Now Dr Williams is on the record with some good questions about the push for diversity in this country, especially on college campuses. From his article, Diversity Adulation, on Townhall.com:

There are some ideas so ludicrous and mischievous that only an academic would take them seriously. One of them is diversity. Think about it. Are you for or against diversity? When's the last time you said to yourself, "I'd better have a little more diversity in my life"?

When academics call for diversity, they're really talking about racial preferences for particular groups of people, mainly blacks. The last thing they're talking about is intellectual diversity.

Some of my thoughts on diversity are here.

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I know it's a little late but I want to get in my two cents worth anyway. Senator Kerry got himself in a heap of trouble (I know, why is that news?) by telling some college students that they should study hard or they would get stuck in Iraq. His handlers (what courageous people!) insist that he was supposed to have said: "Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush."

Now if it is actually true that he was supposed to have read this prepared remark I can believe that Kerry just flubbed it. After all, most of us know he has been in way over his head most of his life. But is it true? If it is, then why are there several versions of 'what he was supposed to have said' out there? I have seen two or three different versions (but couldn't find them this morning).

The biggest question I have, though, is: Who wants to pay any attention to someone who can't pull off a simple joke? This will have all been worth it if America will finally just dismiss John Kerry.

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Fox News reports that 10,733 fugitives were rounded up in a sweep led by the US Marshals Service. The operation covered 24 eastern states and lasted six days beginning on October 22. State and local law enforcement officers aided the marshals. About 3,000 officers were involved. Sweeps of this type were previously conducted in April 2005 and April 2006.

Are you wondering what all these law enforcement people were doing between April and October? Apparently not finding and arresting fugitives from justice. Why else would there be an almost 11,000 fugitive backlog? Was the fugitive roundup season closed? Or was October just a really high crime month?

Let's examine the numbers a little closer. About 3,000 officers arrested about 11,000 fugitives in six days. That's less than 4 fugitive arrests per officer, or just a little better than one arrest per officer every two days. The Marshals Service is crowing about that?

Who wants to bet me that at least 80 percent of them won't be back on the street within a week?

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From a column by Robert Novak on Townhall.com:

Two senior senators, Democrat Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine, are pressuring ExxonMobil Corp. to stop funding scientists who question the conventional liberal wisdom on global warming.

So, two senators are trying to strong-arm a private company into signing on to their agenda. Are they working from a page in the Jesse Jackson play-book? Will ExxonMobil have to contribute to their campaign funds to get them off its back? Or do the senators actually think that there is something we can do or not do that will significantly affect climate change? I hope not. In my view, ants have about as much chance of significantly changing the global climate as humans do.

In an Oct. 27 letter to ExxonMobil CEO Rex W. Tillerson in Irving, Texas, the senators charged that the oil company's position has "made it increasingly difficult for the United States to demonstrate the moral clarity it needs across all facets of its diplomacy." Actually, U.S. government policy, as set by President Bush, is skeptical about global warming.

An oil company is hampering the diplomacy of the United States? Whoa! Must be some powerful company. Anyway, all we need to demonstrate moral clarity is the biggest weapons.

"We must request," said the Rockefeller-Snowe letter, "that ExxonMobil end any further financial assistance or other support to groups or individuals whose public advocacy has contributed to the small, but unfortunately effective, climate change denial myth."

One person's truth is another person's myth. I think the jury is still out on just who is promoting a myth.

Even if the global warming alarmists are right, that the effects of global warming will dramatically affect our lives, they have no way of knowing if the effects will be good or bad for us. So what if half of Florida will be covered with water? It has been that way before. It's not going to happen overnight; people will have plenty of time to migrate to higher ground.

Think about the economic boost to the inland parts of the state as the water rises. All that property will spend years as waterfront property (before it becomes underwater property) and will command high prices and will attract millions of tourists with deep pockets. Think about the economic gain from new construction as houses and businesses have to be rebuilt to replace those swamped by the rising oceans. That is, think about these things if you are one of those that believe that the devastation caused by natural disasters can be a net economic gain.

Seriously, why is it assumed that warmer is bad? Many parts of the world might benefit immensely from warmer temperatures. And how do we know that there won't be an offsetting natural phenomenon -- like the sun growing cooler? It is inconceivable to me that intelligent people can believe that global warming is among the greatest dangers that we face. So I have to believe that they have ulterior motives.

Let's wait until the first coastal city is underwater before getting all worked up over global warming.  By the way, what's going on with the bird flu scare? 

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The title of a Washington Post article on the melting Arctic ice sounded a little positive: "Melting Arctic Makes Way for Man." But the subtitle quickly changes the tone: "Researchers on icebreaker say shipping could add to risks for ecosystem." The article describes the voyage through the Northwest Passage of a Canadian ship loaded with researchers. The refrain is familiar. Change is afoot, change is bad and mankind is responsible for the change.

I'd like to point out a little detail to the researchers on the ship. It's not me, my neighbors, my friends or my relatives cruising around in the Arctic. It's you. The article mentions how powerful the ship's engines are. Are you concerned about the pollution you are spewing into the Arctic? No, you are worried about the potential polution from "the tramp steamer with a single hull under a Liberian flag and Philippine crew." Yes, you want those poor souls trying to make a living to stay out of your playground.

