Israel, as a part of Operation Cast Lead (the current operation to suppress rocket attacks from Gaza) bombed a mosque (video at link). I’m sure some folks immediately pointed out that bombing a religious structure is a war crime in contravention with the Geneva Accords and all other sorts of arguments.

But here’s the thing. Israel isn’t the one committing a war crime here. Hamas is.

Watch the video. You clearly see the initial explosion, followed immediately by a massive secondary explosion and several smaller secondaries. That’s proof there were weapons stored there. Which is an act in violation of the law of war, and which act removed the mosque from its protected status.

Crossposted at my place.

How the City Hurts Your Brain. As if we didn’t know that excessive urban exposure addles the brain.

Anti-smoking efforts are starting to get silly. I’m not a smoker; I avoid second-hand smoke when I can, mostly because it’s obviously offensive. It stinks. The unpleasant smell reminds me that I once smoked; and really, it doesn’t take a chemistry degree to realize that those second-hand molecules hanging in the air and wafting about a bar or restaurant are foul things discarded by seedy people who could care less who they afflict while enjoying their self-destructive habit. And yes, I’ll choose a hotel room that’s designated non-smoking, because the odor does penetrate the drapes and the carpet and those molecules do cling to the walls and the glass and discolor the paint. Oh, and yes, I can definitely tell when a smoker is about, because my nose knows. But I didn’t think that those trace molecules could be quantified as a hazard.

The New York Times ran an article decrying ‘third-hand smoke’ as a newly identified hazard that threatens ‘children’s health‘. Yes, those remnant molecules sticking to the carpets and painted walls are now deemed hazardous to kids and adults who might touch and absorb them long after the cigarette is extinguished. The article has a ring of alarmism I find nearly as obnoxious as second-hand smoke. Just how much hazard is present, and compared to the myriad of hazards we already know about and encounter is our daily lives, just where would this newly-discovered hazard actually rank?

The NYT, citing a study published in the journal Pediatrics, didn’t bother to discover those details. Instead, they crafted a hit piece on smoking, playing to the fears that ‘the children‘ might be at risk.

I’d like to know what level of risk is present, please. Before we start handing out masks and pressure-washing the elevators.

Oh, and this…

“Third-hand smoke is what one smells when a smoker gets in an elevator after going outside for a cigarette, he said, or in a hotel room where people were smoking. “Your nose isn’t lying,” he said. “The stuff is so toxic that your brain is telling you: ’Get away.’”

There’s plenty of obnoxious smells we cross in our daily lives. Without getting too specific, we don’t normally run away every time we encounter a bad odor. Boston, New York; I’ll bet strolling the streets in those or any other overpopulation center is an exercise in aroma avoidance.

What is the NYT advocating? Of course, they are inherently anti-tobacco, and would lurvs some pro-government intervention, and would probably like nothing more than to shut down the tobacco industry entirely. Barring that, banning smoking in the home ‘for the children’s sake‘ is obviously the next step…

The belief that third-hand smoke was harmful greatly increased the likelihood the respondent also would enforce a strict smoking ban at home, Dr. Winickoff said.

“That tells us we’re onto an important new health message here,” he said. “What we heard in focus group after focus group was, ‘I turn on the fan and the smoke disappears.’ It made us realize how many people think about second-hand smoke — they’re telling us they know it’s bad but they’ve figured out a way to do it.”

…

Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician who heads the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said the phrase third-hand smoke is a brand-new term that has implications for behavior. [emboldenings mine]

Loving the smell of ‘behavior implications‘, aren’t you? Government intervention follows closely, I’ll warrant. Banning smoking in homes where children are present; banning smoking in cars that might transport children; and why not ban smoking during working hours, even outside, because a smoker drags those nassty ‘third-hand smoke‘ molecules back into the office where they might harm an innocent party?

Sheesh. I’ll take my chances with ‘third-hand smoke’. The rights of smokers are curtailed enough. As more people realize that their habit is annoying and harmful to other people, they’ll feel more pressure to quit. But this NYT hit piece is overkill, part of an anti-smoking campaign that’s little more than a setup that practically begs for more incremental government intervention. That incremental government eroding of rights is to me is more harmful than a few remnant molecules.

A celebrated Habitat for Humanity development begins to feel the difference between “professional labor” and “volunteer labor.” Sux to be the people in the houses, but it also sux that the HfH concept has such deep limitations. This is the leftie project that should have worked, yo.

