Scary pictures

Here's a quick personality test. Which of the following pictures do you find to be the scariest:

or this:

or this:

Tough to decide, huh?

Tough to be a girl today

... especially when men act like pigs when you threaten them

... and when other women act like fools when you disagree with them

... or when being a girl sucks in its own right.

Our European friends

Our German allies in Afghanistan are no doubt brave and well-meaning. But they are only a token force, and furthermore their leaders have nevertheless allowed them to do almost no fighting during the course of the war.

Now it seems that German forces consumed 90,000 bottles of wine and 1,700,000 liters of beer in Afghanistan alone. In a single year. (Most other countries' soldiers aren't allowed to consume alcohol in the war zone.)

Germany has only contributed 3,300 soldiers: so if they drink this much it may very well be that it's a good thing that they aren't doing more fighting.

A confession

We're commanded to love everyone, but I have a lot of trouble feeling sorry for

• Gregory McCalium, who tried to rob an elderly man at knifepoint. The elderly man turned out to be a retired boxer and, well, you can guess the rest
• Ruth Madoff, who has been reduced to living on a measly $2,500,000
• Any parent selfish enough let a pet python into their home
• Married men who have "tragic love affairs"
• Anyone who doesn't like Mollie Sugden.

Who am I kidding? I feel sorry for them all.

Hug your family this weekend

Michael Jackson's family is going to charge admission for his memorial service.

Family resemblence

The picture on the left is Moreelse's portrait of Ambrogio Spinola, Marquis of the Balbases and Governor of Milan (1569-1630.)

The picture on the right is Mike Spinola's High School yearbook picture.

Coincidence? I think not.

I won't be eating at Subway any time soon

Subway terminated the lease of a franchise owner who was fighting in Afghanistan, sold it to a Subway insider for $35,000, who then sold it for $135,000.

Apollo Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment ends

On July 20, 1969 two American astronauts stepped onto the moon's surface. They weren't tourists, they went there to do important work. One of their jobs was to place a mirror on the moon, so that scientists on the earth can precisely measure the distance from the earth to the moon using a laser.

For 40 years, the government has been observing the mirrors that were placed on the moon during this period, but alas the government has decided that the cost of the laser ranging (about $125,000 a year) is more than the science produced is worth.

Quote of the day

Dude, if a park ranger warns you about the bears, it ain't cause he's tryin to keep all the bear hugs for himself.

- Questionable Content, via CJ Biro's Facebook page.

Friday morning arts notes

A neat video from the Newark Museum about blowing glass beads in Ghana. (Disclosure: my freshman roommate from college, Tim Wintemberg, is the museum's Director of Exhibition Design.)

Some photos that Aesop would have taken credit for, if he had a camera.

A photo that nobody would want to take credit for.

An essay that I really, really, really think isn't funny.

An exhibition that I'm too busy to go see.

An exhibition that's well worth running the gauntlet of the Frick's rude staff.

Pot meet kettle

From his web site :

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal announced today that he has asked several companies -- packaging, beverage and food manufacturers -- to provide details about an apparent campaign to use fear tactics, political manipulation and misleading marketing to fight regulation of bisphenol A (BPA).

The Attorney General is supposed to uphold the laws of the State, so I suppose that now Mr. Blumenthal thinks that publicly disagreeing with him is unlawful. And if part of whatever suit he brings is that the manufacturers are using "fear tactics" and "political manipulation", is he going to call himself as an expert witness?

(hat tip to Walter Olson.)

Moving registered sex offenders nearer to Columbus School

I went to the Zoning Commission meeting last night. Does anyone read H.P. Lovecraft nowadays?

There are vocal qualities peculiar to men; and vocal qualities peculiar to beasts; and it is terrible to hear the one when the source should yield the other.
- Call of Cthulhu

A foreign country

For the first time in centuries, a common criminal in England is being tried without the right to a jury. The judge (whose name, confusingly, is Judge) explained that

trial by jury is a hallowed principle of the administration of criminal justice. It is properly identified as a right, available to be exercised by a defendant unless and until the right is amended or circumscribed by express legislation.

If a "right" that is available until amended or circumscribed strikes you as oxymoronic, well, that's what you get if you have a living constitution instead of a written one that's taken seriously.

David Letterman decides to act like a man

Finally.

Liked machines machines machines

I saw machines machines machines machines machines machines machines. At long last, a play about real people acting realistically.

Hope for the future

I saw two t-shirts this weekend that gave me hope for the future. I'm not sure why. The first I saw for sale on the street near NYU. It read:

Kim Jong Il is Illin'!

The second was being worn by a teenager in Norwalk:

OK, so I took the road less travelled. Now where am I?

Quote of the day

Always use the proper tool. If the proper tool isn't available, use a hammer.

- Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineer of the Starship Enterprise, as quoted by Charly Kühnast.

You know from the title this happened in New Jersey

Lawyer Reprimanded for Alleged 'Cut You Up' Remark to Adversary's Client

The New Jersey Supreme Court on Tuesday disciplined a lawyer who allegedly told an opposing party, "I'm going to cut you up into bits and pieces, put you into a box and send you to India and your parents won't recognize you."

(Via Overlawyered. The discipline, by the way, seems to have consisted of a written reprimand.)

"The President doesn't negotiate second rounds"

Oh, and anyone who asserts any legal rights is a "terrorist".

Promising start of a marriage

Bride saves family from burning house

Shortly before 5:30 Sunday evening, Clemons, formerly Georgette Fogary, had just been married to Charles Clemons and was being driven from Testo's restaurant where the reception was held when she spotted smoke coming from the Eitelberg's home.

Hanifah Bost, who was driving the car, said Clemons suddenly yelled, "Stop the car, stop the car."

"There was smoke coming from this house and as soon as I stopped the car, Georgette got out in her wedding dress and ran toward the front door." She said Clemons ran through the smoke into the house and she ran after her.

"I don't know what she was thinking, she had just got married," Bost said.

What a way to begin a life together. Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Clemons!

Why my next car is going to be an Acura

From the New York Times:

It is not every 31-year-old who, in a first government job, finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism.

But that, in short, is the job description for Brian Deese, a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant until he took on his nearly unseen role in remaking the American automotive industry

David Bernstein's observation:

It's funny, but just the other day I was telling my wife that I hope the automobile industry's future ... is in the hands of early 30-something political operatives working on law degrees from Yale who have no formal background in business, economics, engineering, or marketing.

Alleged homicidal rapists tip well

Pizza delivery man Chris Turner called the police to report that while delivering an extra-large supreme pizza to a remote mountain cabin, he noticed a woman whose hands were tied together. The police raided the cabin and rescued the woman. Her husband later called Mr. Turner to thank him, and said that his wife was doing well. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution interviewed the driver:

“I was doing my job and being a citizen,” the 32-year-old deliveryman said. “Plus, I got $13 off the delivery. That’s not bad for a half an hour.”

Bad numbers

Only about 27% of the aspiring elementary school math teachers this year in Massachussetts passed the mathematics portion of the state licensing examination. Even scarier, this was the first year that new teachers needed to path the math portion: in previous years, you only needed an overall passing grade.

In other words, if this is a typical year, then 73% of all Mass. elementary school teachers in the field don't know school mathematics.

According to the Boston Globe, Tom Scott, the executive director of the state association of school superintendents, thinks that this is because new teachers aren't getting a good college education:

If you look at transcripts of some applicants for elementary school teaching positions, it's possible you could see a transcript without anything math related. Someone could have last taken a math class in high school.

This is not by any means a difficult test; if my fifth-grade teacher had given to me and I failed, my parents would have been very angry. Ironically though, my fifth-grade teacher probably had a real college degree instead of an "education" degree, so she wouldn't be allowed to teach nowadays anyway.

Most appropriate use of the "F" word ever

http://federalism.typepad.com/crime_federalism/2009/05/most-surreal-experience-of-my-life.html

The Jenny McCarthy Body Count

Derek Bartholomaus has been keeping track of the number of people (mosty children) whom Jenny McCarthy has helped to kill with her advocacy of the anti-vaccination movement. Movin' Meat notes simply that "there is a knowable cost of unimmunized children, in preventable illnesses, and preventable deaths."

Humanitarian of the Year

Christopher DiMeo has reportedly confessed to the cold-blooded murder of the Mr. and Mrs. Donnelly in Fairfield.

In light of this magnanimous gesture, his lawyers are asking the judge to force the prosecutors to drop the death penalty. As they explain:

The defense lawyers claim a guilty plea and a life sentence would end a process that could take an additional 10 to 15 years and cost state taxpayers millions of dollars.

"His guilty plea and sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of release would save Connecticut's taxpayers millions of dollars in desperately needed funds during this time of severe economic crisis in our state and our nation," they state.

What a nice guy!

Self-explanatory headline

Obama White House bars press from press award ceremony

- Los Angeles Times, via Instapundit.

St. Patrick's Day in Ireland

President Obama stopped in Ireland yesterday. From the UK's Sky News:

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was just a few paragraphs into an address in Washington when he realised it all sounded a bit too familiar.

