Scientists Find Oldest Living Animal — Then Kill It

This is really a "no commenter" blog-wise. But I just had to post it, because of the headline:

British marine biologists have found what may be the oldest living animal — that is, until they killed it.

The team from Bangor University in Wales was dredging the waters north of Iceland as part of routine research when the unfortunate specimen, belonging to the clam species Arctica islandica, commonly known as the ocean quahog, was hauled up from waters 250 feet deep.

Only after researchers cut through its shell, which made it more of an ex-clam, and counted its growth rings did they realize how old it had been — between 405 and 410 years old.

Another clam of the same species had been verified at 220 years old, and a third may have lived 374 years. But this most recent clam was the oldest yet.

"Its death is an unfortunate aspect of this work, but we hope to derive lots of information from it," postdoctoral scientist Al Wanamaker told London's Guardian newspaper. "For our work, it's a bonus, but it wasn't good for this particular animal."

This article was lifted from FoxNews.com by Lord Lunch.

The Height of Ludicricity

There is a gem of a quote in Jack Shafer's Slate column October 18th. It's one of those quotes you (meaning me) wish you had had the wit to utter.

The column, entitled The Churchillian Side of Chris Matthews (in which Shafer blisters the thick skin off Matthews's hind-end), cites Vanity Fair's James Wolcott, a man "who appreciates the talents [of Chris Matthews]." In his 2004 book, Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants, Wolcott writes:

Matthews manages to outrace his contradictory statements by blustering so many excitable things so fast and so often that pinning down the discrepancies is like trying to grab a gust of wind by the tail. He isn't a cynical dissembler. He seems to suffer from some pundit variant of short-term memory loss. Each day on earth erases the days before. He says what he believes and believes what he says, and has the liberating advantage of always working from a blank sheet.

Come to think of it, Matthews is a gust of wind.

- Lord Lunch

Hamsammich Castle, Worcestershiresauce, England

Why Al Really Won the 'Peace Prize'

Your Lordship (moi) takes great pleasure in providing (below) an illuminating excerpt from Adamant wherein the always delightfully perceptive Russell Seitz peels away the p.r. puffery and reveals the hokum that is the Nobel Peace Prize.

- Lord Lunch, Hamsammich Castle, Worcestershiresauce, England

The method of electing the [Nobel Peace Prize] winner ensures a political outcome. Other Nobel prizes are assigned by committees of experts in the orbit of the Swedish Academy of Science, but the Peace Prize winner is determined by a committee reflecting the current strength of Norwegian political parties. Were Norway's anti-immigrant Progress Party to gain a majority, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize might well be Pat Buchanan.

Will The 2008 Nobel Peace Prize Go To Pat Buchanan ?

The five members of the parliamentary committee to whom Democrat Gore owes his prize include three drawn from the Socialist Left, Labour, and Progressive parties forming Norway's ruling coalition, and one Conservative - a former Minister of Trade. Little wonder Francis Sejersted, past chairman of the committee, admits:

“Awarding a peace prize is, to put it bluntly, a political act.”

And all politics is local. None of the other worthy Peace Prize nominees one might list, from Burmese monks to the embattled opponents of tyranny in Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe, can increase the value of Norway's oil and gas reserves. Giving a prize that amplifies the credibility of the world's foremost advocate of carbon taxes most assuredly can.

Investing $750,000 in Al's power to pontificate on behalf of his carbon trading business could pay Norway and OPEC handsomely. The return could exceed a million to one, since Al's crusade to double coal's cost by taxation should translate into far higher prices for the lower carbon North Sea oil and gas that are the mainstay of the Norwegian economy. Oslo stands to gain hundreds of billions of Euros on its multi-billion barrel reserves, a truly extraordinary return on a one kilogram disc of gold.

So my congratulations to Mr. Gore, and kudos to the Oslo committee, whom I hereby place in nomination for the Nobel Prize in Economics for awarding the Peace Prize to Al.

Their decision is in the best Viking fiscal tradition, but avoids the recrimination that so often attends rapine, pillage, looting and burning. Especially the last -- nowadays, a Viking's loot might not cover his carbon offsets.

Search for Kidnapped US Soldier in Iraq Delayed 10 Hours by FISA Law

And Democrats in Congress are determined to extend that law in a vote later this week.

Excerpt from the New York Post, Oct. 15, 2007:

Sometime before dawn, heavily armed al Qaeda gunmen quietly cut through the tangles of concertina wire surrounding the outpost of two Humvees and made a massive and coordinated surprise attack.

Four of the soldiers were killed on the spot and three others were taken hostage.

A search to rescue the men was quickly launched. But it soon ground to a halt as lawyers - obeying strict U.S. laws about surveillance - cobbled together the legal grounds for wiretapping the suspected kidnappers.

Starting at 10 a.m. on May 15, according to a timeline provided to Congress by the director of national intelligence, lawyers for the National Security Agency met and determined that special approval from the attorney general would be required first.

For an excruciating nine hours and 38 minutes, searchers in Iraq waited as U.S. lawyers discussed legal issues and hammered out the "probable cause" necessary for the attorney general to grant such "emergency" permission.

Finally, approval was granted and, at 7:38 that night, surveillance began.

"The intelligence community was forced to abandon our soldiers because of the law," a senior congressional staffer with access to the classified case told The Post.

"How many lawyers does it take to rescue our soldiers?" he asked. "It should be zero."

The FISA law applies even to a cellphone conversation between two people in Iraq, because those communications zip along wires through U.S. hubs, which is where the taps are typically applied.

U.S. officials had no way of knowing if Jimenez and his fellow soldiers were still alive during the nearly 10-hour delay.

The body of one was found a few weeks later in the Euphrates River and the terror group Islamic State of Iraq - an al Qaeda offshoot - later claimed in a video that Jimenez and the third soldier had been executed and buried.

I say there ought to be a law! Oh, wait . . . .