Sometimes good politics just happens to be good policy, too.

Don't give me any of that libertarian hooey. This stuff is secretly installed on your computer and made damnedably hard to remove, even if you're aware of it. Mechanics who were secretly placing GPS trackers on your car when they changed your oil would be guilty of a crime of some sort; there's no difference in principle here.

There may be some notification that when you download certain programs that "other software" may be installed as well; but the warnings should be prominent: DOWNLOADING THIS PROGRAM OR FILE WILL INFECT YOUR COMPUTER, VIRTUALLY PERMANENTLY, WITH PROGRAMS THAT WILL CONSTANTLY RUN ADS ON YOUR MACHINE AND TRACK YOUR EVERY MOVE IN ETHERSPACE. AND THEY'LL SLOW DOWN YOUR COMPUTER BY 200% OR MORE TO BOOT.

Suddenly getting a Kazaa program to download an old episode of Wings wouldn't seem like such a cool idea.

Posted by: Ace at 10:19 AM | Comments (20)
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It really is sad, but appearance is so damanbly deterministic. Pretty children get more love and attention, and turn into more confident, more centered people. (Unless they're too pretty, in which they turn out to be George Clooney.) Ugly people, through absolutely no fault of their own, are constantly marginalized, denigrated, and alienated, and wind up, often, turning into ill-tempered people.

It's not fair. But it's life.

Ugly people now have another burden. They'll probably be rotten to their own kids.

The next time you see a child wandering lost and alone in the grocery store, sneak a peek at the parents.

New research from the University of Alberta suggests thereÂ’s a good chance theyÂ’re ugly.

“Unattractive parents are less likely than attractive parents to supervise their children closely,” said Andrew Harrell.

HeÂ’s the same social scientist who took a fair bit of heat last year when he presented evidence suggesting parents pay more attention to attractive children.

Now heÂ’s onto new findings bound to stir up further familial feelings.

“The unattractive parents may be ugly because they have had economic difficulties, health problems, diabetes, poor eyesight, psychological and physical hardships that distract them,” Harrell offered as an explanation.

“They have their own personal concerns and they have less time to be attentive to their children,” he added. “They are in such physical and psychological misery they are not there.”

The cycle of violence is bad enough. But the cycle of fugly is worse.

Thanks to Marcus.

Posted by: Ace at 10:12 AM | Comments (34)
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In fact, it had previously bought it from that same country. Great stuff from Hitch:

In the late 1980s, the Iraqi representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency—Iraq's senior public envoy for nuclear matters, in effect—was a man named Wissam al-Zahawie. After the Kuwait war in 1991, when Rolf Ekeus arrived in Baghdad to begin the inspection and disarmament work of UNSCOM, he was greeted by Zahawie, who told him in a bitter manner that "now that you have come to take away our assets," the two men could no longer be friends. (They had known each other in earlier incarnations at the United Nations in New York.)

At a later 1995 U.N. special session on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Zahawie was the Iraqi delegate and spoke heatedly about the urgent need to counterbalance Israel's nuclear capacity. ...

In February 1999, Zahawie left his [ambassadorial posting at the Vatican] for a few days and paid an official visit to Niger, a country known for absolutely nothing except its vast deposits of uranium ore. It was from Niger that Iraq had originally acquired uranium in 1981, as confirmed in the Duelfer Report. In order to take the Joseph Wilson view of this Baathist ambassadorial initiative, you have to be able to believe that Saddam Hussein's long-term main man on nuclear issues was in Niger to talk about something other than the obvious. Italian intelligence (which first noticed the Zahawie trip from Rome) found it difficult to take this view and alerted French intelligence (which has better contacts in West Africa and a stronger interest in nuclear questions). In due time, the French tipped off the British, who in their cousinly way conveyed the suggestive information to Washington. As everyone now knows, the disclosure appeared in watered-down and secondhand form in the president's State of the Union address in January 2003.

If the above was all that was known, it would surely be universally agreed that no responsible American administration could have overlooked such an amazingly sinister pattern. Given the past Iraqi record of surreptitious dealing, cheating of inspectors, concealment of sites and caches, and declared ambition to equip the technicians referred to openly in the Baathist press as "nuclear mujahideen," one could scarcely operate on the presumption of innocence.

Maybe Saddam just wanted to buy some of those prized Nigerian racing-goats all the world is always talking about.

