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What could I add to this?

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Random Thought

This morning’s news of the Al Qaida leaders killed in the Pakistan strike a few days ago got me to thinking about the internal reactions of the Al Qaida leadership. Such a successful demonstration of our intelligence gathering capability must be sobering. Not to mention our ability to drop a few bombs with pinpoint accuracy at one of the most remote sites in the world, on very short notice.

But on the flip side, imagine what it must be like for the Al Qaida leadership to watch CNN’s reporting of American politics. What do you suppose is going through Osama Bin Laden’s mind as he’s watching (say) Ted Kennedy bloviating? On one level, I’d imagine he’s quite amused at the silliness of his enemies. On another level — and this is disturbing — the moonbats in powerful positions must be very encouraging to him. Seen from Al Qaida-land, the moonbats are basically on Al Qaida’s side of the global war on terror, opposing just about any effective tactic that comes along. Al Gore’s recent speech on the NSA wiretapping is a terrific example of this. Here’s a formerly-secret program that’s been effective stopping Al Qaida attacks — and the moonbat Democrats have not only revealed the program’s existence (remember, moonbat political beliefs were at the core of the leaker’s motivation), but they’re now actively trying to stop the program.

Al Qaida has friends in high places.

How depressing.

Wolf or Hamster?

Ahhh … there’s nothing quite like the sting of a Mark Steyn piece in the morning…

From “Ham-handed Dems didn’t lay a glove on Alito":

Even smear tactics require a certain plausibility. When you damn someone as a big scary mega-troubling racist misogynist homophobe and he seems to any rational observer perfectly non-scary and non-troubling, eventually you make yourself ridiculous. The boy who cried “Wolf!” at least took the precaution of doing so when there was no alleged predator in view. If he’d stood there crying “Wolf!” while pointing at a hamster, he’d have been led away for counseling. That’s the stage the Senate Democrats are at.

Racist misogynist homophobe, indeed. That’s a hamster you’re pointing at, you damned stupid bloviating Democrats! You’re ridiculous!

I wonder if this performance will wake the apparently hibernating voters in Massachusetts, so they’ll vote ABT (anyone besides Ted) next time around? Or are they all bought and paid for?

A Wife's Tears

Watching Mrs. Alito quietly crying during Senator Graham’s apology for the behavior of Senators Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer was one of the most painful political events I’ve endured. Anybody with a even a vestigal human heart left can’t help but sympathize with her. And anyone with even a shred of common sense, listening to the two champion democratic bloviators thunder on, realizes that their ad hominem attacks are completely without substance and all about perceived political gain (mostly blatantly pandering to their base).

Meanwhile, in a display of illogic and over-the-top spinning that has even this curmudgeonly political watcher simply stunned, the lefties are positioning this sad incident as having been caused by Senator Graham’s apology. If this is (as I suspect) 100% spin that not a one of them actually believes, then it’s yet another watermark in a the past few year’s series of new records for political bottom-seeking. On the other hand, if the lefties actually believe this drivel they’re pushing, then I am truly beginning to believe that there are two species here: homo sapiens (rightus) and homo sapiens (leftus)…

Meanwhile, I’m left with a sense of sadness — not just for Sam Alito and his family, but also for the country. That our political “discourse” descends to the levels it did in yesterday’s hearings is to nobody’s credit. What Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer did was outrageous and reprehensible. But so too was the fact that the rest of their colleagues didn’t shout them down, didn’t immediately condemn them, didn’t shut down the hearings in protest, didn’t get up and walk out, escorting the Alitos with them. The near-silence (Graham excepted) of the other members of the committee speaks volumes about what has become acceptable in today’s politics.

A pox on them all, but on Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer first, please.

Don't Miss This

If you’re as tired as I am of the way that most Democrats are now opposing everything about the Iraq War, giving comfort to our enemies, and the incessant “Bush Lied!” chants — then you’re going to love this new TV ad (this is a fast link, not the usual snail’s pace thing from my blog) that the GOP has put together. Don’t miss it!

