So if a tree falls in the forest, blue dress and "I didn't have sexual relations with that woman" and all, it doesn't make a sound? Trust the converse is true that Bush, Cheney, Rove, Petaeus, et al aren't war criminals, election stealers, tools of big oil, members of various cabals bent on world domination, felons, and all the other dreck and gibberish that many throw around about 'em?

Chavez's Big Grab

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Socialism: Venezuela's seizure of Cemex assets Monday is more than a typical nationalization of resources. Its vindictive manner has much to do with the firm's Mexican headquarters. It's a message to others in the region.

Like a quasi-military conquest, Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez marched in troops to "take back" four Cemex cement plants in the dead of night as part of his nationalization of cement announced in April. "It was time," he said Tuesday, calling it one of his "steps toward socialism."

Chavez then popped out fireworks as red T-shirted mobs, judges and politicians headed to the plants and cheered their "victory."

Why was Cemex "defeated"? Because last April, Mexico's Cemex told Chavez its plants were worth $1.3 billion, based on standard norms of value. Chavistas said no dice, and after driving their stock price down in Caracas trade, offered $800 million tops.

The Venezuelans, of course, had the last word, and moved into their clownish conquest even before Chavez's 90-day negotiation period expired.

For Latin Americans, this is something of a wake-up call. No longer will Latin American companies be exempt from Chavez's power plays. In fact, a Latin American company might now expect even worse treatment than the western ones Chavez has grabbed.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon, no stranger to public quarrels with Chavez over free markets, complained that Chavez's takeover amounted to discrimination against the Mexican company. He noted that Venezuela had paid two other cement firms — Holcie of Switzerland and Lafarge of France — fair prices for their assets. So the Mexican company was ripped off, which "we cannot understand," Calderon said, calling for more talks.

The sooner Mexico recognizes the obvious, the better.

Chavez's vindictive treatment of a Mexican company has more to do with his loathing of Mexico, and the capitalist development path it has pursued, than it does with price. Successful Latin American companies ought to expect particularly harsh treatment from Chavez if they succeed. There already are many signs of this.

For one, the last time Chavez made a show of troops and flags was when he seized Exxon Mobil's assets in 2007. Like Exxon, Cemex is a foreign company, and the amounts expropriated — about $1 billion in Exxon's case and $1.3 billion in Cemex's — are comparable.

Second, like Exxon, Cemex is a big company that has resisted being kicked around by a petty dictator. Cemex reportedly has told Chavez that it would see him in international court.
As global companies, both Exxon and Cemex know their responses to Chavez are being watched closely by other dictators. They must defend their shareholders, an alien notion to Chavez.
Still, it goes even beyond that. Mexico's Cemex, like U.S.-based Exxon, is known for its advanced technology, state of the art operations, fiscal transparency and high profitability. For any company this is remarkable. But for a Mexican company it is especially so.

Chavez not only cannot stand Mexico, he also cannot stand the idea of a successful, world-class Latin American company like Cemex providing an example to the region. Rather than leave them alone, he's not only trying to rub their presence out with nationalization, he's also tricked up bogus charges of tax evasion and environmental damage — something no nationalized firm has avoided.

Chavez has nationalized telecommunications, electricity, farms, iron, steel, oil and banks over two years in a bid to end private property and turn Venezuela into Cuba. All of the nationalized firms have since gone from profitability to losses.

The prosperity and better life Cemex's jobs represent for its 67,000 workers as well as the superior product it delivers to its customers directly challenges Chavez's claim to ideological dominance in the region.

As we said, Cemex likely will defend itself in court. But Mexico's government will have to toughen up and prepare to confront a predator challenging the success of its private sector on more than just this front. Chavez's wrath against Mexico is particularly strong.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=304125139898165#

Biden Prepares 50,000-Word Acceptance Speech

Senator to Address Convention on Wednesday, Thursday



In an indication that he expects to be Barack Obama's vice-presidential pick, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del) has begun writing a 50,000-word acceptance speech, aides to the senator confirmed today.


The address, which Mr. Biden has been working on around the clock, is an abridged version of a 200,000-word acceptance speech that Mr. Biden wrote when he ran for President in 1988.


According to those familiar with the speech, if Mr. Biden is tapped as Mr. Obama's vice presidential choice the Delaware senator would begin delivering the speech on Wednesday night of the Democratic convention and conclude it on Thursday night.


