Rock 'n' roll mockery

Oh dear, I couldn't stop looking, couldn't stop laughing either. With each click, wondering if one of my old bands with me in it would show up in the next pic. (Did not happen. Whew!)

Rock and Roll Confidential's collection of bad band photos.

Jeremy makes a number of appearances in these. So now we know what he's doing in his rare spare moments when not trolling Althouse.

Thanks to Tim Walters, commenting at Making Light on something entirely different.

As Bill Haley didn't exactly say, "We're gonna mock, mock, mock — mock around the clock tonight!"

How did I miss calling this post Mock 'n' roll? Chalk up another one for l'esprit de l'escalier.

Related: Look at this hipster.

The clock-work heart

See it here.

Jessica Palmer says, "What does it signify? Does it represent the gradual replacement of the natural world around us with technology, to the point where our own bodies become artificial? Is it critiquing the reductionist tendencies of neurobiologists who believe our deepest emotions are complex but purely chemical reactions? Is it a steampunk Valentine?"

An enigmatic image. Meaning? You, you human beings, you make the meaning. You create the meaning. So be careful, be mindful, of what you are creating.

***

Abrupt shift in tone:

19th-century pacemaker, that's my guess. Maybe the thing under the floor that so upset [the character written by] Edgar Allan Poe.

Weenie Campbell is back on the air

Or on the Net, oh, you know what I mean.

This is good news if you like old blues.

Welcoming our new ice overlords

Geoengineering. (via Reynolds.)

Now they're talking about geoengineering. What happens when an adherent of Ehrlich is appointed to a position of responsibility power? Turn the siren up to eleven! We got global warming, it's catastrophic, TURN THAT GLOBAL THERMOSTAT DOWN! Honestly, some of these people think a hangnail is a catastrophe. I wonder if John Holdren knows anything about the Dust Bowl of the 1930's. Maybe I'll send him a copy of The Grapes of Wrath.

Back in January, I said:

some of the alarmists are calling for geoengineering schemes to supplement ineffective CO2 reduction schemes. "Climate scientists: it's time for 'Plan B'." The survey on which the first piece is based: "What can we do to save our planet?" This approach could get seriously dangerous. None of these scientists exhibits any concern about the possibility of triggering another Ice Age.

Are these people mad?

Well, they might just be monumentally incompetent and stupid, perhaps venal. If that's any comfort. But they are in power now. Yes, I know that I don't have the degrees that they do, the credentials. But I don't have the vested interests, either.

Triggering another Ice Age. Think about it.

Update a few minutes later: Andrea Harris makes a Fritz Leiber reference.

And another: Even the Greenies don't like it.

(NaturalNews) Of all the hare-brained ideas about climate change I've heard in the last few years, this one takes the grand prize: John Holdren, the new science advisor to President Obama, is actively considering radical geoengineering ideas in order to halt global warming. One such idea now being discussed with the Obama administration involves -- get this -- launching enormous amounts of pollution particles into Earth's upper atmosphere to block the sun's rays and "chill" the planet.

Let me explain why this is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard. And keep in mind this is not about the debate of whether global warming is even real or not, since that's a different article altogether. This is about the short-sighted stupidity of even considering polluting the atmosphere in order to protect us from the CO2 pollution we've already dumped into the atmosphere.

First off, there's the whole idea that intentionally launching pollution into the atmosphere is, by any reckoning, a dangerous ecological experiment that potentially puts the entire Earth ecosystem at risk. Let's face it, folks: Human beings have proven themselves to be remarkably bad at anticipating the ecological effects of their own actions. The ramifications of such misguided efforts to fight global warming simply cannot be foreseen by any scientist (or group of scientists).

Well, then, there you are.

How much actual power does a science advisor have, anyway? Since his power is to advise and persuade, he'll likely do what the climate alarmists have been doing all along, fudge facts to make his case more emphatic. Like the fellow in the videos linked below.

Yet another update! More on this from Richard Fernandez at PJ Media. In comments, he voices a thought similar to something I have been thinking lately, "Sometimes I think the only function that a blogger can perform is to become a chronicler of the descent into insanity. The issues are no longer Right versus Left; Conservative versus Liberal. To some extent it is a battle between sanity and Looney Tunes."

