He'll feel that in the morning. His wife won't.

A Mr Kang who went to a private hospital to have foreskin resection has lost more than he expected, the Xinmin Evening News reported Friday.

Kang, a middle-aged man, read an advertisement and went to a private hospital in Jinshan District on September 8. He followed doctor's instruction to take a course of microwave "heliotherapy". After one hour, Kang noticed that his penis had been burned black and was painful. He had difficulty passing water but the doctor had gone off work and he could find nobody to help him.

On the following day, the doctor tried to treat the inflammation and advised Kang to try other hospitals.

Urologists found that Kang's penis had been so severely "cooked" that the burned parts had to be excised reducing the size of the penis.

The problem was, of course, that he forgot to take the tin-foil off his penis before sticking it in the microwave. That's always the problem.

Thanks to cutaway.

Posted by: Ace at 08:43 AM | Comments (15)
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It may be old. Still, I like these.

Thanks to K.

Posted by: Ace at 08:39 AM | Comments (5)
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Krugman's multiple errors about the 2000 recount -- some errors appearing in "corrections" which supposedly fixed previous errors -- has finally been noted by a correction. But not by Krugman, noted by NYT's previous ombudsman of being too egotistical to admit an error:

I learned early on in this job that Prof. Krugman would likely be more willing to contribute to the Frist for President campaign than to acknowledge the possibility of error. When he says he agreed ‘reluctantly’ to one correction, he gives new meaning to the word ‘reluctantly’; I can’t come up with an adverb sufficient to encompass his general attitude toward substantive criticism.

Gail Collins cooked up a silly "editorial" of her own about the Times' correction policy in which she herself corrects Krugman's error, as he, we must assume, refuses to do so himself.

Bonus points: she claims that the correction wouldn't run appended to a Krugman column (the Times' stated policy as regards op-ed corrections) because she wanted to avoid "cruelty to readers."

Nice. The New York Times now accepts that its liberal yuppie audience has been so successfully coccooned by their left-liberal bias that to inform them of discomfitting facts would constitute actual "cruelty."

More at Decision '08, which also notes additional Times chicanery in correcting Frank Rich.

Posted by: Ace at 08:37 AM | Comments (3)
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I guess my further reaction is akin to exasperation.

Bush has given a green light to those so inclined to go after Miers on the qualifications issue, which is a fair issue and well within the Senate's perogative. I am annoyed that with so many better qualified names to put forth, Bush chose Miers. There is chatter at NRO's Bench Memos that her qualifications are no worse than Justice Lewis Powell's and other unmentioned nominees of recent decades, but that only disputes how low the bar is, not where it should be.

Ramesh Ponnuru makes a related post on this point.

Some interesting postings by Marvin Olasky provides some more insight into Miers, for what it's worth.

Posted by: Harry Callahan at 08:15 AM | Comments (57)
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Soon to be announced in the next few minutes: Harriet Ellan Miers.

Who?

She's the current White House counsel. Other than that, we don't know much. So I offer this thread up as a vehicle for speculation, discussing, and some ranting.

As with K-Lo at National Review Online, my first reax is "ugh." After the stellar resume (and modest paper trail) of Roberts, this is what we get? Clearly, Bush knows a helluva lot more than we do about her, but he's the only one. The usual suspects will write in her name in the blanks and issue the press releases, but that doesn't mean much.

I await more discussion of her, but at this point, this is a Super Souter, Super Stealth pick, or alternatively, Bush's legacy in a dress. She better show her colors real quickly if she is confirmed, or midterms and the next presidential election will not be pretty for the R's -- this is unlikely to be a pick to excite the base in the slightest.

What if Karl Rove is a Genius? Update:

Clearly, from his day to day contacts, Bush knows a lot more about Miers than nearly anyone else, and is confident in her soundness. She also appears to be intensely loyal to Bush. This also means that this knowledge will not come out in a paper trail to give the D's ammunition. Bush just got a stellar intellect with enough firepower to wage many judicial wars confirmed as the new C.J. So what if this is the calculus - Miers is steady, conservative and intensely loyal to W, and will be the steadfast supporter of Roberts? Plausible. Only time will tell.

Is it because I'm a lesbian? Update: One of the more, um, interesting reax from GayPatriot.

More Reactions (courtesy of Doc Symes)

Hugh Hewitt: Solid B+

Willaim Kristol: Disappointed, depressed and demoralized.

Confirm Them: Hey, she donates money to Dems!

Lawrence Simon: Frisky, Nardo, Piper? No Like!

K-Lo: Everyone demoralized. 'Kool and the Gang' sends me message?

David Frum: An 'unforced error' (and I worked with her).

Leonard Leo: Well, I like her (and I worked with her too).

The Anchoress: Chill, people. Miers = Derek Jeter

[the Supremes needs an overrated, underfielding shortstop?]

Beldar: Miers no 'Blank Slate' to W

Rich Lowry: Bush penumbra: 'Trust us'

CS&W: Long in the tooth and bad gams

Lorie Byrd: Breathe, everyone. Okay?

