According to the Houston Chronicle, a Texas Utility is proceeding with controversial plans to generate... electricity:

Earlier this year, TXU announced plans to build 11 coal-fired power plants that would begin operating by 2010.

That plan has run into opposition from Texas environmentalists, because current coal plants have produced mercury pollution that contaminates many of the state's lakes. TXU said the new plants would be cleaner than the ones they replace.

They are also planning to build some nuclear power plants.

Karen Hadden, executive director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition, said TXU is exaggerating the need for new power plants.

"Certainly we want to have a reserve margin, but (TXU officials) want us to be afraid of blackouts so they can build an empire," Hadden said. "Nuclear is still not a good choice. There's still no solution to the waste."

Hadden's group favors wind and solar power.

Ahhh, everyone's favorite: wind and solar.  A.k.a. Hot air.

Re: solar, there's a little problem known as the first law of thermodynamics, which says you can't get more energy out of a system than is already there.  So to reason backwards, if you could collect a substantial amount of solar energy with a solar panel, that would imply you would burn to a crispy cinder if you stepped out from the shade.  You don't; therefore you can't.

Then there's wind.  By all means, build windmills.  But since energy is very hard to store, don't turn on the television unless it's windy.

Meanwhile, for those of us who occasionally use a toaster when it's dark out and the wind's not blowing, please build those nuclear reactors.

One of the persistent messages I've heard over the years is that schools are better the more they have parental involvement.  The most recent incarnation is a guilt-heavy radio advertisement playing around here.

But doesn't that imply there's something wrong with the schools?

After all (strap yourself in now), teaching... is... not... rocket science.  There I said it.  In fact, I'll say it again.  Teaching is not rocket science.  Ahh, the first few times were the hardest, but now it gets easier: teaching is not rocket science teaching is not rocket science teaching is not...

Yes, there is an art to teaching.  True, it's not for everybody.  Yes, there are some techniques involved.  But you get a reasonably competent teacher, some text books, a dry erase marker, a white board, permission to boot the troublemakers, and presto!  Education happens.

Teachers bristle at this.  They work sooooo hard.  They're sooooo dedicated.  But you know what?  So are police officers and nurses and computer programmers and construction workers and tax accountants.  We all work hard.

So why do I have to involve myself with the school?  I don't involve myself with the local hardware store or movie theater or barber shop or grocery store.  The quality of the lettuce doesn't deteriorate because I don't go to the Safeway board meetings.

Education is not the magical mystery tour -- it's a service, plain and simple, just like any other.

Except that it's a  government monopoly.

Fred Barnes assesses the President's performance with respect to Katrina in the Weekly Standard:

Thirdly, the president held back from dispatching federal troops to New Orleans until Blanco asked for them. By that time, disorder had broken out in New Orleans and stories about murders and rapes at the Superdome--stories that turned out to be false--filled the news.

True, Bush was shackled by national law, which allows federal troops to be deployed only if there's an insurrection, which there wasn't, or the governor requests them, which Blanco was willing to do only if the troops were put under her command. This condition would have been unprecedented and was unacceptable to the White House and the Pentagon. She relented four days after the hurricane and requested the troops.

You see, that's the thing.  Do we really want the chief executive to be able to dispatch federal troops anywhere within the territorial United States whenever he wants?  Now think about that.  All of you with your knickers in a bunch over the administration's surveilling of Al Qaeda phone calls to persons in the United States, feel free to speak up.

And while I'm on the subject, how many of these supposed civil libertarians are in favor of a progressive income tax that requires we voluntarily fork over complete details of our economic activity every April 15?  How many want a national government health care system which involves divulging all our health data to the feds?  How many want national gun registration?  How many want the continued federalization of education?

True civil libertarians are against all those things.  I may disagree with them on the issue of terrorist surveillance, but I respect them.  The rest are just liberals in libertarian clothing, decrying government invasion of privacy today, pleading for more in other forms yesterday and tomorrow.

To those who undermine the Commander in time of war...

Executive Mansion,
Washington, January 26, 1863
 
Major General Hooker:

General.
    I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac.  Of course I have done this upon what appear to me to be sufficient reasons.  And yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which, I am not quite satisfied with you.  I believe you to be a brave and a skilful soldier, which, of course, I like.  I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right.  You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable, if not an indispensable quality.  You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm.  But I think that during Gen. Burnsides's command of the Army, you have taken counsel of your ambition, and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer.  I have heard, in such way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a Dictator.  Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command.  Only those generals who gain successes, can set up dictators.  What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.  The government will support you to the utmost of it's ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders.  I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the Army, of criticising their Commander, and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you.  I shall assist you as far as I can, to put it down.  Neither you, nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army, while such a spirit prevails in it.
 
