35 Years later – Interstellar Space in sight
From FoxNews,

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has encountered a new environment more than 11 billion miles from Earth, suggesting that the venerable probe is on the cusp of leaving the solar system.

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Does MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell not think?
In this day and age, and in Western culture, cameras – especially video cameras – are ubiquitous. Anyone at a public event had better think twice before selectively editing a video of said event.

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Is the world overpopulated or are we just lousy stewards?
Interesting graphic comparing the world’s population with the density of major cities.

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On the power of Christian apologetics
As a Facebook friend of mine said,

…the ‘objective morality can only come from a Person’ argument did the trick!

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Should you home school your child?
A college prof weighs in.

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Newspapers – “Yesterday’s news, tomorrow.”

Good morning.

1. Protestant and the Theotokos.
2. See, for liberals … whose motivations are unquestionably (unlike conservatives) in the right place, laws are kinda like guidelines, so who needs careful guidelines anyhow?
3. If you have time … Fast and Furious explained.  While somebody didn’t do their homework at all.
4. So was the President involved in Fast and Furious … or is he lying (a point missed by the cartoonist)? Executive privilege invocation is there to protect conversations between the President and his advisers.  So either he was involved and is invoking this correctly (which in turn is not such a good thing) or he’s dishonestly invoking the privilege.
5. But we know he tells lies (big ones too getting “4 Pinocchio’s” ) … so … believe what you will.
6. Uruguay makes a move.
7. Why does motivated reasoning always affect the “other guy”. It’s “you are affected” not “we are affected”.
8. A reminder why an elephant is a mouse to government specs in the context of the new Obama DREAM directive.
9. Our network of premises.
10. Zooom.
11. Pretend to be gay or Christian akin to the Turing test.

Good morning.

1. Executive privilege and flip flops. Soon we’ll see Mr Obama’s remarks on Mr Bush’s use of privilege I suspect. Interesting to watch defenders of Mr Bush’s use of this now attack Mr Obama and vice versa. A pox on all your houses.
2. Like that noted here.
3. So … has Mr Obama said he is involved in the Fast/Furious programme by his words that is what it would take to involve executive privilege.
4. Faint praise for Mr Obama.
5. Never fear, the left won’t hear you … that’s a message they’ve conditioned themselves to not hear.
6. It is not however on account of epistemic closure, a term misused widely. Now that you know what epistemic closure actually is, we can all stop misusing the term.
7. Exegesis and the detective narrative.
8. Technical know-how and the US.
9. Basic education and college costs.
10. Intelligent TSA screening … hmm.
11. And computers are relatively simple … but make a good argument about central planning.
12. Praising the hybrid, and missing the points of why the don’t “kick ass”, which is that hybridization of vehicles only pays if they are already far too heavy (you get less and less payback from hybridizing as the vehicle gets lighter).
13. On religious freedom …

With Attorney General Eric Holder facing contempt of Congress charges it seems that the ATF operation Fast and Furious has finally made it into the mainstream news. However, would this have been possible without New Media (i.e., pajama-clad bloggers on the internet)?

For those completely unaware, this short video summarizes the issues surrounding Eric Holder, Fast and Furious, and Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

The blog Sipsey Street Irregulars first reported on Terry’s death being linked to an ATF-smuggled rifle in December of 2010. It was information gathered from the CleanUpATF forum. The forum post reads,

Word is that curious George Gillett the Phoenix ASAC stepped on it again. Allegedly he has approved more than 500 AR-15 type rifles from Tucson and Phoenix cases to be “walked” to Mexico. Appears that ATF may be one of the largest suppliers of assault rifles to the Mexican cartels! One of these rifles is rumored to have been linked to the recent killing of a Border Patrol Officer in Nogales, AZ. Can anyone confirm this information?

Besides Sipsey Street Irregulars, David Codrea, at Gun Rights Examiner, has also been instrumental in providing news and updates on this story long before the mainstream media took interest. Codrea wrote about “Project Gunrunner”, back in early 2011,

• ATF management was allowing potentially hundreds of semiautomatic firearms to be walked across the Mexican border in order to pad statistics used to further budget and power objectives.
• Mexican authorities were kept in the dark, and protests that they should be informed were overridden, first by the Phoenix ATF office, and ultimately by higher-ups in Washington, DC.
• A gun used in this operation was involved in a December 2010 incident in which a Border Patrol agent was killed.

While most in mainstream media ignored the story, Sharyl Attkisson of CBS was one of the first (if not the first) to report on it.

Of course, there will be accusations that the operation started under the Bush administration (you remember the drill, right? – when in doubt, blame Bush). The only problem being that the operation under the Bush administration was designed to nab illegal arms sales and not let the firearms leave the country. And Holder himself has had to retract his claim that the Bush administration’s attorney general knew about gunwalking. But of course, the blame Bush diversions are just that – diversions. Indeed, in accusing the Republicans of playing politics is nothing more than playing politics from the other side of the fence.

