But I love that dirty water...

John Hudock of Common Sense and Wonder points to this ecological problem that caused a massive clam die-off.

AIDS - the conservative, Southern connection...

Drudge points to this article in the Atlanta Urinal-Constipation in which we learn the connection between conservatism and AIDS:

The South is more greatly plagued by AIDS and HIV infections because of racial and economic differences and a conservative cultural attitude that interferes with attempts to halt the disease, the report said.

Right. A disease that's spread primarily by needle drugs and anal sex is to be blamed on "conservative attitudes". Have Southerners been encouraging this behavior?

And there's this:

More than half of the people with AIDS in the South are African-American, though only 20 percent of the region's population is Black. African-American men are less likely to acknowledge that they are in a high-risk group for AIDS and are less likely to volunteer for HIV testing, researchers say.

Yep, and African-Americans typically vote conservative as a bloc, right?

And this:

In addition, it said AIDS/HIV rates closely parallel the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, such as syphilis and gonorrhea.

Yep, that accounts for the heterosexual cases that don't involve needles, transfusions or anal sex - the other STDs cause lesions in the genitals which permit AIDS to do its dirty work. OK, then how do you get STDs? By sleeping around. This isn't unheard of among conservatives, but at least they take the trouble to be hypocritical about it.

C'mon, AJC, don't try to sound like the NYT. They'll never respect you because you're from the South.

Hold still, Bessie

You've heard of the old anti-hunting bumper stickers that said "support your right to arm bears"? Well, this guy arms cows.

Courtesy of Last Page - if I were a cow, she could arm me anytime.

More dirty tricks from the Naderites

Courtesy of esteemed lawyer, veteran, and Caption Contest judge Dodd Harris.

Guns don't kill people, gun control does

East St. Louis is well known as a social hellhole. A few years ago things were so bad that someone who had been abused by the police sued the town, won, and wound up with the deed to City Hall.

Maybe we'll see this again in Washington, DC. Shelly Parker just wants a gun to defend herself:

In February of this year, a dealer known as "Nanook" started banging on her door and tried to pry his way into her house, repeatedly yelling, "Bitch, I'll kill you, I live on this block too." Nanook was eventually arrested. He may be prosecuted. But Ms. Parker knows that the police are "not going to do very much about the drug problem on my block." That's why she wants to have a functional handgun in her home for self-defense — just a garden-variety pistol, not a machine gun or assault weapon like the gangs are able to acquire without blinking an eye.

Shelly Parker and countless other D.C. residents should be able to defend themselves. They're not asking to carry a weapon outdoors on the city's drug-infested streets, where the sound of bullets regularly mocks the nation's strictest gun ban. Their needs are more basic: a pistol where they live, so they can defend their property, their families, and their lives.

Yet if Parker has a handgun in her bedroom, she could face criminal penalties — arrest, prosecution, fine, even incarceration — because of the District's preposterous gun laws. Upstanding citizens who reside in D.C., pay taxes in D.C., and obey D.C. laws are too often the victims of criminal predators. Still, the city insists that if someone breaks into their houses, their only choice is to call 911 and pray that help gets there in time. Anyone who's ever used the city's emergency phone service knows that a pizza can be delivered before the police show up.

The DC cops know what's going on, and the politicians have had more than ample time to figure out that gun control works only in liberal Fantasyland. IMO if any of these creeps so much as rustles a hair on this woman's head, she should be able to sue the city, the local politicians, Sarah Brady and the rest of the gun control cabal and collect until she owns the very air they breathe.

Tariq Aziz in US custody

Right here.

St. Louis born on this day in 1214

The man, not the city.

Yes, St. Louis was named for a Frenchman. But this one was willing to fight in the Middle East.

Fire the Boss

A few minutes ago I was subjected to a tearful display by the Dixie Chicks, who might possibly have lost a dime or two thanks to lead singer Natalie Maines' patter at a London concert a while back. Aw, did the poor babies get some bad press?

They said that they got some threats of a physical nature, which no decent person will condone. But they're going to have to learn that their careers are at the sufferance of the listening public, and they have plenty of competition from people who look, write and play better than they.

Then the news showed Bruce Springsteen's site, which contains the following:

The Dixie Chicks have taken a big hit lately for exercising their basic right to express themselves. To me, they're terrific American artists expressing American values by using their American right to free speech. For them to be banished wholesale from radio stations, and even entire radio networks, for speaking out is un-American.

