Holmes And The Foul Racist

"Well, Mrs. Phipps, I cannot see that you have any particular cause for uneasiness, nor do I understand why I, whose time is of some value, should interfere in the matter.  I really have other things to engage me."  So spoke Sherlock Holmes and turned back to the great scrapbook in which he was arranging and indexing some of his latest paper doll creations.

But the landlady had the pertinacity and also the years of bureaucratic experience. She held her ground firmly.

"It is a matter of vital national interest and I can make your life a living hell if you don't investigate at once."

"Ah, yes–a simple matter." Holmes threw down the scrapbook and leapt to his feet. "Well, then is it spies stealing state secrets? Or a murder mystery?"

"No, it is foul racist who must be investigated at once and you are just the man to look into it."

Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery, and also, to do him justice, upon the side bureaucratic strong arm tactics. The two forces made him lay down his gum-brush with a sigh of resignation and reach for a handy fifth of rutgut bourbon.

"Well, well, Mrs. Phipps, let us hear about it, then. Tell me about this foul racist."

"Well, he spat at a black boy, I immediately had him cudgeled to the ground and thrown into the school basement."

Holmes leaned forward and laid his long, thin fingers upon the nearest flagon of cheap rum. He grimaced and asked, "And who is this racist then?"

"If I take it up I must understand every detail," said he.  "Take time to consider.  The smallest point may be the most essential."

"Well, he's a student at my school. He and the other four-year olds were playing a game of chase and - why Mr. Holmes, whatever is the matter?"

Holmes picked his jaw up from where it had fallen amongst the ruins of his paper doll collection. He sat down heavily in his chair and just stared at Mrs. Phipps.

"You mean to tell me that your foul racist is a four-year old boy?"

"Why yes, Mr. Holmes, I suspected it at once when he spat at the 10-year old black boy."

Holmes reached down and picked up his scrapbook, grasped his gum brush and started to glue a particularly fancy paper doll into the book.

Mrs. Phipps, her voice rising almost to a shriek, demanded, "Aren't you going to investigate?"

Holmes glanced up and said, calmly, "No, Mrs. Phipps. I think I shall let you finish the project all by yourself. You've only got a short distance to go. Then you'll finally be a complete ass."

I knocked back a quick quart of scotch while Mrs. Phipps stormed from the room. I looked inquiringly at Holmes.

"And they wonder why we've taken to drink and paper dolls," he muttered.

I nodded and went back to cutting out a particularly tricky Betty Boop doll.

UPDATE: Others: Gates of Vienna, The Van Der Galiën Gazette, Moonbattery,

Bush Imposes Sanctions On Burma Junta

The Bush administration imposed sanctions on more individual members of the military junta that rules Burma. 23 additional people "and entities" were designated to be covered by the sanctions. In addition, additional export controls for the little amount of trade the US does with Burma were imposed. It isn't much, but it is about the limit of US influence on Burma.

Unveiling the second package of U.S. measures in less than a month, Bush said he was adding more of Myanmar's military leaders to a list already facing sanctions and had ordered a tightening of U.S. export controls on the Asian country.

But in a tacit admission that U.S. steps alone would not be enough, he urged China, India and other countries in the region to "review their own laws and policies" on Myanmar, the former Burma.

"Burma's rulers continue to defy the world's just demands to stop their vicious persecution," Bush told reporters. "They continue to reject the clear will of the Burmese people to live in freedom under leaders of their own choosing."

Bush's latest announcement followed weeks of mostly unsuccessful international efforts to get Myanmar's government to ease up on repression of protesters and open a dialogue with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Myanmar's junta has kept a tight lid on the country since crushing Buddhist monk-led protests that began in September and grew into the largest anti-government demonstrations in 20 years. Official media said 10 people died.

Bush unveiled one set of limited sanctions last month targeting 14 military leaders, toughening U.S. measures that had been in place for years but had forced little change.

"In light of the ongoing atrocities by these men and their associates, the United States has today imposed additional sanctions," Bush said on Friday.

Bush also praised those countries that have also put unilateral sanctions in place against Burma. The European Union, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines have all taken at least some steps against the thugs. The UN, meanwhile, discussed the relative merits of baked potatoes versus French fries.

Incidentally, the name of the country is Burma - the name changes were made by the junta after the last crushing of democracy. I've been making it a point to refuse to use the names the thugs imposed.

