Gone Fishin’

A Man from New Zealand, having spent the day at a funeral - drinking the whole time - decided it was time to go fishing. Needing a way to get to the coast from the central part of the northern island to the coast, he found a likely vehicle. Provisioning himself for the journey with a case of beer, he set out. Just him, the case of beer and the hearse he stole from the funeral home.

Police said the 46-year-old sickness beneficiary, who brought a carton of beer for the trip, told them he was heading to the coast to "check out the sea conditions."

The man had been attending a funeral near the tourist town of Rotorua on central North Island when he allegedly stole the blue Ford Forte hearse.

There was no dead body on board at the time.

Snr. Sgt. Ian Campion said funeral directors chased their $15,200 hearse as it was driven off, but eventually lost track of it and called police.

The man had the carton of beer with him in the front of the hearse when he was stopped by police.

"He said he was wanting to go for a ride to (the coastal town of) Maketu to check out the sea conditions before going fishing," Campion was reported telling the "New Zealand Herald" newspaper.

If he had taken the guest of honor at the funeral with him, it would be a Hollywood movie by next week. (And if the Hollywood writers go out on strike, I might be available to write a screenplay! Hey, a blogger has to eat, too.)

The Effect Of Sunlight On The Metropolis

It is amazing what turning over a rock and exposing what is underneath to a bit of sunlight can do. Just a couple of days ago the sun shone down on the Orwellian and frankly racist policies of the University of Delaware's student re-education program. The folks at FIRE raised holy hell about the blatant brainwashing. And lo, the president of the university has suddenly completely shut down the entire program - cold.

Late Thursday, University of Delaware President Patrick Harker released on the school’s website a Message to the University of Delaware Community terminating the university’s ideological reeducation program, which FIRE condemned as an exercise in thought reform. He stated, “I have directed that the program be stopped immediately. No further activities under the current framework will be conducted.” Harker also called for a “full and broad-based review” of the program’s practices and purposes. While concerns remain about the University of Delaware’s commitment to free expression, FIRE commends President Harker for his decision to immediately terminate the Orwellian residence life education program. FIRE will have more on this development tomorrow. President Harker’s message is reproduced in full below.

A Message to the University of Delaware Community
 
Nov. 1, 2007
 
The University of Delaware strives for an environment in which all people feel welcome to learn, and which supports intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, free inquiry and respect for the views and values of an increasingly diverse population. The University is committed to the education of students as citizens, scholars and professionals and their preparation to contribute creatively and with integrity to a global society. The purpose of the residence life educational program is to support these commitments.
 
While I believe that recent press accounts misrepresent the purpose of the residential life program at the University of Delaware, there are questions about its practices that must be addressed and there are reasons for concern that the actual purpose is not being fulfilled. It is not feasible to evaluate these issues without a full and broad-based review.
 
Upon the recommendation of Vice President for Student Life Michael Gilbert and Director of Residence Life Kathleen Kerr, I have directed that the program be stopped immediately. No further activities under the current framework will be conducted.
 
Vice President Gilbert will work with the University Faculty Senate and others to determine the proper means by which residence life programs may support the intellectual, cultural and ethical development of our students.
 
 
Patrick Harker
President

I do not think the reports misrepresented what was being done at Delaware in any way. It was nothing less than re-education - requiring a conformity of thought that is, frankly, anathema to everything America stands for. But the sunlight has proved to be more than the purveyors of that hateful program could stand. Thank God. President Harker, the mission of your university is, indeed, to teach your students to think. The problem with the program was that it taught them what to think. That is no longer education. That is indoctrination.

A major, major victory for FIRE. Thank you for your work here.

UPDATE: Others: Michelle Malkin, Say Anything, The Van Der Galiën Gazette, Hot Air, Riehl World View, Flopping Aces,  Joanne Jacobs,  

Risky Business

NASA revealed plans for a spacewalk to repair a torn solar panel today. The work will entail astronaut Scott Parazynski riding the robotic arm of the International Space Station to make the repairs. One of many potential hazards is the fact that this will be "live line" work - the solar panel is producing electricity. There is no way to turn it off or safe the system.

The space agency said astronauts will attempt to repair the working power-generating solar array, which partially tore at its hinges during deployment on Oct. 30. Mission managers indicated most details are set for the spacewalk, but gave themselves a 1:08 a.m. ET (0508 GMT) deadline early Friday to ship complete instructions up to astronauts.

"We're faced with a difficult situation," said David Wolf, head of the EVA branch for the astronaut office, here at Johnson Space Center. "I think we're onto a solution that should work and get us pretty close to a permanently acceptable situation."

