against Iran, short of carrying them milk and cookies.

WASHINGTON - It could turn out to be one of the most significant comments of the 2008 campaign — but coming just ahead of a holiday weekend, it isn’t getting much notice.

Upon his return from a visit to Israel and Europe, the nation’s highest ranking military officer warned Wednesday that a military strike on Iran would be a very bad idea.

“This is a very unstable part of the world, and I don't need it to be more unstable,” said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen.

This is too much to believe--"a very bad idea" that "I don't need"? The only thing significant about the Admiral's assessment so far is that he appears to forget the chain of command and exactly who makes policy in the old US of A. Tom Curry adds later in his piece:

But Mullen appeared to be edging toward saying that military action, either by Israel or the United States, or both, would be catastrophic. He also warned that the United States would be hard pressed to conduct operations against Iran, given the commitment of tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“From the United States' perspective, the United States' military perspective, in particular, opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful on us,” Mullen told reporters. “That doesn't mean we don't have capacity or reserve, but that would really be very challenging.”

And, he added, “The consequences of that (military action) sometimes are very difficult to predict.”

Mullen explained, “Just about every move in that part of the world is a high-risk move. And that's why I think it's so important that the international piece, the financial piece, the diplomatic piece, the economic piece be brought to bear with a level of intensity that resolves this.”

MSNBC also covers the Iranian response to the crisis. In a manner characteristic of Stationary Bandits confident in free rider inaction to their continued goals of mass destruction, the Iranian's "top diplomat in the US" essentially dismissed any chance of external threat. In fact, he was so distainful of the crass Americans that he didn't shave or put on a tie (he could have at least unbuttoned his top button). [AP Photo/Richard Drew]

NEW YORK - Iran's top diplomat predicted Wednesday that the United States and Israel would not risk the "craziness" of attacking his country and possibly provoking a wider Middle East war or driving oil prices into uncharted heights.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in an interview with The Associated Press that he does not believe a military strike is looming while the U.S. economy is suffering and it is bogged down in a seven-year-old campaign in Afghanistan and more than five years in Iraq.

His remarks come amid mounting speculation that Israel may be considering a unilateral strike on Iran's nuclear facilities — a contingency that could upend already volatile oil markets.

So, playing the Spanish Election Gambit to the hilt, the grizzled guy from Iran is saying that while it is crazy for Israel and the US to do anything about their weapons build up, it is completely rational for the Iranians to build continue to build a few more nuclear devices--one for Tel Aviv and one for the carrier task forces operating in the Gulf--and use them. And they are, as Israelis say, 100%--all the US has ever done against Iran since the US embassy was invaded and hostages taken is talk.

HOWEVER, in the Israeli MSM, there has been a different slant on the same story on the same assessment by the same admiral.

In a newspaper interview last week, Jafari warned that if attacked, Iran would barrage Israel with missiles and choke off the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a narrow outlet for oil tankers leaving the Persian Gulf. Israel carried out a large military exercise last month, seen throughout the media as a rehearsal for an attack on Iran.

Meanwhile, a U.S. admiral warned earlier this week that Iran is likely to launch ballistic missiles against Israel and the United States and the NATO alliance should prepare for it. In recent years, the missile boats of the Sixth Fleet practiced intercepting Shahab-3 missiles from Iran aimed at Israel, along with the Arrow batteries of the air force and U.S. and Israeli batteries of Patriot missiles.

In an article entitled "Maritime Strategy in an Age of Blood and Belief" in the U.S. Naval Institute's monthly Proceedings, fleet commander Admiral James Winnefeld describes the possibility of an offensive barrage of ballistic missiles fired from Iran against Israel as being "by far the most likely employment of ballistic missiles in the world today, and it demands our immediate attention in the event of a need for a U.S. or NATO response."

He says Iran is an "unpredictable adversary," which could be provoked into action "by an isolated, and perhaps seemingly unimportant, event."

In this part of the world, the essense of US and European strategy has been dialog. As a result, the perception of how to dialog with the US and its vassals is to talk while reloading. When the talking is finished--strike again. American response has been to withdraw, apologize, and start to talk again. And so it goes. Dialog is fun, especially when the consequences of making a mistake are not felt by the mediator--sort of a Britney Spears "Oops Strategy". Under Clinton, the entire Israeli problem was treated as a domestic squabble--get the couple talking and back together. Of course the mediators do not feel the continued punches of the abusing spouse nor do they have liability when one turns up dead.

But Israelis cannot afford such a risk. Iran is playing the stationary bandit strategy to the hilt. Ridding the world of nuclear weapons is a public good--we all agree that we are better off without them and certainly without rogue states using them. But stopping such proliferation, itself a public good, is subject to what the late Mancur Olson called the free rider problem--it is rational to let someone else provide the public good than pay the cost since you get the benefits by definition.

Moreover, detente and Mutual Assured Destruction did not emerge like the goddess Athena fully formed from Henry Kissenger's head. It emerged over time as a lot of big bangs and devastation demonstrated exactly what could happen and that there was a reliable means of delivery worldwide. Iran could claim a weapon but until it used it there would be no way to know for sure it was there--only through demonstration, like Tel Aviv or a carrier task force, could Iran be acknowledged as a world player. What is there to prevent them from doing so, and what are the costs of retaliation? You like to drive to and from work and live in the suburbs?

But for Israel, this is not a game--Israelis know that the Iranian bomb is a matter of when and not if. They also know that no one is going to help Israel but Israelis. No one else is down range, with the exception of the US Navy. Moreover, last summer Israel demonstrated the most reliable counter strategy to the Middle East Tango--we talk, I hit, we talk. When Syria began to build its "weapon", they wanted to talk. Israel agreed to talk but also began IDF tank and artillery practice in the Golan nightly from 2am to 5am.

After demanding impossible concessions from Israel, the Syrians announced that the Golan could be taken back by other means. Israel struck destroying their facility and the Russian missiles guarding it.

Iran is banking on the American gasoholic, who like the Spanish commuter, will vote rather than fight. In fact, they have adopted the classic gangster extortion rap to perfection--want to continue drive, then let us use our bomb or else.

No matter what the outcome is, Americans will pay at the gas pump. Israelis will pay with blood. In the words of Howard Fast, the price of liberty is blood. Some Americans may have forgotten; but every Israeli remembers daily.

Happy Fourth of July.

I blame global warming

"Charlotte [NC] temperature hits 123-year low"

Or did Al Gore just swoop through Charlotte?

Well, I have a DLP, so I'm innocent

"Plasma, LCDs blamed for accelerating global warming."

Then again, DLP lamps shine hot, hot, hot.