AFP: Chinese navy off on historic anti-piracy mission:

The three vessels, decorated with coloured ribbons, flags and flowers, weighed anchor at the Yalong Bay naval base on south China's tropical Hainan island at 1:50 pm (0550 GMT), heading for Somalia, the Xinhua news agency said.

"It's the first time we go abroad to protect our strategic interests armed with military force," said Wu Shengli, commander of the Chinese Navy, in a ceremony to see off the approximately 1,000 sailors, according to Xinhua.

"It's the first time for us to organise a naval force on an international humanitarian mission and the first time for our navy to protect important shipping lanes far from our shores."

Yes, it's been a while since the last post . . . a fairly eventful week (in a domestic kind of way) here at the Palatial Abode. Since The Shot, my heel's been somewhat better, and Janet's mending nicely from her hip arthroscopy.

I started up a batch of hard cider from the world-famous Broadland (SD) orchards. A couple of pictures:

The recommended yeast

Cider on the stove

My South Dakota State Jackrabbits are a Top 25 team in women's basketball, and the long-suffering men's basketball team got a huge road win at Iowa State. Go Rabbits! (I got this Jackrabbit logo trophy statue thing because I'm a rich and influential donor--yeah, right!)

Jackrabbit trophy statue thingie

We cooked up some seafood bisque, fauxtatoes (I go kinda heavy on the cream cheese and butter), cranberry-orange relish, Jello(TM) molds, and some eggnog for today's Christmas dinner over at Snookums' parent's place. Soon, we will indeed go "over the river and through the woods."

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Peace On Earth, Goodwill Towards Everyone!

A partial list, as usual:

Jackrabbits debut in national top 25 poll by Terry Vandrovec at the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader

It's the first time that SDSU (10-1) has been ranked since moving to the NCAA Division I level in 2004-05, the first time that a member of the Summit League has been ranked since Northern Illinois in 1993-94 and is one spot shy of the highest placement ever for a team from that conference.

SDSU men cruise past Bakersfield by Terry Vandrovec at the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader

Nagy said that he made the lineup moves to send the message that nobody's job is safe. But in the process, he discovered that the team is inching closer to being deep enough to play the uptempo style that it employed during its Division II heyday.

Q&A with SDSU athletic director Fred Oien by Terry Vandrovec at the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader

Royals invite four to spring training by Sam Mellinger at the Kansas City Star

Quiet Bison Sire More Calves Than Louder Rivals from the University of California at Davis

During bison mating season, the quietest bulls score the most mates and sire the most offspring while studs with the loudest bellows see the least action, according to a surprising new study by researchers at University of California, Davis, and Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego.

WB-6 Results Confirmed - Continuous Operation The Next Step by M. Simon at the IEC Fusion Technology blog

The next step in my opinion should be a continuously operating version about the size of WB-7. A device I used to call WB-7x and will probably be called WB-8.

Verdict Positive for Inertial Electrostatic Fusion by BW at NextBigFuture

'Follow The Elements' To Understand Evolution In Ancient Oceans at ScienceDaily

"The history of our planet is like a natural laboratory of 'alternative worlds,'" says Anbar. "The chemical composition of the oceans has changed dramatically over billions of years. Elements that are abundant today were once scarce, and elements that are scarce today were once abundant. So Earth's ancient oceans are a good place to go if we want to understand how organisms and ecosystems evolve to cope with changing abundances of elements. Studying the ancient oceans also stretches our minds to imagine what we might find someday in alien oceans on other worlds."

Commercial Spaceport in New Mexico Gets FAA Launch License by Leonard David at Space.com

The New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) announced Monday that it received a license for vertical and horizontal launches from the Federal Aviation Administration's Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST).

Science Fiction And The Alternate History at LibraryThing.com

My question is this, though: What's the deal with Alternate Histories being classified as SFF? Who thought that one up?

The Best and Worst of Skymall by Jesus Diaz at Gizmodo

Stunning Zenithal Shot of Space Shuttle Flying On Top of 747 by Jesus Diaz at Gizmodo

Why You Shouldn't Buy Off-Brand TVs by Matt Buchanan at Gizmodo

The HD Guru says that lower tier manufacturers might skimp on construction, using lower quality power supplies, for instance, with repair costs running as high as purchasing a whole new set. Besides, as you can see over the HD Guru site, the warranties tend to be less robust.