***

And check this out: A little bit of a debate on climate and energy policy between Marc Morano and Joseph Romm. As near as I can tell, Morano is a political type with no particular scientific credentials, but is well-informed on the issues. Romm, on the other hand, has lots of credentials, worked in the Department of Energy for years, under Clinton, in important positions.

And yet, when they get to talking, Romm is spouting hysterical nonsense, while Morano calmly counters with facts.

So this is the best they can do? This is the "physicist and climate expert?" This person worked in government for years, determining the policies to guide the future of the nation? <sarcasm>I so want the government to take over my health care, build my cars, tell me how much I should be allowed to earn, how much I should be allowed to save.</sarcasm>

From Jerry Pournelle's mail.

Update: Mr. Romm is not happy about how that debate turned out.

Minor update to U-verse post

Just a little one, but it corrects an error: that problem with the audio on the coax connection is not restricted to the secondary STB's after all. I just had not been listening closely enough.

"Sprechen Sie douche?"

Andrea quotes Cuffy, and Wittgenstein, in the course of letting fly a fine diatribe.

Excuse me, my tiny little primate brain may be no match for President Obama’s gigantic Time Lord brain, but I was pretty sure that the language they spoke in Austria was German.

I can't keep up with this gaffe-a-minute Administration. Every time I get a half-dozen tabs with things to write about, another dozen come along.

Obama's plan for Afghanistan?

Gerard Vanderleun seems to have it figured out:

I think he realizes what his needs are in Afghanistan. What he needs to do is end a war in an American defeat while being seen as "trying for a victory." To do that he has to engineer an American defeat. Iraq is already, in the public mind at least, in the win column. So how do we engineer an American defeat? It is simplicity itself. You begin, not with a "surge" but a ripple.

Full details at American Digest.

The one thing that Vanderleun leaves out is this business of negotiating with the "moderate Taliban." Vice-President Biden has apparently been conducting interviews, or taking a poll:

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., speaking to NATO allies this week in Brussels, called 5 percent of the Taliban “incorrigible — not susceptible to anything other than being defeated.” A senior European diplomat involved in Afghanistan said officials believed that number to be 100 to 1,000 Qaeda and Taliban members. Mr. Biden said he believed that “another 25 percent or so” were uncertain about their commitment to the insurgency, while about 70 percent were involved because it meant “getting paid.”

But how exactly the Afghan government and the United States will pry away those insurgents remained unclear. Whatever is decided must be presented by the Afghan government, Mr. Biden said. “I do think it is worth engaging and determining whether or not there are those who are willing to participate in a secure and stable Afghan state,” he said.

I wonder why that question of "whether or not there are those who …" was not included in the survey.

It could be an amusing (for them) exercise in taqqiya for the Talib chiefs to pick a couple of their number to pretend to be moderates, and go waste the infidels' time in pointless talk. This would provide something for the Administration to point to: "See, we have found the moderate Taliban, and we are negotiating right now."

Update: "Barack Obama fails to win Nato troops he wants for Afghanistan."

Barack Obama made an impassioned plea to America’s allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, warning that failure to do so would leave Europe vulnerable to more terrorist atrocities.

But though he continued to dazzle Europeans on his debut international tour, the Continent’s leaders turned their backs on the US President.

I don't understand. I thought that relations with our allies were supposed to improve. Or as Glenn Reynolds says, "No, we can't." There is more to diplomacy than impassioned pleading.

Vindaloo

England used to be powered by roast beef, and fish and chips. These days, it's vindaloo.

The canonical Fat Les video:



But you want another helping, because the first is never quite enough. The slightly less canonical Fat Les video, as the presenter says, "football, curry, and raving loons are the very foundations on which our great nation are built:"



Les doesn't look as fat as all that. (Or is the name a joke? "Less fat" than, say, the average Manchester United fan? These subtleties sometimes go right past me.)

This is the sort of song that you can sing along on even if you have no idea at all. But I'll give you a little bit of help:

Me and me mum and me dad and me gran went off to Waterloo.
Me and me mum and me dad and me gran and a bucket of vindaloo.

