Links and Minifeatures 04 28 Friday

Carnival of Liberty Recommended: New World Man (with an offensive topic warning!)



Carnival of The Vanities Recommended: Liberal Wrong

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Iran ready to transfer nuclear know how



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Mine blast survivor says some men's air packs didn't work. This is potentially big, and this is potentially bad. Like some folks should be going to jail big. They were "found to be operative" by the governor's advisor, but if the folks who were supposed to be able to use them to save their lives couldn't use them, I see the following possibilities:



1) Survivor misremembers, or has his own reasons for saying some of them didn't work. For instance, if he establishes that they didn't work, the mine operator and government have a larger liability towards him.



2) Mine management failed to train workers to use them properly. In other words, deadly failure to comply with OSHA.



3) They appeared not to work even though they were functioning properly. In other words, poor equipment design. When your life depends on something, it should be plainly operating or not operating. This is also an OSHA issue, albeit engineering rather than criminal.



4) They did not work properly, despite claim that they did. It could be that they didn't test every one of them, or it could be that they said they were working for liability and/or political reasons, not expecting the only survivor to be able to make hash of their statement. If this is the case, heads need to roll from among those who claimed they did, as well as from those who were responsible for keeping them working.



My belief is that 1 or 4 are the most likely by Occam's Razor. The fact is that both sets of folks may have reasons to want the world to believe what may not be the real facts of the situation. But 2 and 3 also need to be checked out.



Here's more: Feds Try to Reassure Miners on Air Packs



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Don Surber did have a nice little article about the etiquette of blogging and journalism.



I agree, but want to add one more rule: Give folks the maximum reasonable benefit of the doubt. I'm not talking thirty thousand unimpeachable witnesses and ten clear photographic records. But if the facts leave wiggle room, most folks are pretty decent people. Automatically assuming the worst, about anyone, does nobody any good. I can tell you good things, sometimes a surprisingly large number of good things, about most of the worst excuses for a human being who have ever walked the planet, including most current politicians of the party I dislike most. Furthermore, inflating trivial offenses leaves us proportionally less concerned about real atrocities.



While I'm at it, since Mr. Surber prompted me, I'll link to EFF's legal guide for bloggers.



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It was only a matter of time department: Ransom Trojan horse demands money with menaces



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Who says it's the capitalists who will sell the hangman the rope to hang them with? Chinese envoy opposes resorting to Chapter 7 resolution on Iran



Meanwhile: Nuclear Agency Says Iran Has Defied U.N. Security Council Deadline to Freeze Uranium Enrichment



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Debunking the Race card on social security reform



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Lot of this going around: CT settles suit against 'predatory' home brokers. Going to get worse, too. Look at how long that one took to get through the courts.



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Eidelblog thoroughly debunks a socialist's agenda driven representations.



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Oh, that liberal media bias, part infinity plus one: Carol Platt Liebau has the deconstruction.



(Yes, I'm well aware of the mathmatics of infinity. I'm making a couple of points)



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Every so often, I go over to the big leftist echo chambers to see if they have anything that changes my mind. Usually I find stuff like this: Dems sue Bush to enforce Constitution



Doing a little bit of research, I find out that despite the howls of outrage on how horrible it is, the actual thing they were intending to pass is more favorable to the claimant, and the medicare industry is trying to get it changed. In short, the left is decrying the Elephants caving to lobbyists, when in fact the correct version of the bill passed by congress is less favorable to the industry because it gives them less rental income!



The bills were certified by the leadership, and passed in correct, non-typo form to the President for signature, and the error was certified to be a typo, like any number of other such typos that creep into bills from time to time, and have historically been dealt with in precisely this fashion. But the Donkeys are seizing it as another opportunity to drag their feet.



I'm all in favor of the government dragging their feet, of course, but if we're going to drag our feet, let's drag

our feet. Stop all non-essential functions until this gets resolved! No more government checks to anyone!





While I'm over at left wing sites, Democratic Underground re-emphasizes why I often call Donkeys "Dumbocrats" just like I'll call Elephants "Repugnantcans". They're all over it with quotes like "What kind of a reality disconnect is this? Dude pleads GUILTY, HIMSELF, to FELONY charges, and the House committee finds NO wrongdoing?"



Except that if you carefully read the source article, here, you find it's an audit of how ex-congresscritter Cunningham might have improperly influenced the work of the committee due to his bribery. Their conclusion? One program got into their markup, but wasn't a part of the final budget. So although Cunningham admitted taking bribes, the net effect on the government (at least through this committee) was zero.



In other words, if they were trying to be red-blooded americans watch-dogging their government, rather than partisan attack dogs, this would be the sort of news to cheer about. "Millions of dollars in bribes paid to no discernable effect" would be the essentially accurate summation. Furthermore, Congresscritter Hunter (also a local San Diego Elephant) was entirely willing to expand the proble from three years to fifteen.



And if you don't like reading that scum bribing our public officials got nothing for their money, you are likely suffering, like Ford Prefect, from a deficiency in moral fiber and can thereforebe excused from saving universes (or anything else).





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via Different River, Cafe Hayek has the goods on the real way to cut down on the high price of energy.



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HT to Decision '08, the tomatometer on United 93 is at 92% right now. Considering all the good buzz it's gotten, I may see if the wife and I can't get away to see it.



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Iraq the Model says the time to dissolve the militias is now, and I strongly agree. Not just due to their armaments, but also due to the fact that it's a bad thing. Can you imagine if there was a Democratic Underground militia and a Free Republic Militia?



(Actually, I can. The DU'ers would forget who spends time taking target practice, get frustrated, and open fire on the Freepers. Fifteen minutes later, the DU is extinct while the Freepers are down a couple of percent, mostly casualties of friendly fire).



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Read this and ask yourself his critical question: Day-By-Day, Hour-by-Hour, and Minute-By-Minute The Murdering Goes On



If not now, when? If not me, who? Once upon a time it was every person of conscience who asked these questions, whether or not they were political supporters of the current president.



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Armies of Liberation has more on the targeting of journalists in Yemen by the Saleh regime.