UPDATE: One of the comments is instructive:

This is not a typical Habitat project. This was a photo-op for the worst President who is also the worst former President the US. has ever had. I am on the board of a local Habitat and we do great work. We only build about three houses a year but they are made well and last if maintained.

lulu bert, columbus,ms, usa

And it actually contains real facts:

Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted

Sorry, Mr. Gore. The jig is up. The catastrophic scenario that you outlined in AIT has failed to materialize, and the globe’s climate goes on its merry way without you.

As reported by Reuters today.

“By Jon Hurdle

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Governors of five U.S. states urged the federal government to provide $1 trillion in aid to the country’s 50 states to help pay for education, welfare and infrastructure as states struggle with steep budget deficits amid a deepening recession.

The governors of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin — all Democrats — said the initiative for the two-year aid package was backed by other governors and follows a meeting in December where governors called on President-elect Barack Obama to help them maintain services in the face of slumping revenues.”

Those printing presses keep on turning,
Big Barry keeps it all churning,
Rolling, rolling, rolling out the money.

I can’t remember the last time I saw even a nominally “Republican” newspaper with an allegedly “conservative” editorial page that ever met a government program or tax hike it couldn’t support to the point of chucking all pretense of “journalistic objectivity” out the window. So I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see this go through:

Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty. But others think he and his colleagues are setting a worrisome precedent for government involvement in the U.S. press.

Precedent? Precedent??? What year is this, 2009 or 1909?

Nicastro represents Connecticut’s 79th assembly district, which includes Bristol, a city of about 61,000 people outside Hartford, the state capital. Its paper, The Bristol Press, may fold within days, along with The Herald in nearby New Britain.

That is because publisher Journal Register, in danger of being crushed under hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, says it cannot afford to keep them open anymore.

Nicastro and fellow legislators want the papers to survive, and petitioned the state government to do something about it. “The media is a vitally important part of America,” he said, particularly local papers that cover news ignored by big papers and television and radio stations.

To some experts, that sounds like a bailout, a word that resurfaced this year after the U.S. government agreed to give hundreds of billions of dollars to the automobile and financial sectors.

To some. Lordy.

Relying on government help raises ethical questions for the press, whose traditional role has been to operate free from government influence as it tries to hold politicians accountable to the people who elected them.

Any of you ever see the third Star Wars prequel? Remember the scene where Anakin Skywalker kneels before Palpatine and declares himself for the Dark Side, and is finally given the name Darth Vader?

A government bailout of the Establishment News Media would be like that scene — finally an open declaration of what most of us have known from the start of the whole franchise.

Even some publishers desperate for help are wary of this route.

Nah, go for it. Open, honest evil may not be good, exactly, but it would be a refreshing change from how you’ve been doing business.

Cross-posted here

Updated:   Thu   1 Jan 2009   9:58 EST

Commenter Steve Collins demurs and points to this post on his blog, BristolToday.com. It appears what Nicastro is doing is trying to help Journal Register find a buyer for the troubled newspapers.

Wouldn’t be the first time Reuters got something wrong.

Blago has made his selection and already there are those that are giving lip service to blocking the appointment.

Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, who must certify the appointment, said he will not do so and Senate leaders reiterated that they would not accept anyone appointed by Blagojevich.

My understanding is that White’s certification is merely a formality, but I could be mistaken.

Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid, has vowed not to seat Burris which would be just the fifth time the Senate has refused to seat someone since the institution of direct elections in 1913.

If the Senate sticks to its guns, which is unlikely, this will be potentially headed to the federal courts. If it gets to that point, Burris may very well take his seat.

The Senate has refused to seat just four members since direct elections were instituted for the chamber in 1913, said Donald Ritchie, a Senate historian.

The extent of that power has been tested before the Supreme Court only once, after the House decided not to seat embattled Democrat Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., in 1967 despite his re-election to the seat. The high court ruled that the chamber could not block Mr. Powell, because he was duly elected and met all of the other constitutional requirements for office.

The difference here being that Burris was not duly elected but appointed which will make for an interesting debate I am sure.  I am not a lawyer but if some of you with legal chops what to weigh in on that little difference, I welcome it.

