A Little (Sunday) Night Music

Apropos nothing whatsoever other than it is a catchy little number.

What Happens When We’re Gone?

When I lived in upstate New York, there were always a lot of Canadians taking up spaces in the hospitals there. If they could afford it, they came to the US for treatment rather than throwing themselves on the mercy of Canadian health care. There is an enormous amount of pressure coming from the left for "Universal Health" coverage right now. It makes me wonder what the rest of the world will do when the US is no longer available to help? Here's a story from England that should raise you hackles.

A detective whose family has had to move from London to New York to obtain pioneering cancer treatment for her five-year-old son blamed NHS under-funding yesterday.

Yvonne Brown and her husband, Richard, both former Scotland Yard officers, have been living with their children in one room in Manhattan since Dec 1 while their youngest child, Jack, receives treatment at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Center.

The hospital is the only place in the world that provides an antibody treatment for neuroblastoma, a cancer that attacks nerve cells.

In London, the Browns were told that the cancer was incurable if, as in Jack's case, there had been a relapse.

Mrs Brown, 39, said British experts had given Jack a 20 per cent chance of survival after he was diagnosed with neuroblastoma in 2004.

They warned her that the American hospital would "simply take your money and experiment on your child".

For now these people have a chance to get the care they ot their loved ones need. For now.

But what happens when we are gone?

A Toast And A Tradition

Here's an odd little story. Every year since 1949, for 58 years without fail, an unidentified person has visited the grave of Edgar Allen Poe on January 19th to leave a half empty bottle of cognac and three red roses. This year was no exception.

BALTIMORE, Maryland (AP) — For the 58th straight year, a mysterious visitor left birthday cognac and roses at Edgar Allan Poe's grave Friday, and he was watched by more onlookers than ever, a faithful viewer said.

Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum, said 55 people braved a chilly morning to glimpse the annual ritual of the mysterious visitor known as the Poe toaster.

"If I were the Poe toaster, and I saw and heard that crowd, I wouldn't show up," Jerome said before the ceremony.

As in years past, the visitor placed a half-empty bottle of cognac and three red roses at the grave on Poe's birthday, Jerome said.

Once it realized who he was, the crowd rushed to one of the cemetery's entrances to get a glimpse, and the toaster slipped out another way, Jerome said.

He said this year's crowd was large but well behaved, unlike last year when watchers tried to interfere with the tribute.

Last year some people tried to interfere with the anonymous toast. The original mystery toaster appears to have passed the torch on to his sons. The report says the original toaster died in 1998. One cannot quite think of what to say about this. But then, that has been described, hasn't it?

At these words a vague and half-formed conception of the meaning of Dupin flitted over my mind. I seemed to be upon the verge of comprehension without power to comprehend - men, at times, find themselves upon the brink of remembrance without being able, in the end, to remember.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue

Things That Catch Your Eye

Longtime readers know I tend to look at a lot of media outlets and try to find interesting things to post about. This leads to the occasional odd tie-in, where one media source provides and interesting addition or counterpoint to another. So it is today, I find a story on Yahoo's news site that echoes something I glanced at in a British paper. That gets me wondering. I think it will do the same for you. Yahoo:

Parents turn against elaborate birthdays

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Having decided on a ballerina theme for her daughter's sixth birthday party, Michelle West drove all over to find little dancers for the cake. Then she put 50 little beefeater guards around the edges. And she gave it beautiful white icing with peppermint trim.

And what happened? The kids wouldn't eat it.

It wasn't long afterward that she joined a group of St. Paul parents determined to end the birthday party arms race.

Birthdays Without Pressure is taking aim at the oneupsmanship that drives moms and dads to throw parties that will really, really impress the kids and the other parents, too.

"We feel there's a kind of cultural runaway going on right now around the birthday parties of kids," said William Doherty, a University of Minnesota professor of family social science who had a hand in organizing the group, launched publicly earlier this month.

Birthdays Without Pressure has started a Web site and launched a media campaign.

Among its suggestions for more modest, stress-free party planning: Hold gift-free parties, with a note on the invitation that says any presents will be donated to charity; eliminate theme parties and gift bags for the guests; instead of organizing elaborate activities, let kids play outside or hold a treasure hunt; and invite children only, not their parents as well.

And now a few days ago in the Telegraph:

Birthday parties are new arena for pushy parents

Children's birthday parties used to be modest affairs – a couple of games of pass the parcel followed by a plate of jelly and ice cream.

Not any more. Today's generation of competitive parents are dipping ever-deeper into their pockets to make sure their offspring have the best day money can buy.

