Please, Curb Your Dog

A good friend sent this to me. I'll pay him back for that later.

Pot, Meet Kettle

In the silliest comment I have read on one of the "big" blogs recently, I give you Josh Marshall:

It's looking like there might not be a GOP CNN/Youtube debate. Rudy appears to be opting out and Mitt Romney doesn't seem far behind. And GOP party functionary Hugh Hewitt is already laying down a line of covering fire for the retreat, arguing that CNN and Youtube are biased against Republicans.

"Liberal Bias", whatever else it once was, now appears to be the new Republican code word for any venue or events not controlled by Republican commisars like Hugh Hewitt along the lines of President Bush's notorious Social Security townhalls in which only certified flunkies who swore to a Bush loyalty oath were let into the room.

The Democrats ran - like hell - from a debate associated with Fox News, and the left hailed it. Now they deplore it. Raging double standard alert.  

UPDATE: Incidentally, Patrick Ruffini (posting at Hugh Hewitt's blog) makes sense here:

It's stuff like this that will set the GOP back an election cycle or more on the Internet. No matter the snazzy Web features and YouTube videos they may put up, if they're fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of interacting with real people online, what's the point?

Having spent the better part of a decade working at the intersection of politics and the Web, I can't help but feel of a deep, deep sense of dismay that we're missing something so basic. This is EXACTLY why I am afraid that we will be outraised by $100 million or more in 2008.

Yes, some of the questions on Monday were trivial. Yes, they were partisan. (I expect many of the 9/17 questioners to be partisan Republicans.) Yes, they were messy. But so is democracy. And the fact that some place so much faith in the broken mainstream media over a benign format like this one says a lot about the difficult straits the Republicans are in right now.

I think the right thing to do here is to go ahead with it - yeah, there will be setups - but this is a chance to prove that the Republican candidates are a) willing to face the people - even in a loaded format and b) that the Dems are still scared to death of Fox News. Its a kind of win-win.

Anonymous Allegations

There are reports circulating that allegations have been made - anonymously - that US astronauts have been drunk at launch time. Aviation Week made a big splash by announcing that this was "found" by a panel that was looking into astronaut health issues.

A panel reviewing astronaut health issues in the wake of the Lisa Nowak arrest has found that on at least two occasions astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so intoxicated that they posed a flight-safety risk.

The panel, also reported "heavy use of alcohol" by astronauts before launch, within the standard 12-hour "bottle to throttle" rule applied to NASA flight crew members.

A NASA spokesman declined comment on the findings, which were obtained by Aviation Week & Space Technology. The spokesman said a press conference has tentatively been scheduled for Friday afternoon on the issue. At the direction of Administrator Michael Griffin, NASA Chief Medical Officer Dr. Richard S. Williams set up the panel to review astronaut medical and psychological screening after Nowak was arrested in Orlando, Fla., Feb. 5 on charges of attempted murder and attempted kidnapping for allegedly stalking and threatening a woman who was dating another astronaut. The attempted murder charge was subsequently dropped.

And Reuters is running with it - big time:

It was just another jolt for an operation that has had a rocky year from the start, beginning with the arrest of an astronaut accused of attacking a rival in a love triangle.

"It's going to shake up the world, I'll tell you that," retired NASA executive Seymour Himmel said of the latest news. "There will be congressional hearings that you will not be able to avoid."

News of the two latest bombshells broke within just a few hours of each other Thursday afternoon.

Aviation Week & Space Technology reported on its Web site that a special panel studying astronaut health found that on two occasions, astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so drunk they posed a safety risk.

The independent panel also found "heavy use of alcohol" before launch — within the standard 12-hour "bottle-to-throttle" rule, the magazine reported.

A NASA official confirmed the report contains such details, but said they were from anonymous interviews and not substantiated. The official asked that his name not be used because NASA will discuss the health report on Friday.

Is any of this true? I have no idea - and neither does anyone else, including Aviation Week. The report is not due out until August. If these allegations are actually in the report, they were made anonymously. One can allege anything if one does not have to face those he is accusing. Please keep that in mind. It is a cornerstone of what America was founded on. The right to confront an accuser is fundamental. The media is now committing to a trial by media of the entire space program, apparently. They spent their time at a press conference about the upcoming shuttle launch trying to trap a NASA official over the allegations. But the official only had this to say:

At a news conference to discuss the upcoming space shuttle launch set for Aug. 7, NASA's space operations chief was asked repeatedly about the drunken astronaut report.

