Cry havoc, and let slip the puppies of war

This analysis is from Spengler, writing in Asia Times Online, IMO one of the most perceptive commentators around in media these days.

Dogs of war incline toward caution, which after all is how they grew up to be dogs. More worrisome are puppies, who do not know what danger is. Gavrilo Princeps, the Serbian gunman who shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand dead in June 1914, was a puppy. So are the Hamas kidnappers, who at this writing still hold Israeli Army Corporal Gilad Shalit, and the Mehdi Army shooters who reportedly disposed of several dozen Sunni civilians in Baghdad on the weekend. The North Koreans, by contrast, are just nasty old dogs who long ago got loose from their leash.

Unfortunately, there’s more, much more. Read it and weep.

Terrorist who plotted Beslan school siege dies in blast

The Chechen terrorist who claimed to have masterminded the Beslan school siege was killed in a huge explosion yesterday. Shamil Basayev was apparently preparing to mount a fresh attack to coincide with this weekend’s G8 summit in St Petersburg. Russian officials claimed he was killed in a special forces operation after a decade-long manhunt.

The Chief would guess that this makes the Russians feel pretty good, and in fact this guess is confirmed by Putin himself:

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, was jubilant after being told of Basayev’s death. “For the bandits, this is just retribution for our children in Beslan … and for all the terrorist attacks they carried out in Moscow and other regions of Russia,” he said.

Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Marines Want Space Plane

Is a Space Ship One type space craft destined for military purposes? According to the Marines, aye-sir!

The Chief is impressed by this idea!

The space insertion project, dubbed Hot Eagle, seems a bit far-fetched. Despite the obvious technological obstacles, military and defense contracting officials say that developing a craft that would accomplish the SUSTAIN mission is feasible.

This article has links to several sites covering this concept in more detail, and in a serious way, like this one in The Space Review.

There are obvious Sci-fi concepts that come to mind. In spite of the most obvious: Heinlien’s “drop ships” as illustrated in his book, and incorrectly in the Starship Troopers movie, the Chief thinks a better model are the space marine “assault shuttles” as presented in David Weber’s “Honorverse” books.

Sci-fi or not, this sounds like a plan to the Chief…go for it!

West mounts ‘secret war’ to keep nuclear North Korea in check

This one comes from the Times of London.

A PROGRAMME of covert action against nuclear and missile traffic to North Korea and Iran is to be intensified after last week’s missile tests by the North Korean regime.

Intelligence agencies, navies and air forces from at least 13 nations are quietly co-operating in a “secret war” against Pyongyang and Tehran.

There’s been a LOT going on out there under the radar, and it’s a good thing too! Check it out.

Notice how this isn’t in the US MSM? I guess it doesn’t make a good club to use to bash the President.

It’s WW-III, and U.S. is out of ideas

OpEd from the NY Daily News

Last week’s headlines prove the point: North Korea fires missiles, Iran talks of nukes again, Iraq carnage continues, Israel invades Gaza, England observes one-year anniversary of subway bombing. And, oh, yes, the feds stop a plot to blow up tunnels under the Hudson River.

World War III has begun.

Dang! Another one just got mugged by reality!

Either that or he accidently ordered a double espresso and woke up.

Welcome to the real world. Better late than never!

Japan Considers Strike Against N. Korea

Japan said Monday it was considering whether a pre-emptive strike on the North’s missile bases would violate its constitution, signaling a hardening stance ahead of a possible U.N. Security Council vote on Tokyo’s proposal for sanctions against the regime.

This will also only increase the discussion in Japan of changing their Constitution to allow re-militarization without the need to maintain the charade of the “Japan Self-defense Forces”.

The Chief thinks this is a logical idea, whose time is rapidly approaching.

Enuf is Enuf: Some Peepl Thru with Dificult Spelingz

My favorite quotation from Max Headroom is in order here: “Lincoln said you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. I (Max) say, if you don’t teach them to read you can fool them anytime you want to.”

Once again it is demonstrated that the art of satire applied to moonbats is in serious danger. It seems no matter how far-fetched a hypothetical situation is invented to carry moonbattery to it’s logically absurd extremity, they never fail to adopt it for themselves, as a SERIOUS proposal.