ABCF(raudulent) News

ABC News should now be required to add an 'F' for fraudulent to their logo:

"But without qualification Mark May, the owner of the network that has Rush Limbaugh, and Rush Limbaugh should know that this letter that they're auctioning is going to be something that raises money for a worthwhile cause. I don't know what we could do more important than helping to ensure that children of our fallen soldiers and police officers who have fallen in the line of duty have the opportunity for their children to have a good education," he said.

The bidding ends at 1:00p.m. No mater what, Democrats are going to make a ton of money for a charity off their political vitriol.

The Democrats who sent the letter have not raised one red cent for that cause. Period. This is such a twisting of fact that it defies belief. Rush Limbaugh raised the money by selling off the letter - which was an abuse of power where 41 Democrats attempted to attack and intimidate a private citizen.

And ABC is passing along the fraud.

And you can bet there is a photoshop coming.

UPDATE: Told ya.

Just helping you out, folks. (If the sentence had read, "Democrats' political vitriol is going to help Rush Limbaugh make a ton of money for a charity," there would not have been an issue. But that is not what was written, was it?)

UPDATE: Others: STACLU, Don Surber, Confederate Yankee, Sweetness & Light, Stop The ACLU, Let Freedom Ring, Say Anything, Neocon News, Power Line

Quick! We Must Flea!

Four South Bend, Indiana police officers investigating a burglary got a nasty surprise. No, they didn't get into an altercation with the burglar of anything like that. But they had to flee the building when the fleas attacked.

The tiny, biting attackers were so overwhelming that the South Bend patrolmen had to be decontaminated and ended up being sent home early from their shifts.

"They were all over the place — in our socks and even in our shorts. It was disgusting," said Cpl. Ken Stuart.

To avoid infesting their squad cars, the police station or relatives, Stuart, Cpl. Chris Slager and Patrolman Paul Strabavy endured a lengthy flea decontamination process.

A van took them back to the station, where the men showered with flea/lice shampoo and soap. A wife of one of the officers brought them spare clothes.

Everyone shudder! I can actually attest to how disgusting this is. Way back in the day when I was reading meters, I had the misfortune to read the meters in a house where the humans kept a very large herd of cats. The smell was bad, but the scores of fleas running up my legs were worse. I was out in a rural area at the time and had to finish the route. So I went to a nearby store and bought a can of Deepwoods Off and sprayed the living heck out of myself. When I got home I showered until my skin was raw. My skin was still crawling for days afterward, though. It's a creepy feeling.

The Last Prairie Meets King Corn

Guess who loses? The Independent - not a media source I generally link to - has an article that looks at the impact of the ethanol craze on the last of the native prairie in the United States. It is a bleak picture, indeed.

And now almost unnoticed by urban America, one of the great ecological disasters of modern times is unfolding as an ethanol-fuelled gold rush engulfs the Great Plains and risks destroying what is left of North America's most endangered ecosystem, the native prairie. The last 35 million acres of prairie, deliberately left alone to preserve a precious ecology, is being ploughed up to produce ethanol from corn.

The tiny Beaumont hotel is famous (among aviators at least) for having three different guest registers: one each for pilots, motorcyclists and other guests. Pete the rancher came striding in, wearing jeans and cowboy shirt and sat down in the small café overhung by aircraft memorabilia to tell his and Beaumont's story.

For over 100 years his family has been fattening cattle on rich Kansas Bluestem prairie grass, among the last remaining stands of original prairie. Most of the tallgrass that once covered millions of acres of the Great Plains has been ploughed under. Only isolated pockets remain, some preserved by conservation grants.

Now, even in the Flint Hills, what is left of the prairie is under threat as farmers race to cash in on a bonanza created by planting corn for ethanol production in order to ease America's worries about future fuel supplies. The corn economy is nothing short of a disaster for the environment, for the farm economy and potentially for the Flint Hills, in Mr Ferrell's view.

The prairie is some of the most fertile and productive land on the planet. Nowadays it has become the corn-and-soybean belt, with only remnants of the short-grass prairie providing grazing for livestock. A typical section of prairie grass shelters nearly 800 types of birds, mammals and reptiles. It also thrives on being heavily grazed and then left fallow. Prairie grasses hide nearly two-thirds of their buds and mass beneath the ground and when Native Americans set fire to it to burn off brush, the fresh growth lured back the buffalo they depended on……..

………Driving across the plains of Kansas to its geographical centre, I watched its farmers bring in their biggest corn harvest since World War II. Corn now completely dominates the landscape. Bruce Babbitt, like Al Gore, is a nearly man of US presidential politics. Like Al Gore he is an environmentalist who ran for the White House and failed. Babbitt fell at the first hurdle, in Iowa, in the heart of America's Corn Belt although later became US Secretary of the Interior in charge of its national parks and is now chairman of the WWF(US).