Representatives of television news divisions said they were undecided as to how to cover the Biden speech, but none were willing to commit to covering the speech live in its entirety.


"We may wind up airing some of it on CNBC or maybe the USA Network, and then cut away to something else," said Carol Foyler on NBC News.  "We're basically going to treat it like the hammer throw."


Mr. Biden, who was accused of plagiarizing a speech by a British politician when he ran for President in 1988, is unlikely to get caught doing that this time, according to one aide: "If there are some plagiarized bits in this speech, he'll stick them at the end after the audience has lost consciousness."

http://www.borowitzreport.com/

iTunes Store embroiled in Olympic protest over Tibet
By Charles Jade | Published: August 20, 2008 - 02:19PM CT

As if Apple didn't have enough problems right now with iPhone woes and a MobileMe meltdown, The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the iTunes Store has become part of an international incident. The story began shortly before the start of the Olympics when a pro-Tibet organization, The Art of Peace Foundation, cobbled together an album from some 20 artists, Songs for Tibet - The Art of Peace. From superstars and plastic surgery addicts like Madonna to the totally hot Regina Spektor—what pipes hath she!—the music, while not new, really isn't too bad. There's also 15 minutes of video from some guy wearing sheets for those who buy the album. Unless you are in China, that is.

It seems that foreigners living in China have begun to have problems with accessing the iTunes store. The Herald reports what is allegedly the response of Apple customer support to a blogger named JeninShanghai.

"iTunes is not being blocked in China from our end, but access to the iTunes Store IS restricted in some areas in China. This would also explain why it's happening to your friends there as well," the response reads.

"I would advise that you contact your ISP [internet service provider] about this matter. Please also note though that accessing the US iTunes Store outside of the geographic region of the United States is not supported, and that attempting to access it while in China is at your own risk."

The catalyst for this apparent interruption of service may have been a stealth protest instigated by The Art of Peace foundation. Its album was to be given away free to athletes, and "over 40 Olympic athletes in North America, Europe and even Beijing" downloaded it. And for those thinking this is simply a reactionary response from an authoritarian regime, one need only visit the iTunes Store and peruse the reviews. Besides one-star ratings and plenty of hanz, there is no shortage of hilarious broken-English comments.

Tibet is China forever! Taiwan is! We are all Chinese Nation! Chinese people to roar! Chinese is the roar! This genuine peace cheers! Love China!

Dalai Lama = LIAR. Tibet separatists are mainly funded by the CIA. Dalai Lama was biggest slave holder in human history.

Apple Inc is really, really so stupid of putting an album like this on the very position of iTunes Store.
Setting aside whether the Dalai Lama is like Hitler—how do you say Godwin's Law in Mandarin?—the nationalist sentiment is not really surprising, but that last comment is something to think about. Apple just opened its first store in Beijing and is actively pursuing negotiations over bringing the iPhone to China. An issue like this certainly doesn't help. Of course, it's not like Apple will pull the album, but it's an open question whether politically-sensitive albums like a second Songs for Tibet, let alone something like Songs for Palestine, will be debuting at the iTunes Store any time soon.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/08/20/itunes-store-embroiled-in-olympic-protest-over-tibet

August 21, 2008
Two Women Sentenced to ‘Re-education’ in China

By ANDREW JACOBS
BEIJING — Two elderly Chinese women have been sentenced to a year of “re-education through labor” after they repeatedly sought a permit to demonstrate in one of the official Olympic protest areas, according to family members and human rights advocates.

The women, Wu Dianyuan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77, had made five visits to the police this month in an effort to get permission to protest what they contended was inadequate compensation for the demolition of their homes in Beijing.

During their final visit on Monday, public security officials informed them that they had been given administrative sentences for “disturbing the public order,” according to Li Xuehui, Ms. Wu’s son.

Mr. Li said his mother and Ms. Wang, who used to be neighbors before their homes were demolished to make way for a redevelopment project, were allowed to return home but were told they could be sent to a detention center at any moment. “Can you imagine two old ladies in their 70s being re-educated through labor?” he asked. He said Ms. Wang was nearly blind.

A man who answered the phone at the Public Security Bureau declined to give out information about the case.

