Cafe Hayek: Dyson on climate

re: Russell Roberts: "Freeman Dyson joins the ranks of those who are skeptical about the global warming "crisis"..."...

Cafe Hayek: Eat Global

re: Russell Roberts: "A lot of environmentalists want people to eat local to reduce transportation costs. But James McWilliams in this New York Times piece, points out that transportation isn't the only cost..."...

No Left Turns: The Old Urbanism of Crunchy Europe

re: Peter Lawler: "Dr. Pat explains, using what he saw with his own eyes, why they’re in some ways more conservative and more libertarian than we are."...

No Left Turns: Electoral College Reform

re: "Our friend Matt Franck examines, much more intelligently than his foil, the NYT (I don’t thereby mean to damn him with faint praise), the potential (and unintended) consequences of a proposal to allocate state electoral college votes by something other than a winner-take-all system. /In so doing, he reminds us that most efforts to monkey with our political processes are short-sighted..."...

Betsy's Page: Government interference in the job market

re: "John Fund has an article about one of the ways that government interferes in the job market - by requiring licenses for jobs that don't have reason to require such government certification. These licenses are just a way of one group of people to keep their potential competitors out of the market..."...

Captain's Quarters: Requiem For A Betrayed Hero

re: "Richard Jewell died yesterday at 44, the victim of diabetes and kidney failure. Richard Jewell's public reputation died eleven years ago, the victim of a mistake by law enforcement and a media blitz that did its best to paint him as a psychopathic bomber with absolutely no evidence -- when all Richard Jewell had done was save lives..."...

The Corner on National Review Online: Driving Attrition

re: Mark Krikorian: "A good roundup of the current state of driver’s licenses for illegal aliens. Only seven states still do it — Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington — which they’ll need to change by 2013, when the federal REAL ID Act fully goes into effect, or their licenses will no longer be accepted for federal purposes (like boarding airplanes). Utah actually has a special license for illegal aliens, which the state government describes this way (here, bottom right corner of the second page): “Driving Privilege Cards are valid up to five years (with legal presence) and one year (without legal presence.)” Note the second part; it’s not like the other states, where they just don’t want to know whether you’re legal or not — Utah has specific rules that apply only to people violating federal immigration law..."...

Townhall.com::Excitement Deprives Children of Happiness::By Dennis Prager

re: "If you want your children to be happy adults and even happy children -- and what parent does not? -- minimize the excitement in their lives. The more excitement, the less happy they are likely to be. /In both adults and children, one can either pursue excitement or pursue happiness, but one cannot do both. If you pursue excitement, you will not attain happiness. If you pursue happiness, you will still experience some moments of excitement, but you will attain happiness only if happiness, not excitement, is your goal..."...

Carol Platt Liebau: The convert.

re: From Joshua Trevino: "I am interested in religion in public life, and so I was pleased to come across the ReligionWriter website, which is, as far as I can see, filled with decent pieces on religion and journalism. It's not the equal of the incredibly good GetReligion, but for a one-woman show, it's worth a read. It's that woman who is the truly interesting bit: Andrea Useem has an impressive portfolio of mostly freelance religion-journalism -- and she is a convert to Islam. As her biography explains it..."...

Quote of the Day - PalmTree Pundit

re: "From Lars Walker at Brandywine Books: /The world is a-buzz today with news of the publication of letters from Mother Teresa, in which she expressed feelings that God was far away from her. / This is news? / Only to people who a) have never been serious Christians (granted, there are a lot of those) or b) have never read any serious Christian writers..."...

OpinionJournal - Affirmative Action Backfires

re: "Have racial preferences reduced the number of black lawyers?..."...

Fernnook Farmgirl: The Spreading Flame

re: "Snippets from The Spreading Flame by F.F. Bruce. (Which is a history of the rise and progress ofChristianity from its beginnings through to theconversion of the English.)..."...

A political crisis brews in Greece as fires rage - International Herald Tribune

re: "...63 people now reported dead from Greece's worst fires in more than a century. /Most of the villagers died on the run. An elderly brother and sister, unmarried and living together, fled, refusing to leave behind their only donkey. A convoy trying to outrace the flames snarled into a crash, surrounded by a fire so hot it liquefied metal and bubbled windshields like grilled cheese. Those in the cars fled up a slope, where rescue workers later found at least 23 bodies in an olive grove scraped raw by flames. Among them were four children, their mother's body wrapped around them. /These are stories Europe is no longer used to hearing about itself, believing that in the developed world, problems like forest fires can be solved and, if not, that it is because someone has not done his job. And though southern Europe has been hit with drought this year, and high winds spread the flames faster than cars could drive, the government of Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis is facing a crisis over whether it was up to the task of handling the fires..."...

Judge approves Noriega's extradition from U.S to France - International Herald Tribune

re: "Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega is a step closer to facing money-laundering charges in France after a federal judge in Miami approved his extradition Tuesday, less than two weeks before the end of his U.S. prison sentence on a drug racketeering conviction. /Attorneys for the 73-year-old Noriega vowed to continue fighting for his return home to Panama, but they have now lost before two different judges. Noriega is scheduled to be released Sept. 9 from a federal prison outside Miami where he has been held since his 1992 conviction...[snip]...France wants Noriega to face charges of laundering more than $3 million (€2.2 million) in drug proceeds through French banks, with some of the money used to buy luxury apartments in Paris. Noriega faces another 10 years in prison if convicted on those charges..."...

