GREAT News!

For those of us without a private Lear Jet, no Gulfstream, zero stretch limos, lacking a 20,000 square foot humble abode, no hint of the gobs of cash necessary to bribe force convince some poor, suffering schmuck in the third world to take the carbon bullet for us or otherwise just not up to inclusion in the exclusive Most Exalted Pope Goreus I Carbon Offset  Indulgence Club®©™¥, there is an alternative! Carbon Neutral Blogging!

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Personally, I’d Sue

Bob Owens has made what I think is an extremely significant catch. The Associated Press printed a story in which they claim an anonymous police source told them that some of the magazines used by the Virginia Tech killer were purchased at Dick's Sporting Goods. Then another Newspaper took it a step further and quotes an anonymous police source as saying magazines were purchased at both Dick's and at Wal-Mart. (Bob says New York Times, but the link comes up to the San Francisco Chronicle).

These are flat lies. Not misstatements, lies. Neither store carries magazines for pistols. Period. Bob checked.

I called the Dick's locations in Christiansburg and Roanoke this evening and I spoke with employees in the hunting department (called "the Lodge"). They confirmed what I already knew from visiting Dick's locations in New York and North Carolina over the past five years; while the chain carries ammunition, they've never carried pistols or pistol magazines.

I spoke with the young lady in the sporting good department of the Christiansburg Walmart, which took a bit longer than the Dick's calls. I had to first explain to her that when I was asking about "pistol magazines" I was not talking about handgun-related periodicals. Once that point was clarified, I confirmed that Walmart do not sell ammunition holding devices for pistols, either.

Two of the nation's top news organizations are telling hundreds of thousands of news consumers demonstrable lies because journalists were/are too lazy to spend the minimal amount of time it takes (three calls in five minutes) to fact-check an anonymous source regarding claims made about two huge retail store chains and their role in this nation's largest mass murder shooting.

If the media is this lazy investigating the facts of the largest mass shooting in American history just a little more than one week after it occurred, I can only imagine how little effort they put into more pedestrian stories.

If I were in a position of authority at either retailer, I would be screaming - through some very high priced legal talent - for an immediate, high-profile retraction. Or I would damn sure try to sue the hell out of the media that printed this. Because this crosses into malicious. These allegations can be shown to be untrue with very little effort. That has a really good chance for rising above the "absent malice" standard.

This Is Spinal Gore

Well, Al Gore has done the improbable. He has reunited a completely fictional band for his Save the Earth concert series (we could say something here about his completely fictional cause, but we'll be nice). Anyway, he convinced the actors who played the parts of the fictional British band Spinal Tap to get back together for one last chance at turning the amps up to "11".

The group, comprising of guitarist Nigel Tufnel (played by Christopher Guest), singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) and bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), rose to cult stardom following the 1984 “mockumentary” This is Spinal Tap.

The film, which catalogued an aging British band’s desperate comeback tour of America, provided a generation of students with catch phrases such as “none more black” and “smell the glove.”

Scenes from the film - including one in which Tufnel patiently explains to an interviewer that the band’s amplifiers can be turned up to eleven for that “extra push over the cliff” - are regarded by many comedians as among the funniest ever written.

Although the film fared badly in cinemas - many audience members thought it was a badly-made genuine documentary - it became a cult hit after its release on video.

The film also spawned a conventional career of sorts for the band, with occasional concert performances and an album.

Nothing, however, has been heard of the three-piece since their 1992 record Break Like the Wind. As part of their Live Earth contribution, Spinal Tap have reportedly recorded a 15 minute “consciousness raising” film looking at climate change, which features them driving around in their 4×4s and leaving all the lights on in their mansions. (Ed Note: My Heavens, they are actually channeling Al Gore!)

The short film, directed by This is Spinal Tap director Rob Reiner, will show the world what the rockers have been up to over the past 15 years.

Tufnel has been raising miniature horses to race but cannot find jockeys small enough to ride them. St. Hubbins is a hip-hop producer who also owns a colonic clinic. Smalls is in rehab for internet addiction.

