Light posting for a bit

A major project I am working on comes to a head next week, so posting will be light and short until after next week.

Once again

like I said earlier, cats are superior to people.

Once they bond with you and consider you a friend, they do seem to have an innate ability to sense your needs and try to meet them, sometimes in ways that are not necessarily productive, but they do try.

Right now I am working on an extremely stressful project. At my computer. One of my three Feline Americans, Arsinoe, has chosen this time to make her preferred place of sleeping on my lap, thereby claiming one of my arms and making it difficult for me to type or even reach the keyboard, but she senses I need her comfort and she is trying to provide it. As are my other two cats, Berenice and Cleopatra, in their own way.

As all the cats I have had in my life have done whenever I was in a difficult time.

I usually get an asthmatic reaction to cats, but I can never see myself without these lovable, entertaining and extremely intelligent creatures with definite ideas of their own. They will never be your slaves, but once you earn their trust they can be your best friends.

Maybe the third time's the charm

Once again, the Snowpocalypse is approaching Indianapolis. Now, the normal media coverage you would get in these situations would suggest only one thing:

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

But since their record on recent storms has been so bad that they make Jimmy Carter's pronouncements on foreign policy look like ... well, OK, the media hasn't been quite that bad, but they've been a bit quieter with this storm.

But still, go out and make the obligatory panic purchases of bread, milk, eggs, pantyhose, toilet paper and potable water.

Just because

It has been a good day for America's Team -- the Cleveland Cavaliers.

How liberals see Iran

"Awwww! See? He just wants a hug. All this time we've had this irrational fear of him and he just wants some love and understanding. What could possibly go wrong?"

Walter Duranty lives

The US media is acting as Fidel Castro's PR machine, trying to minimize ro even whitewash the murderous thugtator's history. Power Line details the sickening exhibition by CNN.

Instapundit links to an old article by National Review's John Derbyshire, appropriately titled "Still Useful, and Idiotic: The Left remains itself." Money graf:

There are, of course, plenty of other Michael Moores and Douglas Monteros. Every time I turn on my TV, every time I pick up a newspaper, I see a new one. It’s like a Night of the Living Dead—lefties coming up out of the ground and lurching off across the landscape looking for a Maximum Leader, a Great Helmsman, a Little Father of the People to slobber over. With the centenary of Lenin’s revolution looming on the far horizon, and after all the horrors of our age—mountains of corpses, oceans of lies—these fools are still with us. Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy. Won’t they ever learn? No, their stupidity is impenetrable. They will never learn.

Not taking the hint

Michale Ledeen on the pointlessness of US talks with Iran:

I did write a book called The Iranian Time Bomb, which documents in painstaking detail the fact that we have been talking to Iran virtually non-stop for nearly 30 years. This most definitely includes the Bush administration, which has used open and back channels, including dispatching former Spanish President Felipe Gonzales to Tehran on our behalf. You can judge the results for yourself.

Let's try it again: We have been talking to Iran. We are talking to Iran right now. The proposal that we talk to Iran is neither new nor does it represent any change in American policy. There is apparently a great desire to deny the facts in this matter.

One further point: In his excellent book The Persian Puzzle, Ken Pollack spends many pages on the Clinton administration's many talks with Iran, which failed to produce any positive results. And he concludes that the failure to achieve any breakthrough with the mullahs is not our fault. They don't want good relations with us. They are our enemies. As Cliff says, talking will not improve this situation. They have been at war with us since 1979. Our only options are winning or losing.

Iran should probably be bombed just on general principles.

Note to liberals

Our missile defense system works.

Required Reading

Victor Davis Hanson.

A good sign for Pakistan?

Transvestite TV Anchor Pakistan's Surpise Hit.

It definitely takes some guts to try that in Pakistan, where actual women have been killed for wearing actual women's clothing, or anything that doesn't resemble a tent from Gander Mountain. To have a guy try it in such a gender role-oppressive atmosphere is phenomenal.

Heck, it would take considerable guts just to try that in Indiana ...

And for him to gain popularity by doing so is a great sign for the progress of Pakistan, and a sign that the country doesn't consist entirely of the barbaric northwest tribal provinces.

More power to Ali Saleem.

When you want change

An oldie but greatie from way back when Saturday Night Live was occasionally good:



(h/t: Michelle Malkin)

But is he dead yet?

Cuban Thugtator Fidel Castro -- or the corpse they have been propping up like the dead guy in Weekend at Bernies -- has resigned.

America's Three Worst Presidents

Can't argue with any of these selections by Ari Kaufman of the Sagamore Institute.

That rocket launch you heard

was the price of gasoline.

Might not be a problem if we had more refinery capacity, if we could build new refineries and expand current ones. But noooooooooooooooooooooooooo ...

Can't drill, can't build or expand refineries. All must be sacrified to Mother Gaia.

Bastards.

But I'm not bitter ...

Addition by subtraction

The entertainment value of a certain car bomb:

Celebrating a car bomb is not the politically correct thing to do.