There, that's better, now, isn't it?

The very model

Compare, contrast:

Pat Sky plays it straight, listen so you'll know what the tune sounds like:



Commenter Stephen at Accuracy in Media contributes this bit of genius:

I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Media-Journalist

(with thanks in perpetuity to William Schwenck Gilbert)


I am the very model of a modern Media-Journalist,
I‘ve information biased, bogus, banal and paternalist,
I know the talking heads and every bureau puke and oracle
from A-B-C to C-N-N in order categorical;
I’m very well acquainted, too, with schedules for sabbatical,
I live to write a sentence that’s both simple and grammatical,
I’m good at leading questions, and my team puts out a lot o’ news,
With many damning facts for which, at times, fact-checking’s not in use!
ALL:
With many damning facts for which, at times, fact-checking’s not in use!
With many damning facts for which, at times, fact-checking’s not in use!
With many damning facts for which, at times, fact-checking’s not, oh not in use!

I’m very good at racial stereotyping and diversity,
I know the ‘scientific names’ endorsing this perversity,
In short, in matters biased, bogus, banal and paternalist,
I am the very model of a modern Media-Journalist.
ALL:
In short, in matters biased, bogus, banal and paternalist,
He is the very model of a modern Media-Journalist.

I’m full of mythic history, rewritten so it’s ‘relevant’;
I like my coffee caustic, I’ve a pretty taste for Volauvent,
I quote in daily articles the views of quasi socialists,
In columns I accede to notions from post-modern notionalists;
I can tell un-Dowded talking points from those in New York Magazine,
I help the croaking chorus bitch at ‘nonsequences’ unforeseen!
Then I am in a business you’d mistake for Gilbert’s Pinafore,
If not for validation, it’s a mystery what I’m in it for!
ALL:
If not for validation, it’s a mystery what he’s in it for!
If not for validation, it’s a mystery what he’s in it for!
If not for validation, it’s a mystery what he’s in it, in it for!

Then I can write a memo with Orwellian verisimilitude,
And tell you ev’ry detail of how Donaldson’s toupee is glued:
In short, in matters biased, bogus, banal and paternalist,
I am the very model of a modern Media-Journalist.
ALL:
In short, in matters biased, bogus, banal and paternalist,
He is the very model of a modern Media-Journalist.

In fact, when I know what is meant by “permalink” and “Blogosphere,”
When I can tell at sight a hunting rifle from a frogging spear,
When I know Stars’ affaires ain’t news and how our coverage went awry,
And when I know precisely what is meant by who, what, where ‘n why.
When I have learnt what progress has been made in free economy,
When I know more of ethics, real science, and isonomy,
In short, when I’ve a smattering of what is news, not punditry,
You’ll say a better Media-Journalist has never done dead-tree!
ALL:
You’ll say a better Media-Journalist has never done dead-tree!
You’ll say a better Media-Journalist has never done dead-tree!.
You’ll say a better Media-Journalist has never done dead, done dead-tree!

For my journalistic knowledge, though not firm or evidentiary,
Is what I learned in Journal’ School and really so last century,
But still, in matters biased, bogus, banal and paternalist,
I am the very model of a modern Media-Journalist.
ALL:
But still, in matters biased, bogus, banal and paternalist,
He is the very model of a modern Media-Journalist.

Harry Reid -- he'll stick it to ya

This could go viral.

Image created by Chip Ahoy, and posted to Althouse on March 27, 2009.

Already picked up by Power Line. How many more, how soon?

The image is so powerful, all by itself, that the context — Reid accusing Chief Justice Roberts of lying about, uh, what, exactly was that? is irrelevant.

For the benefit of the search engines: Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, American Gothic, Grant Wood, fork, pitchfork.

Alternate title: Reid and Pelosi to America: "Get Forked!"

Update: Obama has started talking about pitchforks, leading to another version of the image. More to come before it's done.

Nuclear?

Some have trouble pronouncing it; some can't even think it.