We, of course, have to point out that the last American tour, as detailed in the film, didn't exactly go as planned. There was a problem with the set. Specifically, the size of the set. But they haven't seen anything yet.

Russia Withdraws From Arms Treaty In Europe

Vladimir Putin announced that Russia was "suspending" participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty today purportedly in response to US plans to deploy 10 anti-ballistic missiles in Poland. Even the British press isn't buying that excuse.

Announcing a suspension of Moscow’s participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, president Vladimir Putin accused the United States of a plot to build up its military forces on Russia’s western borders.

“Our partners are conducting themselves incorrectly to say the least, gaining one-sided advances,” Mr Putin said in his annual state-of-the-nation address.

“They are using the complicated situation to expand military bases near our borders. Moreover they plan to locate elements of a missile defence system in the Czech Republic and Poland.”

Already strained relations between the two Cold War superpowers deteriorated markedly when the Pentagon announced plans to deploy 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic…….

…….Analysts suggested there was a certain amount of posturing in Mr Putin’s speech.

Already regarded as an energy superpower, Russia is desperate to be taken seriously as a military power, too. Defence spending has quadrupled since Mr Putin came to power in 2000, and an ambitious strategy to modernize the military was announced last year, including plans to develop a new generation of ballistic missiles capable of breaching US defences.

With these grandiose plans under his belt, Mr Putin is aggrieved that he is not being given the respect he feels he deserves by the United States, analysts say.

Washington has dragged its feet on Russian proposals for a new bilateral treaty on reducing nuclear weapons, similar to those signed during the Cold War, which would give Mr Putin enormous domestic prestige.

“The aim is not to secure the country against an unexpected US attack, but to demonstrate that Russia is a worthy partner of the world’s most powerful state,” said Alexander Golts, a military analyst in Moscow.

Putin appears to be bothered by the fact that Russia is not the number one concern of the US any longer. So we have an authoritarian, mafia-style kleptocracy with an inferiority complex. And there is surprise that Russia is blocking any real progress at stopping Iran's nuclear weapons program? The argument that Putin puts forward is absurd on its face. Ten missiles will have zilch chance of stopping all of Russia's missiles and Moscow knows it. The anti-missile shield is meant for stopping Iran. The Russians always had more warheads than the US - putting together warheads was like a hobby for the soviets. They always counted on massive overkill because the accuracy of their delivery systems could not match what the US had. But if Europe caves, they will be completely at the mercy of the Iranians very shortly.

Newspeak Rules

Lou Dobbs made the point that the media is playing games with language in reporting about illegal immigration into this country.

Too often, the language of the national media describes illegal immigration as "migration" and illegal aliens as "undocumented immigrants," even though many of them have lots of documents, most of which are fraudulent or stolen.

As if to drive home the point Dobbs made, you almost have to feel your jaw bounce off the floor three times when reading this story about a Federal bust of an enormous forged documents ring.

CHICAGO - Twenty-two people connected to a bustling, multimillion-dollar counterfeit ring that produces several thousand bogus identification documents a year have been arrested, officials said Wednesday.

The fake documents, which range from driver's licenses to Social Security cards, could help criminals and even terrorists blend into society, said Elissa Brown, an official with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Investigations in Chicago.

Twelve people were arrested Tuesday in Chicago, and 10 others are fugitives, including four believed to be in Mexico, officials said.

The arrests "represent a significant setback to one of the largest and most sophisticated illegal document fraud rings in the United States," Brown said.

According to the complaint affidavit, the organization started in Mexico and is thought to be active in Los Angeles and Denver.

In Chicago, the operation was run mainly by Mexicans but served a range of nationalities from Polish to Nigerian to American, authorities said.

The ring used illegal immigrants working on street corners and in parking lots who would take orders for and deliver the false IDs, authorities said. Those IDs included green cards, authorities said.

The Chicago operation, which produced as many as 100 documents a day and charged customers as much as $300 for a set of two or three documents, generated as much as $3 million in illegal proceeds a year, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said.

