Going Medieval

No, not the slang term for behaving violently. Well, ok, there was some of that going medieval, too. But that wasn't the point. The point was to get married. The bride wore a dress made from 270 feet of silk and arrived riding - side saddle, thank you - on a white horse. The groom clanked up wearing full plate armor.

The scene was the wedding of Sian Jenkins and Rupert Hammerton - Fraser, who are so fascinated by the Middle Ages that they recreated a medieval ceremony down to the minutest detail - the bride even promised to be bonny and buxom in bed, a vow from a 14th century service.

The £30,000 event at Lulworth Castle in Dorset ended with a banquet where guests many in home-made costumes were served medieval delicacies. The following day there was jousting, sword-fighting and even a full-scale battle re-enactment.

Mr Hammerton-Fraser, 40, went out with his squire and ring bearer and fought challengers with swords, a practice common in the 14th century.

His 26-year-old wife said: "Our families were a bit surprised when we told them what we wanted but they got involved and even made their own costumes for the day."

Her husband, a lecturer in traditional print making, said the wedding took two years to plan and research and was around 99 per cent historically accurate.

"My male friends and I drank beer and polished our armour before we went to the castle," he said. "I arrived with a guard of three armoured men and my best men, squire and chief usher.

"My bride then rode up on a white horse and was escorted by her oldest male friend, maid of honour, three armoured knights and three bridesmaids."

One wonders if the wedding night involved a can opener to retrieve the wedding knight. Inquiring minds want to know.

How Weird Is This?

I read quite a lot of Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction back in the day. My least favorite was 2001: A Space Odyssey. I suspect that is because while I enjoyed The Sentinel upon which the story is loosely based, 2001 was actually kind of a joint project between Clarke and Stanley Kubrick - who I really never liked at all. (Yeah, yeah, that will offend some people. I thought most of his films were boring. At best. Some were among the worst things ever filmed, giving Plan 9 From Outer Space a real run.) Here's the weird thing, though.

The Cassini probe was making a flyby of the moon of Saturn that is the endpoint of the journey in 2001. Called Japetus in the book but actually named Iapetus, that was supposed to be the location of the monolith with extraordinary powers. So what, you ask?

So the moon apparently zapped the Cassini probe and put it into safe mode.

Cassini flew within 1,000 miles of Iapetus on Monday and snapped images of its rugged, two-toned surface. As it was sending data back to Earth, it was hit by a cosmic ray that caused a power switch to trip. The spacecraft was not damaged, but had to turn off its instruments and relay only limited information.

Mission controllers have since sent commands for Cassini to resume normal transmission and scientists recovered all the data from the moon flyby despite a nearly 12-hour delay. The spacecraft was expected to be fully functional by week's end.

Iapetus, Saturn's third-largest moon, gained science fiction fame in Clarke's mind-bending novel "2001: A Space Odyssey," that was developed in concert with Stanley Kubrick's 1968 movie by the same name.

Clarke surprised the Cassini team with a five-minute video played Tuesday during an internal meeting at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Clarke, who lives in Sri Lanka, told scientists he looked forward to viewing photos from the flyby.

Even before Clarke's taped greeting, scientists waxed poetic about Cassini's encounter with Iapetus and the fictional Discovery spaceship's rendezvous with Japetus, as the Saturn moon is known in Clarke's book.

"From time to time, you would hear references to the novel. People would say, 'I wonder if Cassini will see the monolith,'" said Cassini program manager Robert Mitchell.

Well of course it won't. The aliens who zapped the probe have already switched the tapes.

Second Earthquake Rocks Indonesia

What appears to be another earthquake - not, repeat, not, an aftershock has hit western Indonesia near the city of Padang. More buildings have collapsed and tsunami warnings are being issued all through the region. There is no word on casualties yet.

The latest quake was also felt in Malaysia and in Singapore where tall buildings swayed.

Rafael Abreu, a geologist with The U.S. Geological Survey in Colorado, said the magnitude-7.8 quake did not appear to be an aftershock to Wednesday's 8.4-magnitude temblor.

