Leaving Downtown Portland

Schumacher Furs & Outerwear has had enough:

"We're leaving downtown Portland because we feel that it's losing its appeal for people to shop in" said Schumacher, 51, rattling off a list of what he called his customers' complaints. "The panhandling, the musicians on the street, the urination in the parking garages. Yes, the protests. But the whole place is not conducive to running a retail operation."

The City of Portland should be ashamed.

Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Nikon's advertising department struggles mightily to illustrate the difference between "2 millions de pixels" and "3 millions de pixels". Cowboy Blob shares the result with us.

Thanks, Blob!

Baker's No Friend of Israel

Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann:

In short, we can only get Iran's help on Iraq if we let Tehran get the bomb.

Yet, with nukes, Iran gains the leverage to force Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and all the region's oil producers to move in its orbit. The Middle East will become an Iranian sphere of influence.

Such an under-the-table deal would amount to a total sellout of Israel and Saudi Arabia and America's other Arab allies.

The Jewish state would be left with no alternative but to take whatever military action it could to stop Iran from completing its nuclear program. American capitulation will have left it with no alternative.

Would Jim Baker cut such a deal? In a heartbeat. Never a friend of Israel, he wouldn't flinch at a realpolitik solution giving Iran power throughout the region.

But why would Bush go along? It would be "peace in our time" — Munich, 1938 — all over again.

Wayne McLoughlin

I saw the Lesters poster (Lesters—America's Cheapest Ammunition "It usually works") on someone's blog with no attribution but thanks to the omniscience of Google I managed to track it down to the artist Wayne McLoughlin.

Check out his Golden Age Parodies. He's also been published in National Lampoon. I'd hate to guess which ones he's responsible for.

Keep An Eye On Their Proboscises

Bomb-sniffing dogs are so passé.

Unlike sniffer dogs which require three months training, it takes 10 minutes to train the bees.

After training three or four bees are put in a shoebox-sized "sniffer box", held in position on plastic mountings. Air is sucked by a fan into the box via plastic tubes and wafts gently over the bees.

If they detect explosives in the air, the trained bees all stick out their proboscises together.

A miniature video camera in the box is trained on them and is connected to a computer programmed with movement recognition software. As soon as the movement of the proboscises is detected, an alarm sounds to alert the security operator.

To avoid false alarms from rogue results, a single bee sticking out its tongue does not set the system off.

Paramilitary Police

Glenn Reynolds has thoughts on SWAT. Also more on the Atlanta shooting.

Actually, I like Tamara's crack about that.

Let me get the obligatory joke out of the way: If I gotta die, I want it to be at 92 years old in a shootout with the cops.

The Nativity Story

In theaters December 1st. Parental Guidance strongly suggested—you wouldn't want the little beggars ketchin' religion or nothin'.

Global Warming Watch

Utah: Winter whips in, snow warnings issued

While temperatures were in the 40s on Monday, by Wednesday the high should drop to the mid-20s. "That's record cold afternoon temperatures," he said.

California: Bay Area braces for more cold, frost

Near-record cold temperatures are expected Wednesday.

Illinois: Winter's Debut is Near

...the first week of December will be cold, really cold, but still it will be warmer than the record cold of a year ago.

Washington: New Winter Storm Watch Issued for Puget Sound

In the meantime, record cold temperatures will prevail over all of Western Washington. In Kitsap County, low temperatures could dip into the mid-teens tonight. Highs on Wednesday are expected in the low to mid-30s.

Click here for updates throughout the season!

Happy Flaming Feet

James Lileks:

I thought it was about dancing penguins, but it was actually about overfishing. To hear it recounted (by my wife, who endured the thing) it seems that the penguins were dying, a nice touch for a kid’s film, and the hero followed a fishing boat and ended up in a zoo then told everyone to stop fishing and so everyone stopped fishing and yay the day was saved.

Overfishing? I asked. They stopped overfishing?

No, they stopped fishing.

May I suggest a gastronomical alternative?

Flaming Penguin Kabob

An Armenian specialty traditionally made with lamb or beef, this Antarctic variation will delight even the most discriminating palette.