The pressure coming from the government and big business to enforce conformity of thought concerning the war and politics goes against everything that this country is about - namely freedom. Right now, we are supposedly fighting to create freedom in Iraq, at the same time that some are trying to intimidate and punish people for using that same freedom here at home.

I don't know what happens next, but I do want to add my voice to those who think that the Dixie Chicks are getting a raw deal, and an un-American one to boot. I send them my support.

Right. Now tell me, Boss, do you feel the same way about, say, John Rocker? (nod to Jay Nordlinger).

Admit it, Boss, you defend this not because they spoke out. It's because you approve of their anti-Bush message, but you don't have the cojones to say it flat out yourself in the current environment of public approval for the President (thanks, Pejman). So you're hiding behind their skirts.

Come on out and say it. You won't have a mysterious accident with a truck or die under torture like dissenters against the recently deposed Saddam Hussein regime. You won't get locked in prison like perennial Hollywood favorite Fidel Castro's dissenters. You might even get some good press from the usual suspects.

But on the other hand, it might cost you some of those almighty bucks that pay for the makeup artists and PR guys who maintain your blue-collar facade. Horrors!

Yeah, everybody's pushing conformity of thought. That's why Enron and other companies got so much bad press, right? That's why the likes of Michael Moore can have a bestseller nowadays, right? Good grief.

Sorry, but I don't have any tears left for multimillionaires like you, fellow BS artist Barbra Streisand, Moore or the Dixie Chicks.

Now you'll have to excuse me while I listen to some old Springsteen albums and ask myself "was he always this clueless?"

NRA demands right for individuals to own nuclear weapons?

Well, no, not really. But feminists have a position that's about that extreme. One has complained that that miscarriage of justice known as Roe v. Wade is threatened by calling the death of Laci Peterson's baby a murder.

Link stolen from Radley Balko, who will never, ever, ever admit that we should have cleaned up Iraq.

I could never fill Lileks' shoes

If you want to see how big his footprint is, look here.

Sic em, Rodger

Ya know, I have my doubts about the authenticity of this image, but it's the thought that counts.

UN competent

Mapchic has another reason to dislike the UN.

Genetic disease question

Jason Soon has his own blog here, but he also posts on Gene Expression. There he offers this in critique of an article by Bill McKibben.

The McKibben post eventually finds its way to discussing efforts of Ashkenazi Jews to eliminate Tay-Sachs disease. Tay-Sachs is a fatal hereditary disease caused when a child inherits the relevant genes from both parents. Genetic screening is being used to combat it.

OK, I can relate to this. To my knowledge I'm "clean". But a cousin of mine died slowly from MLD, another genetic condition that requires the relevant deadly genes from both parents. She was the younger of two girls, and her parents never had any more kids after her.

Then there's sickle-cell anemia, which is associated with Africa but can be found in other nationalities. If a child gets the gene from both parents it will suffer sickle-cell anemia. But having just one of the genes confers some protection against malaria.

So something is lost if the sickle-cell gene is eliminated. And I wonder if the same is true of Tay-Sachs or even MLD, such that carrying the gene is beneficial as long as you don't get it from both parents.

I'd have to pay to see the rest of the Times article, and I can't see giving those creeps a nickel as long as the current regime is in place. So I'm not sure exactly how far Ashkenazi Jews are going toward eliminating the gene. Selective abortion? Sterilization?

But I would be interested in knowing if the Tay-Sachs, MLD or other such potentially deadly genes offered any benefits to their carriers.

AWOL

I'll have to ask MedPundit or DB's MedRants if there is a recognized medical condition known as "'No Watermelons Allowed' Withdrawal Syndrome". If so, no doubt you've suffered immensely over the last few days. But I'm not the only slacker around nowadays.

Well, I shouldn't call our dear Susanna that - she's getting some grad school work done in lieu of blogging. Attagirl!

Meanwhile somewhere in the wilderness of Arkansas a Rottweiler attacked Vicki of Liquid Courage. The lovely Vicki needed stitches in her face? - say it ain't so, Matt! (As for the Rottweiler, give it to Glenn Reynolds).

And Tacitus is having problems with, um, his back end. But he'll be back.

So what's my excuse...?