Toehold - Er - Talonhold

Brooklyn, New York. Once the home of the Dodgers, has fallen victim to the latest invasion from the Animal Uprising™. Brooklynites have weathered many problems through the years (a former college acquaintance among them, but that's another story), but his one may be too much for them.

Parrots are taking over the joint.

They are the wild parrots of Brooklyn, these emerald-feathered yakkers with the wisenheimer sense of humor. Thought to be long-ago escapees from a container at John F. Kennedy International Airport, their ranks replenished by unauthorized releases from pet shops, the parakeets — originally from Argentina — have become accomplished city dwellers. There is a parrot colony along the Hudson River cliffs in New Jersey and another bunch that prefers Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx. Of late, two arrivistes have taken up residency on an apartment ledge on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

But mostly these are Brooklyn parrots, content in their adopted borough of 2.5 million people.

"They are successful Brooklynites, in that they are adaptable, eat a wide variety of foods and like to talk," says Eleanor Miele, a professor at Brooklyn College who lives in the Park Slope neighborhood and has found herself entranced by the parrots.

New York has many wild critters, and a few are not human. A coyote wandered into Central Park before running afoul of sunbathers, and the hawks Pale Male and Lola established aeries on a gilded stretch of Fifth Avenue. Raccoons know their way around Brooklyn's Prospect Park, and muskrats poke at the mud flats of the Harlem River.

But the parrots — which are about a foot long and are known as monk parakeets because their gray chests and tufts resemble a monk's skullcap and frock — are among the city's more cacophonous and unexpected residents. Their cry sounds like metal scraping metal. (San Francisco has parrots-in-residence on Telegraph Hill. And Chicago has a broad-shouldered, loud-squawking crew that has been called "Hells Angels with wings.")

They are taking over all of Brooklyn, one cemetery at a time. And what is worse, they are building condos!

Most Brooklyn parrots live in colonies of 50 or 60 birds, although a few less sociable types live on Coney Island or in Canarsie or Gravesend. They favor homes atop light and transmission poles; at Green-Wood Cemetery they inhabit the soaring gothic spires near the gate. Their nests are vast 400-pound constructs, with foyers and anterooms and a space where the females lay eggs and enjoy a respite from the males.

Con Edison knows these nests well, as periodically the power company's workers clamber around them. "These aren't nests; they're condominiums," a spokesman said.

The next thing you know, they'll be moving to Manhattan and taking over Wall Street, There they will get on the phones and pump stocks to unsuspecting consumers all across America.

Oh. My. God. They are already there. We're doomed. (Info on parrots here.)

Indecent Interval

Back in the early 1970s, the nation was embroiled in a very unpopular war in Vietnam. Additionally, a third rate burglary at a Washington building forever changed American politics and political reporting by mandating the attachment of the suffix "gate" to every damn thing in the world since then. But I digress.

Yesterday, a decent man who did his best to help the country through the aftermath of all that mess - and quite a lot more that happened to be happening right about then - died. Jerry Ford deserved better treatment then he got from the media and from the public as well. And, for the most part, media coverage since his death has acknowledged those facts.

But there are a few people who have used the occasion of Gerald Ford's passing to launch attacks on either Ford - for daring to pardon Nixon - or as a vehicle to attack the current administration. Frank Snepp wrote a book after the Vietnam war that charged that Washington had arranged a "decent interval" between the withdrawal of American troops and the fall of Saigon. He was sued by the CIA because of that book, and lost. (Jimmy Carter's administration drove the lawsuit to completion, BTW.) I think the folks who are using Gerald Ford's death as a springboard are indulging in an indecent interval, here. Could we at least pay our respects and give a decent man a decent burial before we start again with the endless attacks?

Yes, I am talking to you, Bob Woodward. And to a number of left wing bloggers as well.

Walkover

Ethiopian forces are stomping the islamists in Somalia so badly that they are now hoping for a completely bloodless entry into Mogadishu. The islamist forces are either disintegrating or dying - sometimes both - at an astonishing pace.

Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said no assault was planned on Mogadishu because the forces of the Council of Islamic Courts were crumbling so fast.