Yet there is something deeply satisfying about the assassination of Islamofascist terror master Imad Mughniyeh before the stroke of midnight the other day in the central command post of Islamofascist movements inside Damascus, Syria.

Whoever planned it scored a blow so hard, so disturbing, it brought the secret services of Iran, Syria, Hamas and Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah all together into Syria’s capital where they are now trying to figure out what happened.

In a chaotic eulogy, the man’s boss Hezbollah’s chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, practically promised war on Israel -the presumed doer-, America, and the West. Following nearly 24 hours of silence, the Syrian official media acknowledged the bomb in its bosom; decrying it as a ”flagrant violation of international law” the first time such concern for civility has been demonstrated by a regime steeped in murder.

Iran, the undisputed Godfather to Hezbollah and hostage taking, dispatched its foreign minister and its Revolutionary Guards Corps commander of the Quds force to commiserate. In Beirut two rallies of a hundred thousand each took place simultaneously the day after, one marking the 3-year anniversary of the murder of Prime Minister Hariri presumably by Syria, and another with uniformed Hezbollah mourners marching behind Mughniyeh’s coffin led by his mother screaming ”Look what they did to my boy”. (Never mind the same Mrs. Mughniyeh lost two more boys, Jihad and Fouad, in 1984 and 1985, to car bombings of their own that went bad).

Is this much ado about one terrorist? Not this case and not this one. Sometimes a single bullet, or mini-bomb, blazes a path to clarity. This upset shook a Syrian edifice of invulnerable macho terror, showing a way to widen a breach.

In short order the man in charge of Hezbollah’s special operations for nearly three decades, wanted in 42 countries, a killer of hundreds of Americans including Marines, CIA folks and diplomats, a man whose reach wrecked a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires as well an American oil workers’ housing complex in Saudi Arabia, a multinational terrorist born in Lebanon, who resides in Tehran and travels under deepest Syrian cover, was blown away as he stepped out of an intelligence meeting in a plush Damascus residential neighborhood of his mentor state. And no one left a note.

The Islamofascist association is right to be upset. This is the sort of thing that can spread. For years car bombs made in Damascus have blown up Lebanese nationalists starting in 2005 with a spectacular murder of a Prime Minister and 22 others. He was followed to the grave by scores of Lebanese other victims, parliamentarians, journalists, civil servants and army generals at regular intervals, plus a three month war with ”Fattah Al Islam” a Syrian-trained Islamofascist Palestinian group sent to wage war in Lebanon’s refugee camps last year.

For President Bashar Assad the Damascus call last week was the first time he got return postage. Now new vistas open along with— macabre as it is— a new path, namely that bombings are a game good guys can play too, and very close to where President Assad lives and plans his.

You hate to see bad things happen to good people:

The assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, Iran’s top man in Syria and Lebanon, should set off alarm bells in Tehran. His assassination, according to Iranian media sources, took place in the Kafarsoose neighborhood of Damascus, close to an Iranian school and the headquarters of the Syrian Mukhabarat (intelligence agency). At first glance, the elimination of such a highly valuable Iranian asset, under the very noses of the Syrians, could be taken as a sign that Western intelligence agencies have managed to infiltrate the once seemingly impenetrable walls of Iran’s intelligence operations abroad.

To say that Mughniyeh was a sought-after man would be an understatement. He had been on U.S. and Israeli wanted lists since the early 80s for having participated in operations such as the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847, during which U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem was killed, as well as the 1994 AMIA bombing in Argentina, which killed 85 people.

Furthermore, he had managed to plan the successful expansion of Hezbollah’s military capability and operations in Lebanon, as well as its supply routes and relationship with Syria. He was seen as someone loyal and capable with whom the Iranians could work. To top it all, unlike some Shiites in Lebanon, Mughniyeh was a firm believer in the velayat-e faqih (absolute rule of the supreme jurisprudence) model of Iranian Islamic leadership. According to this model, the supreme leader (the faqih) is viewed as the representative of God to all Shiites on earth.

To protect him, the Iranian government spared little expense. He was provided numerous safe houses and identities. To make it doubly difficult to find him, he was given numerous plastic surgeries. According to foreign sources, on at least two occasions in the 1980s, Western intelligence services came close to assassinating him. One was when a bomb was placed near the garage of his brother in Beirut. The bombers killed his brother instead of him. The second time was at his brother’s funeral. Suspecting a trap was laid for him, Mughniyeh refused to turn up.

Since then Mughniyeh seemed to have vanished. His finger prints could be seen on many, many operations. However, he remained as elusive as ever, until today.

Except this small laundry list left out a few biggies:

Hezbollah’s founding quickly resulted in a spate of kidnappings, torture, and bombing. (See this useful timeline from CAMERA.) In April 1983, for example, a Hezbollah car bomb killed 63 people, including eight CIA officials, at the U.S. embassy in Beirut. More infamously, the organization six months later truck-bombed a military barracks in Beirut, murdering 241 United States Marines (and killing 58 French soldiers in a separate attack). These operations, like many other Hezbollah atrocities, were orchestrated by Imad Mugniyah, long the organization’s most ruthless operative.

