Some of you may know (due mainly to my whining in Polipundit comments) that in the part of Canada I live in, we did not have FoxNews. Just a few months ago the CRTC – the federal body that controls the airways- allowed Canadian access. We now finally have it here.

I’m not kidding in saying that it took a grand total of 3 seconds to notice the difference in perspective. When I turned Fox on, the tag line that ran with the clip read “War on Terror” and the coverage was fighting in Iraq. If you watch CNN (and I don’t recommend that you do) the tag line with Iraq coverage is invaribly something like “Violence in Iraq.”

The tag line/headline sets the tone of the coverage. With Fox it gives context to violence in Iraq. With CNN context is ommitted. We’re just left with violence. I also saw something that I never, never saw on CNN – reporting of a successful attack on the insurgents/terrorists.

Cue the Disney Music……….A whole new world…………

Edward, a friend who builds Kidsafe Playhouses for Children, had this to say about his playhouses (scroll down for pictures):

Children need a place for imaginative play. It develops creativity, socialization and encourages exploration of ideas. If that place is unsafe and a child gets hurt they will not want to use it (and thus money wasted). Furthermore, play is most developmental if it is interactive with other children. A safe playhouse means a child can invite friends over and all parents can rest easy. Developing friendships and interaction involved is a major stepping stone in the development of the child. My playhouses also encourage parents and grandparents to participate in the play since all are built with an adult door. It is hard to come for “tea” if the only entrance is 4ft tall and only 18 inches wide.

Properly constructed playhouses can be used for many, many years. With the adult door it can be used for winter storage. As the child grows it can be a quiet place for a teen to study. When the child finally out grows it, as a young adult, it can become a potting shed, a sewing room or even just a place to display a collection. In fact the dressing up of the playhouse can occur though out its use by children. Imagine a spooky haunted house, or place to hold a child’s thanksgiving feast suitably decorated with corn stalks, Indian Corn, Squash and anything else the parent and child can think of. Maybe Santa’s workshop for a Christmas theme, at 8 x 10 feet (and low to the ground) two strings of holiday lights will do all of the roof edges, windows doors and maybe more. Valentines Day, St Patties and Easter are also possible with in the attention span of child given the small size of the playhouse.

However none of this means anything if the playhouse is not designed for children or worse yet not safe for them.

Click here for an article Edward wrote for the July 24, 2004 issue of Construction Guide (reprinted here with the Author’s permission).

If you are interested in the KidSafe Playhouses, leave an email address in the comments and Edward will get back to you.

Welcome G as in Good H as in Happy Readers. Belated welcome Anchoress readers.

Playhouse

Safe Corner Detail

Loft Detail

8/18/05 – new pictures here

Most of us have heard of false negatives and false positives in the context of medical diagnoses. Diagnostic tests are never fool proof and determining which side a test should err on is often the most crucial factor. For instance a false negative in an HIV test can have devastating consequences. If the test is negative, but is wrong, the patient goes on to infect potentially countless others. On the other hand a false positive no doubt will leave the patient terrified for awhile, but the consequences pale in comparison.

Now consider “diagnosing” international threats to the US based on the best available intelligence. The discourse from the left following the Iraq war was focused exclusively on Bush being “wrong” about Saddam posessing WMDs at the time of the invasion. Forget for the moment the argument that Jack the Ripper isn’t any less dangerous simply because he tosses his dagger in the trash bin. Blinded by partisan politics and comforted by the wisdom of hindsight, the left has completely ignored the dangers of the false negative Bush was forced to confront before he decided to attack. The false negative results in the unthinkable. So the left chose not to think about it.

Rather than engaging in meaningful debate regarding the degree to which we should err on the side of the false positive and the level of proof required to make the decision to use force, the left was content to sit back and accuse Bush of dishonesty. The left also dipped into their trusty bag of utopian tricks and side stepped the issue by creating the UN magic bullet. As for how much evidence the Democrats say we would have needed to make the tough call we will never know. We only know that whatever evidence Bush (and Clinton, Putin and the rest of the world’s intelligence community for that matter) had, it wasn’t enough.

Why is this relevant now? After all, that’s water under the bridge. Unfortunately the dangerous waters keep flowing and again we’re faced with the very real potential of a terrorist-sponsoring state – Iran – developing nuclear weapons. No matter how much the intelligence gathering is improved it will never be fool proof. It will be wrong again. For now Bush appears willing to acquiesce to calls for the UN magic bullet. However, the time may once again come when a tough decision must be made. Should the left again engage in partisan hackery instead of serious, meaninful debate and Bush is forced to make the decision alone, at least we can take comfort in the fact that he will err the right way.

