First up, we have a double header from Cronaca:
He links to an article about how bad female infanticide is in India, and some of the effects its having. How bad – worse than China!

On a lighter note, Cronaca provides the three hardest words in any language to translate. This item is provided in honor of my cousin Linda, who knows more languages than is humanly possible, and who we decided last night would be somebody (along with the rest of her family) we’d like to share a vacation home/condo with (not only is she a blast to be with, but she already has the perfect condo!). For those of you who can’t wait, the winner is ilunga, a Bantu word that means a person ready to forgive any abuse the first time, tolerate it the second time, but never a third time.

We have a couple of items in the category of obvious:
Tanya reports that Mary-Kate Olsen has anorexia. I happen to like the Olsen twins (no, I’m not one of those people who were counting the days until they turned 18, I mean there work — I’ve actually enjoyed most of the stuff I’ve seen them in watching with my daughter). How long before Ashley fesses up too?

Meryl Yourish links to a study that reports obese men can improve their sex lives by losing weight — no word on what Jack Ryan can do.

Speaking of Jack!, Archpundit is wall to wall Jack!. And if you’re going to comment at a lefty site, there’s no better place than Archpundit.

I’ve had my share of Andrew Sullivan posts, so I have to let you know that Iowahawk has provided the last Sullivan post you’ll ever have to read, entitled Two Minute Sully.

Just to alert the media, Busy Mom has redecorated her blog and it is all spiffy now.

And finally, it’s posts like this one that keep me coming back to QandO.

It must be mind control or ESP or something, because I’ve come across some blog posts I could have written. If I had the time and talent, that is. 

I know he’s “the dean” of political pundits, but Geitner’s title sums up my feelings: Broder, Slow On The Uptake.

The next post takes more than just the title, but it too sums up my take on a lot of NGOs, not just Amnesty International. Yep, according to AI, the US is the worst offender when it comes to undermining the rule of law and international relations.

I’ve said this before, I’ll say it now and later — I think the children, grown or not, of politicians should be off limits to attacks. Just because you don’t like their parents doesn’t mean you should go after the kids. Period. Left, Right, St. Looney-Up-The-Creek doesn’t make any difference. Ted Barlow agrees with me. And as I would say about anybody else, if somebody says something stupid, mock the stupidity of the remark, not the person. Yeah, I know, I’m no fun.

Yes, we really do need a whole channel devoted to gays and lesbians, asJoe Carter points out. I mean, it’s like gays and lesbians are currently invisible on TV, unlike honest businessmen.

Clayton Cramer solves a conundrum that bedevils some reporters: how does the crime rate fall while prison populations increase? For those of you who are puzzled as well, I’ll let Mr. Cramer explain it to you.

I just started John Stossel’s book Give Me A Break and noticed he figured out at the start of his career that TV news is essentially high frequency noise – and he wanted to present the low frequency signal. Those of course aren’t his words, but mine as an engineer. And that brings up my attempt to bring you some posts that are all signal.

First up is a sensible look by Into The Sunset at how we are doing in Iraq that measures success and failure against 6 goals.

Wretchard continues his excellent analysis at Belmont Club by taking a sober look at “News Coverage As A Weapon.”

And Cronaca covers the intersection between Art and Politics in two posts in response to a response to the Israeli Ambassador’s response to a despicable work in a Stockholm gallery.

Which party has the real smear machine asks Real Clear Politics. In one corner you have Move On’s smear campaign and in the other you have … more Democratic smears. Speaking of which, I’m still waiting for Hillary’s explanation of how the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy managed to get Bill Clinton’s pants off and his –okay, you get the idea. The story about Move On raises one of those clashes of virtues:

“The issue is complex. Some Republican attorneys who fought McCain/Feingold on free-speech grounds, such as James Bopp and Jan Baran, have criticized the RNC’s challenge. Meanwhile, Lawrence Noble, executive director of the liberal-leaning Center for Responsive Politics, generally is supportive of the RNC position”

If political parties and certain other individuals/groups have their free speach infringed (IMHO that’s what McCain Feingold does), is it better to limit everyone else’s for the sake of fairness or is it better to expand the infringement anyfurther to minimize the erosion of 1st amendment rights?

Jon Henke at QandO found a funny one — an unapologetic feminist who on the one hand believes in “the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes” yet on the other thinks that the prisoner abuse in Iraq was caused by a lack of feminization in the military. As I point out in the comments, she (along with many of her sister feminists) apparently believes that women are morally superior to men. And speaking of superiority, is it fair that Dale Franks has joined QandO? I don’t think so.

