But the civilized nations of Europe are packing heat (30-60 per 100). The US has 90 firearms per 100 people.

Small Arms Survey director Keith Krause says, "Firearms are very unevenly distributed around the world. The image we have of certain regions such as Africa or Latin America being awash with weapons -- these images are certainly misleading."

Could it be the 1-3 guns per 100 people in those poorer, more violent countries corresponds to the percentage of people in those nations who will use firearms without moral compunction? What would happen if the percentage of firearms were large enough that large numbers of decent, law-abiding people owned a weapon?

Source: Reuters

He was a good man. I only wish he had been armed.

Although Monckton's tone was gentlemanly and complimentary, there can be no doubt as to the sincerity of his challenge, as he proposed "the caution and skepticism of true science" should prevail over the "shibboleths and nostrums of the false, new religion of climate alarmism."

Having called Albert out, and having proposed a venue (the Library of the Oxford Museum of Natural History), Lord Monckton offers Mr. Gore the "prerogative and right to choose his weapons by specifying the form of the Great Debate."

Should Gore accept this challenge? Of course he ought to step up and defend his nefarious plan to crash the economies of compliant nations and drown the world's poor in a blood-warm sea of starvation and disease, while consolidating global administrative power into the hands of a few priests of "the religion of climate alarmism."

But will he accept? Gore has been pretty canny about sidestepping scenarios where he must face scientific arguments with an opposition view. He may (wisely) conclude his rickety case would not withstand the pounding that Lord Monckton would mete out. On the other hand, it is such a public provocation.

Oh man, I am all a twitter.

But they never got to don wetsuits and swim through tepid seas choked with polar bear carcasses. They never got to take pictures of the melting icecap, to post them on their blog, and broadcast the bad news into children's classrooms like two astronauts high atop the world. They never got to do these things because it was too darned cold.

Instead of global warming, they reported 58 degrees below zero inside their tent. In an attempt to stave off frostbite, Bancroft had to keep hot water bottles on her feet. And in the middle of the night they'd wake up to find the hot water bottles frozen.

It all reminds me so much of The Penguin That Hated The Cold.

Skuze me? Which party handed Howard "Yaarrrr" Dean the party chairmanship after his leftist tantrum meltdown in '04? Which party no longer resembles the party of JFK or Truman? Which party, despite a string of embarrassing defeats (which started in '94, on Clinton's watch), continues to slew further and further left? Which party's moderate candidates must walk a tightrope between supporting the troops and kow-towing to an angry, radical fringe? Which party is drumming out moderates like Zell Miller and Joe Leiberman because they support the American president in the war on terror?

Meanwhile Republicans run pell mell to pose in the middle at the slightest hint of a threat from Democrat witch hunters on the prowl for anybody who may have shaken Foley's hand (the one that holds his Blackberry) at some point in the past.

This slick displacement is amazing, even downright...Clintonian. As he has done so many times in the past, Bubba declares the situation exactly opposite from reality. A heart is a spade, and he dares you to say otherwise. Pathological Bill has shown his colors again.

SOURCE: Clinton says right wing has hurt U.S., predicts win by Democrats

In a nearly subsequent response, and in the wake of North Korea's "successful" nuclear bomb test, a clearly shaken Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran said, "Our policy is clear: Progress, offering transparent logic and insisting on the rights of the nation without retreat." But you could tell he was really worried about the repercussions North Korea is experiencing.

Privately (I just know) he worried to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (may he languish forever without press coverage) that Iran could not withstand another round of stern finger wagging and condemnations such as Ahmadinejad doles out to Israel every day.

"Don't you realize," Khamenei said, his lower lip quivering, "that the UN may convene to discuss the slim possiblity of opening a dialogue on whether to allow the suggestion of contemplating a prolonged timetable for issuing a resolution which takes a decidedly 'disappointed' view of our nuclear program? Do you really want that?"

Fortunately for Neil, Peter Ford, a computer expert from Australia, has resolved Mr. Armstrong's angst, providing acoustically filtered evidence of a twangy "a" drawled slowly over the course of 35 milliseconds (approximatly 1/10 of the least discernable length for a vowel sound).

While it may sound like an inconsequential, classic case of "I don't know what you heard, but I know what I said," this discovery has important implications for the study of low-gravity vowel sounds, which are often so light and unpredictable that they seem to float off before the listener hears them. And it represents a belated yet satisfying vindication for English teachers everywhere, who collectively swore that before that decade was out, we'd put an English speaker on the moon.

"Basically," Halperin continues, shaking his head, "by choosing often obscure stories about Democrats (honestly, who had ever heard of Monica Lewinsky?), he can set the talking points for everyone across the political spectrum. And once that happens, the rest of the mainstream media has to follow suit and cover the "story," usually within three to four weeks or less."

Drudge admits he's wrong about 20% of the time, but who cares? His headlines are pure journalistic gold. "I haven't done any investigative journalism since I started at the Times, back in 1968," admits New York Times reporter Jayson Blair. "In fact, nobody at the Times has. Drudge makes it too danged easy: you can either write something that says the exact opposite of what Drudge said (e.g. "Clinton is not alleged to have had sex with that woman") or if you're in a hurry you can just copy what he wrote word for word."

Democratic strategist Chris Lehane remembers, "There was this one time when Drudge thought it would be funny to say that Congressman Barney Frank was gay. Now practically everyone things Frank is gay. Nobody fact-checks this. Nobody asks Mr. Frank what he thinks. That's the power of Drudge. Not there's anything wrong with that, I'm just saying."

