podpolia

The Rule of Law seems finally to have died out in Britain. This case apparently turned into a decision on climate change itself, rather than whether or not the protesters involved were guilty of “criminal damage and unlawful trespass“.
I was also quite interested to find out that James Hansen is now the “world’s leading climate scientist” — a title that I suspect he never claimed for himself. In fact, upon closer inspection, it appears that only climate advocacy groups were calling him that until the trial. I would suspect that news sites lifted it uncritically from Greenpeace’s press release, which certainly appears to precede all the other articles on the verdict.
Unfortunately, in the long run, it looks like this is going to legitimize this sort of pointless vandalism. If causing about $60,000 worth of damage is excusable, what’s next? Will this ruling allow eco-terror in Britain?
If I were to declare someone the world’s leading expert on something I wish to believe is dangerous (but without the cachet presently given the theory of man-made global warming), break the law to ‘publicize’ my belief, and be put on trial, would -I- be let go?
What do you think?

There has been a minor fracas about flags from the DNC recently, as it appeared that about 12,000 flags were being trashed by the DNC. Other stories have come out about this, including this one that points out that “it was probably an ‘oversight’” to leave them by the trash outside of the convention on the part of the Democrats. However, the Democrats seem not to have been too interested in getting them back, as the article also says that they sat there for eight days.
So in the end, did the Democrats go about intentionally trashing flags?
Yes.
These don’t seem to be the same bundles of flags as those that appear in the picture about the Republicans’ reuse of the flags as a campaign stunt, but it proves fairly definitively that the convention (or the people at it) were throwing out their flags when they were done using them as a political prop. Is it really, REALLY unlikely that these flags, at least, were “intended for other events and taken without permission” as the Democratic National Convention Committee has claimed for the other ones.

If you’re trying to convince the public that you’re not a ‘celebrity senator’, this is probably not the way to go about it. I would imagine the McCain campaign has their eyes peeled for this sort of thing — I can’t imagine they’ll let it slip by them.

It has been interesting reading British coverage of the American election. This piece in particular — coverage of Palin’s hometown’s response to her speech last night — gives us an impartial outsider’s view of small-town America. While it isn’t Alexis de Tocqueville, it’s still revealing.
British opinion is something that, while it shouldn’t influence our election, is important to consider in the long run. After all, they have been an important ally in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Power Line has an interesting post here with a video clip of Newt Gingrich taking on a reporter. Hi-larious.

Vote for McCain Palin, or Alaska will eat the midwest.

(Image shamelessly stolen from the Alaskan Travel Guide)