"We are not calling it an aftershock at this point. It's fairly large itself. It seems to be a different earthquake," Abreu said.

He said a tsunami watch was in effect for Australia and Indonesia. Indonesia later lifted its alert with no tsunamis detected.

"The quake seems to be pretty shallow," he said. "These are the quakes that can produce tsunamis."

The USGS said the new quake was centered about 125 miles from Bengkulu, a city on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, which was ravaged by the 2004 tsunami. It occurred at a shallow depth of about six miles.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii warned Thursday's quake had the potential to generate a destructive regional tsunami along coasts within 600 miles of the epicenter. It advised authorities to take immediate action to evacuate coastal areas.

On Wednesday, a strong earthquake shook Southeast Asia, collapsing buildings, killing at least five people and injuring dozens in Indonesia. That tremor triggered small waves off the coastal city of Padang in Sumatra, the island ravaged by the 2004 tsunami disaster.

Thursday's quake caused extensive damage in Padang, a local official said.

"Many buildings collapsed after this morning's quake," Fauzi Bahar, the governor, told El Shinta radio. "We're still trying to find out about victims.

Agam from Agam's Gecko has a report on the earlier earthquake from Thailand.

Hsu’s Next

Keep me moving
Over fifty
Keep me groovin'
Just a hippie gypsy
Come on move now
Movin'
Keep me movin' yeah

Keep me movin', movin', movin', yeah
Movin' yeah
Mobile, mobile, mobile, mobile….

I don't care about pollution
I'm an air-conditioned gypsy
That's my solution
Watch the police and the taxman miss me!
I'm mobile!
Mobile, mobile, mobile, yeah
(P. Townshend, Going Mobile, Who's Next, 1971)

The article from the Wall Street Journal on Norman Hsu has come out from behind the pay wall and can be read in its enitrity courtesy of Real Clear Politics. It looks very much like the investment firm of Source Financing Investors will be trying very hard to get some of the money Norman Hsu got from them back.

Source Financing's arrangement with Mr. Hsu's company, according to court documents and investor accounts, echoes an older matter that came to light in recent weeks. In 1991, California officials charged Mr. Hsu with grand theft for failing to repay investors for money he raised to import latex gloves from China.

"Norman Hsu has an extraordinary ability to deceive," says Seth Rosenberg of Clayman & Rosenberg, a lawyer representing Mr. Rosenman.

Mr. Rosenman and a partner, Yau Cheng, wrote a joint letter on Monday to alert their fund's investors. "Last week, our attorneys met with representatives of the Manhattan District Attorney's office to inform them of the situation," they wrote. The district attorney is investigating, the letter says. A spokesman for the district attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Hsu's lawyers had no immediate comment to the allegations by Source Financing.

Two Bankruptcies

Where Mr. Hsu got his money has been a burning question in recent weeks. He financed a web of political donations and a lavish lifestyle, despite two bankruptcies and a felony record. Telling acquaintances he was an apparel executive, he set up multiple companies, sometimes giving early investors profits, they say, so they would bring in friends. In some cases, investors in his businesses say they were so eager to please Mr. Hsu that they donated to political candidates alongside him.

It somehow just seemed fitting to use a bit of a song by The Who to start this off, since Joel Rosenman was one of the folks who helped really put the Who over the top in popularity in the United States.

He and a friend with a big trust fund, John Roberts, decided to pitch a situation comedy about a hapless duo who hatched a new business plan every week. Looking for material, they placed an ad in The Wall Street Journal and New York Times that said: "Young Men With Unlimited Capital looking for interesting, legitimate, investment opportunities and business propositions."

The responses — thousands of them — inspired them to become venture capitalists instead of screenwriters, according to a book by Messrs. Rosenman and Roberts, "Young Men With Unlimited Capital."

One of the ideas was for a three-day concert. Together with two others, the pair raised money, produced and organized Woodstock in 1969.

