A terrorist suspect on trial in Germany told the court officials that “they were all Jews.”

Our pet idiotarian over at warbloggerwatch is whining about the “massacre” in Jenin this morning.

I have just one question for him. If the Israelis wanted to indiscriminately massacre Palestinian civilians, why didn’t they just pound the camp into rubble with air strikes? Why did they put their soldiers at risk (they lost a couple dozen of them) in house-to-house combat?

I see two possible (and mutually-exclusive) explanations:

1) They don’t get enough satisfaction out of bloodless, remote atrocities conducted by air–they have a deep-felt need to go in and bayonet the infants personally, even at risk to their own lives.

2) They wanted to eliminate the terrorists, and the labs and armories, as precisely as possible, while minimizing civilian casualties.

I know which one makes the most sense to me. I can guess which one “George Orwell,” in his fevered fantasies, will go with.

[Update at 9:27 AM PDT]

The UN passed their usual resolution yesterday condemning Israel for “‘gross violations’ of international law.” In other shocking news, a dog is reported to have peed on a tree.

The BBC story contains no specifics. What the story does contain, however, is lots of allegations, with no actual evidence. All of the actual destruction described in the story sounds, so far, consistent with the Israeli government claims, with nothing to support Palestinian claims of a massacre.

But hey, we’re the UN. “Evidence? We don’t need no stinkin’ evidence!”

Our pet idiotarian over at warbloggerwatch is whining about the “massacre” in Jenin this morning.

I have just one question for him. If the Israelis wanted to indiscriminately massacre Palestinian civilians, why didn’t they just pound the camp into rubble with air strikes? Why did they put their soldiers at risk (they lost a couple dozen of them) in house-to-house combat?

I see two possible (and mutually-exclusive) explanations:

1) They don’t get enough satisfaction out of bloodless, remote atrocities conducted by air–they have a deep-felt need to go in and bayonet the infants personally, even at risk to their own lives.

2) They wanted to eliminate the terrorists, and the labs and armories, as precisely as possible, while minimizing civilian casualties.

I know which one makes the most sense to me. I can guess which one “George Orwell,” in his fevered fantasies, will go with.

[Update at 9:27 AM PDT]

The UN passed their usual resolution yesterday condemning Israel for “‘gross violations’ of international law.” In other shocking news, a dog is reported to have peed on a tree.

The BBC story contains no specifics. What the story does contain, however, is lots of allegations, with no actual evidence. All of the actual destruction described in the story sounds, so far, consistent with the Israeli government claims, with nothing to support Palestinian claims of a massacre.

But hey, we’re the UN. “Evidence? We don’t need no stinkin’ evidence!”

Our pet idiotarian over at warbloggerwatch is whining about the “massacre” in Jenin this morning.

I have just one question for him. If the Israelis wanted to indiscriminately massacre Palestinian civilians, why didn’t they just pound the camp into rubble with air strikes? Why did they put their soldiers at risk (they lost a couple dozen of them) in house-to-house combat?

I see two possible (and mutually-exclusive) explanations:

1) They don’t get enough satisfaction out of bloodless, remote atrocities conducted by air–they have a deep-felt need to go in and bayonet the infants personally, even at risk to their own lives.

2) They wanted to eliminate the terrorists, and the labs and armories, as precisely as possible, while minimizing civilian casualties.

I know which one makes the most sense to me. I can guess which one “George Orwell,” in his fevered fantasies, will go with.

[Update at 9:27 AM PDT]

The UN passed their usual resolution yesterday condemning Israel for “‘gross violations’ of international law.” In other shocking news, a dog is reported to have peed on a tree.

The BBC story contains no specifics. What the story does contain, however, is lots of allegations, with no actual evidence. All of the actual destruction described in the story sounds, so far, consistent with the Israeli government claims, with nothing to support Palestinian claims of a massacre.

But hey, we’re the UN. “Evidence? We don’t need no stinkin’ evidence!”

Looks like Dollar Bill is getting a turndown for a speaking engagement. His price is too high.

I’m not normally a big agitator for unmanned planetary missions. I’m not opposed to them, but I don’t find them all that urgent and compelling. Generally, I agree with Proxmire’s famous statement, “Mars will still be there…”

But in this case I think that the cancellation of this particular mission is a travesty and a tragedy. In the context of the total NASA budget, a mission to Pluto doesn’t cost that much, and it’s one of the cases in which it isn’t true that “it will still be there.” Pluto has an orbit such that it will get much more difficult to reach it if the launch doesn’t occur in the next few years, perhaps to the point that it will be decades before we have an opportunity to explore it (assuming, of course, no major advances in deep-space propulsion, admittedly a brave assumption).

Unfortunately, the problems aren’t just penny pinching–they’re political (what a surprise–politics in a government space program). First, they’ve designed to launch the mission on a new launch vehicle that may not be adequately tested to NASA’s satisfaction by the time the launch window closes. This problem could be resolved by using a Russian launcher, but that’s not poltically acceptable.