On December 12, 1983, the U.S. embassy in Kuwait was bombed, killing six and wounding scores of others. The bombers were tied to al-Dawa, a terror organization backed by Iran and leading the Shiite resistance against Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime (with which Iran was at war). The leader of Dawa’s “jihad office” in Syria at the time was none other than Nouri al-Maliki — now the prime Minister of Iraq (and who, having opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, currently squabbles with American authorities, draws his country ever closer to Iran and Syria, and professes his support for Hezbollah). Among the “Dawa 17” convicted and sentenced to death for the bombing was Imad Mugniyah’s cousin and brother in law, Youssef Badreddin. (Badreddin escaped in the chaos of Saddam’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.)

Meanwhile, in 1984, Hezbollah bombed both the U.S. embassy annex in Beirut, killing two, and a restaurant near the U.S. Air Force base in Torrejon, Spain, killing 18 American servicemen. On March 16 of that year, Hezbollah operatives kidnapped William Francis Buckley, the CIA’s station chief in Beirut. He was whisked to Damascus and onto Tehran where he became one of the hostages whose detention led to the Iran/Contra affair. Under Mugniyah’s direction, Buckley was tortured for 15 months, dying of a heart attack under that duress.

Hezbollah hijackers seized a Kuwait Airlines plane in December 1984, murdering four of the passengers, including two Americans. Six months later, Hezbollah operatives hijacked TWA Flight 847 after it left Greece. The jihadists discovered that one of their hostages was a U.S. Navy diver named Robert Stethem. They beat him severely and then shot him to death before dumping his body onto the tarmac of Beirut airport. In early 1988, Hezbollah kidnapped and ultimately murdered Colonel William Higgins, a U.S. Marine serving in Lebanon.

Michelle Malkin quotes Barbara Rockwell, whose son was one of the 241 US Marines who were killed in the Mughniyeh-plotted Beirut barracks bombing, as commenting after hearing of Mughniyeh's death in the car bombing, as saying "I hope he heard the ticking before he was blown up."

Happy 70th Anniversary

to one of my favorite articles of clothing -- tights:


It's just so ... me.

There but for the grace of God goes the American Southwest -- UPDATED

Kosovo declares independence from Serbia.

And, yes, if we don't get control of our borders and strangle the "Aztlan"/"La Raza" movement, we could see the same thing happening in the United States in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

UPDATE -- Kosovo's secession has gottne the approval of the US government. Bad idea, W. We will regret this.

Don't hold back

The Guardian has a (somewhat biased) beaut on Dutch member of parliament Geert Wilders. Here's a taste:

A TV addict with bleached hair who adores Maggie Thatcher and prefers kebabs to hamburgers, Geert Wilders has got nothing against Muslims. He just hates Islam. Or so he says. 'Islam is not a religion, it's an ideology,' says Wilders, a lanky Roman Catholic right-winger, 'the ideology of a retarded culture.'

The Dutch politician, who sees himself as heir to a recent string of assassinated or hounded mavericks who have turned Holland upside down, has been doing a crash course in Koranic study. Likening the Islamic sacred text to Hitler's Mein Kampf, he wants the 'fascist Koran' outlawed in Holland, the constitution rewritten to make that possible, all immigration from Muslim countries halted, Muslim immigrants paid to leave and all Muslim 'criminals' stripped of Dutch citizenship and deported 'back where they came from'. But he has nothing against Muslims. 'I have a problem with Islamic tradition, culture, ideology. Not with Muslim people.'

Wilders has been immersing himself in the suras and verse of seventh-century Arabia. The outcome of his scholarship, a short film, has Holland in a panic. He is just putting the finishing touches to the 10-minute film, he says, and talking to four TV channels about screening it.

'It's like a walk through the Koran,' he explains in a sterile conference room in the Dutch parliament in The Hague, security chaps hovering outside. 'My intention is to show the real face of Islam. I see it as a threat. I'm trying to use images to show that what's written in the Koran is giving incentives to people all over the world. On a daily basis Moroccan youths are beating up homosexuals on the streets of Amsterdam.'

Not surprisingly, Iran has demanded the censorship of his film "before it's too late."

I'm sure they meant that in the best possible way and not as a threat. Nothing to see here. Move along. That's right, return to your simple lives, just forget this ever happened. Forget... FOR-GET...

The format wars are over

And Blu-ray has defeated HD DVD. Looks like I was wrong on this one.

But I am not wrong in saying that Sony still sucks for scrapping backwards compatibility in the PlayStation 3 because of the damn Blu-ray. I don't know that its brand name will ever recover. Gamers are simply far too angry at the abuse they have taken from Sony on this one.

Muhammad cartoon -- UPDATED

While I was away tending to family matters, Danish police arrested three men who were planning on murdering the cartoonist behind the Muhammad cartoons. The Scandinavian media had a laudable response to these arrests:

Newspapers across Europe Wednesday reprinted the controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed that sparked worldwide protests two years ago.

The cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed provoked widespread outrage in the Muslim world two years ago.

The move came one day after Danish authorities arrested three people allegedly plotting a "terror-related assassination" of Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist behind the drawing.

Berlingske Tidende, was one of the newspapers involved in the republication by newspapers in Denmark. It said: "We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case, and to unambiguously back and support the freedom of speech that we as a newspaper always will defend," in comments reported by The Associated Press.

Newspapers in Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands also republished the drawing Wednesday as part of their coverage of Tuesday's arrests.

The image, by Morgenavisen Jullands-Posten cartoonist Westergaard, was one of 12 cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed originally published in September 2005. Westergaard's cartoon depicted the prophet wearing a bomb as a turban with a lit fuse.

However, the US media has not been so supportive. As Captain Ed states:

Unfortunately, American newspapers and media outlets do not appear interested in expressing the same solidarity. CNN doesn't include the image in its report, and so far, I haven't seen any newspaper cover it yet, although they may tomorrow. Only the New York Times gave any coverage to the arrests in today's editions.

Michelle Malkin has similar thoughts:

As a show of solidarity and a reminder of how cowardly American media outlets refused to stand up when it counted, take a minute to reprint your favorite Mo cartoon or link back to the blogging you did on the cartoon rage two years ago.

So somewhat belatedly, I stand alongside the blogosphere to defend free speech against militant Islam.


And here's one more for you Islamist barbarians:


UPDATE -- Almost as if on cue, we now have "youths" (Vincent Gambini's term) rioting in Denmark. And the police just can't say precisely why they are doing it. But Roger Kimball has some suspicions.

But, but, ... but ...

That shooting at Northern Illinous University could not have happened, because the campus is a gun-free zone:

Northern Illinois University The Student Code of Conduct

3-1.5 Dangerous Weapons:
1.5a Possession, use, sale, or distribution in any residence hall, building,
or grounds under university control of: fireworks, firearms, shotguns, rifles,
hand guns, switchblade knives, any type of ammunition, explosives, and
all other serious weapons.
1.5b Misuse of martial arts weaponry, BB guns, pellet guns, clubs, knives,
and all other serious weapons.
Students who wish to bring firearms to the campus must obtain written
permission from the chief security officer of the university. Firearms must
be stored at the University Security Office except with written permission
of the chief security officer of the university. At no time will any of the
above dangerous weapons be allowed in the university residence halls.

Wizbang brings up an obvious point:

It's not often that I actually advocate for a lawsuit, but in this case I think it's long overdue. Every time an institution declares itself a "gun-free zone," it is making an implicit promise to the public: "you don't need to protect yourself here -- indeed, we won't allow you to do so. Instead, we will protect you." And they simply are not keeping that promise.

In essence, they are constructing sheep pens with fences just high enough to keep the sheep in, but low enough for the wolves to leap over, and rarely bothering to even get any sheepdogs. (And most of the time, those sheepdogs are toothless.) Instead, they plaster their fences with "no wolves allowed" and trust in the power of those words to keep the predators at bay.

And how well is that working out?

In Dekalb yesterday, five people were killed by the wolf. In Kirkwood, Missouri, five people (including two armed police officers) were gunned down. (The police officers, the "sheepdogs," were the first victims.) In Omaha last December, eight were murdered. At Virginia Tech, thirty-two were slaughtered.

The sole exception was the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. There the gunman started his spree in the parking lot, where he killed two teenage sisters and wounded two others (including their father). But once he entered the church, he was only able to wound one more before a volunteer security guard -- using her own privately-owned gun -- stopped him.

The Church was not a "gun-free zone." Their guards were not sheepdogs, but armed members of their own flock that had chosen to act in the place of sheepdogs. And there very well may have been more armed congregationists who could have done the stopped him as well -- the Church had not taken away the rights of its guests to defend themselves, as so many schools and malls and other places have done.

Everything Jay Tea says here makes sense, but I want to focus on the lawsuit angle for a bit, and broaden it a bit, perhaps outside the realm of the NIU shootings.

Because I have a legal theory I've been pondering for some time, and I've been looking for an opportunity to test it and discuss it. Let's change the scenario somewhat.

Let's say the perpetrator does not carry any guns. Let's change it further and say he does not carry any weapons at all. But he is big, he is stgrong and he knows how to fight physically.

Suppose he goes across campus simply attacking people violently. Beating them to a bloody pulp.

How would one defend themselves from him? Most easily with a gun. But remember, NIU is a gun-free zone. So the gun is no option. A knife maybe?

Except most states -- including, I would guess, Illinois -- only allow proportional force for self-defense. The perpetrator in my scenario has only his fists -- big strong fists and arms that are capable of doing permanent damage, if not killing outright. "Mere" fists are generally considered not deadly -- remember how the defenders of the six thugs in Jena scoffed at the notion that their kicks directed at the victim constituted "deadly force." So you would be in the wrong if ypou brouhgt out a knife.