Well, old Norman may not be going mobile for a while. But I'll bet there are some politicians scurrying like heck.

Semper Fi

Owen West has a special op-ed up over at the Opinion Journal. It really is a must read.

Last month I was running the Central Park loop when a runner wearing a U.S. Marine Corps shirt approached. I alerted the two boys in the jog stroller and my eldest, who met this world with a father in Iraq, shouted, "Semper fi!"

The man saw the emblem on my visor and said, "You hear about Doug Zembiec?" If most Americans have six degrees of separation, Marines have no more than two. I nodded and stopped my watch. But all he managed to say was, "That one hurt." Then he plunged down the hill toward 72nd Street, cutting his own path against the flow.

I tried to make sense of it. Not the encounter but the sheer madness of the surroundings. Runners were chattering about school applications and subprime predictions. Yet most of them told pollsters that Iraq was the single largest anxiety in their lives. Like the majority of the nation, they were exhausted by a war in which they had no role. And they wanted out.

It was 65 degrees in August in Manhattan, about 65 degrees cooler than the temperature in Doug Zembiec's helmet as he approached a Baghdad target house in 90 pounds of equipment. He and his team wanted to be remembered for how they lived and how they helped others live. Inside was a group that cared only how it died.

West is writing about a corrosive divide that is getting worse. The attempt by MoveOn.org to slime General David Petraeus is a symptom of that divide. But there are other ones as well. Please read it. There is a real problem brewing if we do not - all of us - listen to what West is trying to get across.

Not Exactly Cleared Up Yet

And just like that, the ban on the American flag at a North Carolina school has been lifted. Well, sort of.

SAMPSON COUNTY, N.C – A North Carolina High School that came under national attention over their rule that prohibited students from wearing items with the American flag, or any flag from other countries, has lifted the ban.

Superintendent Dr. L. Stewart Hobbs, Jr said they have lifted the ban on flags and “from this point on, all dress code changes will be made at the school board level.”

Here's the problem, though.  From Jay at Stop the ACLU:

I just received a return call from Dr. Hobbs, the Superintendent of
Schools. He told me this :

Last year, the school system had a problem with the Mexican flag protests,
and with gang members using that to hide gang symbols. As a result, one
principal banned all flags.

He has today, when he became aware of the problem, he lifted the flag
ban. That decision will no longer be made at the individual school level.

He has also had a phone call already today from the ACLU !!!! Telling him
that if he makes a decison to allow only the US flag, THEY WILL
SUE. Didn’t take long, huh ?

My imipression, upon speaking with him, is that Dr. Hobbs is very
pro-American, and this issue was a snafu compounded by a prinicpal at one
school, plus the ACLU.

Dr. Hobbs has informed me that he is currently consulting with the school’s
attorneys as to how to respond to the ACLU’s threat.

Many thanks to Jay at STACLU for sending that info along.

Terrifying New Weapon

Well, the Russians may have perfected a new "vacuum bomb", but the Animal Uprising™ has already beat them. Because the Russians need airplanes to deliver their explosives. The animals have perfected the anti-aircraft deer.

Flying an airplane takes a command of certain skills, but being able to dodge a deer isn't typically considered one of them.

A UVSC-owned Diamond DA42 Twin Star plowed into the deer at 1 a.m. on Aug. 22 while landing, said Mario Markides, UVSC flight operations manager. As part of the training program, pilots fly during the day and night.

Damage to the plane is estimated at $50,000, and lost potential student rental fees could run as high as $30,000.

While no one was hurt but the deer, which died, it makes for an expensive problem. The airport has fencing around its roughly 1,000 acres, but deer still manage to get through. In the daytime, pilots can see the animals from the air and can take steps to avoid them. But at night they can't be seen until the last moment.

"The big problem is you can't swerve," Markides said.

On Monday morning, Provo Animal Control officers responded to a call that deer were on the runway, but eventually the incident was turned over to the state Division of Wildlife Resources.

