When Pigs Get Wings

Well, no wings in this report. But we do have tutus, IV drips and hogs on bikes.

BALAYAN, Philippines (AFP) - A pig in a tutu, a porker on a bike, a hog on a drip — it was no ordinary parade that snaked its way through this Philippine town Sunday.

Participants in your average hometown parade aren't usually dead, let alone roasted, nor are they generally carved up and eaten afterwards.

But in Balayan, south of Manila, a centuries-old religious festival is all that's needed to kill, clothe, parade and consume the neighbourhood pigs.

Hundreds of succulent, roasted pigs decked out in colourful costumes were paraded in the festival celebrating the sainthood of John the Baptist.

The pigs, known as "lechon" in the local language, were placed on motorized floats as residents soaked each other in water to recall the baptism of Jesus Christ.

The eccentric event serves as a religious and purifying rite in the mostly Roman Catholic town of Balayan and draws thousands of tourists each year.

Nobody really knows when the tradition began, although it likely pre-dates the arrival of the first Spanish missionaries who introduced Christianity here in the 15th century.

The succulent, reddish-brown lechon is a centerpiece of Philippine culture, much like Thanksgiving turkey in the United States. No party or family reunion is complete without one.

But at this festival, the cooked pigs are paraded around the town as thick crowds line the streets and snatch off bite-sized pieces.

Among the more colourful displays was a pig atop on a motorcycle with a ski mask on its glistening, oily head and sunglasses above its snout.

We will not be showing this post to our kids. We've spent years telling them not to play with their food. We'd hate to undo all that.

Descent

For overwrought, hyperbolic angst it's kind of hard to top this. Tom Elia catches Peter Mehlman in full overdrive in the complete demonization of political opposition. It is both sad and frightening.

Former Washington Post sportswriter, Seinfeld writer and executive co-producer, and television comedy writer Peter Mehlman has written something for The Huffington Post that might qualify as the most hyperbolic nonsense written by a member of the Hollywood Left, a 'progressive' — or whatever appellation they are giving themselves these days — in at least the last week.

Writes Mehlman: (emphasis added)

… we're six and a half years into Bush and everyone from Helen Thomas on down is declaring him the worst president ever. What no one is saying is the one overarching reason he's the worst: the Bush administration is the first that doesn't even mean well.

With the possible exception of immigration reform — and who knows what grotesque financial incentive underlies that — try to pinpoint even one policy motivated by the desire to lessen human suffering, to improve the life of citizens. Nothing. There is nothing.

Nothing supported by Bush is well-meaning; it's all evil: Efforts at improving education in "No Child Left Behind," the prescription drug benefit for seniors, Social Security reform — no matter how one feels about their relative merits or efficacy — none of these things were done with good intentions.

And believe it or not, Mehlman actually descends from their by saying that at least the fascists meant well. Seriously. The descent of politics into a complete "we're good, the opposition is evil" mindset is crippling this country already. Mehlman has excavated to a new low. And this is one of those foolish charges that is ludicrous for one, simple reason. If Bush was worse than the dictators Mehlman praises, Mehlman would not be writing his hyperventilation over at the Huffnpuff.

He'd be dead.

But this seems to escape the angst-filled left. And especially people like Mehlman. They'll whine and screech knowing - knowing full well - that they are safe to do so. They are frauds, they are hypocrites and they are lowering politics to a new low.  

Senate Support Wavering

It's quite possible that the fix is not in on the immigration "reform" bill in the Senate. Support seems to be wavering badly in the face of fierce resistance from the public. Supporters are not sure they can get a cloture vote at this point.

A fragile compromise was pulled from the Senate in early June, then resurrected after bipartisan negotiations with the White House. The bill awaits a crucial test vote this week. With several senators distancing themselves from the proposal, the outcome was too close to call.

"We'll see if between the two parties we have 60 votes" needed to keep the bill moving toward a final vote, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

The measure would tighten borders, require workplace verification and create a guest worker program. It also would lay out a way by which the estimated 12 million people illegally in the U.S. could gain legal status and work toward citizenship.

President Bush long has advocated an immigration overhaul. On Saturday, he urged lawmakers to "summon the courage" to support what could be the last major legislative achievement of his presidency. "The status quo is unacceptable," he said in his weekly radio address.