The latest illustration of this is a plan to dumb down spelling:

When “say,” “they” and “weigh” rhyme, but “bomb,” “comb” and “tomb” don’t, wuudn’t it maek mor sens to spel wurdz the wae thae sound? Those in favor of simplified spelling say children would learn faster and illiteracy rates would drop. Opponents say a new system would make spelling even more confusing. Eether wae, the consept has yet to capcher th publix imajinaeshun.

“It’s a very difficult thing to get something accepted like this,” says Alan Mole, president of the American Illiteracy Literacy Council, which favors an end to “illogical spelling.”

What about illogical thinking? Ooops! Better not go THERE!

This has to be rite up ther along with Ebonics(c) advocates, proving that stupid ideas are truli not based on race – wites can play the game just as dumli as blaks do.

A couple of years back the Chief got a satirical proposal for “simplification” of the spelling of English in the context of something called “Euro-English”. This uncannily reminds him of this simplified spelling idea. Check it out:

The European Commission has just announced an agreement
whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty’s Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase-in plan that would be known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of the “k”. This should klear up
konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This
will make words like “fotograf” 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes
are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double
letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent “e”s in
the language is disgrasful, and they should go away.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”. During ze fifz year,
ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and
similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of
leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi
to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru!

And zen ve vil tak over ze vorld!

Once again, moonbat reality catches up with satire.

Q.E.D.

Calderon Wins Mexican Presidential Race

The Chief noted his shooting from the hip evaluation that the two leading candidates south of the border represented Dumb vs. Dumber as far as the US was concerned.

If this is the case, then “dumb” won, although “dumber” has demonstrated the right to the title by promising to move into similar realms as the USA DUmmies (Democratic Underground, et al) who are STILL unwilling to accept the result of Florida 2000 and Algor’s loss.

The ruling party’s Felipe Calderon won the official count in Mexico’s disputed presidential race Thursday, a come-from-behind victory for the stiff technocrat. But his leftist rival refused to concede and said he’d fight the results in court.

Calderon, a conservative who preached free-market values and financial stability during the campaign, was already reaching out to other parties to build a “unity government.” His opponent, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, blamed fraud for his narrow loss in the vote count and called on his supporters to fill Mexico City’s main square Saturday in a show of force.

There seems to be plenty of stupidity to go around on both sides of the border!

‘Nuff said!

Calderon Wins Mexican Presidential Race

The Chief noted the Mexican election as being, as far as the US is concerned, a contest between dumb and dumber. If that were the case, then apparently “dumb” won a close contest after some Florida-style machinations that somewhat delayed the results.

Also like the FLorida 2000 hassle, the losing opposition is demonstrating that it indeed does deserve the Chief’s epithet of “dumber”, by promising to move into a realm similar to the US DUmmies (Democratic Underground, et al) who still haven’t accepted the fact that Algor lost in Florida.

The ruling party’s Felipe Calderon won the official count in Mexico’s disputed presidential race Thursday, a come-from-behind victory for the stiff technocrat. But his leftist rival refused to concede and said he’d fight the results in court.

Calderon, a conservative who preached free-market values and financial stability during the campaign, was already reaching out to other parties to build a “unity government.” His opponent, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, blamed fraud for his narrow loss in the vote count and called on his supporters to fill Mexico City’s main square Saturday in a show of force.

‘Nuff said!

Whalen challenges Herseth to debate

Sibby Online notes a challenge to debate from GOP House candidate Bruce Whalen of Pine Ridge thrown into the ring in a Dave Kranz column.

Personally the Chief thinks that the use of debates in campaigning at all levels would be highly instructive – BUT – the debates should be Lincoln-Douglas style, NOT the contemporary “moderated” and highly ritualized events that pass for “debates”.

Oh well. Just a thought. I would be HIGHLY surprised if real debates were held, but it would be a nice change.

NY High Court Rules Against Same-Sex Marriage

The New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, ruled Thursday that the state “constitution does not compel the recognition of marriages between members of the same sex.” In its 4-2 decision, the court said that “whether such marriages should be recognized is a question to be addressed by the legislature.”