The manager, Bill Gerstenmaier, would only say that he had never seen an intoxicated astronaut before flight or been involved in any disciplinary action related to that.

Let me point out one thing: if any flight surgeon allowed an inebriated astronaut to fly, then that surgeon is guilty of gross - probably criminal- negligence. Period. No exceptions, no excuses. If he reported his concerns and they were ignored, that surgeon should have resigned on the spot - no exceptions, no excuses. IF there is any truth to these allegations, I will be disappointed. But if the allegations are false, someone needs to answer for their lies. Absent anyone stepping forward to claim these allegations as their own - so we can evaluate the individual - we need to take a deep breath and not jump to conclusions.

The Running Of The Vets

In an act of revenge for the annual "Running of the Bulls" in Pamplona, Spain, the Animal Uprising™ has come up with a new event: The running of the Vets. As in veterinarians.

KREBS, Okla. — A large Angus bull apparently didn't enjoy his recent medical treatment. After being treated for worms at the Wynn Animal Hospital on Friday, the 1,800-pound bull charged the veterinarian, Dr. Eric Wynn, knocked him to the floor of a barn and then used its head to repeatedly pummel the veterinarian.

"If this bull had horns, I wouldn't be talking to you now," Wynn, 48, told the McAlester News-Capital. "I thought I was dead."

Wynn had just finished the procedure and released the bull to a holding pen when he was distracted by a telephone call. When he turned to take the call, the bull doubled back through a narrow fenced "alleyway" and slammed into Wynn from behind.

After the bull threw the veterinarian out the door, "He pushed me about 16 feet down the sidewalk," Wynn said.

Future plans for expansion will have an annual festival where a herd of veterinarians are released into an alley where a huge throng of bulls will be waiting to run them down. This is expected to be great fun for the bulls. The vets will probably be unavailable for comment.

Vegetable Voodoo

Well, you'll be happy to know that the organizers of the Quick Chek New Jersey Festival of Ballooning have discovered a method of ensuring good weather for the event. Virgin sacrifice. Well, ok, the virgin doesn't actually get offed, but it comes down to a variation on the same old Voodoo.

According to an imported superstition, good weather can be assured through a ceremony involving a virgin, some knives and fresh, whole onions and peppers.

And, no, Victoria Brumfield won't be sacrificed.

Festival organizer Howard Freeman said a colleague heard about it in Singapore several years ago. For the past two years, it has worked in Readington. Partly because of the superstition, Freeman no longer buys weather insurance for the event, which is expected to draw 175,000 people……

…….Here's how she does it: She drives a golf cart to the four corners of the festival site, picks up some grass, mumbles some random words, then penetrates the produce with a knife before jamming it and the knives into the ground. The ritual was scheduled for Thursday afternoon.

The virgin lives, but the vegetables get it. We simply have no words for this one.

A Tortuous Path

Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes a short autobiographical sketch on the winding path she followed to finally arrive in America. It ias a story worth taking the time to read.

Life in Somalia was no Zamunda, with cool breezes and a benign king, where animals and humans interacted in peaceful non-verbal understanding. In 1969, twenty-three days before my birth, Somalia's infant democracy was toppled by a member of the army. Mohamed Siad Barre did what Idi Amin of Uganda, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, and Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia were doing at the time. They killed, jailed, or chased away any man or woman who might be a threat to their power. My father, Hirsi Magan, was one of those who were jailed. My first memories of him are of me, my brother Mahad, my late sister Haweya, my grandmother, and my mother sitting, just after sunset, under a large tree we call the talal tree, cupping our hands and praying for him to be released. Our prayers were obviously heard, for after a while (I had no sense of time then: a while could extend between a month to a year) he was able to escape with the help of a close clan member who happened to be the director of the prison where my father was held. This clan member was ultimately betrayed and executed.