But he faces dissension from fellow Republicans who demand better border security and oppose any policy that suggests amnesty for undocumented immigrants.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., last week said his support for the bill hinges on the outcome of a series of amendments agreed to as part of the compromise to revive the legislation.

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who has faced critical ads back home over his support for the bill, said Sunday, "I'm not committed to voting for the final product. The wheels may come off. But I am committed to trying."

Democrats have taken hits from their normal allies, including labor and some Hispanic groups. They say the proposal is bad for workers or that provisions for obtaining visas place too much emphasis on skills, to the disadvantage of family ties.

Aside from the Senators, it's pretty hard to see any real support for this in the general population. The polls are very, very strongly opposed to this and I rather suspect Senators are really feeling some heat on this. I also rather suspect this is one of the things that have dropped the Congress to an all time low in public opinion.

Blinded Me With Science

Mmm - but it's poetry in motion
And when she turned her eyes to me
As deep as any ocean
As sweet as any harmony
Mmm - but she blinded me with science
And failed me in geometry

When she's dancing next to me
"Blinding me with science - science!"
"Science!"
I can hear machinery
"Blinding me with science - science!"
"Science!"
(Thomas Dolby, She Blinded Me With Science)

Jeff Jacoby takes a look at the veto by President Bush of the recent legislation that would have expanded funding for embryonic stem cell research. It is important to read - because while Jacoby personally does not agree with Bush's veto, he also sees the dangers that such legislation poses. It is not all about the science.

I don't share Bush's position. By my lights, a microscopic "test-tube" embryo left over from in vitro fertilization is not a human person with an inalienable right to life. But neither is it of no significance whatsoever. I wouldn't draw the "moral and ethical line" where Bush has drawn it, but surely there is such a line and surely it belongs somewhere. A human embryo is not just another raw material, to be manipulated or destroyed at will. Even in nascent form, human life must be treated with dignity and care. How and under what circumstances embryos can be harvested for their stem cells are not just scientific questions. First they are questions of ethics and morality, and of the values we wish to live by.

Or are they? To judge from the criticism of Bush's stem cell veto last week, nothing outranks the claims of science, and only a zealot could think otherwise.

"With one pen stroke," charged Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, "President Bush has ignored hard science, embraced misplaced ideology, and turned his back on the millions who stand to benefit from . . . stem cell research."

Similarly, Senate majority leader Harry Reid blasted Bush for "putting the politics of his narrow ideology ahead of saving lives."

So did Senator Hillary Clinton: "This is just one example of how the president puts ideology before science."

And Senator Barack Obama: "The promise that stem cells hold does not come from any particular ideology; it is the judgment of science, and we deserve a president who will put that judgment first."

What these statements have in common is their use of "ideology" as a pejorative for the principles and ethical values that have guided Bush's thinking on the stem cell issue. They treat "science" as an unqualified good, and reproach the White House for letting ethical qualms impede scientific progress. Yet not all science is progress. Not all ethical qualms are impediments.

It is important to note the fact that Jacoby does not agree with Bush here - but he also doesn't agree with the political spin from the opposite side. The real danger here is putting "science" above human morals. As Jacoby puts it, man must master science, not the other way around. There have been horrible things done in the name of "science" in places where morals took a back seat - or were missing entirely. One only has to look at the human toll of many of the totalitarian regimes who considered their methods "scientific". Keep that in mind when the politicians start genuflecting to science over values - for anything. Despite the spin on all of this, there is no guarantee that stem cells will ever lead to a real cure for anything. But discarding our moral compass would certainly lead somewhere. And it isn't a good place.

Suppression

Debra Saunders writes about real suppression going on today. Not the imaginary Hollywood version, mind you. You know, where some star or other goes on national television to complain about being silenced, or gives 30 interviews to national magazines to complain about how they are being stifled. No, this is real, this is trying to take people's livelihoods away from them. And it is the left doing it.