So, what if you're smaller and not as physically gifted as the perpetrator? What if your maximum level of physical force without an additional weapon is far short of the maximum level of physical force without a weapon the perpetrator can bring? How would someone legally defend themselves here?

The answer is that they cannot. Not legally. Their right of self-defense, which I believe is arguably implicit in the Constitution, is denied, because they cannot legally use a weapon. If you're a small male or an average female, you're out of luck.

Let's put it more simply: how would this scenario not be an equal protection violation?

Light posting for a bit

We've had a death in the family and I need to tend to that for the next few days.

Diabolical cats

I have long thought cats are superior to people, that they would rule the world but for ADD and a lack of opposable thumbs, not that my cats seem inhibited by either of those characteristics -- one of my cats even eats with her paws. Particularly if all cats are as brilliant as my cats are at figuring things out, with their way of opening desk drawers to take out toys, turning on water faucets to get drinks or wash themselves (yes, my cats actually do this), unlocking and opening doors to various rooms, opening cabinets to help themselves to food, etc. Problem solving is instinctive to them, as is their lovable impishness.

Here I am right now, sitting at my desk, a little Mendelsson on iTunes, papers spread out all over my desk to work on.

And of all those papers, my cats invariably select the precise paper I need at that moment to sit on.

How do they do this?

Maybe the Egyptians were right about their supernatural powers.

General Motors

is run by idiots.

One of the reasons the Pontiac Firebird, particularly the Trans Am, became such an iconic car was because of its presence it various movies and TV shows, such as the Rockford Files, Smokey and the Bandit and Knight Rider. But General Motors, in its infinite wisdom, ditched the F-Body from which Firebirds and Camaros were made in 2002. They replaced it with the ugly GTO, an abomination to a great nameplate. Lately, they keep talking about bringing the Camaro back, but not the Firebird. And they have yet to follow through on the Camaro.

So, now, Knight Rider is trying to make a comeback. But there is no longer a Firebird Trans Am to go to. So KITT is now ...

A Mustang.

Yuck!

I could blame the producers for this, but they don't really have a choice, do they? Because GM took away the Firebird. That's free promotion and coolness no longer available to GM.

(Still, KITT is not a Mustang, and I am not watching the new Knight Rider. Starbuck being a woman on the new Battlestar Galactica was bad enough but manageable, particularly with Katie Sackhoff's brilliant performance. Turning KITT into a Mustang is just way too much.)

I'm a Pontiac guy (though, to be sure, the Mustang as it is curently made is not a bad car by any means), but General Motors, there is a reason you took your biggest loss ever last year. It's because you absotively, posilutely suck.

Now get your heads out of your asses, design some good cars and bring back the Firebird before you collapse like Fred Thompson's presidential bid.

Now here's something fun

A web site that does a cross-series comparison of the dimensions of science fiction starships.

Frankly, though, I have a hard time believing an Earth Alliance Omega-class destroyer from Babylon 5 is just as large as a Star Wars Imperial star destroyer.

The Snowpocalypse -- UPDATED

Let's try this again.

Once again, a major snowstorm is approaching Indianapolis, which, if the media coverage is any indication, can mean only one thing:

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

So go out and make the obligatory panic purchases of bread, milk, eggs, pantyhose, toilet paper and potable water.

UPDATE -- Again? These meterologists make the CIA look accurate. Does anyone else think these guys should be taken out, shot, eaten by bats and then shot again?

Even payback

of payback is a bitch:

President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States if Exxon Mobil Corp. wins court judgments to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets.

"If you end up freezing (Venezuelan assets) and it harms us, we're going to harm you," Chavez said. "Do you know how? We aren't going to send oil to the United States. Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger."

Exxon Mobil has gone after the assets of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA in U.S., British and Dutch courts as it challenges the nationalization of a multibillion dollar oil project by Chavez's government.

A British court has issued an injunction "freezing" as much as $12 billion in assets.

"I speak to the U.S. empire, because that's the master: continue and you will see that we won't sent one drop of oil to the empire of the United States," Chavez said during his weekly radio and television program, "Hello, President."

"The outlaws of Exxon Mobil will never again rob us," Chavez said, accusing the Irving, Texas-based oil company of acting in concert with Washington.

Chavez has repeatedly threatened to cut off oil shipments to the United States, which is Venezuela's No. 1 client, if Washington tries to oust him. Chavez's warnings on Sunday appeared to extend that threat to attempts by oil companies to challenge his government's nationalization drive in courts internationally.

"If the economic war continues against Venezuela, the price of oil is going to reach $200 (a barrel) and Venezuela will join the economic war," Chavez said. "And more than one country is willing to accompany us in the economic war."

But there is a flaw in the Fat Paratrooper's plan:

Although Venezuela still is a significant oil supplier to the U.S. its relative importance has been decreasing during the last 5 years, going from second to fourth place among U.S. import sources. This is due to the loss of production capacity of the Venezuelan oil industry, a decline brought about by the politicization of the state-owned petroleum company under Chavez. Not only has production capacity declined but also half of the Venezuelan oil exports to the U.S. can only be refined in the United States due to its physical properties. This means that Chavez cannot easily sell this oil to alternative clients such as China or India. For this to be possible these countries would have to build refineries capable of processing Venezuelan oil, something that would take at least three to four years to accomplish, even if they started today.

