I get by with a little help from my friends!

Clearly, I, NT, have taken a bit of a sabbatical lately. Well, it will continue for several more weeks. In the meantime, Johann has sent in this contribution. Hopefully he will become a regular contributor. Enjoy.
I noticed that the blog has not had an update in two weeks so I decided I will send you a story that sparked my interest. This morning I heard on Bill Bennett's radio show that the New York Times ran an Op/Ed piece today (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/opinion/30pollack.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) by two well-esteemed Democratic military and foreign policy experts from the Brookings Institute who just recently returned from their most latest trip to Iraq, with the explicit purpose of examining the effects of the "troop surge." Immediately upon their arrival they found much greater morale amongst the troops, sectarian groups that were once allied to al-Qaeda, now securely in the American camp, neighborhoods that were ghost-towns now bustling hubs of commerce, as well as ethnic groups seemingly at least tolerating one another. This is an incredible development. Two experts, oft quoted by the likes of John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, saying that we could possibly win the war in Iraq. It is very likely that they might even be understating the facts. Just days ago for someone to say that we could win in Iraq, they would be labeled a right wing quack, an ideological die-hard who cannot accept the facts. Clearly the facts have changed course. The only question is what will the Democrats do with this. This isn't as if this is a Washington Times or National Review editorial; it comes straight from the main artery of American liberal thought. As Newt Gingrich poignantly stated, "The left wing of the Democratic Party is deeply opposed to American victory and deeply committed to American defeat." If his statement is true, and I believe sadly that it is, that the Democratic Party's entire electoral strategy is invested in Iraq, what can they do when their fellows say that we can win? Do they ignore it? Does the news-media ignore it as well? Bill Bennett had remarked that President Bush should call a press conference and hold up this article for a photo op. ala "Dewey defeats Truman". What have you seen? Is this where this op-ed piece was first brought to your attention?

Weekend with Uncle John

Happy Birthday to me. Happy Birthday to Gerald Ford. Happy Bastille Day. All of these occur on the same fabled date of July 14.

Paris Hilton's dad should have an easier time paying for her next get out of jail party without putting the squeeze on Vegas hotels to subsidize it. Blackstone just purchased Hilton Hotels for 26 billion or such.

The winner ate 66 hot dogs, a new record. The runner up ate a mere 63. I bet they didn't chew as thoroughly as their mothers would have urged.

The most recent batch of terrorists in the UK are all medical doctors or medical professionals. I would have assumed these folk would have been happy campers there, and, if not, would have had the means to migrate back to their father lands.

I always knew farming was a dangerous vocation. Now I realize it is even more dangerous than I had thought. Five on a dairy farm in Virginia died because of inhalation of methane from a manure pit. Apparently it was in an enclosed area and the sump pump wasn't working right.

Dark chocolate lowers blood pressure. That's pretty good news I guess, but why couldn't it have been milk chocolate?

The pin head with the weird strain of TB that flew across the Atlantic and illegally reentered the US from Canada turns out to be a lawyer. I should have known.

The University of Missouri has found that students are less likely to drink heavily on Thursday nights when they have classes scheduled for Friday morning. Duh. I don't know how much money they spent on this research but I assume all the other colleges that have now benefited from this finding will send some remittance or at least some reciprocal gem from their own research.

It was the wettest Wimbledon since who knows when. It was the windiest too. It's another manifestation of global wetting and blowing. I think Wimbledon also set new records for grunting, moaning and shrieking by players hitting the ball and set records for fist pumps by players. The latter used to be reserved for very special shots or very key points. Now it seems almost all points warrant a fist pump. It's global shrieking and fist pumping I tell you. Federer beat Nadal yesterday but unless my eyes are mistaken I believe Nadal may now be the best player. The group of geniuses that seeded Venus Williams 23rd should be excused from any further seeding exercises for the duration of their lives.

Missouri lawmakers passed legislation saying it was alright for universities to require advanced degrees for applicants to teaching positions. There was one exception. The congressmen stipulated that the requirement did not apply if the applicant had served in the Missouri House or Senate. Give me strength.