At least a half dozen people have been detained by the authorities after they responded to a government announcement late last month designating venues in three city parks as “protest zones” during the Olympics. So far, no demonstrations have taken place.

According to Xinhua, the state news agency, 77 people submitted protest applications, none of which were approved. Xinhua, quoting a public security spokesperson, said that apart from those detained all but three applicants had dropped their requests after their complaints were “properly addressed by relevant authorities or departments through consultations.” The remaining three applications were rejected for incomplete information or for violating Chinese law.

The authorities, however, have refused to explain what happened to applicants who disappeared after they submitted their paperwork. Among these, Gao Chuancai, a farmer from northeast China who was hoping to publicize government corruption, was forcibly escorted back to his hometown last week and remains in custody.

Relatives of another person who was detained, Zhang Wei, a Beijing resident who was also seeking to protest the demolition of her home, were told she would be kept at a detention center for a month. Two rights advocates from southern China have not been heard from since they were seized last week at the Public Security Bureau’s protest application office in Beijing.

Ms. Wu and Ms. Wang were well known to the authorities for their persistent campaign for greater compensation for the demolition of their homes. Mr. Li said his family had given up their home in 2001 with the expectation that they would get a new one in the development that replaced it. Instead, he said, the family has been forced to live in a ramshackle apartment on the capital’s outskirts.

“I feel very sad and angry because we’re only asking for the basic right of living and it’s been six years, but nobody will do anything to help them,” Mr. Li said.

He said that he and Ms. Wang’s daughter tried to apply for their own protest permit on Tuesday but that the police would not even give them the necessary forms.

The two elderly women were given administrative sentences to re-education through labor, known as laojiao, which seeks to reform political and religious dissenters and those charged with minor crimes like prostitution and petty theft. Government officials say that 290,000 people are detained in re-education centers for terms ranging from one to three years, although detentions can be extended for those whose rehabilitation is deemed inadequate.

Human rights advocates have long criticized the system because punishment is handed down by officials without trials or means of appeal. Last year, the government briefly grappled with revamping the system but backed off in the face of opposition from public security officials.

Although it is unlikely that women as old as Ms. Wu and Ms. Wang would be forced into hard labor, many of those sentenced to laojiao often toil in agricultural or factory work and are forced to confess their transgressions.

Tang Xuemei contributed research.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/sports/olympics/21protest.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

A rounder face 'means men are more aggressive'
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 20/08/2008


Men with round faces tend to be more aggressive, a study of sportsmen has shown.

Five round-headed and aggressive sportsmen
Phwoar! What a lovely set of genes
Study suggest testosterone levels may be driven by looks
The male sex hormone testosterone makes faces more circular and now scientists have studied whether this characteristic is also linked to behaviour.

The shape of the face may have been honed by evolution to mark a man likely to be aggressive
A Canadian team studied 90 ice hockey players and found the rounder the face, the more aggressive the players.

For male varsity and professional hockey players, the facial ratio was linked in a statistically significant way with the number of penalty minutes per game, report Justin Carre and Prof Cheryl McCormick of Brock University, Ontario.

The penalties were incurred by players for violent acts including slashing, elbowing, checking from behind, fighting and so on.

However, there was not a link between facial shape and aggression in women.

"The facial structure of a man provides an indication of how aggressive he will be in a competitive situation," says Prof McCormick.

"Therefore, we are able to predict, with some accuracy, the behaviour of men on the basis of their facial features.

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"If men's faces are providing cues as to their potential for aggression, then likely people are probably picking up on this cue, although likely on a subconscious level."

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences suggest that the shape of the face may have been honed by evolution as a marker of the propensity for aggressive behaviour: ancestors who did not pick up this warning sign could have found out to their cost that they were dealing with a more volatile and violent person.

By one theory, testosterone is responsible for the development of rugged looks, a jutting jaw and brow, a deep voice and other trappings of masculinity but it also damps down the body's protective immune system, so only high-quality (that is those with healthy, good 'genes') men can afford to display these macho characteristics.

But the hormone affects more than appearance and a range of earlier work has shown that testosterone levels affect behaviour, other than aggression.

For example, women's judgements of the extent to which a man was interested in infants based on his face predicted his actual interest in infants: more feminised faces were seen as more trustworthy.