It has to be a slip there, the reporter actually used the term "illegal immigrant", but only in the context of the actual criminals selling the documents. Who do you think was buying up to 100 forged documents a day? The clientèle of this little enterprise are the illegal immigrants flooding the country. Dobbs' point was spot on. The "undocumented workers" actually have lots and lots of documents.

But they are fraudulent.

Pious Frauds

The fraudulently pious in the Middle Ages bought indulgences from a corrupt church. The indulgences were "sin offsets" that forgave bad behavior up front, thereby supposedly avoiding going to hell - or purgatory - upon the sinner's death. The indulgences were, of course, complete frauds generated strictly to make money for the church.

Move the clock forward a few centuries. Now, the First Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of Global Warming® is proudly selling the wonders of "carbon offsets" as ways for energy-guzzling, strip-mining barons to reduce their "carbon footprint" and lead a "carbon neutral" lifestyle.

And the carbon offsets are about as real as the medieval church's indulgences. (Maybe they used the same printer.)

The burgeoning regulated market for carbon credits is expected to more than double in size to about $68.2bn by 2010, with the unregulated voluntary sector rising to $4bn in the same period.

The FT investigation found: 

â–  Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.

â–  Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.

â–  Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.

â–  A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.

â–  Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

Francis Sullivan, environment adviser at HSBC, the UK’s biggest bank that went carbon-neutral in 2005, said he found “serious credibility concerns” in the offsetting market after evaluating it for several months.

“The police, the fraud squad and trading standards need to be looking into this. Otherwise people will lose faith in it,” he said.

These concerns led the bank to ignore the market and fund its own carbon reduction projects directly.

Funny how tolerant the left is about fraud when the right cause is involved, isn't it?

UPDATE: Other good reading: The Volokh Conspiracy, Secular Blasphemy, Hot Air, Samizdata.net, Althouse, Don Surber, Sister Toldjah,

Wrong

The other day, Hillary Clinton made a fool of herself while at the same time showing a complete contempt for her audience. She did so by altering her accent to sound more "Southern" while addressing black audiences. This is pandering. Today, Chris Muir, the author of the Day by Day Cartoon strip that appears on a lot of conservative web sites, responded. By making a fool of himself.

I was quite emphatic when a left-wing blogger put Wolf Blitzer in blackface. I am not intending to give Mr. Muir a pass. Was Clinton's behavior worthy of ridicule? You bet. But not in this manner. Blackface is a particularly insensitive, downright hostile, stereotype. It should not be used unless it is in a context of teaching the foolishness of the past. This is not acceptable - and it isn't a political correctness issue, I think. There are some things that needlessly give offense when a point can be made in another manner. Blackface is one of those things.

(This should be interesting, however. The left should spring to Muir's defense as they did with others who pulled this on the left, no? Unless the raging double standard comes to the fore again).

UPDATE: My good friends over at Just Barking Mad are taking a somewhat different stance on this. Let me put it this way, just to clarify. What Clinton did is demeaning to her audience. She was pandering - in the first degree. But a scathing point ridiculing her behavior could have been made without using symbology that a lot of people find deeply offensive. If the use of this symbology is acceptable, why is the regular use by Arab cartoonists of Nazi symbology to describe Jews beyond the pale? Personally, I would have done it differently. Regardless of the merit of slamming Clinton's demeaning pandering toward her audience, some things are best left out of the discussion. I have a problem with the use of blackface by anyone, left or right. I have the same problem with certain other symbols out of history. The use of those symbols, regardless of the intent, is simply not worth the collateral damage they cause.

Stand. Fight. Win.

In what will surely provoke the left into a complete, shrieking frenzy, the Washington Post, in addition to running David Broder's column calling Harry Reid inept (speaking truth to Bozo), is also running and op-ed written by Joe Lieberman. And it is a humdinger. So it's a one-two punch: the guy who earned the undying hatred of the left by pointing out that Ned Lamont was a very poor choice of candidates and the man who proved it by beating Lamont in the general election.

But if tomorrow Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds were to achieve the "political solution" we all hope for, the threat of al-Qaeda in Iraq would not vanish.