This is definitely encouraging. A court that thinks that legislation should be done by…ready for this?…THE LEGISLATURE! What a concept!

One can only hope that it catches on!

The Vatican Confronts Islam

The estimated 40 million Christians in Dar al-Islam, notes the Barnabas Fund’s Patrick Sookhdeo, increasingly find

themselves an embattled minority facing economic decline, dwindling rights, and physical jeopardy. Most of them, he goes on, are despised and distrusted second-class citizens, facing discrimination in education, jobs, and the courts.

These harsh circumstances are causing Christians to flee their ancestral lands for the West’s more hospitable environment. Consequently, Christian populations of the Muslim world are in a free-fall. Two small but evocative instances of this pattern: for the first time in nearly two millennia, Nazareth and Bethlehem no longer have Christian majorities.

This reality of oppression and decline stands in dramatic contrast to the surging Muslim minority of the West. Although numbering fewer than 20 million and made up mostly of immigrants and their offspring, it is an increasingly established and vocal minority, granted extensive rights and protections even as it wins new legal, cultural, and political prerogatives.

This is nothing new – what is new here is that patience is running out, and even the Vatican is increasingly willing to pubhlically call a spade a spade:

This widening disparity has caught the attention of the Church, which for the first time is pointing to radical Islam, rather than the actions of Israel, as the central problem facing Christians living with Muslims.

Wow! What a concept! RADICAL ISLAM is the problem, not Israel? What’s next?

Obtaining the same rights for Christians in Islamdom that Muslims enjoy in Christendom has become the key to the Vatican’s diplomacy toward Muslims. This balanced, serious approach marks a profound improvement in understanding that could have implications well beyond the Church, given how many lay politicians heed its leadership in inter-faith matters. Should Western states also promote the principle of reciprocity, the results should indeed be interesting.

Friends rallying to defend DIA spy

This is just nuts! How can the indefensible be defended like this?

A senior intelligence official is leading an effort within the Bush administration to defend former Defense Intelligence Agency China specialist Ronald Montaperto, who pleaded guilty recently to espionage-related charges involving Chinese intelligence. Lonnie Henley, a friend of Montaperto and another former DIA China specialist, has written e-mails and had telephone conversations with intelligence and policy officials criticizing the FBI investigation and seeking to downplay the damage caused by Montaperto’s 22 years of contacts with two Chinese military intelligence officers, according to officials familiar with the private support program.

The effort by numerous pro-China intelligence analysts is aimed at protecting their prestige and influence, and at shielding others in government who share Montaperto’s benign views of China and the Chinese military, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The result has been near-silence from the Bush administration and Congress on a major Chinese spy case, while at the same time President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior officials publicly criticized recent press disclosures of a classified anti-terrorism financial-tracking program.

There is nothing that the Chief can see that justifies this sort of thing. The mental myopia regarding the ChiComs is just as serious as it would be if we were downplaying the threat of the Taliban in Afghanistan. (Oh….right…or rather wrong…whatever.)

As deputy national intelligence officer for East Asia under Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John D. Negroponte, Mr. Henley is one of the most senior U.S. intelligence analysts. His defense of Montaperto and criticism of the FBI is unusual and has raised concerns among U.S. counterintelligence officials that there are others in the intelligence community who may have improperly shared classified information with China.

What’s the record have to say?

Montaperto pleaded guilty June 21 in federal court in Alexandria to one count of illegally retaining classified documents, based on statements to investigators and several classified DIA reports found in his Springfield home. He claimed he could not remember all the classified data he supplied Chinese intelligence officers Yang Qiming and Yu Zenghe. The guilty plea followed statements to investigators made by Montaperto in 2003 that included an admission of providing “top secret” information to Chinese military intelligence officers. Montaperto said he passed top-secret information to Mr. Yu, a military intelligence officer and attache at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, according to the court papers in the case.

Whay aren’t “Mr. Yu” et al declared personna non grata and kicked out of the country? We used to do this regularly to the Russians in similar cases!

Somebody needs to use a big broom to clean house in what apparently is a “China establishment” within the US intel community, and begin by identifiying what’s really been going on here: high treason!

“Treason doth never prosper – What’s the reason?
If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.” – Sir John Harrington

Spies. Ropes. Trees. Some assembly required.