Michael Luttig: Finest legal mind since Tammy Fay Baker

RedState: Dissappointing abdication of responsibility

Mickey Kaus: The Stockholm Syndrome Nominee

Fred Barnes: Bush satisfied Miers will experience stunted "growth."

Posted by: Harry Callahan at 03:48 AM | Comments (237)
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Ah, yes, alternative transportation.

Bicycles are back mainly because the sharp increase in gas prices has made them a practical alternative, said Paul Gaiser, owner of Scooter Commuter in Bethesda, Maryland.

"Above all it's the higher price of gas, but also it's concern for the environment and the cost of another car," Gaiser told AFP.

The average price of gas in the United States has increased 47.3 percent in a year, according to figures published last week by the American Automobile Association.

Gaiser believes the bicycle trend is no passing fad.

"Our sales have quadrupled in the last two months," he said. "I think it's a major paradigm shift. It's here to stay."

Mmm Hmmm. Look Pauly, I don't want to sound like a wet blanket. But these are Americans you're talking about. For most people who buy a bicycle with grand ideas about conservation (and, most likely, weight loss), the saving of fuel and money is going to be disastrously offset by the increase in butt pain in about three days.

The US government has also done its part to promote a more bicycle-friendly environment. Some 3.5 million dollars in federal money has been set aside to create cycling trails over the next four years.

News Story three months from now: American garages, sheds stuffed: US Strategic Bicycle Reserve at unprecedented high, analysts say.

If any of you need a bike, you should be seeing some sweet deals on ebay in no time.

Posted by: LauraW. at 07:15 PM | Comments (32)
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Michael Isikoff:

Oct. 10, 2005 issue - New York Times reporter Judy Miller broke her silence and agreed to testify before a federal grand jury last week. This followed tense, often acrimonious negotiations that began after special Justice Department prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald signaled he intended to reimpanel a new grand jury—a move that could have kept Miller in jail for another year and a half, say two lawyers close to the case who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks.

So, remember the theory Miller was spinning about a misunderstanding being the real reason she was in jail – one that once she was able to speak to the source about personally, well, the problem evaporated? Recall how Miller’s lawyers said Libby’s side originally gave signals as to the coerced nature of his waiver (and which Libby’s side responds to in the linked article, referring to such as ‘Bullshit')?

Well, looks more and more like Tate, LibbyÂ’s lawyer, was telling the truth. If Isikoff is right, what really changed MillerÂ’s mind was the prospect of a new grand jury and eighteen more months of jail.

I suppose it could still be true that there really was a voluntariness issue all along, and Miller's team was actively encouraged to re-probe Libby as to his voluntariness once the 'new grand jury' talk started (that would certainly get me off my ass). But it begins to look more like Miller's lawyer's tale of "That's not what you originally said" is just a cover story, a face saving claim for a client that broke under the threat of more jail.

Posted by: Dr. Reo Symes at 04:59 PM | Comments (13)
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Charles Murray has an intersting essay in the WSJ that emerged today from behind their subscriber wall. It’s partly a response to the lawlessness we saw (or at least, we were told we saw) during Katrina. He goes on to speak about criminality at large, a problem he blames on ‘unsocialized’ males in the underclass.

Now those sound like codewords for ‘poor blacks’ and, to some degree, they are. But he points out that the problems there are simply concentrated strains and troubles in society at large. He also argues the troubles are growing, saying that the falling crime rates we’re comforted by hide a growing lawlessness in that young underclass:

Why has the proportion of unsocialized young males risen so relentlessly? In large part, I would argue, because the proportion of young males who have grown up without fathers has also risen relentlessly. The indicator here is the illegitimacy ratio--the percentage of live births that occur to single women. It was a minuscule 4% in the early 1950s, and it has risen substantially in every subsequent decade. The ratio reached the 25% milestone in 1988 and the 33% milestone in 1999. As of 2003, the figure was 35%--of all births, including whites. The black illegitimacy ratio in 2003 was 68%. By way of comparison: The illegitimacy ratio that caused Daniel Patrick Moynihan to proclaim the breakdown of the black family in the early 1960s was 24%.

He also argues that the new, old talk about governmental programs to change this are doomed to fail. That the problem of the underclass is not in its ‘lacking opportunities,' but in its culture: more...

Posted by: Dr. Reo Symes at 01:33 PM | Comments (26)
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A life sentence means you die in prison.

Well, duh.

Apparently, capital punishment is way too harsh, because, well, it kills people. So capital punishment opponents bleat that life in prison is still a really harsh penalty, so why not use that instead. Okay, so then the liberals start bleating that um, life in prison is too harsh beause, well, it means LIFE IN PRISON.

The worst criminals are the young, they say, so when a guy is older, you're just being mean if you keep him in prison. Well, Sherlock, if a young guy knows he'll one day get out of prison, you think that a life term is going to be more or less a deterrent then when he knows life may indeed mean life?

Like the noted scholar Pvt. Frost asked, "what the hell are we supposed to use? Harsh language?"

Posted by: Harry Callahan at 01:11 PM | Comments (22)
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Birds of a feather, I guess.

Posted by: Ace at 04:17 PM | Comments (28)
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