Diseases were common in my Africa. I got malaria, measles, a terrible form of pox which covers your body in boils, and hepatitis (also called yellow fever) where one's eyes are almost closed off with pus. My grandmother was attached to her traditions. She shunned all pleas to have us treated by modern doctors as ignoble, and instead force-fed us homemade herbal concoctions. Or she would have the local imam write verses of the Quran on a wooden board, rinse them off into a bowl, recite some verses, and spit into the bowl. I then had to drink that. Children's diseases like measles came and went, but my yellow fever resisted grandmother's potions. So Grandma took the next step that the tradition of her forefathers dictated. She took me to the local blacksmith. Grandma and two of my aunts bared my chest and pinned me to the ground. Meanwhile the blacksmith heated long iron rods with endings in the shape of nails. All the while I watched him and screamed with the terror of what was about to happen. When he pressed the iron rods into my chest I fainted from the pain.

It is a description of a truly tortuous - and tortured - path that she took. The politicians in the Netherlands were foolish to force her to leave. Their loss is our gain. Welcome to America.

NASA Reports Sabotage

NASA has reported that a subcontractor intentionally sabotaged a computer that was to be carried up to the International Space Station by shuttle Endeavour. The sabotage was detected before the computer was loaded. The unidentified subcontractor also damaged another computer that was not destined to be launched.

The unidentified employee, who works for a NASA subcontractor, cut wires inside the computer that is supposed to be delivered to the international space station by Endeavour, said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's space operations chief. The worker also damaged a similar computer that was not meant to fly to space.

The sabotage occurred outside Florida. Gerstenmaier did not identify the subcontractor or where the damage took place.

NASA's inspector general office is investigating.

Um, wouldn't it be a good idea for the FBI to also be involved? They would certainly have more investigative resources than NASA has, one would think.

TANSTAAFL

Taylor Dinerman writes a nice biographical sketch of Robert Anson Heinlein in today's Opinion Journal.

Science fiction at one time was despised as vulgar and "populist" by university English departments. Today, it is just another cultural artifact to be deconstructed, along with cartoons and People magazine articles. Yet one could argue that science fiction has had a greater impact on the way we all live than any other literary genre of the 20th century.

When one looks at the great technological revolutions that have shaped our lives over the past 50 years, more often than not one finds that the men and women behind them were avid consumers of what used to be considered no more than adolescent trash. As Arthur C. Clarke put it: "Almost every good scientist I know has read science fiction." And the greatest writer who produced them was Robert Anson Heinlein, born in Butler, Mo., 100 years ago this month.

The list of technologies, concepts and events that he anticipated in his fiction is long and varied. In his 1951 juvenile novel, "Between Planets," he described cellphones. In 1940, even before the Manhattan Project had begun, he chronicled, in the short story "Blowups Happen," the destruction of a graphite-regulated nuclear reactor similar to the one at Chernobyl. And in his 1961 masterpiece, "Stranger in a Strange Land," Heinlein–decades before Ronald and Nancy Reagan moved to the White House–introduced the idea that a president's wife might try to guide his actions based on the advice of her astrologer. One of Heinlein's best known "inventions" is the water bed, though he never took out a patent.

Heinlein brought to his work a unique combination of technical savvy–based largely on the engineering training he'd received at the U.S. Naval Academy and a career in the Navy cut short by tuberculosis in 1934–and a broad knowledge of history and foreign languages. Bemoaning the state of U.S. education in the 1970s, he wrote that "the three-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages and mathematics . . . if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots." Heinlein was certainly no ignorant peasant.

Heinlein also predicted "waldos", the remote manipulators that actually bear the name of his story that predicted them.

Ace Digs Up Some Serious Dirt On TNR

If the Ace is correct, he has uncovered a real can of worms over at The New Republic. It would appear that "Scott Thomas" Beauchamp is enagaged to a TNR staffer. It would also appear that a TRN staff member was leaking some of the sordid details of all this to bloggers. TNR has fired that staff member. It's getting messy, folks.

It's all so Plame-ish. As Gracie wrote to me, of all the embeds and milbloggers and real journalists they could have picked for the job, they instead chose to go with a very partisan, very inexperienced blogger just out of "laziness." Just because they knew him. Just because it was easy.

I actually think part of the reason was that they knew Beauchamp's politics — he having put them on display on his goofy blog — and so, just like with Valerie Plame, they knew the report was going to come back the way they wanted it when they sent him. But Gracie says it's just Occam's razor: Laziness.

Still, he's just speculating on the reason (as am I).

More coming.