Jerry Taylor at The Corner links to a piece by David Owen (no relation) at The New Yorker, "Economy vs. Environment." Taylor: "[E]conomic growth is the enemy and a return to the pre-industrial age is answer." The recurring refrain of the Deep Greens. Owen goes on and on about how energy prices must be made higher, never mind the hardship that would result. He does have the sense to say

American dependence on fossil fuels isn’t going to end any time soon: solar panels and wind turbines provided only about a half per cent of total U.S. energy consumption in 2007, and they don’t work when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Replacing oil is going to require more than determination.

But the word "nuclear" is nowhere to be found in his effusion.

We have a safe source of power that does not emit carbon. Can we use it, please? The refusal of the Greens (including Obama's science advisors) to admit that nuclear power is a viable alternative to fossil fuels, even as they are trying to shut down fossil fuel production, shows that what they really want is widespread misery. Prosperity is the enemy. Or as David Owen says in conclusion,

The ultimate success or failure of Obama’s program, and of the measures that will be introduced in Copenhagen this year, will depend on our willingness, once the global economy is no longer teetering, to accept policies that will seem to be nudging us back toward the abyss.

Oh, yeah, those policies, what about them, that only "seem to be nudging us back toward the abyss"? I would say that's no seeming, it's an actual nudging, or even a shove.

Compare the discussion in comments about the Tata Nano.

Evan Sayet speaks again

It seems I neglected to link to that first speech of his, the one he called "How Modern Liberals Think." He recently delivered another, "Hating What's Right: How the Modern Liberal Winds Up on the Wrong Side of Every Issue." John Hawkins has both of them conveniently embedded in one post.

I have written and linked a bit here about how modern liberals got to be the way they are, the Gramscian "long march through the institutions," Willi Münzenberg, and so on; Sayet does not speak so much about history, but about the present-day state of affairs.

Via Suzanna Logan, via Reynolds.

Say it, Evan!

How politically incorrect is this?

Vote for who you think is the most beautiful woman in politics.

Which of these would you most like to find at the door, asking for a vote?

Via Surber, who has comments, via Reynolds.

Update: More comments, and some suggestions, at A Tangled Web.

Another update: Surber follows up with a one-off, Granholm vs. Palin. It's scarcely a contest.

Aaand another update: TrogloPundit has more. And even more yet.

Bill of Rights, ROV (Revised Obama Version)

Is the language of the Constitution, and particularly the Bill of Rights, so archaic as to need translation? I think not. Lawyers argue about points of language, but they do that about statutes written yesterday. Take a look at this White House dot gov page titled "The Constitution."

It's not the Constitution! It's something you might expect to find in a fifth-grade Social Studies textbook. (They haven't done "history" or "civics" in the schools since, like, forever, you fossil.) There is a difficult-to-see link to the full text. But the full text, at an external link that takes two clicks through a warning to get to, is presented with a side-by-side gloss that makes the whole thing less, not more, comprehensible.

But right there on the page is a section headed "The Bill of Rights" which, darn it, is not the Bill of Rights! Here:

The Bill of Rights

One of the principal points of contention between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists was the lack of an enumeration of basic civil rights in the Constitution. Many Federalists argued, as in Federalist No. 84, that the people surrendered no rights in adopting the Constitution. In several states, however, the ratification debate in some states hinged on the adoption of a bill of rights. The solution was known as the Massachusetts Compromise, in which four states ratified the Constitution but at the same time sent recommendations for amendments to the Congress.

James Madison introduced 12 amendments to the First Congress in 1789. Ten of these would go on to become what we now consider to be the Bill of Rights. One was never passed, while another dealing with Congressional salaries was not ratified until 1992, when it became the 27th Amendment. Based on the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the English Bill of Rights, the writings of the Enlightenment, and the rights defined in the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights contains rights that many today consider to be fundamental to America.

The First Amendment provides that Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Second Amendment gives citizens the right to bear arms.

The Third Amendment prohibits the government from quartering troops in private homes, a major grievance during the American Revolution.

The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizure. The government may not conduct any searches without a warrant, and such warrants must be issued by a judge and based on probable cause.

The Fifth Amendment provides that citizens not be subject to criminal prosecution and punishment without due process. Citizens may not be tried on the same set of facts twice, and are protected from self-incrimination (the right to remain silent). The amendment also establishes the power of eminent domain, ensuring that private property is not seized for public use without just compensation.