He then notes the infamously crude forgery surfaced claiming that Iraq had purchased uranium after that 1999 visit. The forgery was immediately recognized as such, and based upon that, Mohammad ElBaradei, the See No Evil head of the UN's atomic bomb watchdog group, proclaimed that the Iraq-Niger uranium connection was in fact discredited.

But Hitchens notes the fact that there was false proof for something hardly disproves it, especially when there is so much indisputable proof. If a forged notarized statement emerges proclaiming the sky to be blue, the fact of the forgery hardly transforms our skies to some sort of Mongo-esque electric-pink-and-yellow. He goes on:

A NATO investigation has identified two named employees of the Niger Embassy in Rome who, having sold a genuine document about Zahawie to Italian and French intelligence agents, then added a forged paper in the hope of turning a further profit. The real stuff went by one route to Washington, and the fakery, via an Italian journalist and the U.S. Embassy in Rome, by another. The upshot was—follow me closely here—that a phony paper alleging a deal was used to shoot down a genuine document suggesting a connection.

Unbelievable. Read the whole thing. Time Magazine is eager to play country-lawyer for Zahawie, uncritically reporting his claims of no Iran-Niger uranium talks without revealing he was Saddam's little uranium buyer.

Thanks to Brad again, who's still asking "Doesn't anyone ever f'n' knock anymore?"

Posted by: Ace at 09:40 AM | Comments (19)
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Frightening.

A.Q. Kahn, father of Pakistan's nuclear weapon and handmaiden to all rogue states seeking to develop the bomb, is a national hero, and a hero to the entire Muslim world. They view the bomb as necessary to assert that they are equals to the West.

They could be trying to cure diseases or maybe advancing communications technology, but no, this is their dream: To have the power to destroy Tel Aviv or New York City.

If it takes nukes to destroy Iran's nuclear capacity, we have to do just that. The man is a messianic maniac. While the left frets that George Bush instituted a "Jesus Day" in Texas while governor, they ignore the threat of a man who belongs to a sect that believes their Messiah can only come after a period of chaos and castrophe and blood and war. And he's one of the more fervent of that sect; he will bring back the Messiah by raining nuclear fire down on Israel and the West.

For those who want to be really depressed, read Mark Steyn.

[A]s the Daily Telegraph in London reported: “Iran’s hardline spiritual leaders have issued an unprecedented new fatwa, or holy order, sanctioning the use of atomic weapons against its enemies.” Hmm. I’m not a professional mullah, so I can’t speak to the theological soundness of the argument, but it seems a religious school in the Holy City of Qom has ruled that “the use of nuclear weapons may not constitute a problem, according to sharia.” Well, there’s a surprise. How do you solve a problem? Like, sharia! It’s the one-stop shop for justifying all your geopolitical objectives.

The bad cop/worse cop routine the mullahs and their hothead President Ahmadinejad are playing in this period of alleged negotiation over Iran’s nuclear program is the best indication of how all negotiations with Iran will go once they’re ready to fly. This is the nuclear version of the NRA bumper sticker: “Guns Don’t Kill People. People Kill People.” Nukes don’t nuke nations. Nations nuke nations. When the Argentine junta seized British sovereign territory in the Falklands, the generals knew that the United Kingdom was a nuclear power, but they also knew that under no conceivable scenario would Her Majesty’s Government drop the big one on Buenos Aires. The Argie generals were able to assume decency on the part of the enemy, which is a useful thing to be able to do.

But in any contretemps with Iran the other party would be foolish to make a similar assumption. That will mean the contretemps will generally be resolved in Iran’s favor. In fact, if one were a Machiavellian mullah, the first thing one would do after acquiring nukes would be to hire some obvious loon like President Ahmaddamatree to front the program. He’s the equivalent of the yobbo in the English pub who says, “Oy, mate, you lookin’ at my bird?” You haven’t given her a glance, or him; you’re at the other end of the bar head down in the Daily Mirror, trying not to catch his eye. You don’t know whether he’s longing to nut you in the face or whether he just gets a kick out of terrifying you into thinking he wants to. But, either way, you just want to get out of the room in one piece. Kooks with nukes is one-way deterrence squared.