A family in Gloucester spent £20,000 on a Willy Wonka party for 30 children, complete with a troupe of Oompa-Loompas who performed every half-hour, three huge chocolate fountains and party bags bulging with gifts.

Another family organised a football tournament featuring professionals as coaches and one parent flew a West End musical star across Europe to sing Happy Birthday to a 13-year-old girl.

A survey has revealed that the average family spends £450 every year celebrating their children's birthdays. The poll by American Express also found that one-in-10 families admitted throwing parties just to impress other parents.

Does one detect a bit of coordination or is it all coincidence? Why the survey and instigated by whom? Why the news from both sides of the Atlantic at very close to the same time? Kind of an obscure subject to suddenly be a hot topic, isn't it? It seems a bit serendipitous, doesn't it? Something? Nothing?

One wonders.

You First

(T)Hugo Chavez tells gringos to go to hell.

The National Assembly, which is controlled by the president's political allies, is expected to give final approval this week to what it calls the "enabling law," which would give Chavez the authority to pass a series of laws by decree during an 18-month period.

On Friday, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said Chavez's plans under the law "have caused us some concern."

Chavez rejected Casey's statement in his broadcast, saying: "Go to hell, gringos! Go home!"

Chavez, who was re-elected by a wide margin last month, has said he will enact sweeping reforms to remake Venezuela into a socialist state. Among his plans are nationalizing the main telecommunications company and the electricity and natural gas sectors.

The president's opponents accuse him of using his political strength to expand his powers.

It's feeling all '60s again today. "Yanqui go home" was big right after Fidel Castro murdered his way to power. It rears its ugly head again in the rhetoric of his understudy.

Look The Fool

Dan Riehl appeared on CNN's Reliable Sources today opposite Mike Stark, of obnoxious behavior fame. Dan actually got less time to talk than Stark, I think, but he scored - big - by making Stark have to admit the extremely asinine behavior Stark exhibited in holding up a sign behind Alan Colmes. Stark looked the fool, but probably doesn't realize that, him being a legend in his own mind and all. Go watch the video over at Hot Air and judge for yourself. Dan's take is here.

Joe And Eileen Meet Curious Chuck

This is Chuck.

He was a good little Senator and was always very curious.

Today, he was very curious about eight words.

This morning Chuck and the man with the yellow hat were at the zoo.

There Chuck met his old, imaginary friends Joe and Eileen.

Now, Joe and Eileen don't actually exist. And they never have. But Chuck talks to them all the time. (We're beginning to think Chuck may be a bit more than half a bubble off level.)

But today, Joe and Eileen told Chuck to publish a book. In the book, they said, Chuck must tell the world he talks to imaginary friends. That way, people will be able to understand Chuck better. And they will know not to look to him for any real advice. Because people who talk to imaginary friends are a wee bit suspect to the people who realize that it is a bit abnormal to talk to people who don't actually exist and ask them for advice. 

And Joe and Eileen told Chuck the eight words he was curious about, "You're completely out of your freaking mind, Chuck." And Chuck was happy at last and went to look at something else he was curious about. The fuse box.

Digging Out

Well, Except For That Pesky Last Sentence

The Associated Press brings us a story that is just calculated to make you think overbearing administration crushing of dissent. It starts out with all the usual heart-string tuggers: old man, ambiguous statement at end of letter to the editor then visit from two Federal agents.

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - An elderly man who wrote in a letter to the editor about Saddam Hussein's execution that "they hanged the wrong man" got a visit from Secret Service agents concerned he was threatening President Bush.

The letter by Dan Tilli, 81, was published in Monday's edition of The Express-Times of Easton, Pa. It ended with the line, "I still believe they hanged the wrong man."

Tilli said the statement was not a threat. "I didn't say who — I could've meant (Osama) bin Laden," he said Friday.

Two Secret Service agents questioned Tilli at his Bethlehem apartment Thursday, briefly searching the place and taking pictures of him, he said.

If you read all that, it sounds like a bit of an overreaction, no? Harmless old guy, nothing to worry about. Thuggish Feds, etc., etc. Even the AP has to publish one salient fact, however. They save it for the very last sentence:

It wasn't Tilli's first run-in with the federal government over his letter writing. Two FBI agents from Allentown showed up at his home last year about a letter he wrote advocating a civil war to unseat Bush, he said.

Mr. Tilli is not exactly - in fact, not at all - blameless in this. And the Federal agents are bound to follow up on things like this, despite Mr. Tilli's disingenuous attempt to deflect the issue. Advocating civil war isn't harmless and isn't protected speech, either.

