A Real Man Shoots His Own Horse

Isn't that the adage of the Old West? I know Robert Heinlein expressed it in Starship Troopers this way (with a different species entirely): "If it has to be done, a man — a real man — shoots his own dog himself; he doesn’t hire a proxy who may bungle it." And so, with a heavy heart, I had to shoot old faithful tonight. I don't know what went wrong exactly, only that the poor old thing couldn't function properly any longer. Maybe she was just too old, maybe a virus took hold. But the end was pitiful to see and it was time to put her out of her misery.

So I've reformatted an zeroed the drives and am reinstalling Windows XP. So long, old friend.

So, What’s Going On Here?

This is kind of unusual, so I thought I'd point it out. Yesterday, I noticed a story about convicted sex offenders living under a bridge in Miami. (I did not blog about it at the time.) But the tone of the story is almost sympathetic to the felons. Today, I got wind of this item from the Orange County Register via the TalkLeft site (one I have linked in the past). Here's a bit from the first story:

MIAMI, April 7 (AP) — Five convicted sex offenders are living under a noisy highway bridge with the state’s grudging approval because an ordinance intended to keep predators away from children has made it nearly impossible for them to find housing.

The conditions are a consequence of laws prohibiting sex offenders from living near schools, parks and other places children gather. Miami-Dade County’s 2005 ordinance says sex offenders must live at least 2,500 feet from schools……

……The five committed crimes including sexual battery, molesting and abuse. Many of the offenses were against children.

The state moved the men under the bridge from their previous home — a lot next to a center for sexually abused children and close to a day care center — after they were unable to find housing they could afford that did not violate the sex offender ordinance.

Now from the OC Register:

While inmates beat John Derek Chamberlain to death, the senior deputy at the minimum-security barracks sat in the guard station watching television.

Deputy Kevin Taylor and his two partners did not notice the melee that lasted at least 20 minutes Oct. 5 at Theo Lacy Facility.

The deputies' failure to prevent the torture and killing of a man thought by jail inmates to be a child molester is at the center of an ongoing criminal inquiry.

Six inmates have been charged with murder. The one thought to be the ringleader – a drug addict with a prison record – has told Orange County sheriff's detectives that Taylor instigated the attack. Taylor and other jailers deny the allegation, which is under investigation by county prosecutors. No sheriff's employees have been charged……

…..After downing two beers, John Chamberlain, 41, couldn't hold it any longer. He was seen shortly before 5 p.m. urinating in the bushes outside the supermarket.

A responding deputy found Chamberlain inside his white Chevrolet Malibu. Next to him were two empty 24-ounce cans of Miller beer and two unopened cans. According to the police report, the computer technician said he lived across the street, sleeping on his boss's couch. He said he came to the parking lot "to relax."

The deputy searched the car and found 22 photos that police say Chamberlain admitted downloading from the Internet. The photos depicted what appeared to be children ages 6 to 10 engaged in sex acts with one another and with adults, the police report said.

Jeralyn at TalkLeft says the latter story is "disgusting". On one level, I have to agree with that - Chamberlain was a) not convicted of anything as yet and b) should never have been exposed to vigilante "justice" from inmates of the jail and c) should have been protected by the guards from b). That is their job as much as it is to keep prisoners in the jail. One thing that troubles me here is that there are suddenly two stories - going national - that appear to be trying to garner sympathy for some criminals who, frankly, don't deserve much sympathy. I think there is no form of life lower than one who preys on children - sorry if that offends anyone - oh, hell, no I'm not. I have a very good reason for thinking they are pretty well the lowest form of life on the planet. But it really bugs me to see them getting sympathetic treatment in the press (and I still think Chamberlain should not have been killed as he was, for any reason.) But I do wonder what, exactly, is going on when I start seeing sympathetic stories in close proximity, time-wise.

Taking Tax And Spend Policies Right Over The Top

This is, without a doubt, the most insane plan I have heard of in a long, long time. Michigan is facing a serious budget deficit, apparently. The revenue shortfall is over $1 billion and rising. So the Michigan Democrats have come up with a plan to fix everything.

Buy every school kid in the entire state an iPod.

 We have come to the conclusion that the crisis Michigan faces is not a shortage of revenue, but an excess of idiocy. Facing a budget deficit that has passed the $1 billion mark, House Democrats Thursday offered a spending plan that would buy a MP3 player or iPod for every school child in Michigan.

No cost estimate was attached to their hare-brained idea to "invest" in education. Details, we are promised, will follow.

The Democrats, led by their increasingly erratic speaker Andy Dillon of Redford Township, also pledge $100 million to make better downtowns.

Their plan goes beyond cluelessness. Democrats are either entirely indifferent to the idea that extreme hard times demand extreme belt tightening, or they are bone stupid. We lean toward the latter.

We say that because the House plan also keeps alive, again without specifics, the promise of tax hikes.