In parallel with this lack of flexibility Venezuela is facing a decline in its international monetary reserves since Chavez keeps raiding them. These monetary reserves only represent some six to seven months of imports at the current level since Venezuela is now importing close to $40 billion per year, mostly in food. Therefore, an interruption of oil income derived from the cut off of oil supplies to the United States would most probably cause the Chavez’s regime to collapse in less than a year as the result of internal protests, no outside intervention required.

There is a danger, though:

It would be dangerous to assume that Chavez would decide to act in a rational manner. Islamic Ahmadinejad and fascist Chavez have no ideology in common beyond an intense hate of the United States. This means that a major aggressive move by Chavez in the hope of generating a geopolitical crisis is a scenario that cannot be discarded.

Allowing Chavez enough time to secure alternative outlets for Venezuelan oil would almost certainly mean that he would follow through on his threat to cut off U.S. oil supplies. Leaving the initiative in Chavez’s hands could be very dangerous for the United States in the short to medium term.

Except if his threat becomes serious, then our political elites might finally give in to popular pressure to drill in places like ANWR and the Gulf of Mexico. Problem solved.

Ready to take the ginsu to your nose, Hugo?

(h/t: Lou Minatti via Instapundit)

A symptom, not a cause

A Colorado second-grade boy wants to go to school as a girl:

The issue of being transgender usually pops up with students in high school. However, a 2nd grade biological boy wants to dress as a girl and be addressed with a girl's name.

"As a public school system, our calling is to educate all kids no matter where they come from, what their background is, beliefs, values, it doesn't matter," said Whei Wong, Douglas County Schools spokesperson.

Wong says the staff at one of Douglas County's schools is preparing to accommodate the student and answer questions other students might have. In order to protect the child as much as possible, 9NEWS has chosen not to reveal his school or other names that might identify the child.

"I see this as being a very difficult situation to explain to my daughter to explain why someone would not want to be the gender they were born with," said Dave M.

His daughter will be in the same class as the student.

The student had attended this same school in years prior, but had left to go to classes in another district for about two years. The transgender student will be returning to what is the child's home school. Dave M. thinks classmates will recognize the change.

"I do think that there's going to be an acknowledgement that 'Why are you in a dress this year when you were in pants last year?'" said Dave M.

Wong says teachers are planning to address the student by name instead of using he or she. The child will not use the regular boys or girls bathroom. Instead, two unisex bathrooms in the building will be made available. The school is handing out packets to parents who have questions. The packets contain information about people who are transgender.

"I think it is unusual," said Wong. "It's something we haven't had discussions about before. It's something that we haven't maybe really had to think about before, but now we will."

Family Therapist Larry Curry hopes the child and the child's parents are seeing a counselor just to be safe.

"I am very concerned because with the guidelines in place, this is a very early age," said Curry. "I don't know too many parents who are equipped to answer that kind of question or deal with it without some other support."

Kim Pearson says the family is getting support. She is the executive director of a national organization called TransYouth Family Advocates. The group has been working with the family and Douglas County Schools.

"Initially there was a lot of resistance," said Pearson. "Now, their position is they want this child to be safe in their school."

Pearson says their group is working with an increasing number of families nationwide who have elementary age transgender kids.

"We know that families are more comfortable talking about this," she said. "There was no place for parents to go."

Pearson says children as young as 5 years old are realizing their true gender identity and her group wants to help parents who may be resisting the acceptance of this.

"Parents are likely to think this it's a phase, but how long do phases last?" said Pearson. "With these kids, it's something that's very consistent."

That thought is not comforting to Dave M., who believes his daughter is not ready to think about the issue of being transgender.

"I don't think a (2nd) grader does have the rationale to decide this life-altering choice," said Dave M.

He is also unhappy with the way the school is handling this. The district has been preparing for the child's return to this school for months. Dave M. thinks other parents should have been made aware of this sooner.

"I just find it ironic that they can dictate the dress style of children to make sure they don't wear inappropriate clothing, but they have no controls in place for someone wearing transgender clothing," said Dave M.

Curry says parents like Dave M. should not bring the issue up to their students until they ask. However, he says parents should be ready to answer tough questions from the student's fellow third graders.

"I think reassuring them and letting them know that they'll be alright. Their classmate is alright," said Curry. "This is something their classmate has chosen to do. It is not contagious."

Pearson says the most important thing is to make sure the transgender student does not become the target of bullying or verbal abuse which can lead to suicide.

"These children are at high-risk," said Pearson. "Our number one goal is to keep kids safe."

Wong says mental health professionals will be available if students, staff, or parents have any concerns at all. She says the district views this as just another diversity issue and hopes everyone can accept and respect the student's wishes.

