If you haven't already seen this( Andrew Sullivan pointed this article out), Slate's Jack Shafer delves into the 'Grey Lady's' most recent example of subjective journalism. Katharine Seelye leads a story on the status of the EPA Superfund budget with, "Bush Slashing Aid for E.P.A. Clean-up at 33 Toxic Sites"(link requires registration). Sounds bad, huh? Problem is, it's not really the case. Rather, the allocation was less than the request for funds submitted by Washington's E.P.A. headquarters. Big difference. Shafer says...

Although the Times story spewed Superfund hysteria, it never went as far as the Record, which reported (erroneously) that the administration planned "to reduce spending for the nation's Superfund program." That's not the case. The "slashing" cuts of the Times headline, delineated in the seventh paragraph of the story, were merely the difference between what EPA regional offices had requested from the EPA's Washington headquarters ($450 million) and what headquarters had deigned to allocate ($228 million) to clean up 33 specific sites in FY 2002. It's as if you asked Santa for a BMW and accused him of dealing you a cutback when he only gave you a Honda.

Shafer points out that, in fact, spending "has remained steady in recent years."

Seelye notes the current budget in her piece but doesn't put it in the context of previous years' spending or the Bush administration's 2003 intentions. Based on these numbers, Seelye could have just as easily written a story titled, "Bush Superfund Budget Grows Slightly."

Fact is, Bush will likely never satisfy the demands of certain environmentalists on issues such as these. His approach is more pragmatic and looks at factors( see: the economy) that others might be less inclined to consider relevant. Additionally, his core support tends toward the skeptical in this earthly debate. While the NYT, obviously, advocates a more activist approach, it does it's readers a disservice by printing misleading headlines and inaccurate reporting. Environmentalism, as a political movement, has been blessed with the connotation of romantic idealism; a fact which has translated into substantial financial and political support for it's causes. Furthermore, it is in the enviable position of advocating a result(healthy environment) which nearly, if not, everyone considers preferable to the alternative. How many other causes share this distinction? Sadly, the green movement has scared off as many supporters as it seems to have won by its insistence upon pessimism as a rule and tactic for gaining notice. Articles like this NYT piece merely exacerbate the problem. Truthfully, what most opponents of environmental activism find objectionable is not the cause, itself, but it's stubborn adherence to subjectivity. In scaring people with predictions of disaster and paranoid theories of conspiratorial agendas( see: Bush and the energy industry), they betray that idealism and alienate countless voters who might, otherwise, support the movement. Until this movement awakens from its self-inflicted stupor, it is likely to face more than a healthy dose of skepticism where it's prognostications are concerned. In the end, they've no one to blame but themselves.

LAX gunman lived behind "Orange Curtain"

Fox News is now saying that the LAX gunman was an Egyptian man who arrived here in 1992; no record of employment since. They also found explosives and residue in his Irvine home. Investigators are, consequently, no longer ruling out a link to organized terror. Separately, CNN's camera crew was allowed to zoom in on the slain gunman's photo dossier. His home address, 5 Willowrun, Irvine, 92004 sits almost dead-center in between the 405, 5, 133, and 55 freeways- I looked it up on Mapquest. For those not familiar with southern California, this is a very heavily travelled grid of freeways for commuters and essential interchange for commercial traffic. Oh yeah, San Onofre's Nuclear plant is not more than twenty minutes away, either. Spiffy spot for a terrorist's pad. Hey SoCal, when was the last time you drove through the El Toro "Y"?

Arafat challenged by PA security chief Rajoub

Interesting development in the Middle East. World Tribune reports that PA security chief Jibril Rajoub appears to have challenged Arafat's authority by refusing to leave his job. Well, they don't call it a challenge- but they should. It's the rebellion that makes this newsworthy. Rajoub may be the most pro-Western hope we have inside the Palestinian Authority. If he feels confident enough to publicly contest his removal as security chief, Arafat may be even more vulnerable than we thought. A glimmer of hope?

Is this crash in San Dimas related to this plane stolen from Camarillo, earlier this week?

The California Legislature is officially out-of-control. Larry Weitzman, from TCS, reports that the Democratic leadership of that body just snuck in a new CO2 emission measure(AB 1058) inside the language of an unrelated bill(AB 1493).