Higher-ed Spending Not the Answer by Neal McCluskey at the Cato Institute

Of course, all this forced largesse might be worth something if it actually strengthened the economy. But there is evidence it doesn't. Economist Richard Vedder has isolated the effects of higher ed spending and found that the more states spend, the lower their rates of economic growth.

The Credit Triangle by Steve H. Hanke at the Cato Institute

To better understand the forces at play and the rough magnitudes involved, we use a credit triangle. The triangle's architect is John Greenwood. Recall that he was also the architect of Hong Kong's modern currency board system.

Entire US Now Actually Bankrupt? More: If You Thought That Was Scary, Read This Other Guy by Ace at Ace of Spades HQ

Some guy does a bit of number-crunching and calculates that federal liabilities now not only exceed government assets and income (which we all knew, of course), but also the gross cumulative net worth of all American citizens to boot.

Beware: Internet Explorer Being Hacked Like Crazy, And At This Time, There's No Fix by Ace at Ace of Spades HQ

If you're on IE, switch to another browser, immediately.

F*ck You, Penguin: A Blog Dedicated to Posting Cute Animal Pictures, and Then Snidely Insulting Them by Ace at Ace of Spades HQ

Funny.

Standing in the way of the future by Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club

. . . the controversy over the Czech President’s refusal to hang the EU flag from Prague Castle seems to encapsulate what may be the biggest political conflict of the 21st century. . .

They got took by Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club

“activists” have a curious relationship with money. They don’t make it, but they need to spend it. They need what they loathe. What can I tell you?

Smoke and mirrors by Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club

The really scary thing is that however large we make the regulators, however great the powers we give them it is possible that they cannot protect us from storms at all. Perhaps the downside of an information economy — indeed an information driven world — is that no one really knows what things mean.

Oil troubled waters 2 by Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club

Consumers, faced with higher costs and less money (falling mortgage equity withdrawals), pulled back dramatically. The result was a sharp drop in demand, and therefore prices.

All of this goes back to the mortgage debacle, in which Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a big new home. Eased underwriting standards drove up home values (money flowing into housing faster than supply expanded); rising home values created phantom equity; phantom equity was converted by consumers into cash through additional debt; consumers spent that cash on stuff made overseas, driving down the value of the dollar and increasing global energy demand; the falling dollar and rising demand drove oil prices into the stratosphere.

Hard work by Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club

This video of Bangladeshi bricklayers illustrates work at a level so basic it has almost been forgotten in modern Western economies.

Worst Economic Prescription of the Week by Warren Meyer at Coyote Blog

Note the embedded theory here of income and wealth, which is really startling. For Drum and most of the left, income is this sort of fountain that spews forth on its own out in the desert somewhere. Rich people are the piggy folks who crowd close to the fountain and take more than their fair share of what is flowing out. There is absolutely no recognition that possibly wealth is correlated with individual initiative, work, intelligence, and behaviors.

Bush: “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free market system” by Allahpundit at Hot Air
Why does "I destroyed the village in order to save it" come to mind?

Scientists scoff at AP global-warming story by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air

Even scientists who believe in global warming couldn’t quite believe their eyes. They called the report by the Seth Borenstein a “polemic” and wondered when research stopped being a requirement for science reporters

Journamalism by Dan Collins at Protein Wisdom, who riffs of a question asked at an ABC News blog:

Who’s Worse: Madoff or Blagojevich?

Commisar Putin and the death of freedom By McQ at QandO Blog

Dana Milbank Ain't Feeling The Tingle, I Guess by Dan Riehl at Riehl World View

Not that Milbank was a die hard Obama fan. But The One should learn something from McCain's recent experience. The media is your friend until it isn't.

Cheerful Remarks at Big Media’s Funeral by Alan Caruba at FamilySecurityMatters.org

Like Mark Twain, I drifted into journalism because I was seriously opposed to having to actually work for a living. One of Twain’s classic quotes was “Get your facts first and then you can distort them as much as you please.” A pretty fair definition of journalism in his times and ours.

I began to have early doubts about the rigors of being a journalist when, three months after I joined the staff of a weekly newspaper, the first I had ever worked for, the editor moved on to a daily and I was anointed the editor. That’s right. I went from rookie to head honcho in about 90 days. I virtually wrote that entire newspaper for well over a year or so and probably learned as much as any four-year curriculum at the Newhouse or Columbia School of Journalism. Then I moved on to a daily newspaper.