People also show some accuracy at identifying 'cheaters' from their looks in an idealised game of cooperation. "Together, these findings suggest that people can make accurate inferences about others' personality traits and behavioural dispositions based on certain signals conveyed by the face," say the researchers.

However, there is a long and fraught history of attempting to read a personality from the way someone looks.

The Crime Museum at Scotland Yard in central London has more than 30 casts made of the heads of those hanged for murder at Newgate prison during the 19th century to provide evidence to back the then "scientific" theory of phrenology, which said that character and criminality could be determined by the shape of a person's head.

Phrenologists believed that the brain had different "brain organs" which represented a person's personality traits.

These were thought to be proportional to a person's propensities, as reflected by "bumps" in the skull. This work, now written off as pseudoscience, was used to back the idea that some people are "born criminal" and could be identified.

But today's study shows that there may be a bit more to looks than we thought. "Given that people readily make judgements of others based on their looks, and that we have evidence that the face may actually be providing relevant information, it will be fascinating to see if people's judgements of faces are accurate," says Prof McCormick.

"Although we naturally wince a bit at the comparison to phrenology, the comparison is certainly one that has crossed our minds."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/20/sciface120.xml

The odd choices in Barack Obama's career

American Thinker 

August 20, 2008 | J.R. Dunn


It's time to throw my hat in the ring as regards predicting the election results. So here it is: Barack Obama will be defeated. Seriously and convincingly defeated. Not due to racism, not due to the forces of reaction, not even due to Karl Rove sending out mind rays over the national cable system. He will lose for one reason above all, one that has been overlooked in any analysis that I've yet seen. Barack Obama will lose because he is a flake.

I'm using the term in its generally accepted sense. A flake is not only a screwup, but someone who truly excels in making bizarre errors and creating incredibly convoluted disasters. A flake is a "fool with energy", as the Russian proverb puts it. ("A fool is a terrible thing to have around, but a fool with energy is a nightmare".)

Barack Obama is a flake, and the American people have begun to see it. The chief characteristic of a flake is that he makes choices that are impossible to either understand or explain. These are not the errors of the poor dope who can't grasp the essentials of a situation, or the neurotic who ruins things out of compulsion, or the man suffering chronic bad luck.

The flake has a genius for discovering solutions at perfect right angles to the ordinary world. It's as if he's the product of a totally different evolutionary chain, in a universe where the laws are slightly but distinctly at variance to ours. When given a choice between left and right, the flake goes up -- if not through the 8th dimension. And although there's plenty of rationalization, there's never a logical reason for any of it. After awhile, people stop asking.

Obama's rise has been widely portrayed as a kind of millennial Horatio Alger story -- young lad from a new state on the outskirts of the American polity, a member of once-despised minority, works his way by slow degrees to within arm's length of the presidency itself. That's all well and good -- we need national myths of exactly that type.

But what has been overlooked is the string of faux pas marking each step of Obama's journey, a series of strange, inexplicable actions, actions bizarre enough to require some effort at explanation, through such efforts have rarely been offered. It's as if the new Horatio made it to the top by stepping into every last manhole and open trapdoor in his path. And we, the onlookers, the voters who are being asked to put this man in the White House, are supposed to take this as the normal career path for a successful chief executive.

What are these incidents? I'm sure many of you are way ahead of me, but let's go to the videotape.

Here's a young man who graduated from Columbia with high marks, with a choice of positions anywhere in the country. He comes from a state generally held to be a close match to Paradise. One, furthermore, that can be characterized as the most successful multiracial society in the world, with harmonious relations not only between whites and blacks, but also Japanese-Americans and native Hawaiians as well. To top it off, a state controlled in large part by a smoothly-functioning Democratic machine. So where does he choose to go?

To Chicago. One of the windiest, coldest, most brutal cities in the country. One that is also infinitely corrupt in a sense that Hawaii is not. One that remains one of the most racist large cities in the U.S. (Cicero, Al Capone's old stomping grounds, a suburb that is effectively part of the city, is completely segregated to this day.) It would be nice to learn which of these aspects most attracted young Obama to the city. But if you'd asked at the beginning of the campaign, you'd still be waiting.

And what does he do when he reaches the city? Why, he joins a cult. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church has been turned inside out since the videotaped sermons appeared early this year, without anyone ever quite explaining exactly what Obama was thinking of when he joined up in the first place. Street cred, so it's claimed. But there are a plethora of black churches that would have provided him that without the taint of demented racism that Wright's church offered.

