Sioux Nation

The Lakota are declaring their independence.

“We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,” long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.

A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State Department on Monday, announcing they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the United States, some of them more than 150 years old.

They also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and will continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months, they told the news conference.

Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.

The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free — provided residents renounce their US citizenship, Means said.

They have really gotten a raw deal, having had socialism imposed on them by the Great White Father back east for all these decades.

It will be interesting to see how many countries recognize them (Venezuela and other America haters are a sure bet).

It also will be interesting to see what they actually do, and what Washington’s response will be. Will they implement border controls?

Eat Your Salmon

More evidence that Omega-3 is good for you:

Fish oil and its key ingredient, omega-3 fatty acids (found in fatty fish like salmon), have been a mainstay of alternative health practitioners for years and have been endorsed by the American Heart Association to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Fatty acids like DHA are considered “essential” fatty acids because the body cannot make them from other sources and must obtain them through diet. Years of research have shown that DHA is the most abundant essential fatty acid in the brain, Cole said, and that it is critical to fetal and infant brain development. Studies have also linked low levels of DHA in the brain to cognitive impairment and have shown that lower levels may increase oxidative stress in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

Based on the positive results, the National Institutes of Health is currently conducting a large-scale clinical trial with DHA in patients with established Alzheimer’s disease. For those patients, Cole said, it may be too late in the disease’s progression for DHA to have much effect. But he is hopeful that the NIH will conduct a large-scale prevention clinical trial using fish oil at the earliest stages of the disease — particularly because it is unlikely that a pharmaceutical company will do so, since fish oil in pill form is readily available and inexpensive.

There are a lot of other reasons to be consuming Omega-3. This is just one more.

A Divider, Not A Uniter

Such is the low esteem of George Bush’s America in the rest of the world that Britain and France are fighting over which of them is our closest ally.

After decades of Anglo-French rivalry, in which France has vehemently deplored the global influence America and Britain have attained and what every president of France since Charles de Gaulle has described as “Anglo-Saxon culture,” Mr. Sarkozy claimed during his visit to Washington last week that France, not Britain, is now America’s best friend and partner.

Mr. Brown, who has been portrayed on both sides of the Atlantic as having distanced himself from America to avoid the charge against his predecessor, Tony Blair, that he was Mr. Bush’s “poodle,” fought back last night, claiming in a speech at a banquet thrown by the lord mayor of the city of London that the French president’s bid to usurp Britain’s traditional place alongside America would not succeed.

I hear the Democrat candidates bloviate on the campaign trail about how they’re going to “repair our relations” with the rest of the world, and wonder on what planet they’re living. Hilarious.

Jenkins On Space

Holman Jenkins endorses space tourism, Bigelow and COTS in his Wall Street Journal Opinion column today as means to speed the time when humanity can survive a big rock hitting us on one of the planets where we live. (I write this from the Yucatan Peninsula which owes its formation to a big rock).

Unless you can avoid a newspaper in 2008, expect to be reading a lot about human extinction. In June arrives the hundredth anniversary of the Tunguska impact, which leveled 800 square miles of Siberia. By happenstance, a rock of similar size may smash into Mars on Jan. 30, affording scientists a close-up view of a planetary disaster….

At times like these, thoughts naturally turn to escape.

Kudos to “consultant Charles Lurio” who is cited and has been beating the drum for rationalizing space policy for years.

Giving The Game Away

Watching Michigan play Florida. They should be up by three touchdowns, and instead they’re tied. If they lose, it will be due to all those turnovers and lost opportunities. Hard to believe that Mike Hart has fumbled twice in this game, given his overall record.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!