Tip o' the hat to John and Grayle for passing this along!

Troubling Words

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an op-ed piece by Sergei Ivanov, the deputy prime minister and minister of defense of the Russian Federation.

From “Russia Must Be Strong ($)” by Sergei Ivanov…

We have seen a steady trend pointing at a broader scope of use of military force recently, not least because more challenges to national security have emerged. Chief among them is interference in Russia’s internal affairs by foreign states — either directly or through structures that they support — and the attempts of some countries, coalitions and extremist terrorist organizations to develop or gain access to weapons of mass destruction. We must also be prepared for the possibility of a violent assault on the constitutional order of some post-Soviet states and the border instability that might ensue from that. Arms and drugs trafficking and other kinds of cross-border criminal activity must be closely watched.

None of these threats shows any sign of abating. Everyone knows that when it comes to war and conflict-prevention, Russia always goes first for political, diplomatic, economic and other nonmilitary means. But maintaining a robust military capability is clearly in our national interests.

The primary task for the armed forces is to prevent conventional and nuclear aggression against Russia. Hence our firm commitment to the principle of pre-emption. We define pre-emption not only as a capability to deliver strikes on terrorist groups but as other measures designed to prevent a threat from emerging long before there is a need to confront it. This is the guiding principle of the profound and comprehensive modernization of our armed forces. The actual level of combat readiness and effectiveness hinges on how successful this upgrade will be.

Most troubling to me: “…We must also be prepared for the possibility of a violent assault on the constitutional order of some post-Soviet states and the border instability that might ensue from that.” Taken at face value, this is not unreasonable — it is, in fact, probably something the U.S. would say in response to (for example) a serious threat to take down Mexico’s democracy (if that’s the right thing to call their government). The trouble is that it sounds remarkably like the doublespeak of the Soviet era, and I no longer have must trust left in Putin’s good intentions. So I mentally reword that statement to something like this: “…We don’t like the new governments in the Ukraine, or the Baltics, or the 'stans, and if we feel like it we’re just going to swoop in their with our military and put things back the way they belong.” Kind of like Stalin in the post-WWII era, who used similar justifications for overunning the eastern European states that lay helpless before the Red Army.

Kind of scary, really…

Anagrams

These very clever anagrams were sent to me by a friend…

DORMITORY — DIRTY ROOM

PRESBYTERIAN — BEST IN PRAYER

ASTRONOMER — MOON STARER

DESPERATION — A ROPE ENDS IT

THE EYES — THEY SEE

GEORGE BUSH — HE BUGS GORE

THE MORSE CODE — HERE COME DOTS

SLOT MACHINES — CASH LOST IN ME

ANIMOSITY — IS NO AMITY

ELECTION RESULTS — LIES - LET’S RECOUNT

SNOOZE ALARMS — ALAS! NO MORE Z 'S

A DECIMAL POINT — IM A DOT IN PLACE

THE EARTHQUAKES — THAT QUEER SHAKE

ELEVEN PLUS TWO — TWELVE PLUS ONE

MOTHER-IN-LAW — WOMAN HITLER

Just Weird!

I ran across this on BoingBoing, where they showed the picture of the girl at right. Not a real girl, BTW — just a little photoshopping. The weird part is how this affects one’s perceptual system. When I look at those pictures (especially the girl, for some reason), I feel a bit like I’m cross-eyed, and no matter how long I stare at it, I don’t feel like I’ve actually clearly seeing the picture. It’s a very strange feeling, hard to put into words.

Click on either thumbnail to get a larger image. And if you’re intrigued by these, there are many more here.

I speculate that the slightly alarming visual effects are caused by the special sensitivity of our perceptual system to human faces; that somehow these faces are “wrong” in a way that our perceptual system just cannot handle. Kind of like what happens when you get dizzy, because your perception (the combination of spatial and visual, in that case) is getting conflicting inputs.