A new, possibly semi-regular feature of Medary.com. In the spirit of the long-departed Daily Whip. Here, I present the headlines and occasional quotes from articles on the Web from my daily readings. It's kind of like cutting out your favorite articles from the daily newspaper thirty years ago, then posting them on a bulletin board in front of your house.

Hm. Thinking about it like that makes it sound a bit creepy. Oh, well.

Headlines I thought were interesting, in no particular order:

SDSU women miss out on top 25 poll - barely in the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader by Terry Vandrovec.

South Dakota State will have to wait at least one more day to crack the NCAA Division I women's basketball top 25 for the first time. Nonetheless, the Jackrabbits are on track to get there long before anybody thought possible.

Coming off road wins at reputable Minnesota and Gonzaga, the Jackrabbits (10-1) received more votes than any team not in the top 25 in the Associated Press poll that was released Monday. They held that same distinction last week in the ESPN/USA Today poll, and are a good bet to move into that top 25 when it's released today, another significant step in the program's rapid rise.

Journalism's revolving door at, and by Tigerhawk:

The mainstream media takes great umbrage at the "revolving door" between government and the K Street firms that lobby government. . . . Well, then, why is it just fine for journalists who profess to objectivity to go to work for politicians in official positions of flackery?

Palin Church Fire Was Arson by John Hinderaker at Powerline:

Today authorities confirmed that the fire was started by an arsonist . . .

Minnesota Senate recount, update XII by Scott Johnson at Powerline:

The Minnesota Supreme Court hearing is set for Wednesday afternoon. The Supreme Court could have punted and may yet do so, but the hearing holds out the possibility that the Pandora's box opened by the Board of Canvassers might be shut. Even if the court introduces order to the pending chaos, we have no idea what the result would be.

The Canvassing Board has proved itself to be problematic. It has already gone haywire on basic issues that go to the statutory recount process, and the rejected absentee ballots that may or may not be included are a wild card.

I am worried. I think you would be right to be worried.

That kind of fraud is not really possible because of the system... by Tim Swanson at Mises.org

This video has been making the rounds throughout the financial blogosphere. It is an interview with Bernard Madoff in 2007 and one in which he utters a number of fabulous statements regarding safety, risk, oversight and regulation. He also touches on subprime and quants.

Yeah, Snookums and I had some money in a fund which owned a fund which was part of Maddow's scam. Not very happy about it, either.

Hammer falling at the Strib by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

Unfortunately, rather than just fire Coleman for incompetence, they’re laying him off or demoting him to the news section. That means they have to show some balance (for once) and axe their lone conservative voice at the paper. Katherine Kersten has done a remarkable job at the Strib as a rare voice for conservatism in the paper, but she’s also the last one in, and most companies would make her the first one out regardless of point of view. I’ll miss her, and like David Brauer, I also doubt that she’ll remain as a reporter. Hopefully she finds another platform soon.

Collective shoe throwing by Eric at Classic Values:

I was never especially enthusiastic about Bush (as I explained many times, I held my nose when I voted for him), and I'm even less enthusiastic about Barack Obama. But either Bush Derangement syndrome or Obama Derangement Sydrome (or Clinton Derangement Syndrome before them) strike me not only juvenile but ineffective. They just guarantee further such behavior.

Why the emerging auto bailout sucks by Professor Bainbridge at stephenbainbridge.com:

Injecting capital into the automobile makers does not address the underlying structural problems faced by this industry. It does nothing to give them leaner bureaucracies, less expensive legacy health and pension costs, more flexible work rules, less restrictive and costly union contracts, and, to put it bluntly, products somebody would want to buy. All it does is delay the inevitable by giving them more money to burn through.

Who decides how much your life is worth?, by Professor Bainbridge at stephenbainbridge.com:

What I find particularly objectionable about the British rationing system is the effort they make to prevent private funding. If I can afford to spend $100,000 to buy a six month reprieve, why should the government tell me not to do so? Yet, in the UK, opting for private funding of a single treatment apparently can result in your exclusion from the rationed care system in its entirety.