Now, AB 1058 was the measure designed to limit CO2 emissions from cars and trucks. The bill's supporters believe that CO2 emissions lead to global warming, even though such worries are not supported by the available science. Why did Democrats pull this legislative switch? Because up until last Friday, AB 1058 was a notoriously unpopular bill that was stalled dead in its tracks in the Assembly. After a spirited and public debate, Californians had let their representatives know that they didn't want it. Simply put, they didn't like the economics or the politics of the bill. It would severely restrict vehicle choice (by effectively banning SUVs and trucks in California), compromise vehicle safety, impose higher taxes on California residents, and subject Californians to regulations from an unelected bureaucracy, the California Air Resources Board.

If Bill Simon doesn't jump all over this he's a fool. There are about as many SUVs and trucks in this state as there are lawyers.

We've come a long way since Mickey Mouse

If you appreciate great animation, then you will get a real kick out of these. The first, "Pipe Dreams", demonstrates a new idea in graphic art: music-driven animation. The second involves a beer-goggling robot. Thanks to Adam Zepeda for bringing these to my attention.

Rumors of his demise were not exaggerated

Mickey Kaus offers a damning assessment of the new Al Gore. In it, he quotes National Journal's Charlie Cook on the topic of Gore's remarks this past weekend...

"[F]rom my vantage point it seems that Gore was the weakest link in the Gore/Lieberman campaign - not his pollsters, his strategists, his tacticians or his other consultants. Even if it were the campaign's fault, it is completely tasteless to blame others - but, in this case, it simply isn't credible for Gore to pass the buck."

I think that sums it up best.

Fuzzy math

Clouding the facts hasn't been going over too well on Wall Street, lately, either. Tyco, Global Crossing, Enron, Worldcom, Arthur Anderson...they're getting their asses kicked in the market for monkeying with their numbers. Criminal prosecutions are being prepared in some cases. Yet, while we debate the need for more government oversight, Adam Smith's "invisible hand" has been bitch-slapping the transgressors and liquidating their assets. I agree that some of these guys need to sit in a cell for awhile. But let's be honest about the existence of accountability in the free-market. It's not only there, it hurts. Maybe not as much as the class warfare crowd would like, but enough that life for the guilty will irrevocably change. The most fortunate will live out their days as pariahs in the business community; the less fortunate will lose their life savings defending lawsuits. Oh, yeah, some will make license plates.

Environmental Marketing 101

Remember that EPA release about climate change a few weeks ago? Turns out the models the finding are based upon are completely contradictory. TechCentralStation's Nick Schulz explains...

The report says "The two primary models used to project changes in climate in this Assessment were developed at the Canadian Climate Centre and the Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom." So, according to the report, what the Canadian and Hadley models predict is what will happen in the United States. But then something happened that perhaps the report's draftsmen didn't anticipate. The Canadian and Hadley models predict very different trends around the United States for future warming.

Schulz displays both of the original models and they could hardly be more dissimilar. Where one model indicates a substantial increase in future temperature, the other shows that same area with a slight decrease. Dr. Kevin Trenberth, climate scientist of note, admits "the two models used are quite different and give different results." So how did the study resolve these two disparate models for it's report?

Well, the official final report maintained matter of factly that "(b)oth the Canadian and Hadley model scenarios project substantial warming during the 21st century" and then illustrated this warming with two new graphs.

In the new graphs, the disparity between the two models' results is, er, obscured.

Now, this is the sort of trick that would make a college sophomore blush. What could they possibly have been thinking, other than that by changing color scales on these graphs it diminishes the sense of disparity between the models? When you don't get your preferred predetermined outcome, that's no matter, just change the graphics.

Worked for Worldcom. Oops, bad joke.

This stunt throws into question the whole assessment process. Roger Pielke, a respected atmospheric scientist at Colorado State who was involved with the drafting process at the time, said, "I'm disappointed in the whole process. This has been the most closed, unhealthy scientific process I've ever been involved in."

Our tax dollars, hard at work.

Climate science has been hijacked by activists who are compromising the scientific method and using smoke and mirrors and juvenile term paper tricks in a cynical effort to fool the public. It is time for the Bush administration - in the form of its EPA chief Christie Whitman - to take back the research and reporting process from shamans and sophists and put it back in the hands of dispassionate scientists where it belongs.

Clouding the facts to produce a desired result is not science. It is marketing. From the looks of this report, piss-poor marketing, at that.

Pros and Cons of Caesarian sections

A group of British doctors are reporting that women who have C-section births may have fertility problems in the future. The study was published by 'Human Reproduction', a peer-reviewed journal mainly read by reproductive endocrinologists. The doctors found that women who have had a C-section are more than twice as likely to require one year or more to conceive again. Dr. James Walker, of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, commented...