"Riding across the Iowa landscape at dawn is a beautiful experience," Mr Babbitt said. "You can almost hear the corn growing." It is only when you stop to think that the beauty starts to fade, there is just one crop, no wildlife, the skies are empty and the creeks run muddy. It is an industrial landscape stripped of its diversity, an American tragedy.'

As I have said many times: it has never been easier to rape the planet. Just say you're fighting global warming and any ecological depravity you want to indulge in is perfectly ok with the Al Gore crowd. Ethanol has an energy overhead that approaches unity: it uses close to one unit of energy to produce one unit of ethanol energy. It is using critical water resources, it is driving up - rapidly - the cost of food. It is dramatically lessening the amount of food aid available to the rest of the world.

And now it is killing what little is left of the prairie.

Sleazy, Even For Harry Reid

Believe it or not, Harry Reid is trying to take credit for Rush Limbaugh's auction.

THIS WEEK, RUSH LIMBAUGH PUT THE ORIGINAL COPY OF THAT LETTER UP FOR AUCTION ON E-BAY. MR. PRESIDENT, WE DIDN'T HAVE TIME, OR WE COULD HAVE GOTTEN EVERY SENATOR TO SIGN THAT LETTER. BUT HE PUT THE LETTER UP FOR AUCTION ON E-BAY AND I THINK VERY, VERY CONSTRUCTIVELY, LEFT THE PROCEEDS OF THAT IT GO TO THE MARINE CORPS LAW ENFORCEMENTS FOUNDATION. THAT PROVIDES SCHOLARSHIP ASSISTANCE TO MARINES AND FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT PERSONNEL WHOSE PARENTS FALL IN THE LINE OF DUTY. WHAT COULD BE A MORE WORTHWHILE CAUSE? I THINK IT'S REALLY GOOD THAT THIS MONEY ON E-BAY IS GOING TO BE RAISED FOR THIS PURPOSE. WHEN I SPOKE TO MARK MAYIC HE AND I THOUGHT THIS PROBABLY WOULDN'T MAKE MUCH MONEY, A LETTER WRITTEN BY DEMOCRATIC SENATORS COMPLAINING ABOUT SOMETHING.

Reid abused the power of the US Senate in a blatant attempt to attack a private citizen by trying to intimidate the man's employer. Over a phony smear drummed up by Media Mendacity for America, no less. And then he tries to grab credit for the auction? Good lord.

H/T LGF. Charles say: Hypocrisy so extreme it warps time and space. Charles also reports that the letter sold for $2,100,100 to philanthropist Betty Casey.

The World Turned Upside Down

Legend has it that they marched out of their positions while the band played The World Turned Upside Down. 7,000 British and Hessian troops under General Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia on October 19, 1781 to a combined American and French force. The allies had besieged the British army for more than three weeks, pouring relentless artillery fire into the British positions. In the end, Cornwallis, too embarrassed to surrender in person, claimed illness and sent his deputy to perform the formalities. The deputy first tried to hand his sword to French General Rochambeau who refused it and directed him to George Washington. There the deputy's sword was again refused, Washington not being willing to accept Cornwallis' proxy. Instead, American General Benjamin Lincoln, field commander of the American army, finally accepted the formal surrender.

Historians can find no real evidence that the British band really played The World Turned Upside Down, but there is no doubt that it actually did for the British that day. Fighting sputtered on sporadically for a while longer, but the American Revolutionary War was effectively over on that autumn day in Virginia. America's world turned right side up that day.

The formal articles of surrender can be read here.

You Say Potato, I Say New Sanctions

While the United Nations is busy as a pack of coked-up beavers going tuber-ular about all things potato, the Bush administration is about to implement a new round of unilateral sanctions against the military junta that is crushing monk's skulls in Burma.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Bush had threatened possible additional sanctions "if the Burmese regime did not end its repression" when he announced strengthened measures last month.

"Unfortunately the Burmese regime did not respond," he told reporters, saying Bush would make a public statement at 1:50 p.m. EDT (1750 GMT).

Fratto said the Treasury Department, responsible for implementing U.S. sanctions against Myanmar, would also have an announcement about the new steps being taken in response to the crackdown on protests against 45 years of military rule.

But he declined to give details.

Washington imposed a new set of sanctions last month on senior Myanmar military officials, toughening U.S. measures that had been in place for years but had forced little change.

The United States has little leverage over the junta in Burma, but it is at least doing more than talking about spuds.