It was. He was repeating the speech President Barack Obama had just read from the same teleprompter.

Mr Cowen stopped, turned to the president and said: "That's your speech."

A laughing Mr Obama returned to the podium to take over but it seems the script had finally been switched and the US president ended up thanking himself for inviting everyone to the party.

Mr Obama is an accomplished orator but is becoming known in America as the "teleprompt president" over his reliance on the machine when he gives a speech.

(via Best of the Web.)

Mendeleev to the max!

The periodic table of awesoments.

Te Deum laudus *

Charles Freeman won't be the next Chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

(* laudus to the real Deus, not to Mr. Obama. What in the world was the President thinking?)

Life imitates Douglas Adams

From Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

Pages one and two had been salvaged by a Damogran Frond Crested Eagle and had already become incorporated into an extraordinary new form of nest which the eagle had invented. It was constructed largely of papier-mache and it was virtually impossible for a newly hatched baby eagle to break out of it. The Damogran Frond Crested Eagle had heard of the notion of survival of the species but wanted no truck with it.

From the Associated Press:

HONG KONG (AP) - Even the magpies are trying to blend in in the metal and concrete jungle that is Hong Kong. News reports said that a pair of common magpies built a nest on a tree in Hong Kong's Tuen Mun district using scrap metal twigs believed to have been collected from a nearby construction site.

The Sunday Morning Post reported the metal nest was discovered after some of the twigs started falling off the tree and hitting pedestrians.

Stubborn as a mule

The new administration is trying to decide whether to allow people to drive mules without a criminal background check.

(Ken at Popehat's observation is that it's all fun and games until someone flies a mule into the Capitol building.)

Kids today

What is it nowadays with kids dressing up as cops? A few weeks ago Lowering the Bar had the story of a 14-year old Chicago boy who dressed up as a police officer and showed up for work.

The boy, who had once been a member of the "Police Explorers" youth club, apparently showed up at a South Side police station wearing a regulation uniform and claiming to be an officer. A police spokeswoman said that a sergeant "later questioned the boy" and discovered he was not what he claimed to be. True, but according to at least one report, "later" turned out to be several hours later, and only after the "rookie" had been assigned a partner and ridden along on a patrol.

Then in Berlin two weeks ago, two children pretending to be paramilitaries were mistaken for thieves at a factory.

And finally, the Austrian Times reports that the police thwarted a ruthless band of teenage desperadoes who were dressing up in police uniforms and stopping motorists for speeding.

The police in Austria seem to be more on-the-ball than the Chicago police: the teens were caught when they stopped an off-duty policeman, who arrested them. (I liked their judge's money line: "I cannot believe anyone believed you were cops. I would have had a laughing fit!" Judges rarely get to make zingers like that except on TV.)

What's going on here? Is there some TV show that featured kids dressing up as policemen that gave teenagers a similar bad idea in three countries at the same time? Or should we blame the parents? I guess if starts happening in Iran, they'll blame Harry Potter.

Quote of the day

Now, here is where having a logic- and math-challenged Congress really begins to hurt.

- Hodak Value

Hamoud Bin Saleh arrested in Saudi Arabia

Our Saudi allies have arrested another hardened criminal, Hamoud Bin Saleh, for the horrible crime of converting to Christianity. He faces torture and then the death penalty. Meanwhile, here is a complete list politically connected Saudis who have been arrested for their financial support of Al Quaeda and Palestinian suicide bombers:

     (crickets chirping)

Alack, alas, alackaday

Among the casualties in Microsoft’s recently announced plan to lay off five thousand employees is the entire team behind Flight Simulator.

- Patrick at Popehat

Note to self

Mustn't put a tube of hydrocortisone cream next to the toothpaste. Mustn't put a tube of hydrocortisone cream next to the toothpaste. Mustn't put a tube of hydrocortisone cream next to the toothpaste ... on the other hand, there has been a pleasant tingly sensation in my mouth all day.

The wheels of justice grind on

The CIA has reportedly killed Fahid Mohammed Ali Msalam and Sheikh Ahmed Salem Swedan in Northern Pakistan, only 7 years, 3 months and 21 days after the crimes of 9/11.

Drew M. at Ace of Spades' headline was: "Two Top Al Qaeda Figures Killed By Vicious New Year's Eve Hangovers And Hellfire Missiles But Mostly Hellfire Missiles."

Current events

From a letter to the Wall Street Journal today by Murray Ross, of Pleasant Hill, California:

I must have dozed off and skipped a page. Our new policy is to sell government bonds to raise cash to give to private equity firms to lend to non-creditworthy borrowers so they can drive new Chevy Suburbans down our crumbling roads and bridges, converting Middle East oil into greenhouse gases at the highest possible rate?

New Year Quote

The academic partiality in recent years for telling multiple stories in preference to the urgent single narrative, whatever its intellectual merits, has deprived beginning students of those coordinates of time and space by which they might take their bearings. After all, a fact unconnected with other facts is no fact at all but a snippet of trivia. It is hardly art history alone that suffers in this respect.

- Michael J. Lewis, from a book review in the New Criterion, December 2008 (p. 14.)

I'll bet he didn't even use a silencer

Annoyed Viewer Shoots Noisy Man in Movie Theater

Merry non-Kwanzaa

Is it just me, or does Kwanzaa seem to come earlier and earlier each year?

- Ann Coulter

Merry Christmas

Wishing you a "tense" Christmas.

Strangeness in Michigan

I confess that I think of Michigan as a place where even the loony left is boring; but two court cases in the news yesterday make me reconsider that prejudice. In the first court case, a harmless nut by the name of Diane Andersen Anderson was jailed for writing a web page that criticized a probate judge:

Twice Monday, [Wayne County Probate Judge David Szymanski] jailed Diane Anderson over the Web site and ordered the site to be “shut down immediately.”

“Yes, I was going to keep her in jail until the Web site was shut down,” Szymanski admitted Wednesday. He said he acted out of frustration with Anderson's argumentative behavior.

(Source: Detroit Free Press)

Judge Szymanski rescinded his order and ordered Ms. Anderson released after some lawyers pointed out that there are laws against locking people up for what they write. According to the Free Press, he said "I may take some lumps for that -- but so be it."

In the (creepily similar) second case, a Baptist minister called Edward Pinkney in Grand Rapids was jailed for quoting the book of Deuteronomy in a way that didn't flatter a state judge:

Judge Butzbaugh, it shall come to pass; if thou continue not to hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe to do all that is right; which I command thee this day, that all these Curses shall come upon you and your family, curses shalt be in the City of St. Joseph and Cursed shalt thou be in the field, cursed shall come upon you and your family and over take thee; cursed shall be the fruit of thy body. The Lord shall smite thee with consumption and with a fever and with an inflammation and with extreme burning. They the demons shall Pursue thee until thou persist.

The quote is from a rag called the "People's Tribune", and Rev. Edward Pinkney is such a flake that he was only able to garner 1% of the vote in a Green Party primary. The gist of his story in the People's Tribune was that Judge Butzbaugh allowed a series of unlawful things to go on in his courtroom during Rev. Pinkey's trial. His most incredible accusations were that he was tried without even being arraigned; that he was convicted after a secret trial; and that a juror claimed to be a witness to one of the accused 's attorneys committing a crime in the parking lot of the court!

Normally if you heard accusations like this from a source like Rev. Pinkney in a paper like the People's Tribune you'd roll your eyes and ignore them. But now it's reasonable to wonder whether there's anything to his accusations. (At least, I so wonder. The reporter doesn't seem interested enough in Rev. Pinkney's allegations to tell us the back story.) What's going on in Michigan?

The House that Jack Built, part 2

FourthAmmendment.com gives a summary of the curious law case of Frohner v. City of Wildwood, 2008. According to the New Jersey Public Safety Officers Law Blog:

The lawsuit asserted numerous claims arising out of the arrest and handcuffing of plaintiff, an undercover FBI agent, by defendants, local police officers. Defendants suspected plaintiff was a motorcyclist impersonating an FBI agent.

FourthAmmendment.com's headline: "Irony of the Year Award: FBI undercover agent sues for false arrest while working undercover for impersonating an FBI agent".

Women in politics

From the Washington Post's Al Karmen: "Incoming Obama administration director of speechwriting Jon Favreau (L) and a friend pose with a cardboard cutout of incoming Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a party."

(Note to self: if were Sarah Palin instead, would the Post have even cared? Is it any wonder that women quit politics?)

Say it with pictures!

BoingBoing points out that the recent bank bailout has cost more (much more) than the most heroic government projects in our history. Wade at Voltage Creative, a marketing company, has put BoingBoing's numbers into pictures:


(Click to make the image bigger. I'm not endorsing BoingBoing's inflation-adjusted numbers. I don't know where they came from. But it's instructive to see that a marketing guru knew just how to present this data for maximum effect.)

What every defendant wants to hear from his prosecutor

We need to stop pointing fingers about things that are in the past that are out of our control.