Al-Qaeda, after all, isn't carrying out mass murder against civilians in the streets of Baghdad because it wants a more equitable distribution of oil revenue. Its aim in Iraq isn't to get a seat at the political table; it wants to blow up the table — along with everyone seated at it.

Certainly al-Qaeda can be weakened by isolating it politically. But even after the overwhelming majority of Iraqis agree on a shared political vision, there will remain a hardened core of extremists who are dedicated to destroying that vision through horrific violence. These forces cannot be negotiated or reasoned out of existence. They must be defeated.

The challenge before us, then, is whether we respond to al-Qaeda's barbarism by running away, as it hopes we do — abandoning the future of Iraq, the Middle East and ultimately our own security to the very people responsible for last week's atrocities — or whether we stand and fight.

To me, there is only one choice that protects America's security — and that is to stand, and fight, and win.

Read the whole thing. It is merciless toward the cut and run wing of the Democratic party. This, of course, is why the nutroots hate Joe Lieberman so much. He's an old-style hawkish Democrat who believes first and foremost in the defense of the country in the mold of JFK. I suspect JFK would not be welcome in today's party, either.

You, Robot

This is interesting. A free, open source project to allow people to build and operate their very own internet-controlled robots with off the shelf components.

The Telepresence Robot Kit (TeRK) features one key piece of Linux-based hardware called a Qwerk controller, but otherwise calls on would-be robot builders to use off-the-shelf parts. Qwerk has USB interfaces and controls a robot's motors, cameras and other components. It also allows for wireless connectivity to the Internet, from which the robots can be controlled.

One example of a robot that could be built with the kit is a three-wheeled rover with a camera attached that could keep an eye on your house or pet. Other examples are a flower loaded with sensors and an Internet-controlled teddy bear.

The TeRK project is led by Associate Professor of Robotics Illah Nourbakhsh and members of his Community Robotics, Education and Technology Empowerment Lab. Charmed Labs of Austin also developed Qwerk.

"We want robots that don't just subscribe to geeky notions of what robots should be," Nourbakhsh said in a statement.

It has taken about 18 months to build TeRK, with support provided by Google, Intel and Microsoft.

The Charmed Labs site sells the Qwerk device for about $350. But all the software is available for free from the TeRK website, along with recipes for several different robots. You can build the next generation of robots right at home.

House Hunting

Yesterday, we reported on coyotes shopping for mattresses in Missouri. Today, it's  moose going house hunting in suburban Massachusetts. The Animal Uprising™ is getting pretty cocky.

 NORTHAMPTON - Environmental police tranquilized a young moose Wednesday morning that had wandered into a North Elm Street backyard the night before and couldn't find its way out.

Tony Silva, of 169 North Elm Street, said the moose managed to wander through a 3-foot opening in the wooden fence that surrounds his yard. The trapped animal was spotted late Tuesday night by a neighbor, said Silva. The residents began calling authorities at 7 a.m. the next morning, when they realized the moose had not wandered back out, he said.

Northampton city police were called to 169 North Elm at roughly 8:30 a.m., at which point a team of environmental police and wildlife management experts had already put a dart in the animal's back. The sedated moose, blindfolded and with soft foam in its ears to keep it calm, was then loaded into a truck.

"Environmental Police?" Oy. So, the animal overlords are obviously pretty confident that they will conquer humanity in the near future. But I sure wouldn't want a moose for a neighbor. They throw wild parties.

Mama Must Be So Proud

Yes, mama must be very, very proud of her little Bambi. After all, he's the first one in herd to attend college. And Villanova, no less. It must be the talk of the forest.

Two deer entered Moulden Hall on West Campus this Sunday, causing damage to the residence hall and wreaking havoc at a student barbeque. Students alerted Public Safety of the incident.

"[We responded] to a report of a live deer roaming inside the building," Public Safety Senior Investigator Jim Conway said.

At approximately 7:45 p.m., the animals entered the building through the door closest to Klekotka Hall. Resident Assistants held a barbeque for the residents of West Campus from 4 to 7 p.m., and students propped open the door as they moved in and out of the residence hall.

