Author: Fuzzy Curmudgeon

Look. The colonial powers went in, created a certain amount of infrastructure, and made at least some attempt to uplift native populations to a civilized level. In essence, they were foster parents to a bunch of native children, and Mom and Dad did their best to teach the kids to be adults.
Fifty years later, after colonialism is deemed a dead policy and the Western powers have all pulled out, it looks like the natives have lapsed back into childhood.
Exactly what was so bad about colonialism, again?
And another thought…the newspaper that started all this with the stupid Muhammad reference was a Muslim newspaper, so naturally the combatants are…Muslims and Christians? How did the Christians get dragged in?
Children indeed. Feral children who need a knee or two to be put over and spanked.

Here’s a perfect example of why zero tolerance rules are bullshit.
(Via Best of the Web.)

EPA is easing new, more restrictive clean air rules on power plants and so forth.
This actually makes sense. There is a rule of thumb in engineering that says that the closer you get to perfection, the harder it is to make any progress. In other words, the last 10% of the job probably costs as much or more than the first 90% did. (I think there is a name for this rule, somebody’s Law, but I can’t remember it offhand.) And this was going to be very expensive.
The fact of the matter is that the US is not the problem in world air pollution. The Third World (including China) is the problem. And it’s in our best interest to help Third World countries that still burn copious amounts of “dirty” fuel to upgrade their economies so they don’t have to do that anymore, if we really want to do something about worldwide clean air.

Service may be interrupted for a while.
UPDATE: Oh. That was easy.
UPDATE2: Wow. There’s a search CGI now. See the SEARCH THIS BLOG link at the right…

You have to love it when a Canadian official calls our President a moron. It sort of takes one to know one, especially where the Canadian government (not its people) are concerned.
On the other hand our State Department doesn’t exactly have a handle on the language.

In Washington, a State Department official whose area of responsibility includes Canada said he hadn’t heard about the remark. In any event, he said: “We have no intention of going anywhere near it with a 10-foot pole.”

OK…so what do you have an intention of going near it with? A five-foot Japanese?
[SUDDEN THOUGHT: Send that 10-foot Pole to Indianapolis, we can use him on the Pacers.]

Like Eugene Volokh, I don’t agree with the politics of this gag, but overall it looks like something I would have done 20 years ago if I had had a Mac, Photoshop and, er, talent.* (Invitations to parties at my home in those days were generally sent out as movie poster spoofs.)
*Not that I’d buy a Mac today, nor that I have Photoshop or talent along these lines today.

God, what a great line. Why didn’t I read Ledeen yesterday? I meant to, I just never got to it.
Faster. Faster.

Via Best of the Web, a new idea for housing the homeless in NYC.
The best part about this is that, once they get the homeless on board, they can ship them out to somewhere else. I wonder if Bloomberg and his minions thought of that one yet?
Problem is, who would take them…

Listening to Rush, and hearing these grating phoned-in ads (local ads, during the breaks) for a company called Frontline Security. This woman who supposedly owns the company has one of the most annoying voices I’ve ever heard. The advertising school of thought that says “it may be annoying but people will remember it” doesn’t work well with me, because indeed I do remember it…and I won’t ever buy anything from them.
Same thing with this Billy Mays character who does the TV ads on Fox and other channels. I wouldn’t buy anything he flacks in a million years.

should be made out of this metal. James Robbins has the right idea. Write your Congresscritter.