The Sixth Amendment assures the right to a speedy trial by a jury of one's peers, to be informed of the crimes with which they are charged, and to confront the witnesses brought by the government. The amendment also provides the accused the right to compel testimony from witnesses, and to legal representation.

The Seventh Amendment provides that civil cases also be tried by jury.

The Eighth Amendment prohibits excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments.

The Ninth Amendment states that the list of rights enumerated in the Constitution is not exhaustive, and that the people retain all rights not enumerated.

The Tenth Amendment assigns all powers not delegated to the United States, or prohibited to the states, to either the states or to the people.

See what I mean? It's the ROV. And it's wrong in significant places. Take a look at the second amendment. For instance.

What is the point of presenting a baby-talk version of the basic law of the land, unless the presenter hopes that some of those who read it might mistake it for the real thing; which would change their perception of what the Bill of Rights means.

From Jerry Pournelle's mail.

Added: Obama has also spoken favorably of FDR's idea of a second bill of rights, more European or Soviet in style, in that it would list entitlements, as opposed to freedoms.

Gleanings

The Periodic Table of Awesome. (via)

Ex-Star Wars boffins build mosquito-blasting raygun (via)

The Chia Obama. (via)

Barack Obama is tired of your motherfucking shit. (Audio, NSFW) (via, via)

The third party for all the third partiers. (via blake, somewhere)

Bad ideas in the Nutmeg State

Proposed, a state AIG bonus tax:

In the latest proposal to recoup the AIG bonus money for taxpayers, state Senate Democrats are calling for an 80 percent tax surcharge for anyone who receives a bonus from a company receiving federal bailout money.

Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams, the highest-ranking senator, said the law would apply only to Connecticut residents, and the surcharge would be paid through their state income tax. Many of those receiving bonuses worked out of the AIG financial products division in Wilton in Fairfield County.

Vengeance is theirs.

***

Proposed, making the state legislature even more like an oligarchy:

An upstate lawmaker has a novel idea for coping with Connecticut's fiscal crisis -- get rid of two-thirds of the General Assembly.

State Sen. Gary LeBeau, D-East Hartford, proposed a bill to combine the part-time Senate and House of Representatives into one full-time body, decrease the total number of legislators from 187 to 60 and have them serve four-year terms instead of two.

Sen. LeBeau's press release. I think it would make more sense to have more legislators, and pay them a lot less, but no-one asked me.

***

And the state Supreme Court upholds the DUI conviction of a man who was not driving:

Drunken people don't actually have to drive their cars to be charged with operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The court's 5-0 ruling came in the case of Michael Cyr, who was arrested in Manchester in February 2005 in a parking lot near a bar. He had started his car remotely and then sat in the driver's seat intoxicated, but never put the key into the ignition and didn't drive anywhere.

Another story on this, with more comments.

Don't take any wooden nutmegs.

Monckton writes again, and he's not holding back this time

No indeed, he's getting downright snarky.

Where are they all today, those bed-wetting moaning Minnies of the Apocalyptic Traffic-Light Tendency--those Greens too yellow to admit they’re really Reds?

The main message of this conference to the bed-wetters is this. Stop telling lies. You are fooling fewer and fewer of us. However many lies are uttered, the scientific truth remains unalterable.

The Forces of Darkness, with their “global warming” chimera, came perilously close to ending the Age of Enlightenment and Reason. They almost ushered in a new Dark Age. Yet they have failed. Why? They have failed because you, here, have had the courage to face them down, to confront their falsehoods, and to nail their lies.

The Age of Light and Reason shall not die. Dylan Thomas wrote, “Do not go gentle to that last goodnight: Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” You have not raged in vain. The world is not cooking: It is cooling. Every opinion poll--even those conducted by the bed-wetters themselves--shows that global public opinion is cooling as fast as the global climate.

Read the whole thing.

And to close out St. Patrick's Day,

"There's no one as Irish as Barack O'Bama." With karaoke lyrics.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, in 23 hours, 58 minutes. Not a record, but pretty good time.

Thanks again to A Tangled Web, who have a different YouTube, and some comments.

