A fleeting glimpse of victory for Hezbollah

An Israeli panel says Olmert’s leadership was ‘a failure’ during the Hezbollah War. This supports the position of many conflict watchers that Hezbollah (and Syria and Iran by extension) did in fact win the upper hand in last year’s conflict.

However, the forces to replace Olmert with a more hawkish leader seem far stronger than Olmert’s allies. I have a hard time thinking that Olmert’s eventual replacement will deal with Hezbollah less sternly, and this cannot bode well for Damascus and Tehran.

Attention Truthers

A wreck, lots of highly flammable fuel, and an onslaught of fiery heat can make tons of steel-reinforced concrete collapse in a short period of time.

Enough from these morons.

Plain ol’ immigration rallies, right?

On May Day? Wrong.

This UPI story tells us about some significant rallies planned by immigration and labor rights groups for May 1, but doesn’t acknowledge that these types of rallies–especially those usually planned worldwide to celebrate May Day–are usually coordinated by international socialist, communist, and anarchist activist groups. We’re supposed to suspend belief that these protesters will be from loosely organized groups of grassroots activists who are simply engaging in the mainstream debate on immigration reform.

Not so much.

Another boring Saturday night?

Not so fast—there’s crude oil data to be studied!

According to the Department of Energy’s website, America imports A LOT of oil. I had never heard that before–just joking. But where are we getting it from? No, it’s not all coming from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf. Here are the Top 5 crude oil exporters to the US market (for February 2007):

• Canada - 1.838 million barrels per day
• Mexico - 1.358 million barrels per day
• Saudi Arabia - 1.185 million barrels per day
• Venezuela - 1.115 million barrels per day
• Nigeria - 1.061 million barrels per day

The US itself produces its own crude–and even exports some of it–to the tune of 5.196 million barrels per day (January 2007). Thus, the US and its two closest neighbors account for an average of 8.392 million barrels per day, or more that two thirds of the total coming from our Top 5 crude exporters and our US production facilities.

The American Fossil Fuel Lobby DID NOT fund this fifteen minutes of research ;^)

Bin Laden - Rolling in his blankets

In case you missed the “democratic hopefuls” debate and its slightly more bizarre moments.

A Wikistan first?

It’s risky being at the vanguard of advanced thought, but the rewards are immense. This handy little piece from the Financial Times nicely compliments what we suspected earlier this month and provides a little amateurish satisfaction.

A Financial Times investigation finds serious problems with the burgeoning carbon-offset industry, including:

■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.

■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.

■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.

■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.

■ Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

Opportunistic (and sometimes shady) companies preying on well-meaning dopes should be regulated precisely because other well-meaning dopes used even dopier regulations to create the market in the first place! Nobody saw this one coming, did they?

Cyborg of the day

It’s only a matter of time before Cyborg-Americans (and the Japanese robot pictured here) are considered the newest trophy demographic.

A game of chicken?

The big news is that the House was going to pass the infamous Iraq bill, the Senate will pass its version, and the President will automatically veto it in a political game of chicken.  This is all you hear on the MSM.

The less discussed news is that more Democrats voted against the bill than Republicans voting for it.

House OKs Iraq troop withdrawal bill
Two Republicans — Reps. Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland and Walter Jones of North Carolina  joined 216 Democrats in passing the bill. Voting no were 195 Republicans and 13 Democrats.

Is this bill really going to make it through the Senate?

No humane way to kill somebody

Condemned inmates in U.S. may be awake as they suffocate during the execution process of lethal injection, says the AP.   This is a distinct possibility which must be studied.  There was also a distinct possibility that Terry Schiavo was conscious at some level as she was forcibly euthanized (starved to death) by the State at her husband’s urging.

Begging for Resignations, Part 1

Open thought here — if the “Democratics” rode the mandate wave into power last November, how is it that they have been reduced to essentially begging for the resignations of various Bush administration officials? They are absolutely crying for Gonzales’ resignation, primarily on the basis that his long-anticipated defense before the Senate Judiciary Panel on Friday was ill-prepared and bumbling, which also happens to be their gripe on his apparent inability to adequately explain the recent firings of the US Attorneys. Have they pointed to any other specific mismanagement within the DOJ–careless stewardship that has wrecked the institution? Is it payback for Gonzales vs Carhart?

Future “Begging for Resignations” installments may cover the lame attempt to purge the ultimate sinister neocon Paul Wolfowitz from the World Bank, Karl Rove, John Bolton, etc. . .

. . . IF I get the time.

Classic sourcing by (MS)NBC

Need a sympathetic quote to fill out the anti-gun side of your Virginia Tech story? Use this guy, but please don’t provide your readers with his full bio–it could lead lead to bloggers asking annoying questions about your journalistic credibility.

Now it’s the lemmings

Was the world really in equilibrium? So much biological research shows a unintended affection for point-in-time observation:

ScienceDaily: Will Lemmings Fall Off Climate Change Cliff?

Lemmings serve as an important prey species for a number of predators, including arctic foxes, red foxes, rough-legged hawks, peregrine falcons, snowy and short-eared owls, jaegers, gulls, weasels, wolverines, and grizzly bears. In fact, the population of many predators fluctuates in response to dips in lemming numbers. One of the key ingredients for lemming abundance and productivity is likely snow. Sufficient snow depth insulates the rodents from frigid temperatures, allowing them to devote more energy to breeding and less to avoiding predators. Later arrival of autumn snows, and earlier spring melts, could subject lemmings to longer periods of sub-freezing temperatures. Also, the tundra is experiencing unusual warm periods in winter, including freezing rain and episodes of thawing and freezing, which can coat much of the lemmings’ foods (sedges and dwarf shrubs) in ice.    (Has none of this occured before?)