UPDATE: Gun Toting Liberal (Alex Melonas) gets suckered on this by a highly edited version from DemocracyNow that leaves off the last bit entirely. I rather suspected there would be much fulminating about it, and I thought it would be edited the way it was done here, which is why I linked the original.

A Must Read

No, really, this one is really something that left, right or center really should read. Nick Cohen, a born and bred self-described man of the left takes a hard look at where the left has failed to get it right. It is well written, wryly amusing in spots and utterly devastating to some of the left's current closely held beliefs. And Cohen does this without descending into the all too frequently indulged name calling or gratuitous insult. The Guardian, to its credit, publishes this even though many of their editorial policies tend to follow the herd on the left, so to speak. It is really worth taking the time to read. Please do so, regardless of your politics. I won't even excerpt it, just send you over to read it right here.

An Inconvenient Interview

Apparently, Al Gore backed out of a long-scheduled interview with Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten rather suddenly. The paper had arranged for well known skeptic Bjorn Lomborg to participate in the interview. While Gore's agent was enthusiastic when told of the arrangements, it didn't take long before Gore refused to appear at all, even when the paper agreed to keep Lomborg out of it.

Al Gore is traveling around the world telling us how we must fundamentally change our civilization due to the threat of global warming. Last week he was in Denmark to disseminate this message. But if we are to embark on the costliest political project ever, maybe we should make sure it rests on solid ground. It should be based on the best facts, not just the convenient ones. This was the background for the biggest Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, to set up an investigative interview with Mr. Gore. And for this, the paper thought it would be obvious to team up with Bjorn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist," who has provided one of the clearest counterpoints to Mr. Gore's tune.

The interview had been scheduled for months. The day before the interview Mr. Gore's agent thought Gore-meets-Lomborg would be great. Yet an hour later, he came back to tell us that Bjorn Lomborg should be excluded from the interview because he's been very critical of Mr. Gore's message about global warming and has questioned Mr. Gore's evenhandedness. According to the agent, Mr. Gore only wanted to have questions about his book and documentary, and only asked by a reporter. These conditions were immediately accepted by Jyllands-Posten. Yet an hour later we received an email from the agent saying that the interview was now cancelled. What happened?

One can only speculate. But if we are to follow Mr. Gore's suggestions of radically changing our way of life, the costs are not trivial. If we slowly change our greenhouse gas emissions over the coming century, the U.N. actually estimates that we will live in a warmer but immensely richer world. However, the U.N. Climate Panel suggests that if we follow Al Gore's path down toward an environmentally obsessed society, it will have big consequences for the world, not least its poor. In the year 2100, Mr. Gore will have left the average person 30% poorer, and thus less able to handle many of the problems we will face, climate change or no climate change.

Do read the whole thing. It poses some inconvenient questions that skewer several of Gore's most sensational claims. The more you read , the more you'll be pretty sure you know why Gore dodged. There are "facts" presented by Gore's movie that don't hold up well at all when light is shined on them. You'll also note how this behavior by Gore very closely resembles the behavior of the execrable Jimmy Carter in refusing to debate Alan Dershowitz. There is a pattern here, isn't there?

Evil

Pure evil. Maggie's Farm, that is.

Burden Of Winter

False Reports

There have been a lot of pixels spilled over the issue of the "burning Sunni" story the Associated Press published in November. The issue of whether or not that report was true was soon eclipsed by the issue of whether or not the source quoted in that report (as well as 60-some other lurid and graphic reports) actually existed at all. In the end the AP triumphantly announced they had produced the man (they didn't, they produced a man with an apparently different name, but that's yet another can of worms) and therefore were completely vindicated. Unfortunately for the AP, all the ruckus over the sideshow issue about whether or not "Jamil Hussein" existed or not really didn't matter. What really mattered was whether or not the reports he was the sole source for were true or not.

And Michelle Malkin produced photographic evidence that the four mosques supposedly destroyed in the original report are all still standing. All of them.

AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll indignantly attacked those who had questioned the global news organization's reporting: "I never quite understood why people chose to disbelieve us about this particular man on this particular story," she told Editor and Publisher. "AP runs hundreds of stories a day, and has run thousands of stories about things that have happened in Iraq."

Well, Bryan Preston and I visited the area during our Iraq trip last week. Several mosques did, in fact, come under attack by Mahdi Army forces. But the "destroyed" mosques all still stand. Iraqi and U.S. Army officials say that two of them received no fire damage whatsoever. Another, which we filmed, was abandoned and empty when it was attacked.

WE obtained summary reports and photos filed at the time by Iraqi and U.S. Army troops on the scene. They contain no corroborating evidence of Hussein's claim that "Shiite militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did not intervene."