2 pounds ground or whole penguin
2 sliced onions
2 sliced green or red bell peppers
1 cup olive oil
1 bottle Bud Ice (chilled)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground garlic
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
2 Bay Leaves
3 sharp skewers

Slice penguin into 1-inch cubes. Mix spices in with olive oil. Marinade cubes in spice mix. Refrigerate overnight, stirring occasionally. Slice onions and bell peppers into wedges. Place vegetables and penguin cubes alternately on skewers. Brush lightly again with marinade. Grill for 10 to 15 minutes until golden brown outside. Turn and baste continually with Bud Ice. Douse lightly with brandy or lighter fluid and light before serving.

The Russian Criminal State

David Satter in Opinion Journal:

In the last six years, the makeup of the ruling elite in Russia has undergone a dramatic change. Once in power, Mr. Putin filled the majority of important posts with veterans of the security services, many with ties to him dating back to his work in St. Petersburg. By 2003, the top ministers, half of the members of the Russian security council and 70% of all senior regional officials in Russia were former members of the security services....

The first victim was Sergei Yushenkov, a co-chairman of the Liberal Russia Party and member of the commission on the apartment bombings. He was shot on April 17, 2003....

In July 2003, Duma deputy Yuri Shchekochikhin, another member of the commission on the 1999 bombings, died after contracting an unexplained illness....

Finally, Anna Politkovskaya, perhaps Russia's best-known journalist, was murdered last month....

In the wake of Litvinenko's death, the West must insist on cooperation from the FSB in finding his killers. If that is not forthcoming, it should be assumed that the murder of Litvinenko was ordered by the Russian regime.

Under those circumstances, not only should Russia be expelled from the G-8 but the whole structure of mutual consultation and cooperation would need to be re-evaluated. This is not just a matter of refusing to trivialize a murder. It is also a vital political obligation. Russians of all types are watching to see whether the West will simply swallow this crime or finally react to the rampant criminalization of Russian society.

Satter's most recent book is Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State.

Wii Workout

Nintendo's new game console gives you a workout:

One of the Wii's distinguishing features is a motion-sensitive technology that requires players to act out their character's movements, wielding the game's controller like a sword or swinging it like a tennis racket.

The new console has been wildly successful, selling out at stores and winning high marks from critics and game buffs. But as players spend more time with the Wii, some are noticing that hours waving the game's controller around can add up to fairly intense exertion -- resulting in aches and pains common in more familiar forms of exercise. They're reporting aching backs, sore shoulders -- even something some have dubbed "Wii elbow."

"Oh, my gosh," says Leslie, "We have got to get one."

Poisoned With Polonium-210

The Sydney Morning Herald on the death of Alexander Litvinenko:

...police had called in the Health Protection Agency on Thursday night, after Mr Litvinenko's urine sample revealed "significant, large" traces of alpha radiation.

Traces of polonium-210, an emitter of alpha radiation, were also found in Mr Litvinenko's home, a sushi restaurant where he had met a contact, Mario Scaramella, on November 1, and the Millennium Hotel in central London, where he had met a Russian former intelligence official, Andrei Lugovoy, and a second man, also on November 1.

Before his death Mr. Litvineko dictated and signed a statement that among other things said:

You may succeed in silencing one man. But a howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life. May God forgive you for what you have done.

A Little Christmas Music

I haven't had time to blog today because first thing this morning I had to go in to the Guitar Center (10% off until 10:00 am!) and buy a Casio Celviano AP-45 to replace that huge old upright piano we bought fourteen years ago.

Oddly enough, after bringing it home I thought I could leave it in the box for a few days while we disposed of the old piano and re-arranged the living room. But NO! We had to roll the old piano into the dining room, unload bookshelves, dust, sweep, mop, beat carpets, move furniture, and unpack and assemble up the new piano right now before... well, before we all just had a fit.

With the old piano out of the way I also had room to set up the new Yamaha speakers and DVD/CD player I bought six months ago, and which really have been sitting in the boxes ever since.
So now we're all set up to enjoy some Christmas music.

Thanksgiving

"Home for Thanksgiving" by Norman Rockwell, November 24, 1945.

Before we served pie last year Leslie went round the table and asked us each to finish three sentences:

1. Worldwide I am thankful for...
2. This year I am thankful for...
3. This day I am thankful for...

Well, this day I am thankful for my Mom and Dad, my wife Leslie, and my kids Lizzy, Charlie, and Marielle. And all my brothers and sisters and their children and grandchildren—all of us healthy and as happy as can reasonably be expected.