Obama apparently had to swear an oath of belief in "black liberation theology" when he joined the church. (It is the little touches of that sort that make it a "cult", and not simply a "church".) Did the thought of his career ever cross his mind? Didn't he realize that church would inevitably cause him trouble somewhere down the line? That he'd be required to repudiate it and its ideas eventually? We can ask -- but we won't get an answer.

Back at school, Obama got himself named editor of the Harvard Law Review. This is a signal achievement, no question about it. The kind of thing that would be mentioned about a person for the rest of his life, as has been the case with Obama. But then... he writes nothing for the journal.

Now, let's get this straight: here we have one of the leading university law journals in the country, one widely cited and read. Entire careers in legal analysis and scholarship have been founded on appearances in the Review, including some that have led to the highest courts in the country. Yet here's an individual who, as editor, could easily place his own work in the journal -- standard practice, nothing at all wrong with it. But he fails to do so. And the explanation? There's none that I've heard. We can go even farther than that, to say that there is no explanation that makes the least rational sense.

We follow Obama down to Springfield, where as a state legislator, he voted "present" over 120 times. What this means, as far as I've been able to discover, is that he voted "present" nearly as much as he voted "yes" or "no".

Now, statehouses work very simply: a member approaches his colleagues and asks them them to vote for his bill. Some comply, some do not. Some ask, "Is it a good bill?" and some don't. Either way, they customarily, except in unusual circumstances, vote "yes' or "no". All except for Barack Obama. And how did get away with it? How did mollify his colleagues? How did he square himself with the party bosses? Echo answereth not.

(A good slogan could be made of this: "You can't vote present in the Oval Office." I hereby commend it to the McCain campaign.)

We turn eagerly to learn what his term in the U.S. Senate will reveal, only to be disappointed. But it's not surprising, really. After all, he was only there for 143 days.

And there lies one of the keys to Obama's rise. David Brooks pointed out in a recent New York Times column that Obama spent too little time in any of his positions to make an impact one way or another. This is what saved him from the normal fate of the flake: he was never around long enough for his errors and strange behavior to catch up with him.

But a presidential campaign is a different matter. A man running for president is under the microscope, and can't duck anything, as many a candidate has had reason to learn. If Obama is a flake in the classic mode, now is when it would come out. And has it?

The case could be made. Here we have a campaign with everything going for it -- the opposition party in a shambles, a seriously undervalued president, the media in the candidate's pocket, the candidate himself being worshiped as nothing less than the new messiah. And yet the results have comprised little more than one fumble after another.

First came the Wright affair. Obama apparently thought he was above it all -- a not-uncommon phenomenon with flakes -- and allowed the revelations to take on a life of their own before bothering to respond. Even then, his thoughtful and convincing explanation (that he hadn't been listening for twenty years) did little to settle the crisis, which instead guttered out on its own after nearly crippling his campaign. Even months afterward it threatens to pop back up at any time. The latest word is that Wright -- now a deadly enemy of his onetime protégé -- has written a book. I can't wait.

Obama learned his lesson, and confronted the next threat immediately, tackling The New Yorker cover with the avidity of a man having discovered zombies in the basement. A development that could have been defused with a chuckle and a quip (the customary method is for the politician to ask the cartoonist for the original) was allowed to explode into a major issue. The campaign's relentless attacks on one of the oldest liberal magazines extant merely perplexed the country at large. After all, any Republican has had to endure far worse.

Almost simultaneously, the birth certificate saga was unfolding. On no reasonable grounds, the campaign blew off requests for a copy of the document, at last releasing it through one of the least reputable sites on the Internet, and so badly copied that literally anything could be read into it -- and was. I'm not one of those who believes that Obama was actually born in Indonesia/Kenya/Moscow/the moon, but I still have plenty in the way of questions, almost all of them arising from how the matter was handled. Well played.

The latest pothole (or one of them, anyway) involves Jerome Corsi's The Obama Nation. Corsi has been given the full New Yorker treatment, with the campaign hoping to avoid John Kerry's "error" in not challenging Corsi's 2004 book, Unfit for Command. What Obama missed was the fact that Kerry's major problem was not with Corsi but with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who were disgusted with Kerry's hypocrisy in running as an experienced military veteran, and set out to take him down. Corsi's effort dovetailed with the veteran's campaign and to a large extent was swept up with it. No such campaign is in operation against Obama. The smart method of answering Corsi would have been to allow the media to handle it, instead of drawing attention to the book and raising it to level of an issue. This appears to be a real talent for the Obama campaign.

