Scooter Bites It

A lot of fuss about nothing
Mark Steyn

The ‘Ding Dong, The Bush Is Dead’ fever rages on, disappointments notwithstanding. Hurricane Katrina was, at best, a wash. The more looters and welfare deadbeats who went on TV to whine that Bush wasn’t doing enough, the more most Americans remembered that New Orleans is a nice place to have a margarita with a topless transsexual but they wouldn’t want to live there and they don’t see why they should pay a gazillion dollars to those who do.

But in the wake of Katrina came a string of Category One or Two storms which the Democratic base and the media figure they can huff and puff into Category Four and total the White House. Tom DeLay has been indicted in Texas! Bill Frist is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission! Scooter Libby is up before the most zealous Federal prosecutor in the country! Can the impeachment of the President be far behind? More @ The Spectator

Recommended Listening For The Week

The Rich Kids - Ghosts of Princes in Towers [Import]

The Rich Kids line-up included Glen Matlock, the original Sex Pistols bass player and Midge Ure later of Ultra Vox and Live Aid fame. Great 70's punk album.

Sniper Action

Army Times
A Marine sniper aims at insurgents from his position in Kusaiybah, Iraq, on Thursday.

Heads up Osama

Should Be The First Of Many

Lingenfelter campaigning for nuclear plant

Murray Mandryk

Former NDP deputy premier Dwain Lingenfelter is embarking on a campaign to convince Saskatchewan residents that a nuclear power plant in northwestern Saskatchewan would be a huge economic opportunity for this province.

Lingenfelter, now a vice-president at Calgary-based oil company Nexen Canada Ltd., will speak to the North Saskatoon Business Association on Nov. 8 on the benefits of building a nuclear reactor in Saskatchewan across the border from the tarsands in Fort McMurray, Alta. More @ The Leader Post

We should line up reactors on the US border and suck as much cash out of them as possible. The Americans have an insatiable appetite for electricity right now and we have the uranium to make it happen.

Atlas Shrugs In Korea?

Microsoft warns that Korea may have to do without Windows

Veiled threat or confession?

Korean lovers of Microsoft's operating systems may soon have to live without the software, according to the code giant. Microsoft has confessed that Windows might be pulled from the Korean market due to ongoing actions by the Korean Fair Trade Commission (KFTC).

More @ The Register

Sox Win First World Series In 88 Years

Chicago White Sox Web

Recommended Listening For The Week

Waiting for Columbus-Deluxe.. [Live]
Little Feat

Beware The Yellow Dots

Sleuths Crack Tracking Code Discovered in Color Printers

It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it isn't. The pages coming out of your color printer may contain hidden information that could be used to track you down if you ever cross the U.S. government.

Last year, an article in PC World magazine pointed out that printouts from many color laser printers contained yellow dots scattered across the page, viewable only with a special kind of flashlight. The article quoted a senior researcher at Xerox Corp. as saying the dots contain information useful to law-enforcement authorities, a secret digital "license tag" for tracking down criminals.

The content of the coded information was supposed to be a secret, available only to agencies looking for counterfeiters who use color printers.

Now, the secret is out. - More @ Washington Post

Hughes On Not Missing The CBC

Hate mail and fan mail keeps coming. Beautiful.

Bob Hughes
The Leader-Post

"There is the usual hunk of mail from somebody still festering over some ill-advised comments I had to make about the CBC when the employees went on strike in the middle of August. I mean, when they were locked out. They simply confirm what those of us in the media who are working stiffs knew all along. That would be, most members of the media have little difficulty in dishing out criticism. But most of us really don't like it when it comes our way. And the thinnest skin of the bunch are some of those who ride the union security within the CBC, the money-gobbling government-controlled outfit that never has to worry about showing a profit. They get $1 billion of the taxpayers' money every year, and they just spend, spend, spend. In light of the incredible damage of the walkout, er lockout, the CBC is facing the huge task of convincing television viewers it holds such a valuable place in this country. With so many television channels available now, and especially with the hundreds that come in on satellite dishes, why should the government continue propping up the television side? And, please, spare us the excuse that CBC-TV unites the country. Canada didn't break up when they were locked out, if anybody even noticed. CBC-TV was once the kingpin of sports. No more. It's lost the Olympics. Its CFL coverage is nowhere near as sound as TSN's. And it's completely messed up curling. CBC Radio is different. It remains unique. Keep those cards and letters coming. Beautiful." More @ The Leader Post

Rumour Mill Media

When Will Mainstream Media Apologize for Katrina Goofs?
Mark Tapscott

Remember all those politicians and reporters warning folks to avoid at all costs the deadly mixture of chemicals, gasoline, human and animal waste and decaying bodies floating through New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina?