How Dirty Is Hillary’s Money?

The Los Angeles Times explores a whole new - and massive - funding center for Hillary Clinton's campaign. This one is, to put it mildly, somewhat unlikely: the very poorest sections of New York's Chinatown.

NEW YORK — Something remarkable happened at 44 Henry St., a grimy Chinatown tenement with peeling walls. It also happened nearby at a dimly lighted apartment building with trash bins clustered by the front door.

And again not too far away, at 88 E. Broadway beneath the Manhattan bridge, where vendors chatter in Mandarin and Fujianese as they hawk rubber sandals and bargain-basement clothes.

All three locations, along with scores of others scattered throughout some of the poorest Chinese neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, have been swept by an extraordinary impulse to shower money on one particular presidential candidate — Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Dishwashers, waiters and others whose jobs and dilapidated home addresses seem to make them unpromising targets for political fundraisers are pouring $1,000 and $2,000 contributions into Clinton's campaign treasury. In April, a single fundraiser in an area long known for its gritty urban poverty yielded a whopping $380,000. When Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) ran for president in 2004, he received $24,000 from Chinatown.

At this point in the presidential campaign cycle, Clinton has raised more money than any candidate in history. Those dishwashers, waiters and street stall hawkers are part of the reason. And Clinton's success in gathering money from Chinatown's least-affluent residents stems from a two-pronged strategy: mutually beneficial alliances with powerful groups, and appeals to the hopes and dreams of people now consigned to the margins.

Then the LA Times gets to looking at the money and the people who gave it - if they exist. Or if they were legally allowed to donate. Or if they were not strongarmed into the donation.

The Times examined the cases of more than 150 donors who provided checks to Clinton after fundraising events geared to the Chinese community. One-third of those donors could not be found using property, telephone or business records. Most have not registered to vote, according to public records.

And several dozen were described in financial reports as holding jobs — including dishwasher, server or chef — that would normally make it difficult to donate amounts ranging from $500 to the legal maximum of $2,300 per election.

Of 74 residents of New York's Chinatown, Flushing, the Bronx or Brooklyn that The Times called or visited, only 24 could be reached for comment.

Many said they gave to Clinton because they were instructed to do so by local association leaders. Some said they wanted help on immigration concerns. And several spoke of the pride they felt by being associated with a powerful figure such as Clinton.

There are a lot more fishy details in this story.

The tenement at 44 Henry St. was listed in Clinton's campaign reports as the home of Shu Fang Li, who reportedly gave $1,000.

In a recent visit, a man, apparently drunk, was asleep near the entrance to the neighboring beauty parlor, the Nice Hair Salon.

A tenant living in the apartment listed as Li's address said through a translator that she had not heard of him, although she had lived there for the last 10 years.

A man named Liang Zheng was listed as having contributed $1,000. The address given was a large apartment building on East 194th Street in the Bronx, but no one by that name could be located there.

Census figures for 2000 show the median family income for the area was less than $21,000. About 45% of the population was living below the poverty line, more than double the city average.

Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it? How dirty is all of this money? And if many of the supposed donors don't actually exist, who is the money really coming from? These are the questions smart reporters would be asking right now. Because this could be a blockbuster.

“A Moral Bonfire To Discredit The Cause”

The Opinion Journal looks at the lurid allegations made about the conduct of US Marines at Haditha, Iraq, the behavior of the media and the antics of politicians, especially the false allegations of the Unindicted ABSCAM co-conspirator, John Murtha. They judge those behaviors harshly.

At Haditha, did the Marines act reasonably and appropriately based on their training? They were in a hostile combat situation where deadly force was authorized against suspected triggermen for the IED, and were ordered to assault a suspected insurgent hideout. In retrospect, the men in the car had no weapons or explosives; in retrospect, the people in the house were not insurgents. No one knew at the time.

Innocents were killed at Haditha, as they inevitably are in all wars–though that does not excuse or justify wrongdoing. Yet neither was Haditha the atrocity or "massacre" that many assumed–though errors in judgment may well have been committed. And while some violent crimes have been visited on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, overall the highly disciplined U.S. military has conducted itself in an exemplary fashion. When there have been aberrations, the services have typically held themselves accountable.

The same cannot be said of the political and media classes. Many, including Members of Congress, were looking for another moral bonfire to discredit the cause in Iraq, and they found a pretext in Haditha. The critics rushed to judgment; facts and evidence were discarded to fit the antiwar template.

