What if he goes on strike?

So the Other McCain is traipsing around the Adirondacks hunting for antiques or looking at fall foliage or something. Meanwhile. Smitty is once again forced to spend his Saturday putting together the latest FMJRA linkfest.

Please check it out so the poor guy feels appreciated.

Finally Making Journey to Rugged Adirondacks

"The case against Ivins just gets weaker."

This strikes me as important:

Anthrax investigation still yielding findings: Chemical composition of spores doesn't match suspect flask/Nature

Furthermore, the Bacillus subtilis contaminant present in the letters has not been matched to the strain found in [Bruce] Ivins' lab. The FBI speculates it might have come from another lab at Fort Detrick, but has not yet identified any lab that has it. The case against Ivins just gets weaker.

Maybe this is why they don't want us to read it

From BigGovernment.com:

The health care bill recently unveiled by Speaker Nancy Pelosi is over 1,900 pages for a reason. It is much easier to dispense goodies to favored interest groups if they are surrounded by a lot of legislative legalese. For example, check out this juicy morsel to the trial lawyers (page 1431-1433 of the bill):

Section 2531, entitled “Medical Liability Alternatives,” establishes an incentive program for states to adopt and implement alternatives to medical liability litigation. [But]…… a state is not eligible for the incentive payments if that state puts a law on the books that limits attorneys’ fees or imposes caps on damages.

I guess war is not like a computer game after all

Some troops have a sixth sense for bombs

Those who hunted or grew up in tough urban areas excel at finding the roadside devices, a study shows.

Military researchers have found that two groups of personnel are particularly good at spotting anomalies: those with hunting backgrounds, who traipsed through the woods as youths looking to bag a deer or turkey; and those who grew up in tough urban neighborhoods, where it is often important to know what gang controls which block.

Personnel who fit neither category, often young men who grew up in the suburbs and developed a liking for video games, do not seem to have the depth perception and peripheral vision of the others, even if their eyesight is 20/20.

(HT: Steve Sailer)

All Hail Deacon Phillippe!

By The Last Hollywood Star

The Pittsburgh Pirates got a positive national television mention after Game One of the World Series. Usually, when the Pirates' name surfaces on a major network, it's to heap scorn on the team.

But after Cliff Lee pitched a complete opening game, striking out ten and walking none, researchers went into the archives to dig out Deacon Phillippe's 1903 performances.


Phillippe was the last pitcher to put up those numbers.

Back in 1903, the World Series was a best of nine affair. In the opener, Phillippe out dueled Cy Young in a complete game effort.

Get this---Phillippe pitched four other complete games, two on back-to-back days, and went 3-2 in the Pirates loss to the Boston Americans. For good measure, Phillippe pitched in relief in two other games.

Take that, pitch count crazy Joe Kerrigan!

Phillippe's five complete game decisions are a World Series record that will stand forever unless current format reverts to best of nine.

If that ever happens, the World Series could extend to Thanksgiving.

Cuban spies

Toby Harnden (of the London Telegraph) has a fascinating article in the Washingtonian on the background of Kendall Myers and Gwendolyn Steingraber Trebilcock Gereaux Myers. It is the best reporting i've seen so far on the case.

Spying for Fidel

Previous posts:

Traitors among us

Cuban spies

Is the congressional watchdog really ACORN's ace in the hole?

Nadler's ACORN Ethics

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who heads a congressional subcommittee that may be investigating ACORN in the not-too-distant future, has been providing advice to ACORN's lawyer, according to a new report.

Michelle and Jill Mug for the World Series Crowd; They Should Stay Home

by The Last Hollywood Star

When Michelle Obama and Jill Biden walked New York Yankee Hall of Famer Yogi Berra out to the mound last night, I was disgusted.

What made me so mad is that Berra is a Yankee hero who has played in 75 World Series games, more than anyone in history. If he had stood before the crowd alone, Berra would have deservedly received a rousing standing ovation.

But with Obama and Biden by Berra's side, the three got only brief token applause.

Biden, by the way, likes to be called Dr. Jill Biden because she has a Ph.D. in education. That's another but lesser annoyance. Doctors are M.D.s; Ph.D.s are just that---Ph.D.s

Political pandering has no place in baseball.

Let Berra, 84, enjoy the moments he has left. The other two will, unfortunately, be mugging for months if not years to come.

Say what?

So now telling the truth about a candidate is a "dirty trick"? What color is the sky in Politico's world?


(HT: The Other McCain)

How the mighty have fallen

CNN Drops to Last Place Among Cable News Networks

CNN, which invented the cable news network more than two decades ago, will hit a new competitive low with its prime-time programs in October, finishing fourth – and last – among the cable news networks with the audience that all the networks rely on for their advertising.

Remember the Cuban Spies?

Some new information here:


Alger And Priscilla Hiss, 2009 Model

This is definitely different than the first news stories which portrayed the wife as some sort of naive do-gooder with no firm ideology:

Gwen Myers, as explained in the article, had a thoroughly left-wing background – one of her sons, according to a South Dakota neighbor, made no bones about being, literally, a card-carrying Communist – and it apparently was through her that Kendall Myers took the fateful step from being a liberal State functionary, like thousands who never give a thought to betraying their country, to becoming an operative for Cuba.(The resemblance to the influence that Priscilla Hiss’s views had on Alger in the early years of their marriage, as described in such books as Allen Weinstein’s Perjury and Sam Tanenhaus’s Whittaker Chambers, is quite striking.

I think that this shows the attitude that paves the way to treason:

Harnden also looks into the auto accident which is said to have had such a troubling psychological effect on Kendall Myers. It turns out that, for a man of almost forty, he handled the whole matter as if he were a particularly spoiled seventeen-year-old. He sent Susan Slattery’s family a letter that, although missing an apology, concluded: “It is a tragedy for me too.” During a recess in the civil case brought against him by her family, he told her father: “You people can’t touch me.”