This could be a late April Fool joke. Because the folks proposing it appear to be just that: fools. What in the world good is it to buy iPods for every kid? What is the motivation, other than the most blatant pandering I have ever even heard of. Even the left cannot possibly support this lunacy, could they? Well, there is at least one on the left who is bloody well pissed at the idiots who came up with this disaster - and it is, very much so, a disaster for the Michigan Democrats. They just shot themselves in the head - forget the foot. The voters will remember this.

This could be a late April Fool joke. Because the folks proposing it appear to be just that: fools. What in the world good is it to buy iPods for every kid? What is the motivation, other than the most blatant pandering I have ever even heard of. Even the left cannot possibly support this lunacy, could they? Well, there is at least one on the left who is bloody well pissed at the idiots who came up with this disaster - and it is, very much so, a disaster for the Michigan Democrats. They just shot themselves in the head - forget the foot. The voters will remember this.

UPDATE: And the avalanche begins:  protein wisdom, Captain's Quarters, Redstate, Hot Air, Sister Toldjah, The Strata-Sphere, Betsy Newmark, Michael van der Galien,

Lies, Damned Lies And The AP

John Hinderaker over at Powerline dissects the subtle way the Associated Press skews and distorts reporting in such a way as to run interference for causes it believes in. When it is taken apart like this, it is easy to see just how skewed the reporting is. Use of loaded terms, subtle denigration and giving the last word to a contrary opinion are all techniques used in advancing what amounts to propaganda for the cause - whatever that cause may be. In this case, support for thee First Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of Global Warming™.

But watch where the story goes from there. First the subtle demeaning of the distinguished Dr. Gray:

Gray, an emeritus professor at the atmospheric science department at Colorado State University, has long railed against the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity are causing the world to warm.

Gray is implicitly depicted as a crank; he "rails." Note that the hysterical and ill-informed Gore never "rails." Further, Gray "has long railed," which suggests that, rather than being a consistent critic of an unproven theory, he is a tiresome eccentric whose views have been heard and discounted. More on this later. The AP continues:

Gray's statements came the same day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approved a report that concludes the world will face dire consequences to food and water supplies, along with increased flooding and other dramatic weather events, unless nations adapt to climate change.

As we have noted elsewhere, the U.N.'s IPCC is a political body, not a scientific one, and its findings have been subject to withering criticism. But the AP implies that the U.N's report represents a scientific consensus. Next:

Rather than global warming, Gray believes a recent uptick in strong hurricanes is part of a multi-decade trend of alternating busy and slow periods related to ocean circulation patterns. Contrary to mainstream thinking, Gray believes ocean temperatures are going to drop in the next five to 10 years.

Now it's explicit. The elderly crank who "rails" and disagrees with the U.N. is not part of "mainstream thinking," notwithstanding the fact that, as the AP acknowledges, he is the world's foremost authority on hurricanes.

Now the conclusion: in evaluating media bias, it is always important to see who gets the last word. The AP.

You have a reporter, who very likely has minimal scientific training, denigrating someone who has impeccable credentials. Even if he does have some training, he certainly has nowhere near the expertise of Dr. Gray. This is how propaganda works. There are a lot of real scientists out there who are not on board the "consensus", which is very likely why the true believers want them silenced. The "consensus" incidentally has everything to do with politics and little to do with science.

Off On A Wild Moose Chase

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise has the story of a wild moose chase they sent a reporter on - or which he sent himself on, it isn't exactly clear. At any rate, a long, long day hiking in the woods and never seeing a moose at all.

BATCHELLERVILLE — We, like the moose before us, split up, each taking different sides of the brook. Rotten logs, some covered in moss, crisscrossed the running water. The moose tracks we had been following had momentarily disappeared, washed away at the bottom of the brook moments after they were created.

Thirty yards upstream, we converged again, this time on the left side. Here, Bill Kitchen, who was leading this two-man day trip, headed up a short embankment. At the top, he stopped, pointing to the snow-covered earth a few feet ahead. It had been indented by the body of one of the animals we were tracking. Moose hairs were sprinkled on the white snow.

“Finally, they bedded down,” Bill said.

Bill has been tracking moose for close to 10 years and is very familiar with these woods. A Johnstown resident who works in the construction field, he enjoys being out in the wild. He’s volunteered for the Adirondack Cooperative Loon Program and has assisted the state Department of Environmental Conservation on various projects. Most recently, he gathered some moose droppings, or scat, and hairs for the Wildlife Conservation Society in Saranac Lake. The scat is going to be used by the Working Dogs for Conservation Foundation, a Montana-based group that trains dogs on scent. The dogs are going to be used in the Adirondacks to find moose scat. The program, which is slated to start next spring, will be part of a larger study to estimate the Adirondack moose population.

