A Filmmaker, a Quantum Physicist and a Singer Go Into a Bar…

Maybe his plan will also involve smoking cigarettes

I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or shriek in pain.

David Lynch Foundation:

Filmmaker David Lynch will announce during a global webcast (www.DavidLynchFoundation.org) on Tuesday, May 1, at 12 noon (EDT), the David Lynch Foundation’s new plan to end school violence: Teach one million students around the world to meditate to transform schools from breeding grounds of stress and violence into centers of creativity and peace.

The David Lynch Foundation has already provided nearly $5 million to support in-school Transcendental Meditation programs for thousands of students in public and private schools in the United States and around the world to learn to meditate. (See www.StressFreeSchools.org.)

And who’s paying for this silliness? Right. Hold on to your wallet:

The National Institutes of Health has granted more than $24 million to study the benefits of the Transcendental Meditation technique for reducing high levels of stress and anxiety, improving brain functioning, and promoting cardiovascular health. Other published research shows the technique reduces depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and hypertension—while improving academic performance, creativity, intelligence, and ADD and other learning disorders.

Most ADD/ADHD is over-diagnosed to hawk Ritalin, so the NIH is figuring on curing the ADD you don’t have with the TM that won’t work.

Lynch will be joined by quantum physicist John Hagelin (What the bleep do we know?!, The Secret), and singer/songwriter Donovan Leitch (Hurdy Gurdy Man, Sunshine Superman, Mellow Yellow).

A filmmaker, a quantum physicist and a singer go into a bar…I’ve heard that one before.

Seriously, do you honestly think that transcendental meditation will matter to the Harrises, Klebolds and Chos of the world?

Wanted: Geldings for the Gelding Patrol

I’m not surprised that I’m reading a story like this.

Houston Chronicle:

The pay is tempting, but the mission is tough — helping to stop illegal immigrants from crossing a long, rugged and remote border.

But the border in question isn’t between the United States and Mexico or Canada. It’s in Iraq.

At a time when federal officials are stressing the need to beef up U.S. border security, the State Department has hired a firm to recruit veteran law officers who will serve as “mentors” and train Iraqis to guard their borders.

Obviously, Uncle Sam would want law enforcement agents who are used to trying to do a job in spite of impossible rules of engagement from politically correct superiors, to go to a place where they will be trying to do a similar job in spite of impossible rules of engagement from politically correct superiors.

If they make one tiny mistake, or do their jobs too well, they’ll be sharing prison cells with Ramos and Compean, or maybe with the Haditha Eight.

SCOTUS Sides With Chasing Cops

An 8-1 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court today states that fleeing criminals and not chasing cops are at fault for the damage caused by the chase.

I’ll Pass

AP:

WASHINGTON – Looking for a stately home or opulent office overseas? One in a posh neighborhood or overlooking an exotic capital? Maybe with a glorious or infamous past? The U.S. government may have a deal for you.

From Kinshasa to Katmandu, Bangkok to Bogota, U.S. embassies, ambassadorial residences and other diplomatic digs are up for sale as the State Department moves its employees to more secure locations, upgrades facilities and combines operations in multipurpose compounds.

Some 29 properties worth more than $205 million are now on the market in 21 countries, including a huge and historic embassy annex in the heart of London, large chancery buildings in Panama, Nicaragua and Nepal and homes fit for envoys extraordinary in Belize and Venezuela.

Caveat emptor. U.S. Embassies are a rich target for terrorists, and some of them might not know yet that some of these installations are no longer property of the U.S. State Department.

Granholm Pulls a Holden

She’s in her second term as Governor of Michigan, and I do not know if that state has term limits for its governor. But if she’s eligible to run for another term, she might want to heed the fact that when then-Missouri Governor Bob Holden (2001-5) pulled a similar stunt, it was one of the factors that caused him to lose to then-state auditor (and now U.S. Senator) Claire McCaskill in his own party’s primary.

RedState:

Looks like Jennifer Granholm didn’t read yesterday’s DetNews Op-Ed asking the governor to lead or get out of the way.

The DetNews and the FREEP are reporting this afternoon that she followed up on her threat to send nasty letters to public school supers telling them the big bad mean angry legislature isn’t giving her a $3 billion tax hike so she’s going to cut off their money and force them to close early.

“And Yet”

LA Daily News:

FIFTEEN years ago on April 26, 1992, widespread civil unrest erupted in Los Angeles, following the not-guilty verdict in the trial of the four white police officers accused of using excessive force in the arrest of a black motorist named Rodney King. What have we learned about race relations 15 years after the Los Angeles riots?

Today Los Angeles is more racially diverse than ever and certainly one of the most diverse U.S. cities. And yet all is not well. Inter-ethnic violence in today’s L.A. is centered upon the targeting of African-American residents by Latino street gangs operating with the goal of eradicating African-Americans from “Latino” spaces.

“And yet” all is not well? Cross out “yet” and substitute “therefore.”