GREAT Short Film

An Inconvenient Penguin. Must see TV!

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2729684

From a commenter, thank you, Julia!

“Wai” - Agam Keeps Promising To Explain That

Agam, a blogger from Thailand, has some interesting takes on a number of issues. Also some truly unique perspectives on a few things. Agam is the only blogger I have seen who found this little gem. A C-Span broadcast of the woman who protested at President Hu's visit to the White House. There is a video link but it is only good for a few days, so please hurry if you want to see it. Dr. Wang Wenyi has a few interesting things to say.

And Agam, you owe me the picture of what a "Wai" is!

Agam is on my blogroll.

A Poor Player That Struts And Frets His Hour Upon The Stage

And then is heard no more.

Ah, poor, poor Jess(i)e MacBeth. His past catches up with him. His lies and his accusations come down to the ugly truth.

He washed out of basic training.

It also appears he forged some data on his DD-214. Do go look at the Milblogs site and judge for yourself.

UPDATE: Wow, Hot Air has a LOT of details on this one. Frankly, Chez Diva called this a couple of days ago. This guy needs psychiatric help. Now.

In The Tin Ear Department - Revisited

You know, I had pretty high hopes for Tony Snow as Press Secretary. I think he is pretty much a straight shooter and comes across as quite genuine.

But.

This was a particularly bad way to try to put across a point, I think. I see what he's trying to say, but I honestly think this was, well, stupid. Because it will get reported exactly as it did in the linked article. And it will not play well in Peoria. At all.

The White House on Friday said a Senate bill that would grant legal status to illegal immigrants is analogous to a traffic law that allows a speeder to pay a fine and continue driving.

"If you had a traffic ticket and you paid it, you're not forever a speeder, are you?" White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said in response to questions from The Examiner.

"So the fact is, you have paid your debt to society," he added. "And we have come up with a way to make sure that the debt to society gets paid. Then you move forward."

I honestly think the White House missed a huge opportunity. All they had to do is support a fence and pretty much all the rest could have been worked out. Now they have set up an enormous battle in the House and I am not sure they can - or should - win it. Phrasing it as a traffic ticket really will not sit well with a lot of people, either. Rather than listen to a lot of media-sponsored polls (which I think have been skewing samples lately) I tend to look more at Rasmussen polls, which have proved pretty reliable over time. Bush has a problem right now. He did not get a bounce from his support for the Senate bill. I think this doesn't bode well for the conference bill. I think the inept "traffic ticket" analogy really may have been the final straw.

We'll see.

Update: Freedom Folks runs the numbers. The Moderate Voice says it great for the talk radio folks. If The Anchoress thinks the analogy was poor, you really blew it, Tony. Andrew Sullivan really, really didn't like it. Tammy Bruce really, really, really didn't. Six Meat Buffet isn't exactly complimentary, either. I think I called this one right since I can't find any support out there for it.

The Long Gray Line

Tomorrow, 860 young men and women will enter Michie Stadium at the United States Military Academy at West Point as cadets. They will leave the stadium as Second Lieutenants in the United States Army.

They will join the long gray line of graduates that stretches back all the way to 1802 and the founding of West Point when Thomas Jefferson was the President. General Norman Schwarzkopf will be one of the members of the class of 1956 who will be presenting the graduates their new bars.

My nephew will be one of them.

Never falter, never quit, Eric.

I Want One Of These!

Scientists say a cloak that renders someone invisible is a possibility! Researchers say they know how to do it and just need to develop the necessary materials.

The keys are special manmade materials, unlike any in nature or the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. These materials are intended to steer light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation around an object, rendering it as invisible as something tucked into a hole in space.

"Is it science fiction? Well, it's theory and that already is not science fiction. It's theoretically possible to do all these Harry Potter things, but what's standing in the way is our engineering capabilities," said John Pendry, a physicist at the Imperial College London.

Details of the study, which Pendry co-wrote, appear in Thursday's online edition of the journal Science.

Scientists not involved in the work said it presents a solid case for making invisibility an attainable goal.

"This is very interesting science and a very interesting idea and it is supported on a great mathematical and physical basis," said Nader Engheta, a professor of electrical and systems engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Engheta has done his own work on invisibility using novel materials called metamaterials.

Isn't technology wonderful?

Freegans

Somehow, the thought of living entirely off food salvaged from dumpsters seems a bit risky. But apparently there are some number of people - nobody knows how many, I gather - who do exactly that.