- Tracey Cline. Ms. Cline is Durham, North Carolina's new District Attorney.

Cut-and-paste, or pride-and-prejudice

When I was in high school I did a one-week summer program at West Point. They had these nifty graphical X-terminals that used these new-fangled things called "mice". You painted over the text with the mouse and then you could cut text and paste it somewhere. I thought that was really neat.

Later, in college, I had an account on one computer and I could telnet or ftp into other computers in different rooms or cities. I thought this was really neat.

A few years ago I was at a trade fair and saw a program called VMWare, that lets you easily run a virtual computer inside another operating system. I thought that was really neat.

Yesterday I needed some emergency dental work, so now I'm rushing to get some projects done before the weekend. I need to cut-and-paste a lot of text between two pieces of mathematical software. One application is on a remote machine that I can only get to on my MacBook via Windows Remote Desktop running under XP running under Parallels running on my MacBook. The other application is on a remote Mac that I can only use via Mac Screen Sharing. It is running under XP on that Mac using VMWare. Every time I cut-and-paste the data it disappears. I suspect that some scientist in Mongolia is trying to figure out why my model data is appearing on his desktop. I don't think this is neat at all.

The sex life of computer scientists

According to Counterpoint Magazine, researchers have found that 83% if all Wellesley mathematics majors are virgins, but only 40% of all CS majors are. (Study: IQ Linked to Virginity.)

Who people are voting for and why (guest post)

From Lisa Archer:

I'm voting the opposite of my brother just to make him mad.


(Note from Jeff Hall: this woman's brother must have the patience of a saint.)

Who people are voting for and why (guest post)

From Ronald Corcillo:

I'm voting for Barack Obama because I make less than $200,000 a year and he wants to cut my taxes.

Oh, he's also the only candidate who's pledged to capture Osama Bin Laden, the guy who killed 3,000 Americans (including my best friend from college) over 7 years ago but has somehow been ignored by George W. Bush.

The Republicans continue to try the "If you can't make an argument, attack the plaintiff" approach. But for once, people aren't falling for the trumped-up personal attacks. People are actually voting based on the issues - and that spells a lot of trouble for the Republicans.

Election eve

In a few hours, barring another 2000 or 1876, we can all stop worrying whether John McCain has cancer or whether Barack Obama is going to surrender to al Quaeda. And of course even if your worst nightmare about either of these two men were true, the Republic would still survive and prosper. We have designed our Constitution so that the Executive branch is unitary, but surprisingly weak, and that's the way most people like it.

America in 2012 is probably going to look much the same whether President McCain or President Obama is running for reelection. They are both pretty smart, and our country is a big place that can mostly look out for itself.

But that doesn't mean that the character of the intervening four years aren't going to matter to us at the time. My greatest worry isn't that a President Obama would raise taxes or let Iran get the bomb or give his interesting Chicago associates government jobs. My worry is simply that he has demonstrated no respect for liberty, and has surrounded himself with people with no respect for dissent. Am I worried for nothing? Ah ...

• At the end of the longest and most expensive election in history, his campaign takes time out to persecute a small businesswoman for expressing a dissenting opinion.
• His operatives and allies go all out to publicly trash the reputation of a working-class Joe whose only crime was to ask Sen. Obama an unscripted question.
  
• When Joe Wurzelbacher refused to repent his sins, his campaign illegally searched government records in an attempt to find dirt on him.
• When Gov. Palin was nominated for Vice President, his prominent supporters claimed that her baby was actually her daughter's child. When it was revealed that this is impossible, since her daughter was herself pregnant, his prominent supporters launched on of the most vicious series of attacks in our nation's history on this innocent 17 year-old girl. (Even at the darkest moments of the 2000 election recount, could you have imagined that the liberal elite would ever countenance -- laugh at! -- vagina jokes about a Republican candidate's teenager daughter on network TV?)
  Sen. Obama has rightly distanced himself from these outrageous attacks on the baby and the teenager, but he hasn't publicly scolded or condemned Andrew Sullivan, Conan O'Brien any of the childrens' attackers by name.
• His lawyers have threatened legal action against the NRA for running ads that disagree with his characterization of his positions. (If John McCain did this to NOW or ACORN, his own supporters would threaten to abandon him. For that matter, I'd like to think that if Al Gore tried to muzzle his critics with legal threats, his supporters would have abandoned him too. We just don't do this sort of thing in America, do we?)
• In Missouri, Democratic Sheriffs threatened to arrest anyone who lies about Obama. (They later said that they had been misunderstood. Of course it was silly of the public to take them seriously. It's not like the power of arrest is anything to worry about nowadays, right?)
• He's kicked journalists off of his campaign plane who come from papers who don't show any loyalty to him.
  
• More generally, he seems to have a Nixonian ability to take simple criticism personally.

Summing up, my biggest worry is that the fawning personality cult around him goes considerable trouble to discredit and punish anyone who does not support him. Of course, he can't be blamed for what other people do, and good politicians are supposed to try to be popular. But, like Vladimir Putin, at the very least he does nothing to discourage his cult's excesses.

Obama Warns He May Cease To Exist Unless America Believes In Him

INDIANAPOLIS—Unless citizens throughout America keep him in their thoughts, say his name to themselves over and over, and otherwise believe in him with all their might, Barack Obama may cease to exist, the candidate warned supporters Thursday.

"My fellow Americans, I am currently very strong and very, very real," Sen. Obama told a cheering crowd of 12,000 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. "Even here in Hoosier country, a traditional Republican stronghold, your faith has kept me from growing faint, becoming transparent, and slowly fading from view."

"But please, don't stop now," Obama added. "Unless you continue to believe in me, I'll completely disappear. You have to keep me in your thoughts at all times!"

- The Onion, via Overlawyered.com

Tolerating dissent takes practice

If McCain did this, it would be front-page news:

Journalists from three major newspapers that endorsed John McCain have been booted from Barack Obama’s campaign plane for the final leg of the presidential race.

- Fox News, quoted by Michelle Malkin. The papers banned from the plane are the Washington Times, the New York Post and Dallas Morning News.

Sign of the times

Susan Shea-Gerson of 75 Dingletown Road [in Greenwich] has responded to the recent theft of a McCain-Palin sign from her property with a new one - plus an original sign of her own.

"On 10/22 Obama supporters trespassed on my property and stole my McCain-Palin sign violating my 1st Amendment right to free speech," reads her white sign with block red letters. "Do it again and you will find out what the 2nd Amendment is all about."

- Colleen Flaherty in the Stamford Advocate

Cry, beloved country

New York Times Reporter Trolling 16-Year-Olds On Facebook For Dirt On Cindy McCain

Self-explanatory headline

Obama Campaign Angered by McCain's 'Sense of Humor' Comment

George W. Bush finally leaves the Republican party

Christine Arguello has been nominated as a Federal Judge.

Court grants custody of Christian girls to Muslim kidnappers

I first read about this story at Jihad Watch:

ISTANBUL, July 18 (Compass Direct News) – A Pakistani couple has appealed a court decision to award custody of their two daughters, 10 and 13, to the children’s alleged kidnappers. The court based its custody decision on the girls’ conversion to Islam.

Judge Main Naeem Sardar ruled Saturday (July 12) that Saba Masih, 13, and Aneela Masih, 10, had become Muslims, invalidating their Christian parents’ right to legal guardianship.

There are hundreds of stories like this in the press every year, but they rarely make the major newspapers or TV. If any Chrisitian country anywhere did this to a Muslim family, don't you think'd make the front page of the New York Times? (Together with a snotty editorial about how this is what happens when churches interfere with politics.)

Quote of the day

Je veux d'abord rendre grâce à Dieu et aux soldats de Colombie

- Ingrid Betancourt

Seal of approval

Yourct.com has an interesting observation about the spiffy new bike rack at the East Norwalk train station:

As with most simple things involving public/governmental property it took the efforts of a dedicated biker, Steve Rappaport, the Norwalk Parking Authority, the CT DOT, DPW, Mayor Moccia, State Senator Bob Duff and State Rep Chris Perone. I hear a seal from the Maritime Aquarium may have been involved, but it may only be a rumor.

Thought of the day

I just saw Speed Racer. I want a girlfriend who can fly a helicopter.

Quote of the day

... once again a Clinton is making us turn off the television in case the children walk by.

-Peggy Noonan

You have the right to an attorney

Just when you thought that the Dr. Ian Rubins manslaughter case couldn't get any wierder, Mr. Bajramaj's lawyer proves you wrong:

Norwalk Advocate: Bajramaj's attorney, Darnell Crosland, has said the charges should be dismissed and the bond lowered to zero. Crosland cited an episode of the TV show "Law & Order" and another manslaughter case in Stamford in which defendants faced lower bonds than Bajramaj.

Quote of the Day

It's easy to have high self-esteem -- just aim low.

- Albert Bandura

Creepy quote of the day

... the overall presence of strong governmental control is healthy and should improve operational efficiency of the Games.