This year I am thankful for my new office windows, but more especially that I work at home. The Internet has made it possible to work in Gold Hill, Oregon for a company in Walnut Creek, California, who has a client in Livermore, California, who has a customer in Springfield, Missouri—and we conduct 99% of our business over the network.

And worldwide I am thankful for these guys: the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, and all Marines everywhere who do the dirty work so that we can live free. They'd all rather come home for Thanksgiving. Maybe next year some of them will. Some of them won't.

Cole Reeves Indicted

The Mail Tribune reports:

A Jackson County grand jury today indicted Cole Reeves, 36, on a single count of third-degree assault for shooting hunter Glen Bogart in the back Oct. 1.

The seven-member jury chose the felony charge over two lesser misdemeanor options — fourth-degree assault and negligent wounding of another, said David Orr, the Jackson County assistant district attorney who is handling the case.

I should hope that, convicted or not, he never hunts again.

Fly US Airways

Ann Coulter says:

Six imams removed from a US Airways flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix are calling on Muslims to boycott the airline. If only we could get Muslims to boycott all airlines, we could dispense with airport security altogether.

Sounds good to me.

Brazilian ATC at Fault?

AVweb reports on the Brazilian midair:

The NTSB yesterday released "factual information" on the progress of the Brazilian government's investigation into the Sept. 29 midair collision between a Boeing 737-800 operated by Gol Airlines of Brazil and an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet owned by Excelaire of New York.

Read the report itself, which confirms that both planes were assigned—and flew—the same altitude.

Brazil continues to hold the pilots, and the complete investigation may take another ten months. The AOPA on Wednesday asked Condoleezza Rice to intervene in the matter.

Independence Day Canceled

Lebanon's Independence Day has been canceled due to a lack of independence. On the same day that a Wall Street Journal editorial recommended that we not let Syria get away with killing Rafik Hariri someone—it's pretty obvious who—gunned down the anti-Syrian minister of industry Pierre Gemayel.

The Dictators Are (Mostly) Gone

Michael Barone finds reason to hope in Latin American politics:

Years ago, when I first started traveling to Latin America and I went to bookstores to find reading material on the region, I found that almost all the books on the shelves were written by leftists. Academics specializing in the region, both in Latin America and in the United States, took it for granted that the great mass of the people in Latin America hated the United States and capitalism and yearned for economic redistribution and socialism. There was some reason to believe that when many countries were ruled by dictators and when there was great economic inequality.

Latin America still has great economic inequality, but the dictators, except for Fidel Castro and (if you want to count him as such) Hugo Chávez, are gone, and elections are frequent. And it seems that Latin American voters are mostly less interested in government-mandated redistribution and more in government-provided monetary stability and civil peace. Sort of like voters in the United States.

Syria and Iran

VDH on Hewitt:

Don't give up. Don't weaken. Don't hesitate. Don't pause. Do not cut a deal with those two governments. They're killing American soldiers through surrogates in Iraq. They're trying to destabilize Lebanon like they did in the 1980's. They're the source of most of the evil that's now causing us problems from Afghanistan to Iraq. And this idea that you're going to bring James Baker back, and that team back who gave us everything from Iran-Contra to jobs, jobs, jobs as the only reason we're going to go into the Middle East, to flank the Jews. I could go on, but it's a very sensitive point with me. I think a lot of us, Hugh, stood by this administration through thick and thin when the paleocons turned on them, when the liberal hawks turned on them, when the neocons are starting to bail. But my God, if you're going to go into the Middle East, and put 130,000 Americans in harm's way, fighting for democracy, and then you turn around and you appease those two governments who are killing people, I don't think a lot of us are going to stand for that.

November Sunrise

Left the house before daylight this morning and reached the first notch of Nugget Butte just in time to see the sun come up. Then it started to drizzle. I was pretty damp when I sat down to breakfast.

The Elephant in the Room

Via Instapundit, word that Ryan Sager has been banned. I hadn't intended to pay any attention to Sager or his book, but now I have to. "Banned!" is probably the most powerful word in advertising, right up there with "Free!"

So first to Sager's web site to discover that the name of the book is The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians and the Battle to Control the Republican Party.