We could go on. The victory tour of Europe, and the speech in which Obama declared himself "citizen of the world", a trope guaranteed to focus the attention of Middle America. His inept handling of Hillary, in which he wound up appearing frightened of the opponent he'd just beaten. Allowing Hillary (and her husband there, what's-his-name) a starring role in the Democratic convention is not a solution any sane individual would be comfortable with -- much less a roll-call vote. This threatens the near-certainty of turning the entire affair into BillandHillarycon, with the nominee winding up as a footnote. But it's all of a piece with the campaign Obama has waged up until now.

We've never had a flake as president. We've had drunks, neurotics, cripples, louts, and fools, but never a career screwup. (I except Jimmy Carter, whose errors arose from sincere, misguided goodwill.) And I don't think we're going to get one now. Another three months of flailing, incompetence, and a collapsing image will do little to assure voters concerned with terrorism, the oil crunch, a gyrating economy, and a bellicose Russia. (Anyone doubting that Obama will go exactly this route can consider the Saddleback church fiasco, which unfolded as this piece was being wrapped up. Evidently, the campaign goaded NBC news personality Andrea Mitchell into all but accusing John McCain of "cheating" by failing to take his place within the "cone of silence" during Obama's part of the program. The grotesque element here is that Obama's people and much of the liberal commentariat -- including Mitchell -- apparently believe that the "cone of silence", a gag prop for the old Get Smart! comedy series, actually exists and was in use at Saddleback.)

Many of us have dealt with flakes at one time or another, often in settings involving jobs and careers, and not uncommonly in positions of some authority. We all know of the nephew, the fiancé, the boyfriend, whose whims must be catered to, whose reputation must be protected, who must be constantly worked around if anything at all is to be accomplished, always at the cost of time, money, efficiency, and personal stress.

In the fullness of time, we will inevitably see such a figure in the White House. But not this year, and not this candidate. Such acts of national flakery occur only when there’s no real alternative. In this election, an alternative exists. Whatever his shortcomings, nobody ever called John McCain a flake.

J.R. Dunn is consulting editor of American Thinker.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/08/the_odd_choices_in_barack_obam.html

Oughta watch a couple bouts just for the train wreck factor. It's the martial arts and crafts ethos taken to its logical extreme.

Anyone watch any of the boxing? The scoring system and officiating leaves so much to be desired that the fights are devolving into some sort a game of school yard tag. Very little in a martial vein going on in most bouts, rather a lot of clenching, bicycling around, and pot shotting. Put some long ribbons in the boxer's hands and call it arhythmic gymnastics.

Note the bon mot, bolded below, where it's mentioned some of the protesters have received MMA training "for defensive purposes." Sounds like an Abbie Hoffman street theatre sort of claim, but if so, I wonder where they've trained.


Democratic Party Crashers Target Denver

They will do what they can to disrupt next week's convention.


August 19, 2008 - by Bridget Johnson
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A few newspapers ago, I once worked with a colleague who grumbled every time he saw a posting in the calendar advertising a meeting of the local anarchist group. He fumed over these meetings defying the very point of classic, every-Molotov-cocktail-for-himself anarchy. What’s next, he complained, electing a secretary to take meeting minutes and a treasurer to collect dues?

These days in Denver, anti-government groups have been meeting at local coffeehouses, in parks, online, and more to plot their disruption of the Democratic National Convention. They’ve organized “self-defense training” at a mixed martial arts gym, workouts supposedly intended for defense instead of offense. They’ve been hanging around the courts, lobbying for their right to block delegates and throw the city into general chaos. A federal judge’s recent decision to restrict their access to the Pepsi Center, they say, violates their free speech.

With names such as Recreate 68 (what, re-create Nixon’s election?) and Unconventional Denver, joined by anti-authority stalwarts such as the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army and Code Pink (promising to inline skate through traffic to block the way), the DNC protesters have long been up in arms about how they won’t be given free reign of the Mile High City. They’re already accusing the city of essentially planning to combat them with paramilitary tactics. Denver, for instance, has set aside a warehouse to hold detainees in case the protests turn into another Battle of Seattle; protest groups have already christened the facility “Gitmo on the Platte” (though I doubt it serves the orange chicken on which al-Qaeda suspects dine).