A local school district administrator ordered all teachers to mark all students present for a prescribed period of days. It seems this bumped the district into a higher "performance" measure and thus a higher monetary incentive from some state kitty. I presumed the teachers ratted out this infraction and was accordingly relieved. Alas, no teacher disclosed the deed; it was revealed by a person who saw the order while visiting one of the schools. The administrator is going down. Seems to me that the teachers should be ashamed as well.

Hillary broke all time fund raising record for 2nd qtr of year before election. It didn't last long. Obama announced an even greater amount.

There are 22 school districts in our fair county. Among these 22, the total valuation of each district's residential properties increased by 10% to 28%. These assessments seem all the more peculiar in light of the fact that property values have generally been static or lower over the past few years. Over all, assessments were up 20%. We are fortunate enough to live in the district that escalated 28%. Now one might think that a journalist would dig into this with great gusto. It seems like there must be a story here. To wit, why are assessments so much higher while sales prices obviously are not? Of course, there was not one word of text delving into this mystery or even acknowledging the incongruity. Nice.

The last challenge word was besotted, meaning stupefied. The last trivia question wasn't answered by anyone. Venus is the only planet that rotates in the reverse of the direction of the orbit. The last lyrics challenge was from "Slip Sliding Away" by Paul Simon.

I think I will dispense with the vocabulary and trivia challenges. I just don't have the time to read through all the replies that pour in. I don't know how you all find the time. The new lyrics challenge is: "Get your motor running,/ Head out on the highway,/ Looking for adventure,/ And whatever comes our way."

A Mix of Links

Read this story about a nobel laureate who is calling for Bush's impeachment, also saying "Right now, I could kill George Bush." This was followed by the comment, "No, I don't mean that. How could you nonviolently kill somebody? I would love to be able to do that." Now, this is of course appaling and extreme, but isn't it shockingly stupid. She would kill someone if it were non-violent? What a dope.

Did anyone watch Al Gore's Live Earth concert? I didn't, but Rod Stewart did, and he was appalled by all of the foul language. He has vowed to not use foul language at his concerts. Why is it that liberals tend to be much more vulgar than conservatives. That has been my experience at least. Why is this? Read about Stewart here.

Read this extensive Time piece about the Democrats finding religion. Very provocative.

For Minnesotans, a list of the top ice cream shops in town. Hit them up this Summer.

Finally, a shockingly honest story from the Daily Mail about a mother's struggle identifying with her mixed race baby.

Uncle John

From Uncle John:

Happy Independence Day.

The big news is that I am now a grandpa.

We have various municipalities in the area that are passing ordinances that all new residences must have at least some masonry facade. This seems to be very popular with the bricklayers union but is strenuously resisted by homebuilder associations. The most active antagonist is the NAACP. I don't know exactly why that is.

New Orleans now has an inspector general. They never had one before. Surprised? Someone thought that since the rest of the country was pumping billions into that city of questionable local management practices, it might salve the nations unease if New Orleans appointed a watch dog. They picked the cat that had been Massachusetts' watch dog during the "big dig" tunnel project in Boston. That project re-wrote the record books in terms of cost over runs. Oh well.

Someone did a study and concluded that one is more likely to get a warning rather than a ticket after a traffic stop if one is a young lady, if one is local, if the area recently voted to accept a property tax increase, or if the area is reliant on tourist commerce. This is interesting but I sure hope taxpayers didn't pay for these pearls of wisdom.

We were watching a Wimbledon match and the announcer explained that James Blake, who was losing to an adversary from Spain, had beaten this fellow the last time the two had played head to head. I think I have heard this expression so many times that I paid it no attention. But [my wife], who is more exacting than I, wanted to know the other ways the two would have played against each other in the past. The American men have one contestant left after week one (Andy Roddick). What happened to USA men's tennis? On the subject of tennis, you have to check out the sports bra that Serena Williams sort of incorporates into her tennis outfit. The back band is one of the biggest pieces of elastic I have seen. I fear that if the thing were to burst, several spectators would be killed.