Lemming predators also have to adapt to these changes. Predators that specialize on eating lemmings, such as snowy owls and arctic foxes, may suffer if lemmings are no longer so productive. Other predators may benefit. For example, there is evidence that red foxes have usurped considerable areas from arctic foxes in recent decades. Warmer temperatures may have increased the productivity of the red foxes’ diverse prey (ground squirrels, birds and lemmings), and improved their ability to survive the tundra winters. Researchers will investigate these possibilities, and track the productivity of foxes and raptors for comparison to historic data.

Arctic foxes, incidentally, may have other troubles than diminishing lemmings.

Power play in southwest Asia

General Pace says Iranian weapons are in Afghanistan but Wikistan readers already knew this ;^)

Pace’s comments mark the first U.S. accusations that Iran could be playing a role in Afghanistan.

Thai insurgency grows, undoubtedly fueled by anger against Iraq War

Couldn’t resist.

Blacksburg, VA

Called one of the best places to retire early by CNN/Money just this weekend.

Today?  Not so much.

If civil war breaks out, call Joe Biden

Joe Biden calls for (American) military force to turn the tables in a foreign civil war:

I would use American force now,” Biden said at a hearing before his committee. “I think it’s not only time not to take force off the table. I think it’s time to put force on the table and use it.”

In advocating use of military force, Biden said senior U.S. military officials in Europe told him that 2,500 U.S. troops could “radically change the situation on the ground now.”

“Let’s stop the bleeding,” Biden said. “I think it’s a moral imperative.”

But wait–he’s not talking about Iraq.  He’s talking about addressing four years of Sudanese civil strife with American and UN military force - a position that I believe merits further discussion. (Yes, I agree with huggable, lovable Joe Biden!)

Unfortunately for Biden, he has a maddening habit of talking out both sides of his mouth. Just last month, he scolded the Bush administration for leaving our poor, under-armored, IED-fodder troops “dead smack in the middle of (the Iraqis’) civil war.”

If adding only 2,500 U.S. troops to the Darfur region can “radically change the situation on the ground”, wouldn’t adding twenty or thirty thousand to Baghdad itself force a different situation there as well?  Biden was against the troop surge proposed by General Petraeus, even though not very long ago he criticized the Bush adminstration for not having enough troops on the ground to mount an effective counterinsurgency!

Whoops!

Prosecutor Drops Charges in Duke Case.

“Excuse me, sir, do you know where I can get my reputation back?”

A call to regulate carbon-offset providers

It was only a matter of time: Congress will consider legislation that supports the regulation of numerous upstart carbon-offset providers amid allegations of faulty and sometimes counterproductive results. The companies, which enjoyed increased popularity when former presidential hopeful Al Gore and current candidated John Edwards both claimed their above average energy consumption would be mitigated by personal investments in the companies’ carbon-offset programs, have offered no official response to claims made by several scientists that planting trees in the wrong climate zone can actually have the opposite effect as desired:

Discovery Channel :: News - Earth :: Tree-Planting Could Add to Warming
“Our study shows that only tropical rainforests are strongly beneficial in helping slow down global warming,” Govindasamy Bala, who led the research, said in a statement.

“It is a win-win situation in the tropics because trees in the tropics, in addition to absorbing carbon dioxide, promote convective clouds that help to cool the planet,” he said.

“In other locations, the warming from the albedo effect (sunlight absorption) either cancels or exceeds the net cooling from the other two effects,” said Bala, an atmospheric scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

All kidding aside, here’s a question–do we really completely understand the albedo effect?

War of the Big Hairs

Imus and Sharpton go at it, in a broadcast interview that was infinitely more entertaining than his actual show.   I guess there’s nothing better to talk about in the news today.   Wait. . . .I hear that in a few minutes, the authorities might identify the father of Anna Nicole’s baby.  Gotta go!

One trip - two wildly varying perspectives

Pelosi travels to Syria.  She meets with Bashar Assad and predictably generates some controversy.

The lefty blogosphere’s suspiciously overenthusiastic support for the junket.

The Washington Post’s more reasoned case.

Will the crazy left ding Pelosi on the same type of dumb mistakes they normally pin on Bush?

Locking comments

Due to HUGE increase in spam comments, I need to temporarily disable all comment posting until I can do some site tuneups.

“Environmental Procrastination Agency”

The Supreme Court may have ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant, but it may take a looong time to see any benefit:

(John Tierney) - “Ordering the E.P.A. to address global warming may be a legal victory for environment groups, but it will probably just slow progress against global warming. The Environmental Procrastination Agency, as I like to call it, has a hard enough time taking action against routine pollutants. It’s in even worse position to deal with something as complicated as carbon dioxide, because the agency was founded on a fantasy: that scientific experts can transcend both politics and economics.”

I’m guessing a lot more polar bears are going to be stranded on melting ice before anything gets rolling here.

Cincy mayor qualifies for Worst First Pitch - EVER

I’m sure he was just nervous:  (fairly) new mayor, opening day, first pitch.  What a disaster!

Hence the ashen appearance

Keith Richards: ‘I snorted my father’. What a sick, palm tree-climbing idiot.

Why not drop in the Green Zone while you’re there?

I know these trips are planned months in advance, but why wouldn’t Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi at least pay a quick visit to the Iraqi government and American military staff while she’s in that corner of the world?  After all, she claims to have just marshalled a grand stroke of righteous condemnation of Bush’s Iraq policy with the popular support of the majority of Americans.

Talk to the Generals.  Address the troops.  Scurry al-Maliki along since he needs these timetables.