Then off to TCS for an excerpt—in fact, the entire first chapter. I'll save you time. Here's the theme:

For as long as there has been a self-aware conservative movement—that is, since roughly 1955, when William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review—a debate has raged as to whether its two main factions, traditionalists and libertarians, truly share the same goals or whether they share only common enemies....

The traditionalists—typified by political philosophers such as Russell Kirk and Richard M. Weaver—placed the highest value (as their label might suggest) on tradition and social order. Repulsed by the rise of mass society and horrified by the depravity of the "total" war waged by and against Nazism and fascism, they radically rejected their own age. Seeking solace in the past, they exalted concepts such as a rigid class structure, elitism and obedience to authority—especially the authority of God. As Kirk put it, this brand of conservative believed, first and foremost, that a divine intent rules society and that "political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems."

The libertarians, on the other hand—typified by economists such as Milton Friedman and Murray Rothbard—placed the highest value on human freedom. These men, too, were aghast at the age in which they lived, though for very different reasons than those of the traditionalists. They believed that, if anything, society had grown too authoritarian. In the march toward greater and greater state control of the economy, first during the Great Depression and then during the war, the libertarians made out what Austrian economist F.A. Hayek called, in a slim volume published in 1944, "The Road to Serfdom." Control over the economy, Hayek argued, meant control over every aspect of man's being—which could only lead to totalitarianism. The government, libertarians believed, must be kept as small as possible, and individuals must be restricted in their actions as little as possible.

Libertarians considered traditionalists little dictators, aching to subject their fellow man to one particular view of God's will. Traditionalists considered libertarians imitation anarchists, isolating man from society and reducing him to nothing more than the sum of his material desires. Yet, somehow, by 1964 these two warring factions would ally to take over the Republican Party. By 2004, 40 years later, they would dominate the entire country.

And two years later the whole thing falls apart again.

As one with a foot in each camp I thought I'd detected a little sniping over the past couple of years, but by Ryan Sager's analysis the pellets in my thick hide are the result of friendly fire, growing less friendly all the time.

We better read the book. Maybe he's got a plan.

Post-Election Groovitude

Crunch-EZ

Jack Sargent lost control of his Long-EZ when the canopy popped open shortly after takeoff. The newspaper report quotes Gary Queior, the airport operations supervisor, as saying that when the canopy comes open in mid-air, "it disrupts the whole airflow of the craft."

That's true enough, but then Queior went on to say that the Long-EZ has been nicknamed the "flying coffin."

That's hard to believe. I've been reading about Burt Rutan's Long-EZ for a couple of years now, and I've never seen it called that. In fact, due to its composite construction, it's an unusually survivable aircraft. In another article a day later Sargent himself described the crash:

"I could see that it was going down in a straight line. There wasn't any chance. There was nothing I could do about it," said Sargent....

"If it would have been a little steeper it would have been a serious crash. It just hit and bounced. It wasn't a sudden stop or anything," said Sergent.

Sargent plans to fly again, but not this one. "There's no way to rebuild the thing. Just have to live with that."

Tax and Bribe Won't Work

Hal Colebatch in The American Spectator suggests that the answer to Europe's demographic "death-spiral" might be Australian-style maternity payments. At $3600 per child they seem to be persuading Australian women to have a few more.

But there's one obvious problem with the cash-for-kids approach:

To give grants to unassailable and hostile immigrant communities as a reward for breeding more would produce the opposite result to that intended. There would have to be tests for people to qualify, emphatically not on the basis of race — which would be both immoral as well as impracticable — but on the basis of culture and values. This is of course desperately politically incorrect but it is practicable. Obviously a good deal of fine-tuning may be necessary.

Obviously.

Instead of the tax-and-bribe approach why not just let the poor working stiff keep more of his (or her) paycheck and decide for him (or her) self what to do with it? He and she might just decide they want more kids—once they're permitted to afford them.

This gets around the "culture and values" conundrum automatically. Because before you can keep more of your paycheck you have to have a paycheck to keep in the first place. And oddly enough those hostile immigrants tend to be disproportionately unemployed. Who'd want to hire them?

Nov 19: National Ammo Day

OK, I've done my bit. Shot about half the box of Remingtons on the way home, too. I'm not getting better but I'm getting more consistent. I'll settle for that.

Eisenhower, Enterprise, Boxer, and Iwo Jima

Hugh Hewitt's wondering why four carrier groups are in the Gulf.

Al Jazeera's wondering too.