When I arrived in Denver a month ago, the controversy was stewing over protesters’ claims that the police were going to employ ray guns that would stun demonstrators and make them poop their pants. Then the City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting people from carrying around buckets of pee or “feces bombs” with nefarious intentions. Excrement has really dominated the pre-protest conversation.

“The intent of this ordinance is to try to smear protesters and make them look as if they are somehow criminal or somehow going to engage in some kind of gross conduct,” Glenn Spagnuolo, an organizer of Re-create 68, said at a hearing on the ordinance while accusing city officials of fear-mongering.

Another group called Tent State University wanted to camp out in City Park for four days; billed as “4 days of love and action,” the anti-war group wants to force the Democrats’ hand as they listen to punk music and Ralph Nader, as well as nominating their own “party-less youth ticket.” After running into several headaches with city officials and neighborhood residents, the group is relocating its protests to Cuernavaca Park near lower downtown. Residents are, of course, thrilled.

Unconventional Denver, meanwhile, is largely using the Internet so that “anarchists, witches, clowns, Iraq vets, artists, SDSers, radical queers, immigrants, Earth First!ers, rebel Democrats, parents, precarious workers and others” can make it known that “come August, the Democrats’ attempt at co-opting our energies and power will fall short as we make it clear that change will come from below not above, in the streets and not in their stadiums.”

With kerchiefs tied across their faces in true anarchist chic, the group offered to call off all DNC protests if Denver took its $50 million in federal security grants and gave it to the needy. Do real anarchists negotiate with the government? The irony was that they wanted the blackmail cash distributed through government programs to schools, health care, poverty programs, etc. Is there such a thing as anarchist welfare?

Poseurs, my anarchist onetime co-worker would grouse!

The DNC protesters are truly bipartisan, or anti-partisan: Similar plans are in the works for the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul the following week. But there seems to be a fresh sort of loathing for the Democrats who are seen as traitors to the anti-war cause. Whereas these types of demonstrators go to Republican events perpetually harboring hated for what the party platform, they’re massing in Denver to teach Democrats a lesson.

In what form, though, will that come? Proposals have ranged from blocking delegates’ hotels to “snake marches” impeding their entrance into the convention. Calls to action have ranged from guerrilla gardening and old-school anti-capitalist rallies to seeking “insurrectionary marching bands” (conversely, those with no musical skills are asked to bang on pots and pans like 3-year-olds). And I can’t wait to see what the insane clown posse will try.

Yet a recent YouTube video featured two puppets — “Cat with Bat” and “Beaver with Cleaver” — threatening the “disruption, subversion and total destruction” of the DNC (and, in a bat stroke of bipartisanship, the RNC), calling brethren to arms and breaking into violent protest shots that could have come from any number of G-8 or World Bank meetings.

By whatever name, the anti-government, anti-authority, anti-globalization protesters are always looking for that spotlight opportunity to get their rhetoric out, and riot gear and police barricades only add to their anti-authority euphoria.

It should be interesting to see what the Democratic Party Crashers will bring about — but one thing they shouldn’t bank on bringing about is “change.”

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/democratic-party-crashers-target-denver/2/

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9591

Oil and Oily Politicians

by Richard W. Rahn

Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.
Added to cato.org on August 14, 2008

 
If you had to bet whether the price of oil would be higher or lower 10 years in the future, what would you say?
Some argue that the world is running out of low-cost oil and that oil prices will get higher and higher. Others argue that the current high price of oil will
cause a flood of new oil, much of it from nonconventional sources; hence, prices will fall significantly (provided the political class in Washington, D.C.,
does not continue its energy and environmental death march policies).

The case for much lower oil prices is as follows. There are hundreds of years of oil supplies (at present and projected consumption levels) if oil in oil
sands and shale is properly included in reserves. In some places, such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq, there is still much low-cost oil ($15 a barrel or even
less) that can be produced for decades, but not in an amount sufficient to meet the world's demand; hence, much higher-cost oil is also pumped. This
higher-cost oil includes much of the offshore oil (the huge cost of the mammoth drilling rigs has to be amortized over each barrel of oil produced) and
on-shore oil in hard-to-reach places and/or produced from low-production wells.