- 2001 Report of the IOC Evaluation Committee on Beijing. The committee was evaluating whether holding the Olympics in a communist dictatorship was a good idea. (Dominic Lawson. Mr. Lawson notes that "China and the Olympics are made for each other ... A super-sized portion of hardened commercialism, marinated in whipped-up nationalism and topped off with obsessive media control.")

Government of the people, by the people, and for the people ...

... seems so passé in Connecticut. The State Commission on Human Rights has ruled in favor of its investigator's report that anti-discrimination laws prevent the city from requiring timed exams ... on fireman exams. From the Stamford Advocate:

STAMFORD - The city discriminated against a firefighter with a learning disability by denying him extra time on a promotional test and it must be trained in disability law, state human rights officials ruled.

The state's Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities ruled the city violated anti-discrimination law by denying extra time to David Lenotti, a fire lieutenant with attention deficit disorder.

The city defended the denial by claiming a fire captain, the position Lenotti sought, must be able to read and process information quickly at a fire scene. But state officials said the city never proved that was true, never consulted with disability rights experts and does not use a promotional test that actually measures how fast a candidate can read.

"It's a very nice victory," Lenotti said. "The city has basically been shown they can't just push people around."

So Mr. Lenotti has a right to a job for which I (and his superiors) think that he is clearly unqualified, and innocent victims of fires have a right to look like this if he is unable to make decisions quickly enough in a fire emergency.

Art and the law

In New Mexico, photography has been ruled to be a commercial enterprise, and thus ineligible for protection under that pesky 1st ammendment to the Constitution.

Photographers Denied
the Freedom To Choose What They Photograph:

Elaine Huguenin co-owns Elane Photography with her husband. The bulk of Elane's work is done by Elaine, though she subcontracts some of the work some of the time. Elane refused to photograph Vanessa Willock's same-sex commitment ceremonies, and just today the New Mexico Human Rights Commission held that this violated state antidiscrimination law. Elane has been ordered to pay over $6600 in attorney's fees and costs.

(From Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy.)

Quote of the day

... if the presumptive Republican nominee can survive five years in prisoner-of-war camps, then surely the Democratic nominee can survive five more months of opposition on the campaign trail.

-Nicole Crosby, letter to the Norwalk Advocate.

This is so unbelievably cool I want to explode

The Great Vowel Shift.

Cindy Shaheen trying to hassle military recuiters ...

... and failing it seems.

(From Little Green Footballs.)

Quote of the day

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to
answer "Present" or "Not Guilty."

-Theodore Roosevelt

Just don't question their patriotism, OK?

From the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, via the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler:

A national tour featuring decorated veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan won't be stopping at Forest Lake Area High School today as planned, after school leaders abruptly canceled the visit.

Steve Massey, the school principal, said the decision to cancel was prompted by concerns that the event was becoming political rather than educational and therefore was not suitable for a public school.

He said the school had received several phone calls from parents and others, some of whom indicated that they may stage a protest if the event took place.

To paraprhase Charlie Brown, "AAAaaaaaaaargh!" I can understand people disagreeing with the war, but are censorship and expressions of contempt for American war veterans really the most productive way to get their point across?

But maybe they are getting their point across. Maybe these people honestly think that American soldiers are evil, and that anyone who disagrees with them is evil, and they think that being courteous to war veterans is teaching students to respect evil.

And maybe that's not the lesson that some teenagers need to learn.

Unfortunate quote of the day

[Former Governor Andrew] Young also quipped that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has her husband behind her, and that 'Bill is every bit as black as Barack.'

'He's probably gone with more black women than Barack,' Young said of former President Clinton, drawing laughter from a live television audience. Young, 75, was quick to follow his comment on Bill Clinton with the disclaimer, 'I'm clowning.'

- Associated Press story, from Mary Mitchell's blog.

Quote of the day

Please avoid anything morbid or grotesque in the display of the dead midget lying under the table.

- 1966 NBC memo about a script for the sitcom "Get Smart" (Wall Street Journal, How Maxwell Smart and His Shoe-Phone Changed TV, March 21, 2008)

With apologies ...

A tasteless but thought-provoking take on our nation's anti-terrorism policies, and an even more tasteless (and mildly obscene) take on the subprime mortgage crisis.

Heartbreaking graffiti in Zimbabwe

Book banning at Indiana / Purdue

From the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)

In a stunning series of events at Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Keith Sampson, a university employee and student, has been charged with racial harassment for reading a book during his work breaks.

Sampson is in his early fifties, does janitorial work for the campus facility services at IUPUI, and is ten credits shy of a degree in communication studies. He is also an avid reader who usually brings books with him to work so that he can read in the break room when he is not on the clock. Last year, he began reading a book entitled Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan. The book, which has garnered great reviews in such places as The Indiana Magazine of History and Notre Dame Magazine, discusses the events surrounding two days in May 1924, when a group of Notre Dame students got into a street fight in South Bend with members of the Ku Klux Klan. As an historical account of the students' response in the face of anti-Catholic prejudice, the book would seem to be a relevant and worthwhile read, both for residents of the state of Indiana and for anyone interested in this chapter of American history.

But others at IUPUI clearly did not see it that way. First, a shop steward told Sampson that reading a book about the KKK was like bringing pornography to work (apparently this holds true in his eyes regardless of the context in which a book discusses the KKK, the position it takes, and so on).

The university banned Mr. Sampson from reading this book inthe presence of others after a far hearing. At least we have to assume that the hearing was fair; as it turns out Mr. Sampson wasn't invited to it:

Despite his not being given a chance to defend himself, he subsequently received a letter from Lillian Charleston of the AAO, dated November 25, 2007, informing him that AAO had completed its investigation of the matter. The letter stated,

You demonstrated disdain and insensitivity to your coworkers who repeatedly requested that you refrain from reading the book which has such an inflammatory and offensive topic in their presence...you used extremely poor judgment by insisting on openly reading the book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject in the presence of your Black coworkers.

Ajzar Majeed, who wrote this piece for the FIRE's blog The Torch, compares Mr. Sampson's plight with the bizarre story of Jihad Daniel at William Patterson University.

Dueling CIA's

Gabriel Schoenfeld reports that the Central Intelligence Agency announced this week that it hired a new Head Chef ... 4 years ago.

“Culinary Delights Soar to New Heights at CIA Thanks to Head Chef” – is the headline of a new CIA press release.

The head chef in question is Fred DeFilippo, a 1992 graduate of the other CIA, the Culinary Institute of America. At Langley, DeFillippo works with a special intelligence unit:

Four other chefs assist DeFilippo and spread out the work between the sauté, grill, and pantry stations. The sauté chef handles pasta and vegetable dishes, the grill chef prepares meat dishes, and the pantry chef crafts delicious salads and sandwiches.

This is all very interesting and important, but there is still a question about it: Why is the agency circulating old news? The same press release acknowledges that DeFilippo “has been making a splash with dishes like his Chocolate Tiramisu since he began cooking for the agency in 2004.”

The timing of this announcement is thus curious. DeFillippo was appointed in the George Tenet era. Tenet’s parents owned a Greek diner in Queens, New York. Is there some sort of one-upsmanship going on between the current CIA director, Michael Hayden, and his failure of a predecessor?

Whatever the answer, life in Langley sure beats searching for terrorists and/or a meal of curried goat in the backstreets of places like Peshawar.

Or maybe someone in the CIA Office of Public Affairs is sending coded messages to someone in Pakistan. Still a nice gig though.

Free speech isn't free. It's not even cheap

From the Massachusetts Eagle-Tribune, a story about the Lawrence, MA police:

LAWRENCE — They were real looking enough. Three wooden plaques each embossed with a gold police shield, a small gun piece and each engraved with an officer's name.

But these "plaques" sent to the police department Sunday were no awards. They came from a bogus address in Puerto Rico, supposedly sent from a former assistant district attorney and were in recognition for the officers being "corrupt." They were dated "9-11-2007."

As first reported on The Eagle-Tribune's Web site eagletribune.com yesterday, police Chief John Romero has launched an investigation into who sent the packages. He said police are contemplating criminal charges, possibly at the federal level. Police yesterday dusted the plaques for fingerprints. Romero was one of the recipients of the so-called award.

Lawrence police also notified the postal inspector in Boston. The sender could face federal charges for using the U.S. Postal Service "to threaten, harass or intimidate," Romero said.

So let's see if I've got this story straight. An anonymous citizen accused the police in this town of being corrupt, and the police reacted by abusing their authority and using official resources to silence him or her.

Now Norwalk's had more than its share of police scandals recently, but it's stories like this that should make us thankful for the honest and overworked men and women who make up the bulk of our police force.

Great book review

From Mark Steyn's review of Thomas Riis' book Frank Loesser, (volume 5 in the Yale Broadway Masters Series.)

Frank Loesser isn't as famous a songwriter as Irving Berlin or Cole Porter, but, unlike them, he's apparently responsible for this whole clash-of- civilizations thing. A few decades back, a young middle-class Egyptian spending some time in the U.S. had the misfortune to be invited to a dance one weekend and was horrified at what he witnessed:

"The room convulsed with the feverish music from the gramophone. Dancing naked legs filled the hall, arms draped around the waists, chests met chests, lips met lips . . ."

