Some kraut with your frank?

Here's an interesting take from VodkaPundit on how to deal with France & Germany.

Very incisive and funny.

The EU wants a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Fine, give it one. But take away France's. The rational is simple: France already has a seat (a WWII anachronism) and would still be represented by the EU. With the stroke of a treaty pen, France and Germany would be forced to coordinate their foreign policies, even when their national leaderships and national interests are in contrast.
France and Germany want to be treated as equals. Fine, treat them that way. Never consult one without consulting the other. Or better yet, do all the consulting through their EU bastard child. Either way, eventually France and Germany will be back at each other's throats – a condition as natural as a hooker with her heels in the air.

Quantifying crackpottery

Every once in a while, you may get the sneaking suspicion that what you're reading was, in fact, written by a crackpot. And occasionally the crackpot nature may be blindingly obvious. But what we really need is a comprehensive, quantitative theory of crackpottery (frangiceramics?); John Baez gives us a first step.

Clearing My Head

I was wondering why I have been thinking much more clearly the past few days. Unfortunately, I have not been able to make it to the gym this week, so that's not it.

Then I realize that it's been over a WEEK since I read a New York Times op-ed columnist because I will not pay $49.95 for the privilege. I am not opposed to this on principle because I do pay more than that for my online WSJ subscription. I must admit to missing their newest columnist John Tierney but otherwise my mind is clear of the natterings of Ms. Dowd and Mr. Krugman.

It seems that lots of other folks do not see the value proposition of TimesSelect either. Mickey Kaus has done a wonderfully snarky job covering this. He's always worth a read and doesn't drown his readers in frenetic posting.

His take today:

Does the NYT have an exit strategy? If they pull the plug on TimesSelect, do they have to give all the sucke ... I mean, customers who signed up their $49.95 back?

Leftists Thwarted By Mass Transit

The irony here is delicious that some of those protesting the "War for Oil" got snarled up in a Northeast Corridor power failure on Amtrak.

An electrical failure in New Jersey disrupted train service between New York and Washington for five hours yesterday morning, leading to confusion, delays and an impromptu protest outside Pennsylvania Station by antiwar activists who gave up on plans to join a larger rally in the nation's capital.

Service was shut down just before 5 a.m. Vernae Graham, a spokeswoman for Amtrak, said the electrical failure occurred in Rahway when a crane accidentally dropped a beam on the wires that provided power to the trains, severing the connection.

I feel almost as sorry for this Mahattanite as I do for Martha Stewart:

Julie Finch, a pastry cook and actress from Manhattan, was on the 6 a.m. train for two and a half hours before she joined three other activists in trying to rent a car. She said that she was scheduled to help lead a silent peace vigil at 11 a.m. in Washington, and was heartbroken to discover that she would not arrive in time.
"I don't want to burst into tears," she said after walking out of Penn Station. "I have a hand-quilted peace banner that I was sewing last night, and I was up far too late."

A hand-quilted peace banner. How precious. Look on the bright side: some poor slob with a half-assed magic-marker-and-cardboard job didn't have to feel inferior in your presence. A good thing, wouldn't you say? NOW STOP YOUR CRYING!!!!!!

Of course, in the iron-clad logic of the protesters, the war itself was responsible for the train snafu:

They walked in a circle, denouncing the war, but some seemed to have amended their grievances to include train travel. A group of young women known as the radical cheerleaders, dressed in pleated short skirts, with pompoms made of plastic trash bags, shouted: "Let's get on the right track. Get the troops out of Iraq." Another chant went "Money for trains, not war."

Amtrak struggled this spring and summer with delays, pulling its high-speed Acela trains off the track in April after brake problems surfaced. Ms. Levine, responding to yesterday's unexpected trouble like a politician pretending to have seen it coming, said that the connection between the war and less reliable train service was obvious. "We want money for trains, for schools, for hospitals and other human needs and not for war," she said, adding that she planned to seek a refund from Amtrak for the chartered train car.

I love these people, not only are they stuck on stupid, but now they're stuck on Amtrak, too.

I love these things...

It's one of those "political" tests that asks you a number of questions and then tells you where you are on the scale. Here is my result.

I love the Donald!