Internet Scofflaw

Joss Whedon, the creator of Firefly (the best television show ever), has a new series called Dollhouse. It is scheduled to premiere on Fox in January.

One hopes that Fox will treat it better than Firefly.

Interpol reports on its authentication of the captured FARC files implicating Chavez. Chavez responds by calling the Interpol chief names:

Chavez has denied providing the FARC material support, but did not address the issue directly on Thursday. Instead, he called Interpol’s secretary general, Ronald Noble, “a tremendous actor,” “Mr. Ignoble” and an “immoral police officer who applauds killers.”

Andrew Malcolm at the LA Times catches Obama embellishing his tale about standing up to the Detroit auto makers.  (Via Instapundit.)  I’m not sure this is as embarrassing as Malcolm thinks, but it is another example of dishonest politics-as-usual from the man who his followers say will heal our souls.

The AP reports that Chavez is threatening war if Colombia allows the US to build a base on its border with Venezuela.  Such a base has been floated as a possibility to replace the US base in Ecuador, which is scheduled to close next year.

Alas, I can’t find any evidence that this is a serious plan; every google hit is about people (mostly Chavez) complaining about the idea.  Too bad, it sounds like a great idea.

I suppose this is how Chavez looks strong; force Uribe to “back down” over something he never planned to do anyway.

The farm bill, which passed the House today, gives $257 million to one particular company. I thought the Democrats were supposed to be against “corporate welfare.”  For that matter, I thought the Republicans (who voted 100-91 for the bill) were supposed to be against pork.

Sigh.

Washington’s ballot initiative I-985 is sheer genius. Supporters of red-light cameras (which we do not have in my state, thank heavens), claim that they are about safety. They are lying. Red-light cameras exist to generate revenue, and that’s all. We can see this from all the red-light cameras that are shut down for losing money. Also, they usually hurt safety, since municipalities can’t resist shortening yellow lights to generate more revenue.

That’s why I-985 is sheer genius. I-985 would allow red-light cameras, but would assign any revenue they generate to the state, thereby removing any financial incentive for them. If they were really about safety, this wouldn’t discourage municipalities from using them. So what’s happening?

[Wenatchee] Mayor Dennis Johnson says Tim Eyman’s red-light camera initiative could delay the cameras’ arrival in Wenatchee. . .

“Quite frankly I have no problem with the money being used locally for traffic-congestion projects,” Johnson said Tuesday night. “But there is no way the city of Wenatchee will become a tax collector for the state of Washington. It certainly is not acceptable from my point of view.” . . .

Johnson said if the council were to approve the cameras and I-985 passed, the city might stop using them because the money would not go completely toward local projects. He also said it is possible the council would wait to see what happens with Eyman’s initiative before it makes a decision. . .

In February officials in Aberdeen cited I-985 as the reason for dropping discussion on red-light cameras there.

(Via No Silence Here, via Instapundit.)

At Inside Higher Ed:

Other professors at Norfolk State, generally requesting anonymity, confirmed that following the 80 percent attendance rule would result frequently in failing a substantial share — in many cases a majority — of their students. Professors said attendance rates are considerably lower than at many institutions — although most institutions serve students with better preparation.

One reason that this does not happen (outside Aird’s classes) is that many professors at Norfolk State say that there is a clear expectation from administrators — in particular from Dean Sandra J. DeLoatch, the dean whose recommendation turned the tide against Aird’s tenure bid — that 70 percent of students should pass.

Aird said that figure was repeatedly made clear to him and he resisted it. Others back his claim privately. For the record, Joseph C. Hall, a chemistry professor at president of the Faculty Senate, said that DeLoatch “encouraged” professors to pass at least 70 percent of students in each course, regardless of performance. Hall said that there is never a direct order given, but that one isn’t really needed.

(Via Instapundit.)

More woes for the Martin Luther King memorial:

A federal investigation is under way into the organization raising funds for a memorial to the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in the nation’s capital, according to two people interviewed as part of the inquiry. . .

The scope of the inquiry is not clear, but it seems to focus on whether the foundation was obliged to follow federal procurement rules, including competitive bidding and so-called “Buy American” policies favoring domestic sources. The foundation is largely supported by private donations, but it received almost $10 million from the federal government in 2006.

(Via Instapundit.)

Plus, there’s continuing complaints about whether the design and manner of construction of the memorial are worthy of the slain civil rights icon.  Lei Yixin, the sculptor selected for the project who is best known for his official statues of Mao Zedong, probably didn’t help his case by defending Mao:

“He isn’t as bad as some people think,” the artist told [Cox Newspapers], while acknowledging that the man who led China from 1949 to 1976 “had made some mistakes.”