The extravehicular activity, or EVA, will send STS-120 astronaut Scott Parazynski on a one-hour ride on an extended robotic arm to the damage site while fellow astronaut Doug Wheelock looks on. Donning protective goggles, astronauts in space worked today to craft "cuff links" that should button up the 2.5-foot (0.76-meter) tear in the array.

If Parazynski does not effect a repair from his 90-foot-long (27-meter-long) robotic ride, mission managers said spacewalkers could try again on a following day.

Derek Hassmann, ISS lead flight director for the STS-120 mission, said teams are still working around the clock to get the complete details together for the fourth spacewalk. Management teams delayed the EVA to Saturday to buy more time.

"We knew it would be a full-court press to get there on Friday, and I'm disappointed that we didn't get there," Hassmann said. "But I'm satisfied we made a good call."

This is going to be a very dangerous EVA for Scott Parazynski. Keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

Democracies Talk, Tyrannies Act

The government of (T)Hugo Chavez today unleashed troops on the Venezuelan people who wanted to protest the constitutional "reforms" that are being rubber stamped in the lapdog legislature. Those "reforms" will allow Chavez to declare himself president-for-life. So the people marched and Chavez let slip his dogs of war.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Troops used tear gas and water cannons Thursday to disperse demonstrators who turned out by the tens of thousands to protest constitutional reforms that would permit President Hugo Chavez to run for re-election indefinitely.

Led by university students, demonstrators chanted "Freedom! Freedom!" and warned that 69 amendments drafted by Venezuela's Chavista-dominated National Assembly would violate civil liberties and derail democracy.

Authorities broke up the protest outside the electoral agency's office. There were no reports from authorities of arrests or serious injuries, but the local Globovision television channel showed footage of several students who suffered minor injuries.

Students also hurled rocks and bottles. A few lifted up sections of metal barricades and thrusted them against police holding riot shields. Students retreated later as police fired plastic bullets.

"Chavez wants to remain in power his entire life, and that's not democracy," said Gonzalo Rommer, a 20-year-old university student, who joined protesters as they marched to the National Elections Council.

Deputy Justice Minister Tarek El Aissami blamed students for the violence, saying they forced their way through police barricades. But Vicente Diaz, one of the National Election Council's five directors, criticized National Guardsmen and police for using excessive force to disperse protesters.

Yes, those vicious protesters crying for freedom brutally assaulted the iron fist of Chavez with their faces. They dared to attack the truncheons of the police with their skulls. Beasts.

Night has fallen in Venezuela. It will be a very long night.

Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr., 1915 - 2007

Brigadier General Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr., US Air Force (Retired), passed away today. General Tibbets (then colonel) was the pilot of the Enola Gay on August 6, 1945, dropping the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr., whose B-29 bomber dubbed the Enola Gay dropped the 9,000-pound "Little Boy" bomb on August 6, 1945, died at his home in the midwest city of Columbus, Ohio.

He had been suffering from heart problems, manager and publisher Gerry Newhouse told AFP.

Tibbets never regretted the bombing that led to the end of World War II but at a horrific price: 140,000 dead immediately and 80,000 other Japanese succumbing in the aftermath, according to Hiroshima officials.

"That's what it took to end the war," he told the Columbus Dispatch in 2003. "I went out to stop the killing all over."

Tibbets was just a 30-year-old lieutenant colonel when he piloted the plane named after his mother. Decades later, the memory of the first atomic bomb fired in anger stayed vivid in his mind.

My wife and I took our family to an airfield in Kissimmee, Florida several years ago to meet General Tibbets, who was there signing copies of his autobiography. We got a signed copy of the book for my oldest son's birthday and shook hands with the general. We took some pictures, but I am not sure where they are, I'll have to look around at home to see if I can find them.

UPDATE: AP Obituary here. It adds a sad detail to the report of General Tibbet's death:

Tibbets grew tired of criticism for delivering the first nuclear weapon used in wartime, telling family and friends that he wanted no funeral service or headstone because he feared a burial site would only give detractors a place to protest.

Rest in peace, General.

“Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish And Short”

"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."
(Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651)

What may well be one of Thomas Hobbes' most recognizable quotes - even to those who don't know that Hobbes coined the phrase - came to mind when I read this piece in today's Wall Street Journal. In it, John R. Christy, a member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC, figuratively renounces his 'share' of the Nobel Peace Prize. Then he, quite literally, denounces the global warming alarmists like Al Gore and his fellow travelers. It is brutally direct.

