Air-Head

The Daily Mail has this story:

A woman who was fined �200 after she was caught on camera applying make-up while driving at 32mph has defended her actions, saying she was preparing for a date. Donna Maddock, 22, from Mold in north Wales, was pictured on police video cameras with both hands off the steering wheel putting on her eye make-up.

She had wanted to look her best for a date with a man who has a girlfriend and child. She added that she couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

Oh. She was going on a date with a guy. Well, then, that's different. Ms Maddock is justifiably indignant that the British motor vehicle code does not exempt drivers from penalty who place other motorists at hazard when the offender has a sufficiently good reason - like putting on one's makeup in preparation for a date with a Lothario.

What's wrong with those Brits, anyway?

Your Lying Eyes

"Upon returning home from a year-long research trip to the Galapagos Islands, the esteemed English zoologist Dr. D. Richard finds his wife undergoing a process that looks remarkably similar to childbirth. Calling upon his maid for an explanation, the woman tells him that "Yer wife, sir, is hav'en a baby." Dr. Richard pauses to contemplate the possibility before deciding that the notion is preposterous. Examining the evidence inductively -- he is impotent, infertile, and has been away for over nine months -- the professor determines that while his wife may have the appearance of being pregnant it is impossible that she could be with child."

The naive Dr. Richard shares a lot in common with many contemporary critics of Intelligent Design. To understand why read the rest of the story at Evangelical Outpost.

Designer Finally Detected

This just in: Mike Gene at Telic Thoughts has detected the elusive Intelligent Designer, the identity of which ID critics have long demanded be revealed. Read all about it here.

Hollywood Anti-Americanism

Charles Krauthammer blasts both the movie Syriana and the ideological anti-Americanism of its Hollywood producers and writers. He opens his essay with this indictment:

Nothing tells you more about Hollywood than what it chooses to honor. Nominated for best foreign-language film is "Paradise Now," a sympathetic portrayal of two suicide bombers. Nominated for best picture is "Munich," a sympathetic portrayal of yesterday's fashion in barbarism: homicide terrorism.

But until you see "Syriana," nominated for best screenplay (and George Clooney, for best supporting actor) you have no idea how self-flagellation and self-loathing pass for complexity and moral seriousness in Hollywood.

He closes with this summation:

In my naivete, I used to think that Hollywood had achieved its nadir with Oliver Stone's "JFK," a film that taught a generation of Americans that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA and the FBI in collaboration with Lyndon Johnson. But at least it was for domestic consumption, an internal affair of only marginal interest to other countries. "Syriana," however, is meant for export, carrying the most vicious and pernicious mendacities about America to a receptive world.

Most liberalism is angst- and guilt-ridden, seeing moral equivalence everywhere. "Syriana" is of a different species entirely -- a pathological variety that burns with the certainty of its malign anti-Americanism. Osama bin Laden could not have scripted this film with more conviction.

In between his opening and his conclusion is perhaps some of Krauthammer's best writing. I'm reluctant to comment on a movie that I haven't seen, but to the extent that it portrays Americans in the manner Krauthammer alleges, Hollywood bears at least partial responsibilty for inciting Muslim anger against Americans. For this alone they deserve a complete boycott of their product.