The Youngest Brother's Tale - Books & Culture

re: Alan Jacobs contends (among other things) "...that J. K. Rowling has produced, in the vast, seven-book, thirty-five-hundred-page arc of Harry's story, the greatest penny dreadful ever written..."...

Flying Imams Finally Remove 'John Does' from Lawsuit after Becket Fund Steps up Pressure

re: "One week after being asked by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty to sign on the dotted line, the "flying imams" did just that, dismissing all claims against the unidentified passengers who reported the suspicious behavior of six imams aboard a U.S. Airways flight in November. When the attorneys for the imams included the unidentified passengers (who they listed as John Does) in the complaint, The Becket Fund demanded that the passengers be dropped from the suit and announced that it would represent for free any passengers who were identified and formally named. When the imams' attorneys pressed ahead, the Becket Fund submitted an amicus brief, asking the court to dismiss the claims, and then sent another letter with a blank notice of dismissal for the imams' attorneys to sign. Following further briefing, the imams' attorneys today relented and finally dismissed the John Does..."...

hat tip: The Alliance Alert

Townhall.com::Harry Potter and the Great Relearning::By Jerry Bowyer

re: "..."Did you know that first year Hogwarts students (and only first years) cross a lake to get to the school? And, get this, they carry lighted lanterns. What do you make of that?" / What I make of that is that Jo Rowling has a wonderful talent for tapping into Biblical and literary symbolism. From the very beginning, I've believed that Hogwarts is the literary representation of the Christian Church..."...

Townhall.com::NASA Blocked Climate Change Blogger from Data::By Amanda Carpenter

re: "Despite the fact that NASA tried to block him from accessing U.S. temperature data, persistent efforts by a climate change blogger forced the government to amend U.S. temperature data. /Because of the blogger’s efforts, NASA now recognizes 1934 as the hottest year in U.S. history, not 1998. / Steven McIntyre, a former mineral exploration executive and policy analyst for the governments of Ontario and Canada who blogs at ClimateAudit.org, wrote to NASA on August 4. He had found miscalculations in the NASA’s U.S. temperature recordings made after January 2000... [snip]...McIntyre said he began looking at the data because he questioned the reliability of NASA’s U.S. weather stations that recorded temperature data. He said, “Some of them were in places they weren’t supposed to be….one of them was in a parking lot and the trend for the station in a parking lot was way up and a nearby station that was in a proper location in a rural area was relatively flat.” /Chris Horner, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism, said McIntyre was able to catch the mistake because he “knew that our surface measuring stations are suspect.” Horner said the polling stations could be affected by things like the construction nearby asphalt parking lots, tar roofs, AC vents, chimneys, or even a grill restaurant..."...

Beijing Bans Cars to Clear Air for Games | World Latest | Guardian Unlimited

re: "BEIJING (AP) - In a dry run for next year's Olympics, Beijing kept hundreds of thousands of private cars off city streets Friday to ease the chronic gridlock and polluted skies that threaten to mar the games. /The four-day test poses a challenge for the Chinese government's relationship with a rising middle class that has fallen in love with private car ownership. Although upwardly mobile Beijing drivers mostly went along with the plan, it wasn't without grumbling...[snip]...The ban uses an odd-even license plate number system. Only vehicles with license plates ending in odd numbers were allowed on the roads Friday. /Many commuters opted to car pool, take buses, taxis or the subway or take the day off work. The city had more buses running for longer hours and subway lines kept slightly longer hours. /Subway cars were packed with commuters during the morning rush hour and traffic on the main roads flowed faster than normal. /Beijing has been adding cars at the rate of about 1,000 per day, a pace that is not expected to slacken over the next year, and much of the year the city is cloaked in brown haze. International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge warned last week that some Olympic competitions might be postponed if the city did not clean up the pollution..."...

Apartheid Official Pleads Guilty in Plot | World Latest | Guardian Unlimited

re: "PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) - A former government minister in charge of a police force that killed dozens of anti-apartheid activists pleaded guilty to attempted murder Friday in a plot to assassinate a church leader by lacing his clothes with poison. /Former Law and Order Minister Adriaan Vlok will serve no time in prison under the deal - which ended the first prosecution of a minister from the apartheid government - as long as he commits no new crimes for five years. /Vlok's former police chief, Johannes Van der Merwe, received an identical deal, in which the men will assist authorities in prosecuting other apartheid-era crimes. /Their intended victim, Frank Chikane, then secretary-general of the South African Council of Churches and now a top adviser to President Thabo Mbeki, said he has forgiven Vlok, and welcomed the deal./ ``I am pleased that this thing is over and we can move forward,'' Chikane said. ``I hope that whatever happened today can be used as a way of resolving all the outstanding issues.''
Vlok washed Chikane's feet last year as a gesture of atonement for the 1989 plot. /After the proceedings, Vlok shook hands and exchanged telephone numbers with Chikane and voiced ``sincere regret'' at the murder attempt. /``I would like to say, 'Obey the Lord and He will heal the land,'' said Vlok, 70. /
Three other former top security officials were given five-year deferred sentences that also will not go into effect if they commit no crimes for the five years..."...