The law of unintended consequences kicks wild horses

Barring horse slaughter here in the U.S. just leads to a long trip to a crueler slaughter in Mexico.

Now, wild horse lovers want to ban exportation of horses for slaughter.

OK, are you going to write a personal check to cover euthanasia and carcass disposal costs for each horse? Better yet, as a preventative, are you going to stop your opposition to horse culls on federal lands in the west?

Are Greens Luddites?

At least in the U.K., an argument is a definite ‘yes,” according to Sir David King, the government’s former chief science advisor. The main issue to prompt this complaint? Nuclear power.

Now, I agree that, whether in the U.S., the U.K., France or elsewhere, nuclear waste disposal is a question that still needs a more permanent answer than it has. That said, I know nuclear waste, or even nuclear power plants, has a selfish NIMBY background to the issue.

Assuming the public, to focus here on the U.S., can either be persuaded, led, or if necessary, legally enjoined to deal with NIMBYism, I don’t have a lot of other environmental problems with nuclear power myself, while holding to the idea that is going to have to be a continuing part of the answer to global warming.

That said, just like the military power that should be counted as part of a premium on oil prices, we need to address more clearly the issue of nuclear power subsidies, the energy and environmental costs of uranium mining, etc.

That said, to partially address the mining cost side, I’m OK with breeder reactors.

Prius kicks Explorer’s butt

The world’s best hybrid is now officially outselling America’s top-selling SUV.

Hallelujah.

Pakistani police officer: “Mystery crowd” stopped Bhutto motorcade

McClatchy, extending its usual fine job in U.S. reporting to international coverage, has a boatload of new information related to Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.

Some snips and pieces:

A police officer, Ishtiaq Hussain Shah of the Rawalpindi police, who witnessed the assassination said that a mysterious crowd stopped Bhutto'’ car that day, moving her to emerge through the sunroof. …

Bhutto, apparently thinking she was greeting her supporters, emerged through the sunroof of the bulletproof car to wave. …

It was Shah’s job to clear the way for the motorcade. But 10 feet from where he was standing, a man in the crowd wearing a jacket and sunglasses raised his arm and shot at the former prime minister. …

Who organized the crowd is only one of the mysteries two weeks after the assassination. …

The second report emerged in the Pakistani media, with detailed information about the pistol and bomb. It rejects the government's conclusion that Bhutto died when the force of the suicide blast threw her head against the sunroof lever of her car. Such an impact couldn't have fractured her skull, it said. The government refused to confirm the report's authenticity, but a security official verified it to McClatchy.

Really, though, go read the whole thing.

Obama: I was against the war before I became weaselly?

Here’s more on Bill Clinton and Obama’s “fairytale.”

Here , the Slickster explains in detail how Obama’s “fairytale” is about his allegedly consistent and continued opposition to the Iraq war.

“We went through 15 debates and the Obama campaign has made the argument that his relative lack of service in the Senate was not relevant because he had better judgment than the other Democrats on the Iraq War...” Bill said. “And I pointed out that he'd never been asked about his statements in 2004 that he didn't know how he'd have voted on the Iraq War, and that there was no significant difference between his position as President Bush’s.”

Obama’s lame explainer:

Obama has said during this campaign that he hedged on his answer about the Iraq War authorization vote because he did not want to openly disagree with John Kerry and John Edwards, as they were the party's ticket at the national convention where he was speaking, and both of whom had voted for the war and yet to repudiate it.

Hey, Obama, that didn’t stop Dennis Kucinich in 2004, among others. Puhleeze.

Doorknob, NO, no ready-to-use guns in national parks!

Unfortunately, nearly half the U.S. Senate feels otherwise. It’s bad enough to have kids with nonstop cellphone chatter in Yosemite, I don’t want a gun nut running around there.

Forty-seven lawmakers have signed a letter asking Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to lift Reagan-era restrictions that prevent citizens from carrying readily accessible firearms onto lands managed by the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Current regulations, developed in the early 1980s, "infringe on the rights of law-abiding gun owners who wish to transport and carry firearms on or across these lands," the senators wrote.

The policies also differ from those of some other federal agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service. "These inconsistencies in firearms regulations for public lands are confusing, burdensome and unnecessary," said the letter, drafted by Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho.

Thirty-nine Republicans and eight Democrats signed the letter, including both senators from 17 states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. …

The current regulations, adopted in 1983 under then-Interior Secretary James Watt, say visitors to national parks must render their weapons inaccessible. Guns do not have to be disassembled, but they must be put somewhere that is not easily reached, such as in a car trunk, said Jerry Case, the National Park Service's chief of regulations and special park uses.

First, a national park is different than BLM or Forest Service land in many ways, you nimrods.

Second, there are MANY other places in this country you can’t take guns, where there is no “infringement of rights.”

Third, contra Crapo, it’s not any major inconvenience to hunters to put a gun in a trunk, or otherwise keep it from being readily accessible.

Fourth, I’m disgusted that a single Democrat would sign this letter.