I would love to have been a fly on the wall to hear the discussion among the group that pulls together names for seasonal hurricanes--still no "black" hurricane names, by the way--when they picked "Alberto". Were they admiring "Crazy Al", or more likely, poking fun at him?

Carbon emissions are still measured in parts per million, and not very many at that. Instead of spending incredible amounts of money to reduce already diminishing carbon emissions (except in the developing world, including perpetual coal mine fires in China), if we're really at a tipping point, among the prudent, good government acts we could take including having the government buy back land from all coastal property owners up to a certain point above sea level and prohibiting development in at risk areas so that we can adapt to the crisis until it can be studied and solved without bankrupting the industrial or the developing world. Repeating "Crazy Al's" mantra, "See, see, another hurricane--I told you!" solves nothing except dramatizing the inability of government to address the undesired outcome of global warming.

Of course, the Hollywood elite supports "Crazy Al" --that is, unless their expensive beachfront property was condemned. They would probably support a "cut and run" strategy that still offered them dibs on the "new" beachfront property--wherever that may be.

The Dutch built dikes to hold back the sea instead of living with flooding. They did not tell farmers and villagers to stop farming and trading. There are endless examples of man's ability to adapt to nature. Unless we start to hear policy proposals that deal with adaptation to global warming, all we're hearing is more hot air.

FOXNews.com - Terror Links to Saddam's Inner Circle - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

The poorly exploited captured trove of documents from Saddam's regime slowly gives up its secrets. FOXNews.com: Terror Links to Saddam's Inner Circle

So, UBL and friends were meeting with Saddam's inner circle in 1999? Interesting if you put aside your "Bush lied!" sign and read the article carefully.

James Lileks uses his Newhouse column to take us through the fevered logic that infuses the far left's reaction to the aborted attack by home grown Islamic terrorists on...Canada.

David Harsany at the DenverPost.com calls for us to "Chill out over global warming"--quite rightly, according to Colorado State University's Bill Gray and Roger Pielke Sr. at the University of Colorado.

From Mr. Harsany's column, "Gray is perhaps the world's foremost hurricane expert. His Tropical Storm Forecast sets the standard. Yet, his criticism of the global warming 'hoax' makes him an outcast."

Why is the politicization of science so unashamedly tolerated by the left of its enviro-wackos? Is the temptation to embrace self-hate so appealing that it extends to the success of the industrial world and the educational establishment that it seems bent on radicalizing if not destroying? The global warming debate is far from over, and it is far too soon to prescribe solutions to a problem that is simply not well understood.

The Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com section runs an editorial by "Krazy Kofi" Annan who claims that illegal immigration is a form of "migration". That's it--we're not being invaded by people who have no legal right to be here; we're just hosting innocuous migrants, like a flock of birds.

Every nation-state since the Treaty of Westphalia has retained the right to defend its borders and set rules on citizenship for those who would wish to settle permanently. No thinking person can possibly confuse the waves of uneducated, unskilled immigrants--and who knows how many "OTMs"--with a harmless flock of birds. Americans are awakening to the real invasion, not a migration, that is underway in America. Mr. Annan is right to say that America has always been a refuge for those fleeing oppression or who wish to bring their skills and abilities to an entrepreneurial society that doesn't prohibit advancement like some in Europe, Asia and Africa. We're tired of being taken for a free ride, though, by those who would enter without permission.

Think of the current wave of "America for Americans" as the second coming of "welfare reform" and you'll be closer to understanding the roots of the movement.

The Seattle Public School District unintentionally makes the best argument ever put forward in favor of school choice Planning ahead is considered racist?

The first few sentences of the column, by Andrew J. Coulson, are astonishing:

"Are you salting away a little money for your retirement? Trying to plan for your kids' education? If so, Seattle Public Schools seems to think you're a racist."

"According to the district's official Web site, 'having a future time orientation' (academese for having long-term goals) is among the 'aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype and label people of color.'"

Unbelievable. Read the whole thing, then start saving your money to send your children to private school or to home school them.

The Christian Science Monitor publishes an intriguinging proposal by Philip Gold calling for an independent agency to be created that would decide on the sites that could be explored for oil in the domestic U.S. and then, as in the case of the process outlined in the Base Closure and Realignment Act, allow Congress to approve all selected sites or disapprove all sites, without amendment. Consider responsible drilling on US soil

NW News publishes an editorial by Toby Nixon Brightwater stinks, and it's not the sewage you're smelling

I met Toby when I was the AppleTalk Evangelist at Apple from '87 to '90. I was pleased to find that he had preceeded me to the Northwest when I arrived at Microsoft in '94. He's still there, splitting time on his work on networking and communications with his responsibilities as the Republican representative for the 45th Legislative District, which includes my new home town. I look forward to voting for him again.

If only there were video and audio of this indecipherable blabber Nancy Pelosi Speaks - The New Editor

"The microphone is on the table" might become as famous for its strange context as "What's the frequency, Kenneth?"

Pete du Pont offers a well reasoned argument against global warming histeria in his monthly column for the WSJ OpinionJournal - Outside the Box

I haven't heard any discussion of a point that ocurred to me after reading this article. If man is such an important cause of global warming, and if industrial activity must be curtailed in order to bring the threat down, then what has happened during periods of lower industrial activity--major recessions, war, etc.?

The Wall Street Journal prints a piece today by Peter Wehner, deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House's Office of Strategic Initiatives. It's a must read for anyone who is repeatedly drawn back into debate over the rationale for the Iraq war. OpinionJournal - Featured Article

All sorts of grandiose tributes expressed in architecture to a truly failed system. Unrealised Moscow

H/T Digg

Damninteresing.com covers exciting developments that portend advances in stem cell research without the ethical dilemmas involved in the use of embryos: extraction of stem cells from menstrual blood and human spermatogonial cells (from testicular tissue) in the post, New Sources for Stem Cells

Speaking for myself, I favor the former.

Ann Althouse points to a fun story about the power that unionized California janitors have to prevent graduates from being further indoctrinated by Democratic party apparachniks My Way News - Dean Cancels Berkeley Graduation Speech

If this doesn't make one skeptical of government-run "free" health care, nothing will. In a Dentist Shortage, British (Ouch) Do It Themselves - New York Times

The reviews for "United 93" keep coming in. Instapundit.com - excerpts a few reviewers whose impressions I share. I wholeheartedly recommend the film to every adult American of any political stripe. I was profoundly affected by the experience of watching the movie, and reminded of my feelings on that day of infamy.

The Angry Left attacks one of the blogosphere's best, causing many, many supporters to rally to her side.

Click the picture of this intelligent, articulate woman to read more about it.

My old friend Tom Evslin has a great blog. His post on global warming is just like him: thoughtful, practical and based on facts, not fancy. Fractals of Change: Global Warming ? Too Important for Junk Science

Another story not covered by the main stream media Kyoto: An Open Letter to the European Governments and the European Commission The Brussels Journal

A great quote from the article, “If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.”

The Captain's Quarters blog calls it "case closed" on the question of Saddam's links to terrorism and attacks against the US prior to 9/11.