We're just messing with their heads, that's all.

Update: The LA Times is really messing with their heads.

Piracetam

Joseph Ruchalski in the LSU Daily Reveille:

Nootropics, popularly known as "smart drugs," are thought to enhance cognitive function in the brain. Largely unknown in the United States, these substances are often prescribed in Europe and South America to treat a wide variety of symptoms... The first formulated and commonly available drug is Piracetam. Discovered in the 1960s, it is believed to work by stimulating the cerebral cortex and increase the energy level of neurons as well as flow of information between the right and left brain hemispheres. Not approved by the Food and Drug Administration or a scheduled narcotic, it is considered a nutritional supplement and purchase and importation of the substance for personal use is legal.

Not shy to try new things out in the name of science, I recently acquired an ample supply of Piracetam...

The effects were immediate if mild. Unlike the induced attentiveness of caffeine, there were no feelings of jitteriness or adrenaline rush induced edginess. Increased memory and mental clarity followed, allowing pages and pages of reading to be started and finished.

Nice to know that the experiments continue.

Messing With Their Heads

Mark Steyn:

I support the Bush Doctrine on two grounds—first, for "utopian" reasons: If the Middle East becomes a region of free states, it will have been the right thing to do and the option most consistent with American values.... But, second, it also makes sense from a cynical realpolitik perspective: Promoting liberty and democracy, even if they ultimately fail, is still a good way of messing with the thugs' heads. It's one of the few real points of pressure America and its allies can bring to bear against rogue nations, and in the case of Iran, the one with the clearest shot at being effective.

The Sunday Steyn.

(This link will self-destruct in thirty days—the Chicago Sun-Times has a somewhat ephemeral web presence.)

Meteor Strikes Mercury

The Peekskill meteor of 1992 was captured on 16 independent videos and then struck a car. Documented as brighter than the full Moon, the spectacular fireball crossed parts of several US states during its 40 seconds of glory before landing in Peekskill, New York.

Todays APOD.

A Milton Friedman Sampler

Selections from his writing, from 1961 to 2005, which appeared in The Wall Street Journal. Print and study.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Thirty minutes of the 2002 Leonid meteor shower: "Perched on the moonlit rocks at the bottom right, Leica, the photographers' dog, seems to be watching the on going celestial display and adds a surreal visual element to the scene."

The Leonids peak this weekend. If we get a break in the clouds, watch to the east just before dawn.

Glove Thief

Meet Rocky the cat burglar:

He began victimizing neighbors more than a year ago. They know the thief's name and where he lives and even what he's stolen — his ill-gotten booty hangs mockingly on a clothesline in his front yard on Hybiscus Street.

Rocky, a tabby with a glove fetish, is the resident bandit.

By day, he strolls nonchalantly past doting neighbors. When the coast is clear, he sneaks onto back porches and into storage sheds, seeking out gloves of every shape and style.

It's a copy cat crime.

Israel

Victor Davis Hanson:

We are witnessing strange things about Israel. Columnists this year wrote about it being a "“mistake." And for the first time emboldened Islamic leaders talk seriously not about restoring lost land on the West Bank and the Golan Heights, but of "“wiping"” it off the map entirely....

Back home, the Left/Right split on Israel has also been turned upside down. If you wish to read sick hatred about the Jewish state go to the leftist blogs or the campuses, not the Montana badlands....

Now more than ever Israel is nearly all alone——and so serves as a barometer in the West of true liberal courage of conscience. It has no oil, no international terrorists, no large population, no real material advantages and no threats to be made in the most crass sense.

Instead, it is a humane liberal society, an atoll of reason in a surrounding sea of autocracy. So it is the perfect litmus test for the Westerner: on the one hand is principled support for an embattled democracy; on the other, is easy appeasement that wins applause...

Hanson has other thoughts—and advice to the Democrats that will be ignored—on his Works and Days blog.

Station Wagons

Say Uncle notes that the station wagon is coming back. About time. I miss that old Rambler.

Above: Ford Freestyle.

Below: Chrysler Pacifica.

Music: The Beach Boys.

Permission to Disarm

Jerusalem (Reuters):

Miss Israel has been given permission not to carry her assault rifle during service in the Israeli army because she says it bruises her legs.

Reigning beauty queen Yael Nezri, a private who recently completed basic training, said the bruises were making it difficult for her to model in photo shoots.