Illegal students face expulsion from France

What a “man bites dog” story!

An amnesty for foreign students who are in France illegally expires with the end of the school year tomorrow, making tens of thousands of youths eligible for deportation and prompting cries of alarm from left-wing and pro-immigrant groups.

Hey, if the Fwench can muster enough determination (which still remains to be seen in the end) to move in this direction, there should be no reason why we can’t do it too.

Mexico election too close to call

Mexico’s intensely fought presidential race was deadlocked between rival leftist and conservative candidates yesterday, revealing deep divisions in this country of 100 million. The standoff will lead to days of political uncertainty until enough votes are counted by the official Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) to declare a clear winner.

As far as the Chief is concerned, neither one of these guys will do us much good, but one of them is not as bad as the other.

We REALLY don’t want a Marxist oriented socialist to manage…er…mismanage the government down there. Who wins? Who knows!

Senators promise Gitmo statute

Well, SCOTUS’s ruling on Tribunals for the GITMO inhabitants suggested that if this decision wasn’t liked, that Congress was free to address the problem.

Hopefully this is an early sign that this could be done.

Don’t Believe the Hype

Algor’s claims of scientific unanimity have less credibility than his claims to have won in Florida in 1980.

Dr. Richard Linzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT explains why in this WSJ OpEd piece, including enough scientific statements of what Algor no doubt would find as truly “inconvenient truths”.

Check it out.

Israel warns: free soldier or PM dies

Israel last night threatened to assassinate Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh if Hamas militants did not release a captured Israeli soldier unharmed.

The unprecedented warning was delivered to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a letter as Israel debated a deal offered by Hamas to free Corporal Gilad Shalit. It came as Israeli military officials readied a second invasion force for a huge offensive into Gaza.

The plot thickens. Stay tuned!

U.S. Law Trumps World Treaty, High Court Says

This SCOTUS decision is, IMHO a good one:

Stating that American law outweighs an international treaty, the Supreme Court said Wednesday that foreign criminals held in state prisons did not have a right to reopen their cases if their rights under the Vienna Convention had been violated.

Any time the Court gives primacy of American law over treaty law (or for that matter foreign law), it’s a good thing, and not to be taken for granted given some recent citation of foreign law in SCOTUS decisions.

Court rebukes Bush on war crimes trials

SCOTUS has spoken – no military tribunals.

The Terrs are still in custody, and there they remain, legally, and apparently for the duration.

Aggravating, but not a huge disaster. It is still worth noting that the usual suspects on SCOTUS were opposed to anything smacking of a vigorous defense of the Republic.

In the future, one can hope that Roberts will be able to make a difference, which he could not on this decision due to his prior involvement in the case at the appellate level.

Our World: Israel’s Rude Awakening

It is painful to watch Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni try to contend with the terrible outcome of the Palestinian terror strike against the IDF on Sunday morning. They use so many fancy and angry words. They sound so resolute. And yet, they have nothing useful to say. Two soldiers are dead, a third is now the prisoner of jihadist killers, seven are wounded, an IDF border post has been overrun, and a world view and a security doctrine have been blown to smithereens.

Wow! The Chief is impressed! This gal has a gift for cutting to the chase and calling an ugly spade an ugly spade! But wait! To summarize:

That world view involves a denial of a basic, fundamental truth: When you empower terrorists, terrorists are empowered.

You, with the Chief might say – DUH! Many politicians (to say nothing of judges and journalists), in the US, Eurabia, as well as Israel have yet to grasp this fundamental truth.

This piece goes on with more detail on the current (pre-military action) situation in Gaza. Nothing that’s happened so far changes it’s validity as far as the Chief can tell. Check it out!

Ancient Seal Remains Reveal Warmer Antarctica, Study Says

The Chief is agnostic at this point on so-called Global Warming. It may well be occurring. That being said, it is NOT due to human activity. The sun is the driver for global climate – MUCH more than anything we could even TRY to do in this area. Here’s some more evidence of this:

In an Antarctic “ghost town,” freeze-dried whiskers, skin, and bones provide evidence that the South Pole was a much warmer place not too long ago, a new study reveals.