"Islamic courts militias are already on the run and we hope that Mogadishu will fall to our hands without firing a shot," he said.

The Islamic Courts movement had grown steadily in power for six months, until the dramatic entry into the war by Ethiopian troops last week. Since then, fortunes have changed dramatically with the Islamists in full retreat.

On Wednesday, thousands of Ethiopian and Somali government troops were seen in tanks heading toward Balad, only about 18 miles away from Mogadishu, said Nadifo Ali Tifow, a resident in Qalimow village, along the same road.

Some advice for the Ethiopians: keep going - right now - before the UN stirs its corrupt aparatus to deny you the victory. Win the war before they get involved or be bled into defeat by bureaucrats. The clock is running and you will run out of time if you don't finish this. Deny the islamists their third front or risk a regional war.

UPDATE: Better hurry, too.

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) — The United Nations envoy to Somalia has warned of a "deteriorating situation" in the Horn of Africa nations and called for the U.N. Security Council to take steps to end the violence in the country.

Francois Lonseny Fall said Tuesday that civilians are increasingly at risk in Somalia, where Ethiopian troops backing the transitional government have launched attacks against Islamist militia that control much of the country.

Better hurry.

Gerald Ford Funeral Arrangements

There will be several unprecedented tributes to Gerald Ford in the funeral arrangements that have been made. His body will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda and for brief periods outside both chambers of Congress where he served so many years. 

WASHINGTON - Gerald R. Ford will be mourned in the rare and solemn spectacle of a state funeral crafted to honor his reverence for Congress, the institution that launched him to the presidency. Ceremonies begin Friday in a California church, and end five days later with Ford's entombment on a hillside near his Grand Rapids, Mich., presidential museum.

In between, according to funeral details announced Wednesday, Ford's body will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda, offering both dignitaries and the public a chance to pay final respects to the former Michigan congressman who rose to the White House in the collapse of Richard Nixon's presidency.

And in a departure from tradition meant to highlight his long congressional service, Ford's remains will also lie in repose outside the doors of both the House and the Senate for short periods.

"I know personally how much those two tributes themselves meant to President Ford," said family representative Gregory D. Willard, who detailed arrangements in a news conference in Palm Desert, Calif.

There are, as is normal when a former president dies, tons of ink and pixels being expended in describing his presidency and every detail of his life. I thought it would be appropriate to show a picture that captures the sort of man that Gerald Ford was. A picture of him, in the Oval Office working -  with his golden retriever, Liberty at his feet. Rest in peace, Mr. President.

White House Photo Courtesy Gerald R. Ford Library (David Hume Kennerly)

Terrifying News

The Washington Post reports some terrifying news. The FDA is set to issue approval for cloned animals to be used as food. Now they have done this after extremely rigorous testing. They actually followed honest-to-goodness, real science. That's just plain scary in this day and age of junk science fads.

WHEN YOU TRY your first clonedog, you might not even notice. The Post's Rick Weiss reported Monday that the Food and Drug Administration is expected to vouch this week for the quality of meat and dairy products from cloned animals and their offspring. So far, ranchers and breeders have voluntarily kept food from such animals off of Americans' dining room tables. That will probably change soon.

A recent poll by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology indicates that a majority of Americans get queasy at the thought of clonal animal products lining supermarket shelves. But to its credit, the FDA stuck to the science — the great bulk of which supports its reported conclusion.

In a study set to be published in January, scientists at the Agriculture Department's Meat Animal Research Center raised over 400 animals — more than half of them offspring of clones — in identical conditions. An independent lab scrutinized more than 14,000 characteristics of the animals' meat composition and health, and only one animal returned results considered abnormal. This mirrors the findings of other studies.

As if actually following rigorous science isn't enough to scare you, think of the obvious implication here. If cloned livestock is approved, can cloned politicians be far behind? Just visualize 50 John Kerry clones flip-flopping about like a freshly netted haul of herring. Scared yet?

John Edwards Makes It Official, Accidentally

As expected, John Edwards is making a run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008. He made it official today. It appears to have been an error that made his website go live today instead of coinciding with a photo op he is conducting in New Orleans tomorrow.