Oil reserves are largely a function of price. Global proven reserves of conventional oil obtainable at prices of less than $40 per barrel are estimated at
more than 1.3 trillion barrels, with much of it concentrated in the Middle East. Additionally, reserves of so called "heavy oil," the largest reserves of
which are in Venezuela's Orinoco area, are estimated at 1.2 trillion barrels, and most of this could probably be recovered for less than $50 per barrel.
The reserves of oil sands, which are actively being mined in Canada's Alberta Province, are estimated to be 1.8 trillion barrels. Experts estimate that
much of this can be produced for $45 per barrel or less. Global reserves of oil shale are estimated at more than 3.3 trillion barrels, with 70 percent in the
United States (primarily in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming).

Shell Oil Co. last year announced it has developed a process for extracting the oil from the shale, without mining, at a price of roughly $35 per barrel.
The United States also has the world's largest reserves of coal — enough for hundreds of years of production at present levels. Coal also can be turned
into liquid petroleum (as the Germans and South Africans proved decades ago). Current estimates of the conversion cost are as low as $35 per barrel.
Does it seem a bit odd that the current price of oil is more than twice the cost of producing all the oil the world presently needs and will need long into
the future? The reason the price is so high is that the supply has been artificially constrained by governments. Most (88 percent) of the conventional oil
reserves are owned by governments, and these governments have underinvested in new production. As is well-known, the U.S. government has
restricted offshore and onshore drilling, shale development, and coal conversion.

Some politicians argue, even if the U.S. government started to allow increased production, that it would be seven to 10 years or more before there would
be additional output. This is nonsense. Oil wells can be drilled at an average rate of 1,000 feet or so per day, which means that the average U.S. well can
be drilled in a week. It does take a few weeks to set up the pump and install the separation tanks, etc., but new land wells can be producing within
months, even if the product has to be trucked rather than piped away.

Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska would not take all that long for some production to get started. Politicians often confuse the
time it takes to get peak production from a field as compared to some production — each additional well takes time, plus the necessary new piping
collection infrastructure for each additional well.

Offshore wells do take a lot longer, but most of the time involved is the government permitting process, not the physical production of the rigs, drilling
and so forth. If the government gave a full green light to production of oil shale in the Rocky Mountains, it might take several decades to reach full
production, but some production would be accomplished in the next couple of years.

The very same politicians who claim we cannot increase oil production quickly are often the same ones who tell us we need to move to alternative forms
— windmills and solar, etc. — without seeming to understand these desirable technologies will take far more time to meet the goals of "energy
independence" than ramping up oil production. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said she would not allow a vote on more drilling because she wanted
"to save the planet," without seeming to understand, if increased oil production does not take place in the United States with all its environmental
safeguards, it will take place where U.S. environmental law cannot be enforced — and that is not healthy for the planet.

Fortunately, the people are beginning to understand they are paying twice more for a gallon of gasoline than is necessary, and the global environment is
not benefiting. Less expensive energy and a cleaner environment are most likely to be achieved quickly not with alternative energy sources but with an
alternative set of congressional leaders.



http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9591

I dunno, looks to me like "the backup" option would always be catching your shins and getting smacked by the vacuum cleaner and such. Combined with the safety issue I'd not have it in my home.

Have a steel box with a simplex lock on it for my hot pistol. Primary home defense weapon is a Remington model 870 shotgun. Hangs up high and out of sight in the closet on a rack I made out of 2 pieces of half inch dowel mounted on a 1 x 4. Keep the action open with a cable lock run through it to keep the kids out of trouble, though all three of mine have had their share of range time and know how to handle a firearm safely.

A point that hasn't been made: straight blades have a lot more utility than push daggers or karambits. Any blade I carry is gonna be used far more often in a utility role so my strong hand blade is a straight blade.

I like karambits as a hideout/weak hand blade. Get it out in a grapple and there are all sorts of nasty things you can do.

Not a big fan of push daggers, probably because I'm something of a knife snob. PDs don't allow much fineness beyond hockey punching. Karambits and straight blades let you work tip, edge, butt, etc. I like having choices beyond punch 'em a bunch.