The 1,000- to 6,000-year-old elephant seal remains were found in abandoned breeding colonies in a now barren region of Victoria Land on the Antarctic coast near the Ross Sea (map of Antarctica). The discovery, scientists say, is the first hard evidence for a warming period in the region between 2,300 and 1,100 years ago.

Without industrialized civilization back in 200 BC, there’s not much WE could have done to stimulate this period of warming, which DOES correspond at least generally to a previously known northern hemisphere medieval warming period.

Once again – can you say S-U-N?

Eurabia is the Dhimmified side of Europe, whose fear of Islamophobia is often nothing short of insane. Just a random selection of items here that speak for themselves:

‘Honour killing’ family jailed over shot bride

Six members of a family of Pakistani origin were jailed in Denmark yesterday for their part in the murder of an 18-year-old girl whose “honour killing” shocked the country.

Ghazala Khan was shot dead by her elder brother two days after she married her Afghan husband, Emal. Her husband, who was shot in the stomach, survived, and now lives under police protection.

Ghazala’s father, Ghulum Abbas, 57, who emigrated from Punjab in 1970, had reacted furiously to his daughter’s choice of husband and ordered his son, Akthar Abbas, and other members of the family to track down the couple and kill them.

Belgian police find bodies of missing girls by railway tracks

Two stepsisters missing for 18 days after a street party in the Belgian city of Liège were found murdered in a storm drain yesterday.

A convicted child rapist, Abdallah Ait Oud, was in the bar, Les Armuriers, at the time of their disappearance, and is being held under preventive custody as the sole suspect. He denies involvement in the case, saying he was incapacitated by alcohol and cocaine at the time.

Despite the arrest of Ait Oud, 38, who is of Moroccan descent, locals said they still feared for the safety of their children, expressing disbelief that one man acting alone could abduct two girls in the middle of a crowded street.

G-had and suicide bombers: the rapper who likens Bin Laden to Che Guevara

Two record company executives are threatening to resign from a label over an album by a radical Muslim musician which has tracks about the immorality of the west, suicide bombers and Osama bin Laden. Aki Nawaz is determined to release what is, by anyone’s standards, a phenomenally angry album.

The album, All is War (The Benefits of G-had), contains one track which uses the words of Bin Laden issuing “a statement of reason and explanation of impending conflict” and equates him with Che Guevara. Another forensically recreates a suicide bomber at work. The opening song is a rejection of what Nawaz sees as the hypocrisy and immorality of the west. One supposedly dream-like track predicts the demise of America at the hands of Islam.

Nawaz, a former drummer in the Southern Death Cult, said yesterday: “I have a right to push the boundaries as much as anyone else has…

Ain’t it great over there?

Defense Dept. imposes loyalty test on American Jews

The Chief can’t help but recall the Fwench frame-up of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, the highest-ranking Jewish officer in their so-called army. The fight and eventual proof of his innocence had extensive literary and political ramifications that lasted far beyond l’affair itself.

The Pentagon has banned security clearance to Americans with relatives in Israel.

Government sources and attorneys said the Pentagon has sought and succeeded in removing security clearance from dozens of Americans, mostly Jews, who either lived, worked or have relatives in Israel. Official documents report that American Jews, employed by major defense contractors and denied access to military projects, were asked by Pentagon examiners whether they would join a U.S. attack on Israel and abandon their relatives if the Jewish state was threatened.

OK. What about people with Islamic connections? No such policies.

What about people with ChiCom connections? No such policies, as evidenced by numerous problems with ChiCom intel activities involving “former” and even current nationals who have been active in passing US technical and military information to THEM.

What’s wrong with this picture? If the Chief got started in the vein of Emile Zola with an “I accuse…” rant, it would be hard to find a place to stop.

Gaza militants say fired chemical-tipped warhead

A spokesman for gunmen in the Gaza Strip said they had fired a rocket tipped with a chemical warhead at Israel early on Thursday.

The group had recently claimed to possess about 20 biological warheads for the makeshift rockets commonly fired from Gaza at Israeli towns. This was the first time the group had claimed firing such a rocket.

This speaks for itself. And Israel is supposed to make deals with these? Give me a break!