"Everything I eat comes from dumpsters," Ash says. "For me it's a logical lifestyle choice. It's such a natural thing to use up that waste."

Some call them "dumpster divers", others brand them "skip lickers", but Ross Parry and Ash Falkingham like to count themselves among the Freegans — a growing band of foragers who seek to live entirely from the waste of others.

In this brief trip to a small supermarket skip in southeast London, they have recovered enough food to provide themselves — and several others — with an impressive evening meal, as well as bread, muffins and teabags for the next morning's breakfast.

Freeganism, derived from the words "free" and "vegan", is spreading to Britain from the United States, where one of its founding fathers, Adam Weissman, has set up a Freegan information Web site to persuade others to join him.

Apparently, Weissman sees this as a way to protest the entire economic system.

Falkingham, a 21-year-old Australian, sees Freeganism as a way of forcing the world to wake up to what it is wasting.

"Nine million people die every year of starvation … and while that's happening, we are literally destroying food," he says.

There are no exact figures for how many people are choosing to live a Freegan lifestyle in Britain. Despite the name, not all those who opt to live this way are strictly vegan.

Falkingham and Parry, who is 46, have been roaming Britain since last October, pursuing their Freegan lifestyle in cities from Manchester and Leeds in the north, to Plymouth in the south.

They eat, sleep and live in a beaten-up old van which is equipped with mattresses, a stove, a sink, carpets and even a heater all taken from skips or wreckers' yards.

Falkingham wears a watch recovered from a bin behind a charity shop, his boots were taken from a retailer's skip and the pair say they have found computer parts, furniture and even an MP3 player in dumpsters.

They have no jobs and no money but see very little need for either.

Does this mean what used to be called bums are actually progressives?

101st Blog Of The Day

Continuing on with my self-imposed chore of visiting one member of the fighting 101st each day, I went over to Granddaddy Long Legs' place and found a great essay to start your Memorial Day weekend. It was written by Isaac Asimov some fifteen years ago. GLL updates it with a bunch of helpful links. Go read it and start the weekend off right.

Haditha

The New York Times has reported that military, Congressional and Pentagon sources have all confirmed that a report will find that unprovoked killings of civilians by US Marines occurred in Haditha, Iraq. Words cannot describe how that makes me feel. Those involved must be given a fair trial, let the chips fall where they may. If anyone tried to cover it up, they also must be tried, let the chips fall where they may. The Marine command should be praised for following up when questions were raised and conducting investigations into the incident and the alleged cover-up afterward. It should also be noted that the Marines were already doing so before the media began printing things about the story.

However, the actions of a few should not be held against the majority of our armed forces. Unfortunately, that is already happening in some circles. The majority - the vast majority - of American troops serve with honor, dedication and courage.

There is also no excuse, whatsoever, for what Representative Murtha did. By pronouncing that the Marines involved were guilty before the investigation is complete, much less the actual trial, is irresponsible. That has been my position on this situation all the way through. (Search Murtha on the sidebar search to confirm, if you'd like). I thought then, and still think now, that Murtha did the wrong thing for the wrong reason. He pronounced guilt strictly for political purposes and jeopardized the right to a fair trial for the accused.

UPDATE: Others Blogging this. Confederate Yankee, Jawa Report, Captain Ed, A Blog For All, Flopping Aces  

UPDATE: Callimachus at Done with Mirrors has thoughtful words.

Update: In Search of Utopia, who I believe I linked once before for taking a reasonable approach to something or other, has some words up that I wish others would take to heart.

I will not participate in a political pissing contest about all this. This was not American Policy, this was a few perhaps stressed to their limits soldiers, going over to the dark side. While some will use this a football to pass blame. The blame lies squarely on the shoulders of those who pulled the trigger AND those who commanded them. I too hope Conservative bloggers who have supported the war will take the lead on this, but I don't expect it (At least not from people like Malkin). We will see… I have not seen much today, but it's not like I have been looking for it.

I take it those words were written earlier in the day, because later updates show links to right-leaning blogs that have taken a stand. I also do not want this turned into a political issue.

Hayden Confirmed

The Senate overwhelmingly approved General Michael Hayden as Director of the CIA. The vote was 78-15.

Got Norton?

It appears that Norton Anti-virus has a major security flaw.