Fired: I knew this, but wasn't sure if I was supposed to say anything about it.

TNR fired Gracie at 7:25 this morning with the non-explanation, "Your services are no longer required." This information is offered up by one of Gracie's psuedonyms ("near certainty" on that) at discarded lies.

I was holding that back because, other than Gracie sending me an email early AM telling me of this nasty wake-up call, I haven't been able to make contact and determine if I could run this information, or if a protest was planned, etc. In other words, my stating "my source was fired" sort of tells them they were right, eh? But it's been announced on the site they're busily checking (when they should be checking stuff in Iraq, no?).

That's why I had "near certainty" the person searching for Gracie's posts was from TNR, btw.

Ace has a long-running update on all of it.

National Health Death Service

Michael Moore and his ilk are singing the praises of socialized medicine. Touting the British, Canadian and even Cuban systems as better than the US. I guess we are not supposed to notice things like this report about the hospitals in Britain. That's where a new study shows that one third of all hospital deaths in Britain could have been avoided. The deaths were attributed to several factors, including gross patient neglect and a lack of professional competence.

One third of deaths in hospital investigated by a patient safety watchdog could have been avoided, claims a report released today.

The National Patient Safety Agency looked into 1,804 fatal hospital incidents reported to it in 2005. It found that 576 were "potentially avoidable" if there had been better communication between staff, faster recognition of the patient's deteriorating state, improved training and more accurate interpretation of test results.

Some 425 of the deaths investigated by the NPSA in 2005 were in acute or general hospitals. Of these, 71 were reported to be related to diagnostic errors, in 64 cases the patient's deteriorating condition was not recognised or not acted upon, and 43 involved a problem with resuscitation after cardiac arrest.

The remainder were connected to medication errors, suicide or still-birth.

In 14 of the patients who deteriorated, no checks had been made on them for a prolonged time and changes in their vital signs such as blood pressure, heart rate or temperature were not detected.

In a further 30 cases, the checks had been made but staff either did not recognise the patient's worsening condition or they did not act. In 17 other cases help was sought but there was a delay.

Still think socialized medicine is a good idea?

Update: Wow, many thanks to Hugh Hewitt for the link. I wondered what was making the hit counter scream for mercy. Please do look around a little while you're here, folks. Thanks for dropping by to read this post.

Convict Ships

The Daily Mail has a longish account of the first fleet of convict ships that sailed from England to the continent of Australia in 1787. Needless to say, most of the convicts were transported for what today would be considered petty crime. Stealing a few ounces of snuff, some food to stay alive, even a book were enough to send a person, young or old, to Botany Bay.

Poor Elizabeth Beckford. She was 70 years old and her crime was stealing 12lb of Gloucester cheese.

For that she could have hanged. Hundreds did in those violent, vengeful days, dancing "the Tyburn frisk" in the words of those who crammed around the gallows to watch this favourite spectator sport of the 18th century. But the state, in its mercy, saved her life - and gave her a punishment that some would see as worse than death.

She was an unwilling passenger on a fleet of 11 ships that set out from England in 1787, the first of the convoys of the criminal underclass - as the ruling elite of Georgian England saw them - sent in chains to colonise new and dangerous shores on the other side of the world.

Those 736 sad souls on that pioneering voyage would establish a new world. Though she didn't know it - and the thought would have given her no consolation as she lay crammed with others in cell-like spaces below decks - Elizabeth was a founder member of a new country, Australia.

On Thursday, more than 200 years later, those who made those dreadful voyages - 163,000 in all over the years to come - are feted. Twenty-first century Australians celebrate their convict past, taking their lead from premier John Howard, a descendant of transported folk on both sides of his family.

The shipping and court registers of the banished have long lain in the National Archive in London. Now, in the knowledge that two million of us in Britain probably have blood links with Australia's criminal forebears, they have been put online for the hundreds of thousands of amateur genealogists in this country, eager to find out more about their roots.

It is an interesting read.

The Giant Rat Of Louisiana Heads North

The Lafayette, Louisiana Daily Advertiser reports on the progress of a giant rat invasion. The giant rats, known as nutria, first showed up in the area 50 years ago or so. They won't leave. Well, except to invade another place, that is.

Nutria were already eating up too much of Acadiana 50 years ago today when a big meeting was called in New Iberia to deal with the "crop-killing infestation" of Acadiana's biggest rat.

