No darkhorse in Mississippi

Gov. Haley Barbour has announced that he will NOT run for President in 2008. Instead he plans on running for reelection to the governorship in 2007.

I think this is a smart move on his part. He'd be a longshot at best this go around in a Presidential bid. Eight years as governor would give him the opportunity to shore up a legacy in Mississippi (assuming Katrina reconstruction is successful) and place him in an even more pristine position to run for President in 2012 (assuming there's not a GOP incumbent President).

Les caricatures

A French publication reprinted the 12 Danish cartoons that have sparked worldwide protest in the Muslim World. It will be interesting to see if France's large number of Muslims use this as another excuse to mire the country in social chaos or decide that a letter to the editor would be more appropriate. I'm not getting my hopes up. Jacques Chirac was quick to condemn the fact that the cartoons were reprinted, but I can't help but wonder if him addressing the issue just raises its profile all the more within his own country.

By the way, have I mentioned that these same 12 cartoons were first published in September?

Surprise Surprise

As if the election of Hamas in the Palestinian territories wasn't enough reason to quit sending them aid, this article should be the final nail in the coffin.

At least $700 million in funds from the Palestinian Authority's coffers have been squandered or stolen by officials over the past few years, an internal investigation revealed yesterday.

Happy blogging

According to one study, blogging actually is theraputic for people. Here's the gist:

A study of the phenomenon of blogs - or online diaries - found people writing them feel happier and more organised.

"Feeling that you have a forum for expressing yourself can make a huge difference to your psychological well-being," said psychologist Honey Langcaster-James, a Big Brother analyst.

I don't know about blogging per se, but reading that article certainly made me happy.

Indian fire

Here's a link to a rather long bibliographical essay written by a Forest Service historian. The excerpt below sets forth a thesis that I've never considered before:

[T]he modification of the American continent by fire at the hands of Asian immigrants [now called American Indians, Native Americans, or First Nations/People] was the result of repeated, controlled, surface burns on a cycle of one to three years, broken by occasional holocausts from escape fires and periodic conflagrations during times of drought. Even under ideal circumstances, accidents occurred: signal fires escaped and campfires spread, with the result that valuable range was untimely scorched, buffalo driven away, and villages threatened. Burned corpses on the prairie were far from rare. So extensive were the cumulative effects of these modifications that it may be said that the general consequence of the Indian occupation of the New World was to replace forested land with grassland or savannah, or, where the forest persisted, to open it up and free it from underbrush. Most of the impenetrable woods encountered by explorers were in bogs or swamps from which fire was excluded; naturally drained landscape was nearly everywhere burned. Conversely, almost wherever the European went, forests followed. The Great American Forest may be more a product of settlement than a victim of it.

New-found paradise

Absolutely amazing. There's no telling what else is out there waiting to be discovered...

Check out MSNBC's gallery of photos (to the right of the article).

Better than a cut

The White House has proposed a 1% increase in NASA's budget for 2007. Here's the basic breakdown:

Within the NASA request, roughly $6.2 billion would go to the international space station and space shuttle programs, about $3.9 billion would go toward the development of new human and unmanned spacecraft needed to replace the shuttle and send astronauts to the Moon, about $5.3 billion would go to space and Earth science missions, and about $720 million would go to aeronautics research.

Religion of Tolerance

Courtesy of Filibuster Cartoons.

Party of Tolerance

For some liberals, the idea of impeaching President Bush isn't enough:

Method to the madness

Michael Novak gives his take on why the Democrats do what they do. I'd recommend reading the whole thing.

Conventional wisdom seems to say that the Left has gone around the bend, is jumping off cliffs, is stark raving mad.

But there is a method in the madness of the Left. There has always been a method in it. The Left is not engaged in an “argument,” it is engaged in a revolution in the name of all that is just and right and good. Therefore, it does not aim to out-argue its opponents, but to shame them, to drive them from the field in ignominy, to make them figures of ridicule, moral indignation, and revulsion.

Go back and read your Lenin. Revisit the show trials. The point is that no one dares defend such bad people. (This tactic works. Think twice before defending Bush on a college campus. How much indignation can you bear?)

Better yet, watch Ted Kennedy in action. His attacks on Judge Alito, like his earlier attacks on Judge Bork, were not intended as arguments, and certainly showed little regard for fact. They were all bluster, moral indignation, character assassination, ridicule, ostracism. If words could kill, his were the words of an assassin.

Religion of Peace

The Danish embassy in Syria has been reduced to ash and Muslims the world over are livid after the publication of a Danish cartoon of Mohammed. I understand that a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed is blasphemous in Islamic theology. As a Christian, I would find a cartoon that mocked Christ offensive and blasphemous. But the difference is that when Christ is depicted in a cartoon or Jews are drawn in a degrading way (as they often are in the Islamic world), Christians and Jews don't respond like this:

By the way, Michelle Malkin has a list of Danish products you can buy in support the Danes.

8, 9, or 10?

The diameter of the "10th planet" has been confirmed at 1,864 miles, making it significantly larger than Pluto, which boasts a diameter of roughly 1,400 miles. One article on this subject notes that "Zena" is the largest body discovered in the solar system since the discovery of Neptune in 1846. Let the debate rage on...