A Massachusetts redneck in Bill France's court

Well, I'll be away tomorrow (Sunday) as I'm going to the New Hampshire International Speedway to see my first NASCAR race, the Lenox Industrial Tools 300. My backpack is bursting at the seams with a race scanner, headphones, beach towels, snacks, binoculars, etc. Be back soon.

Terror plot in England - From Fox News: "British Police Probe Car Bomb Plot in London"

This foiled effort comes only two days after Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister from a retiring Tony Blair. This reminds me of the attack on the USS Cole which occurred only a month before the 2000 presidential election and, to a lesser extent, Khobar Towers occurring a couple of months before the 1996 election. Is it possible the Muslim extremists search for opportunities when governments are in transition, in the expectation that it will lead to inaction?

More - Expat Yank, located in Dorset, has the latest.

Update - The Brits have a "crystal clear" picture of a suspect.

"Sicko" is not so boffo

Kurt Loder of MTV doesn't think much of Michael Moore's latest movie:

As the Caribbean sun sank down on Moore's breathtakingly meretricious movie, I couldn't help recalling that when Fidel Castro became gravely ill last year, he didn't put himself in the hands of a Cuban surgeon. No. Instead, he had a specialist flown in - from Spain.

"Meretricious" - there's a word you don't hear everyday.

Hey, teacher, leave them pot-selling kids alone

A commenter (yes, somebody read my blog!) noted the disparity between the Supreme Court's ruling in support of free speech in knocking back McCain-Feingold but against "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." As a free-speech advocate, I'd have to agree that the student speech case leaves me uneasy.

However, the Supreme Court has a long history of limiting the rights of students in the interest of, I guess, educational order. One of my favorites is "New Jersey vs. T.L.O." which involved a girl caught with marijuana in her purse after the vice principal found her smoking in the girls room. The NJ Supreme Court found that the school officials search was illegal under the Fourth Amendment but the Burger court, in a 6-3 decision, disagreed.

I wonder whatever became of T.L.O.

McCain-Feingold curtailed - George Will celebrates in "Setback for the censors"

I'm curious to read the decisions by the four justices in the minority which seems to suggest that Americans' first amendment rights are suspended a month before an election.

Extra - From Reason's Hit & Run:

Earlier this week the Supreme Court began dismantling the thoroughly odious John McCain-Russ Feingold "Don't Hurt Politicians' Feelings Censorship Law." What part of the First Amendment's "Congress shall make no law ...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people...to petition the Government for redress of grievances" doesn't McCain and his cowering cohorts on Capitol Hill not understand?"

Right on.

There are no atheists in a foxhole - And no Democrats in a NASCAR driver's seat.

In related news, I'm heading to my first NASCAR race this Sunday and the weather forecast is beautiful. Sweet.

Your Zimbabwe moment of Zen - NY Times "Zimbabwe seeks 'indigenous' control of companies": "Zimbabwe's government has put forward legislation that would require virtually all publicly traded companies to cede controlling interests to "indigenous" citizens, raising the possibility of a sizable redistribution of the country's remaining wealth at a time when its economy is collapsing." Sounds like a plan!

An Iraqi perspective

Omar at Iraq the Model wants "decision makers" to look beyond the numbers:

It's almost July now, and General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker will present their report about the situation in Iraq, military and political, at some point in September.I don't know what parameters the two men are going to list statistics for in their report but I expect it to show the results of fighting al-Qaeda and other armed groups in numbers, the progress in building the ISF in numbers, also in numbers and of course the report would include the progress, if any, that our political leaders will have made by the time.

I think what matters more than the way of presentation would be how the data in the report is going to be read and afterwards interpreted into attitudes and actions.One thing I hope the decision-makers and the media do when they read the report is to not isolate the war in Iraq from the war on terror and al-Qaeda as a whole, and at the same time put in mind the difference between war and nation-building. The latter takes much more time than winning a military conflict but requires different tools.

The results so far have been astounding, and please allow me to say that I'm proud of the change in attitude many of my fellow Iraqis are showing.

