Ann’s latest has some thoughts on Sen. Lincoln Chafee (RINO-R.I.) and his race in the primary against Republican Stephen Laffey.

Apart from Bush, the only person who hasn’t figured out that Lincoln Chafee is a Democrat is Lincoln Chafee. As the expression goes, if Chafee switched parties, the average IQ on both sides of the aisle would go up.

and

After Chafee’s family money got him into Andover and Brown, he made his living shoeing horses for seven years. In fact, I’ve often wondered if an errant kick to the head by one of his charges would account for Chafee’s rudimentary cognitive abilities.

Excuse me while I go and read it again.

Human Events > They Shot the Wrong Lincoln

Via Gateway Pundit:

One Dead, 15 Hurt in San Francisco SUV Rampage

The driver, a man from Fremont, was in San Francisco police custody. His name was not immediately released by police, but California Department of Motor Vehicles records show the license plate on the black Honda Pilot SUV is registered to Omeed A. Popal of Fremont.

Er, the MSM and the police are trying awfully hard to disguise the fact that the perpetrator is of Southeast Asian lineage, as in Muslim < (VIDEO).

Thanos @ Noblesse Oblige writes on Environmental Imperialism

Environmentalists Lied – People Died!

The birth of the left’s positions on environment and energy were in the sixties, and the seminal works on the subject were these four publications:

• The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich,
• The Limits to Growth from the Club of Rome
• Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher
• Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson

(Note: If you want those books to make sense or to match reality you must wear your tin-foil hat full-time as you read them, if you can manage that then you too can be an environmental imperialist!)

These books were the genesis of environmental crisis-mongering in the west, which in turn led to a halt of nuclear energy expansion, a halt of new energy infrastructure, a stop to logging in the west half of our country, a stop to oil and gas drilling, neo-luddism as manifested by the likes of the Unabomber and Earth Firsters, and finally Environmental Imperialism in the form of the Kyoto Treaty, and the current “Global Warming Crisis”.

That’s an overview. For a well structured informative dissertation go to Noblesse Oblige

According to a report in Charlotte.com [free reg. required], “RadioShack Corp. notified about 400 workers by e-mail that they were being dismissed immediately as part of planned job cuts.”

The company announced Aug. 10 that it would cut 400 to 450 jobs, mostly at headquarters, to cut expenses and “improve its long-term competitive position in the marketplace.” RadioShack has closed nearly 500 stores, consolidated distribution centers and liquidated slow-moving merchandise in an effort to shake out of a sales slump.

I’m part of that slump. I haven’t been to Radio Shack for two years. As a matter of principle I stopped going because they asked for personal information (name and zip code) even when I was paying cash.

For a long time after I drew a line in the sand to protest swollen-headed retailers I thought I might be the only person on the planet getting pissed over their arrogance. But recently Larry the Cable Guy mentioned that he no longer shops Radio Shack for the same reason that I stopped going there. Isn’t it great to have such esteemed validation?

BTW: L the CG says that watching the Tour de France without Lance Armstrong is like watching a porno without the girl.

Follow on to yesterday’s post:

By now most semi-alert Americans know that Michael Isikoff and David Corn have a book coming out that exposes deceit and lies of Colin Powell’s Department of State in dealing with the White House, the American people and SP Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation of the bogus Valerie Plame case. Well, “exposes deceit and lies” might be a bit presumptive. Here’s an example of Isikoff’s style in writing an exposé:

Armitage’s central role as the primary source on Plame is detailed for the first time in “Hubris,” which recounts the leak case and the inside battles at the CIA and White House in the run-up to the war. The disclosures about Armitage, gleaned from interviews with colleagues, friends and lawyers directly involved in the case, underscore one of the ironies of the Plame investigation: that the initial leak, seized on by administration critics as evidence of how far the White House was willing to go to smear an opponent, came from a man who had no apparent intention of harming anyone.

Indeed, Armitage was a member of the administration’s small moderate wing. Along with his boss and good friend, Powell, he had deep misgivings about President George W. Bush’s march to war. A barrel-chested Vietnam vet who had volunteered for combat, Armitage at times expressed disdain for Dick Cheney and other administration war hawks who had never served in the military. Armitage routinely returned from White House meetings shaking his head at the armchair warriors. “One day,” says Powell’s former chief of staff Larry Wilkerson, “we were walking into his office and Rich turned to me and said, ‘Larry, these guys never heard a bullet go by their ears in anger … None of them ever served. They’re a bunch of jerks’.”