Oil on troubled waters by Richard Fernandez aka "Wretchard" at Belmont Club:

But lest anyone think that the Australian Green’s sense of urgency is extraordinary, the Associated Press recently reported that Barack Obama has little time left to cope with Global Warming. In the middle of an economic meltdown and a global fight against chaos, what we really should be worrying about is carbon levels. “The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton’s second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it. … ” We need to act NOW!!! and I’m not talking about the economy.

The Real Climate Deniers by Brian Sussman at American Thinker:

What you should do, Messer's Obama, Gore and McCain, is realize the debate is over -- there is no global warming. Yes, between 1970 and 1998 there was a minor warming of a mere .34°F, as verified by the NASA satellite records. However, there has been no notable increase in the global temperature since 1998, (humiliatingly confirmed even by the United Nations). Furthermore, your designer greenhouse gas-carbon dioxide-is neither a pollutant nor a problem.

However, the facts are not getting in the way of their agenda.

Cannibals Report on the Taste of the Races' Meat: Japanese the Tastiest, White Meat Too "Strong Smelling" and Salty from Ace at Ace of Spades H.Q.

Rasmussen: 45% Suspect It's Likely or Very Likely Obama or His Team "Involved In" Blagojevich Scandal from Ace at Ace of Spades H.Q.

Pirates and Warships where DEC at JungleTrader highlights a New York Times article:

The Indian Navy recently announced that it had arrested 23 pirates, though it is not clear where the suspects would be prosecuted. Last week in Nairobi, Kenya, at an antipiracy conference, British officials outlined a plan for their navy to capture Somali pirates and hand them over to Kenyan courts.

But according to Kenneth Randall, dean of the University of Alabama School of Law and an international law scholar, “Any country can arrest these guys and prosecute them at home, under domestic laws that apply.

“I’m actually surprised people think it’s unclear,” he said. “The law on piracy is 100 percent clear.”

He said that international customary law going back hundreds of years had defined pirates as criminals who robbed and stole on the high seas. Because the crimes were committed in international waters, he said, all countries had not only the authority but also the obligation to apprehend and prosecute them.

THE BUZZ: Royals move managers around from the Kansas City Star:

Airlines’ changes should help them survive recession by Randolph Heaster at the Kansas City Star:

“In fact, the number of aircraft taken out of service in the past several months is the equivalent of one very large airline going out of business,” said Beverly Goulet, vice president of corporate development and treasurer of AMR Corp., American’s holding company.

Northeast Siberia braces for extreme cold of -60Cby Anthony Watts at Watt's Up With That?

Robert Carlyle Headlines 'Stargate: Universe' by Micheal Hinman at SyFyPortal.com.

Tops In 2008: Top TV Programs, Single Telecasts at blog.nielsen.com.

10 Worst Science Fiction Remakes by Charlie Jane Anders at io9.com.

Ten of the Baddest Fictional Movie Weapons by Madison at Unrealitymag.com.

Topping off the sf-list trifecta, When a Power List Isn’t by John Scalzi at Whatever.

Analysis: Is Apple about to have an enterprise moment? by Eric Bangeman at Arstechnica.com.

Apple and the enterprise—two words that have historically gone together like peanut butter and cheese curds. For much of its history, the computer-cum-iPhone maker has been on the outside of enterprise computing looking in. In fact, it's debatable how much Apple was even looking in. The company has shown little interest in doing what is necessary to woo corporate IT departments and make its case to CIOs.

Ars Reviews the 2008 MacBook: weighing the Pros and cons By David Chartier, Iljitsch van Beijnum at Arstechnica.com.

Broken Windows, Broken Logic by Ryan Young and Drew Tidwell at Openmarket.org:

The problem is that an energy tax cannot create new jobs. Just different ones. The money Kinsley hopes to inject into the economy must first be taken out of it. Add in collection costs and the usual political malfeasance, and we have a net loss to the economy.

There’s more.

Kinsley argues that last summer’s high oil prices were essentially a “tax” on consumers. The money just went to oil companies instead of government. But he forgets that oil companies do not have control over their prices. If they did, then why would oil prices ever drop? Kinsley’s logic does not follow.

Via Mises.org

Because, see, we're smarter and better people than the collectivists and totalitarians who have come before us. Sure we are.

