Can we detect them with current telescopes? That assumes they exist at all, of course.
ObamaCare
It’s so popular that it had to be passed in the dead of night and delayed for two elections.
[Update a few minutes later]
“The best delay for ObamaCare is a permanent one.”
Also, suckers!
Cancer
A novel theory, from a physicist.
Independence Day
Is America in a pre-revolutionary state?
…everywhere we look on this July Fourth sees a great civilization in decline. And much of that decline can be laid at the foot of the incumbent. Especially his own people, African Americans, have suffered. Their unemployment numbers are catastrophic, their real needs ignored while hustlers like Sharpton, Jackson, and, sadly, even the president fan the flames of non-existent racism.
Tahrir Square anyone?
Ironically, if our society enters a revolutionary phase, liberals will find themselves in the role of the Islamists, defending a shopworn and reactionary ideology on religious grounds, because it is only their faith that holds their ideas together at this point.
Unfortunately, their faith, no matter how irrational, remains strong. And they’re not “liberals.”
Little Round Top
Gouverneur K. Warren and Joshua Chamberlain probably saved the Union from defeat in the battle, and perhaps the war itself, a hundred and fifty years ago today.
The IRS Scandal
Somehow, with the White House in a full projectile sweat about the political ramifications of the IRS abuses at least a month earlier, no one at the IRS got the word to cease and desist from the activity?
This leads a reasonable person to conclude that either the orders from the White House demanding that the targeting be discontinued were never issued, or the orders were ignored by those in charge of the IRS operation in spite of the extensive public scrutiny.
Neither conclusion is good.
One indicates that the White House’s concern was merely about political backlash and not about the activity itself. This wink-and-nod approach to the IRS abuse scandal gives them ownership of it, something that would not be surprising given the public calls for this exact political targeting in 2010 by Sen. Max Baucus (Mont.) and other Democrats.
If no one at the White House demanded that the action stop, in spite of admitted knowledge about the scandal by the White House chief of staff, it shows either a stunning complicity or an equally stunning incompetence.
The other possible, but much less likely scenario, paints a picture of an out-of-control bureaucracy immune from a White House demand that it stop illegal activity and unwilling to bend to public outrage over its actions.
I don’t believe that the president didn’t know about this.
Obama Can’t Control Events In Egypt
Sesquicentennial
It’s been a century and a half since the beginning of one of the (if not the) most consequential battles of American (and indeed, world) history. It was the beginning of the end for the southern cause, particularly after Grant took Vicksburg the day after the end of the battle, cutting the south in two and freeing him up to come east command the army that would eventually become the greatest the world had known up to that time.
[Update later morning]
Some thoughts from George Will.
The battle is also a sharp rebuke to those who claim that violence never solves anything. Ultimately, it solved slavery in America.
The Backwards Trial
…resumes:
Unlike Zimmerman’s account, the accounts of the prosecution witnesses would change, abruptly and dramatically, and certainly not to Zimmerman’s benefit.
Following opening statements, the prosecution normally produces a succession of fact witnesses, people that can testify to the facts — the evidence — necessary to establish the elements of the offense and to prove that the defendant committed it. Their ultimate job is to leave no room for reasonable doubt. In this case, the prosecution must also prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman did not act in self-defense.
But this is the George Zimmerman prosecution: a backwards case where the roles of the prosecution and defense are reversed.
Normally, prosecutors are careful to fully question each prosecution witness to obtain all of the evidence their testimony can produce. They do this so that the defense is not able to reveal previously undisclosed evidence, which tends to suggest prosecutorial concealment. But during the first week of this case, the prosecution established a pattern of asking only the bare minimum of their witnesses. In virtually every case, defense cross-examination reveals a great deal the prosecutors avoided bringing to light, and that information either fully supports George’s Zimmerman’s unchanging account, casts doubt on the “narrative” — which is actually the prosecution’s case — or both.
This bizarre turn of events has caused the prosecutors, particularly Bernie de la Rionda, to engage in the spectacle of aggressively cross-examining their own witnesses, trying to get them to mischaracterize, ignore, disown, or soft-pedal their testimony.
Another and disturbing pattern established by prosecution witnesses is that of changing their testimony in significant and ethically questionable ways. A number of prosecution witnesses have testified to important changes in their prior testimony they never before mentioned — not in multiple law enforcement interviews or depositions. This directly suggests that they’ve not only been coached, but perhaps that the subornation of perjury is involved.
Why is this not prosecutorial misconduct?
A Fit Of Sanity At The LA Times
They actually have an editorial in favor of free speech on campus.