There are some of us who remain so humbled by the task of measuring and understanding the extraordinarily complex climate system that we are skeptical of our ability to know what it is doing and why. As we build climate data sets from scratch and look into the guts of the climate system, however, we don't find the alarmist theory matching observations. (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite data we analyze at the University of Alabama in Huntsville does show modest warming — around 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit per century, if current warming trends of 0.25 degrees per decade continue.)
 
It is my turn to cringe when I hear overstated-confidence from those who describe the projected evolution of global weather patterns over the next 100 years, especially when I consider how difficult it is to accurately predict that system's behavior over the next five days.
 
Mother Nature simply operates at a level of complexity that is, at this point, beyond the mastery of mere mortals (such as scientists) and the tools available to us. As my high-school physics teacher admonished us in those we-shall-conquer-the-world-with-a-slide-rule days, "Begin all of your scientific pronouncements with 'At our present level of ignorance, we think we know . . .'"
 
I haven't seen that type of climate humility lately. Rather I see jump-to-conclusions advocates and, unfortunately, some scientists who see in every weather anomaly the specter of a global-warming apocalypse. Explaining each successive phenomenon as a result of human action gives them comfort and an easy answer……..

……..Suppose you are very serious about making a dent in carbon emissions and could replace about 10% of the world's energy sources with non-CO2-emitting nuclear power by 2020 — roughly equivalent to halving U.S. emissions. Based on IPCC-like projections, the required 1,000 new nuclear power plants would slow the warming by about 0.2 ?176 degrees Fahrenheit per century. It's a dent.
 
But what is the economic and human price, and what is it worth given the scientific uncertainty?
 
My experience as a missionary teacher in Africa opened my eyes to this simple fact: Without access to energy, life is brutal and short. The uncertain impacts of global warming far in the future must be weighed against disasters at our doorsteps today. Bjorn Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus 2004, a cost-benefit analysis of health issues by leading economists (including three Nobelists), calculated that spending on health issues such as micronutrients for children, HIV/AIDS and water purification has benefits 50 to 200 times those of attempting to marginally limit "global warming."
 
Given the scientific uncertainty and our relative impotence regarding climate change, the moral imperative here seems clear to me.

I would urge you to read the entire thing. It really is an important piece. As more and more scientists are beginning to speak out against the thuggish attempts to shut off debate by demonizing and intimidating dissenters.

Many of the "solutions" being touted by the true believers are fraudulent, worthless or even harmful to the planet. I have been collecting articles that show that here on this site for quite some time. Many of the "carbon offsets" being sold by unscrupulous operators reduce humans in developing countries into little more than serfs performing on human hamster wheels. All so people with gargantuan carbon footprints like Al Gore can continue to justify their conspicuous consumption. Rainforests are being burned to the ground, orangutans killed, people enslaved. Worse, the poorest countries will soon see starvation as food is diverted to fuel production. There is real and lasting environmental and human damage being done in the name of fighting global warming. It is time to stop it before the damage is irreversible. It is not in the West's best interests to condemn others to that solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short life in search of a pointless "solution" that will not work anyway.

(Hat Tip to Matthew Sheffield at NewsBusters for the link to this.)

US Experts To Oversee Dismantling Of North Korean Reactor

A team of experts from the United States has arrived in North Korea to oversee the process of disabling North Korea's nuclear reactor used for plutonium production. The process should begin by the end of the week. They will also oversee the dismantling of North Korea's plutonium extraction facility.

The team of U.S. experts arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday to oversee disabling the secretive state's Soviet-era nuclear reactor, a plant that makes nuclear fuel and another that turns spent fuel into plutonium.

Christopher Hill, the top U.S. envoy to six-way talks to end Pyongyang's nuclear arms program, said the U.S. team had "a specific list of measures" and would arrive at the nuclear complex to begin the dismantling process on Friday or Saturday.

"The first actual physical acts of disablement will probably be at the end of the week," Hill told reporters. "We are satisfied that we have an overall plan that will be effective and that will provide the disablement that we need."

The moves follow a breakthrough February deal under which North Korea, which tested a nuclear device last year in defiance of international warnings, is to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear plant and admit U.N. nuclear monitors.

Hill met his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, on Wednesday to discuss steps to disable Yongbyon.

This is actually very good news. Under the agreement that was put in place by the Clinton administration, the facilities remained intact, allowing rapid restarting of the program. In fact US experts help stabilize the spent fuel storage. This sounds like a much more thorough job. I think this is a step in the right direction. Pyongyang is also going to surrender all reprocessed plutonium - the article does not say what is being done with spent fuel, however. I remain suspicious of North Korea, but still believe this is a good start.