The Jerusalem Post reported that Nezri, 18, had been granted an exemption by her commanders during her two-year army stint.

Yes, Sir!

The Rumsfeld Treatment

Peggy Noonan sees a surprise coming:

What is the first thing men do when they're drowning? They save themselves. With the waters rising on every side the president will attempt to re-enact his first and most personally satisfying political success when, as governor of Texas, he won plaudits and popularity for working hand in glove with Democrats. He accepted many Democratic assumptions--he shared them, it wasn't hard.

The White House's reaction to the recent election was, essentially, Now we can get our immigration bill through with the Democrats. That was a clue. I suspect the president will over the next two years do to Republicans what he did to Donald Rumsfeld: over the side, under the bus and off the sled.

He doesn't need them. They're not popular. They're not where the action is. He'll work closely with Democrats, gain in time new and admiring press--"Bush has grown," etc.

This is the path he will take to build his popularity and create a new legacy. If the Democrats let him. It would be in their interests, so I think maybe they will.

I hope she's wrong.

Milton Friedman 1912-2006

I first met Milton Friedman in the ten-part PBS series Free to Choose which my Econ 201 professor had taped a couple of years earlier. She loaned me the tapes to watch in the library at Umpqua Community College, and as I watched I gradually began to understand her enthusiasm for free markets.

Milton Friedman's patient teaching changed millions of minds in addition to mine. His ideas changed the lives of billions.

The television series aged as topical references faded. It was later repackaged in a four-part series, with an introduction by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ten years on that seems a little dated too. But the ideas behind it are as fresh as ever. Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton and Rose Friedman is still in print, and still worth reading.

The Gettysburg Drafts

Gabor Boritt writes in Opinion Journal:

In the middle of a terrible war that would take the lives of more than 600,000 Americans, Abraham Lincoln went to a little Pennsylvania town on Nov. 19, 1863, to dedicate the nation's first national cemetery and to explain why the war had to go on. In some 270 words he gave the world a definition of democracy, and in time his Gettysburg Address became not only the best known speech on the globe but a document of great monetary value as well.

The first draft of Lincoln's speech, often called the Nicolay copy, has an adventurous post-creation history. The president probably wrote the first part in Washington, with pen, on Executive Mansion stationery, and the second part in pencil, at the Wills House in Gettysburg, on the evening of Nov. 18. But we do not know for certain....

Lincoln wrote the second draft in ink on the same lined paper as the second page of the first draft, most likely on the morning of Nov. 19, at the Wills House. If so, this was the reading copy, though this, too, is not entirely certain.

And of course there are differences between the first two drafts—lines crossed out, words inserted—as Lincoln struggled to find the right words.

Interestingly enough we don't know which words he ultimately used. Edison invented his phonograph fourteen years too late, and newspaper accounts of the speech differ. You can view the drafts here. Transcripts highlight the differences. Which words would you have used?

Tsunami Hits Crescent City

Eureka Times-Standard, November 15, 2006:

Two docks were torn apart and numerous boats were broken loose when a tsunami surge hit the Crescent City Harbor around 3 p.m. Debbie McAndrews of the harbor said the surge wasn't waves, but appeared to look like a rolling river.

As of 3:30 p.m. two boats were drifting away and harbor workers were scrambling to prevent further damage and loss.

A Coast Guard transmission on the scanner said it was only receiving reports of damage to the Crescent City Harbor.

The tsunami is believed to be the result of a powerful undersea earthquake with a magnitude of 8.1 off Japan that prompted tsunami warnings for Japan, Russia and Alaska.

The Tsunami Warning Center reported a Crescent City wave height of 35 inches.

Update: More from the Curry Coastal Pilot.

Neanderthal Chicks Way Too Ugly

Science editor Maggie Fox of Reuters:

Researchers have sequenced DNA from the leg bone of a Neanderthal man who died 38,000 years ago and said on Wednesday it shows the Neanderthals are truly distant relatives of modern humans who interbred rarely, if at all, with our own immediate ancestors....

"We see no evidence of mixing 40,000, 30,000 years ago in Europe. We don't exclude it, but see no evidence," Edward Rubin of the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, California, who led one study, told reporters.

Cave man's got to know his limitations.