Researchers at eEye Digital Security, the company that discovered the flaw, said it could be exploited by remote hackers to take complete control of the target machine "without any user action."

"This is definitely wormable. Once exploited, you get a command shell that gives you complete access to the machine. You can remove, edit or destroy files at will," said eEye Digital Security spokesperson Mike Puterbaugh.

Anyone using the latest version of Norton may be at risk here.

Which is why Blue Crab Boulevard is protected by Kaspesky, incidentally.

Gunfire Reported In Garage At Rayburn Building

UPDATED: False alarm. Reports are that the sounds people heard were probably an air hammer, not gunfire.

Capitol Police are investigating reports of gunfire in the basement garage of the Rayburn House Office Building. Lawmakers have been advised to stay in their offices and the doors to Senate hearing rooms have been closed. Four ambulances are at the scene.

Updates as they become available.

UPDATE: CNN Coverage.

UPDATE: Hot Air has a running update going.

UPDATE: So does the Real Ugly American.

UPDATE: Ladies and gentlemen! The best one-liner of the day: "There has been no confirmation that when Capital Police said “shots in the garage” Ted Kennedy ran down there with a glass." H/T Suzie.

Hello, Euston?

Way back on April 13th - centuries in blog years - I wrote about the Euston Manifesto. Last night was the formal launch of the document and one of it's authors, Norman Geras, gave a talk about it. He publishes that talk today on his blog. Reading the speech he gave, I rather wish I had been able to attend. His written words are very powerful, I would have enjoyed hearing them.

By one of those coincidences that don't mean anything, 70 years ago today - and I mean to the very day - the poet T.S. Eliot paid a visit to a small hamlet in Cambridgeshire. He took the name of this place as the title for the fourth of his Four Quartets - 'Little Gidding'. What has that got to do with the Euston Manifesto? Nothing, really.

But in the way of these things, I went back to the poem just to have a look, in case (you never know) I might find some other connection than merely the date. What I came back to there were these lines:

And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from…

There you go – that gives me somewhere to start from this evening. Because I want to talk about ends and beginnings in both a public and a personal sense.

That is just the opening of a brilliant piece of public speaking. You really should read the entire post. As I said when I originally wrote about the manifesto, finding common ground with people like Mr. Geras would be a joy. Although people of good intentions can disagree on many points, often they find they can also agree on many others. And in talking and finding that common ground they are able to solve many problems.

The end is where we start from.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan has some helpful advice for a few people.

Reinstituting Segregation

There's a troubling op-ed in today's Washington Post written by Michael Meyers, a former assistant national director of the NAACP, is executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition. It describes an emerging pattern of "separate but equal" treatment for young black males spreading across college campuses. These Black Male Initiatives or BMI's are supposed to address the "at risk" nature of black males.

The latest of these race fads are the Black Male Initiatives (BMIs), government-funded and university-sponsored, and underway on campuses in states including Georgia, Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. The initiatives focus on recruiting, schooling and "saving" black men.

Until recently, when the New York Civil Rights Coalition filed a complaint against the City University of New York, these special programs were unassailable. But more and more they are being shown to feature new variants of an old prejudice. This has included stereotyping all black male students as "at risk," and, for example, running special classes only for black men at CUNY's Medgar Evers College. This special instruction focused on black men's alleged deficiencies and their need to act more responsibly in order to reclaim their traditional patriarchal roles as leaders in the black community and of the so-called black race. A tenet of the program at CUNY's Queensborough Community College is to provide black men with special tutoring, career services and academic advice. Until caught, CUNY's Hunter College invited only black male students to a planning conference on its BMI.

This is a particularly insidious form of racism at work. Couching it in all the best intentions in the world does not change that. There is an underlying assumption that young, black males, by virtue of being young, black males are at risk, are in need of special treatment, are, in fact, deficient. I can think of no greater insult.

Many black leaders in and outside academia seem to have no objection to these figurative black-only signs over certain doorways at America's colleges. Not surprisingly, this racial identity ferment — aka self-determination — is proudly endorsed by white liberals disturbed by the dwindling numbers of black men on campus, as well as by many black female students for whom interracial dating is either taboo or impracticable.

Hence, college presidents are listening to their black students and to their officials for diversity and affirmative action or minority affairs, and they are setting up BMIs as a way of making life on campus more comfortable for black students. And black faculty have a new source of grants to apply for, from foundations that urge the study of the black male problem and experimentation with intervention techniques. No educator rebukes such offerings with the hard, nonstatistical truth that there is no such thing as "the black male," just as there never was such a thing as "the Negro."