About 40 million of them.

(Previous post.)

At a town meeting in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Obama claims that the Iraq war is hurting our efforts in Afghanistan, because it’s tying up all our Arabic translators. (Via Gateway Pundit, via Instapundit.) Observers found his argument a bit weak, since they don’t speak Arabic in Afghanistan. (The Arab-speaking world runs from Morocco to Iraq.)

Halfway through his statement, Obama realizes his mistake, but true to form, he cannot admit it:

Obviously, they may not speak Arabic, but the various dialects that they speak in Afghanistan — often times people will speak Urdu or Pashtun or whatever the languages are — they’re going to be needed in those areas and a lot of them have ended up being placed elsewhere.

(Transcript mine.) Unless he thinks that Urdu and Pashtun are dialects of Arabic, this makes no sense at all. In fact, Urdu is mostly closely related to Hindi, and there is absolutely no shortage of people who could translate between English and Hindi.

The pushback on this is fascinating. A commenter at Gateway Pundit claims that this wasn’t a gaffe; Obama was right because the foreign fighters in Afghanistan mostly speak Arabic. That’s an interesting point (although I think that many of the foreign fighters are Pakistani), but rather a silly one since we have very little to say to those people. Translators are for dealing with the native population, not the people we are trying to kill.

One wants to dismiss this as just a foolish blog commenter, but it turns out that he was simply parroting the talking points of the Obama campaign. Sheesh. They would do better just to admit the mistake and move on. It’s obvious from the video that he recognized his mistake and tried to cover, so why do they try after the fact to claim that he was right? Why are they so committed to Obama’s inerrancy over there?

POSTSCRIPT: Another Gateway Pundit commenter suggests that all Muslims speak Arabic since they’re taught to read the Koran. I’m no expert, but this seems very doubtful to me. First of all, I think it’s much more common to memorize the Koran than to learn to read it (literacy in Afghanistan is only 51% even among males). But even among those who do learn Arabic for the Koran, I’d be surprised if it gave them a working ability to communicate in modern Arabic on topics of interest to our troops, in such numbers that it would be worth sending translators.

FoldIt, the protein-folding game by new CMU professor Adrien Treuille and colleagues of his at UW, gets linked by Instapundit. A longer story on FoldIt is at Science Daily.

The crack reporting staff of CNN has reeled in a major scoop: Superdelegates could determine race between Clinton, Obama.

When faced with a conflict between Muslims and the disabled, what’s a poor liberal to do?

A St. Cloud State University student in a teacher-training program at Technical High School left the school in late April because he says he feared for the safety of his service dog. . .

Hurd said a student threatened to kill his service dog named Emmitt. The black lab is trained to protect Hurd when he has seizures. The seizures, which can occur weekly, are from a childhood injury. The dog has a pouch on his side that assists those who stop to help Hurd. . .

The threat came from a Somali student who is Muslim, according to Hurd, St. Cloud State and school district officials. The Muslim faith, which is the dominant faith of Somali immigrants, forbids the touching of dogs.

Hurd trained at Talahi Community School and Tech. He said his experience at Talahi was good. The Somali students there warmed to the dog and eventually petted him using paper to keep their hands off his fur, Hurd said. Things didn’t go as well at Tech, Hurd said. Students there taunted his dog, and he finally felt he had to leave after he was told a student made a threat. . .

Steffens said it is important to respect different cultures and the rights of disabled students. “I think this is part of the growth process when we become more diverse,” Steffens said.

(Via the Corner.)

What do we do when those “different cultures” and the rights of the disabled are in direct conflict? I’ll give you a hint: they didn’t expel the student who made the threat. (The school district decided that the incident was a “misunderstanding.”) Instead, they waived Hurd’s remaining 10 hours of training.

(Previous post.)

Rich Lowry explains the rules of this election:

Here are the Obama rules in detail: He can’t be called a “liberal” (“the same names and labels they pin on everyone,” as Obama puts it); his toughness on the war on terror can’t be questioned (“attempts to play on our fears”); his extreme positions on social issues can’t be exposed (“the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives” and “turn us against each other”); and his Chicago background too is off-limits (“pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy”). Besides that, it should be a freewheeling and spirited campaign.

Glenn Reynolds quips, “They kind of remind me of Calvinball. Perhaps the election will end ‘Q to 12.’” You know, I think I’ve seen that result in a few Zogby polls. . .

Seriously though, Reynolds is on to something. It does seem like playing a game with a preschooler. Invariably, the preschooler will layer on additional rules (”you can’t move your feet” or “you can only use one hand”) until he can’t lose. The preschooler often gets away with it, too.