"Our staff has been briefed and trained to look for concerns," said Wong.

The family of the transgender student did not want to comment.

I cannot say for sure, obviously, but I strongly suspect that the boy in question does not actually want to be a girl. What he probably wants to do is simply enjoy the accoutrements of being a girl, like wearing dresses, hose, capris and makeup. Since he has been taught that those are things only girls are allowed to do, he believes he must be a girl.

His conclusion is actually logical, because it is based on the accepted social norm -- that only girls can be allowed to wear dresses, tights, leggings, panties, capris, etc. The problem is that the accepted social norm is actually a logical fallacy.

Why is it that only girls can be allowed to wear dresses, tights, leggings, panties, etc? Particularly when girls are allowed to wear pants, T-shirts, loafers, oxfords and other clothes condsidered traditionally male. Answer: there is no logical reason. People should feel free to break from it whenever and wherever they wish. There is actually a growing movement among men demanding the right to wear skirts and other traditionally female clothes; men are now the largest new buyers of pantyhose and there is even a company that designs and sells pantyhose specifically for men. The double standard that women should be celebrated when they do "men" stuff but not vice versa is finally being recognized by men.

Actually saying he wants to be a girl, even if it may be technically incorrect, is a very brave thing to do for someone his age. Even as a second grader, he probably has some idea of what he will face as a result of this decision. He and his family will have to be extremely tough to survive this successfully. Keep them in your prayers.

Two words

as to why you should support JohnMcCain this November instead of staying at home or, worse, voting for whomever comes out of the Democrats' nominating process -- Harold Koh:

What would a Justice Koh’s jurisprudence look like? Jeffrey Rosen notes that Koh “has supported the idea that U.S. courts should expansively apply international legal precedents without the authorization of the president and Congress.” John McGinnis (.pdf) likewise observes that: “Harold Koh in fact would like to cabin American exceptionalism through the use of transnational materials to assure that American principles would cohere more with the rest of the world.” The increasing use of such precedents by the left wing of the Supreme Court, of course, has been a major irritant to conservatives.

Andrew McCarthy and Doug Kmiec have both raised concerns that a Justice Koh would handcuff the police and intelligence community by judicial fiat. A Law Blog reader quipped that, “other than that he’d be a sure vote for declaring Gitmo detainees have a constitutional right to Social Security benefits, I do not see the appeal.”

On a related point, consider his strong support for keeping military recruiters off the Yale campus. as the Yale Daily News reported, “despite a 8-0 smack down by the Supreme Court in the military recruiting case Rumsfeld v. FAIR, Koh still refused to grant ROTC equal access to the Law School.”

There can be no doubt but that Koh would be a liberal activist of a stripe we haven’t seen since Brennan and Marshall. There can be no doubt that he’ll be at or near the top of the list in an Obama or Clinton presidency.

Much like my historic fear of putting Laurence Tribe on SCOTUS.

Just because

Here are the Cover Girls singing "My Heart Skips A Beat" at Madison Square Garden.


Yes, the video isn't that good, but any video of these talented beauties is hard to find. And, yes, I know that this particular song was originally done in 1989 with Angel Clivilles (nee Sabater) as lead singer, and while I love Clivilles ("The Original Cover Girl") and her distinctive voice, Evelyn Escalera (the blonde seen here) is a much more confident singer with a stronger voice. Basically, Escalera is a singing goddess and is one of my favorite females on earth.

Required reading

Michelle Malkin.

Payback

is a bitch:

Exxon Mobil Corp has won court orders freezing up to $12 billion in Venezuelan assets around the world as it fights for compensation for operations lost to President Hugo Chavez's nationalization drive.

The largest U.S. company sought the asset freeze to guarantee repayment should it win arbitration over the Cerro Negro heavy oil project.

The move is the boldest challenge yet by an international oil major against any of the governments around the world that have moved to increase their holds on natural resources as energy and commodity prices have soared.

"To me it sounds like a very aggressive tactic," said Stephen Zamora, professor of international law at the University of Houston Law Center.

"I can't really say that I'm aware this has been used in other investment disputes. They may be trying to get the government to settle."

Exxon -- which last week posted the largest ever year's profit by a U.S. company -- said on Thursday it has received court orders in Britain, the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles each freezing up to $12 billion in assets of Venezuela state oil firm PDVSA. An Exxon spokeswoman said the total that could be frozen worldwide was $12billion.

Exxon also won a court order from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in December freezing more than $300 million belonging to PDVSA, seeking to
guarantee repayment should it win the arbitration.

PDVSA, one of the largest suppliers of crude oil to the United States, was not immediately available for comment. The White House and the U.S. State Department also
declined to comment.

Venezuela's sovereign bonds sold off after the court orders surfaced.

Left-winger Chavez, who regularly clashes with the Bush administration, took over Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips stakes in multibillion-dollar heavy oil projects in Venezuela's oil region last June.

The move was part of the left-wing leader's drive to nationalize key industries including utilities and telecommunications companies owned by private companies.