Guess what? Katrina left town Aug. 30, but it was not until Oct. 13 that The Washington Post got around to reporting that the “toxic soup” never showed up. The Post could possibly be forgiven, though, because there have been so many other mainstream media Katrina myths being debunked in recent weeks.

Remember those horrifying stories of rampaging gangs of murderous rapists in the New Orleans Convention Center and Superdome? Not true. Remember the stacks of bodies of people killed in those locations during five days of hell before help arrived? Not true. Remember the dead seven-year-old girl with the slashed throated and raped soul lying in the freezer? Not true.

Incredibly, there are more myths. Remember New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagins’ uncritically reported prediction that 10,000 people were dead? Not even close. Remember the snipers supposedly firing at rescue helicopters trying to save people from rooftops and hospitals? Didn’t happen. Remember the little babies being raped. No. The well-armed gangs pillaging block after block while dueling with hopelessly out-gunned cops? More myth. - More @ Townhall.com

Recommended Listening For The Week

Frank Zappa - One Size Fits All

This is without a doubt my favorite Zappa album. That maybe surprising since the are so many great Zappa records, but this one has it all, including Zappa's most outstanding lineup of talent featuring Napoleon Murphy Brock, George Duke, Ruth Underwood, and Johnny 'Guitar' Watson.

Maggie Turns 80

Happy Birthday To A Tough Old Girl

If The Yanks Won't Do It Then...

Alberta plans $7B refinery
Would be on par with giants in U.S. Gulf Coast

The Alberta government and 16 industry sponsors are looking at building a giant, $7-billion refinery complex near Edmonton, the first in North America in a quarter century.

The group, led by Alberta Economic Development, is getting down to the finer details of an ambitious strategy that started two years ago and could lead to a 300,000 barrels-a-day refinery and petrochemical complex that could be in operation as early as 2012.

More @ National Post

Time To Take Out The Garbage

Gorbachev Warns Against Haste Over Lenin

Former President Mikhail Gorbachev warned the Kremlin against quickly burying the embalmed body of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, saying the nation isn't ready yet such a move, a news agency reported Tuesday.

Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union before its 1991 collapse, said that Lenin's body eventually should be laid to rest at a proper moment in line with his own will, but added that "this moment has not come yet," the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

In what appeared to be the Kremlin's attempt to gauge public reaction to the divisive issue, Georgy Poltavchenko, a regional envoy of President Vladimir Putin, said last month the body should be taken out of its Red Square mausoleum and buried in a cemetery along with the remains of other Bolshevik dignitaries.

Several senior lawmakers in the Kremlin-controlled parliament followed up on his call, proposing to quickly bury Lenin's body.

Russian Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov warned last week that his party would stage a massive civil disobedience action if authorities try to bury Lenin's body.

Putin said in 2001 that he opposed the removal of the body so as not to disturb civil peace in the country. His predecessor as president, Boris Yeltsin, strongly pushed for removing it, but was stopped by vigorous opposition from the Communist Party and others.

Gorbachev said Tuesday the issue could be resolved only on the basis of public accord, but "a great deal is still to be done before stability develops into national accord."

"This will happen in due time," he said, according to the ITAR-Tass. "Haste is unnecessary." - - Earthlink

If you aren't going to plant the old murderer, at least update the sign on the tomb with the score of the game

Recommended Listening For The Week

BLOW BY BLOW
Jeff Beck

A great album from the 70's, suported by a concert tour that landed in Regina in 1975 at the old barn. Released a few months before his other great colaboration (Wired)
with Jan Hammer and Jerry Goodman (Miami Vice, Mahavishnu Orchestra)

Story Not Worth Reporting?

