Print this out and keep it by your telephone.

[Thanks to Dave Trowbridge]

Here are more details on how the X-Prize foundation raised the remainder of the money. Apparently they did an insurance bet. They found an insurance company that was willing to take the bet that no one would win by the end of 2004. They had to put up what they’d raised already (about half, I think).

The only problem with it is that if no one wins, all the money evaporates on the first of January, 2005. That wasn’t the original goal–it was supposed to be open ended as to time, I thought. But at least the money’s in the bank now, and I think it likely (and certainly hope) that the insurance company loses.

A reader at Eugene Volokh’s site asks a good question. For all those people who think that Saddam is rational and cunning, and can be dealt with on that basis, explain the stupidity of the 100% vote.

As Eugene points out, an 85-15 vote (or one similar to Bush’s current approval ratings) would look more realistic (though still hard to credit) and would have given him a propaganda advantage, because the the idiotarians in the press would have surely treated it as credible. What he actually did was meaningless from the standpoint of someone in the West, and is indeed a symptom of megalomania.

A reader at Eugene Volokh’s site asks a good question. For all those people who think that Saddam is rational and cunning, and can be dealt with on that basis, explain the stupidity of the 100% vote.

As Eugene points out, an 85-15 vote (or one similar to Bush’s current approval ratings) would look more realistic (though still hard to credit) and would have given him a propaganda advantage, because the the idiotarians in the press would have surely treated it as credible. What he actually did was meaningless from the standpoint of someone in the West, and is indeed a symptom of megalomania.

A reader at Eugene Volokh’s site asks a good question. For all those people who think that Saddam is rational and cunning, and can be dealt with on that basis, explain the stupidity of the 100% vote.

As Eugene points out, an 85-15 vote (or one similar to Bush’s current approval ratings) would look more realistic (though still hard to credit) and would have given him a propaganda advantage, because the the idiotarians in the press would have surely treated it as credible. What he actually did was meaningless from the standpoint of someone in the West, and is indeed a symptom of megalomania.

Apparently the investigators are saying that the witness who claimed to see a Russian assault rifle “misled” them (i.e., he lied).

So much for that theory.

Mark Steyn doesn’t think much of the idiotarian argument that Bali was bombed because of anger about the Palestinians.

While we?re singing the old favourites, here?s Bruce Haigh with a timeless classic. Mr Haigh was an Australian diplomat in Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and he?s in no doubt as to why hundreds of his compatriots were blown up in Bali. As he told Australia?s Nine Network, ?The root cause of this issue has been America?s backing of Israel on Palestine.? You don?t say. It may well be true that, for certain Muslims ?frustrated? by Washington?s support for Israeli ?intransigence?, blowing up Australians in Bali makes perfect sense. But, if even this most elastic of root causes can be stretched halfway around the globe to a place conspicuously lacking either Jews or Americans, then clearly it can apply to anyone or anything: my advice to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness is to put down the Omagh bombing as an understandable reaction to decades of frustration at Washington?s indulgence of the Zionist oppression of the Palestinian people. As the likes of Mr Haigh demonstrate every day, the more you insist the Islamist psychosis is a rational phenomenon to be accommodated, the more you risk sounding just as nutty as the terrorists.

As always, the whole thing can’t be done justice with a single quote. Go read and enjoy.

George Will is still optimistic about Bill Simon’s chances in California.

And Matt Welch will love (or hate?) the tagline:

…Simon resembles the Anaheim Angels: He can?t be where he is ? but he is.

George Will is still optimistic about Bill Simon’s chances in California.

And Matt Welch will love (or hate?) the tagline:

…Simon resembles the Anaheim Angels: He can?t be where he is ? but he is.

George Will is still optimistic about Bill Simon’s chances in California.

And Matt Welch will love (or hate?) the tagline:

…Simon resembles the Anaheim Angels: He can?t be where he is ? but he is.