Saturn

This photo looks like something right out of one of the pulp science fiction novels I devoured as a kid:

From the official Cassini website:

In this magnificent view, delicate haze layers high in the atmosphere encircle the oblate figure of Saturn. A special combination of spectral filters used for this image makes the high haze become visible. A methane-sensitive filter (centered at 889 nanometers) makes high altitude features stand out, while a polarizing filter makes small haze particles appear bright.

Methane in the atmosphere absorbs light with wavelengths around 889 nanometers as it travels deeper into the gas planet, thus bright areas in this image must represent reflective material at higher altitudes. Small particles or individual molecules scatter light quite effectively to a polarization of 90 degrees, which this polarizing filter is sensitive to. Thus, high altitude haze layers appear bright in this view.

The small blob of light at far right is Dione (1,126 kilometers, or 700 miles across).

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Dec. 5, 2005, at a distance of approximately 2.9 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 100 degrees. The image scale is 169 kilometers (105 miles) per pixel.

Think about that last little bit. If you click on the small picture above right to get the larger view, each dot on that photo is an area 105 miles square on Saturn. That’s a big place! Saturn’s surface area is about 84 times that of our Earth’s. Much more information on Saturn at Wikipedia…

Cats and Dogs

With two dogs and seven cats living in our house, we have our share of inter-species animosity (though much less than you might think). Add to that the fact that we have more than a few computers, and we can easily imagine this happening…

Click on the picture for a larger view…

Solar Storage

As a homeowner in rural Southern California, you might think I’m nearly an ideal case for solar power. Throw a few solar panels on my roof, attach an inverter, and cut the umbilical cord to SDG&E (our local power company).

You would be wrong.

In fact, solar power is not yet practical (in the economic sense) as a total energy replacement. The problem is energy storage (more on this in a moment). It is possible today, under certain fairly restrictive circumstances, to economically justify solar energy as a supplement to the power grid. For instance, I might be able to justify a supplemental solar system designed to run my air conditioner. The analysis would include the capital expense (presumably financed) for purchasing and installing the solar system, compared with the estimated future cost of energy. The problem I have with the justifications for supplemental solar systems is that they only make sense when one assumes quite high future energy costs. You place a large bet, in effect, by buying (say) a $75K supplemental solar array — you pay (bet) $300 or $400 a month (on the loan) for 20 or 30 years, and hope that you save at least that much on energy costs. For me, that sounds like a very risky bet — the real payoff is just a few hot months per year, and then only if our energy costs remain at historically high levels. Of course, I might just be a chump who doesn’t realize energy prices are on some kind of inevitable upward spiral, but who knows?

The economic justification would be on much more solid ground if the solar system could completely replace the power grid. Earlier I cited energy storage as the culprit, and it’s a doozy of a problem. The person who comes up with an answer for this is going to make a lot of money! Here’s the problem: your house uses some power all day and all night. The pattern of power usage varies by individual, geography, lifestyle, etc. — but darned few of us would be interested in a home with zero power at night. But solar panels only generate useful amounts of power when there is bright sunlight shining on them. Most solar panels are mounted in a fixed orientation (e.g., on a rooftop) — and in that case, the panels generate much less power in the morning and evening than they do during the middle of the day. Fog, clouds, and rain all reduce the power generated. Less power is generated in the winter both because the days are shorter and because the sun is lower in the sky. The only way to provide power for your house all day and all night is to store the power (for example, in car batteries) during the day when the sun is bright, and use it from storage at other times. This means that your solar array must generate much more power (typically 5 to 10 times) than you actually need during the day to fill that storage — only in this manner will you have sufficient power to run your house day and night. And you really need more than one day’s worth of storage — you need enough to get through whatever worst-case assumption about weather you want to make. Here in Southern California I’d probably get away with four or five days worth of storage; in other places you might want more.

The least-expensive storage technology available today is a fancy version of the good old-fashioned car battery: a lead-acid cell designed for day-in, day-out deep discharge cycling. These batteries cost something like $0.15 to $0.20 per watt/hour of storage. Sound cheap? Suppose your home uses 8 kilowatts on average (that’s modest) when the sun is not at its peak. Further suppose that in the winter you have 16 off-peak hours per day, and you want 5 days worth of storage. That means you need 640 kilowatt/hours of storage — and that will set you back about $100,000, for something like 500 batteries weighing 10 tons. Yikes! You see what I mean about that being a problem?