And now, beware of rashness.  Beware of rashness, but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward, and give us victories.  Yours very truly,
 
Abraham Lincoln

From the Selected Writings of Abraham Lincoln
A Bantam Classic Book / July 1992

A former high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer lays out the Russian connection to Islamic terrorism in the  National Review:

In 1972, the Kremlin decided to turn the whole Islamic world against Israel and the U.S. As KGB chairman Yury Andropov told me, a billion adversaries could inflict far greater damage on America than could a few millions. We needed to instill a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews throughout the Islamic world, and to turn this weapon of the emotions into a terrorist bloodbath against Israel and its main supporter, the United States. No one within the American/Zionist sphere of influence should any longer feel safe.

According to Andropov, the Islamic world was a waiting petri dish in which we could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought. Islamic anti-Semitism ran deep. The Muslims had a taste for nationalism, jingoism, and victimology. Their illiterate, oppressed mobs could be whipped up to a fever pitch.

This is must-read stuff.

Forbes/AP reports on Iran's response to the recent UN proposal:

China and Russia suggested they might support further talks, but the U.S. and France said Tehran's proposal falls short of U.N. demands. None unequivocally rejected or accepted Iran's counteroffer to a package of incentives offered by the U.S. and five other world powers to persuade Tehran to roll back on its nuclear program.

Diplomats at the U.N. and foreign capitals were studying what Germany called Iran's "voluminous and complex" offer, a day after Tehran presented it without releasing full details. Iran's proposal offers negotiations with the six nations but apparently resists suspending uranium enrichment - the main Security Council demand to avoid sanctions.

Blah blah blah.

Instead of all this talk, maybe we should try the WWII option -- decapitate the Iranian regime and divide it into a U.S., British, French, and Russian zone.  Of course the French would be willing to contribute 15,000... I mean, 200 troops for that purpose.  And as far as the Russians go, I can't imagine they'd turn down a piece of oil-rich real estate; though we could always bid it out to the Chinese if the Russians opted out.

Yes, this sounds radical.  However, the Iranians cannot be allowed to get a bomb.  And talk is not the answer.

I know that some Iraqi provinces have been completely turned over to the Iraqi army.  Maybe it would help if the administration would show us a map with those provinces colored in.  This would show progress.

Recently I had a political discussion with some co-workers.  One guy felt that Wal-Mart was a mildly negative force in the world.  He admitted he shopped there, but he felt guilty about it.

A while back I got into a school choice discussion with the wife of a friend of mine.  She's anti-choice; one reason is she believes government schools provide beneficial mixing of different classes and ethnicities of people.  They send their kid to private school, but she feels guilty about it.

Having a sample of two, and ignoring my statistics book on the shelf, it occurs to me:

Liberals need the government to make them do what they think is right, while conservatives will do what they think is right all by themselves.

Liberals shop at Wal-Mart, send their kids to private school, drive SUVs, use non-union labor and try to avoid paying taxes.  And they feel guilty.

Conservatives do all those things, don't feel guilty, and donate to the Salvation Army when no one makes them.

FoxNews/AP reports comments from Lebanon's defense minister Elias Murr:

"We consider that when the resistance (Hezbollah) is committed not to fire rockets, then any rocket that is fired from the Lebanese territory would be considered collaboration with Israel to provide a pretext (for Israel) to strike," Murr said.

He added that "the Lebanese army will decisively deal with" any attack on Israel and that anyone arrested for violating the truce "will be considered by the military tribunal as an agent of the Israeli enemy."

This strikes me as a variant of certain comments making the rounds in this country after Al Qaeda's attack on Manhattan and Washington, "if you don't do (some thing I want you to do), then the terrorists will have won."  Only in this case, it's the version intended for Islamic terrorists, "if you do (some thing I don't want you to do), then you are in league with the Israelis."

Of course, he is making a very clever distinction between Hezbollah and combatants who fire rockets.  In reality, they are one and the same.  But in the media-political sphere, since Hezbollah would never tell a lie, then anyone who fires rockets is by definition not Hezbollah!  Therefore the Lebanese army can eliminate such combatants without starting a civil war with Hezbollah.  And labeling the combatants as Israeli conspirators is icing on the cake, thus showing the Lebanese army is not doing the bidding of Israel in cracking down on the rocket-launchers, but actually opposing Israel.  Masterful.

If he backs up his words, then he's the perfect combination of Bill Clinton and Donald Rumsfeld.  Why can't we get a guy like this on our side?

We went camping up in Frisco, CO this past weekend.  You haven't lived until you've played T-ball in a forest of lodgepole pines.  It was the perfect combination of baseball and pinball.  Not for the faint of heart.