Previous posts:

Traitors among us

Cuban spies

It's kind of like Woodstock, except the smoke is from Marlboro Reds

The latest gathering of The Other McCain Tribe:

Factors Militating Journalistic Renaissance Action

Michael Barone

Obama Hits Opponents With Chicago Brass Knuckles

That's governance, Chicago style. The head of government is friends with the heads of every big business, lobby and union, and together they make decisions on how everyone else will live. Those on the inside get what they want. Those on the outside -- well, they get what the big guys want them to have. That's life in the big city.

The war on Fox News

From Legal Insurrection:

Mainstream Media Confronts The Monster It Created

The Obama administration's attack that Fox News is not a real "news organization" reflects on the psyche not of Fox News but of our Commander in Chief and his emissaries. It also is a pathetic re-write of history in light of the incredibly biased, pro-Obama media coverage during the election, when Fox News was the only news organization subjecting Obama to any level of scrutiny.

Good question

Why Is GE Exempt From Government-Ordered Pay Cuts?

Since the government is now deciding who gets paid what at companies that received bailouts, it begs the questions: Why are employees of General Electric, owner of MSNBC, Obama's favorite network, exempt from these pay cuts?

RTWT

Remember when the MSM cared about intellegence failures and scandals?

Huge Intelligence Scandal


Will all the pundits who relied on the discredited 2007 NIE on Iran now admit that they were wrong? That they bought into and kept citing, without any serious questioning, the now clearly politically skewed analysis in the so-called National Intelligence Estimate of that year? You remember: the considered consensus wisdom of the entire U.S. intelligence community, which misled the world into believing there was nothing to worry about Iran’s nuclear program, that it had virtually ceased.

Al Sharpton and his enablers

Michelle Malkin saves some history from the memory hole.

Yes, let’s talk about Al Sharpton’s racial demagoguery, shall we?

The last thing Clown Sharpton wants is a thorough and blistering examination of his vile shakedowns, bigoted incitements, and police-bashing antics in a court of law– and the court of public opinion.

MM is also right about this:

He derives his role in large part because of the MSM’s continued need for minority charlatans to provide demagogic soundbites and deliver good ratings for the cable clown shows…Some readers wonder why I continue to write about the Sharpton-MSM lovefest. Why? Because the enablers deserve to be held responsible and shamed publicly until they stop.

Fox News deserves criticism on this score. As i noted two years ago during the Imus scandal:

Sharpton’s rise is a sign of our degraded public culture. I do not see the problem as only political; economics also plays a role. Conservative Sean Hannity promotes Sharpton as much as any liberal. Hannity may disagree with Sharpton but he is willing to give him a platform because it makes for “good television.”

Creativity

An interesting dicussion over at Ace of Spades

What is it that sparks "creative thinking"?

I bloggged about the subject here:

Killing Creativity

Diane West on the scandalous outrage over Limbaugh and NFL double-standards

Blackballing Conservatism

Olbermann calls an accomplished and best-selling conservative author, commentator, blogger, wife and mother (who also happens to be beautiful) a "big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick," but such dehumanizing venom doesn't count as controversial, or even lightly strain his NBC-NFL connection. Why, at this rate, he could end up on a box of Wheaties. His comments certainly don't rate as "divisive" or "inappropriate" - two of the coded charges leveled at Rush Limbaugh's "public remarks" by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay that got Limbaugh's blackball rolling in the first place.

RTWT

Case still open: Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings

I guess this now constitutes good news for the MSM

McClatchy Reports Slower Decline in Revenues in Third Quarter

A forgotten master

Roger Scruton on Roy Campbell

A Dark Horse

Quality fade with a vengence

Thousands of homeowners cite drywall for ills

While tainted Chinese imports like toothpaste, pet food and baby formula have been quickly removed from store shelves, drywall is installed throughout homes and does not lend itself to a quick fix.

This month, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, whose investigation into Chinese drywall is the largest in its history, will release the results of a study to determine why the drywall is causing the problem, and what kind of remediation programs might be effective.

See also:

China and "quality fade"

Price, value, and brands

A good post on marketing and the recession:

Are Agencies Reaping What We've Sown?

It is easy to easy to say "desperate times call for desperate measures" and then cut prices to the bone. That may even be the best option for a given company. It is wishful thinking, however, to pretend that price cuts do not erode the brand position or that it will be easy to raise prices after the economy improves.

The article does raise an interesting point about business decision-making and business education. The business cycle is a fact of life. Yet, most businesses react to recessions as though they are a complete surprise.

The time to prepare for a downturn is when times are good. Why do so few businesses do so?

The forgotten first responders

Amanda Ripley:

Human Behavior in Indonesia

In Indonesia, emergency workers are having a very hard time getting into several remote villages devastated by last Wednesday’s 7.6-magnitude earthquake. As we’ve seen in every major disaster in history, regular people matter more than anyone else in the darkness of these voids. During the golden hours when rescue is possible, civilians do much of the lifesaving--and they are capable of remarkable creativity. It is wrenching and inspiring at once.

Kevin Jennings and Rep. Mark Foley

What a difference three years makes. Or is it the party label?

Jeffrey Lord looks at the defenders of Kevin Jennings and how they reacted to the Mar5k Foley Scandal in 2006.

Democrats Called Foley Guilty of Sex Crimes

See also:

Pelosi to Polanski to Jennings: Why Sean Hannity Is Right

It's up and it's big

The latest FMJRA, that is.

Frolicking on McCain's Just-Reached Anniversary...

I swear, these Other McCainiacs are starting to remind me of those living dead armies of the Mummy movies. Their numbers just keep growing.