And it gets worse. Your battery investment is not a one-time affair. The typical lifetime of such a battery is 3 to 5 years under ideal conditions — something few of us can practicably provide. Some batteries (more expensive) are maintenance free; others need regular checking and maintenance. All batteries have various ways to fail; some of these involve violent explosions, acid leaks, and other delightful scenarios. Oh, and also poisonous gas. Not to mention the disposal problem of a few tons of lead each year. So it’s not really a $100,000 expense — it’s more like $20,000 a year (forever!) and a not-insignificant amount of hassle and risk.

So I’m still connected to the grid. But I’d sure like someone to solve the energy storage problem!

I was reminded of this entire issue by a very interesting article about a solar energy generation system that uses the ocean as a storage mechanism. This idea generates power through the temperature difference between the sun-warmed surface water and the cold deep water. The idea is not new, though making it practical is. In my mind, the primary benefit of this approach is that it completely solves the energy storage problem. The bad news is that this won’t work in my back yard <smile>!

Churchill at War

I took the liberty of reproducing in entirety this very short op-ed piece in today’s WSJ:

No one knows how Winston Churchill would have fought the war on terror or what he might have thought of the U.S. practice of holding members of al Qaeda at Guantanamo or secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. But in newly declassified records of the British Bulldog’s War Cabinet meetings, Churchill offers some posthumous insights on wartime leadership.

In 1942, the Cabinet discussed the options were Hitler to fall into British hands. “All sorts of complications ensue as soon as you admit a fair trial,” Churchill said, according to notes taken by the deputy cabinet secretary Sir Norman Brook. To avoid such a “farce,” which he thought would distract from the war effort, Churchill favored swifter means of dealing with Hitler. “This man is the mainspring of evil. Instrument — electric chair, for gangsters."

Churchill called other Nazi leaders “outlaws” and argued that those who fell into British hands should be executed rather than put on trial. (There is no record of his views on water-boarding.)

At another Cabinet meeting, he advocated shooting German POWs if the Nazis were to kill British prisoners (the U.K., for the record, never did). After the Germans massacred the people of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, Churchill proposed, perhaps again half seriously, “wiping out German villages by air attack on a three-for-one basis.” The Cabinet overruled him.

Churchill might wonder at today’s attitudes toward fighting terrorists, about American “torture” of prisoners, and about the U.S. President who’s often derided in London as a “cowboy.” The British Prime Minister’s clarity about the Nazi threat in World War II got his nation and the world successfully through that conflict.

The more I learn about Winston Churchill, the more I admire his wartime leadership. I’m largely at least satisfied with President Bush’s leadership in the war on terror, and occasionally inspired. But I’d feel much safer — and more confident of the eventual outcome — if that war was being led by someone with the clarity and … ruthlessness … of Winston Churchill…

Economic Freedom

Estonia, that’s who.

In the 2006 Index of Economic Freedom (click on the thumbnail at right to read the whole chart), Estonia places 7th in the world — and the United States is in a three-way tie for 9th. Estonia’s Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania come in at 39th and 23rd, respectively. Clearly little Estonia is doing something right, as I’ve been personally observing for more than ten years now…

In this morning’s Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O’Grady (the co-editor of the 2006 Index) has an op-ed piece ($) specifically lauding Estonia’s economic miracle. Some highlights:

From “Wish They Could All Be Like Estonia ($)":

With the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall the world witnessed a backlash against the overintrusive state. A rallying cry in favor of economic liberalization went up around much of the globe. Some governments — notably in Eastern Europe — used the momentum to push deep, structural reform. Others — notably in Latin America — bungled the opportunity.

Is there any way to explain why it is that some countries have been able to restructure their economies so radically while others have been left in the clutches of special interests?

...