The father of all bombs is no match for the antlers of doom.

The father of all bombs is no match for the antlers of doom.

Bad News For Budding Entrepreneurs

Ok, listen up all you budding entrepreneurs out there. It turns out that heroin addicts actually have consumer protections under the law. So please do not attempt to pass off pickled herring as heroin.

LEBANON, Ohio - Three people who mixed vinegar with catfish bait and tried to sell it as heroin got hooked by undercover officers.

Authorities said the three also tried to sell fake LSD.

John Burke, director of the Greater Warren County Drug Task Force, said he didn't know what might happen if someone actually injected a bait-vinegar concoction. Authorities don't know whether anyone else bought the counterfeit drug.

"We have gotten no reports of anyone else getting them, but quite frankly the people who may have gotten them aren't likely to report it," prosecutor Rachel Hutzel said Wednesday.

Who knows, maybe it worked. Sentences for the three range from 6 to 18 months.

Taking The Weight Off

This news indicates one of the greatest dangers mankind has ever faced. The kilogram is losing weight.

The 118-year-old cylinder that is the international prototype for the metric mass, kept tightly under lock and key outside Paris, is mysteriously losing weight — if ever so slightly. Physicist Richard Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, southwest of Paris, says the reference kilo appears to have lost 50 micrograms compared with the average of dozens of copies.

"The mystery is that they were all made of the same material, and many were made at the same time and kept under the same conditions, and yet the masses among them are slowly drifting apart," he said. "We don't really have a good hypothesis for it."

The kilogram's uncertainty could affect even countries that don't use the metric system — it is the ultimate weight standard for the U.S. customary system, where it equals 2.2 pounds. For scientists, the inconstant metric constant is a nuisance, threatening calculation of things like electricity generation.

"They depend on a mass measurement and it's inconvenient for them to have a definition of the kilogram which is based on some artifact," said Davis, who is American.

Do you realize what this means? Global lightening is happening! It's real! This will manifest itself in many ways as the crisis accelerates. For example, as fish get lighter, they may begin to fly - oh, no. Too late. This also explains the "obesity epidemic" that has some people's shorts tightly knotted. The human body is gaining weight in a natural defensive move to keep from going orbital.

We fully expect the cover of Time Magazine for discovering this new menace. Global lightening, you heard it here first.

Discouraging

Frankly, the overzealous advocates of political correctness are becoming more than a little discouraging. When a school superintendent in North Carolina cannot figure out what flag is appropriate to display in the United States of America, we have a real problem.

Under a new school rule, students at Hobbton High School are not allowed to wear items with flags, from any country, including the United States.

The new rule stems from a controversy over students wearing shirts bearing flags of other countries.

Gayle Langston said her daughter, Jessica, was told to remove her stars and stripes t-shirt.

“Today she wanted to wear her shirt, and I had to tell her no,” said Langston. “She didn't like it at all because I knew it would get her in trouble. Of all days, 9/11, she could not wear her American Flag shirt.”

The superintendent of schools in Sampson County calls the situation unfortunate, but says educators didn’t want to be forced to pick and choose which flags should be permissible.

This is utterly shameful. What country do you live in, sir? Banning the flags of other countries may or may not be a good idea, depending on what triggered that decision. But placing the American flag into that same group is wrong. Period.

The superintendent is Dr. L. Stewart Hobbs, Jr., according to the website for the district. (And if you feel that you have to contact him or the school board, keep it civil, please.)

Abe To Resign

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced he will resign, ending a government that lasted only a year. Abe has been struggling since taking office but has really been having problems since a big election defeat in July where his party lost control of the upper house.

Abe said he was quitting to pave the way for ruling and opposition parties to work together to approve the extension of Tokyo's naval mission in support of the U.S.-led operation in Afghanistan.

"In the present situation it is difficult to push ahead with effective policies that win the support and trust of the public," Abe said in a nationally televised news conference. "I have decided that we need a change in this situation."