Where was this den of debauchery? Studio 54 in the 1970s? Haight-Ashbury in the summer of love? No, the throbbing pulsating sewer of sin was Greeley, Colo., in 1949. As it happens, Greeley, Colo., in 1949 was a dry town. The dance was a church social. And the feverish music was "Baby, It's Cold Outside," written by Frank Loesser and sung by Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban in the film "Neptune's Daughter." Revolted by the experience, Sayyid Qutb decided that America (and modernity in general) was an abomination, returned to Egypt, became the leading intellectual muscle in the Muslim Brotherhood, and set off a chain that led from Qutb to Zawahiri to bin Laden to the Hindu Kush to the Balkans to 9/11.

I'm a reasonable chap, and I'd be willing to meet the Islamists halfway on a lot of the peripheral stuff like burqas for women, nuking the Zionists, beheading the sodomites and whatnot. But you'll have to pry "Baby, It's Cold Outside" from my cold dead hands and my dancing naked legs. A world without Frank Loesser and "Baby, It's Cold Outside" would be very cold indeed.

Don't you wish that you could write like that?

Happy President's Day

Happy Valentine's Day

Too evil for words indeed

From Best of the Web Today

Too Evil For Words:

From London's Times:

The acting director of a Baghdad psychiatric hospital has been arrested on suspicion of supplying al-Qaeda in Iraq with the mentally impaired women that it used to blow up two crowded animal markets in the city on February 1, killing about 100 people.

Iraqi security forces and US soldiers arrested the man at al-Rashad hospital in east Baghdad on Sunday. They then spent three hours searching his office and removing records. Sources told The Times that the two women bombers had been treated at the hospital in the past.

"They [the security forces] arrested the acting director, accusing him of working with al-Qaeda and recruiting mentally ill women and using them in suicide bombing operations," a hospital official said.

Read that again: The head of a mental hospital (allegedly) provided women under his care to al Qaeda to use as human bombs, for the purpose of murdering as many innocent people as possible. We are at a loss for words to characterize the depth of this evil.

It makes you wonder about the folks who condemn America with such self-righteous zeal over morally ambiguous practices like "waterboarding" terrorists or even generally accepted practices such as holding enemy combatants for the duration of wartime. One suspects that they do so primarily out of fear--in order to close their minds to the contemplation of true evil.

Man attempts suicide, foiled by nearby prayer meeting

Answered prayers: Suicidal man persuaded to live
By Sherri Williams
The Columbus Dispatch

When an Ohio University employee decided to end his life Friday, students turned to the power of prayer and the pen to save him. It worked.

About 15 students were at a weekly religious gathering at Galbreath Chapel when they heard that a man was threatening to jump from a ledge on the fifth floor inside the student union.

They didn't know the man but prayed for him, first at the chapel and then outside the Baker University Center, the hub of campus life at the school in Athens. Eventually about 50 people were gathered there.

A freshman met the man before he climbed out on the ledge.

He walked up to her and told her to leave the center because a lot of police soon would be in the building, she said.

She found it odd but already was heading to the chapel for the Praise God It's Friday gathering, which is sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ.

"She found it odd, but ... ." I predict a brilliant career as an absent-minded professor for this woman!

Some of the letters that students at the prayer meeting wrote to the troubled man were posted by the reporter.

(Source: The Columbus Dispatch, Inside Higher Education.)

A capital ship for an ocean trip

PhysX has done a techno version of The Walloping Window Blind

Then blow, ye winds, heigh-ho! A-rovin' I will go!
I'll stay no more on England's shore, so let the music roar!
I'm off for the mornin' train! I'll cross the raging main!
I'm off to the sea, it's the place for me; And there I'm going t'stay!

Quote of the day

If you forced an al Qaeda terrorist to diagram that sentence, Democrats in Congress would accuse you of torture.

- James Taranto, Best of the Web (refering to a sentence in Baltimore Sun article by reporter Justin Fenton.)

Just say no.

Mao and man at Yale

Volokh links to a very well-written article in the Yale Daily News about a bizarre   frightening controversial lawsuit against John Yoo. This lawsuit was brought by a Yale lecturer on behalf of convicted terrorist Jose Padilla against Yoo, who is a Yale alumnus.

Now one way to tell good journalism from bad journalism is this: bad journalism leaves you with unanswered questions at the end of the piece, but good journalism gives you insights that you weren't expecting. With this in mind, consider the following creepy insightful quote in the YDN article from law school dean Harold Koh:

This is a place where a thousand flowers bloom

"Let a thousand flowers bloom" is of course an infamous quote from Mao Zsedong.

Now I'm sure that it wasn't Dean Koh's intention, when he set forth to justify the harassment of a Yale alumni on behalf of someone convicted of conspiring with mass murderers, to set himself on the side of one of history's worst mass murderers.

But the YDN reporter put him on the spot and he revealed more perhaps than he intended to.

Has anyone seen a tooth?

That rascally varmint, the Tooth Fairy, staged a daring raid on my nephew Tom's mouth:

Gun control

I used to think that the appalling case of Tony Martin was the lowest that a democratic government could stoop to when it goes down the slippery slope of limiting an individual's right to defend himself. But, gosh, I was wrong:

Pantomime gun must be registered
A Cornish village drama group has had to register a toy gun with the police to comply with health and safety rules.

Carnon Downs drama group in Cornwall have also had to keep their plastic cutlasses and wooden swords locked up for the pantomime, Robinson Crusoe.

Producers of the show called the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) rules "farcical".

A spokesman for the HSE said the rules were designed to make risks "sensibly managed".

The climax of the show is a fight in which actors use replica 4ft long plastic cutlasses.

There is also a toy gun which produces a flag saying "Bang".

...

Neighbourhood beat officer Pc Nigel Hyde said: "We have been informed and made a note.

"It seems a bit unusual but other forms of replica weapons have been used to carry out crimes and the consequences have been serious."

A spokesman for the HSE said: "We do not want to stop people putting on pantos or having fun as long as the risks are sensibly managed."

I don't want to even think about how these risks might be insensibly managed. But here's what I do want to know: if some punks break into an Englishman's home and he defends himself with a toy gun that produces a "Bang" flag, what are the criminal penalties? Does the poor slob get locked up in a cardboard box labeled "Prison" in magic marker?

11 months, 5 days and a few hours till Christmas

The death of Bobby Fischer at the ironically young age of 64 really killed my post-Christmas high.

If it did yours too, I suggest getting a quick cheezy Christmas fix.

European press looks at the Nevada elections

The European Jewish Press has a report that some Nevadans are angry that the Democratic Caucaus is being held on a Saturday:

Jewish groups and some Seventh-Day Adventists have both complained that followers will be frozen out of the Democratic and Republican caucuses because they take place on the Sabbath.

"To schedule these caucuses with no consideration whatsoever for the needs of Sabbath observers effectively disenfranchises a growing portion of the electorate," said American Jewish Committee counsel Jeffrey Sinensky.

Sinensky said in a statement that because there were no provision for submitting absentee ballots, anyone observing a Saturday Sabbath would not be able to take part in the caucuses.

The party big-shots seem less than interested in all of this whining:

"Scheduling the caucuses on Sabbath morning marginalizes both the Seventh Day Adventist Christian and Orthodox Jewish Communities," said James Standish, an associate director of the Adventist Church.

"In an election that is being decided on thin margins, selecting a time that excludes thousands of voters may even change the outcome," he added.

Nevada Democratic officials have disputed the lawsuit’s claims, pointing out that the voting process had been approved by the Democratic National Committee as long ago as May last year.

The obvious thing that 90% of the people reading the last paragraph will ask is: "Well, didn't the Lord command the Jews to keep the Sabbath even earlier than May last year?" Certainly this is what I thought. But I was being unfair: to many of the people who organize caucuses, I'm sure that last May seems unbelievably remote, and 3,000 years is just a meaningless stretch of time.

And let's face facts. Maybe anyone who would rather obey a direct command from the Almighty than a decision approved by the Democratic National Committee doesn't belong in the Democratic party anyway.

Quote of the day

On the day that the last of the 9/11 hijackers entered the United States, many of the CIA’s officers weren’t at their desks, because they were putting together a quilt to celebrate “Diversity Awareness Day.”

- Mark Riebling, in a City Journal review of Tim Weiner’s book Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.

Carl Warner

Carl Warner is a London artist who likes to play with food.

Officer Callahan resigns

Officer Callahan has resigned, "after thinking and soul-searching and conversation with his family." (According to his attorney John Gulash , in the Norwalk Advocate.) Presumably this will also help him prepare for his legal difficulties involving drinking, gunplay and a stranger in a men's room in Newtown in June. In his Advocate story, John Nickerson gives a nice summary of his legal odyssey thus far:

He was suspended for three months in 2002 after he was arrested in Bridgeport and charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.