Chile has been in various stages of economic reform since the 1973 coup that ousted Salvador Allende, who was threatening to take the country over the communist cliff. The return to democracy in 1989 brought about a series of left-of-center governments that, while boasting that they had not turned back the economic liberalism of the Pinochet dictatorship, slowed the pace of reform dramatically. The current socialist presidency of Ricardo Lagos even reversed liberalization in labor markets.

Meanwhile in Estonia, as former Prime Minister Mart Laar likes to explain, the post-Soviet period has been marked by rapid, deep reform. Communism was so reviled that policy makers, almost instinctively, chose its direct opposite and promptly enshrined the preference in law.

The results may explain why political support for economic liberalism continues in Estonia, while in Chile free markets are under assault even by center-right politicians. The difference is the rate of change of progress for citizens. In 2004, with reforms kicking in, Estonia’s per capita GDP was almost $7,500, nearly double what it was in 2001 — $3,951, when the country ranked 14th in the Index of Economic Freedom. In Chile, after 30 years of reform, per capita GDP remains below $5,900, edging up only slightly from $4,784 in 2001, when Chile ranked 13th.

The tale of two small nations tells a wider global story. Is it any wonder for example that Brazilians, who after almost two decades of being told they are converting to a market economy, widely reject the notion? Improvements have occurred, for instance in monetary stability, but the country is still ranked “mostly unfree,” with a per capita GDP of $3,500. Maybe Mr. Laar could pay them a visit.

Mart Laar has been getting a lot of good press in the past few months, world-wide. As has Estonia itself. And with good reason — each time I visit, I am impressed afresh with the vibrance of its rollicking economy. And as well with what I read of the process by which the country’s leaders make economic decisions, and by the decisions themselves. The changes in Estonia in just the 10+ years I’ve been visiting it are simply amazing — and contrasts with its neighbors (especially Russia) are especially astonishing.

It’s good to see their accomplishments being recognized…

Morning After

Yesterday morning Debi and I, along with Lea and Mo’i (our two beautiful field spaniels), took our usual walk a mile or so up the hill south of our home. It was special yesterday because this was the “morning after” the first big rain of the season.

Visually, everything was clean and bright and green. Olfactorally (??), the fresh and spicy desert smells were back — and we know from experience that they’ll keep getting better and better from now until early summer.

There were some more changes as well, some a little subtle (such as the more saturated colors of the damp rocks). My favorite: the many expanses of solid rock on the hillsides covered with a thin film of water, flashing and glinting in the morning light. These wet rocks are very common in this area. They’re caused by a seep or a spring that flows onto a sloped area of smooth rock — and the granite that our hills has many such rocks. Some of them are quite large (as much as a few acres), and when one of them has a sheet of water on it, the visual effect can be spectacular. Typically these rocks are curved and have small imperfections in them, which means that the reflective sheet of water is not flat — it’s more like a jumbled pile of broken mirror pieces in its visual effects. It sparkles, in other words. And the effects change as you move, as the wind blows, and as the sun moves through the sky…

Force Multipliers

Read this on Michelle Malkin’s site this morning — it was so good I just had to share it…

Russ Vaughn is a poet and Vietnam vet.

Force Multipliers by Russ Vaughn

Wikipedia: force multiplier-a military term referring to a factor that dramatically increases (hence multiplies) the combat-effectiveness of a given military force.

-

In Iraq an IED explodes,

An American soldier dies,

But that blast will grow as the media blow

It up before our eyes.

And trumpet to the watching world,

These fifth column falsifiers,

Like sheep they bleat we face defeat,

Our foe’s force multipliers.

-

Osama and his minions know,

In combat they can’t beat us;

So they hope and pray will come a day,

Our own media will defeat us.

Ignoring all the good we’ve done,

Liberals focus on the gore,

On losses mounting and body counting,

To prove we’ve lost this war.

-

They disgraced us once in Vietnam,

So now these leftists feel,

That again they’ll win with media spin,

And make America kneel.

But defeatists aren’t the only ones,

Learned lessons from the past;

Back then we swore we’d lose no more,

This time we’re standing fast.