Abe, a nationalist whose support rating has plunged to 30 percent, also cited the ruling party's defeat in July 29 elections, in which the opposition took control of the upper house of Parliament.

The prime minister said he had instructed ruling party leaders to immediately search for a replacement, but he did not announce a date for his departure from office. His former foreign minister, Taro Aso, is considered a front-runner to replace him, though Aso said it was too soon for him to comment.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party announced it would use a streamlined election process to choose a successor. Kyodo News agency reported the party planned an election for LDP president next Wednesday.

I don't follow Japanese politics all that closely so I'm not up to speed on all the issues. But it sounds like he really had a raft of problems that just finally overwhelmed him.

The Beatings Will Continue…..

The media is officially piling on Hillary! Clinton and her ties to Norman Hsu. There is an awful lot of this stuff on the web today. The Washington Post gleefully reports that that Clinton campaign was warned that a "big fundraiser" was running some sort of Ponzi scheme. They dismissed the warning.

The first lesson of the Hsu episode is one that all candidates — especially candidates named Clinton — ought to have learned after the fundraising scandals of the 1996 presidential campaign: Beware of fundraisers bearing big bundles. To some extent, all candidates are at the mercy of their financiers, taking it on faith that the contributions being solicited are not the product of under-the-table, and illegal, reimbursement schemes. But the bigger the bundle, the more diligence is due in checking out the bundler, especially one like Mr. Hsu, whose source of wealth was not obvious, and whose listed occupation changed from one filing with the Federal Election Commission to another.

The Clinton campaign's failure to discover the fugitive warrant for Mr. Hsu is disturbing; its reported rebuff of warnings about Mr. Hsu is inexcusable. "I am more than ever convinced that a man claiming to be a big fundraiser for Hillary Clinton is running a Ponzi scheme," a California businessman, Jack Cassidy, wrote to the Clinton campaign's finance director for Western states, according to e-mails obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The finance director, Samantha Wolf, no longer with the campaign, dismissed those concerns, asserting, "He is COMPLETELY legit."

As blood in the water draws sharks, the aroma of a money scandal draws the media - regardless of party involved. Keep an eye on Flip today. He's been keeping up his running totals but did not update yesterday.

A Crook Named Hsu?

This is huge. If the report in the Wall Street Journal (paid subscription only) is accurate there is reason to believe that Norman Hsu may have gotten all that money of his by less-than-legal means. And the really bad news for the Democrats is that there is a lot of money unaccounted for. Ed Morrisey has a section of the article quoted:

New documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal may help point to an answer: A company controlled by Mr. Hsu recently received $40 million from a Madison Avenue investment fund run by Joel Rosenman, who was one of the creators of the Woodstock rock festival in 1969. That money, Mr. Rosenman told investors this week, is missing.

Mr. Hsu told Mr. Rosenman the money would be used to manufacture apparel in China for Gucci, Prada and other private labels, yielding a 40% profit on each deal, according to a business plan obtained by the Journal. Now the investment fund, Source Financing Investors, says Mr. Hsu's company owes it the $40 million, which represents 37 separate deals with Mr. Hsu's company. When Source Financing recently attempted to cash checks from the company, Components Ltd., the investors say they were told the account held insufficient funds.

Source Financing's arrangement with Mr. Hsu's company, according to court documents and investor accounts, echoes an older matter that came to light in recent weeks. In 1991, California officials charged Mr. Hsu with grand theft for failing to repay investors for money he raised to import latex gloves from China.

That is a lot of money to go missing. It certainly calls into question the business judgment of Mr. Rosenman. (If I had money invested in that firm, I'd be screaming for some answers right now.) But more importantly, where did all that lovely cash disappear to? Ed asks some really good questions and points out that there had to be an initial stake of money from somewhere to set up what looks a lot like a long-term scam. Where that money came from could spell even more a disaster for the Democrats. Any Democrat who is hanging on to any money connected in any way to Norman Hsu had better think quickly about getting rid of it.