The other problem is that a mission that far away from the sun can only be done with a nuclear power source, called a radioisotope thermal generator (RTG). This isn’t a reactor–it’s just a lump of plutonium that generates heat as it decays, which is then converted to electricity. We’ve been using such power sources safely since the beginning if the space program, but the last few missions that required such power sources (most notably the Cassini mission to Saturn) have had to run a gauntlet of environmental approvals and hysterical and ignorant protestors, and there is fear that the delays from this for the Pluto mission could end up pushing it out beyond its date of viability.

So, barring some technological breakthrough, we may not see Pluto up close for many decades.

A lot of people have already mentioned this story about how the IRS has erroneously issued slavery reparations in the form of a tax credit.

It strikes me that this opens up opportunities for many more successful methods of reclaiming some of our tax dollars.

Let’s see, I probably have relatives who died in the camps in Europe, so maybe I should get a thousand dollars per. How about a tax credit to compensate me for the fact that the government’s tax policies have made it more difficult to raise venture capital?

Oh, I know. How about this one? I should be compensated for the pain and suffering of having to listen to the idiots in charge tell me that, like tax collection, health care and airline security should be a government function, because only government is capable of doing this competently.

Hurry and claim your credit–you only have until midnight.

An enlightening and entertaining interview with Aussie blogger Tim Blehh (phonetic spelling) can be found at Rightwing News. I advertise this even though I’m not a “right winger,” since I think cloning is not intrinsically evil.

(thanks to emailer John Hawkins.)

Over at warbloggerwatchers, our new pet cowardly anonymous idiotarian comments:

Something is goin’ on. I feel the winds of change blowing through the warblogs. First it was Shakespeare Sullivan’s realization that the continuation of the Israeli offensive might lead to some kind of insane world conflict that would disasterous for us all and lead to unbelieveable amounts of human misery and suffering (see below) and now I find that Daddy Warblogs faith in the sanity of the Israeli military operation in Palestine is being shaken by the fact that mass graves filled with Palestinians civilians are being found…

Can someone get the poor creature a dictionary, and lend him some commas? It’s probably hard to afford things like that when you’re selflessly and anonymously and breathlessly fighting injustice and war crimes. I mean, whose sentences wouldn’t run on, and on, and on, like the deEnergizer (dumb) bunny?

Actually, I don’t usually criticize other people’s writing, except that in his very next post, he says:

…I see the usual suspects: Ken Layne, Will Vehrs, Rand Simberg, Tim Blair and others. The first thing I’m struck by is how mediocre and third-rate the writing is. That’s too be expected, I suppose.

At least I’m in good company. And note that in the last sentence, he uses the word “too,” when he obviously intends “to.” The irony is intense. As Christopher Johnson notes in the comments section, “Pot, meet kettle.”

Hmmm…”I’m struck by…how mediocre and third-rate the writing is…”

Maybe I’ll put that up as my new blog slogan.

Ah, well, guess I should quit reading blogs, and get back to pitchforking babies, like the rest of my partners in war crime…

[Sunday night update]

This is too hilarious.

That’s too (sic!) be expected, I suppose.

He didn’t correct it. He didn’t explain it. He just added a (sic!), as though it was someone else writing it, and he was reporting it.

What an idiot.

And he’s still got no commas in the never-ending sentence.

Over at warbloggerwatchers, our new pet cowardly anonymous idiotarian comments:

Something is goin’ on. I feel the winds of change blowing through the warblogs. First it was Shakespeare Sullivan’s realization that the continuation of the Israeli offensive might lead to some kind of insane world conflict that would disasterous for us all and lead to unbelieveable amounts of human misery and suffering (see below) and now I find that Daddy Warblogs faith in the sanity of the Israeli military operation in Palestine is being shaken by the fact that mass graves filled with Palestinians civilians are being found…

Can someone get the poor creature a dictionary, and lend him some commas? It’s probably hard to afford things like that when you’re selflessly and anonymously and breathlessly fighting injustice and war crimes. I mean, whose sentences wouldn’t run on, and on, and on, like the deEnergizer (dumb) bunny?

Actually, I don’t usually criticize other people’s writing, except that in his very next post, he says:

…I see the usual suspects: Ken Layne, Will Vehrs, Rand Simberg, Tim Blair and others. The first thing I’m struck by is how mediocre and third-rate the writing is. That’s too be expected, I suppose.

At least I’m in good company. And note that in the last sentence, he uses the word “too,” when he obviously intends “to.” The irony is intense. As Christopher Johnson notes in the comments section, “Pot, meet kettle.”

Hmmm…”I’m struck by…how mediocre and third-rate the writing is…”

Maybe I’ll put that up as my new blog slogan.

Ah, well, guess I should quit reading blogs, and get back to pitchforking babies, like the rest of my partners in war crime…

[Sunday night update]

This is too hilarious.

That’s too (sic!) be expected, I suppose.

He didn’t correct it. He didn’t explain it. He just added a (sic!), as though it was someone else writing it, and he was reporting it.

What an idiot.

And he’s still got no commas in the never-ending sentence.