Take THAT, MMA.

NewsBusted is a 2-minute standup comedy feature at NewsBusters.org. They promise fresh material twice a week.

If you’re conservative and have a sense of humor, the first installment is mostly pretty funny.

Watch it anyway, even if you’re not conservative and/or don’t have a sense of humor. Who knows? You might become one, or acquire one, respectively.

Lisa Renee of Glass City Jungle has delivered the goodies in the 82nd Carnival of Ohio Politics.

USA Today — “A record 60% say the United States should set a timetable to withdraw forces ‘and stick to that timetable regardless of what is going on in Iraq.’”

Gallup’s actual report shows that the “record 60%” is one whole point higher than the previous record back in May. Since the margin of error is plus or minus 3 points, shouting about “a record” seems more than a little shaky.

Also, look at the exact question Gallup used:

29. If you had to choose, which do you think is better for the U.S. — [ROTATED: to keep a significant number of troops in Iraq until the situation there gets better, even if that takes many years, (or) to set a timetable for removing troops from Iraq and to stick to that timetable regardless of what is going on in Iraq at the time]?

Wait a minute — Isn’t it likely that the support for a timetabled withdrawal has increased precisely because the situation HAS gotten better? That doesn’t exactly jive with the talking points of the “surge hasn’t worked” crowd, does it?

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This is not getting anywhere near enough US press attention. The fact that the Reuters dispatch is at Information Week and almost nowhere else proves that point:

LONDON, Sept 5 - Alleged Chinese cyberattacks on U.S. and German government computers are part of an espionage strategy aimed not just at gaining intelligence but causing disruption and embarrassment, Western officials and experts say.

In the past 10 days, Beijing has hotly denied reports in Western media that Chinese hackerspenetrated systems in the Pentagon and in the chancellery and key ministries of German leader Angela Merkel.

An Expatica report about attacks on French government systems contains a typical Chinese denial that is really a non-denial:

China vehemently denied that its army was involved in international computer espionage on Thursday after newspaper reports that the British government had sustained cyber attacks from the Chinese.

“Saying that the Chinese military has made cyber attacks on the networks of foreign governments is groundless and irresponsible and are a result of ulterior motives,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.

We don’t consider our CIA part of “the military,” so why would they?

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Home schooling is still drop in the educational bucket in Belgium, but it’s growing. Hopefully, those parents won’t face the campaign of harassment and intimidation Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal faced last year.

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Speaking of Belgium, it’s having a harder time keeping its factionalized government together than a certain country in the Middle East. Seriously, the country could break apart. Parts of Belgium could end up being annexed into France, Germany, Luxembourg, and/or the Netherlands, at the rate things are going. The aforementioned Belien of the Brussels Journal has blanket coverage.

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Taranto at Best of the Web made a spot-on point yesterday after he read this Bloomberg-carried paragraph about what has thus far (crossing fingers) been the second consecutive hurricane season with lower than expected storm activity:

The predictions reflect variables that make this kind of weather forecasting “more art than science,” said Eric Blake, a hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Two of the nine Atlantic hurricanes predicted already have occurred for the season that ends Nov 30. Last year, five storms emerged after nine were anticipated.

This does blow a bit of a hole in the “storms will increase in number and severity” aspect of the “climate change” arguments, known around here as globaloney, and those arguments’ promoters, know around here as globalarmists. Taranto’s response:

Remember that: Weather forecasting is “more art than science.” Except of course when the forecasters want to dismantle our entire industrial economy. Then it’s settled science that no one may even question.

Just go there (HT Brain Shavings).

I echo Brain Shavings’ sentiment: “God bless you, David and Holly Haynes.”