Speaking of blogs that get far more traffic than me (not that anyone should measure their worth by how much traffic they get — OK, who am I trying to kid with that one?), Glenn Reynolds has a rarity for him – original content beyond “heh”. It’s a succinct riff on why we are in Iraq, and a good one too.

The swiftboat vets made good on their promise and clobbered John Kerry. Now the question is how much coverage this will get. Tom Maguire delivers the goods and gets the link because I really like his title.

Tanya has me going one way talking about “Realm of Redheads” but finishes another way with a heartfelt post.

Corporate Taxes. Multinational Taxes. Still with me? Good. Head over to Regions of Mind to learn more. Personally, I think taxing companies on their profits odd because it destorts their economic incentives, and taxes on comanies are really just consumption taxes anyway – they pass them along to consumers. My solution – get rid of them or switch to just a small flat rate on revenue. 

OK, back to heartfelt. Joe Carter has one about President Bush and about an honest emotional reaction. I have to agree with Joe – don’t always agree with his policies, but respect him as a man.

Latin is a language Dead as dead can be First it killed the Romans Now its killing me

But now Latin is cool — I’m always ahead of my time. Sometimes so ahead that, oh, nevermind. Via Cronaca

And don’t miss the second Carnival of the Liberated – a round up of Iraq blogs.

Scientists are using (adult) stem cells to regrow your own teeth. Hopefully they’ll have a workable human version by the time I need them.

The UN Oil-For-Food scandal keeps boiling along just below the threshold for the press to take much interest. I’m a fan of the ideal of the United Nations, but clearly the current implementation sucks. The question should be whether reform can work, or would it be better to start over with not just a fresh organization, but a better organized one. And by that I mean one that doesn’t treat all governments as equals, because they’re not; and one that draws its bureaucracy by and large from a stratum other than the current government kleptocracy. An organization that is supposed to represent the moral high ground needs to actually be moral; the failings of the UN are clearly moral failures.

The abuse of Iraqi prisoners is sickening, and needs to be punished fully and severly. And I’m kind of mystified at the claims it was due to MPs not given adequate guidelines. If you can’t figure out that you shouldn’t be sexually humilliating (and worse) prisoners, adequate guidelines aren’t going to help. (yea, more moral failures).

Charles Austin continues his 70’s music contest. It needs more Cowbell!

John Kerry is set to get an “unfit” evaluation from his fellow swift boat veterans tomorrow.

Ranger Rick retires and attends the same White House Correspondant’s Dinner as Bryan Preston, although it seems that Bryan only attended a pre-dinner cocktail party thrown by National Review (did that hide my jealosy?). Rick (AKA Rich Galen) has returned from Iraq — giving hope to all us Walter Mittys — a lean mean fighting machine. 

How long have you people known that Tony Woodlief is back writing his wonderful Sand In The Gears and didn’t tell me?

My local newspaper ran an article over the weekend about Joe Wilson’s new book. The odd thing is that it was exclusively about who he claims leaked his wife’s name to the press. Consequently, it was a waste of space as it provided no information since Joe Wilson hasn’t a clue as to who leaked his wife name – he just throws out names. Somehow, they forgot to mention that the book confirms that Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, Iraq’s then foreign minister, went to Niger sniffing after uranium. I guess that confirmation of British intellegence’s assertion that Iraq tried to obtain uranium in Africa isn’t newsworthy, since Joe told us before that they didn’t get any from Niger. Oh yeah, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf is better known as ‘Baghdad Bob’, and according to Eason Jordan’s revelations of how CNN sat on news to keep access is not a clown, and not a nice guy at all.

Tim at Random Observations how capitalism can be moral through the life and philosophy of a moral capitalist, Charles A. Todd.

It’s too bad that Dave Letterman didn’t jump to ABC and bump off the air that vain, arrogant, big-headed SOB Ted Koppel.

Cori Dauber points out an example of why people hate the media — the ghouls went to interview a family because their son was shot in Florida. Seems they got the wrong family, but they didn’t realise that and told them their son was dead — just so they could get their reaction on the air. 

Oh yeah, something big was stopped in Jordan (like 80,000 deaths and the destruction of it’s current government), but since the press isn’t worried, I’m not either.

A sober look at a real intelligence problem prior to 9/11. Hat Tip Instapundit

Another Baghdad Journal installment from Steve Mumford. Hat Tip Kaedrin Weblog — make sure you check out all the Mumford articles collected by Mark.