So, here we are. The story is gaining ground, so much so that even NBC, which had yet to mention Fast and Furious, resorted to reporting on it (yet note how they refer to the power struggles between the congress and the executive branch as “broken politics”). But Border Patrol agent Brian Terry deserves more than a “broken politics” excuse. And, as Sipsey Street Irregulars is now reporting, the reprocussions of this operation extend to another federal agent – one Jaime Zapata.

This story should not be seen as a fight between the Left and the Right. It has always been a fight for the truth.

Update:  Info on Operation Wide Receiver (in case anyone asks)

Update 2:  Sorry, I missed this important point.

And BIll Whittle tells us who the real racists are.

Good morning.

1. While the left seems unaware of the workings of sexual apparatus (apparently they are unaware that the fetus gestates in something called the uterus at the same time ignore the whys and wherefores of polite discourse) …
2. they also continue to blithely ignore and keep quite about larger problems or the elephant in the room.
3. Demographics of abortion and political party.
4. Hmm. I thought it would have had something to do with the serial killing of women and children that the Palestinians keep doing.
5. The (real) medical problems of the sort not addressed by the Democrat vision of how to fix things with redistribution.
6. An economist look at what the medical fixes that the right might have suggested/supported.
7. Killing from a distance is not COIN and no way to “win hearts and minds” at all.
8. This sort of thing, if the press was honest and unbiased, would have come out more than 4 years ago.
9. Some reading suggestions.
10. There’s some missing logic here (looking at his enumerated list of logic leading to inflation or not) … look at college costs and its rampant rise ahead of inflation (with no concomitant rise in quality) due in a large part to “free money” pumped in by government grants and loans. Prices can inflate in the presence of money unforced by supply.
11. DREAM … out the window.
12. Of partisanship and undercover journalism.
13. And someday perhaps the disgusting unaffirmative action supported by liberals will end in our schools too.
14. Is this right? How about Constitutional?

1. Besides questions of liberty … Obamacare has other issues, in that it ain’t solving the problem it pretends to address. Lower the supply to lower costs. What economic principle is that?
2. The sort of tyranny that Obamacare is part (and soda size regulations).
3. That soda size thing … “based on research” … and what do those researchers actually say about the ban?
4. Some verse for fathers day.
5. The other part of the health care Constitutional challenge, i.e., the part people aren’t talking about.
6. An approach to confronting hackers and crackers.
7. This last Sunday ends the Lenten/Paschal cycle.
8. Solar heating on the cheap.
9. Well, I suppose you’ll have to contrast with Obama’s record of holding employment down and improving taxes.
10. Our public schools and their purpose.
11. Speaking of public schools, we have our public sector teachers union to thank for crap like this.
12. Democrats think we should keep the influence of the wealthy out of politics … so what is this then if not the influence of the wealthy in politics? Perhaps they just want to keep the “other guys” wealth out of politics … which alas sounds a lot less principled (because it is).
13. Heck the casualty rates of the Civil War should have been enough warning.
14. A bad day at work.
15. The real consequence of our marriage crises … and SSM has nuttin to do with it, except to serve as a distraction.

Good morning.

1. Progressive McCarthyism. Will they move to counter?
2. Science and religion.
3. Our government, creating jobs and markets.
4. Duh. Does this need to be even said?
5. Sickness or health? The question of what “healthy” means is often difficult. Of course, on the other hand, some bioethics people have rocks for brains.
6. Speaking of bio-ethics.
7. Of our regrettable (?) beauty industry.
8. Origenal homilies.
9. Stem cells, oddly enough … adult.
10. Seeing as the post office loses money on each transaction … is that wise?
11. I guess it was nice to grow up when GI Joe was fighting Gerries.
12. Looking back at hard times.

NYC Gone Wild
Wild with asine regulations, that is. First extra large soda bans, now Bloomberg wants to go after popcorn and milkshakes?

This is no accident and it is indicative of how they want to weasel their way into every aspect of our lives.

Make no mistake about it. They will use the same tactics with regards to gun control.

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Heh

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And you think media has no impact?

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Steyn asks the question I asked after the media moved on to some other “film at 11” story
From the article,

So how’s that old Arab Spring going? You remember – the “Facebook Revolution.” As I write, they’re counting the votes in Egypt’s presidential election, so by the time you read this the pecking order may have changed somewhat. But currently in first place is the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi, who in an inspiring stump speech before the students of Cairo University the other night told them, “Death in the name of Allah is our goal.”