Five public safety officers, including a sergeant who served as shift supervisor, reported to the scene to find the deer on the ground floor in the hallway closest to Klekotka Hall. The officers proceeded to ensure that all of the doors to Moulden Hall were secured and that all students cleared out of the way.

The Public Safety officers then called Radnor Police, hoping that they would have animal tranquilizers, Conway said.

Radnor Police did not have any animal tranquilizers to offer Public Safety, but two Radnor police officers did report to the scene.

The officers worked together and "forced the deer out of the open lobby door," Conway said. The deer were not injured.

Students also reported that a fire extinguisher may have been used in an attempt to clear the deer from the building.

The deer managed to tear a sink off the wall, so they won't be welcome in the dorms anymore. No word on what classes they are registered for, either. But loyal readers will know what this all means: The Animal Uprising is seeking better educations for its stormtroopers. That does not bode well for the future.

‘You Bring The Pitchforks, I’ll Bring The Torches’

One of the lefty sites announced a "blogswarm alert" against David Broder's column yesterday in anticipation of its publication today. I first noticed it over on Memeorandum. Well, Broder's column is out and the mob is queuing up already. Broder has been an object of hate for the left for quite some time, but it really gelled when he dismissed Ned Lamont as a really bad choice of candidates foisted on the Democrats by "elitist insurgents" last year. Broder, of course, is actually not a fan of the Bush administration and had devoted a lot of column inches attacking Bush policies. But today, he unloads on Harry Reid. Hence the blogswarm call.

Here's a Washington political riddle where you fill in the blanks: As Alberto Gonzales is to the Republicans, Blank Blank is to the Democrats — a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance.

If you answered " Harry Reid," give yourself an A. And join the long list of senators of both parties who are ready for these two springtime exhibitions of ineptitude to end.

President Bush's highly developed tolerance for egregious incompetence in his administration may have met its supreme test in Attorney General Gonzales, who at various times has taken complete responsibility for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys and professed complete ignorance of the reasons for their dismissal. This demonstration of serial obfuscation so impressed the president that he rushed out to declare that Gonzales had "increased my confidence in his ability to do the job."

As if that were not mind-boggling enough, consider the mental gyrations performed by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as he rationalized the recent comment from his majority leader, Harry Reid, the leading light of Searchlight, Nev., that the war in Iraq "is lost."

On "Fox News Sunday," Schumer offered this clarification of Reid's off-the-cuff comment. "What Harry Reid is saying is that this war is lost — in other words, a war where we mainly spend our time policing a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis. We are not going to solve that problem. . . . The war is not lost. And Harry Reid believes this — we Democrats believe it. . . . So the bottom line is if the war continues on this path, if we continue to try to police and settle a civil war that's been going on for hundreds of years in Iraq, we can't win. But on the other hand, if we change the mission and have that mission focus on the more narrow goal of counterterrorism, we sure can win."

Everyone got that? This war is lost. But the war can be won. Not since Bill Clinton famously pondered the meaning of the word "is" has a Democratic leader confused things as much as Harry Reid did with his inept discussion of the alternatives in Iraq.

It gets better from there. As I have stated repeatedly, I firmly believe Reid and his House counterpart Pelosi will come to be reviled by the Democrats in the not too distant future. So I don't find Broder's conclusions here to be unusual. I think Harry Reid's comment about the war being lost was a political nightmare for the Democrats. Witness the abrupt backpedaling he did on the Senate floor. And the fancy footwork of the other Senators. But the left, oh my, are they angry at Broder for pointing that out.

The warning signs have been there for a while now that the media is not going to continue providing cover for Reid or Pelosi if they continue the mad rush to the left. Personally, I'd bet Broder's political beliefs rest somewhere on the centrist Democratic side of the political spectrum. As do many of the members of the mainstream media. And as the media cover fades away, the public is going to be less and less happy with the direction the Congressional leadership is heading in. Watch Memeorandum for updates as the day goes by. Broder's column is right at the top at the moment.