FoxNews/AP reports:

In an interview, [civil rights leader Andrew] Young was asked whether he was concerned that Wal-Mart causes smaller, mom-and-pop stores to close.

"Well, I think they should; they ran the 'mom and pop' stores out of my neighborhood," the paper quoted Young as saying. "But you see, those are the people who have been overcharging us, selling us stale bread and bad meat and wilted vegetables. And they sold out and moved to Florida. I think they've ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it's Arabs; very few black people own these stores."

Predictably this was followed by the usual sanctimonious indignation:

"Andrew Young is a nationally known civil rights leader. If anyone should know that these are the words of bigotry, anti-Semitism and prejudice, it's him," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. "I know he apologized, but I would say this: ... During his years as a leader of the national civil rights movement, if anyone would utter remarks like this about African-Americans, his voice would be the first to rise in indignation."

First of all, I am completely and utterly shocked that anyone in this country would take a pot shot at such a political sacred cow as Mom and Pop shops.  But let us move on.

This exchange is a perfect example of why we can't talk about race in this country -- it's because any such discussion is instantly labeled prejudice.

Instead, let me ask this provocative question: is what Andrew Young said about Jewish store owners... true?  To illustrate, let me ask in a noninflammatory way:

Was there a time in our history when a significant percentage of grocery stores in predominantly African-American communities were owned by Jews?

If so, were the prices, adjusted for inflation, higher than in Wal-Mart today?

Also, was the quality of the product better or worse than in Wal-Mart today?

Finally, how did the quality and price provided by Jewish store owners compare to that of non-Jewish store owners of the day?

Frankly, I have no idea what the answers are to any of these questions.  I only pose them to argue it is theoretically possible to have a rational, fact-based discussion of race.  But of course we can't, because we do not respond with facts or reason.  Instead, party B cries prejudice, party A apologizes, party B says that's not good enough, party A wonders how he is supposed to prove he is not prejudiced, the discussion ends, and we all learn the lesson: don't talk about it.  How productive.

The National Rifle Association* has decided to take legal action against the City of New Orleans for confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens in the aftermath of Katrina:

NRA filed suit in federal court and won a preliminary injunction ending all the illegal gun confiscations. After the City of New Orleans failed to comply with the court’s ruling and dishonestly claimed that the gun confiscations never occurred, NRA filed a motion for contempt that included an order directing all seized firearms be returned to their rightful owners.

After denying the illegal confiscations for months, on March 15, 2006, Mayor Nagin and the New Orleans Police Department finally conceded in federal court that the seized firearms were stored in two trailers. The city then agreed in court to a process by which law-abiding citizens would be able to file a claim to receive their confiscated firearms. However, few firearms were returned because the NOPD never notified gun owners how to claim their guns, and turned many away citing impossible standards for proof of ownership.

I'm glad the NRA is going after them.  I'm also glad the NRA and other conservative groups, such as the Institute for Justice, have recognized the courts as the ideological battleground they are, and are refusing to cede that ground to the liberals.

* Full disclosure: I maintain a membership with the NRA.

I saw a tattered bumper sticker today:

"Welcome to Colorado, 49th in Education Funding"

How very pithy.

According to the Independence Institute (pdf), Colorado is actually 26th, but that's neither here nor there.

What strikes me as odd is I can think of no other sector of the economy in which people want to pay more for something.  I mean, I've never seen a bumper sticker lamenting, "Welcome to Colorado, 49th in gas prices," or "49th in mortgage rates," or "49th in auto insurance rates."

Patron: I'd like a Coors, please.

Bartender: That'll be three dollars.

Patron: What?  How long are you going to shortchange our malted beverage system here in Colorado?  We should have the best system in the country!  And if we can spend billions on Iraq, we should be able to spend more than three dollars on beer!

Bartender: Uh, sorry.  That'll be six dollars.

Patron: That's much better.  Thank you.

A first run movie runs seven or eight dollars a head at the local theater, which gets pretty steep pretty fast on a family budget.  Meanwhile at WalMart I stumbled across Rio Lobo with John Wayne and Jack Elam on DVD for $7.50.  The kids couldn't wait to see the "new" movie, they giggled every time Jack Elam opened his mouth, and I didn't have to negotiate theater etiquette with any teenagers during the showing.

Sometimes life is good.

The Washington Times/London Daily Telegraph reports:

The original film footage of astronaut Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon, one of the most important artifacts of the 20th century, has been lost.
 
The television broadcast seen by about 600 million people in July 1969 is preserved for posterity, but the original tapes from which the footage was taken have been mislaid, most likely in NASA's vast archives at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

Perhaps it's in a crate next to the Ark of the Covenant.