The North Carolina Democrat's campaign accidentally went live with his election Web site a day before an announcement Thursday that was supposed to use Hurricane-ravaged New Orleans as a backdrop.

The slip-up gave an unintended double-meaning to his campaign slogan on the John Edwards '08 Web site: "Tomorrow begins today."

Aides quickly shut down the errant Web site but could not contain news of the obvious, even in the shadows of former President Ford's death.

No surprise.

Normal Rules

Normally, if journalists were actually following their own rules, the revelation that a source had knowingly lied to the reporter would discredit all future information from that source. Or at the very least make reporting based on anything that source said subject to rigorous checking and verification by independent sources. Journalists covering the war on terror haven't been following that rule, however. Reports from American military sources last week asserted that an air strike killed Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, a Taliban leader. Those reports were immediately and vehemently denied by Taliban spokesmen.

Only the reports have been confirmed as completely true. And the Taliban confirmed that they lied about it.

The U.S. military said last week Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, who had close links to Osama bin Laden, had been killed in an air strike in Helmand province — a claim rejected by a Taliban commander and spokesman at the time.

But a senior Taliban commander who declined to be identified confirmed Osmani had been killed.

"He has died. We got this information on the day of the strike but our leadership ordered us not to disclose it," the commander, speaking by telephone, told a Reuters reporter in the Pakistani border town of Chaman.

"He was not only an experienced military commander but also good in making financial transactions for us. He had good contacts," he said, without elaborating.

"His death will have some bad impact on our movement for some time," he added.

The media reported those vehement denials as straight news when they reported about the American claims. As I said at the start, normal rules would now make any journalist think more than twice before reporting anything a Taliban spokesman said.

Want to bet they won't?

Priorities, Priorities

Well, here's an interesting juxtaposition of stories that weirdly ties in to the previous post on Britain's National Health Service. Because it shows the priorities the British authorities are operating from.

The Daily Mail reports that the theft of iPods during street robberies has skyrocketed in the past year. Insurance companies report that more iPods are stolen in these muggings than any other electronic device.

Insurance experts said they received more claims for iPods than any other item, including mobile phones, digital cameras and laptops.

The distinctive MP3 player with white headphones have been blamed for fuelling a sharp rise in street robbery and providing easy pickings for criminals.

Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Ian Blair has said the digital music players make it easy for thieves to spot someone carrying one.

Robberies in England and Wales rocketed by more than eight per cent last year to 98,204, Home Office figures have shown.

And according to Privilege Insurance firm, it is iPods which are top of the list for criminals.

Incidentally, if the iPod is stolen, so is the music stored on it. A large percentage of people who have been robbed have not had that music backed up and lost an average of £257 - even higher for younger people.

But not to worry says the Telegraph. For British police have their real priorities all in a row. The are sending their officers to videotape fox hunts to look for violations.

The scene could hardly be more traditionally English: the hunt gathering on Boxing Day, stirrup cups raised, surrounded by eager supporters.

But only yards away the police were filming the entire event as the Avon Vale prepared to ride out from Lacock, Wilts, on one of the sport's busiest-ever days, with 320,000 people attending meets.

Two officers, leaning from a window, used a hand-held video camera to film the gathering. The meeting, like hundreds of others, passed without incident but Wiltshire police insisted that the filming was standard practice in case things got "out of hand".

Insp Roger Bull said: "This is a major hunt meeting. It is quite normal for us to use evidence-gathering facilities of this nature. There is always the potential for some people to allow matters to get out of hand."

Hunts claimed it was their best Boxing Day ever and animal rights campaigners are now planning to target them with anti-social behaviour orders following the failure of the Hunting Act to curb the sport.

I have always been somewhat of an Anglophile. I am not so sure that I should be any longer. These two stories together with the previous post point to a rot within the society that appears to be spreading rapidly. I hope they can reverse this. Because it will be a very bad place to live in just a few years if they do not.

National Health Disgrace

The British nanny state is now taking a distinct turn toward the dark side. This is truly sickening. There are plans under discussion to deny medical services to smokers or obese people under the National Health Service.