Here is a suggestion for all the people in a tizzy over global warming: Make a vow to never use any form of motorized transportation for the rest of your life. This would demonstrate that you are sincere in your belief that modern industrialized nations are responsible for global warming. It might be easier for you to keep this vow if you and your family move to one of the Inuit villages mentioned in the article.

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The Associated Press posted a story this morning with the headline, "Gay Marriage Ban Rejected in Arizona." Apparently this is an accurate statement. But it is misleading because the story says that "Arizona became the first state to defeat an amendment to ban gay marriage". The news is not just that a state rejected a gay marriage ban, but that it is the first state to do so. Without reading the story someone might form the idea that efforts to ban gay marriage are not faring well at the polls. According to the story the opposite is true:

Arizona broke a strong national trend by refusing to change its constitution to define marriage as a one-man, one-woman institution. The measure also would have forbid civil unions and domestic partnerships.

Eight states voted on amendments to ban gay marriage: Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin approved them. Similar amendments have passed previously in all 20 states to consider them.

I found plenty of news stories about the fact that eight states had gay marriage ban issues on their ballots in this election, and I'm sure there are local news stories announcing the results, but I could find no national stories with any of these headlines:

• Gay Marriage Ban Approved in Colorado
• Gay Marriage Ban Approved in Idaho
• Gay Marriage Ban Approved in South Carolina
• Gay Marriage Ban Approved in South Dakota
• Gay Marriage Ban Approved in Tennessee
• Gay Marriage Ban Approved in Virginia
• Gay Marriage Ban Approved in Wisconsin

And certainly not: Gay Marriage Bans Passed in 27 of 28 States Considering Them.

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Borrowing a favorite question of OpinionJournal's Best of the Web Today: What would we do without experts? USA Today has an article from the AP that reports:

From ancient ruins in Thailand to a 12th-century settlement off Africa's eastern coast, prized sites around the world have withstood centuries of wars, looting and natural disasters. But experts say they might not survive a more recent menace: a swiftly warming planet.

Apparently something else has done more than threaten the "prized sites around the world." Why else would they be called ruins? Someone now expects us to get all worked up over the possibility that a bunch of ruins might get a little more ruined? It seems to me that there are too many people in this world with too little to do.

Recent floods attributed to climate change have damaged the 600-year-old ruins of Sukhothai in northern Thailand, the report said, while increasing temperatures are "bleaching" the Belize barrier reef...

Notice that the recent floods are "attributed to climate change." By whom? Have they not had floods in Thailand before global warming became a hot button issue? In a sense all dramatic weather events for all time are caused by climate change.

An increase in temperature of one degree in a hundred years is now bleaching the Belize barrier reef? I would think that if the reef is getting bleached that most of the bleaching is due to the 75 degrees or so of base temperature rather than the global warming increment.

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The Associated Press reports that:

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, whose party lost both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, will step down from his post when his two-year term ends in January, GOP officials said Thursday.

I wonder what would happen if he wouldn't 'step down' when his term ends. Would someone have to push him down?

As I've indicated before I'm not that impressed with Mehlman. His greatest claim to fame seems to be that he led President Bush's successful reelection campaign in 2004. But what's impressive about that? He was barely able to defeat John Kerry -- a man whose most salient characteristic is the ability to eclipse any of his previous blunders.

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The Associated Press reports from Nairobi, Kenya that:

The world's oceans are becoming more acidic, which poses a threat to sea life and Earth's fragile food chain, a climate expert said Thursday.

What would we do without experts? How could anyone, much less an expert, reach the conclusion that the Earth's food chain is fragile? Perhaps experts' definition of fragile is different from mine. I've read that life has existed on Earth for several billion years (but that is most likely the finding of 'experts'). If life has existed for that long I would guess that some form of food chain has been around for that long. But, our current crop of experts believe that they have detected the advent of life threatening trends. Yeah, right. After billions of years life is seriously threatened now and they saw it coming.

Oceans have already absorbed a third of the world's emissions of carbon dioxide, one of the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming, leading to acidification that prevents vital sea life from forming properly.

Wouldn't that be a good thing if you believe the global warming alarmists? I'm no expert, but I don't think the carbon dioxide absorbed by the oceans will be trapping much heat.

In a study titled "The Future Oceans - Warming Up, Rising High, Turning Sour," (Stefan) Rahmstorf and eight other scientists warned that the world is witnessing, on a global scale, problems similar to the acid rain phenomenon of the 1970s and 1980s.

Did they really mean to say that? After all, the acid rain scare kind of fizzled. When is the last time you heard anything about acid rain?

Rahmstorf, the head of Germany's Potsdam Institute for Research into Climatic Effects, says more research is urgently needed to assess the impact of ocean acidification.

Bingo! Motive uncovered! More research equals more money.

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The Washington Times and Britain's Independent report that:

Britain's Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecology has called for debate on whether to allow euthanasia of severely disabled newborns.  The college says there is some support for the move by some parents, medical ethicists and geneticists.  In a request to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the college says active euthanasia should be considered for the overall benefit of families, who would otherwise suffer years of emotional and financial stress.

Looks like I may need to modify my Life-Choice Scale.

(via PowersPoint)

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