The Pending Government Shutdown

The Democrats in charge of Congress have yet to pass a single funding bill even though the government is now a month into a new fiscal year. All that is keeping the government running at this point is a series of continuing resolutions, reports David Ignatius. It is not a new phenomenon, of course. This has been going on for years, sometimes it is slightly better, sometimes worse. But it is a real problem.

The problem has actually become worse since the 1974 Congressional Budget Act, which delayed the start of the fiscal year to Oct. 1 from July 1 to give Congress more time to do its job. According to a 1997 article by University of Maryland political scientist Roy T. Meyers, the percentage of late appropriations bills increased after Congress extended its deadline.

Meyers summarized the inefficiencies that result from having to run an agency without knowing your budget. "When regular appropriations are delayed, uncertainty about final appropriations leads many managers to hoard funds; in some cases, hiring and purchasing stops. These effects are so unnecessarily counterproductive, it is surprising (the comic strip) 'Dilbert' has not devoted a month to this topic."

Joyce argues that government contractors jack up their prices to compensate for the risk and uncertainty. And he notes the added cost for federal agencies who have to plan for the possibility that a new CR won't be approved and that they may have to shut down. "That's what economists would call a dead-weight loss," says Joyce.

"It's a lousy way to do business," says Leon Panetta, who grappled with these issues as director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration. "You're almost guaranteeing that there will be incompetence, because the agencies don't have the resources to do the job."

The budget breakdown is as serious for those who receive federal money as for the bureaucrats who dole it out. Panetta notes the problem facing school districts around the country that count on federal spending. They have to make plans at the beginning of the school year in September, but with Congress in "CR" mode, they don't know if they can count on the federal money. So they often delay big items such as construction or new programs.

Again, it is not unique to either party. But the party in power is going to take a disproportionately large hit for allowing a shutdown to occur. The Republicans found that out back in the late 1990s. With approval rates for Congress already at historic lows, this is not a good sign for the Congressional leadership.

“The Sour State Of Public Opinion”

According to an article in The Politico, Congressional Democrats are divided into two camps by recent polling data that suggests the public is really upset with Congress. One camp is described as 'concerned.' The other camp is in full-blown panic. The article doesn't say how many members are in each of the two camps, but either way, the Democrats believe they have a real problem.

“There are a lot of Democratic members who are consumed with” the sour state of public opinion, said one top party operative who works closely with the Democratic leadership.

From the Democratic perspective, there is definitely a case to be made for alarm. It is based on the history of recent decades that shows whenever voters get this unhappy, unpredictable things can happen.

One person who knows that well — his Democratic clients were beneficiaries of the phenomenon in such politically seismic years as 1992 and 2006 — is pollster Stan Greenberg. He came back from the field in October with numbers for NPR that showed 69 percent of voters disapprove of the job Congress is doing — up 20 points from last January and the highest disapproval rating since Democrats reclaimed their congressional majorities. More striking than the data was a focus group Greenberg observed with James Carville, a fellow consultant for the Democracy Corps project and his partner in Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign.

“We’ve never seen people as angry and frustrated as they are now, … even more than in ’92,” he said.

As it happens, however, Greenberg is firmly in the stay-calm camp of the Democratic debate. Along with pollster Mark Mellman, who also consults with Democrats, he has been trying to reassure anxious members with this sunny-side-up message: The public dislikes Republicans even more than they dislike you.

“It’s certainly true that people are disgruntled with Congress and lukewarm about the Democrats in general,” Greenberg said, adding that, “However modest Democrats’ numbers are, Republicans’ numbers are much worse and dropping.

“The main story is Republicans are seen as backing the Iraq war, backing Bush and blocking change,” he said.

Gee, that's a real winner of a campaign strategy. "Vote for us, we're not as bad as the other guys." I have been pointing this out for a while now - Congress has the worst approval record ever in some polls - merely appalling in others. But that sort of polling indicates serious problems for incumbents - in both parties. But the main problem, I suspect, is going to be for members of Congress who are trying to win the presidency. Voters seldom promote someone who is doing a rotten job in the one they currently hold. That could be a decided disadvantage for the Democrats even more so than the Republicans.  Worse yet, the late night comedians are now slamming the Dems:

In making this case, the GOP has been getting a boost from Jay Leno, who mocked House Democrats in his monologue on Monday and Tuesday nights, in particular the recent news that Democrats are backing off their 2006 campaign pledge for longer workweeks. “I guess they realize they don’t need a full five days to do nothing,” Leno cracked. “They can now do nothing in four days.”

That is actually a pretty good sign of how low they have sunk in public opinion.