The obese and smokers could be denied priority NHS treatment if they do not change their lifestyles, under plans being considered by ministers.

The controversial idea to crack down on illnesses which are deemed to be self-inflicted is one of a number of plans to reform Britain's arcane public services.

In the New Year, the Prime Minister will set up a 'People's Panel' of 100 members of the public who will be asked to consider some of the 'tough choices' facing the Government.

They will also be consulted on whether individuals should use supermarket loyalty card technology to harvest data on individuals' contact with the public services - such as hospitals and schools.

The controversial idea is aimed at monitoring people's use of public services so that they can be better tailored to what voters want and need.

Still think nationalizing the health care system is a good idea? It will only be a matter of time until they propose withdrawing health care from the old and the disabled. It is coming, folks. God help Britain.

Ethiopians Driving On Mogadishu

Ethiopian and Somali government troops have driven the islamist militias out of the last major town on the road to Mogadishu. The islamists are still running like mad.

Former warlord Mohammed Dheere, who controlled the town of Jowhar before it was captured by the Council of Islamic Courts in June, led the Somali government troops, said resident Abshir Ali Gabre.

"We will attack Mogadishu tomorrow, from two directions," Dheere told the crowd, although his statement appeared to overstep his authority. Dheere does not speak for the government or the Ethiopians.

Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari confirmed the capture of Jowhar and said his troops were heading toward Balad, an agricultural village about 18 miles from Mogadishu. Smaller than Jowhar, it is the last town before the capital.

Thousands of Ethiopian and Somali government troops were seen in tanks heading toward Balad, said Nadifo Ali Tifow, a resident in Qalimow, a village 25 miles from Balad.

Fighting could still be heard at a military camp south of Jowhar and in the village of Lego. An Islamic official said his troops were simply entering a new phase in their battle.

"Our snakes of defense were let loose, now they are ready to bite the enemy everywhere in Somalia," said Sheik Mohamoud Ibrahim Suley. He did not elaborate, but some Islamic leaders have threatened a guerrilla war including suicide bombings in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital.

That's the real fear, of course. The murderous bloodletting of the islamists coupled with a Western media-enabled propaganda festival. But the Ethiopian offensive has shown just how hollow the boasting of the islamists has been. They are not only not invincible, they run like rabbits when given the opportunity. Unfortunately, that means all that they have left is suicide bombs.

Great News!

Anyone who flies fairly often has probably experienced at least one incident of lost luggage. It has happened to me a couple of times even though I am not a big globe trotter. In one instance, my family and I went to Cleveland where we were to change planes, but our luggage went to Phoenix. We got it back a day later, but it is annoying when your luggage is better traveled than you are. That is how the majority of lost luggage claims go - the bag turns up later and is returned to the owner. But some disappear for good. Great news today, though. They have found the spot where the really lost luggage goes!

They go to a dumpster behind a pet store in Houston, Texas.

If you've lost a suitcase in a Houston airport lately, it might have shown up in a bizarre place.
Between 60 and 70 pieces of luggage from various airlines were found Tuesday in a dumpster behind a Pet City store in North Houston. The store caught fire on Dec. 5 and the dumpster was being used to clean up debris.  The luggage was found Tuesday morning and the store's owner called police.

Obviously, the Animal Uprising™ figures into this somehow.

Remedial Shopping

I know that John Kerry was directing his disdain for the military at American troops (nobody but John Kerry actually believes his "botched joke" explanation - and he's wavering). This story is out of Britain, but my guess is that some government functionary in this country will try to mimic it soon. So how exactly does this reflect on the civilian society as a whole?

British officials are sending teams of government workers out to help people understand basic math as they shop. It seems that 14.9 million adult Britons do not have the basic math skills expected of an 11 year old.

About 14.9 million adults in England do not have the maths skills expected of an 11-year old and may have problems working out even basic deals like "20 percent off" or "buy one, get the second half-price", the Department of Education and Skills said.

Teams commissioned by the department will hit the high streets to offer tips on savings and help people brush up their maths.

