The gun-control advocates seem to be losing the battle over arming airline pilots. I suspect the incident of a few days ago in which the co-pilot had to use an axe to subdue a cockpit assailant helped turn the tide.

There’s a nice little primer by Wendy McElroy over at the Foxnews site today about how to view statistical reports, particularly from interest groups, with a well-jaundiced eye.

Iain Murray has already briefly commented on this, but the British grocers who were accused of violating the EU laws on food labeling (they used imperial units instead of, or as well as, metric) lost a court appeal today. The judges ruled that EU law (made by unelected Continental bureaucrats) essentially supercedes Parliament.

It will be interesting to see the public reaction in Britain to this ruling, and whether or not the British (and particularly the English) people are transmogrifying into sheep.

For those who missed it when it first appeared in the paper formerly known as the Paper of Record, today’s Philly Daily News has a pithy editorial by Lady Thatcher.

We have harbored those who hated us, tolerated those who threatened us and indulged those who weakened us.

For those who missed it when it first appeared in the paper formerly known as the Paper of Record, today’s Philly Daily News has a pithy editorial by Lady Thatcher.

We have harbored those who hated us, tolerated those who threatened us and indulged those who weakened us.

For those who missed it when it first appeared in the paper formerly known as the Paper of Record, today’s Philly Daily News has a pithy editorial by Lady Thatcher.

We have harbored those who hated us, tolerated those who threatened us and indulged those who weakened us.

For anyone interested in supporting entrepreneurial space activities, you can do your small bit by purchasing signed posters from XCOR Aerospace. These may become collector’s items someday.

There’s an editorial in today’s New York Post about the blacklisting of Steven Emerson, a renowned international terrorism expert, from National Public Radio for the past three years, including the time since September 11. It seems that some Arab-American groups complained the last time he was on.

Your tax dollars at work.

The Prowler informs us that the Big He is no longer worshipped in Tinseltown, and that Bono is warming up to Republicans.

In my post about the Fox All Star cloning debate, in which I bemoan the fact that no one seems to think that they even have to offer a reason why human cloning is a Bad Thing, reader “Joe” writes:

The reason to be against human cloning is quite clear, which may be why some people don’t think they need to state. What do you do with failures?

If that’s your argument, it’s an argument against allowing procreation at all, since every pregnancy attempt has the potential for defects. As Professor Reynolds has correctly pointed out (probably on numerous occasions), that’s an argument against doing cloning badly–not against cloning per se. We had exactly the same issue with in-vitro fertilization, but somehow the world didn’t come to an end, ethically or otherwise, and there are many happy people in the universe who wouldn’t exist today if we had banned it.

Certainly it would be irresponsible to attempt to clone a human until we understand much more about the process, and have done it reliably and successfully on something similarly complex (e.g., chimps, which share about 98% of our DNA). And outlawing it will not prevent it–it will simply send it underground where it’s even more difficult to monitor or regulate it.

But I’m still awaiting an argument against cloning per se, other than the Leon Kass “ick” factor.