-

The Internet’s exposed them,

As elitist media liars;

They stand unclothed and widely loathed,

Our foe’s force multipliers.

Some day when all our troops return,

With Iraq on freedom’s path,

The liberal elite who sought defeat,

May face some Righteous wrath.

-

Russ Vaughn

2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment

101st Airborne Division

Vietnam 65-66

Rain!

According to my weather instruments (click on the picture at right for a full-sized view), we’ve received just over an inch of rain in the past 24 hours — and close to an inch and a half in the past 48 hours. To those of you in the wetter parts of the (that would be just about anywhere else!), that may not sound like much. But for the desert rats like us, this is manna from heaven…

Within an hour of the rain starting, the formerly blackened moss on the rocks had turned bright green. Even though I’ve witnessed this dozens of times, it still amazes me how the first real shower of the rainy season transforms the chaparral country. The accumulated dust of months, caked and burned into the leaves and onto the bright red trunks of the manzanitas, is all washed away. The gusty winds that accompanied the rains blew most of the dead leaves off. And somehow many of the desert plants store away their chlorophyll during the dry season, and take it back out again after a good rain — producing exhuberant greens where before there was black or gray. The visual transformation is magical enough, but there’s more — with the rains, the wonderful and intense smells of the desert will be back in our mornings. Within a few days, it’s easy to predict, we’ll start smelling it again on our morning walks…

But best of all, of course: this inch of rain means the chaparral around us has at least a few more months of safety from fire.

Happy New Year!

I don’t know about you, but ever since 2000 I’ve felt a bit like I’m living in a science fiction novel. When I was a kid, the year 2000 felt impossibly far away — so far that the fantastical science fiction stories set in those post-2000 years, with their exotic technologies, didn’t seem so very far-fetched…

Now we’re actually living in those times. The prognostications of those science fiction authors weren’t, I’m afraid, any more accurate than anyone else’s. But certainly the changes have been great in magnitude, and mostly interesting and enjoyable and making life generally better. I’d much rather be living in 2006 than in 1956. I can almost hear the liberal whining as I write that, that firm belief that things have gone solidly downhill in America and the world (especially since Reagan). But they’re all delusional; they just dismiss somehow the vastly increased standard of living (and not just in the U.S., but worldwide), the tremendous advance of medicine (with the corresponding increase in life expectancy), and the life-enriching technological developments that we use every single day (imagine — a car that goes for tens of thousands of miles between repairs, or phones that you put in your pocket and let you talk to your friends and loved ones wherever you might be!). Yup, they just ignore all that and concentrate on persuading themselves that they are worse off this year than they were in any year of their life…

Screw 'em.

I’ve had a very nice morning on this first day of 2006. All simple, little things:

— Maka Le’a, our new little kitten, played happily on my chest as I sat reclined. His goal was to eat my thumb, then my nose, and finally my ears. He failed, but punched many tiny holes with those needle-like kitten teeth and claws. Kittens are outrageously cute, but they are unexpectedly effective fighting machines…

— Our Lawson Valley sunrise was gorgeous, full of saturated reds and blues. I went outside to watch it unfold, and as I watched a Southwestern Airlines 737 passed about 2500 feet overhead to my west (on approach to San Diego). The sky in that quarter was still dark grey, but the orange-colored jet was brightly lit by the rising sun. It was like a little moving, sparkling jewel in the sky, with the same color scheme as the sunrise on the other side of the sky.

— We had rain last night, a great way to usher in the new year in this fire-prone area. It wasn’t a whole lot (0.2"), but it was enough to wet down all the fuel in the chaparral. And that means a greatly reduced fire danger for us. Better yet, the Weather Service is predicting a sizable storm will hit tonight and tomorrow. Oh, I hope they’re right — an inch or two of rain right now would turn our hills green and practically eliminate any fire danger until next summer…

— Debbie and I are healthy (if you don’t count the holiday overeating!), as are our animals. Debbie’s off to an agility competition, where one of our dogs (Mo’i) just earned his “Excellent B” rating on jumpers and weaves. She’s hoping he will earn that same rating on the standard course today, and also hoping that Le’a will qualify on a run or two today.