There They Go Again
Justice Department Clamps Down on OU Suicide Bomber Facts

It was only hours after Joel Henry Hinrichs III blew himself up Oct. 1 near 84,000 football fans at the University of Oklahoma when federal officials claimed he was just a troubled young man with no links to terrorists.

But then yesterday the U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal court in Oklahoma City to seal the search warrant officials there used to get into the apartment Hinrichs’ shared with three or four students described by neighbors as “Arab-looking men.”

If Hinrichs acted alone and had no links to terrorists’ organizations or activities, why seal the search warrant? What did investigators find in Hinrichs’apartment that they don’t want the public to know?

That’s an especially important question considering what was already known when Justice sealed the warrant. For example, media reports confirmed by Oklahoma law enforcement sources said investigators found bomb-making materials in the 21-year-old University of Oklahoma engineering student’s apartment. - More From Mark Tapscott


Something about this story smells. The ongoing secrecy from the government is one thing, but the fact that the MSM has ignored this story is worse. Only the local media and bloggers are covering this.

Michelle Malkin's Latest Here


Channel 5 Oklahoma - Student Leader: Hinrichs Not Muslim

Eat Pork, Annoy A Muslim

Making A Pig's Ear Of Defending Democracy
By Mark Steyn

Alas, the United Kingdom's descent into dhimmitude is beyond parody. Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council (Tory-controlled) has now announced that, following a complaint by a Muslim employee, all work pictures and knick-knacks of novelty pigs and "pig-related items" will be banned. Among the verboten items is one employee's box of tissues, because it features a representation of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. And, as we know, Muslims regard pigs as "unclean", even an anthropomorphised cartoon pig wearing a scarf and a bright, colourful singlet. - More...

Recommended Listening For The Week

English Settlement - XTC

Remastered reissue of 1982 album features the classic 'Senses Working Overtime'. Virgin Records.

Cox & Forkum On The Anti-War Crowd

Political Correctness Hits Bennett

Best Of The Web:

Is Political Correctness Finished?-I
The latest Bill Bennett kerfuffle leads us to think that the culture of political correctness that surrounds race in America may be in its final throes. Bennett and a caller to his radio show the other day were discussing a hypothesis in Steven Levitt's book "Freakonomics" (available from the OpinionJournal bookstore): that the explosion of abortion after Roe v. Wade depleted the number of potential criminals and thus helped reduce the crime rate. Bennett rejected such utilitarian pro-abortion arguments:

It's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could--if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky. More from James Taranto

Freakonomics:

Bill Bennett and Freakonomics
Bill Bennett and I have a fair amount in common. We've both written about crime (his "superpredator" theory gets a quick discussion in Freakonomics), we have both thought a lot about illegal drugs and education (he was the original "drug czar" and is a former Secretary of Education), and we both love to gamble (although it seems I do it for much lower stakes and perhaps with greater success).

Now we also share the fact that we have made controversial statements about the link between abortion and crime. More @ Freakonomics



Statement By Bill Bennett, Sep. 30, 2005

"On Wednesday, a caller to my radio show proposed the idea that one good argument for the pro-life position would be that if we didn't have abortions, Social Security would be solvent. I stated my doubts about such a thesis, as well as my opposition to such a form of argument (the audio of the call is available at my Website: bennettmornings.com).

"I then stated that such extrapolations of this argument can cut both ways, and cited the current bestseller, Freakonomics, which discusses the authors' thesis that abortion reduces crime.

"Then, putting my philosophy professor's hat on, I went on to reveal the limitations of such arguments by showing the absurdity in another such argument, along the same lines. I entertained what law school professors call 'the Socratic method' and what I would hope good social science professors still use in their seminars. In so doing, I suggested a hypothetical analogy while at the same time saying the proposition I was using about blacks and abortion was 'impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible,' just to ensure those who would have any doubt about what they were hearing, or for those who tuned in to the middle of the conversation.

"The issues of crime and race have been on many people's minds, and tongues, for the past month or so--in light of the situation in New Orleans; and the issues of race, crime, and abortion are well aired and ventilated in articles, the academy, the think tank community, and public policy. Indeed the whole issue of crime and race is not new in social science, nor popular literature. One of the authors of Freakonomics, himself, had an extended exchange on the discussion of these issues on the Internet some years back--which was also much debated in the think tank community in Washington. More from Bill Bennett