Top Ten

Top Ten Signs George W. Bush Is Depressed

10. Speaks wistfully of the days when his approval rating was 33%
9. Barely musters a smile when catching Cheney torture detainees
8. Smug, arrogant smirk replaced by smug, arrogant frown
7. Barely laughs anymore during "Happy Days" reruns
6. Falls asleep during intelligence briefings... actually, he always did that
5. No longer pretends he quit drinking
4. Sits in the Oval Office listening to Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" over and over
3. When Rumsfeld left yesterday, Bush pleaded, "Take me with you"
2. At lunch with speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, he hardly touched his fish sticks
1. Asked Bubba if he still had the big chick's phone number

Emergency Landing

In Brooklyn:

The builders of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge probably saved someone’s life yesterday. They needed a place to dump all the displaced dirt from its construction, and ended up creating a new hunk of land that jutted out of Brooklyn into Coney Island Creek like a hitchhiker’s thumb.

In 1962, that land became part of a city park. Yesterday, it became an impromptu runway for Paul P. Dudley, a pilot, by being in the right place—under him—at the right time when his small airplane’s engine quit.

"There was no engine," said John Lloyd, one of three fishermen who saw the Cessna 172 coming in. "The plane was off."

Mr. Dudley made an emergency landing in Calvert Vaux Park shortly after 10:30 a.m., touching down in an empty field and taxiing about 100 yards before crossing a small berm and coming to a stop, man and machine undamaged.

Nice.

National Ammo Day

As I've mentioned before, next Sunday, November 19th, is National Ammo Day. I intend to use the excuse to stock up. One of the nice things about a .357 is the wide variety of ammunition it can handle. Shown above, from left to right

• UMC 130 gr .38 MC
• Speer GoldDot 125 gr .38 +P GDHP
• Winchester 110 gr .357 JHP
• UMC 125 gr .357 JSP

They range in muzzle velocity from a subsonic 790 ft/s to a supersonic 1450 ft/s and in muzzle energy (proportional to recoil) from 173 ft-lbs to 583 ft-lbs. Needless to say the .357s are a lot more fun but the indoor range doesn't like us using magnum loads.

I've gone through about a thousand rounds of the UMC .38s and I'm just beginning to get the hang of it. Fortunately they go for less than 20¢ a round in the 250 round bargain box at Bi-Mart, making this is one of the cheaper hobbies I've taken up.

Now They Call Me Infidel

Nonie Darwish:

I always blamed Israel for my father's death, because that's what I was taught. I never looked at why Israel killed my father. They killed my father because the fedayeen were killing Israelis. They killed my father because when I was growing up, we had to recite poetry pledging jihad against Israel. We would have tears in our eyes, pledging that we wanted to die. I speak to people who think there was no terrorism against Israel before the '67 war. How can they deny it? My father died in it.

Her new book Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror is available now on Amazon. FrontPage magazine has a collection of her articles.

The amazing Instapundit, who has eyes everywhere, has called our attention to it.

Neither Partial, Nor an Abortion

G. Tracy Mehan in The American Spectator:

During the last week's oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court, over a federal law seeking to ban this latest assault on the integrity of the human person, my ears perked up when I heard that the lawyers and judges used the term "fetal demise" to describe the fate of the doomed subject of the horrendous practice.

The "fetal" part refers to a baby. The "demise" refers to the killing of the baby, by means of crushing her skull, in the course of a breech delivery....

Listening to judges and lawyers arguing whether or not this tragedy occurs in utero is to descend into the theatre of the absurd. At this late stage in pregnancy, no sane human should be disputing the child's expectation of a safe harbor in the arms of the mother.

This stuff gives me the creeps, like reading about the Holocaust.

Why do I have to read it?

So Far It's None of the Above

Washington (AP):

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, a moderate Republican best known for his stewardship of the city after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has taken the first step in a 2008 presidential bid....

The former mayor is a moderate who supports gun control, same-sex civil unions, embryonic stem-cell research and abortion rights...

That's not a moderate, that's a liberal.

Red Oregon, Blue Oregon

Upper Left Coast has the maps. Numbers are from the race for Governor. Interestingly enough in six counties the winner did not get a plurality. Mary Starrett took 3.64% of the votes statewide; not enough to tip the balance, but pretty good for a third-party candidate.

A Worthy Opponent!