If Belgium becomes a nuclear power, the Dutch have no reason to believe it would be a factor in, say, negotiations over a joint highway project. But IranÂ’s nukes will be a factor in everything. If you think, for example, the European Union and others have been fairly craven over those Danish cartoons, imagine what theyÂ’d be like if a nuclear Tehran had demanded a formal apology, a suitable punishment for the newspaper, and blasphemy laws specifically outlawing representations of the Prophet. Iran with nukes will be a suicide bomber with a radioactive waist.

Posted by: Ace at 09:28 AM | Comments (22)
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A few days old now, but big news, and I missed it myself. Manhattan DA shuts down a major American banks' account used to move $3 billion (with a b) to terrorist-related organizations and activities.

Which bank? They won't say. Word is, though, that it's a... major bank of America, if you know what I'm saying.

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau has shut down a massive terror-finance pipeline in which a whopping $3 billion in profits from drug deals and other crimes flowed through a major New York bank to Middle East fanatics, The Post has learned.

Morgenthau told The Post his office is pursuing a settlement involving possible penalties against one of the largest and most prominent banks in New York - which he declined to identify - for maintaining an account where funds that originated in South America's notorious "tri-border region" were rerouted to suspect accounts in the Middle East.

Evidence developed in the course of a three-year probe, which has already resulted in charges against other New York-based financial institutions, revealed that about $3 billion that flowed through the account over a two-year period was going to terror groups Hamas, al Qaeda and Hezbollah, Morgenthau said.

"I can't go out and arrest Osama bin Laden. But I can try to cut off his money," Morgenthau said of his massive probe.

...

"Most of this is in dollars, and most of it goes through Manhattan," [a former assistant DA for financial crimes testified at a Congressional hearing]. Morgenthau would not name the latest New York bank under the gun, but said the case could be concluded - with possible penalties - "any day now."

He said most of the $3 billion in suspicious funds were generated, through criminal enterprises, in the lawless tri-border region of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.

Over a two-year period, the $3 billion was sent to the New York bank account by a shadowy money-transmittal company in Montevideo, Uruguay.

The money then flowed into bank accounts in the Middle East locations including Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Beirut, Lebanon, and Ramallah in the Palestinian territories.

I hope the penalties are big enough to cause possible bankruptcy. There is simply no excuse for a bank permitting itself, through willful ignorance, to be used as a financier for terrorism.

Thanks to Brad.

Posted by: Ace at 08:51 AM | Comments (13)
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Due to my playing hooky yesterday (actually, it was food poisioning; I suspect bad clams), I didn't link this amazing column on global warming. I imagine most who are interested have already read it, but if you haven't, it's a must-read.

There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998

By Bob Carter
(Filed: 09/04/2006)

For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.

...

The problem here is not that of climate change per se, but rather that of the sophisticated scientific brainwashing that has been inflicted on the public, bureaucrats and politicians alike.

...

Two simple graphs provide needed context, and exemplify the dynamic, fluctuating nature of climate change. The first is a temperature curve for the last six million years, which shows a three-million year period when it was several degrees warmer than today, followed by a three-million year cooling trend which was accompanied by an increase in the magnitude of the pervasive, higher frequency, cold and warm climate cycles. During the last three such warm (interglacial) periods, temperatures at high latitudes were as much as 5 degrees warmer than today's. The second graph shows the average global temperature over the last eight years, which has proved to be a period of stasis.

The essence of the issue is this. Climate changes naturally all the time, partly in predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some of the causes of which remain unknown. We are fortunate that our modern societies have developed during the last 10,000 years of benignly warm, interglacial climate. But for more than 90 per cent of the last two million years, the climate has been colder, and generally much colder, than today. The reality of the climate record is that a sudden natural cooling is far more to be feared, and will do infinitely more social and economic damage, than the late 20th century phase of gentle warming.

It hardly needs pointing out that in the seventies environmental alarmists created a public scare over "global cooling," demanding that we immediately take drastic steps to protect the earth by, essentially, de-industrializing, or else the earth would freeze over.

The ink had barely dried on the "scholarly papers" predicting a new ice age before some of the exact same environmental "scientists" began scare-mongering over "global warming" in the late eighties, demanding that we immediately take drastic stesp to protect the earth by, essentially, de-industrializing.

They have an agenda. They don't like industrializing. They don't like cars. They don't like oil. They don't like the idea of cities, with humans living in a non-natural state, although, of course, just about every single one of them lives in a major metropolis.