One of the mosques identified by the AP, the Nidaa Alah mosque, had been abandoned and vacant at the time it was hit with small-arms fire, say Iraqi and U.S. Army officials. Two of its inside rooms were burned out by a lobbed firebomb, according to an Army report.

Three other mosques in the area - the al Muhaymin, al Mushahiba and Ahbab Mustafa mosques - sustained small-arms fire damage to their exteriors; the Mustafa mosque also had two rooms burned out by a firebomb.

Contrary to Hussein and the AP's account, military reports note that Iraqi Army battalion members were on the scene - pursuing attackers, securing the area, calling the fire department, providing support and an outer cordon.

Neither The New York Times nor The Washington Post was able to confirm AP's story.

The AP quoted one corroborating witness, Imad al-Hasimi, a Sunni elder in Hurriya, who "confirmed Hussein's account" of the immolated Sunnis on Al-Arabiya television. When Al-Hasimi later recanted, AP implied that it was due to pressure from Iraqi government officials. The other possibility: He recanted because it wasn't true.

The AP has a serious problem right now. They have been publicly caught in publishing an outright lie. They have compounded the issue by attempting to divert attention from that real issue by pushing a side issue as "vindication". They can either address the problem or they can continue their Watergate-style stonewall routine. How ironic is it that the AP is imitating Richard Nixon's White House?

UPDATE: Others:  Don Surber, Power Line, Austin Bay, The Jawa Report, Little Green Footballs, Riehl World View, Patterico, Flopping Aces, Captain's Quarters, Dean's World, Confederate Yankee,

Is Ahmadinejad Losing It At Home?

Yet another report surfaces in the Telegraph describing Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's domestic woes and loss of political support. There have been a  rash of these stories in the past week or so. Do the reports mirror reality or are they some sort of disinformation meant to minimize the threat of Iran? Possibly a bit of both. But there does appear to be some genuine trouble in paradise for Mad Mahmoud.

Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005 promising to use oil money to cut the gap between rich and poor. If he has succeeded, it is only because both groups are now struggling to make ends meet.

Had he nailed the economics, his critics might have had more stomach for his political grandstanding and nuclear brinkmanship. Instead, while the Iranians are at the Americans' throats throughout the region, internal inflation and unemployment are running at 30 per cent and rents and property prices are 40 per cent higher than six months ago. Even former supporters are questioning whether turning the entire United Nations Security Council against Iran was a bright idea.

Last week, 150 parliamentarians — just over half of Iran's 290 MPs — took the extraordinary step of signing a letter blaming Ahmadinejad for the country's woes and accusing him of planning to squander the country's oil earnings, which account for about 80 per cent of its revenues, in next year's budget. "The government's efforts must be focused on decreasing spending and cutting its dependence on oil revenues," the MPs wrote.

It was a sure sign that what limited backing Ahmadinejad had from Iran's supreme leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had evaporated. The hard-line conservative newspaper Jomhouri Islami, a reliable indicator of Khamenei's thinking, spelled it out. "Speak about the nuclear issue only during important national occasions, stop provoking aggressor powers like the United States and concentrate more on the daily needs of the people," it wrote.

The warning signs were already there. Last month, the former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, a wily opponent of the current incumbent, came out on top in elections to the council of experts, the body responsible for choosing Iran's supreme leader. And while Ahmadinejad's sister, Parvin, picked up a seat in local elections, other supporters of the president were routed, securing just 20 per cent of the votes. The elections were regarded as a referendum on the president's first 18 months in power.

Iranian economists say that Ahmadinejad's domestic problems stem from his devotion to the khodkafai economic model of Iranian self-sufficiency, rather than the alternative Chinese model — favoured by Rafsanjani — which embraces markets and international trade. "He believes the economy should be subservient to his political aims," said Amir Taheri, a prominent Iranian-born journalist and author. "He believes international trade is a bad thing because it will pollute our economy and culture."

Read the whole thing. It is rather long at three pages, but has some fascinating details. There is interesting criticism being published in Iranian media that heaps scorn on Ahmadinejad's choice of allies that is, I think, very important:

"Does he really think people like Chavez, Correa and Ortega can be Iran's strategic allies?" the reformist daily newspaper Etemad Melli demanded. "These left-wing friends are good for coffee shop discussions, but not to determine our security, or political and economic priorities."

That is some very, very interesting criticism. I think we really need to keep up the pressure at this point. Ahmadinejad has been writing checks with his mouth that Iran can't cash. When gasoline rationing hits, there will be real unrest.