In that incident, the person who called police followed Callahan, who turned down a dead-end street. The person told police that when Callahan stopped at the end of a street, he identified himself as a police officer and pointed a weapon at him, according to Callahan's arrest affidavit in the Newtown bar incident.

More recently, Callahan was fired by [Chief of Police] Rilling in October 2005 after an internal investigation determined that he improperly took a 4-by-4-inch skull fragment from the scene of a fatal 2005 Memorial Day weekend accident.

Callahan reportedly bragged that he wanted to use the skull fragment as an ashtray.

The state Board of Mediation and Arbitration concluded that Callahan's handling of the body part was "negligent" and "offensive."

But the panel supported the police union's contention that the skull fragment was not important evidence in the accident investigation and that Callahan had been disciplined excessively.

Let's suppose that Mr. Callahan is a much maligned man, and that all of the facts that he has ever alleged in every court and legal forum are completely true. Even if this were the case, has it really served society at all to have a policeman with a gun and badge out on the streets against the will of his commanders and fellow citizens? Democracy and due process shouldn't be enemies, should they?

Selling Books

A friend of mine, Carolyn Mansager, just sold a bunch of books online to Cash4Books. You mail them your books, and they mail you a check. She said that she liked it, so I might give it a try too. (Truth-in-advertising: if you clink on the link above and then sell your books, Carolyn gets a small referral fee.)

If this guy sues you, I'd advise you to settle

Lawyer Attacks Pit Bulls, Saves Woman

When Paul Geller spotted two pit bulls attacking a pregnant woman walking her small dog in Delray Beach, Fla., this past weekend, he didn't hesitate.

Pulling over to the side of the road, the 39-year-old plaintiffs securities litigator warned his 8-year-old son not to try this himself and then leaped out of his BMW and attacked the two dogs and drove them away, according to the Wall Street Journal law blog.

Geller had perhaps unique credentials for the fray: He is the partner in charge of the Boca Raton office of Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins. Plus, he is a practitioner of jujitsu, a weaponless Japanese martial art that is defined by Merriam Webster as "employing holds, throws, and paralyzing blows to subdue or disable an opponent."

An adrenaline rush helped, Geller told the Journal. He said he kicked and barked orders at the most aggressive dog, and both animals ran away. “In the course of litigation, there’s no doubt that you get adrenaline rushes from time to time,” he says, “but nothing like this. ... The woman was on the ground and one of the pit bulls was on top of her. Blood was everywhere.”

Why we fight and how we are winning

Spiegel magazine, one of our country's worst critics, went to Iraq and discovered -- to their surprise -- that we seem to be winning:

Army Units of the 1st Battalion of the 77th United States Armored Regiment -- nicknamed the "Steel Tigers" and sent from an American base in Schweinfurt, Germany -- approached from the north and south. But the enemy was strong and they quickly realized that in order to defeat it, they needed air support. Before long, Apache combat helicopters, F-18 Hornet and AV-8 Harrier jets approached, the explosions from their guns lighting up the night sky on June 30.

The "Battle of Donkey Island," named after the wild donkeys native to the region, lasted 23 hours. The Americans forced the enemy to engage in trench warfare in the rough brush, eventually trapping them in the vast riverside landscape. It wasn't until later, after the soldiers lost two of their own and killed 35 terrorists, that they realized the scope of the disaster they had foiled.

Three of the captured attackers, who claimed to be members of al-Qaida in Iraq, revealed their plan to plunge Ramadi into chaos once again by staging multiple attacks in broad daylight. By unleashing a devastating series of suicide attacks on the city, they hoped to destroy the delicate peace in Ramadi and bring the war back to its markets, squares, streets and residential neighborhoods.

...

Ramadi is an irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq -- it is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe. Ramadi demonstrates that large parts of Iraq -- not just Anbar Province, but also many other rural areas along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers -- are essentially pacified today. This is news the world doesn't hear: Ramadi, long a hotbed of unrest, a city that once formed the southwestern tip of the notorious "Sunni Triangle," is now telling a different story, a story of Americans who came here as liberators, became hated occupiers and are now the protectors of Iraqi reconstruction.

In case you've forgotten the sort of thing that we are fighting against, here is a reminder:

It is early dawn as seven young men are led to the gallows amid shouts of "Allah Akbar" (Allah is the greatest) from a crowd of bearded men as a handful of women, all in hijab, ululate to a high pitch. A few minutes later, the seven are hanged as a mullah shouts: "Alhamd li-Allah" (Praise be to Allah).

The scene was Wednesday in Mashad, Iran's second most populous city, where a crackdown against "anti-Islam hooligans" has been under way for weeks.

Here is another:

Iranian authorities in Tehran lashed a man on his back earlier this year for having a bible in his car, an Iranian Christian group said in a report on its website on Friday.

The man was only identified by the initials A. Sh.

On 5 May, the man, driving his vehicle, was involved in a road accident with a car belonging to security guards for a government official in Tehran.

A bible and a video of Jesus Christ were found in the man's possession upon inspection of his vehicle by the state security forces (SSF).

Congress bickers over ... renovations to the House gym

From The Hill: Pelosi arm-wrestles over cash for the House gym

After dueling with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) to pass a renewable energy bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) faces a wrestling match with another rogue chairman. And this one can bench-press 265 pounds.

Pelosi is set to square off against Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), the power-lifting chairman of the House gym committee.

Abercrombie is touting his efforts to secure funding in the legislative branch spending bill to begin an estimated $8 million renovation of the House gym. The project is personally important to Abercrombie, who sets a yearly goal to bench-press 200 pounds more than his age, now 69.

Pelosi and other Democratic leaders are not eager for a multimillion-dollar renovation of the congressional members-only gym to be one of the first accomplishments of the Democratic majority.

Well, they've been collecting salaries for 8 months already without a single major accomplishment. At least a new gym would be something.

Lenore Boles, 1929-2007

From dadtalk.typepad.com

An English Magistrate

When I was a teenager, I was a big John Mortimer fan. So I loved reading this English Magistrate's blog. Here, for example, is his reaction to the news that Texas' prosecutors are now allowed to carry guns in the courtroom:

Prosecutors in parts of the USA are, it seems, to be allowed to go into court armed (or 'tooled up' as they say on my patch).
The idea of knowingly allowing weapons to be taken into court is stupid enough; but by prosecutors? Most of the [prosecutors] I deal with are people I would not trust to feed my goldfish, even if I had any goldfish. If they turn up in my court packing heat - I'm going to look for something - anything - safer to do in my spare time..

A real Army and Navy store

This place looks so neat....

Jolly Islamic Innkeepers

The Times of London reports that BBC reporter Alan Johnston's kidnappers are annoyed that he hasn't been more grateful for their hospitality:

THE mastermind behind the kidnapping of Alan Johnston, the BBC correspondent, is an experienced terrorist who fought with Al-Qaeda alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan.
...
“We used to give him everything he wanted,” Abu Zobayer, an aide to Dagmoush, said.

“We spent £70 on his food every week. The Matouk restaurant [one of the best eateries in Gaza] got rich because we had to feed him ... We had people with him all the time to try to help him to relax”

I'm no expert, but I imagine that Muslims believe that lying is a sin, like murder and suicide, so I guess Mr. Abu is telling the truth. Otherwise, one might suppose there was some other reason why they had someone with Alan Johnston all the time.

Betsy from Betsy's Page commiserates with the Palestinians:

How rude of him not to appreciate all that the kindnappers were doing for him.

Man arrested for giving away Bibles near school

In Key West, authorities have prohibited a man "from peacefully handing out Bibles on a public sidewalk within 500 feet of any school in the entire State."

He and his co-conspirator are member's of the Gideon society, and are being defended by the Alliance Defense Fund. Here are the facts according to their lawyers:

Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Friday on behalf of a member of Gideons International threatened with arrest for distributing Bibles on a public sidewalk. A Monroe County sheriff’s officer told Thomas Gray, along with several other members of the Gideons, that he had “no right” to be within 500 feet of a public school’s property.

So, at the same time that we apparently have al-Quaeda doctors trying to get into the United States in order to kill infidels, in Democrat-controlled cities authorities are trying to suppress ... the Gideons. Just a few years ago, when al-Quaeda was sneaking terror cells into the United States for the Sept 11 attacks, the Democrats in New Jersey and California were busy trying bring the full machinery of the state against .... the Boy Scouts!

Halloween comes early this year

Never mind the work of Alfred Hitchcock. Never mind "An American Werewolf in London". Never mind the fiction of my partial namesake Edgar Allan Poe. If you feel like being terrified tonight, read this one-paragraph classified email from an FBI intelligence analyst; and remember that your government is what stands between you and Al-Quaeda.

Paris Hilton and the progression of western art

I sent the following story to a friend, and told her that politics couldn't get any sillier:

When Barack Obama arrived this week for a campaign fundraiser at a Virginia art gallery, one large painting was covered by a curtain and another had been removed entirely before the Democrat's arrival. Obama's staff apparently was concerned that the paintings--both by artist Jamie Boling--would somehow embarrass the Illinois senator, who spoke Tuesday night to a crowd of 500 supporters at Richmond's Plant Zero gallery.