And: Moe Lane has spotted a St. Pat's Day Christopher Dodd item. Thanks to the invaluable Instapundit.

Historical origin of Danny Boy

For St. Patrick's Day, The Origin of Danny Boy. Briefly: an ancient Irish air, transcribed from the playing of a blind fiddler, was found by a lawyer/songwriter to match a lyric already written; the result endures. At greater length, at the link. Thanks (indirectly) to The Phantom at A Tangled Web.

Geography survives

A while back, I wrote this:

It's highly likely that there will be an island off the shore of France for a good long time to come, but it's looking less likely all the time that there will always be an England.

Today, Mark Steyn posts at The Corner:

In The Wall Street Journal, Michael Boskin writes:

Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents — from George Washington to George W. Bush — combined. It reduces defense spending to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.

What emerges from such a blueprint will not be America. The United States will survive as a geographical designation, a collection of zip codes, but what goes on within them will be a Euro-Canadian form of societal arrangement (I write more on this in the new NR, out today, I do believe).

Go read the rest.

While I'm on this topic, blake at The Bit Maelstrom has put up a couple of beauties in the last week, "Everything You Need To Know About Socialism...and Communism" for one, "An Observation Regarding Free Markets And Socialism" for another. Much smarter and pleasanter reading than anything you'll find around here. Also, he uses complete sentences. Not these crappy little fragments. (But I got such a good deal on them!)

For something very smart indeed, but less pleasant, Charles Krauthammer: "The Great Non Sequitur: The Sleight of Hand Behind Obama's Agenda." Thanks to commenter rhhardin in today's hot Althouse thread, "Never waste a good crisis..."

Arrows, daggers, whatever it takes

A little while ago, this:

Browner appointment is "an arrow aimed at the heart of the American economy"

Now, this:

Cap-and-trade plan will sink Michigan

President Barack Obama's proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation's heartland -- particularly Michigan. It is a multibillion-dollar tax hike on everything that Michigan does, including making things, driving cars and burning coal.…

The goal, according to the president's budget outline, is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide to 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Doing so will drive up the cost of nearly everything and will amount to a major tax increase for American consumers.

But Gaia will be happy.

Keeping an old smear alive

Jim Macdonald, at Making Light, has seen fit to revive the "Sarah Palin made rape victims pay for their rape kits" smear from last year. Lest it fade from memory.

I'm very fond of Making Light, have been reading it for years, have commented there a few times, but not lately, and certainly not lately on a political thread. So I'll post this here, for my own future reference.

Macdonald, in the main post:

I have a rape kit right here. Let’s look at it…

The first thing I notice is that its official name, printed right on the cover of the box, is “Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit.” Hmmm… nothing there about patient care or treatment. “Evidence Collection” sounds more like a police function.

Macdonald, at comment #4:

A Rape Kit is normally performed by a SANE nurse (that's Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner). An RN with additional specialized training.

Right. And it's usually done at a hospital, not at a police station. By a nurse, not a police officer. Macdonald is an EMT, not quite a doctor or nurse, not quite a policeman, but a little of both, which might account for his blurring of the distinctions.

Since the rape kit is customarily administered at a hospital, by a nurse, rather than at the police station, by a policeman, the hospital administration is going to be involved, and would like to bill someone for the time and effort. Hospitals usually try to bill a patient's insurance company. That was exactly what the police chief in Wasilla took as standard procedure; what he wanted to do was to obtain restitution from the perpetrator. The Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman article from 2000 is a little incoherent, but after the first wild charge, quotes the police chief saying some sensible things:

While the Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies have covered the cost of exams, which cost between $300 to $1,200 apiece, the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests.

Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon does not agree with the new legislation, saying the law will require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams.

In the past weve charged the cost of exams to the victims insurance company when possible. I just dont want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer, Fannon said.

According to Fannon, the new law will cost the Wasilla Police Department approximately $5,000 to $14,000 a year to collect evidence for sexual assault cases.

Ultimately it is the criminal who should bear the burden of the added costs, Fannon said.

The forensic exam is just one part of the equation. Id like to see the courts make these people pay restitution for these things, Fannon said.