The news comes as a tough blow to Chavez, who suffered a stinging defeat in a December referendum that would have let him run indefinitely for reelection and enshrine socialism as the OPEC nation's economic system.

PDVSA is already facing growing debt and increasing operational problems that analysts attribute to underinvestment caused by the company's massive contributions to Chavez's social programs.

I think we can root for "Big Oil" in this one.

Why do paper cuts hurt so much?

ABC News tries to explain.

(h/t: Instapundit)

Sign and portents

One could argue that it is a ominous sign of political weakness when the leaders of a country become dependent on foreign countries for their positions of executive power. The Ptolemaic dynasty became dependent on the Roman republic for their hold on power over Egypt, and Cleopatra literally spent her entire life trying to avoid becoming a Roman province, or, more precisely, seeing if Egypt could come out on top if it merged with Rome. Just before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the western emperors became dependent on the barbarian tribes for the throne. The Eastern Roman Empire saw the members of its court bargain with both Serbia and the Ottomans for their hold on the throne. Not surprisingly, it was gravely weakened and fell not long thereafter.

Bill Clinton's contacts with Communist China and its campaign donations is well-known; a connection with the transfer of top secret American missile technology to China long-rumored.

Is that particular connection in play again, with his wife? Is Bill doing his own "connecting" with Kazakhstan?

Given Hillary's rather checkered ethical history, including some less-than-well-known incidents, the possibility must be considered.

The new Joker

His make-up needed a lot of work, but judging by this trailer, Heath Ledger wasn't nearly the joke as the Joker as I thought he would be (no pun intended).



Jack Nicholson is still the ultimate Joker, but it may be that Ledger might actually be credible. That would be a good thing, since he might be the only real life victim of the Joker. There is considerable speculation that his method acting in playing the Joker -- based on the intense portrayal in the graphic novel The Killing Joke -- played a role in Ledger's fatal overdose.

Can't wait for the movie now.

The conspiracy

to cut undersea telecommunications cables. To the Middle East.

Twice might be a coincidence, even in this region. But four times? Something is up.

The Tet Offensive

Or "How the Media cost us a war."

(h/t: Instapundit.)

Latest addiction

God of War for PlayStation 2. That is, if I can ever get past that damn Hydra. How did I miss this piece of Greek mythology before now?

Just added to my book rotation

Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient World, by Philip Sabin. Purports to use computer technology to recreate ancient battles; think a more technical version of Rome: Total War.

Unfortunately, my book rotation has been slow of late ...

Unbelievable -- UPDATED

Yes, Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning are jerks -- I mean, did Manning whine about every incompletion tonight? -- but everyone on earth can see why we Browns fans absolutely hate Bill Belichick. Not even on the field for the final snap.

What. A. Jerk.

General rule: New York trumps Boston. So anytime New York beats Boston, it's a good thing.

UPDATE -- Just saw the Giants owners speaking after receiving the Lombardi Trophy. The Rooneyes, who own the Pittsburgh Steelers, are the best owners in sports. But the Maras and the Tisches, who own the Giants, are not far behind. Pure class.

UPDATE 2 -- Was it just me, or did they play, like, the theme from the original Battlestar Galactica when they brought out the Lombardi Trophy.

Why we needed to go after Saddam (or "Why do I keep having to explain this?")

Wizbang attempts to explain the same thing I (in posts like this) and many. many others have also tried to explain in detail -- why we needed to go after Saddam.

What is new, though, is the Wall Street Journal's exposure of confirmation of Saddam's intentions, evena ssuming there were no WMD, despite CBS' best efforts to "bury the lead":

Journalists are taught never to "bury the lead." Yet it looks as if that's precisely what CBS's "60 Minutes" did in reporter Scott Pelley's fascinating interview Sunday with George Piro, the FBI agent who debriefed Saddam Hussein following his capture in December 2003.

The Lebanese-born Mr. Piro, one of only a handful of agents at the bureau who speaks Arabic, was able to wheedle information from Saddam over a matter of months through a combination of flattery and ego-deflation that worked wonders with the former despot. But as Bruce Chapman of the Discovery Institute first noticed, the most important news in the segment comes when Mr. Piro describes his conversations with Saddam about weapons of mass destruction. The FBI interrogator says that, while Saddam said he no longer had active WMD programs in 2003, the dictator admitted that he intended to resume those programs as soon as he possibly could.

(emphasis mine)

The HazMat suit

Rachel Lucas explains why, if McCain is the nominee, people like me should just put put on our HazMat suits and vote for him.

She's right.

Highlighting US Navy stupidity

As you know, the names of our warships, or at least the current system by which we name warships, has often been a source of irritation for me. Great ships and battles like Yorktown, Lexington, Saratoga, Hornet, Ranger and Essex have been ditched for the likes of John Stennis or Carl Vinson.

Wizbang calls attention to a related issue: why don't we have a ship named the Montana?

Sounds like a bad horror movie

but it's true: Mutant Killer Seaweed of Doom.

(h/t: The Corner)