The Adirondack Cooperative Loon Program? That has some real possibilities. The loons I remember from my days up there in that neck of the woods didn't cooperate all that well. Anyway, the article describes a long hike in the woods; the Adirondack woods in early spring. My old stomping grounds. I need to give Uncle Otto a call, though, and see if he still has those moose-hoof boots of his. And if he's been out hiking again. Otto is a bit of a prankster.

The New Jet Set

Caroline Overington, writing in The Australian, takes a rather jaundiced view of the recent publicity stunt performed in Sydney by the true believers in global warming. She points out the blatant hypocrisy that many of the most vocal of the true believers engage in, quite routinely.

The idea was to get businesses in Sydney's central business district to turn off their lights for an hour. The organisers made it easy for them: they planned the event for last Saturday night, when most buildings were empty; and for March, when the weather was mild; and for 7.30pm, when shoppers had gone home.

The point, apparently, was to show how easy it might be to conserve some energy and to throw a metaphorical spotlight on the problem of climate change.

There was a great deal of excitement - a rival newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald, gave up all semblance of unbiased analysis and printed itself on green paper the day before - but it fell quite flat: the great plunge into darkness never really happened. Street lights, security lights and other lights stayed on throughout Earth Hour; football was played under those giant, mosquito squatter-style mega-lights; concerts were held; cars stayed on the road; and so forth. Children could be heard complaining that their glow-sticks could barely be seen in what was gloom, as opposed to darkness.

Still, this newspaper decided to cover the event as if it were news, and on Sunday, when I came in to work, I was assigned to speak to WWF chief Greg Bourne about Earth Hour. Trouble is, try as I did all day, I couldn't find him. Why not? Because Bourne wasn't around. He was on an aeroplane.

Now, why should that matter? Well, Bourne knows this as well as anyone, but air travel is one of the worst things you can do if you believe you are trying to save the planet. On one calculation, about 11 tonnes of carbon dioxide a person are generated when flying return from Sydney to London. Another calculation is half that but, either way, it's a monstrous amount of the stuff, delivered right where the Earth is most vulnerable. Nicholas Stern - an economist from Britain who is the greens' pin-up boy - says flying by plane is the equivalent of beating the planet with a sledgehammer, or something like that.

Did that stop Bourne from boarding a long-haul flight to Singapore just hours after the great switch-off? Did it hell. He got on the plane because, apparently, it was urgently important to attend meetings in Asia with "international colleagues" who wanted to make Earth Hour a global event.

Jets for the leaders of the true believers, mud huts and caves in the dark for the rest of the population. I have pointed out that a lot of the truest of the true believers are going to get a rude, rude shock when they find out that the Al Gores of the world will treat them as little people if they get their way and impose draconian "solutions" on the populace. They won't be rich enough to afford the indulgences that the likes of the wealthy, well funded will have. And they'll be in the darkness of their mud huts like the rest of the people. While folks like Greg Bourne roar overhead in jets on their way to lecture the mud hutters on cutting back even further. So the elite can take more jet rides.

The Case Of The Missing Bees

Beekeepers in several states across the country are reporting that their beehives are suddenly going empty. When they look inside, all but a very few of the bees are just gone - no dead bee bodies lying about, no nothing. They are simply gone. While it is always possible that all these mysterious disappearances are a result of coordinated gangs of bear burglars raiding the hives or a mass vacation on the part of the bees, it is unlikely. (Although it does off the hysterical mental image of bees in bikinis flocking to the beaches of the Gulf Coast for spring break.) So what is causing the beepocalypse? Nobody knows at this point. But the call is going out for Federal intervention.

Bee numbers on parts of the east coast and in Texas have fallen by more than 70 percent, while California has seen colonies drop by 30 to 60 percent.

According to estimates from the US Department of Agriculture, bees are vanishing across a total of 22 states, and for the time being no one really knows why.

"Approximately 40 percent of my 2,000 colonies are currently dead and this is the greatest winter colony mortality I have ever experienced in my 30 years of beekeeping," apiarist Gene Brandi, from the California State Beekeepers Association, told Congress recently.

It is normal for hives to see populations fall by some 20 percent during the winter, but the sharp loss of bees is causing concern, especially as domestic US bee colonies have been steadily decreasing since 1980.

There are some 2.4 million professional hives in the country, according to the Agriculture Department, 25 percent fewer than at the start of the 1980s.

And the number of beekeepers has halved.

The situation is so bad, that beekeepers are now calling for some kind of government intervention, warning the flight of the bees could be catastrophic for crop growers.

Domestic bees are essential for pollinating some 90 varieties of vegetables and fruits, such as apples, avocados, and blueberries and cherries.

Just a minor point here: why can't the growers who require bees to pollinate their crops fund an investigation? I fully agree that there is a real problem, I just don't see the growers getting involved at this point - maybe they are and the reports just aren't saying so, but unless and until they do, why should the Federal government shoulder this?