Part of the problem, according to agriculture commissioner Sidney McCleary, was that Hurricane Audrey drove thousands of nutria out of coastal marshes and into farmers' fields.

With no marsh grass to eat, the nutria had begun to eat farmers out of house and home - with the heaviest damage reported in Iberia, St. Mary and Vermilion parishes…….

…….The latest study tells us flatly, "There is no known method that will completely eradicate nutria."

But at least we're not alone anymore. They're having the same infestation problem today in the wetlands around Chesapeake Bay. That may be close enough to Washington that someone there will notice.

Now, we thought the Cajuns had come up with the perfect way to deal with the infestation: cook-offs. If you have ever seen a "Cajun microwave" you know that those folks take cooking - and eating - very, very seriously. (And if you haven't eaten pig cooked in one of those, you have never eaten pork!)  We'd have thought the nutria would be running back for the border by now. We are sorely disappointed. Oh well, now the giant rats of Louisiana are moving on Washington, DC. Which, in a few years, may present an entirely new problem. How are we going to tell them apart from the politicians?

AP Perpetuates Myth

The opening for this story is very misleading: Fired Colo. professor sues university

DENVER - A professor who was fired after comparing some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi sued the school Wednesday, saying officials retaliated against him for exercising his right to free speech.

Although that is the event that triggered an investigation, that has nothing, at all, to do with why he was fired. He was fired for academic misconduct, the AP does actually report that.

Ward Churchill was ousted by the University of Colorado's governing Board of Regents after three faculty committees accused him of plagiarism, fabrication and other research misconduct.

Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies, had triggered a national outcry with an essay comparing some World Trade Center victims to Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann.

The Regents said his dismissal was based on other writings and that his firing was unrelated to his Sept. 11 comments. The academic investigation did not include the Sept. 11 essay but began after university officials concluded it was protected by the First Amendment and that he could not be fired for writing it.

Churchill has denied the research misconduct allegations and called the investigation "a farce" and "a fraud."

His lawsuit, filed in Denver District Court, charged that after the essay came to light, "the university vowed to examine every word ever written or spoken by Professor Churchill in an effort to find some excuse for terminating his employment."

University spokesman Ken McConnellogue said the school stands behind the Regents' vote to fire Churchill.

"We believe this is a matter of academic integrity for the university, so we will not be settling the lawsuit," he said.

Churchill will now have the unenviable task of answering for his conduct in open court, in public records. Every instance of plagiarism and fraud will be right out in the open, not kept within the cozy wall of silence that has surrounded the disciplinary process up until now. The university is inclined to fight this lawsuit, which speaks directly to the confidence they have that Churchill did, indeed, violate academic integrity. But no matter how Churchill tries to paint it, he wasn't fired for his reprehensible writings following 9/11. But he really should have thought about what skeletons he had hiding in his closet before he published it.

“Scott Thomas” Revealed?

The New Republic is running a statement from "Scott Thomas" identifying himself a private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, Alpha Company, 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division. And the Army has launched an investigation into the events Beauchamp wrote about. There is no corroboration given in any case, Beauchamp offers only this:

My pieces were always intended to provide my discreet view of the war; they were never intended as a reflection of the entire U.S. Military. I wanted Americans to have one soldier's view of events in Iraq.

It's been maddening, to say the least, to see the plausibility of events that I witnessed questioned by people who have never served in Iraq. I was initially reluctant to take the time out of my already insane schedule fighting an actual war in order to play some role in an ideological battle that I never wanted to join. That being said, my character, my experiences, and those of my comrades in arms have been called into question, and I believe that it is important to stand by my writing under my real name.

I'd let the investigation run its course, Beauchamp is going to have some explaining to do about all this. I'd only point out that his rank, that of private, indicates he has either not been in uniform very long at all or that he has lost rank at some point. My son was an E-4, or specialist, in no time at all.

UPDATE: Guess what? Beauchamp appears to have a blog. At least the details appear correct. A post dated September *, 2006 gives the address of:

PFC Scott Beauchamp
A Co. 1 18 Infantry, 2nd BCT, 1st ID

Note the difference in rank involved? What's the story there?

UPDATE: Others: Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, Gateway Pundit, QandO, Blackfive, Outside the Wire,