Combine the Stories Round 3: Global Warming and SChip

As you know people like to think that this President of ours isn’t too bright. Today in the NYTimes Thomas Friedman is left confused by Bali because he can’t figure out if Bush has some good ideas or if it’s just his minions going their own way. Activists in Bali

came loaded to carve up the Americans, who, it was just assumed, had to be stupid because they represented the Bush administration.

and then what happened?
Well those Americans knew their stuff, leaving the conference people confused.

As if reading the minds of everyone there, Malini Mehra, the chief executive of the Centre for Social Markets, an Indian activist group, took the microphone and, in so many words, asked the Bush aides: Who are you and what planet did you come from? It could not possibly be from planet Bush.
“Anyone who has been listening to the news on climate change knows that there has been one message from this administration — that any serious action on climate change threatens the U.S. economy and our way of life,” Ms. Mehra said to me later.

I’m sorry – but what’s so confusing about this? “Everyone” has said that a) we’re too late to change global warming and b) we have to make drastic changes in order to prevent global warming.

Drastic changes = A serious change in the US economy
A Serious change in the US economy = a serious change in the entire world’s economy!!

Mr. Friedman – you are an economist for crying out loud! We here in the US can’t even allow homes to foreclose naturally by people who can’t afford them without having at least the Germans scream that we’ve screwed up their economies, and now you are confused because Mr. Bush actually has that reality as part of his world paradigm?

Sheesh – I manage a small database and can figure this out.

But then again – you lefties have yet to accept the fact that Mr. Bush is an incredibly smart man who will probably be signing a bill today that is going to take the entire SCHIP (my gosh – poor sick children don’t get healthcare in this country!!!) issue off the table for the big election of 2008 along with getting him his armed forces money.

Mr. Bush has twice vetoed bills to expand the child health program. With no agreement in sight, Congressional leaders decided to continue current policy through March 2009.

Lame duck? HAH!!!
(Ooh – I should have combined this story with the chickens!)

ps for more Bali fun read the Anchoress.

Combine the stories-round 2: Chickens and Monkey Math

Compass Group (the world’s largest food service provider) is going to go to cage free eggs from chickens. (ht ThinkingReed)

In its first phase, the company will start purchasing half of its shell eggs from cage-free sources within 90 days—a very fast first step by the food service giant. The first phase of implementation will translate into the purchase of 48 million eggs from cage-free producers—and result in nearly 200,000 fewer hens confined in battery cages.

(for pictures of battery cages and chicken lives in factory farms, click here)

That is very good news indeed. And why pray tell is such a big company going to make such a major change in the life of chickens? Because animals everywhere are proving themselves to be worthy of more respect every day and people are taking notice.

Drudge had the story of monkeys doing math in competition with college students the other day.

In a rapid fire test of mental addition, monkeys performed almost as well as college students, showing they’re no slouches when it comes to number crunching.

The macaques got their sums right 76 percent of the time, while the students got the correct answer 94 percent of the time in a series of increasingly challenging maths tests.

“We know that animals can recognize quantities, but there is less evidence for their ability to carry out explicit mathematical tasks, such as addition,” said Jessica Cantlon, a researcher at Duke University Center for Cognitive Neuroscience in Durham, North Carolina.

“Our study shows that they can.”

Good luck animals! Keep pushing.

Combine the stories-round 1: Mark Steyn and Adolf

I feel badly that I’ve been ignoring this story concerning Mark Steyn’s troubles up in Canada. (link to Wise Law Blog that has a friendly re-cap) My re-cap-Steyn has human rights complaints against him and it appears he’s in real trouble in spite of my initial scoffing at the idea.

In the battle for freedom of speech in Canada, Mark Steyn is losing. True, there’s been a flurry of discussion on the blogosphere, and a number of powerful Canadian Op-Ed pieces on the controversy. But don’t be fooled, Mark Steyn is losing.

Who’s human rights is he violating? Does he have slaves in the basement? Is he torturing a neighborhood kid? No. It’s his book “America Alone”. Apparently there were excerpts in Macclean’s magazine, someone got insulted and went to the Human Right’s Commission to complain. I’m pretty sure (and Wise Law Blog has the text) that there are free speech rights in Canada. Particularly for journalists. So WTF??

Has Canada become as bad as Germany in regards to free speech??

You see in Germany a man has been arrested and put in jail in spite of an accident that caused him to lose some of his faculties because he has displayed Nazi Symbols.

Now Roland T. is off to jail. He is reporting to a Berlin prison Wednesday to serve a five-month sentence for displaying Nazi symbols. The repeat offender, who was notorious in Berlin for openly giving Nazi salutes and wearing Hitler T-shirts, was given a series of suspended sentences but now has to do time after authorities lost patience with him. Judges had previously been lenient with the former car salesman, who was considered to have diminished culpability due to brain damage sustained in a 1995 accident.

His dog, Adolf (now Adi) has been given to a shelter and is looking for a new home. The article is about the dog.