Bryan Preston documents the madness of Richard Clarke — and the bureaucratic wet dream that increased meetings at the top result in noticeable improvements at the bottom.

A serious look at a deliciously funny movie. Hat tip to Paul Cella. Someday I’d like to do the same for the Talented Mr. Ripley, which wasn’t funny, but is the best illustration that if virtue is its own reward, vice is its own punishment on film.

Kevin Holtsberry provides another example of why he isn’t a liberal. I couldn’t agree with you more, and it isn’t because of the first name.

Mark Byron edifies with his edifier du Jour. Warning – Christian thought.

If you’re a St. Louisan, you know who Bill Haas is. If you’re not, there is no easy description other than local color. If you’ve ever wanted to meet him, Archpundit let’s you know how. I won’t be there — my common sense overpowers my sense of humor.

It time for one of those posts, inspired by bloggers like J Bowen and Tom McMahon.

Our first one is via J Bowen, and documents the original product development team’s titanic struggle.

Next up we have courtesy of Tom McMahon a truly non-obvious and penetrating insight into marketing at The Sharper Image.

If you are a scientist with luxuriant flowing hair, there is a club especially for you, and only for you. Please note that this isn’t a club for scientists who want luxuriant flowing hair, but for those who already have it.

Check out the official Rube Goldberg website.

Scientists with entirely too much time on their hands have discovered that cockroaches suffer from physical age related debilitation much like humans. No word if aging takes a toll on the mental capacity of roaches. (And don’t even mention viagra).

I had no idea Megan had a disease named after her , but there is what sounds like a very common disease with a newly discovered cure – a can of soda. From the article:

“People with McArdle’s disease – a condition marked by low tolerance for exercise and high risk of activity-related muscle injury – can dramatically improve their exercise tolerance by consuming a soft drink or equivalent before physical activity, investigators have discovered.”

Now that I’ve had a chance to catch up on my blog reading, I can see why my traffic numbers go up when I don’t post. So here is what you should be reading instead of me.

Scott at Scrappleface has insightful reporting about Turkeygate.

And while we’re on the subject of Turkeygate, why does Dana Milbank still have a job as a reporter? He distorts, he misquotes, he’s smug, he’s arrogant, and he elevates the trivial and buries the important; all in all, he’s the best example of what’s wrong with reporters today. Harsh? Readthis snarkfest about nothing and then decide. OK, I snuck some of my own stuff in, hoping you woudn’t notice.

And back to Scott, who nails reporters with this gem:

“When informed that he had won the award today, Mr. Rumsfeld said, “I want to thank all the news organizations that ran the story about this award. Because we know there are real news stories; important things folks should know. We also know there are unreal news stories; that is to say we know that an unnamed source planted a made-up story with an unwitting reporter. But there are also unreal non-news stories — which is what professional journalists write while they’re waiting to be hand-fed another insignificant leaked memo by an unnamed know-nothing nobody.”

Kind of like Mr. Millbank’s story above.

Geitner Simmons is blogging about a nation of regions — it isn’t fair, he get’s to go to really neat conferences — and the pictures alone are worth the price of admission (if he charged any). As always, great, thought provoking stuff at Regions of Mind.

OK, back to the press: Cori at Ranting Profs could ask “are they really this stupid?“, but being polite, doesn’t. I, ill mannered lout that I am, ask it.

Perhaps it was my lack of manners that cost me victory, but here is a caption contest I lost. Apparently the Sophorist went with quality over quantity.

Check out what Michael Chrichton has to say about enviromentalistism as the new urban religion. If anything, I think he’s a little harsh on religion. (Found at the Sophorist)

If you aren’t reading Rich Galen’s dispatches from Iraq, you ought to be. I laugh, I cry, and then I have to blow my nose loudly. I suppose I just enjoy reading somebody on the web who is both older and fatter than I – no mean feat.

We reverse the normal order, and go from the sublime to the ridiculous:more than 13 million viewers tuned into the debut of The Simple Life and thus got to see Paris Hilton wear her jeans so low that her crack had to be fuzzed out, along with Nicole’s mouth when she said naughty words. All I can say is, I feel sorry for the people who they are staying with and I hope they got a lot of money to put up with the two gals. The number of viewers went up with the second show, which illustrates some pithy saying about how you won’t go broke underestimating the intellengence of the American TV watcher.

Heather at Angelweave has been all over the web finding great links for your viewing pleasure.