…

A century ago, the West exported its values. So, in Farouk’s Egypt, at the start of a new legislative session, the King was driven to his toytown parliament to deliver the speech from the throne in an explicit if ramshackle simulacrum of Westminster’s rituals of constitutional monarchy. Today, we decline to export values, and complacently assume, as the very term “Facebook Revolution” suggests, that technology marches in support of modernity. It doesn’t. Facebook’s flat IPO and Egypt’s presidential election are in that sense part of the same story, of a developed world whose definitions of innovation and achievement have become too shrunken and undernourished. The vote in Egypt tells us a lot about them, but it also tells us something about us.

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And what about that “blood for oil” meme?
From Richard Fernandez,

Surely if America fought a war for oil, then Iraq’s oil resources would be in the hands of evil Republicans? But apparently not. Rather they are in the hands of the Russians and the Chinese. “Exxon Mobil has by far the largest stake of any American company in Iraq, but most of the major players are European and Asian, like Lukoil and Gazprom from Russia, and Chinese companies like China National Petroleum and China National Offshore Oil Corporation.” So there you have it. American blood, Russian and Chinese oil. Funny how that worked out.

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Kathy Ireland tells how she became Pro-Life

It’s not promoted, but Ireland got a lot of critical thinking skills from Stand to Reason. Take, for example, her statement: If abortion does not take the life of an unborn human being, then no justification of abortion is necessary. If, however, abortion does take the life of an innocent unborn human being, then no justification of abortion is adequate.

Good morning.

1. A summary of the second paragraph, the naive dreamers favor Mr Obama, realists favor Mr Romney.
2. Genesis and Sodom … the message (hint: not about sex).
3. Special you are not.
4. Unstealthy ninja.
5. In the strange world of the left, ability to pay is affirmative action.
6. Not Mr Zimmerman and a different court case.
7. Some more thoughts on the Zimmerman case.
8. Good news or not?
9. The black underbelly of the auto bailout, that it wasn’t an auto bailout.
10. Well, there is still a chance the Court will kill it.
11. Cinema.
12. Marching alongside Obamacare … more nanny state. Yankee self-reliance is dead apparently.

The Bacon, Mushroom, and Jack Cheese Omelet, at Edelweiss, in Auburn, CA.

As should be expected, besides the 4 eggs comprising this breakfast dish, it also has bacon, mushrooms, and jack cheese. I had heard the omelets were huge here and these pics should be proof of that. I don’t order omelets very often and, indeed, this morning I was debating whether or not to try a hash special. But I was very delighted with this puppy. As you can see from the second pic, there was an ample supply of mushrooms and they weren’t shy with the bacon either! Our waitress was very attentive and made sure we were taken care of. With accompaniments of hashbrowns and wheat toast, and I was set for just about the entire day!

Enjoy!

– images © 2012 A R Lopez

Good morning.

1. A famous trial and a film.
2. A walk in the moldy green listening to the screaming of the trees. Err, well, not quite.
3. Improper Soviets? I thought the term soviet basically meant something akin to “town meeting”, which would make New Hampshire a more proper soviet, eh?
4. Sherlock Holmes, a museum, and med students.
5. A recipe.
6. More on the Zimmerman kerfuffle. One might see the wisdom of trying to hide the family wealth from the grasping arm of the law, but your cunning plan needs to be cunning.
7. Getting the hind end foremost.
8. Legal advice from the ethically challenged, i.e., you can have religious freedom (defined narrowly here as a tax exemption) if your religion agrees with mine on social issues. Gotcha. Actual freedom of religion treats all religions equally, even those which disagree with me.
9. Apparently “being a female” is a disease.
10. So, what are friends for?
11. “Lying to Congress” a crime. This is one of the more striking ironies in our time, that lying “to” Congress is a crime while lying while “in” Congress is done every day.
12. Autobiography as fiction. What then is the point?

‘Nuff said fer now.

Jonah Goldberg thinks young people are “so frickin’ stupid”
Goldberg pulls no punches in this clip.

I agree, and disagree with him.

I agree that there is a knowledge issue with youth, 21st century Western youth in particular. Yet I disagree that this “frickin’ stupid” issue is inherent to being young. While youth, by its very nature, brings with it inexperience and, as a result, a lack of wisdom, it’s also free from the excess baggage of constricted paradigms and narrow thinking born from years of repetitiveness. This point is eloquently detailed in Robert Epstein’s book The Case Against Adolescence.

However, I think that we (you know – the older and “wiser” ones) have created the mess we now face with a generation desiring perpetual adolescence. In providing a safe and entertainment-filled environment for our children have we inadvertently prevented them from acting their age – in essence – from being the young-adults they physiologically are?

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Hoplophobia gone wild
It seems that Australian swimming authorities consider it offensive for Australian swimmers to pose for photographs while holding (not “brandishing”) firearms while in a gunstore in the United States.

And the graves of countless Australians, who transformed the land from a penal colony to a thriving nation, are rumbling.