My friend, a deep and thoughtful art historian, cut through the irrelevant politics and got right to the heart of the matter:

Forget about politics; what about art? If silly is the word.

She's right on-target! The market for vapid contemporary art is mostly people who want to buy a reputation for intelligence without having to do any actual thinking. Why else would Sen. Obama have a fundraiser in an art gallery? But then his advisors realized that a fundraiser in an art gallery runs the risk of being seen with the artwork for sale in that gallery.

So, summing up:

• Paris Hilton is famous because she is famous.
• The paparazzi become famous by photographing Paris Hilton, who is famous because she is famous.
• Jamie Boling is trying to be famous by imitating the paparazzi who become famous by photographing Miss Hilton, who is famous because she is famous.
• Sen. Obama's handlers try to project a cultivated image by holding an event in the Plant Zero gallery, which in turn projects a hip image by showing the artwork of James Boling, who is trying to be famous by imitating the paparazzi who become famous themselves by photographing Paris Hilton, who is famous by being famous.

JFK started this all, so I guess that this is the house that Jack built.

I wish I liked Dunkin Donuts coffee

Like a lot of people, I imagine that I prefer to deal with ethical companies. Dunkin Donuts has always struck me as a very ethical company: it encourages investment in deprived areas. I just wish that their donuts and pastries weren't so unpleasantly greasy.

It actively seeks out immigrants and single mothers for franchises and employment. Thousands of future Americans have gotten their leg-up by owning a Dunkin Donuts franshise. I just wish that every Dunkin Donuts didn't have a kazillion noisy refrigerators near the tables making conversation or eating impossible.

Its stores are always clean and well-lit. But there are only a few seats and table in each store.

Finally, Dunkin Donuts is one of the few large companies that actually refuses to hire illegal immigrants. I wish that I found their coffee drinkable.

When I want a quick coffee and snack in the morning, I go to McDonalds. And yet I still delude myself that I am the sort of person who prefers to deal with ethical companies.

Hamlet

I'm awfully fond of Mel Gibson's Hamlet, but if you want a 7-minute version of the play then you can't do better than this:

Embedded Lawyers

A letter in the Wall Street Journal this morning:

With regard to "Deadly Double Standards" by David G. Bolgiano, editorial page, July 3, the Department of Defense could clarify the matter as follows: The leading airplane, the leading infantry platoon, and especially the leading vehicle in a convoy should each contain a lawyer. When the lawyer is shot at, wounded, or killed -- take your pick -- then it is OK to engage the enemy. As we have such a large surplus of legal talent in the U.S., we could then draft a few patriotic lawyers to uphold the rights of the enemy combatants.

Don Sims
Northridge, Calif.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson

From a BBC "Talking Points" thread about anti-Americanism:

"Their values are screwed, with their gun laws their people are screwed. They show arrogant capitalism to the point of disgust allowing all types of immorlity, caring more about money than life."
Andrew Knight, Leeds

Then please teach us Oh, Enlightened one!, how us misguided souls can reach your level of holiness and be free of all earthly desires. We are eagerly awaiting for your inspiring wisdom.

Richard Thompson, Cape Coral, United States

Is "self-esteem" devouring the life of the mind?

Turfgrrl quotes an Hour article by Amanda Pinto:

However, West Rocks Principal Lynne Moore said middle schools are not solely responsibly for freshmen’s achievements — they may have poor grades as they begin in high school because teachers there are not doing enough to support students, Moore said.

Okay, I'll ask the obvious question: why do West Rocks students now need more support than students from Nathan Hale?

I can contribute one little data point to this problem. Last election, West Rocks was my polling station. I walked around the school with a friend for a bit after I voted.

Something amazing struck me: when I was a Norwalk middle school student, the walls were full of posters about art and history and foreign countries and biology and the periodic table. But in West Rocks, the walls were full of motivational posters and cheezy "I'm OK - You're OK" posters.

A sing of changing standards? Maybe, but maybe a sign of how little Norwalk's schools value the life of the mind.

Hamas steals Arafat's Nobel Peace Prize

This sounds too good to be true, but the Jerusalem Post says it, so I guess it really happened. Hamas looters have allegedly looted Arafat's home and stolen his Nobel Peace Prize. Little Green Footballs summed it up nicely in a single sentence:

That will save the Nobel Committee the trouble of awarding Hamas the prize; they already have one!

Salvadore Corda vs. the miserable tax-paying hobbits of Norwalk

I just loved turfgrrl's take on Corda's outrageous slur:

He must have thought he was being clever when he pointed out, during the BOE finance committee meeting that the “public” was not there in great numbers. All I could think was that he was as masterful as Dr. Evil in his island hideout bemoaning the fact that only his henchmen were there.

Officer Callahan "at center" of assault investigation

Officer Liam Callahan, who as you may know got the Connecticut Board of Mediation and Arbitration to rule that body snatching is not grounds for firing a policeman, is the subject of an assault investigation (Norwalk Advocate). He is merely a suspect; nobody has accused him of anything yet. I certainly hope that there is nothing to this story. But the incident gave the reporter, John Nickerson, an opportunity to recap the story thus far:

• On Memorial Day, 2005, Alfred Caviola tragically died in a car accident.
• According to an internal investigation by the NPD, Officer Callahan stole part of Mr. Caviola's skull, and bragged that he was going to make an ashtray out of it.
• The state Board of Mediation and Arbitration found that the facts were as the city alleged, but ruled that body snatching is not valid grounds to fire a police officer in Connecticut.
• Officer Callahan returned to the Norwalk Police force, against the will of the city, his commanders, the overwhelming sentiment of his fellow officers, and the citizens (not that they have any say in the matter of course.)
• The city offered the Caviola family an undisclosed sum of money for their grief.
• Officer Callahan is investigated for brandishing a gun in a men's room in another town.
• The city's counsel said that neither the family nor their lawyer contacted the city about the offer, "which he called unusual."

So summing up, we've gotten to the point where stealing body parts, making them into ashtrays, brandishing guns in men's rooms and outrageous violations of our citizens' right to a democratic and responsive city government are all usual -- but a grieving family that doesn't grab at a juicy settlement is somehow "unusual."

More legal questions about fireman literacy

The federal government does not think that firemen need to be able to read well. (I learned about this from Walter Olsen at Point of Law.)

Now let's ask ourselves: what would the world look like today if the brave firefighters who rushed to the Pentagon after the attacks of September 11, 2001 hadn't been able to read orders and disaster plans?

Tim Gutmann, 1966-2007

I don't have the words right now to describe my sorrow at learning that my grad school buddy, Timothy Gutmann, was killed last night in a kayaking accident off of Woods Island, Maine.

Even more Dell laptop annoyances

Dell customer support is really a gift that keeps on giving. Our lawyer got a form letter email back from Dell that has her hopping mad. Here's part of the email:

Dear Mr. Gold,


Greetings!

Thank you for contacting Dell Customer Care.


I will be more than happy to assist you; however, I am unable
to locate your account with the information that was provided.

(stuff deleted about how to verify who are.  Notice that this
we have been trying to get in touch with them for a week, and
that this is the first time that they asked us this.)

Customers are our top priority and we are committed to them. 
I will be glad to provide you with the best possible support
from my end. We value you as a customer and your satisfaction
is important to us.

We immensely value our relationship and consider it a privilege
to serve you. We value you as a customer and your satisfaction
is our highest priority.

Here was our attorney's response:

Richard:
I am outraged by your insinuation that I am a man.  In our 
culture, women are treated with dignity and respect.  I suggest,
Richard, that you send this issue way, way up the ladder, along
with the link I sent you.  I purchased two Dell laptops whose
problems clearly fall within the two repair letters you 
sent me; I paid good money for your inferior product, and I 
expect either a speedy, seamless repair, or replacement.
Yours truly, June Gold, Esq.

So let's tally up the score. 10 days ago I had two laptops with broken screens. Now I have two laptops with broken screens, frustrated users, and a lawyer whose office is near mine who is hopping mad at how men treat women in high-tech fields. I am the closest man to her office.

If that weren't bad enough, I just ordered two fast servers from Dell. Now, if anything goes wrong with them, I'm going to look like an idiot for dealing with this company.

Another letter from Dell

Our company lawyer complained yesterday to Dell about our rather strange interactions with their customer support. That very day we got ANOTHER identical copy of the letter that they disavowed in their voicemail.

Hysterically funny Dell customer support message

Dell used to be everybody's favorite place to shop for computers online. But nowadays, you're lucky to even talk to a human being, much less find what you need and order it.

A case in point: we bought two Dell Inspiron 9300 laptops, both of which developed strange lines on the screen. Here is a copy of the letter that we got from Dell: (click to enlarge)"Great!" we said. Well, we called the (first) toll-free number specified in this letter -- and it not a valid phone number. After 1.5 hours of being put on hold, one of our employees finally got in touch with one of Dell's customer service representatives, "Lapsong." He asked if he could put her on hold again. She said "No!". So he said that he would call us back.