Fannon said he intends to include the cost of exams required to collect evidence in a restitution request as a part of a criminals sentencing.

[Sic, sic, sic.]

Some states have a fund to pay for rape kits, some do not. In North Carolina, for instance, from Feb. 13, 2008:

N.C. hospitals bill rape victims

Rape victims across the state are paying for their ill fortune in the most tangible of ways: a bill for the evidence kit needed to lock up the rapist.

The vast majority of the 3,000 or so emergency room patients examined for sexual assaults each year shoulder some of the cost of a rape kit test, according to state records and victim advocates. For some, it's as little as a $50 insurance co-payment. For those without insurance, it's hundreds of dollars left when a state program designed to help reaches its limit.

From August 2008, the situation seems to have improved:

Rape victims won't face exam bills

Victims of sexual violence in North Carolina will no longer be forced to pay for the forensic exams needed to help capture their attackers.

The N.C. General Assembly approved more than $1 million this summer to revamp a program designed to help cover the cost of rape kit exams for uninsured victims. The exams are used to collect bodily evidence of an attacker and are standard in the prosecution of sex crimes.

Now, hospitals will settle directly with the state, sparing victims of sexual assault the aggravation and trauma of receiving a bill.

Billing for rape kits was also standard procedure in other places, until quite recently:

Rape Victims Can Be Hurt Financially, Too

"It's been a problem for a long time," says Ilse Knecht, deputy director of public policy at the National Center for Victims of Crime. "We've heard so many stories of victims paying for their exams, or not being able to and then creditors coming after them." In order to qualify for federal grants under the Violence Against Women Act, states have to assume the full out-of-pocket costs for forensic medical exams, as the rape kits are called. But according to a 2004 bulletin published by the NCVC, "[F]eedback from the field indicates that sexual assault victims are still being billed." Knecht says she's recently heard from caseworkers in Illinois, Georgia, and Arkansas reporting that rape victims continue to be charged for their forensic exams.

The rape kit itself generally contains bags to collect clothing, test tubes for collecting blood, swabs for fluid, and a comb to collect pubic hair. Small-change stuff. But exams also involve administering tests for pregnancy, HIV, gonorrhea, and syphilis, and that's where the costs add up, says Randall Brown, medical director for the Baton Rouge Rape Crisis Center in Louisiana.

How forensic exam costs are handled varies. In some locations, hospitals bill patients' insurance and absorb whatever the insurers don't pay or bill patients for the balance. Some states have special funds to cover a portion of the costs. Others require convicted offenders to pay into a fund to reimburse the costs of the exams.

Also Missouri: In 2006, State Sen. Michael Gibbons introduced an amendment to a crime bill that

would require the Department of Health and Senior Services to make payments to medical providers to cover the charges of forensic examinations for victims of sexual offenses. Victims would also be able to seek “out-of-pocket” losses from the Crime Victims Compensation Fund to cover the cost of personal property that is seized as part of the investigation.

The legislative database says the last action on the bill was that it was "in conference," this in 2007.

A NOW press release from 2002 says

NOW's local activists report that in many jurisdictions the victim must pay for the processing of the "rape kit" evidence – an absurdly unfair proposition. Is there any other assault in which survivors are required to pay the cost of investigating the crimes against them? These expenses can reach $1,500 for DNA analysis, and $5,000 or more for extra costs such as evidence collection and medical care.

So it wasn't only Wasilla, it wasn't only Sarah Palin, it was standard procedure in lots of places. More from Rachael Larimore at Slate.

I guess there is still some concern on the Left that Palin is not quite finished, politically, so it will be necessary to keep the old smears alive. Like zombies!

FDIC in trouble?

Feb. 25: FDIC Chair(person) Sheila Bair laughs, says "your money, if you're below our insured deposit limits, you're absolutely safe, no matter what." (1:36 into the video.) How jolly.

March 4: Bloomberg: Bair Says Insurance Fund Could Be Insolvent This Year. So they'll have to raise the rates they charge the banks. AP:

The head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has warned that the fund insuring Americans' bank deposits could be wiped out this year without the money the agency is seeking in new fees from U.S. banks and thrifts.

FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair acknowledged, in a letter to bank CEOs, that the new increased fees and hefty emergency premium the agency voted to levy last week will bring a "significant expense" to banks, especially amid a recession and financial crisis when their earnings are under pressure.

"We also recognize that assessments reduce the funds that banks can lend in their communities to help revitalize the economy," Bair wrote.

But given the accelerating bank failures that have been depleting the deposit insurance fund, she said, it "could become insolvent this year."

"Without substantial amounts of additional assessment revenue in the near future, current projections indicate that the fund balance will approach zero or even become negative," Bair wrote in the letter dated Monday to the chief executives of the nation's 8,305 federally insured banks and thrifts.…

March 5: Bloomberg: FDIC May Cut Emergency Fee on Banks, Group Says. Raise the fee one day, lower it the next; does anyone have any idea what they are doing? They're winging it.

Senator Dodd, known for his financial acuity, has introduced legislation to "increase the FDIC’s borrowing authority from $30 billion to $100 billion." Given this expansion in borrowing authority, the agency will be able to cut back on the one-time emergency fee to be charged the participating banks. (As far as most people are concerned, that's all of them.)

The House may vote today on legislation to expand the FDIC’s borrowing authority from $30 billion to $100 billion and make permanent a $250,000 deposit-insurance limit authorized under the financial bailout legislation Congress approved in October.

Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat and the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, plans to introduce a companion measure that will also raise the borrowing authority to a permanent level of $100 billion and temporarily increase it to $500 billion through Dec. 31, 2010.

Oh yes, just a few more billions, there's nothing out of the ordinary here. Billions and billions, all coming from the newly bottomless US Treasury.

What's going on here? Bair appears to be angling for a higher post in the Obama administration. Is that why she's trying to start a run on the banks? As part of an administration plan for Planned Impoverishment? Or as Doug Ross asks, "Did Obama intentionally nuke the economy?"

Update, only a few minutes later: Bill Quick says

Once the obvious implications of this sink into the markets and the media, I expect all hell to be out for lunch. If an appendage of the banking industry like Chris Dodd is being instructed by his owners to increase their credit line by 1700% (!!!), it’s a dead (pardon the term) giveaway as to what shape the bankers think their businesses are in.

And once the general public understands this, bank runs wouldn’t surprise the hell out of me.

Irony is deeper than the snow

Snowed in here in New England, watching the streaming video of the civil disobedience at the Capitol Power Plant.

A little while ago, they were being addressed by a "scientist" from India who said, "Coal, like all the fossil fuels, should stay under" the ground. A quick click over to Instapundit showed this headline:

LOSING CARBON ENTHUSIASM: India Sends Tough Signal To West. “India will continue to resist pressure to accept legally-binding cuts in its emissions of earth-warming greenhouse gases (GHG) at key climate change talks later this year, the country’s chief climate change negotiator has said.”

Now the mob is chanting, "This is what democracy looks like." If democracy = mob rule. Well, that's why Franklin said, "A Republic, if you can keep it."

Now the chant is "Support the workers, not the plants." Like the way the Left can support the troops but not their mission. I hear that as "Shut down the mines, shut down the plants, put the workers on welfare."

I'm tempted to give this a "tools" label.

More from Tipler

At PJ Media:

‘Stimulating’ Scientists Into Proving Global Warming

The trillion-dollar plus porkapalooza Wreak-America Bill just passed by Congress will throw a huge amount of money into scientific research. This will be a good thing for certain scientists, but a very, very bad thing for science.

Young scientists do most of the great science. Einstein was 26 when he published his relativity theory. In 1980, when I got my first government research grant at the age of 33, some 22 percent of National Institute of Health (NIH) grants were given to scientists under the age of 35. In 2005, only three percent of NIH grants went to those under 35, while the percentage given to those over 45 increased from 22 to 77.

Increasingly, government grants are used to defend dogma, not discover new truth: 28 percent of the scientists supported by NIH admitted recently to cooking data to support establishment theory, and 66 percent admitted to cutting corners to achieve the same end. I myself no longer trust the data claims appearing in the leading science journals.…

Maybe he'll become a PJ Media regular.