Here, I think Meyers has it exactly right. There should be no such thing as the black male in America. We should not even think in those terms. We should think in terms of "Americans", Michigan's wrong-headedness aside.

The psychologist Kenneth Clark, who was my mentor and whose research did so much to bring about Brown, steered his colleagues on the New York State Board of Regents away from state-sponsored racial thinking. He persuaded them in 1972 to declare as policy that college officials were to avoid "any practices which would perpetuate a caste system in which groups are placed in certain stereotyped positions with little regard for the needs and desires of the individual." That policy continued: "Racist patterns of segregation can lead only to blocked communications, with a resultant social climate that is close and tense, if not hostile. Moreover, the de facto segregation of a minority group, even if demanded by that group, often results in peer pressure on individuals which may lead to intragroup hostility."

Dr. Clark died just last year, by which time the regents had long since abandoned the wisdom in that policy.

We should be breaking down the old walls. Not rebuilding them.

UPDATE: One blogger took one sentence I wrote completely out of it's context to make it appear I was making an attack on black males. This is unconscionable distortion. It is also not the first time this has been done to support someone's agenda, here or in other places. Anyone who can construe what I wrote as racist, is being willfully blind or twisting things to fit an agenda. This blog, and myself personally, have always stood for a 100% racial equality and a complete colorblind application of all standards.

Iranian Ploy

Charles Krauthammer, writing in today's Washington Post hits this one exactly right. The latest ploy by Iran to demand direct negotiations with the US is a ploy. That there is suddenly an outpouring of support among leftists and European commenters shows exactly how cynical so much criticism of the Bush administration has been. The US was excoriated for unilateralism leading up to the Iraq war. Now we're being told unilateralism is the way to go. We were reviled for not consulting Europe, now we're being told that Europe would rather we leave them out of it.

Mark my words. The momentum for U.S.-Iran negotiations has only begun. The focus of the entire Iranian crisis will begin to shift from the question of whether Tehran will stop its nuclear program to whether Washington will sit down alone at the table with Tehran.

To this cynical bait-and-switch, there can be no American response other than No. Absolutely not.

Just yesterday the world was excoriating the Bush administration for its unilateralism — on Kyoto, the ABM Treaty and, most especially, Iraq — and demanding that Washington act in concert with the "international community." Just yesterday the Democratic nominee for president attacked President Bush's foreign policy precisely for refusing to consult with, listen to and work with "the allies."

Another day, another principle. Bush is now being pressured to abandon multilateralism and go it alone with Iran. Remember: In September 2003, after Iran was discovered cheating on its nuclear program, the United States wanted immediate U.N. action. The allies argued for a softer approach. Britain, France and Germany wanted to negotiate with Tehran and offer diplomatic and economic carrots in return for Iran's giving up its nuclear weapons program. The United States acquiesced.

After 2 1/2 years of utter futility, the E.U. Three had to admit failure and acknowledge the obvious: Iran had no intention of giving up its nuclear ambitions. Iran made the point irrefutable when it broke International Atomic Energy Agency seals and brazenly resumed uranium enrichment.

This is so transparently an attempt to shift the debate away from Iran and it's wrongdoing that it should be - and probably really is - obvious to anyone who is demand the US agree to this. This is smoke and mirrors. Krauthammer's suggestion on what conditions might make it reasonable to negotiate are spot on:

Entering negotiations carries with it the responsibility to do something if they fail. The E.U. Three understood that when they took on the mullahs a couple of years ago. Bilateral U.S.-Iran talks are the perfect way to get Europe off the hook. They would preempt all the current discussions about sanctions, place all responsibility for success on the negotiations and set America up to take the blame for their inevitable failure.

It is an obvious trap. We should resolutely say no.

Except on one condition. If the allies, rather than shift responsibility for this entire process back to Washington, will reassert their responsibility by pledging support for U.S. and/or coalition military action against Iran in the event that the bilateral talks fail, then we might achieve something.

If Europe agrees to back the US publicly in the use of force if negotiations fail it will become less likely, not more likely, that the use of force will be actually needed. If Iran knows that a united US and Europe will deal with it militarily if they fail to negotiate in good faith, Iran will be much more likely to come to terms.