If you read, for example, the USA Today report previously cited there are plenty of anecdotes about friendly Iraqis meeting up with American soldiers. My concern is that goodwill may dissipate and turn to disillusion unless the Maliki government takes steps towards long-term security.

Paging Al Gore - NY Times blog "In Johannesburg, first snowfall since 1981": "The Reporter, a South African citizen journalism site, reported "residents shaking their heads in disbelief" and "amazement."

Paging Dr. Pangloss

Victor Davis Hanson on "Our Enemy's Attrition - Reasons to reexamine the Middle East's negative prognosis"

The majority opinion is that the occupation in Iraq has been so bungled that the blowback has ruined American efforts at promoting positive change throughout the Middle East.

Perhaps. But for all the justifiable criticism of the Iraqi reconstruction, two truths still remain — the United States is taking an enormous toll on jihadists, and despite the terrible cost in blood and treasure, has not given up on a constitutional government in Iraq.

The problem that Americans see, driving support for the war to an all-time low, is that it looks like the Iraqis have given up on a constitutional government.

But the Iraqi government's failure to resolve long-simmering ethnic hatreds and make concessions to Sunnis suggest the improved security may remain only as long as U.S. forces are here, keeping a lid on violence.

With Republicans wavering in Congress, this may be the beginning of what the Weekly Standard calls "Slow-motion Tet"

The fact is that Al Qaeda is steadily losing its grip in Iraq, and these attacks are alienating its erstwhile Iraqi supporters. But the terrorists are counting on sapping our will as the VC did, and persuading America to choose to lose a war it could win.

Mmmm...could be. I'm now skeptical that anything can change the dynamic in Iraq and reverse a thousand years of sectarian hatred. The Iraqi "surge" is the last best hope for the Iraqi government to reach a political resolution but I fear we're going to end up getting the purple finger.

Extra - Rick Moran also wonders where the progress is at: "That's a start as far as barometers for "victory." And we're nowhere near achieving any of them!" Yeah, which is why Congress is going shrug shoulders, tell Maliki "we tried" and walk away.

Sitting on a sea of oil - But not enough gas to go around. Gateway Pundit has pictures and videos of gas station riots in Tehran. Will President Dinner Jacket blame gas rationing on 1.) Israel or 2.) the United States? It's a toss-up.

Discovery is a wonderful thing - Jeff Jacoby reports that the Islamic Society of Boston has abandoned their two-year defamation lawsuit against everybody in Beantown who dared to suggest that the Islamic Society had ties to Wahhabi extremists. It turns out that those allegations were backed by inconvenient facts. Never mind!

Big Dig lawsuit set to break record for damages

From the Boston Globe: "Lawyers eye huge Big Dig settlement - Wrongful death case could be landmark"

Lawyers for Milena Del Valle's family are building a case for a landmark settlement of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars for what they describe as the outrageously egregious acts that led to her death in last summer's Big Dig ceiling collapse, according to a 15-page memo obtained by the Globe.

The lawyers did not specify a price for settling the family's lawsuit against an array of contracting firms and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, but said the case should be compared to those that have produced some of the largest jury awards in US history, including the $450 million in punitive damages awarded to the widow of a sheriff-elect in Georgia assassinated by his rival in 2000. If anything, the lawyers predicted, a Massachusetts jury would award the Del Valle family even more money.

The largest punitive award in a Massachusetts court was $27.5 million for a man killed on the MBTA, later reduced to $1 million. But the comprehensive neglect by state officials and private contractors in this tragedy all but guarantees that there will be a huge settlement to avoid more bad publicity.

Zimbabwe's economic wonderland

WashPost: "Inflation-ravaged Zimbabwe orders prices cut in half"

CNN: "Zimbabweans ignore government orders to cut prices"

It's the Simon-Ehrlich wager, 2007 edition - Via Sister Toldjah: "Professor challenges Al Gore to 10-year $10,000 bet on global warming"

More socialism, less charity

From USA Today: "Americans give record $295 billion to charity"

[NYU professor Claire] Gaudiani said Americans give twice as much as the next most charitable country, according to a November 2006 comparison done by the Charities Aid Foundation. In philanthropic giving as a percentage of gross domestic product, the U.S. ranked first at 1.7%. No. 2 Britain gave 0.73%, while France, with a 0.14% rate, trailed such countries as South Africa, Singapore, Turkey and Germany.