Some shrink on the IL side of the river was busted for defrauding Medicare and Medicaid. Many bills were submitted for treatments during periods when he was on vacation in other continents. Some days had 40 hours of treatments billed. I'm wondering if psychiatric care should be lumped in with other medical care. The opportunity for such mischief probably is too seductive. Anyway, this cat has the unusual name of Ajit Trikah. He set up a firm with a modest name of TRX. The President, secretary, and treasurer of TRX all happen to be Ajit Trikah. It must be quite a company.

My box of Wheaties has a prominent piece on the side panel that says "The NBA Cares," and went on to cite the countless things the NBA does to help kids. This message is bit incompatible with what I hear about the on court and off court antics of their basketball players. I suspect if they paid all their child supports it would be a good first step toward helping kids.

Texas A&M had a business ethics course in which 24 students were involved in a cheating scam. I wonder if they understood the concept of the course. Perhaps they did. Maybe it's one of those realism courses.

Michael Moore (one of the leading "do as I say, not as I do" crowd) says: "If a doctor says something is needed, then the government should guarantee it gets paid for." I'll bet you plenty that Michael Moore would side with the plaintiff in 99% of the malpractice suits against doctors for erroneous diagnosis, unnecessary treatments, bogus treatments, mistaken prescriptions, etc. So I'm confused.

The vote on the immigration bill never happened. The vote to continue it's consideration was defeated 53 to 46. The way I see it, The Democrats are the majority party and thus have over 50 votes. Several Republicans voted with the Democrats. Even so, they mustered only 46 votes. The Post Disgrace says the GOP killed the bill. By my reckoning, if a bill gets only 46 votes even with considerable help from the minority, one should more appropriately surmise that the majority party failed to deliver the bill.

STL tap water has been judged to be the best tap water in the country. How about that! Nonetheless, people here flock to convenience stores and groceries and vending machines in endless numbers in order to purchase expensive bottled water.

Scrushy, the ex CEO of Health South and formerly the only indicted CEO to beat the Justice Department, had a short lived victory. He has been sentenced to 10 years in the slammer for bribery and corruption. Gotcha.

I was looking at the back cover of [my wife's] most recent mag from her good friend Rush. He put forth some of the text of a Hillary address to an MIT crowd. It was an ongoing rant on how the governments must find ways to make selfish citizens more supportive of less well off citizens. At the end, Rush added "Karl Marx couldn't have said it better."

The challenge word was excoriate. It means to denounce harshly. The trivia answer from Mary Poppins was supercalifragilistiexpialidocious, or something in that vein. The lyrics challenge was from Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good to Me So Far." That song has a great line that I did not include: "They say I'm lazy but it takes all my time."

The new challenge word is "besotted." The trivia question is which planet in our solar system rotates in a direction opposite to its orbit? The new lyric challenge is: "I knew a father who had a son;/ He longed to tell him all the reasons for the things he'd done./ He came a long way just to explain;/ He kissed his boy as he lay sleeping then turned around and headed home again./ God only knows; He alone has His plan./ The information's not available to the mortal man."

Musli . . er . . . Just Terrorists Actually

Another great piece from JB.

New Weapon in the War on terror: Semantics?

After the 3 failed bombings in London and Glasgow last week, the new Prime Minister (Gordon Brown) is implementing a new weapon in the war on terror: Semantics. Brown's administration has refrained from calling the bombings "acts of terror," preferring "acts of criminality" better. This must make the bombers responsible not "terr0rists" but [deep breath] "criminals."

The Brown and the London Mayor, within 24 hours of the attacks, came out publicly to announce that this had nothing to do with Islam. Ironically they made these comments after meting with Britain's Islamic leaders. What Brown is trying to do is employ a new "weapon" in the war on terror. By changing the hostile rhetoric Brown believes Britain can win over the hearts and minds of Muslims around the country and abroad. Then, once this is accomplished, it will be the Muslim community that puts pressure on extremists and take back their religion for Peace.

Will this approach work? Only time will tell. It seems that mainstream Muslims want the western world to view Islam as a religion of peace (and from personal experience I just want to say that all the Muslims I have know are indeed peace loving). They are content to hear political leaders describe extremists as highjackers of Islam. Maybe this is the case, but radical Islam seems to be a pervasive problem in the Middle East. And many of these extremists appear to draw their inspiration form the religion.