The Dirty Money Tapdance

The New York Times is still gleefully reporting on Hillary! Clinton's Norman Hsu problem - something I found more than a little surprising when it first started. Now, I am rather beginning to suspect that they may well be trying to undermine Clinton. Because they are dredging up the past and making sure Clinton's connection with earlier fundraising scandals are front and center.

The Hsu case has revived ugly memories for voters about the Democratic fund-raising scandals when Bill Clinton was president, the senator’s campaign advisers acknowledge, a time when both Clintons were often photographed with people whose money later turned out to be dirty, including Johnny Chung and Charlie Trie. Mrs. Clinton is running on her White House experience in the 1990s, and any attention cast on past fund-raising controversies could threaten her image with voters.

Even some of her own major donors are aghast that, given the Clintons’ past problems with fund-raising, Mrs. Clinton’s vetting process did not uncover Mr. Hsu’s criminal history. Even though Mr. Hsu had previously donated to other politicians and charities without his past surfacing, these donors say, the Clinton operation had been widely considered one of the best-run in recent campaigns — until now.

“People have often said about the Clintons, they don’t care who they hang out with as long as the people can be helpful to them,” said one of Mrs. Clinton’s major fund-raisers. “The larger point in all of this is that the Clintons are the ultimate pragmatists in who they hang out with; if you can be useful to them, they will find a way to make it work.”

Advisers say Mrs. Clinton is not so much furious about the scandal, as she is worried about containing the political damage.

To that end, Clinton campaign aides refused yesterday to release the names of the 260 donors whom Mr. Hsu recruited to the campaign, preferring to wait until they finish their own research on the individuals. Mrs. Clinton and her advisers are concerned that rival campaigns or the news media will dig into the background of each donor, and they want to be prepared if some of the donors end up having money funneled to them from Mr. Hsu or have shady backgrounds.

I always thought Hillary! Clinton had a tin ear about some things. This would be one of them. Instead of plotting to get the money back after making a big show out of returning it, she should be turning her back on it. Because there is much, much more dirt starting to come out now about Norman Hsu. And anyone associated with him will get hit with the splatter as the digging continues.

Cuban Health Care

John Stossel corners Michael Moore over the claims that the Cuban health care system is superior to that of the United States. Moore pulled a stunt in his movie Sicko and took people to Cuba - supposedly to the same hospital that average Cubans go to. But Stossel points out that there are two very different health care systems for Cuba. One for the elite and paying foreigners and another for the average person.

Cuban-born Dr. Jose Carro, who interviews Cuban doctors who have moved to the United States, says Moore's movie lies. Dr. Darsi Ferrer, a human-rights advocate in Cuba, told us that Americans should not believe the claims being made. He describes the Cuban people as "crazy with desperation" because of poor-quality care.

George Utset, who writes The Real Cuba Web site, says Moore and his group were ushered to the upper floors of the hospital, to rooms reserved for the privileged. "They don't go to the hospital for regular Cubans. They go to hospital for the elite. And it's a very different condition," Utset says.

For ordinary Cubans, health care is different. A YouTube.com video, posted by a woman from Venezuela, purports to show the two forms of health care, one for the privileged who pay in dollars and a far inferior one for regular Cubans.

Moore claims Cubans live longer than Americans. It's true that a U.N. report claims that. But the United Nations didn't gather any data. "The United Nations simply reports whatever the government in Cuba reports, so we have no objective way to know what the real statistics are," Carro says.

Exactly. Communist countries are famous for hiding the truth. Twenty years ago, when I reported from the Soviet Union, officials insisted there were no poor people in Russia, but they refused to let me look for myself.

Why would we believe the Cuban government's health statistics?

Communist countries have never been known for their accurate statistics on anything. Stossel was persistent and Moore rapidly changed the subject. Stossel's upcoming demolition of Moore airs this Friday on 20/20. That should be interesting to watch. Judging by Stossel's columns over the past few weeks, it will not be one of Moore's favorite television shows.