At long last, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is due today to be called to account for his part in the falsified House floor vote of August 2, 2007. (Via Instapundit.) The Washington Post thinks this is no big deal:

The events of that day have been long forgotten by all but the most partisan of Republicans or the wonkiest of C-SPAN watchers.

Right, because no one else cares about the integrity of floor votes in the US House of Representatives.

(Previous post.)

Jake Tapper has an amusing post about Obama’s propensity to disavow his staff.  (Via the Corner.)

The New York Times has a strange op-ed by Edward Luttwak musing on the geopolitical implications of Barack Obama as a Muslim apostate:

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian. . . His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive). With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress.

Luttwak goes on to muse that Obama’s status as an apostate would complicate American foreign policy, were he to be elected President, in part due to security considerations.

I don’t buy it. Any US President would be marked for death by the Islamic fundamentalists; there’s no difference there for Obama. The factor that will govern the success or failure of our foreign policy is whether or not we are viewed as strong and credible. That question (not his childhood biography) is what would complicate our foreign policy under an Obama administration.

ASIDE: Charles Johnson (via whom I found this piece) thinks he’s caught the Obama campaign in a lie here:

The Obama campaign, by the way, blatantly lied about Obama’s Muslim origins in a statement on January 23, 2007: . . .

To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago.

I think Johnson is being unfair. Muslim law may say that Obama was born a Muslim, but we don’t operate under Muslim law. (Indeed, this point is very important to Johnson!) In America, we choose our own faith. Absent any evidence that Obama was a practicing Muslim, I think it’s entirely fair for Obama to judge whether he ever accepted Islam’s precepts.

Fox News reports on an terrific new water purification tool:

On the outside, it looks like an ordinary sports bottle. On the inside, there’s a miracle: an extremely advanced filtration system that makes murky water filled with deadly viruses and bacteria completely clean in just seconds.

The Lifesaver removes 99.999 percent of water-borne pathogens and reduces heavy metals like lead, meaning even the filthiest water can be cleaned — immediately.

It will be a boon to soldiers in the field, so it’s winning accolades from the military.

It also stands to revolutionize humanitarian aid. It could be the first weapon in the fight against disease after a natural disaster, like the one in Myanmar this week. . .

Outdoor enthusiasts may find it useful, but the Lifesaver is perfect for the military. The bottle is designed to “scoop and go,” so soldiers won’t have to carry the added weight of clean bottled water. They can pick some up out of any source and keep moving.

As an added bonus, the bottle can shoot a pressurized jet of water from any angle, which will be useful for washing wounds free of contaminants and debris.

There’s video at the link.

Over a week after the cyclone, the Burmese junta has finally allowed the US to begin delivering relief.  The junta is still blocking most foreign experts, the AP reports.

Michael Totten has a Commentary piece on the state of affairs in Lebanon.  It’s not good, but not hopeless yet.  (Via Instapundit.)

Ed Morrissey predicted that the crackdown in Sadr City would give us a repeat of the “Basra narrative“; that is, report defeat until victory can no longer be denied. Right on cue, Time gives us our first report of defeat in Sadr City. A month ago, Time won the prize for obtuseness, continuing to report defeat in Basra long after everyone else had noticed that the Iraqi army had won. Their latest article is eerily similar to their reporting in Basra, enough so that for a moment I thought I was looking at an old article.

Anyway, Time reports that Sadr has won again by declaring a cease-fire he does not intend to honor:

Al-Sadr aide Sheik Salah al-Obeidi said the agreement, “stipulates that the Mahdi Army will stop fighting in Sadr City and will stop displaying arms in public. In return, the government will stop random raids against al-Sadr followers and open all closed roads that lead to Sadr City.” . . . [He] added: “This document does not call for disbanding al-Mahdi Army or laying down their arms.”

The fact that a leading figure in al-Sadr’s ranks announced the deal and pointedly rejected the Iraqi government’s key demand to disarm suggests that the cleric is still controlling the agenda tactically and politically despite the most serious challenge his power the Iraqi government could muster.

Meanwhile, Bill Roggio reports on the progress of the war by tracking the activities of the combatants, rather than by interpreting the hidden meanings of public statements.  (Via Instapundit.)  He notes that operations against Mahdi Army holdouts are continuing, as is the construction of a barrier around Sadr City:

US and Iraqi forces continue to strike at the Mahdi Army in Baghdad despite the agreement reached between the Iraqi government and the Mahdi Army late Friday. Seventeen Mahdi Army fighters were killed in northeastern Baghdad over the past 24 hours. . .

