Today's Links and Minifeatures 2005 07 30 Saturday

Utterly cool but I had forgotten about it while the shuttle fleet was grounded: A Real Time Track of the shuttle and a few other major satellites.

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Libertarian politics: Bach Talk, yet another libertarian who gets it.



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HT to Dean's World for finding a link to

NASA-Funded Scientists Discover Tenth Planet. I always expected a tenth planet to be named Charon, and I hope they keep the Roman theme, but that's kind of up to the discoverers and IAU. For all the control I have, they could name it Instapundit.



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Armies of Liberation has more on the kleptocracy and the control that the Saleh government has on pretty much every sector, even the NGOs.



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On the other side of the Air America scandal:



Atypical Joe found a very worthwhile potential debunking of the whole scandal at The American Street. I should make it clear. This whole set of allegations is something that needs to be investigated. If, like Karl Rove and Valerie Plame, there's nothing there, let it lie.



On the other hand, Michelle Malkin sends us to Macho Nachos, who notes that the Boys and Girls Club that gave the money to Air America went under. Perhaps there is an innocent explanation, but it sure doesn't pass the smell test from here.



When I actually went to Hugh Hewitt's site, he referenced relevant lines and the information derived from them on form 990 that American Street admitted he had up. He reminded me of things I learned studying Accounting. I still want to see a competent auditor go through this, but it smells worse and worse. The IRS prosecutes on inurement every time they find it.



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John Roberts Supreme Court



Beldar debunks Senator Leahy's claim about no attorney-client privilege for Roberts.



Catscape

had an article back on the 25th that I didn't get to until now about Barbara Boxer's reaction. I can't be the only one in the whole country completely fed up with hidden agendas, can I? Some of them aren't really even hidden, we just pretend we don't notice the forty ton Donkey in the room.



The Buck Stops Here has a worthwhile article on the Supreme Court, precedent, and heaps of sand.



The Moderate Voice has a great article on John Roberts talking about things wrong with the Supreme Court.



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Belmont Club has a worthwhile article on the failed states, and how the debate has become whether we should do anything.



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Big Cat Chronicles went numbers diving and found out that, predictably, the oil companies are making more, although inspecting his numbers, it appears that margins (profit as a percentage of total sales) are down. I'm not saying the oil companies should be singing "Poor Poor Pitiful Me", but although their profits are up, they appear to be a lower percentage of revenue, so they're not gouging us as much as some people say.



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Liberty and Regulation



Catallarchy has a wonderful article on the effectiveness - or lack thereof - of car seats. Seeing as California has a law requiring kids to be in these seats until age 6 or 60 pounds, I read it with interest. I wonder how many children have been killed by car-seat regulations?



HT to Classical Values for pointing me at a great quote from Samizdata

Freedom has no natural place in a "hierarchy of rights". Freedom used to be what was left over when other people's rights to their choices were taken into account. But the priesthood seems keen to ensure that there are "rights" everywhere, with no space for anything else, and that "rights" are not options, they are compulsions. Lenin would be proud.

As I Please has a nice post on the limits of the fourth amendment. I'm a civil liberties type myself. But I think that as long as we have cameras watching the watchers, surveillance in public places is a good thing.



Coyote Blog has another great post on environmentalists doing things right! They didn't want the rancher's cattle eating and trampling all the native plants. So instead of trying to get him regulated out of business, they bought his grazing rights.



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Iraq and War on Terror



Counterterrorism Blog tells us about a vulnerability that has now become obvious in the wake of London. British, Canadian, and residents of many other countries have no visa requirement to visit the United States.



Done With Mirrors has a good post on day to day operations in Iraq.



Villainous Company executes another excellent takedown of that twit alleged Stanford professor in the NY Times.



Captain's Quarters has the best explanation of why we're losing our Uzbak base that I've seen. When the US helps you against Islamist crazies, you like them. When they encourage actual democracy, you get rid of them.





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HT to Dr. Sanity for pointing me at this article on how poorly history is taught in our schools. Read the part about degrees in education rather than history. Remember it. Seems I was talking about it just yesterday



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Dr. Sanity has a post in which she analyses a compare and contrast between our our Exempt Media and the chinese government.



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HT to Incite for pointing me to China stocks nukes as anti-U.S. tactic



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This is cool. Pave-zyme



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Illegal Immigration



Drink This has an article on Anchor Babies. I already knew about this, as do most San Diegans, I suspect. But if you don't know what an anchor baby is, please read this. HT: Anti Idiotarian Rottweiler



links John Roberts Supreme Court terrorism politics iraq space shuttle Yemen economics immigration