Snub-nosed monkey (Credit: Image courtesy of Fauna & Flora International)

Catching up on simian-blogging (and its close cousin, monkey-blogging):

First, from Special Simian Correspondent Bill, a story from Science Daily:

Believed to be extinct until the late 1980s, only around 200 Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys (scientific name: Rhinopithecus avunculus) are left in the world. As a result, the primate is listed as Critically Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Endangered Species. Unique to Vietnam, the species is now known to be present in just two of Vietnam's northern-most provinces - Tuyen Quang and Ha Giang.

Next, more sadly, 30 lemurs killed at a UK sanctuary:

A blaze killed 30 lemurs as it ripped through an animal enclosure at a park in Cumbria.

The fire destroyed the wooden buildings that were housing the creatures at South Lakes Wild Animal Park in Dalton.

Finally, anyone for monkey barbecue- - to go?

Customs agents found the charred remains of three monkeys inside the luggage of a man who landed last week at Dulles International Airport, The Washington Post reports.

The passenger, who has not been publicly identified, wasn't charged with a crime.

He arrived on a flight from Central Africa.

Again from tireless West Coast Simian Correspondent Bill (who seems to be bucking for a promotion to Chief Top-Dog West Coast Simian Correspondent!), this from the UK's Daily Mail:

The two-year-old chimp has been helping keeper China York care for the 21-day-old cubs at The Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (TIGERS) in South Carolina.

Awwwwwww pictures at the link.

And yes, more trip journal entries are on the way . . .

Our West Coast Simian Correspondent Bill reports that Entertainment Weekly has a story on that most famous of simians--Cheeta:

Cheeta is used to having his photo taken, and over the course of a long afternoon, with the temperature hovering around 100 degrees, he poses without complaint. For the photographer's benefit, he sits at a small dining table, eating a peanut-butter sandwich and a bowl of corn chips. (Long ago, he enjoyed cigars and beer, but since developing diabetes in recent years, he's been on a healthier regimen.)

Do you want to know who's responsible for today's financial crisis?

Victor Davis Hanson:

We created the cultural climate for this shared madness. Television shows advised how to “flip” a house after putting in cosmetic improvements. Real-estate seminars and popular videos convinced us that homes were not places to live in and raise a family but rather no different from piles of chips on a Vegas table.

We created the phony populist creed that everyone deserved to own a house. So lawmakers got the message to relax lending standards in service to “fairness.” But Americans forgot that historically nearly four in 10 of us aren’t ever ready, or able, to sacrifice for a down payment, monthly mortgage bills, home maintenance and yearly taxes — and so should stick to renting.

Do you really want to know who's responsible?

Go look in a mirror.

And then quit using so much G-Damned credit, and stop wanting something for nothing (or even worse, wanting "the government" to pay for stuff you can't afford on your own--like housing or medical coverage).  "Oh, it's not for me, it's for those poor souls over there," you exclaim, thinking it gives you the moral high ground, and somehow makes it right and proper.

It doesn't.  If you think that way you're simply a thief, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

Go look in a mirror.  All of us.  This is our crisis.  Unless we all admit it--to ourselves, to everyone, it will just get worse.  And the pinheads in Washington can only make things worse, not better.  This is the warning bell.  If you elect pinheads in November, this will be like a sunny day in the park.  You have been warned.

Yes, the self-imposed ban on political posts does, kinda, still hold.

But criminitdilly (pron. crim-in-it-dilly, meaning roughly "Jesus Christ on an f'ing popsicle stick" but without the scatalogical or blasphemous overtones and hence preferable for use in more polite company) . . . 

Criminitdilly, people, it's utterly obvious that the reason we collectively drove our economy into the ditch is that we somehow got the idea, in the late 1990's, that it was a good idea to give mortgage loans to people who had no way to pay them back.

This is world-class stupid. Lots of people need to lose their jobs over this. Lots of those people are currently in Congress. Lots of those people are Democrats. And yeah, the Republicans who went along with this madness need to have their asses tossed out onto the street, too.

And, it's world-class stupid to send good money after bad (well, tax money after bad, but you get my meaning) and tie that to some ridiculous assertion that the Executive Branch knows best and can't be hauled up in court if they f*** it up further. Now, granted, Congress does a pretty good job of f***ing up things without Executive help, but nobody, NOBODY with an ounce of sense thinks giving the Secretary of the Treasury and the President a blank check to do whatever the hell they want to do is a good idea. Do they?

Eric, at Classical Values posts more rationally and less emotionally than I do on the topic. Go. Read. Learn. And try not to advocate really stupid things (like socialism) in the future. OK?