The cease-fire signed yesterday between the Sadrist movement, which runs the Mahdi Army, and the government of Iraq will not hinder the building of the concrete barrier or operations against the Mahdi Army, US military officials have stated.

“Seeing as how the Special Groups never listened to [Sadr] to begin with, I don’t see how things will change,” Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover, the chief Public Affairs Officer for Multinational Division Baghdad, told The Long War Journal on May 10. “We’re not stopping [construction on the barrier],” Stover said. “The barrier emplacement is ongoing and about 80 percent complete.”

Brigadier General James Milano, the Deputy Commanding General for Multinational Division Baghdad, confirmed the barrier is 80 percent complete and gave no indication the construction would be halted.

It sounds like our approach to the cease-fire is exactly what it should be: “you first.”  At the same time, the backbone of the Mahdi Army isn’t listening to Sadr.  On planet Time, this is a victory for Sadr.

Stanley Kurtz has a devastating piece on Jeremiah Wright’s magazine, Trumpet. (Via LGF.) Here’s the open:

To the question of the moment–What did Barack Obama know and when did he know it?–I answer, Obama knew everything, and he’s known it for ages. Far from succumbing to surprise and shock after Jeremiah Wright’s disastrous performance at the National Press Club, Barack Obama must have long been aware of his pastor’s political radicalism. A careful reading of nearly a year’s worth of Trumpet Newsmagazine, Wright’s glossy national “lifestyle magazine for the socially conscious,” makes it next to impossible to conclude otherwise.

Wright founded Trumpet Newsmagazine in 1982 as a “church newspaper”–primarily for his own congregation, one gathers–to “preach a message of social justice to those who might not hear it in worship service.” So Obama’s presence at sermons is not the only measure of his knowledge of Wright’s views. Glance through even a single issue of Trumpet, and Wright’s radical politics are everywhere–in the pictures, the headlines, the highlighted quotations, and above all in the articles themselves. It seems inconceivable that, in 20 years, Obama would never have picked up a copy of Trumpet. In fact, Obama himself graced the cover at least once (although efforts to obtain that issue from the publisher or Obama’s interview with the magazine from his campaign were unsuccessful).

The New York Times reports that Obama has reversed his position on meeting with Iran without conditions. In typical form, however, the Obama campaign will not admit that his position has changed:

Susan E. Rice . . . a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic candidate, said that “for political purposes, Senator Obama’s opponents on the right have distorted and reframed” his views. Mr. McCain and his surrogates have repeatedly stated that Mr. Obama would be willing to meet “unconditionally” with Mr. Ahmadinejad.

But Dr. Rice said that this was not the case for Iran or any other so-called “rogue” state. Mr. Obama believes “that engagement at the presidential level, at the appropriate time and with the appropriate preparation, can be used to leverage the change we need,” Dr. Rice said. “But nobody said he would initiate contacts at the presidential level; that requires due preparation and advance work.”

(Emphasis mine.) Rice’s statement is completely clear: Obama never said it and McCain is lying. Charles Johnson ran down the facts, which turned out to be really easy. Obama made the statement unambiguously in a public debate (video at LGF):

QUESTION: In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since.

In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?

COOPER: I should also point out that Stephen is in the crowd tonight.

Senator Obama?

OBAMA: I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous.

(APPLAUSE)

(Emphasis mine.)  Unless Rice is trying to draw a distinction between “unconditionally” and “without precondition,” she’s the one being dishonest.  (ASIDE: It’s ridiculous to suggest that the idea that the above is a principle of the administration at all, much less its “guiding principle.”)

There’s also Obama’s own web site: “Diplomacy: Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.”

The only question now is whether Rice gets disavowed.  I hope not; this flip-flop is actually good from a policy standpoint.

The long-awaited battle for Mosul has begun:

In the northern city of Mosul, an Iraqi army commander announced the start of a long anticipated offensive against Al Qaeda in Iraq’s last urban stronghold. . . Maj. Gen. Riyadh Jalal Tawfiq, the commander of military operations in the northern city of Mosul, issued a statement on Saturday announcing Operation Lion’s Roar and Righteousness Battle against Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Mosul was considered the last important urban staging ground for Al Qaeda in Iraqi and allied groups after losing strongholds in Baghdad and other areas during the U.S. troop “surge” last year.

Provincial forces are “undertaking a new phase of operations in Mosul to counter the terrorist threat there,” said Maj. John C. Hall, a military spokesman in Baghdad. “These operations build on operations that have been under way for the past several weeks, targeting Al Qaeda in Iraq cells.” . . .

