NYT fails to see obvious answer to ‘too many critters’ situation.

(Via Instapundit) People seem to be having a critter ‘problem’:

The dozens of public works officials, municipal engineers, conservation agents and others who crowded into a meeting room here one recent morning needed help. Property in their towns was flooding, they said. Culverts were clogged. Septic tanks were being overwhelmed.

“We have a huge problem,” said David Pavlik, an engineer for the town of Lexington, where dams built by beavers have sent water flooding into the town’s sanitary sewers. “We trapped them,” he said. “We breached their dam. Nothing works. We are looking for long-term solutions.”

Mary Hansen, a conservation agent from Maynard, said it starkly: “There are beavers everywhere.”

‘Problem’ is in scare quotes because I don’t actually think that there is one, here.  What I think that we have here is a new-found opportunity to use the principles found in the following books:

…in such a way as to ensure that pretty soon the problem gets brought down to more manageable levels.  Because you know what teaches a wild animal to respect human territory?

Eating it, and then using its skin for a hat.

Moe Lane

PS: Oh, I’m not saying that we have to hunt them almost to extinction again; merely that… many critters are tasty, and their fur is warm.

Crossposted to RedState.

June’s Rasmussen trust numbers versus May’s.

[UPDATE] Rasmussen finally put up an article.

So, last month I posted Rasmussen’s report that the Republicans were back to being trusted more than Democrats on four critical topics, and trusted more and/or tied on five.  It got a surprising amount of play, given that I hadn’t really thought all that much about it when I wrote it.  Besides, it was one month, compared to a very, very, very bad month for Republicans; the numbers could very easily shift by the next month.

They did.

Jun-09 May-09
Issue Democrats GOP Diff Democrats GOP Diff Shift
Health Care 47% 37% 10 53% 35% 18 8
Education 44% 37% 7 49% 36% 13 6
Social Security 43% 37% 6 48% 39% 9 3
Abortion 41% 41% – 41% 41% – –
Economy 39% 45% (6) 44% 43% 1 7
Taxes 39% 44% (5) 41% 47% (6) (1)
Iraq 37% 45% (8) 41% 43% (2) 6
Nat’l Security 36% 51% (15) 41% 48% (7) 8
Gov’t Ethics 29% 35% (6) 40% 29% 11 17
Immigration 29% 43% (14) 36% 37% (1) 13

Continue reading June’s Rasmussen trust numbers versus May’s.

Cantor asking questions about our IMF money.

So. Last week, Representatives Cantor and Hoyer had a bit of an exchange over where the money we’re giving the International Monetary Fund is going.  Cantor wants to know why we’re going to be giving countries that don’t like us at all the opportunity to take our money, and Hoyer wants to know why Cantor is ignoring the way that Hoyer is brandishing Reagan’s name like an apotropaic talisman:

CANTOR: Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time. I will tell the gentleman, New York Times, May 27, 2009, pointed out Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group involved in Lebanon and its government, had talks with the IMF to discuss the possibility of the extension of credit…We are very, very concerned. There is a real possibility that some of the world’s worst regimes will have access to additional resources that will be provided to the IMF, and is he not concerned about that?

[possible snip: the Congressional Record transcript is down]

HOYER: The reason the Reagan administration and the first Bush administration–and I might say, although I don’t have a quote from the second Bush administration, the second Bush administration, as well, was a supporter of the IMF as the gentleman, perhaps, knows.

The fact of the matter is the United States will play a very significant role in the decisionmaking of the IMF because we’re a very significant contributor. It is a red herring, from my perspective, to raise the fact that money could go somewhere. Of course money could go somewhere.

…which Hoyer then followed up with this inadvertent comment, which the Hill’s Blog Briefing Room mercifully omitted:

Continue reading Cantor asking questions about our IMF money.

Well, of *course* Congress is gutting the manned space program.

I’m pretty sure that neither Glenn Reynolds nor Slashdot is surprised by this news that we’re cutting manned space exploration by 16%.  I don’t see why anybody else should be surprised, either.

Elections have consequences.

Crossposted to RedState.

Random observation about the New York Senate thing.