As part of the government's "Get On" campaign to tackle adults with literacy and numeracy difficulties, 200,000 sales calculators will also be on offer in some of the most popular shopping areas such as Oxford Street.

The mind boggles. Incidentally, here's a column James Taranto put together from letters he received over the whole Kerry episode. For a bunch of uneducated losers, as Kerry would have it, they sure come across as considerably smarter than the junior Senator from Massachusetts. It's kind of unfair engaging in a battle of wits with a completely unarmed man, but it is entertaining.

A Plea For Balance

Dean Godson writes an op-ed for the Times of London that points out that there is a bit more to the story of Iraq than the "conventional wisdom" would have the world believe. The media has been forcing a narrative that ignores completely or badly under-reports things that don't fit that delivered wisdom.

Chatham House has other recent “form”. Last year, it produced a report blaming Iraq for giving al-Qaeda a boost. No doubt Iraq has boosted al-Qaeda recruitment. But Iraq is a very long way from being the only source of radicalisation. One of the most interesting stories of the year that received scant attention in the British press was last week’s remarks by Jean-Louis Bruguière, the chief French investigating magistrate for terrorism. He revealed that France had averted three significant Islamist plots over the past 18 months, including attacks on the Paris Métro and Orly. Algerian Islamists were teaming up with veterans of Iraq. So would opting out of Iraq, as President Chirac did so dramatically in 2003, really have reduced our vulnerability? Elements of the Muslim population are in so febrile a state that almost anything can send them into a tailspin. This year a minority of British Muslims has been offended by many things — from cartoons in obscure Danish newspapers to McDonald’s logos.

One of the biggest losses of 2006 was Colin Cramphorn, the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, who died tragically young. After 7/7 Cramphorn did as much as anyone to bring the communities together. He told me with dismay that an appreciable number of radicalised young Muslim men in Leeds believed that the London bombings were invented by the Jewish-dominated media. Why? Because they did not see any bodies being pulled up from the Underground!

Too little of this complexity — and even medieval dottiness — comes across loudly enough in the media. The parochial media classes reflexively prefer to blame Mr Blair. No wonder the Prime Minister, writing in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, expressed such frustration with the willingness of much of the Fourth Estate to indulge the propaganda of the extremists.

Read the whole thing, it is an interesting read. Many bloggers have been pointing out that the media is willing to report as straight news any insanity or propaganda coming from terrorists. Meanwhile, they dismiss any contrary information coming from Western governments. The media is an a mutually beneficial spiral of death with the terrorists. Unfortunately, they do not appear to understand that they are damaging themselves and risking their way of life by doing so.

The 20mpg Martini

The Washington Post has an interesting article about an ethanol plant in Western Minnesota that has an interesting little sideline going. Not only do the churn out about 45 million gallons of raw ethanol each year. They also distill a premium American vodka, Shakers. And it has turned out to be very profitable and popular.

BENSON, Minn. — As distilleries for premium vodka go, the behemoth in Benson is surely one of the most unlikely.

Sprouting towers and tanks, the cavernous compound rises from the plains of western Minnesota. Industrial trucks come and go as heat from giant boilers puffs into the winter sky. The largest letters on the sign say not Grey Goose or Stolichnaya, but Chippewa Valley Ethanol Company.

The machinery here hums around the clock to churn out 45 million gallons of ethanol a year, part of the heartland's replacement-fuel boom. But the Chippewa Valley folks do ethanol with a twist, or perhaps an olive: On the side, they produce premium vodka.

The name is Shakers, and it comes from Minnesota wheat and rye, grown nearby. Packaged in an art deco bottle and marketed as an American original, the brand routinely collects accolades from aficionados. A company executive reports sales in the past 12 months of 15,000 cases at $33 a bottle.

The folks who approached the ethanol plant and convinced them to do this are the same people who were the originators of Pete's Wicked Ale. After they sold their stake in that operation, they needed a new challenge. They chose vodka. Judging by the sales figures so far, they chose wisely. Here's the Infinite Spirits website (that's what they call the company) where you can read more information if you're so inclined.