In January, Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki promised his military was preparing for a “decisive” showdown with insurgents in Mosul, about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. But no major offensives were mounted, even as Al Qaeda in Iraq tried to exert its influence in Iraq’s third-largest city through attacks and intimidation until now.

New York City’s lawsuit against a Georgia gun shop has become even more bizarre.  Mayor Bloomberg is asking the judge to issue a gag order barring any references to the Second Amendment.  (Via Instapundit.)

I just listened to public radio’s This American Life do their special program on the housing crisis. The bread and butter for This American Life is the varied angsts of people who aren’t fortunate enough to live on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, so this was an unusual foray into something resembling hard news. I suppose it was to be expected that it would be filled with risible economic misinformation.

At the end, the program made its obligatory comparison to the great economic crises of the 20th century, the Great Depression and the “malaise” of the Carter administration. Comparisons to the Depression are obligatory in any election year with a Republican incumbent and a slow economy, so it’s a telling sign of economic improvement if This American Life admits that comparison doesn’t work. Instead, they compare to the 1970s: “unemployment keeps going up, and things are really bad, unless you’re comparing to the Depression.” (Quote from memory, not verbatim.)

Well, let’s look at a few numbers, comparing today with January 1, 1981. Today’s unemployment rate is 5.0% (actually down, not up, from last month). That’s higher than the recent low of 3.8%, but much lower than 1981’s 7.5%. Today’s prime rate — the best interest rate available in the private sector — is 5%. In 1981 it was a whopping 20.5%. (That was the highest it’s been since 1948, this first year my source reports the data.) Today’s inflation rate is 3.98%. In 1981 it was 11.83%. (That was actually down a bit from its mid-1980 peak of 14.76%, a height unmatched since 1947.) If we do a back-of-the-envelope calculation to adjust for inflation, that means that the real prime rate today is about 1%, compared to about 9% in 1981. (Note: this calculation is probably not exactly right, due to differences in the way the data sets are reported, but it gives a sense of the orders of magnitude.)

In addition to the numbers, there was the untold suffering caused by Nixon’s unrepealed price controls and Carter’s “voluntary” price controls, most famously the gas lines. Gasoline may be expensive today, but you can buy it nearly anywhere without waiting. (You can thank Ronald Reagan for that.) Today’s economy looks nothing like Carter’s, thank heavens.

Exhibit A:

I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.

Exhibit B:

One of Barack Obama’s Middle East policy advisers disclosed yesterday that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas – prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him.

(Via the Corner.)

POSTSCRIPT: As many have pointed out, Obama is confused about WW2. Roosevelt and Truman did not meet with our enemies. With a policy of unconditional surrender, there wasn’t much to talk about.

Matthew Yglesias complains about Victor Davis Hanson referring to Obama’s “socialist view of government.”  (Strangely, though, he chooses to direct his attack at Glenn Reynolds.)  Yglesias’s point is that Obama doesn’t advocate governmental ownership of the means of production, so it’s not fair to call him a socialist.

I can appreciate his point, in light of the regrettable tendency of our political culture to rob words of their meaning (e.g., liberal).  Nevertheless, I think that Obama — and today’s left in general — does advocate a socialist view of government.  Oh sure, he’s willing to let people continue to hold the title to their land, capital, and labor (after all, how else can we tax them for it?), but the government will tell them how to use it.  The government doesn’t need to own the means of production, as long as they can control it.

Moreover, let’s not forget how much of the means of production (and distribution) the government does already own.  Most of the highways, airports and mass transit, all of the airwaves, most of the schools, most sanitation services, the Postal Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, and an enormous amount of land.  I think it’s safe to say that Obama would privatize very little of that.

Obama not a socialist?  Technically, perhaps, but it’s a distinction without much of a difference.

McClatchy reports:

Followers of rebel cleric Muqtada al Sadr agreed late Friday to allow Iraqi security forces to enter all of Baghdad’s Sadr City and to arrest anyone found with heavy weapons in a surprising capitulation that seemed likely to be hailed as a major victory for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki.

In return, Sadr’s Mahdi Army supporters won the Iraqi government’s agreement not to arrest Mahdi Army members without warrants, unless they were in possession of “medium and heavy weaponry.”

The agreement would end six weeks of fighting in the vast Shiite Muslim area that’s home to more than 2 million residents and would mark the first time that the area would be under government control since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. . . It also would be a startling turnaround in fortunes for Maliki, who’d been widely criticized for picking a fight with Sadr’s forces, first in the southern port city of Basra and then in Sadr City.

(Via Instapundit.)

It looks like this may be over before the media can employ their defeat narrative.