Whatever the evidence, whatever the temperature, they always offer the same cure: We must stop building, creating, producing so much damn wealth and civilization and comfort for human beings. The disease and diagnosis is ever-changeable, but the recommended treatment never changes.

This is not science. It is Marxist Rousseauian "natural state of man" utopianism, and a cult of the worship of Earth as "Gaia."

The earth is here for the benefit of human beings, not vice versa.

Posted by: Ace at 08:40 AM | Comments (84)
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Some good stuff:

Tiny robot walks on water:

A miniature robot designed this summer by a Carnegie Mellon University mechanical engineer has done what only bugs and Jesus Christ have done before -- walk on water.

A research team led by assistant professor Metin Sitti modeled the "Water Strider Robot" after insects that are found skimming on the surface of nearly every pond, river and lake.

"We have created a biologically inspired robot that can stay on water using the same principles of nature that real insects use," said Sitti, who heads the university's NanoRobotics Lab.

Although it's just a prototype now, the robot ultimately could be equipped with biochemical sensors that monitor water quality or deployed with cameras for spying or exploring hard-to-reach places, he said. It also could be programmed to communicate with a central computer or outfitted with bacteria that break down aquatic pollutants.

Or it could just be a prize in a cereal box. It sounds like he's straining to think of uses for this little gadget. Thanks to Pupster.

Bomb-sniffing robot searches for IED's. It even looks like a dog.

New Ultra AP (Armored Patrol) military vehicle may save soldiers' lives... later. Partly designed with the know-how of NASCAR mechanics and engineers, to make it a fast-mover.

As Bruce Wayne asked, "Does it come in black?"

The ULTRA AP (Armored Patrol) Concept vehicle was created to investigate options for improving survivability and mobility in future military combat vehicles. On the mobility side of things, the designers naturally looked to high-output diesel power (the military has a one fuel policy) but also looked to high-performance automotive engineering practices by adding NASCAR race expertise to the team, along with the use of on-board computers to integrate steering, suspension and brakes. The protective aspects were enhanced by an innovative crew capsule created by a combination of lightweight composite armour materials, a commercial truck chassis, and faceted crew capsule geometries that provide better deflection of pressure waves from blasts compared to current configurations.

One of the NASCAR racecar mechanics was quoted as saying, "We hope to have this ready for production by 2007. But our progress is being slowed by Dateline NBC. They keep sending 'Muslim car-parts salesmen' to pester us."

Thanks for those two to JohnS.

About giant bunnies: Hell in a Handbasket has an even bigger one than the photo linked before. Apparently they're all of the "German giant" breed. People have been breeding these things to be evermore enormous just for bragging rights.

Finally, Craig sends this video of a dog fighting a monkey. It may be a set-up fight, or it may just have happened. Either way, neither animal seems to get hurt; neither one can figure out how to deal with the other's combat maneuvers.

It may be old. Still, a monkey fighting a dog. Gotta link it.

Posted by: Ace at 07:31 AM | Comments (29)
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Video here. Very cool.

Thanks to CaribPundit.

Posted by: Ace at 07:06 AM | Comments (20)
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His party badly trails in the Italian elections, according to exit polls. Sure, they could be wrong, but a ten-point deficit seems unlikely to be entirely an effect of bad polling.

60% of those polled stated they were "angered" by Berlusconi's "arrogance" in not having the common decency to give a reach-around.

Posted by: Ace at 08:09 AM | Comments (35)
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The WaPo has him at 38%, in-line with the recent FoxNews poll which put him at 36% approval.

More ominous is the fact that 47% of the public strongly disapproves of his performance.

He's not winning Hispanic votes, and he's alienating the rest of the country:

The public is more critical of Bush's performance in specific areas. A third approved of his handling of immigration issues while six in 10 disapproved. And as thousands gather on the Mall today to protest efforts to tighten immigration policy, three in four Americans said the government isn't doing enough to keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States.

The Democrats finally seem to have found a killer wedge issue. Bush can't afford to alienate Hispanic voters (and all those illegal Hispanic voters, whom the Democrats insist on allowing to vote), and neither can he afford to alienate everyone else.

The Democratic base is almost as divided on the issue as the Republican base, but then, Democrats aren't really running much of anything. They don't have to do much on this issue except offer platitudes.

Posted by: Ace at 08:04 AM | Comments (164)
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