Next week he did call her back, and left a voice-mail. It has to be heard to be believed.

How to read the newspaper

"Newsrooms are full of English majors who acknowledge that they are not good at math, but still rush to make confident pronouncements about a global-warming "crisis" and the coming of bird flu."

John Stossel

Enough already

I wish that my female friends and relations would stop emailing this to me.

Saint Mathew's Passion in East Norwalk

The Community Advent Christian Church will be performing an abridged version of Bach's St. Matthew's Passion this Sunday (April 1, 2007) from 11-12.

Community Advent Christian Church
16 Van Zant Street
East Norwalk, CT 06855

Howard Kurtz

The Beam in the Washington Post's Eye

Hmph.

Norwalk has been mention on overlawyered.com ... again

Overlawyered.com mentioned yesterday's post about learning-disable firemen who want extra time on promotion exams. Alas, this is not the first, or even the second or third, time that the city of Norwalk, Connecticut has been mention on Overlawyered:


overlawyered.com/archives/99dec1.html#991213c

www.overlawyered.com/2005/03/todays_police_chase_lawsuit_ro.html

www.overlawyered.com/2005/05/disabled_docs_demands.html

www.overlawyered.com/2007/01/ct_timed_test_for_fire_captain.html

www.overlawyered.com/archives/00june3.html#000627b

[Note that Norwalk's 2000 Census population was only 82,951!]

Body snatching should't be legal

Most of you would agree, I hope, that body snatching should be against the law. But my previous post about ADA accomodations for firefighters reminds me that Norwalk has been told that body snatching is a legal right. At least, a policeman who snatches bodies while in uniform cannot be fired for cause. [Note: this link is now dead. Current links with similar information can be found in the Connecticut Law Tribune and at topix.net ]

NORWALK, CONNECTICUT – The city will not appeal a state Labor Department ruling to reinstate police officer Liam Callahan, a nine-year veteran fired last fall for taking a skull fragment from the scene of a May 2005 accident.

...

Callahan was one of the first officers on the scene of the accident last year on Flax Hill Road that killed Alfred Caviola, 62, of Hopewell Junction, N.Y.

According to the panel’s report, Callahan, who was assigned to direct traffic at the one-car accident, picked up “a small skull fragment”; told an officer at the scene he intended to keep it; placed it in his duty bag and placed the bag in his locker; and reported the fragment to a superior officer two days later, after being confronted by the head of the police union.

The panel concluded that Callahan’s testimony that he had forgotten about the fragment was not credible and called his handling of the body part “negligent” and “offensive.”

But the panel supported the police union’s contention that the skull fragment was not evidence in the accident investigation and that Callahan had been excessively disciplined.

...

“To state that it’s not crucial to the investigation is true. It’s not a piece of evidence,” Rilling said. “But it still needs to be treated with dignity and respect. I doubt whether any officer, including Officer Moerler, would find it acceptable to kick a piece of remains into the bushes.”

According to his colleagues, Officer Callahan intended to use the skull fragment to make an ashtray. Am I hopelessly out of date to think that "Dignity and respect" is the least we should expect from our government?

Disability law runs amok in Norwalk

According to the the Norwalk Advocate, the city of Norwalk, Connecticut has been told, in essence, that timed exams for firefighters violate the ADA:

STAMFORD - A state human rights investigator has faulted the city for denying a learning-disabled firefighter's request for extra time on a test for captain's rank, documents show.

The city has defended its handling of the request, claiming fire captains must be able to read and interpret information quickly at emergency scenes. But disability rights experts said the city likely violated rules for disability cases and criticized its lack of a standardized procedure for employees who request extra time and other accommodations.

The city argues, in essence, that this is stark raving mad:

The reasoning is that lieutenants and captains are in charge at emergency scenes and have to make split-second decisions, Wirzbicki and other city officials said. Those decisions often are based on floor plans, hazardous material reports and similar documents, they said.

Speed is an "essential function of the job," the city argued. If Lenotti couldn't finish the test on time, it means he doesn't have the quick reading, writing and thinking skills necessary to be a captain, they said.

"You don't get extra time at a fire scene" ...

But alas, the notion that the Fire Department's purpose is to keep people from dying horribly in fires does not cut any ice with the lawyers:

"You're supposed to give accommodations, period," said Suzanne Kitchen, a clinical instructor and consultant for the Job Accommodation Network, a federally funded non-profit that provides employers with advice on disability rights. "No is never the right answer."

This reminds me, sadly, of the hundreds of firefighters who volunteered to help with Hurricane Katrina, only to be sent to Georgia for mandatory sexual harassment training.

Quote of the day

Bart: I'm only ten and I've already got two mortal enemies!

The Simpsons, Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein

My Barbie doll's not as dumb as your terrorist

The recent revelation that one of Al-Quaeda's hostages was actually the Special Ops Cody action figure reminded me of the Barbie math scandal of 1992.

Surely you remember it? Mattel put out a talking version of Barbie that said "Math class is tough!" Not all parents with girls thought that this was cute.

A reporter from the Association for Women in Mathematics interviewed a (female) Mattel executive. The Mattel spokeswoman said that there was no intention to discourage girls from studying math and science. She also said that, since each doll spoke four phrases, and that there were 270 phrases in all of the Barbie dolls, that there was less than a one percent chance that a girl will get a "Math class is tough" Barbie.

When the AWM reporter pointed out that 4 divided by 270 is bigger than one percent, the Mattel executive said "I was never any good at math."

Thank heavens for GI Joe.

(Source: Association for Women in Mathematics Newsletter (1992), Vol 22 No 5, p. 12. Also, Mathematics Magazine (1993), Vol 66, No 1, p. 69.)

Baby-friendly states

Rich Lowry describes New York's successful fight against AIDS among babies in New York. In 1990, 321 babies were born with AIDS. In 2003 there were 5. All babies are tested at birth for HIV, and this has encouraged mothers to get tested during pregnancy. Unsurprisingly, since mothers love their children, those who tested positive took anti-viral therapy that kept their babies from getting infected. Equally unsurprisingly, organizations that hate children, like NARAL, fought the infant testing law tooth and nail.


Connecticut was the first state to test newborns for HIV. Most other states have no testing law or at most require that pregnant mothers be told about the test. Does your state protect babies from AIDS? If not, what is your state legislator doing about it?

Refocusing the CIA

The CIA and the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group are fighting an epic turf battle. Some people found this sort of thing amusing before 9/11. But for American citizens today, the CIA's refusal to play well with other kids in the intelligence pre-school is a national problem that threatens everyone.

Porter Goss has promised us a new, mission-focused CIA. He made a good start by forcing out CIA employees who were perceived to be trying to thwart the will of the President. As a former congressman, he should take the lead in preventing his agency from obstructing the will of Congress in this matter.

More details at the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Quote of the day

Every author really wants to have letters printed in the papers. Unable to make the grade, he drops down a rung of the ladder and writes novels.

P.G. Wodehouse, Over Seventy

Shameless plug for a friend's book

Creating the "Divine" Artist From Dante to Michelangelo
by Patricia Emison

ISBN 90 04 13709 2
List price: EURO 112.- / US$ 160.-

Nowadays words like "genius" and "brilliant" are thrown around like confetti, and students threaten to sue for grades that are insufficiently stellar. But as Dr. Emison tells us, there was a time when words like "divine" were first used to describe the best artists of the day. Gripping prose, lots of memorable stories about the brainy and famous, and pictures of naked Renaissance people. What more do you want in a good read?

God and man and fluid dynamics

Paul Nevai, a mathematician at Ohio State, complains that God got a good notice in an obituary:

If an article deals with some religious aspects of the life of a mathematician, I would see no problems with it since that is part of a person's total picture. However, if an obituary writer injects a sentence such as "God gave her an easy death" ... I find it offensive, just as many readers of the Notices would feel if I elaborated on my views on religion in this letter.

This astounds me on so many levels! The "offensive" authors are two prominent Russian scholars, Gregory Seregin and Nina Uraltseva. They were invited to write about their late colleague Olga Alexandrovna Ladyzhenskaya by a prominent publication, the Notices of the American Mathematical Society. Surely they have earned the right to speak the truth as they see it. Not too long ago, that was considered the right and the duty of all scholars, even lowly Assistant Professors, and even undergraduates.

Is anyone surprised nowadays to meet college graduates who can't write coherently? Or do ninth-grade algebra? Is anyone really shocked anymore when a college invites a convicted terrorist to teach writing because she can offer students a "unique perspective"? Or when conservatives and Christians are excluded from academic jobs? Or when college course registrations have racial requirements? Or when dissenting freshmen at liberal campuses are hounded to suicide? Or when a student is thrown out of his dorm into a cold New Hampshire fall because he wrote things that an administrator disagreed with?

Unlike the obituary which so offended Dr. Nevai, these are all truly offensive situations with real victims. The letter-writer may be honestly offended by Seregin and Uraltseva's mention of the Almighty. But that doesn't make him a victim. Sadly, it simply makes him a bigot.