"Neither the medical profession nor women themselves realize the extent of the long-term problems Caesarean sections can cause. When doctors and mothers assess the risk of Caesareans they generally only think about what the risks are at the time and ignore the impact they might have five years down the line."

Dr. Walker is right about this, mostly. Without taking issue with this study or its results, I would offer another perspective that is often overlooked. More and more women are getting C-sections for a number of reasons; avoiding the pain of labor and natural childbirth is certainly high among them. But there is another reason that seldom gets recognized. At least, not publicly. Natural childbirth may be the preferred option for many reasons, but it carries with it considerable downsides, as well. Three words: Pelvic floor reconstruction. There are over 11 million women, in the US alone, who suffer from some type of urinary incontinence. It's the dirty little secret that millions of women share but don't reveal. What do most of these women have in common besides involuntary leakage? Kids. 1, 2, 3, 10. It may not even matter how many. What does matter, is that while natural childbirth is...well, natural, it also puts enormous strain on the supporting tendons and tissue surrounding the vagina, bladder, and rectum. The Levator Ani, a supporting tendon structure located on the floor of the pelvis, literally splits in two during natural childbirth. These stretched support tendons lose their ability to respond when abdominal pressure is applied. This is a huge problem that significantly impacts the health and lifestyle of millions of women. Think I'm exaggerating? Do you know three or four mothers above the age of 45? Ask them if they often lose urine when they laugh, cough or sneeze. Every substantive surgical innovation in the treatment for female incontinence has recognized the importance of these pelvic structures. Many physicians who specialize in female urology are now coming to the conclusion that these support problems are caused, primarily, by natural childbirth. Opting for a Caesarian section delivery may, at first glance, appear to be a simple choice of convenience. But the benefit gained by avoiding the strains involved with labor may, ultimately, prove to be the difference between the continent and incontinent female.

US vetoes Bosnia peacekeeping extension. Memo to Europe: Bush is serious about the immunity thing.

European Myopia

WaPo's Robert Kagan says the Europeans need to rethink their posture regarding exemption of US troops from prosecution by the ICC. He offers...

Americans are hardly hostile to international law -- the United Nations was their idea. But the United States has a special problem, one that its European allies ought especially to appreciate. As the world's most powerful democratic power, the United States is called upon -- yes, called upon -- far more frequently than any other nation to dispatch its troops overseas for any number of purposes. To liberate nations that have been invaded -- like Kuwait or, say, France. To defend other nations threatened by invasion -- like South Korea and Saudi Arabia or, not so long ago, Germany. Or to defend people threatened by genocide or ethnic cleansing, as in Bosnia and Kosovo. Unlike even the strongest European powers, which have trouble projecting military force even on their own continent, America's entire global strategy is built around projecting military power anywhere at any time, which means the United States is always going to have far more soldiers vulnerable to some misguided ICC prosecutor than any other nation.

Without the exemption, our troops are over-exposed to the possibility of prosecution. What's more, we offer an inviting target for those who would restrain US influence throughout the globe. Behind a false veil of legal legitimacy, the ICC could become an active, if not systematic tool for those who would undermine our interests.

The dispute highlights much of what divides Americans and Europeans these days. Europeans...are trying to advance their vision of international civilization, with a web of international laws and institutions assuming authority over individual nation-states. Not surprisingly, the world they're trying to create looks an awful lot like the European Union, where rules and laws are more important than military power. And not surprisingly, they're none too happy about the militarily dominant United States placing itself above or outside their new international legal system before it's even begun.

This particular motivation by the EU crowd should come as a surprise to no one. Still, the Euros are ill-equipped to fill the void should the US decide to withdraw its forces from peace-keeping missions, current and future. They injure their own global aims by forcing the US into this position. You can't have your Federation of Planets without the Enterprise.

Europeans argue that if the United States succeeds in getting special treatment then, as one European diplomat told the New York Times, "rogue states will be popping champagne corks." That kind of argument reveals the utopian silliness that animates too many Europeans these days. "Rogue" states will not voluntarily abide by an international court's rulings, no matter what the United States does or does not do. Not abiding by international rules, after all, is what makes a "rogue" a "rogue." But in the meantime, the United States, which has the lion's share of responsibility for defending the rest of the civilized world against rogue states, will have to worry every time it sends troops into hostile territory.

It's time the for the Europeans to wake up to this reality. Suffering fools in the name of diplomacy is 'out'. Pragmatism is 'in'.