— We hear from our breeder (Sheila Miller, of Battle Mountain, Nevada) that she believes the breeding of Picaboo “took", and that means puppies around Valentine’s day — and one of that litter will be our third Field Spaniel, if all goes well. Big, anticipatory smiles in Lawson Valley.

Oh, there’s much more, too. It’s good to be in 2006.

When you hear those whiny liberals complaining about how awful everything is … stuff something in their mouth, will ya?

Death Watch

Gateway Pundit has great presentation of something I’ve long suspected, but haven’t known for sure: that the casualties (meaning deaths) in Iraq have actually decreased after the Iraq war, as compared with Saddam’s period of rule — despite the insurgency and all the best efforts of al Zarqari. Well, the Gateway Pundit has researched the numbers and presented them in an easy-to-digest graph (at right, click to enlarge). As the Gateway Pundit says:

The red area in the graph below shows the estimated average deaths in Iraq under Saddam Hussein from 36 average deaths per day from mass grave discoveries, to 137 deaths per day. Saddam may have murdered up to 5% of the Iraqi population during his 20 years of rule.

The yellow area shows estimated total fatalities since the beginning of the War in Iraq from Iraq Body Count, an antiwar website. Yet, still with questionable tallies of death counts, the War in Iraq is definitely saving lives.

Go read the post to see the sources for yourself…

RIP, Luna

Mark (whom I know only through his blog) and I don’t share religious convictions, but we do share a love for our pets. Mark’s dog, Luna, was euthanized yesterday — and Mark is grieving, and he’s angry. He concludes with this:

Let them be damned who live to make fun of innocence, purity, and simplicity. They have cursed themselves, but oh, how I often wish they would feel it.

God, how I loved that dog.

Oh, yes, indeed. Mark’s wish is mine as well.

RIP, Luna. Your master’s grief and anger speak volumes of you…

Tip o' the hat to the Junkyard Blog…

Bolton Bashing

Not so very long ago, there was much gnashing of teeth and wailing from the liberal part of the world, faithfully (and loudly) reported by their MSM lapdogs. The cause of the angst? George W.'s recess appointment of “Bully Boy” Bolton to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Well, now Ambassador Bolton has been there for a while. Last I heard, the U.N. headquarters is still standing (darn it!), and relatively few delegations have committed suicide (I was really hoping to see the North Koreans and Libyans stage something dramatic like that). So this makes me wonder — just what is Bully Boy up to, anyhow? Is he having any effect at all?

From Investor’s Business Daily, Bolton Comes Out Swinging:

Clearly, recent developments have made Annan testy. The biggest factor more than likely was the sight of Bolton checking off the top items on his agenda. Bolton created an international stir — marked by the European Union’s formal opposition — when he threatened to block the body’s 2006-07 budget unless the U.N. commenced serious self-reform.

Last week: a successful start. The 191-member General Assembly approved a resolution for a two-year, $3.8 billion administrative budget. Attached to the resolution was a spending cap at $950 million, enough for the first half of next year. Look for Annan in June to request more money to pay U.N. personnel.

Some countries — among them Egypt, India and Jamaica — deny the emergency budget was tied to any reforms. But Bolton, calling the vote a victory for the U.S., said the resolution implies the General Assembly must approve, according to Reuters, “a new human rights body, new international accounting standards, a review of programs older than five years and a stronger internal watchdog office."

Remind us: Just why did the Democrats oppose this guy?

Ah ha! Bully Boy has put strict limits on their allowance!

Well, maybe not so strict — $950M sounds like a lot of pocket change. But it’s a terrific start, though it doesn’t inflict near the bureaucratic pain that I’d like to see inflicted. Yup, I’m 100% for bureaucratic torture: elimination of third-world rape privileges, reduction of Mercedes budgets, and even (gasp) making “diplomats” responsible for their crimes (yes, that means parking tickets, too).

But I’ll take caps on the allowance as a start…