SOURCE: abcnews.go.com

As a writer/director who has tackled the subject of declining cultures, Mel Gibson shows surprisingly little insight on the matter. First off, the Mayans' form of human sacrifice is chiefly horrible because they sacrificed the imprisoned, the helpless, the innocent. Our military is all-volunteer, and they aren't standing in line to be slaughtered, they are highly-trained, active participants in the most effective fighting force in the history of the world. The Mayans' sacrifices were inspired by fear of the supernatural; they sought to appease their angry gods. Our soldiers are exemplars of courage daily engaged in fighting a lethal but human foe. Mayan leaders consolidated their power through a reign of terror. We have ended a reign of terror and now struggle to replace it with government elected by those it governs.

But most disappointing is the fact that Gibson, as a conservative Catholic, missed a more apt comparison which he should not have. If there is anything like human sacrifice of innocents happening in American culture today, it is the sacrifice of the unborn in the commonplace practice of abortion. If he is a Catholic, and believes what Catholics believe, then how can he, in a discussion of human sacrifice, raise the anti-war banner and keep silent about abortion? Perhaps if we knew everything about the Mayans, we'd find that their movie directors too, were sounding alarms about the wrong issues when their world ended.

Are you in the dialectic mainstream? Who says root (rhymes with put) and who says root (rhymes with shoot)? What part of the country says "chill bugs" instead of "chilly bumps?"

All this and a lot more: Dialect Survey Maps and Results

[The] Pope should fall on his knees in front of a senior Muslim cleric and try to understand Islam.

This is a childish fantasy. Anjem Choudary, a London lawyer and demonstration organizer goes further:

The Muslims take their religion very seriously and non-Muslims must appreciate that and that must also understand that there may be serious consequences if you insult Islam and the prophet.

Whoever insults the message of Mohammed is going to be subject to capital punishment.

How pompous. How can the West take Choudary seriously, except as an inciter of murder and instigator of mass hatred?

I suppose most of the things being said are engineered to get a rise out of us. They are spoiling for a fight which spills out of the lecture halls and onto the streets of the great cities of the West. Enough of this talking, talking, talking. Let's just convert the Pope by the sword.

Pope Benedict XVI showed his stripes today in comments which stung and grievously wounded the hearts and souls of Muslims worldwide to the point that, with great reluctance, they whipped out their prepared effigies of the Pope and burned them.

Salih Kapusuz, a deputy leader of Turkey's ruling party, said, "[Benedict] has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world. It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades. Benedict, the author of such unfortunate and insolent remarks, is going down in history for his words. He is going down in history in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini."

Oh, the humanity. So unfortunate it is for Benedict to have quoted someone who said Islam was spread by the sword. What's especially painful is the fact that it just isn't true, it's never, ever happened that way. Islam's converts invariably do so of their own free will. Why, just ask Steve Centanni And Olaf Wiig if it ain't so.

THEY'RE GOOD KIDS. They'll get it sorted out. That's what the parents of those of us in hab-rehab are saying now. It's touching that they continue to believe in us, even as the group sessions fail to provide the level of intervention we really need. There is a downward slide here, and nobody wants to talk about it.

Take last night for instance. Good company, good weather, some darned good gualsa* and, inevitably, that little baggie of dried habañeros which nobody seems to know anything about. It was high-grade stuff, and no one objected to the "help yourself" atmosphere which comfortingly tucked us into easygoing conversations about things we never otherwise discuss. Like the social addicts we are, however, we never strayed very far from the topic of these butt-ugly wrinkled brown treasures we were passing around.

Maybe I'm still in denial about my level of involvement, but I still don't own a lot of the paraphernalia. So someone improvised a pestle using a saucer and a ball jar. As the peppers were broken down into something between chunks and powder, any remaining ice between the conversationalists gathered there in my apartment was broken down into congenial chunks of good natured deference. Everybody took a hit, even those who hadn't experimented with habañeros before.

We were all adults there, and yet I felt a poignant fatherly impulse toward my guests which was wrenched into true remorse when I saw the face of one friend of mine after she took a serious hit of the stuff. She was weeping, eyes nearly swollen shut, and her face was a twisted mask of exhilaration and just-been-stung-by-40-bees pain.

Then my own endorphin rush came in a fiery chariot and gathered me up into a stolen athletic bliss, but it was too late. The angry white seed of doubt had lodged between between my teeth, and it was burning a hole in my proverbial lip. Were we out of control?

Of course, there is nothing controlled about the morning after. The last remnant of my hot-sauce bravado evaporated amid the smoke and thunder of my first bout with the White-Hot Squirts. I have never seriously considered getting a bidet, but if one could be equipped to dispense super-cooled novacaine, while simultaneously administering a morphine injection, I would go into hock to buy one right now.

Scatalogical evidence notwithstanding, I now realize that my body has failed to metabolize or even chemically alter the hellspawned oil of the habañero. The worst part is that I know it is far from over. Now there is a distinct preference for standing over sitting. Later there will be cursing, oaths, and finally, promises made. Now is the time for a caring loved one to extract a covenant from me to never, never, never do this again. Now, should a persuasive friend argue down my stubborn resistances and help me on to the conclusion which my anatomy is already screaming from the housetops: friends don't let friends do habañeros.

*A cocktail of salsa and guacamole.

See also "Grok My Heed: Weapons-grade Peppers.]]> 2006-06-20T04:29:19Z 2006-06-20T03:40:28Z tag:www.chezjoel.com,2006://2.457 2006-06-20T03:40:28Z