Most despicably, they created and stoked a political atmosphere that exposes American soldiers in the line of duty, risking and often losing their lives, to criminal liability for the chaos of war. This is the deepest shame of Haditha, and the one for which apologies ought to be made.

The editorial has an excellent roundup of the facts that are known - rather than the speculation that has stoked much of the coverage of this whole affair. It is well worth reading just for the clarifications. At this point almost all of the people who stoked the bonfire have themselves been discredited. And yes, they really should at least apologize.

K Street Redux

Stephen Moore writes on the suicidal impulse of corporate America and the strongarm donation solicitation tactics the Democrats are using. It is not a pretty picture.

The late Milton Friedman used to rail against what he called corporate America's "suicidal impulse." By that he meant that the business community continually financed the very politicians who were intent on robbing their profits and slitting their throats.

It's happening again. The latest quarterly Federal Election Commission Report on political giving, released this week, shows the majority of corporate money flowing to the Democrats. Firms like Comcast, General Electric, Federal Express and UPS have shifted campaign giving away from the GOP. Employees of five major defense contractors including Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrup-Grumman spent $104,000 on Democratic presidential candidates, versus $88,800 for the Republican field.

Meanwhile, according to FEC data, about 85% of the donations from Roll Call newspaper's top-20 list of corporate lobbyists are helping Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid protect and expand their House and Senate majorities. Roll Call calls it a "Democratic donor surge," noting that many of the highest-priced lobbyists already "maxed out"–they've bumped up against the legal limit in how much they are allowed to give the Democrats……..

……… When Republicans were in control, Ms. Pelosi and company denounced the "K Street Project," run by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. They protested that corporate lobbyists were allowed to become a fourth branch of government–and in some cases their protests had merit, as Republicans curried favor with money interests.

Meanwhile, Democrats under Rep. Rahm Emanuel and Sen. Schumer have quietly erected their own K Street Project, and employ some of the same strong-arm tactics they once deplored. "I've never felt the squeeze that we're under now to give to Democrats and to hire them," says one telecom industry representative. "They've put out the word that if you have an issue on trade, taxes, or regulation, you'd better be a donor and you'd better not be part of any effort to run ads against our freshmen incumbents."

Why does corporate America go along? The standard excuse is that this is the way the game is played. They've made a calculated decision that Democrats are going to sweep in 2008. Republicans rightly object that corporate interests are making this a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Moore points out what should be obvious: if the corporate donors think the money will somehow save them, they are seriously deluding themselves. The Democrats have already signaled - loud an clear - that corporate taxation will skyrocket, protectionist trade policies will be enacted and that unions will get pretty much whatever they want if the Dems run the table in 2008. The money will just ensure that it happens.

Death Toll At 136 In Pakistan, Al Qaeda Suspected

Not exactly a big surprise: Pakistani authorities believe that a tribal warlord allied with al Qaeda is behind the bloody assassination attempt on Benazir Bhutto. Locals hospitals report 136 bystanders are dead with another 250 wounded. The device used was packed with ball bearings and other shrapnel, adding to its lethality.

KARACHI, Pakistan - The suicide attack that killed up to 136 people and shattered former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's joyous return from exile bore the hallmarks of a warlord tied to al-Qaida and the Taliban, authorities said Friday. Forensic experts studied a severed head to determine the bomber's identity.

Baitullah Mehsud — a top militant leader on the unstable Afghan border — threatened this month to meet Bhutto's return to Pakistan with suicide attacks, according to local media reports.

The top security official in the province where the attack took place suggested that Bhutto's camp had not seriously considered the need for security for her return after eight years in exile.

"They got carried away by political exigencies instead of taking our concern seriously," said the official, Ghulam Muhammad Mohtarem.

Bhutto's procession had been creeping toward the center of Karachi for 10 hours with supporters thronging her armored truck when a small explosion erupted near the front of the vehicle. That was quickly followed by a larger blast, destroying two police vans escorting the procession. Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said the vehicles on the left side of Bhutto's truck had borne the brunt of the blast, one of the deadliest in Pakistan's history.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Manzur Mughal, the Karachi police officer in charge of the investigation, said detectives had established that a young man who threw a grenade blew himself up 22 seconds later next to the truck.

The attacker's head was found nearby and taken to a forensic lab to try to identify him, Mughal told The Associated Press.

It is not at all clear who else may have helped out here. Bhutto's husband told a television reporter that he believed certain elements in the government may have been involved. The report also says it is not clear whether Bhutto and Musharraf will continue their efforts to forge an anti-militant alliance - which would be doing exactly what the killers wanted. Don't be that stupid.