About which two things must be said. First of all, the evidence against al-Megrahi was thin gruel indeed, with $2 million having been paid to the star witness against him, a witness who was interviewed 17 times before prosecutors could finally coax out of him testimony that would be useful to them; even then he still didn’t conclusively identify al-Megrahi at the trial. al-Megrahi consistently maintained his innocence, and, if you read the statement he issued upon his release, if your reaction is anything like mine you’ll have a hard time believing this man isn’t totally sincere and totally innocent of the crime he was convicted of.

And second of all (and yes, Rick Sanchez, I’m looking at you), complaints about a heroes’ welcome being given to airplane bombers? You, a member of the Miami Cuban community, have got to be kidding. Just last year, a party attended by 500 people was held in Miami in honor of Luis Posada Carriles, one of the two masterminds (Orlando Bosch, another Miami resident, being the other) of the first commercial airline bombing in the Western hemisphere, the 1976 bombing of Cubana flight 455 which killed all 73 people on board. Luis Posada Carriles, the man still being protected by the United States government (you know, the one headed by that same President Obama) from being extradited to Venezuela to stand trial for that bombing. Yes, Rick, do talk to us about how offended you are when airplane bombers are given a heroes’ welcome.

Left I breaks it down. Please do read his whole post (click on “via” link above).

Russell Mokhiber, writing at CounterPunch, wants everyone to boycott Whole Foods because the CEO is a Thatcher-loving libertarian tool. Perhaps because he senses that the 138 readers of CounterPunch might not quite make the impact he desires, he attempts to reach out to “liberal Democrats” (the typical shoppers at Whole Foods, according to him) by ridiculing them for eating cheese and tofu:

I know that this boycott of Whole Foods will upset many liberal Democrats.

Where will they buy their organic wines?

And cheeses?

And tofu?

With this guy recruiting for them, no wonder the US/Western left is doing so well.

Grow Up to Be Gay 5 Piece Magnet Set

(via my friend Khivi)

An Arizona man caught leaving water bottles in the desert for illegal immigrants has been sentenced to 300 hours of community service and a year of probation, an aid group said.

Walt Staton was convicted in June of littering by leaving jugs of water in a wildlife refuge.

Walt Staton, a member of the group No More Deaths, left full water bottles in December in Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge for the illegal immigrants who routinely pass through the 18,000-acre refuge, according to court documents.

A judge sentenced him Tuesday to 300 hours of picking up trash on public property and a year of probation, No More Deaths said in a written statement. He is also banned from the refuge during that time, the group said.

“We have more to offer”: An attention-grabbing CDU campaign in Berlin

A German politician has unleashed a new weapon to soften up voters in Berlin: Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bust, alongside her own.

Curious, I also looked up the Investors Business Daily editorial cited by Human Events. Published a week ago Friday, it is chock full of lies, distortions and other foolishness, such as the claim that the House bill would compel senior citizens to undergo mandatory euthanasia counseling every five years.

But my favorite part of the editorial deals with the British health-care system, which if you believe IBD is basically condemning the old and disabled to die.

“People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless,” the editorial claims.

Of course, that same Stephen Hawking who wouldn’t have a chance in the United Kingdom was in fact born in the United Kingdom, has lived his entire life in the United Kingdo

The American obsession with people who are said to transcend race began long before Barack Obama moved into the White House — long before he even thought about running for president. Affluent, well-educated black people were being appropriated as symbols of racial progress — and held up as proof that racism no longer mattered — back when Mr. Obama was still a youth in short pants.

White Americans have little experience with this brand of appropriation. In general, their personal and professional triumphs are viewed as the product of individual fortitude and evidence that the founding ideals of the nation are alive and well.

Successful African-Americans — whether they are sports stars, entertainers or politicians — are often accorded a more tortured significance. In addition to being held up as proof that racism has been extinguished, they are often employed as weapons in the age-old campaign to discredit, and even demean, the disadvantaged.

Stiglitz is perhaps best known for his unrelenting assault on an idea that has dominated the global landscape since Ronald Reagan: that markets work well on their own and governments should stay out of the way. Since the days of Adam Smith, classical economic theory has held that free markets are always efficient, with rare exceptions. Stiglitz is the leader of a school of economics that, for the past 30 years, has developed complex mathematical models to disprove that idea. The subprime-mortgage disaster was almost tailor-made evidence that financial markets often fail without rigorous government supervision, Stiglitz and his allies say. The work that won Stiglitz the Nobel in 2001 showed how “imperfect” information that is unequally shared by participants in a transaction can make markets go haywire, giving unfair advantage to one party. The subprime scandal was all about people who knew a lot—like mortgage lenders and Wall Street derivatives traders—exploiting people who had less information, like global investors who bought up subprime- mortgage-backed securities. As Stiglitz puts it: “Globalization opened up opportunities to find new people to exploit their ignorance. And we found them.”