Eyewitness: Wall of Water 2.8 Centimeter High

In The Independent, Environment Editor Geoffrey Lean reports an environmental catastrophe:

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.

So let’s see… The island is in the delta of a river system than drains 1/3 of the monsoon-soaked Indian subcontinent and is subject to routine flooding, storm surges and tsunamis from the Bay of Bengal, so obviously it was global warming. Of course! I could write the news release myself:

....Survivors describe the horror of being forced to stand on tippy-toe as a wall of water 2.8 centimeters high swept across this bucolic island paradise. Rescuers with squeegees and paper towels documented a catastrophic dampness that ultimately doomed efforts to stabilize the area...

Good Cop, Less Obviously Obsequious Cop

With waterboarding out, critics of the Obama administration have implied that we have no way to get critical information in a 'ticking time bomb' situation. Rubbish! We have many enhanced interrogation techniques remaining.

1. One may address the the prisoners in a snide, brusque and acerbic manner.

2. One may play 'good cop, less obviously obsequious cop.'

3. While extreme temperatures are out, as of this writing one may still subject prisoners to extremes of humidity.

4. Guards may remove sub-woofers from prisoners' stereo systems.

5. Upon approval of Attorney General Holder, interrogators may subject prisoners to drumming fingertips, arched eyebrows, folded arms and pursed lips.

6. One may pout.

These techniques are guaranteed to break the most hardened terrorist -- sorry -- differently lawful agents of human-made disaster.

Stand Still, Achmed

Fox News reports:

A top French judge ruled that an extreme-right group cannot serve pork soup to the needy, saying the charitable handouts aim to discriminate against Muslims and Jews who don't eat pork because of their faith.
[Snip]
Le Griel argued that no needy Jew or Muslim was forced to consume the pork soup. But the judge said the group's Web site indicated it was a policy to refuse dessert to anyone who did not eat some soup first.

Reading the Fox report and this one, I think the group seems more motivated by petty indictiveness than charity. I wouldn't insist that a Mormon drink wine or a Jew eat pork, so how is a Muslim different, exactly? With apologies to Pink Floyd:

If you don't eat your pork, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your pork?