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MSNBC’s Chris Hayes is “rhetorically proximate to a twerp” – Bill Whittle
Watch it all.

And a Happy Belated Memorial Day to you as well.

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The Juvenilization of American Christianity
From the article,

As early as the 1950s, youth ministry was low on content and high on emotional fulfillment. The best youth ministries did provide individualized spiritual formation and even intense discipleship. But even otherwise exemplary youth ministries could unintentionally send the message that the church or even God exists to help me on my journey of self-development. Most youth ministries since the 1960s have followed the club model pioneered by Young Life and YFC. Songs, games, skits, and other youth-culture entertainments are followed by talks or discussions that feature simple truths packaged with humor, stories, and personal testimonies. As they listen to years of simplified messages that emphasize an emotional relationship with Jesus over intellectual content, teenagers learn that a well-articulated belief system is unimportant and might even become an obstacle to authentic faith. This feel-good faith works because it appeals to teenage desires for fun and belonging. It casts a wide net by dumbing down Christianity to the lowest common denominator of adolescent cognitive development and religious motivation.

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And about how Christians keep apologizing for the Crusades
Another zinger from Jonah Goldberg,

The word “crusader” has been completely captured by the forces political correctness. Whatever their sins, the Crusaders weren’t conquerors or the first invading shock troops of Western imperialism. They were warriors sent to reclaim lands taken by Islamic invaders. The great irony is that both Western progressives and Islamic fundamentalists have unwittingly bought into the same propaganda.

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Sorry, I’d forgotten a early appointment meeting a tech at a customer site (sans net) yesterday.

1. Working on politics a noble profession. Hmm.
2. A looming disaster?
3. Living in the now.
4. Yet another example of Presidential duplicity.
5. In which money is important (in an election). To you know, annoy people so they vote for the other guy (or not at all).
6. Where that stimulus money went.
7. For believers in unicorns and faeries.
8. Fish kill and big guns.
9. Speaking of big guns, last week I linked an essay by Richard Fernandez in which he mentioned a book “Shattered Sword” (on the battle of Midway). I read it and recommend it highly.
10. I think that’s wrong … I no longer think that moral responsibility is not linked to free/not-free will. Moral responsibility is a social construct and social constructions are not dependent on freedom. Intelligence suffices for social construction.
11. In which religion drops off the page.
12. Of argument and temperment.
13. By the logic of ever more nationalized healthcare all exercise with risk of injury should be banned.
14. Is this is pro-choice/pro-life issue, a vegan/non-vegan one, or just taste?
15. Mr Obama’s gaffe.
16. Cards on table.
17. See! not for porn. Much more practical it was drugs!
18. Who has experience.

Dang those cellphone cameras!
From the article,

Tesoro High School in Las Flores reported as many as nine students improperly pulled out their cellphones during the May 16-18 administration of annual Standardized Testing And Reporting, or STAR, exams, said Marcus Walton, a spokesman for the Capistrano Unified School District.

Ouch!

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Hmm, Now “Paper or Plastic” might get you fined
From the L.A. Times opinion piece,

…plastic bags are more costly to all of us than they appear and won’t be missed once they are gone. Stores do offer an alternative — asking modern life’s essential question, “Paper or plastic?” — but there are even better options. More shoppers now carry reusable totes, and for those who won’t, don’t or just forgot, paper bags would still be available in Los Angeles stores for a modest fee.

How about we just ban silly regulations?.

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Home burglars caught on home security video
Note a couple of things from the incident: 1) Residence was broken into soon after purse and garage door opener was stolen from car, and 2) A handgun was stolen from the residence.

Takeaway:

• If you have a garage door opener remote in your car, do you also have any documentation which gives your residence address?
• If your car is broken into, quickly determine whether or not items stolen can lead to your house being broken into.
• Keep your garage to house entryway locked.
• If you keep a firearm at home for self defense, don’t leave it in an obvious location where a common break-in hoodlum can quickly find it.

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IN-N-OUT Burger in Tokyo?

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Daytime Curfew lunacy is shutdown in San Luis Obispo County

Good morning.

1. Economics of burger and nation.
2. More econ here.
3. “See me for dust” a phrase I’d never heard.
4. Sprawl.
5. The pro-choice “all life is sacred” conundrum noted.
6. The other marriage debate.
7. Our effing regulatory state, which is getting worse all the time. One side of the aisle thinks that’s a good thing.
8. Moving on up?
9. A birthday party notion. And the entertainment guest dresses like this (if they’re doing it right).
10. How to get Americans in the gym.
11. Some conservatives want to see Obama lose. I think the reason is hidden in the paragraph toward the bottom, i.e., Obama has been awesome at inspiring and recruiting conservatives.
12. Bad expense management has costs.
13. Mr Walker and the Wisconsin coerced unions.
14. Women against raising kids well.
15. That “popular” mandate, crickets say its not popular.