Following on to Claudia’s piece about the importance of scientific R&D, this article, while admittedly monkey business, illustrates the point: Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and…
Month: May 2008
Unpleasant Energy Truths
Tom Friedman has something to say about energy, hard truths that most people don’t want to hear. As he notes, these are the things that our presidential candidates ought to be telling us but have not. Will anyone step forward? The price of gasoline is never going back down. Therefore, if you buy a big…
The Female Face of Jihad
The NY Times has a fascinating – and frightening – story up about one Malika El Aroud, a 48-year-old Moroccan now living in Belgium where she spending her time authoring incendiary pro-jihad writings on the Internet. Seems there’s a place for women in Islam after all. Read it all and be afraid. Writing in French…
Jerry Brown Never had a Chance
Former President Clinton recently said that he’s never seen anything like the Obama/DNC full-court press to get Democratic super delegates to commit to Mr. Obama. But The Jed Report has a interesting post about the 1992 Bill Clinton vs. Jerry Brown Democratic primary race that belies that assertion. To an extent, the same thing was…
Americans Driving Less
CNN says that with gas prices inching perilously close to $4 per gallon, Americans are driving less. Compared with March a year earlier, Americans drove an estimated 4.3 percent less — that’s 11 billion fewer miles, the DOT’s Federal Highway Administration said Monday, calling it "the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history."…
Immigration Raids
Geraldo Rivera, he of the Al Capone vault television mega-flop, has an over-the-top article up at the Huffington Post in which he condemns the recent raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that resulted in the arrests of hundreds of illegal immigrants. The Wall Street Journal called the raids "immigration theater" and I’m inclined to…
Relative Safety
At Power Line, John Hinderaker says that, contrary to Barack Obama’s repeated statements that the free world is less safe because of the Bush administration’s national security policies, the evidence indicates otherwise. Likewise, Fareed Zakaria writes at Newsweek that terrorist attacks are down by nearly two-thirds in the last 4 years. Are we in fact…
Bill Clinton’s Conspiracy
Bill Clinton says that there’s a conspiracy against his wife Hillary’s attempt to secure the Democratic party’s nomination. Strange as it may seem, he”s right about that. President Clinton: "I can’t believe it. It is just frantic the way they are trying to push and pressure and bully all these superdelegates to come out," Clinton…
Violence Down in Iraq, Again
The LA Times says that violence is down to a 4-year low in Iraq, which is obviously good news. Nevertheless, approximately 300 violent incidents were recorded last week. Obviously there’s still more work to be done there, which is why it’s important that the people who can make sure it happens – American troops –…
The End of Hate in Our Time
In the words of Canada’s Human Rights Commission’s senior counsel Ian Fine, the commission is necessary because "there can’t be enough laws against hate." This during a panel on human right’s commissions in which Fine was caught twice in lies – or glaring ignorance – about the commission’s activities. Actually, a single law against hate…