The Washington Post reports that the US Commission of Fine Arts is unhappy with changes that have been made to the design of a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. intended for the national mall. (Via the Corner.) I’m not conversant with the artistic jargon in their complaint, but looking at the picture, I can understand this complaint:

Its general design was approved by the seven-member federal commission [in 2006], based on drawings of the Stone of Hope that showed a more subtle image of King, from the waist up, as if he were emerging organically out of the rock, the commission said. . . Commission members said the sculpture “now features a stiffly frontal image, static in pose, confrontational in character,” Luebke wrote.

However, what truly resonates with me is an older complaint also mentioned in the article.  This statue of the premiere civil-rights leader of 20th-century America is being fashioned in . . . China.  Not only that, but the sculptor’s most famous previous work is a monument to Mao Zedong, the infamous Chinese dictator who murdered tens of millions.

In the few months since they were discovered, induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have started to dominate the stem-cell research scene.  Not only are they free of ethical concerns, but they are cheaper and easier to use.  Yuval Levin explains.

It will be very interesting to watch the development of the political debate in light of these advances.

Ellen at Armchair Commentary discusses her five favorite teachers in the movies. (Via Instapundit.) I agree with her winner, Mark Thackeray (Sidney Poitier) in To Sir, with Love. My second favorite, which she ranks third, is Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos) in Stand and Deliver. Stand and Deliver is particularly compelling, because it is based on a true story. (90% truth and 10% drama, Escalante says.) What I didn’t know, until I read the comments, was the sad postlude to the story.

The events of Stand and Deliver took place in 1982. In 1987, the year before the movie came out, Escalante’s math enrichment program reached its peak.  After that year, the program started to face difficulties, at the hands of the teachers’ union, jealous colleagues, and a new principal.  (The old principal, Henry Gradillas, had spearheaded efforts to improve academic standards at Garfield High School.  In 1987 he took a sabbatical to finish his doctorate, hoping afterward to return to Garfield.  Instead he was picked to supervise asbestos removal.)  Escalante left Garfield in 1991, and his handpicked successor, Angelo Villavicencio, left the following year.

Within a few years, the percentage of students passing the AP exam dropped into single digits.  In absolute terms, 11 students passed the exam in 1996, down from a peak of 85 in 1987.  That year, Villavicencio offered to return to Garfield to rebuild its once-proud program.  His offer was declined.

In the end, Stand and Deliver isn’t just the story of how inner-city education can succeed; it’s also the story of why it so often doesn’t.

Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the latest head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, has been captured in Mosul. (Via Instapundit.)

UPDATE: US officials aren’t so sure.

Via the Corner:

We have all become familiar with Senator Obama’s new brand of politics. First, you demand civility from your opponent, then you attack him, distort his record and send out surrogates to question his integrity. It is called hypocrisy, and it is the oldest kind of politics there is.

It is important to focus on what Senator Obama is attempting to do here: He is trying desperately to delegitimize the discussion of issues that raise legitimate questions about his judgment and preparedness to be President of the United States.

Through their actions and words, Senator Obama and his supporters have made clear that ANY criticism on ANY issue — from his desire to raise taxes on millions of small investors to his radical plans to sit down face-to-face with Iranian President Ahmadinejad – constitute negative, personal attacks.

Senator Obama is hopeful that the media will continue to form a protective barrier around him, declaring serious limits to the questions, discussion and debate in this race.

Truer words were never spoken.

This short time-travel story by Desmond Warzel is very clever.  (Via the Corner.)

Both Clinton and Obama have endorsed the “80 by 50″ target for greenhouse gas reductions: an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050. Stephen Hayward ran the numbers to see what that would mean.

An 80% reduction in these emissions from 1990 levels means that the U.S. cannot emit more than about one billion metric tons of CO2 in 2050.

Were man-made carbon dioxide emissions in this country ever that low? The answer is probably yes – from historical energy data it is possible to estimate that the U.S. last emitted one billion metric tons around 1910. But in 1910, the U.S. had 92 million people, and per capita income, in current dollars, was about $6,000.

By the year 2050, the Census Bureau projects that our population will be around 420 million. This means per capita emissions will have to fall to about 2.5 tons in order to meet the goal of 80% reduction.

2.5 tons. Now we can compare that against what is possible:

It is likely that U.S. per capita emissions were never that low – even back in colonial days when the only fuel we burned was wood. The only nations in the world today that emit at this low level are all poor developing nations, such as Belize, Mauritius, Jordan, Haiti and Somalia.