Ron Paul Campaign And Criminal Spamming

The folks who do computer forensic at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have evidence that a criminal bot-net is being used to flood the internet with spam supporting Ron Paul. They do not believe - and the campaign stoutly denies - that the campaign itself has anything to do with the spampaign, but it is happening.

If Texas congressman Ron Paul is elected president in 2008, he may be the first leader of the free world put into power with the help of a global network of hacked PCs spewing spam, according to computer-security researchers who've analyzed a recent flurry of e-mail supporting the long-shot Republican candidate.

"This is clearly a criminal act in support of a campaign, which has been committed with or without their knowledge," says Gary Warner, the University of Alabama at Birmingham's director of research in computer forensics. "The question is, will we see more and more of this, or will this bring shame to the campaigns and will they make clear that this is not a form of acceptable behavior by their supporters?" Warner pointed to provisions of the federal Can-Spam Act.

Ron Paul spokesman Jesse Benton says the campaign has no knowledge of the scam. Warner himself says that he has no reason to believe that the Paul campaign had anything to do with these messages.

Some participants in the online political world have long suspected Paul's technically sophisticated fan base of manipulating online tools and polls to boost the appearance of a wide base of support. But the UAB analysis is the first to document any internet shenanigans.

This is a bizarre situation, but one that could be big trouble in future years. It's a double-edged sword:

Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said in an e-mail, "This is the first I've heard about this situation."

"If it is true, it could be done by a well-intentioned yet misguided supporter or someone with bad intentions trying to embarrass the campaign," he wrote while ferrying his boss to tape an appearance on The Tonight Show. "Either way, this is independent work, and we have no connection."

I've had a few attempts at comment/trackback spam along these lines here. So far the spam filters have been able to stop it cold. The Wired story mentions that Redstate banned new Paul supporters because of their repeated thread-jacking. I generally delete any comments I consider to be astroturfing (essentially that is an attempt at stealing free advertising bandwidth).  

How Badly Did Hillary Clinton Do….

….At the Democrat's candidate debate on Tuesday? Well, apparently badly enough that her campaign is in full-power damage control mode. The Hill reports sitting in on a conference call that sounds like the campaign staff is badly rattled. They are begging supporters for more money and complaining that their candidate is being picked on.

Mark Penn, Clinton’s senior strategist and pollster, and Jonathan Mantz, the campaign’s finance director, told the supporters on the call, which The Hill listened to in its entirety, that they expect attacks from Clinton’s rivals to continue, and she will need the financial resources to deflect their attacks.

Clinton came under withering assault in the Philadelphia debate, and some supporters on the call agreed with analysts that she stumbled.

“I wouldn’t say she lost her cool,” one caller said. “But I would say she lost her footing.”

The caller addded that Clinton’s response to questions about records from her time in the White House that have been sealed by the National Archives “made me roll my eyes.”

The criticisms followed Penn’s assertion that Clinton was “unflappable.” He also said criticisms from Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) would backfire and that he was already “detecting some backlash,” particularly among female voters.

Those female voters are saying, “Sen. Clinton needs our support now more than ever if we’re going to see this six-on-one to try to bring her down,” Penn told those on the campaign call.

He, Mantz and several supporters hinted repeatedly on the call that Clinton was unfairly targeted by Tim Russert, debate moderator and host of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“Russert made it appear that President Clinton had done something new or unusual,” Penn said, before adding that it “is, in fact, an extremely confusing situation … I think there will be further clarification.”

“I hope so,” a female caller responded. “To me, it was the most uncomfortable part of the debate.”

Penn turned again to Russert. “The other candidates were asked questions like, ‘Is there life in outer space?’ ”

The object of the call, and a follow-up breakfast Thursday morning with campaign chairman and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Terry McAuliffe, was apparently to stop whatever bleeding the senator might have sustained during a debate in which Clinton wore a bull’s-eye on her back throughout the evening.

One person on the conference call apparently opined that Tim Russert should be shot. She quickly backpedaled from that statement, but still, the words were put out there. Read it yourself, but it sounds like both staff and supporters are more than a little worried about Clinton's performance. I've watched the clip of her stumble over the driver's licenses for illegal immigrants questions - and it is a rather bad stumble. She managed to look like she was pandering while cheerfully reversing course in the blink of an eye. That video will be haunting her come the general campaign if she wind the nomination.

I'm still not watching this endless stream of debates, personally. It used to be one or two during the campaigns now it seems like there is one every two days or so. I think its a bad idea, personally. More debates don't clarify the candidates positions as much as they provide opportunities for 'gotcha' moments. As Clinton seems to have found out.