John Derbyshire's October Diary:

Imagine yourself on the battlefield at Agincourt. You are a noble English knight, clad in full armor. Across the battlefield you see a noble French knight, also in full armor. A worthy opponent! You make your way towards him, hewing aside with your sword the unarmored peasant pikemen who are in your way. They may be English or French—who cares? They're just peasants. Noble combat is the thing!

That's Kerry's mentality. A Bush-is-a-moron quip would come as naturally to him as breathing. An insult to our common soldiers would not come easily to him at all. Not because he's too decent (he isn'’t), or because he has too much respect for our troops (he doesn'’t), but just because it would never occur to him to think about ordinary soldiers. To a guy like Kerry, they are just... scenery.

"Imagine yourself on the battlefield at Agincourt." I would have found that difficult had I not just read John Keegan's The Face of Battle, in which we spent forty pages doing just that. Derbyshire's scenario bears more resemblance to a Monty Python sketch, but then, so does John Kerry.

Wait A Minute. I Voted For Me!

Waldenburg, Arkansas:

Randy Wooten figured he'd get at least one vote in his bid for mayor of this town of 80 people - even if it was just his own.

He didn't. Now he has to decide whether to file a formal protest.

Wooten got the news from his wife, Roxanne, who went to City Hall on Wednesday to see the election results.

"She saw my name with zero votes by it. She came home and asked me if I had voted for myself or not. I told her I did," said Wooten, owner of a local bar.

However, Poinsett County results reported Wednesday showed incumbent William H. Wood with 18 votes, challenger Ronnie Chatman with 18 votes and Wooten with zero.

"I had at least eight or nine people who said they voted for me, so something is wrong with this picture," Wooten said.

Poinsett County Election Commissioner Junaway Payne said the issue had been discussed but no action taken yet.

"It's our understanding from talking with the secretary of state's office that a court order would have to be obtained in order to open the machine and check the totals," Payne said. "The votes were cast on an electronic voting machine, but paper ballots were available."

A Nov. 28 runoff is scheduled to decide the mayor's race.

"It's just very hard to understand," Wooten said.

It couldn't possibly be voter fraud. In Arkansas?

How Not to Lose and Why

Mark Steyn in the Chicago Sun-Times:

It has been a long time since America unambiguously won a war, and to choose to lose Iraq would be an act of such parochial self-indulgence that the American moment would not endure, and would not deserve to. Europe is becoming semi-Muslim, Third World basket-case states are going nuclear, and, for all that 40 percent of planetary military spending, America can't muster the will to take on pipsqueak enemies. We think we can just call off the game early, and go back home and watch TV.

William J. Stuntz in the Weekly Standard:

War is not poker; the stakes in Iraq are much higher than a little money or a few chips. But war's psychology bears some resemblance to a well-played game of cards. The only way Americans lose this war is to fold. That seems likely to be the next move, but it is the last thing we should do. Far better to call and raise. Our cards are better than theirs, if only we have the nerve to play them.

Thanks to Lucianne and Instapundit respectively.

If I Ran the Newspaper...

The Sunday Comics would look like this.

The Party of Big Government

Six out of six community college measures failed in Oregon, as well as 21 out of 41 school bonds and property tax levies. Of 161 property tax measures on ballots throughout Oregon, 72 went down.

It's no surprise. Voters may have chosen Democrats 55-45, but they weren't voting for higher spending. A recent poll commissioned by the Club for Growth found that people thought that Democrats were more likely than Republicans to eliminate wasteful spending by 39 to 25 percent. 30% said it made no difference. Asked which party was the "The Party of Big Government" they said Republicans 39% and Democrats 28%. Sixteen percent said both.

2.7 billion dollars worth of general obligation bond measures appeared on Oregon ballots this fall—$750 for every man, woman and child in the state. Fortunately the voters have learned how to say, "No."

Remembrance Day

Before Veterans Day we had Armistice Day which in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland they also called Remembrance Day. That we must: we must remember.

Of the half dozen histories I've read this year, these two were the best.

With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by E. B. Sledge. If you only read one book about the war in the Pacific, read this one. Private Sledge was there with the Marines, amid the mud and maggots, taking orders, killing Japanese, and paying close attention.


Warlord: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy by Ilario Pantano. Lieutenant Pantano narrowly escaped court-martial for killing two Iraqi insurgents during a raid in Al Anbar. Here he tells his side of the hearings and the war that led up to them.