If that comparison seems unfair, consider that even the least-CO2 emitting industrialized nations do not come close to the 2050 target. France and Switzerland, compact nations that generate almost all of their electricity from nonfossil fuel sources (nuclear for France, hydro for Switzerland) emit about 6.5 metric tons of CO2 per capita.

Now there is a new study out of MIT that computes the absolute minimum level of emissions that an American can achieve:

But the “floor” below which nobody in the U.S. can reach, no matter a person’s energy choices, turned out to be 8.5 tons, the class found. That was the emissions calculated for a homeless person who ate in soup kitchens and slept in homeless shelters.

This offers some much-needed perspective.  Barring an unforeseen technological breakthrough, the 80 by 50 goal advocated by Clinton and Obama is literally impossible without returning the entire nation to abject poverty.

Oh, and McCain?  He is only slightly less the demagogue, advocating 65 by 50.  That works out to 4.375 per person, which is still impossible.  President Bush’s proposal, to freeze emissions at the current level, may be unpopular with greens, but it has the singular virtue of being possible.

(Via the Corner.)

Ed Morrissey notes an AP article that reports that the Iraqi army is preparing for an offensive in Sadr City:

Iraqi soldiers for the first time warned residents in the embattled Sadr City district to leave their houses Thursday, signaling a new push by the U.S.-backed forces against Shiite extremist who have been waging street battles for seven weeks. Iraqi soldiers, using loudspeakers, told residents in some virtually abandoned areas of southeastern Sadr City to go to nearby soccer stadiums, residents said.

This would make a lot of sense, as finishing the cleanup of Sadr City is the obvious next step in Maliki’s crackdown on the militias.  However, the AP article has since been changed to withdraw that reporting:

Some residents of Sadr City claimed Thursday that Iraqi soldiers warned them to leave their houses and go to nearby soccer stadiums for security reasons. The U.S. military denied the claim and called it as a “rumor.”

So what’s happening?  We’ll have to wait and see.

UPDATE: Based on an NPR report (no link, sorry), this is for real. It sounds like the rumor part was the stadium refuge.

Hot Air has the story.

According to Al-Arabiya television, Iraqi police have identified “Abu Omar al-Baghdadi”, the fictional leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, as one Hamid Dawoud al-Zawi, originally from Haditha.

The FBI has issued a warning over bogus WiFi networks:

How do hackers grab your personal data out of thin air? Agent Peterson said one of the most common types of attack is this: a bogus but legitimate-looking Wi-Fi network with a strong signal is strategically set up in a known hot spot…and the hacker waits for nearby laptops to connect to it. At that point, your computer—and all your sensitive information, including user ID, passwords, credit card numbers, etc.—basically belongs to the hacker. The intruder can mine your computer for valuable data, direct you to phony webpages that look like ones you frequent, and record your every keystroke.

“Another thing to remember,” said Agent Peterson, “is that the connection between your laptop and the attacker’s laptop runs both ways: while he’s taking info from you, you may be unknowingly downloading viruses, worms, and other malware from him.”

(Via Hot Air.)

It’s worth warning people about the dangers of bogus networks, particularly if this is form of attack is really going on a lot, but Agent Peterson seems confused about the nature of the threat.  This is simply a form of the classic man-in-the-middle attack, which computer scientists have been aware of for a long time.  The attack arises whenever the adversary can compromise a node along your communication path, such as a wireless router.  So it has nothing to do with WiFi, per se.  Also, the business about your computer “basically belonging to the hacker” is complete nonsense.  A man-in-the-middle attack can only compromise the information you send over the network — not everything on your computer.

In principle, the man-in-the-middle attack is a solved problem.  Rather than warning people to beware of public WiFi, the FBI should be cautioning people to take appropriate precautions in all their network activity.  Those precautions are necessary everywhere, not just on WiFi.

Score another one for the blogosphere: Tennessee bloggers catch the state collecting a tax that doesn’t exist in law.  The Tennessee Revenue Department is now pushing a “technical correction” bill that would retroactively authorize their theft.  (Via Instapundit.)

A Brazilian judge has ordered Brazilian ISPs to block access to a blog hosted at WordPress.com. Since all WordPress blogs share the same IP, the order amounts to a total ban on WordPress blogs (including Internet Scofflaw). Unfortunately, Brazil is establishing a record of such draconian censorship actions; two years ago Brazil banned YouTube for days.

To their credit, WordPress has refused to censor the blog themselves. This makes them better than Google (which owns Blogger).

The New York Times (!) runs a very positive piece on progress in Iraq, written by an employee of its Baghdad bureau. Here’s its conclusion:

This meant that all the things I heard about the improvements are true. Even the people are more friendly and I can say that there is now a kind of mutual trust between the people and the soldiers, not like before when there was no trust between each other. . .