However, I don’t believe that it will come to that. Why? It is very simple. The race card will be played in politics yet again. Blago made a brilliant yet cynical pick. This pick makes clear that Blago is no idiot and he has fine tuned his nose for political maneuvering on the grindstone of the Windy City political machine.  He would appear to be very clever without scruples because with his pick he puts 99 white senators in the uncomfortable position of trying to deny a black man his seat.  The Senate will not push this because the ACLU, NAACP and the parade of bigoted, race baiters will come to the defense of Burris and smear those who stand against him as Racists. 

The beautiful thing is that I don’t care either way.  From a partisan standpoint it is a win-win for me. Blago will stay in the news and continue to cast a dark shadow over Obama’s inauguration and first few months of his first term. He will continue to be the most recognizable corrupt politician…and he is a democrat which leaves lefty trolls like monkeyalfiethorclown to screech about Stevens and make gay jokes about Larry Craig…and that’s two birds in my book.  Either way this will be one of the top stories for months and there is no way for the Democrats or their media mouthpieces to blame the Republicans, Rove or Bush\Cheney.  Their only option is to try and ignore what can’t be ignored.  B-E-A-UTIFUL. 

I am going to go make me some popcorn.

So, I wandered over to HuffPo to see what they were saying about Israel’s Gaza dealo, and I found a piece supporting Israel. Of course, you know that could mean only one thing; the comments were going to be GOOD! So, let’s get started:

Ah! That explains the blockade that’s kept food, money, and medical supplies from reaching Gaza. As well as the Israeli bombing of Gaza University. I was wondering.What you fail to mention sir is that one person died from Hamas’ missile attacks, which are mostly signs of desperation. 300 Palestinians (and growing) to 1 Israeli seems to be an acceptable ratio to you. I’m sorry, but your bias is showing.

*********

Israet is the occupier of Palestine. Not the other way around. There is nothing messy about it.

******

it is not aid by the State of Israel. Israel has never provided aid to the Palestinians, in fact it steal from them. It steals their water, it destroys their crops (cease-fire or not), confiscate their taxes and refuses to let the Palestinians control of their importations or export - they have to be done through an Israeli company.

*******

Stop with the veiled anti-semitism snark. Anti semiticism doesn”t work anymore.These people don’t hate Israeli’s because their Jewish, they hate them for kicking them off their land, bombing civilians, stealing the very rare potable water, ignoring U.N. resolutions, ignoring previous agreements and destroying their food supply and economy.  

And then there’s this:

I think the two state solution is the wrong way to go. We would end up having two countries at war, instead parts of one country at war.I think the only peaceful solution is for Israel to absorb the west bank and Gaza into its own state and for Hamas to run for election in Israel. When they have a majority they can say who things can be done, it could be done through peaceful means, and the average Palestinian could benefit. A step to a secular Israel would be good for everyone.  

 Yes, that would be an excellent idea!  What could possibly go wrong?  There is actually a pretty good back-and-forth over there at HuffPo.

And maybe Europe is not forever lost.

From the International Herald Tribune, an article by John Vincour on how the Dutch are reconsidering their famous, self-congratulatory Tolerance Of Everything.

Two weeks ago, the country’s biggest left-wing political grouping, the Labor Party, which has responsibility for integration as a member of the coalition government led by the Christian Democrats, issued a position paper calling for the end of the failed model of Dutch “tolerance.”
…
The paper said: “The mistake we can never repeat is stifling criticism of cultures and religions for reasons of tolerance.”
…
Newcomers, according to Ploumen, must avoid “self-designated victimization.”

She asserted, “the grip of the homeland has to disappear” for these immigrants who, news reports indicate, also retain their original nationality at a rate of about 80 percent once becoming Dutch citizens.
…
Labor’s line seems to stand on its head the old equation of jobs-plus-education equals integration. Conforming to Dutch society’s social standards now comes first. Strikingly, it turns its back on cultural relativism and uses the word emancipation in discussing the process of outsiders’ becoming Dutch.
…
And the obligations of the native Dutch? Ploumen’s answer is, “People who have their roots here have to offer space to traditions, religions and cultures which are new to Dutch society” — but without fear of expressing criticism. “Hurting feelings is allowed, and criticism of religion, too.”

As tempting as it is to engage in “neener-neener” at this point, I really cannot find it in me to pile on. The Dutch have made a very human error, and we conservatives should not be so certain that we’re not vulnerable to the same kind of mistake.

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