Or, as Fark puts it: "Meanwhile, the French wouldn't toss you a sou if you were bleeding on their porch."

The happy cult of renewable energy and radioactive realities

Continuing a theme of dumb editorializing and gasoline taxes, the Washington Post gives its review of the Senate's energy bill which mostly just new CAFE standards. But this is a risible defense of Senate Majority leader Harry Reid:

Senate Republicans used a procedural vote to kill $32 billion in tax credits and incentives for renewable energy producers. They were doing the bidding of the oil and gas industry, which objected to trimming some of its existing tax credits and raising other taxes to pay the cost of incentives to companies working to create new sources of clean energy and to promote energy efficiency. Such revenue adjustment is imperative if America is to reduce its contribution to global warming greenhouse gases. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) is right to pledge to revive the package.

So intent on castigating the GOP, not once does the editorial mention the only reliable source of energy that just happens to be free of greenhouse gas emissions. That would be nuclear power which has been single-handedly hampered by Nevada's Harry Reid who has stood against the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository:

In the 2006 mid-term elections, the Senate majority was won by the Democratic Party. As a result, Senator Harry Reid D-(NV), a long time opponent, became the Senate Majority Leader, putting Congress in a position to greatly affect the future of the project. Reid has said that he would continue to work to block completion of the project, and is quoted to have said "Yucca Mountain is dead. It'll never happen."

What this means is that current nuclear power plants with spent fuel cannot move the radioactive material to a central location. Further, the nuclear industry isn't going to invest in new reactors or technology because the federal government will not support the waste fuel.

Excluding hydroelectric dams, the renewable energy sources that the Washington Post has such great hope for account for less than one-percent of all energy used in the United States; and this is after thirty years of heavy government subsidies and intense research. Meanwhile, greenhouse gas-free nuclear power generates 20% of all the power used in the U.S. but a lot of these reactors will be shutting down over the next couple decades.

Where, Washington Post, does the more important energy concern lie?

Nothing is as gratifying as letting somebody else pay

The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is broke and needs lots of cash for Boston's Central Artery program (read: that money hole known as the "Big Dig.") Today the Boston Globe had an editorial suggesting the best way to support the MTA's budget and, as usual, the citizens of Western Massachusetts are expected to suffer for Boston's chronic malfeasance:

The commission is sure to propose a range of choices, but the one that should be the centerpiece is that bulwark of highway finance -- the gasoline tax. The state tax now stands at 23.5 cents per gallon (with 2.5 cents reserved for disposal of old service-station tanks.) The 21 cents reserved for transportation expenses hasn't been raised since 1991. Inflation alone has cut the value of the tax to 14 cents.

With gasoline prices so high, few motorists are going to like an increase, but the governor and Legislature have an obligation to keep the Turnpike Authority solvent, equalize the burden of paying for the artery, and finance other transportation initiatives around the state.

Once state government accepts the need for a tax hike, it can engage in a conversation about whether, and where, turnpike tolls should be phased out. With or without tolls, the gasoline tax needs to go up.

Of course it does because raising tolls on Boston commuters alone would be, well, unfair to those Bay Staters who already swallow up almost the entire MTA budget. Spread the pain to everybody in the state - that's the Massachusetts way.

Also: I love love love! the debate over whether turnpike tolls "should" be phased out. That'll happen when Ted Kennedy joins AA.

Somebody needs a hug

Brian Maloney asks: "Is Janeane Garofalo capable of even one unangry moment in her life?"

Ms. Garofalo recently gave an interview to the deeply left-wing Valley Advocate and practically screamed at the poor reporter throughout the short list of questions. Yeesh.

Hail Columbia - Juan Pablo Montoya, native of Columbia, won his first Nextel Cup NASCAR race today by gambling on fuel while pushing everybody aside at the Sonoma road course. Good for him.