Senate warms to ‘border first’

Key backers of the Senate immigration bill said yesterday they are willing to consider a compromise that would delay the guest-worker program and “amnesty” portions until the borders have been secured.

Pennsylvania chief RINO Spector must have been clubbed (at least partially) by a cluebat:

The proposal was floated by Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter in an interview Monday with editors and reporters at The Washington Times.

The McCainiac chimed in on this also:

“I think it’s worth discussing,” said Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican. “Many of us have said we could work on border enforcement and, at the same time, work on other aspects that would take more time.”

Even Donk Senator Ted (hic) Kennedy trying to get on this train?!

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, said a delay will occur anyway because it will take a few years to set up the guest-worker program and the structure to process millions of illegal aliens onto a pathway to citizenship.

It looks to the Chief like these Senators have gotten mugged by the reality that there was no way that their plans would have cleared the conference committee with the House without major changes.

U.S. rejects limits on personal guns

There is a UN small-arms conference in session. Due to a heads-up from the NRA there has been a huge response to the possibility that there would be international treaty restrictions sought on private firearms ownership.

Remarkably, and rarely enough, Kofi(cup) Annan and the conference chair have both publicly denied that the UN had any such plan. Their explanation is that their objective is to try to control the international trade in ILLEGAL arms, and that they had no interest in what nations do to regulate internal legal arms.

The US has also responded with disclaimers of its own:

The United States will oppose any international effort to limit access of U.S. civilians to legal firearms but supports stronger controls on arms imports and exports, a senior State Department official said yesterday. “The United States believes it is important for all of us to speak with one voice concerning the grave matter of the international illicit trade in small arms and light weapons,” said Robert Joseph, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.

The Chief sees this as nothing but encouraging, with the caveat that you can believe as much as you want to of what ANYONE at the UN says. I wouldn’t bet my life on their goodwill on this issue, or on anything else that they have to say, for that matter.

Bruno, the first bear in Germany for 170 years, is killed

The Chief took note of the first wild bear in Germany since the 1830’s. After repeated efforts to deal non-lethaly with the problem, the Polizei called in Finnish hunters to try to tranq the bear, but he never returned to previous sighting locations, and was starting to feel at ease in human settings. Ooops! Bad move!

A young brown bear that rampaged its way across the German and Austrian Alps and provoked diplomatic tensions between several countries was shot dead yesterday. A hunter in Bavaria stalked the bear, known as Bruno, and killed it after lengthy and expensive attempts to capture it and send it to a zoo failed.

There is one amusing aspect to this that COULD have resulted in lessening the infestation of animal-rights wackos, had things turned out differently.

After the orders to shoot Bruno, animal rights campaigners said they would dress up as bears and range the forests in an attempt to confuse hunters so that the real bear could get away. But their efforts failed to spare Bruno.

Too bad – the hunters got the real bear before these candidates for the Darwin Awards were able to achieve their goal.

‘Two-noses’ need a home

At first glance they look like perfectly normal puppies.

But these two pups have “four noses” – two each – which might explain why they were abandoned on the streets of London last week.

Awwwwwwwww.

Since lots of Brits are Animal Lovers, the Chief thinks it’s a fair bet that these dogs will rapidly find homes, especially since they will always be ahead by a nose…er…or is that a head with a nose to spare…whatever. The Chief gets the scent of a lot of possibilities for word play here.

Breaking the ‘hockey stick’

It’s been a busy week for climate buffs and spin-meisters as the National Academy of Sciences released its eagerly awaited report on past climate change. Its origin is the scientific debate about the iconic “hockey stick,” the graph published by Michael Mann and colleagues that showed a smooth decline in temperature since A.D. 1000 with a sudden warming in the 20th century, presumably caused by burning of fossil fuels…

Global warming partisans, including some scientists and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.N. science panel, embraced the hockey stick as “evidence” for greenhouse warming. This, even though the hockey stick denied the existence of natural climate fluctuations: the well-established Medieval Warm Period around A.D. 1000, when Vikings grew crops in Greenland, and the Little Ice Age, from about A.D. 1400 to A.D. 1850, when summer harvests failed and rivers and lakes froze over during severe winters.

There’s more on this in the article, and even more detail found at the Junk Science web site.