Aw, poor ole’ Armitage. All he did was leak Plame’s name to Woodward and Novak, lie about it for three years, cover his ass by getting others to lie on his behalf, stand around and watch while dozens of people had their lives ruined, and now he’s standing around again while Isikoff tells the story and tries to salvage his worthless ass.

Isikoff had already hit bottom for his conduct in the Monica story. It didn’t seem possible, but he is lowering himself more by apologizing for Armitage’s behavior in Plamegate.

>> Michael Isikoff in Newsweak

A lot of people seem to be trying awfully hard to ignore the subject highlighted two days ago by James Lewis @ The American Thinker. Specifically:

Spikey dumps Armitage and Plame

… Newsweek’s Michael “Spikey” Isikoff has just decided to dump leakey old Richard “Dick” Armitage, who squealed on Valerie Plame, who blamed George W. Bush, who was stabbed in the back by Armitage’s ole’ buddy Colin Powell, who sat back while the Media Party spread the lie that Veep Cheney was retaliating against Joe Wilson, who lied on the NYT Op-Ed Page about his trip to Niger to find out about Saddam’s yellowcake pursuit — which, oddly enough, was not a lie, as Christopher Hitchens has just clearly proven.

I don’t mean that Lewis is the first to reveal the sham investigation of Plamegate. Others did that long, long ago:

(more…)

Yep, ol’ Timmmer is back and in rare form indeed…

Take this idiotic leftist organization “Moveon.org” and their recent “Red Handed” commercials, which were pulled from the key states in which they were airing because they were nothing less than fabrications about four Republican Congressmen and their imagined illegal contracts with companies. What planet do these idiots live on? Congress does not award contracts — federal agencies do. You want to catch a politician “redhanded” in the commission of a crime? Follow a Kennedy around for a week….any of them.

And he has more news…

This week Wictory Wednesday is highlighting the candidacy of Michael Steele for the Maryland Senate. It is a closely watched race that is in contention for a GOP and conservative pickup in the Senate. Currently there are two main contenders for the Democratic nomination, Kweisi Mfume and Ben Cardin.

(more…)

“A new study using NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data finds consistent evidence that Earth’s ozone layer is on the mend.”
NASA, NOAA Data Indicate Ozone Layer is Recovering

Also, “NASA-funded scientists recently found that ozone levels drop as a hurricane is intensifying. … In a recent study, Xiaolei Zou and Yonghui Wu, researchers at Florida State University found that variations of ozone levels from the surface to the upper atmosphere are closely related to the formation, intensification and movement of a hurricane.”
Ozone Levels Drop When Hurricanes Are Strengthening

[From press release:]
Mars Global Surveyor is commemorating the 75th birthday of Pioneering Planetary Geologist Thomas A. “Tim” Mutch, who died on the slopes of Mount Nun in the Himalayas, following a climbing accident while descending from the 23,410-foot summit. At the time he was on leave from Brown University, serving as NASA’s Associate Administrator for Space Science.

The Crater is about 211 kilometers (131 miles) in diameter. Naming of this crater for Tim Mutch was approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1985.

The Mutch Crater of Mars

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1567, 27 August 2006

Three views are shown here. The first (left) is a mosaic of Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) red wide angle images acquired during the MOC Geodesy Campaign in May 1999. The white boxes show the location of the other two pictures. The second image (center), is a mosaic of MOC and lower-resolution Mars Odyssey THEMIS VIS images that cover a smaller, unnamed crater located in west-central Mutch Crater. The third image (right) is a portion of the mosaic of the small, unnamed crater, showing landslide deposits formed when material slumped off the crater wall. The source alcoves of the landslides are well defined, as are longitudinal troughs and ridges on the surface of the landslides. These mass movements occurred long after the crater was formed, judging by the difference in the number of small impact craters on their surfaces and on the nearby floor of the crater.

Read More, MGS: full view and full text