As noted here, here, and here, the New York Senate flipped partisan control yesterday, which means that today is going to be one long knife-fight in an alley up in Albany.  It all reminds me of this bit from 1776:

Lewis Morris: [as John Hancock is about to swat a fly] Mr. Secretary, New York abstains, courteously.
[Hancock raises his fly swatter at Morris, then draws back]
John Hancock: Mr. Morris,
[pause, then shouts]
John Hancock: WHAT IN HELL GOES ON IN NEW YORK?
Lewis Morris: I’m sorry Mr. President, but the simple fact is that our legislature has never sent us explicit instructions on anything!
John Hancock: NEVER?
[slams fly swatter onto his desk]
John Hancock: That’s impossible!
Lewis Morris: Mr. President, have you ever been present at a meeting of the New York legislature?
[Hancock shakes his head “No”]
Lewis Morris: They speak very fast and very loud, and nobody listens to anybody else, with the result that nothing ever gets done.
[turns to the Congress as he returns to his seat]
Lewis Morris: I beg the Congress’s pardon.
John Hancock: [grimly] My sympathies, Mr. Morris.

…only with less likable protagonists. I hear that Hiram Monserrate in particular isn’t actually changing his political affiliation, which is just fine with me.

The Do-It-Yourself Obama Speech Kit.

(Via A Conservative Lesbian) I’m still trying to decide whether this Daily Beast article is sincere, sarcastic, sincere-masking-itself-as-sarcastic, sarcastic-but-wanting-to-look-like-it’s-sincerity-masking-sarcasm, or glaive-glaive-glaive-guisarme-glaive: I guess that you can make up your own mind.

I will note, though, that this does nothing to contradict the spirit behind one of Christopher Hitchen’s favorite dinner party games.

No, the other one.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Germany disinclined to acquiesce to Obama’s Uighur request.

Means ‘no*.’

As Track-A-‘Crat notes, the administration is at best spinning its difficulties to get anybody else to take the Uighurs. The President is claiming that there have been no hard commitments, which implies that negotiations for giving some over to Germany are still going on:

Strictly speaking, that may be true. But according to information obtained by SPIEGEL, Germany has long since blocked the idea of accepting Guantanamo detainees — and has done so without having to issue an outright rejection.

In talks at the end of May, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble presented US Attorney General Eric Holder with a list of criteria to be fulfilled before Germany would take nine Uighur detainees. Schäuble said Washington needed to present a clear case as to why the Uighurs, members of a Muslim minority in north-western China, couldn’t be taken in by the US or other countries. He also said America had to offer proof that they weren’t dangerous, and that they had a personal connection to Germany. He told Holder that Germany was unable to accept people who couldn’t travel to the US on a simple tourist visa.

Continue reading Germany disinclined to acquiesce to Obama’s Uighur request.

Mini Giant Movie Imax Screens appearing… anywhere they can be shoehorned in, apparently.

This (via The New Ledger) is interesting, if self-evidently shortsighted. And my apologies for the pun:

In a bid to extend its brand beyond planetariums and museums and into multiplexes on every street corner, Imax is installing a new digital system in Regal and AMC theaters around the country.

Don’t be deceived: Although marketed under the same name, this is newfangled Imax, different and diminished from the traditional system. Installed in existing auditoriums, the screen is enlarged as much as possible, and the first few rows of seats are removed in order to create a field of vision more dominated by the screen, while the sound systems are souped up to deliver a more intense aural experience.

But the giant screens that were the hallmark of Imax are nowhere to be seen — the new digital screens are typically 28 to 35 feet high, about half the size of their predecessors — provoking protests from the blogosphere to the multiplex.

As it happens, the only time that I’ve seen anything in Imax was for The Dark Knight (mentioned later in the article) during last year’s Republican national convention.  We (‘we’ being the RedState blogging contingent, plus a couple of others) had heard that there was an Imax at a local zoo, and we were all, of course, rabid fans of the new Batman franchise – so we all piled into various cars and went to go see it.  It was worth the extra money that I spent, although I don’t think that I’d want to shell it out for every movie that comes down the pike.

Probably not smart of Imax to dilute the brand like this.

Let us compare two commercials: GM’s, and its parody.

[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers.  Have you seen the new Rasmussen trust numbers yet?

This is the original:

…annnnnd (via Ace of Spades) this is the parody.

The parody’s better. Not to mention, considerably more honest.

Moe Lane

PS: I don’t know whether this site is Left-oriented or Right-oriented, but I’ll say this: whoever made it is not happy. And he or she is right to be not happy.

Crossposted to RedState.