What will apply more pressure on peace-loving mainstream Muslims to reign in radical elements? Telling them that the world believes their religion is peaceful and that this violence is merely a law and order problem for governments to solve? Or, that this violence is (to some degree) inspired by Islam and it is an Ideological and Theological problem for Islamic Leaders to solve?

I want to give Gordon Brown, and the good people of Britain, a chance to approach this issue in a new way. But until the Islamic community accepts that there is a very big problem in their religion playing Semantics will yield little results.

Do you Agree with JB?

Here is a provocative article from JB. While his point is well made, I am not as bothered by the Minnesota law as he is. I suppose the reason is that I am not as giddy on free trade. Nonetheless, JB's article is definately worth the read. Please let JB know what you think in the comment section.

As some of you may have heard, the State Legislature has passed a law that mandates all US flags, sold in MN , must be made in the USA.

I appreciate the inherent sense of Patriotism in the new law, but I also think the law is uterly ridiculous. Why is America one of the greatest powers in the World? Because its also the greatest Economic power in the world. Free trade and open markets are cornerstones in the American economy. And it is also a conservative principle to let the market regulate itself.

I do agree that in specific cases governments must step in and regulate markets (after all I work for a big 4 CPA firm where existing and new US regulations create more work and revenue for my company). But let me reiterate that while regulation may be necessary for stability, and consumer confidence, over-regulation can do great damage to an economy. As an economic conservative, I think there should only be just enough regulation in any market to keep it safe and stable. After all this is what has made America the economic power that it is.

Now getting back to the flag issue, while the new law appears to be patriotic I think it goes against everything this country and this economy is about. If Sam's Hardware can make more profit by selling flags made in Korea then that is more profit that will be injected into the American economy. Now yes some American flag makers will benefit from this law, but think of all the flag sellers who operated on border towns with Iowa, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas. Minnesotans will be leaving the state to buy their flags across the a border. This harms the MN economy and MN based proprietors.

This law also demonstrate how increased regulation can cut short all the moral and humanitarian good that Capitalism accomplishes. Cheap flags from Mexico benefits Mexicans and Americans and thus raises both countries standard of living. This new law harms the economies of both countries.

So in an effort to look patriotic on the 4th of July, the democratic legislature in MN passed a law that will only harm its own economy. Further this law violates the economic principles that has made America one of the best places to do business.

In the last few months, several news periodicasl have reported that London (not New York) is now the Financial capital of the world. How did this happen? Well blame it partly on the increased regulation imposed on public companies, in 2004, in response to the flurry of high-profile corporate fraud cases.

My opinion: It is more intrinsically American to fly a flag made in Taiwan than in America on the 4th of July (If that flag can be purchased in America for less than the American manufactured flags).

I'm Alive

Read here about the active, and abbrasive I might add, role that the cancer stricken Elizabeth Edwards is taking in her husbands campaign.

Here is a story from the Chicago Sun-Times challenging Al Gore's science. Yet another opponent of the "consensus" on global warming.

New research claims that infants begin lying as eary as at 6 months. This often takes the form of fake crying. This seems only to confirm the biblical notion that humans are born with Original Sin. From our earliest days we are depraved little beings. St. Augustine also believed this, pointing out the extreme selfishness of newborns as evidence for their inherent sinfulness. I would say this answers the question of whether or not people are born basically good, or basically bad. Read the fascinating research on infant lying here.

Sources say tha Newt Gingrich will only run for President if Fred Thompson's campaign proves to be innefective. He will decide in September. Meanwhile, it looks as if Newt may be a little bitter at Thompson jumping in the race and filling the void that he hoped to fill. You can read about some critical words he had for Thompson here.

British policehave arrested a fifth suspect connected to the recent attempted and successful car bombing efforts. Read a bit about it here. It will surely be only a matter of time before this makes it to the U.S.

Marraige rates in the U.K. are at all time lows since they started keeping records 150 years ago. Only 50.3% of the adult population is married. Read more here.