Will it stay safe or not?

I guess that all depends on the American troops, since we will not have qualified Iraqi forces soon. Although most Iraqi forces are sincere you find some have been infiltrated by groups of gunmen and sectarian people who made the mess all around us.

So we still need the Americans because if they intend to leave, there will be something like a hurricane which will extract everything - people, buildings and even trees. Everything that has happened and all that safety will be past, just like a sweet dream.

As people say in my neighborhood: “The Americans are now Ansar al Sunna.” Protectors of the Sunni.

(Via Instapundit.)

The AP story on McCain’s speech this morning:

John McCain castigates Obama for vote against judge
May 6 04:50 AM US/Eastern
By LIBBY QUAID
Associated Press Writer

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) - Republican John McCain castigated Democrat Barack Obama for voting against John Roberts as Supreme Court chief justice in a speech about the kind of judges McCain would nominate.

McCain offered an olive branch to the Christian right in a speech planned for Tuesday at Wake Forest University. The far right has been deeply suspicious of McCain, the expected GOP presidential nominee, because he has clashed with its leaders and worked against them on issues like campaign finance reform.

McCain promised to appoint judges who, in the mold of Roberts and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, are likely to limit the reach of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

“They would serve as the model for my own nominees if that responsibility falls to me,” McCain said in his prepared speech.

Obama likes to talk up his image as someone who works with Republicans to get things done, McCain said. Yet Obama “went right along with the partisan crowd, and was among the 22 senators to vote against this highly qualified nominee,” McCain said.

Mary Katharine Ham, who attended McCain’s speech, found this article rather remarkable, because four hours later she was still waiting for the speech actually to take place. (Via Instapundit.) The entire article is a fraud: a past-tense account of what the author thought was likely to take place, based on the prepared text.

Gateway Pundit reminds us what all was in those files.  (Via Instapundit.)

Urg. You know, when you watch what’s happening in Britain, putting our Constitution on paper looks like a better idea all the time.

(Via LGF.)

(Via the Foundry, via the Corner.)

On the heels of a lot of good (or not-so-bad) economic news, even Paul Krugman notes that the markets are recovering:

Cross your fingers, knock on wood: it’s possible, though by no means certain, that the worst of the financial crisis is over. That’s the good news.

Krugman is said to have predicted fifteen of the last two recessions (or something like that), so it has to be a good sign if even he sees things getting better.  Of course, in Krugman’s bizarro world, good news is bad news:

The bad news is that as markets stabilize, chances for fundamental financial reform may be slipping away. As a result, the next crisis will probably be worse than this one.

You see, when the markets were tanking, the progressives had a good shot at extending more governmental control over financial markets.  Now he fears that’s no longer in the cards.  That means that all that excess freedom is likely to stay out there:

Wall Street did an end run around regulation, using complex financial arrangements to put most of the business of banking outside the regulators’ reach. Washington could have revised the rules to cover this new “shadow banking system” — but that would have run counter to the market-worshiping ideology of the times.

When they can, humans always do “end runs” around government curtailment of their freedom.  Actually, I think Krugman understands this, but sees it as an arms race, one in which his side is falling behind.

(Via the Corner.)

Michael Yon reports on the next stage of the war in Iraq. These concluding paragraphs summarize what’s happening:

The militias, unlike Al Qaeda, are not insane; we can negotiate with them. But we and the Iraqi government can only capitalize on the shifting sentiments of the Shia neighborhoods if we first demonstrate that we and the government - not the gangs - control the streets.

That means, for the next few months, expect more blood, casualties and grim images of war. This may lead to a shift in the political debate inside the United States and more calls for rapid withdrawal. But on the ground in Iraq, it’s a sign of progress.

(Via Instapundit.)

Public Editor Clark Hoyt admits that it might have been useful to report the news:

While The Times was aggressive with its coverage on the Web, it was slow to fully engage the Wright story in print and angered some readers by putting opinion about it on the front page — a review by the television critic of his appearances on PBS, at an N.A.A.C.P. convention and at the National Press Club — before ever reporting in any depth what he actually said. . .

Carol Hebb of Narberth, Pa., spoke for many when she wrote that she found the newspaper’s initial coverage “very strange.” If editors did not think Wright’s remarks were newsworthy enough to be on the front page, she asked, why did they put the review by Alessandra Stanley there? “I was very surprised that her piece was not accompanied by a ‘factual’ article reporting the content of Mr. Wright’s comments more completely and perhaps adding some meaningful context.” . . .

Peter Weltner of San Francisco wrote that he wished The Times had examined what he said were falsehoods