According to the SEJ guide, University of Virginia professor Patrick Michaels "still claims to be the Virginia 'state climatologist' although the state has disavowed him." The publisher of George Mason University professor Fred Singer's books is connected with the "Moonie" leader, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. The Competitive Enterprise Institute think tank has received oil money. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has a flack "whose resume brags of starting the 'Swift Boat' story that injured candidate John Kerry." The short list, with a senator even, suggests they had run out of dissident scientists — or dissident scientists they could squeeze into the venal-lightweight box.

James O'Brien — director of the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies and former Florida state climatologist, and not listed in the SEJ guide — said of guide's terms for nonbelievers: "I don't like the term 'deniers.' They're trying to say we're like Holocaust deniers." He didn't make that up. Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman recently wrote that "global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future."

It ought to tell you something that the guide focuses not on the issues, but personal issues and credentials of nonbelievers. Ooooooh, a senator has a flack who spins. How nefarious. I'm sure global warming guru and former Vice President Al Gore only hired monks.

Most insulting is the insinuation that skeptics are after money, while believers are pure. Nonsense, David Legates, Delaware state climatologist, told me. Dire global warming predictions draw the big bucks in research these days: "There's a lot more money to be made by saying the world is coming to an end than to say that this is a bunch of hooey."

"Hooey" is the term also used by Reid Bryson, the father of scientific climatology, in the (Madison, Wis.) Capital Times, as he explained: "If you want to be an eminent scientist, you have to have a lot of grad students and a lot of grants. You can't get grants unless you say, 'Oh global warming, yes, yes, carbon dioxide.'"

Legates tells students who are not global-warming true believers, "If you don't have tenure at a major research university, keep your mouth shut."……..

…….Oregon state climatologist George Taylor is a skeptic. Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat, asked Oregon State University to stop Taylor from using a title he had used without complaint since 1991. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, also a Democrat, pulled a similar move on Michaels, who is now the American Association of State Climatologists-designated state climatologist in Virginia.

It is, of course, the intent of the "deniers database" to intimidate. The very real moves to take people's jobs away is the first step. But there is real dissent that the true believers want stifled at all costs - even to the point of suppression. Real, tangible suppression. Not the Hollywood version. And we, as a society should be angry about that.

Slow Societal Suicide

Mark Steyn's column this week in the Orange County Register takes a look at the Western response to the "outrage" over the knighting of Salman Rushdie. He traces the roots of the event back to all the flaccid responses the West has made to islamist outrages of the past.

A year or so after the Ayatollah Khomeini took out an Islamist mob contract on Salman Rushdie in 1989, the novelist appeared, after elaborate security arrangements, on a television arts show in London. His host was Melvyn Bragg, a longtime British telly grandee, and what was striking was how quickly the interview settled down into the usual cozy, literary chit-chat. Lord Bragg took Rushdie back to his earlier pre-fatwa work. "After your first book," drawled Bragg, "which was not particularly well-received."

That's supposed to be the worst a novelist has to endure. His book will be "not particularly well-received" – i.e., some twerp reviewers will be snotty about it in the New Yorker and the Guardian. In the cozy world of English letters, it came as a surprise to find that being "not particularly well-received" meant foreign governments putting a bounty on your head and killing your publishers and translators. Even then, the literary set had difficulty taking it literally. After news footage of British Muslims burning Rushdie's book in the streets of English cities, BBC arts bores sat around on talk-show sofas deploring the "symbolism" of this attack on "ideas."

There was nothing symbolic about it. They burned the book because they couldn't burn Rushdie himself. If his wife and kid had swung by, they'd have gladly burned them, just as the mob was happy to burn to death 37 Turks who'd made the mistake of being in the same hotel in Sivas as one of the novelist's translators. When British Muslims called for Rushdie to be killed, they meant it. From a mosque in Yorkshire, Mohammed Siddiqui wrote to the Independent to endorse the fatwa by citing Sura 5, verses 33-34, from the Quran:

"The punishment of those who wage war against God and His Apostle, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land, is execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land."

That last sanction apparently wasn't an option……

……This is where we came in two decades ago. We should have learned something by now. In the Muslim world, artistic criticism can be fatal. In 1992, the poet Sadiq Abd al-Karim Milalla also found that his work was "not particularly well-received": he was beheaded by the Saudis for suggesting Muhammad cooked up the Quran by himself. In 1998, the Algerian singer Lounès Matoub described himself as "ni Arabe ni musulman" (neither Arab nor Muslim) and shortly thereafter found himself neither alive nor well. These are not famous men. They don't stand around on Oscar night, congratulating themselves on their "courage" for speaking out against Bush-Rove fascism. But, if we can't do much about freedom of expression in Iran and Saudi Arabia, we could at least do our bit to stop Saudi-Iranian standards embedding themselves in the West.

Many people have noticed the failure of the Western media to  publish any criticism of the outrageous behavior of the islamists. They report the fatwas and the death threats as straight news, without a trace of criticism. They have been either intimidated by violence or cowed by an overbearing political correctness. But the media and the Western governments simply will not stand up for free speech if it might generate a well coordinated spate of "spontaneous" outrage from the "Muslim street". (Those spontaneous events always take a few days to get rolling while the proper flags are obtained for ignition and the effigy gets dressed properly. But the media never even questions that. They report it as "spontaneous".) Steyn calls all of this "slow societal suicide".

Unfortunately, he's right.

The Last Straw

Ok, NOW it's official. The police in Britain have officially gone totally around the bend. Reports of them arresting a child for throwing a cucumber slice at another child were thought to be the bottom of the barrel. Seriously, how do you go lower than that? Well, they have actually managed to do it. They are now threatening to arrest scarecrows. No, really, straw-stuffed scarecrows.

A scarecrow dressed to look like a traffic cop didn't go down too well with real police officers.

In fact they took the matter so seriously when they heard about it a patrol car on the way to the scene of a fatal crash was diverted to pay the scarecrow's owner, Christopher Strong, a visit.

And after ordering him to take it down, officers warned him that he could be accused of impersonating a policeman.

Mr Strong, 58, dressed the one-legged straw dummy in a fluorescent yellow jacket from Halfords and a police hat from a joke shop for a village scarecrow competition.

He added a striped tie, epaulettes and a home-made badge reading "Scarecrow Traffic Policy'. His creation was completed with a speed gun fashioned from a ladies' hairdryer and a broken solar light from his garden.

But just a day after he propped the scarecrow on top of his privet hedge in the village of Mickle Trafford, near Chester, pointing its fake speed gun along the busy A56 main road in the hope it would deter motorists from speeding, he felt the full force of the law.

"It caused a real stir in the village," said Mr Strong. "The officers were rather brusque and told me they had received several complaints from motorists who thought it was a real police officer and that it could cause an accident if a car braked suddenly.

There is a picture at the link, it's a pretty clever scarecrow. The police, embarrassed by the media attention, are now claiming that they never did threaten to take the scarecrow in, but I don't think anyone is buying that song and dance. Let's face it, the cops were afraid that the strawman would do more to deter crime than they actually do. Which, come to think of it, is probably quite true.

Buried Car Winner Died In 1979

The 1957 Plymouth Belvedere that had been buried since 1957 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, would have been won by a man who died in 1979. Raymond E. Humbertson came extremely close to the correct population for Tulsa, officials revealed. Unfortunately, he and his wife had no children (the wife died in 1988).

When the car was buried in 1957, more than 800 people submitted guesses on what Tulsa's population — which was around 250,000 in 1957 — would be in 2007. Guesses ranged from zero to 2 billion, but Raymond E. Humbertson's guess of 384,743 was only slightly off the official U.S. Census count of 382,457.

Tulsa officials announced Friday that Humbertson had won the two-door hardtop Belvedere that drew international attention when it was pulled from the vault on June 15.

His nephew, Donald Humbertson of Woodbridge, Va., said that Raymond Humbertson died of cancer at age 57 and his wife, Margaret Humbertson, died in 1988. Raymond and Margaret Humbertson had no children, their nephew said.

Raymond Humbertson's closest living relatives are two elderly sisters in Maryland, Donald Humbertson said.

The Oklahoma Centennial Commission will have a trust company speak with the Humbertson family about the family's wishes for the car, centennial events co-chairwoman Sharon King Davis said Saturday.

Kind of a sad end to the whole thing. The car, of course, is a mess since the vault was full of water - for quite a long while judging by the look of the car. Earlier posts here and here.