Via Real Clear Politics:
From Opinion Journal
Iwo Jima: The famous battle offers lessons for us 60 years later. BY ARTHUR HERMAN

Hearing Kos and other lefty blogs expressing outrage and demanding Brit Hume’s resignation over Hume’s take on Roosevelt’s vision of Social Security shows just how cushy those on the left have had it in their nice comfy liberal media cocoon. It’s debatable whether Hume even misquoted him, yet some on the left find this single statement intolerable, even calling Hume a “liar”. Update: Bill at INDC Journal also has a good analysis of the alleged misquote.

It brings to mind the standard war movie scene where the fresh faced soldier, wincing at every sound of distant gunfire, is juxtaposed to the battle hardened sergeant who walks across the battlefield unflinching as bombs go off within yards of him.

You think that was a misleading statement son? C’mon man, pull yourself together. You’ll never last out here if you melt down over something like that. We see stuff worse than that each and every day. Why back a couple of months ago we were facing a real tough battle. One of our boys Rumsfeld was taken down pretty hard. They quoted two sentences from a lengthy statement of his and completely turned it around on him. Worse yet, he was taking multiple hits from all sides. Over and over and over again, the same misquote just kept coming in. Yup, Rummy hung tough and made it through though. We were mad as hell, but did you hear us whining about resignations.

Heck if everybody who participated in that one resigned, we’d have no mainstream media left. Now there’s a thought.

Conservative in Texas had some thoughts about grassroots support for SS reform after hearing the results of a poll on the radio that indicated popular support is declining. He emailed David Limbaugh with his idea and David has some thoughts on this as well.

David says:

It seems to me that bloggers, by definition, are a grassroots phenomenon. But they are like grassroots on stilts because their work is immediately published and potentially explosive in terms of its ability to reverberate to the corners of the earth instantly and efficiently. Some might argue that the very notion of a concerted blogging effort is counterintuitive, since one of the best attributes of bloggers is their independence. But they don’t have to sacrifice their independence to become part of an organized effort with whose goals they happen to agree.

Link to the White House’s page on SS Reform here.

Link to the WSJ article here. (Subscription required. I don’t have one so I don’t know exactly what it says).

Update: link to USANext , Building a Legacy of Freedom for Families

In the first bill signing of 2005, President Bush signed Class-Action Fairness into law.

Full text of the remarks are here.

Overall, junk lawsuits have driven the total cost of America’s tort system to more than $240 billion a year, greater than any other major industrialized nation. It creates a needless disadvantage for America’s workers and businesses in a global economy, imposes unfair costs on job creators, and raises prices to consumers.

We have a responsibility to confront frivolous litigation head on. I will continue working with Congress to pass meaningful legal reforms, starting with reform in our asbestos and medical liability systems.

Via Fox News: The Iowa Supreme Court decided today that Illegal Aliens do not have the right to get driver’s licenses in the State of Iowa.

Mark Hunacek, an assistant attorney general, said federal courts have concluded there is no constitutional right for illegal aliens to have a driver’s license.

“We conclude the state’s licensing scheme is rationally related to the legitimate state interest of ‘not allowing its governmental machinery to be a facilitator for the concealment of illegal aliens,’ ” the court said.

Since Jeff has joined me, this isn’t just Kim’s Thoughts and Observations anymore… Now it’s Musing Minds. URL is the same…

The NY Times (big surprise there) has an op-ed piece by Napolitano – apparently Stewart’s prosecution was a travesty of justice and simply an attempt to “intimidate defense lawyers.”

As I stated here, the real travesty is attorneys abusing their position and corresponding solicitor and client privilege to carry out such criminal acts. In doing so, they threaten the foundation of the privilege itself. That, your honour, is the real threat to future litigants. That is why communications in furtherance of a criminal acts are not privileged. While a thoughtful discussion as to how to preserve otherwise lawful communications in the process may be warranted, Napolatino chooses instead to victimize Stewart and cast aspersions on the motives of Justice officials.

As for intimidating defense lawyers, if the Stewart decision intimidates lawyers from committing such acts in the future, mission accomplished. It’s called deterrence, one of the corner stones of the criminal justice process. Lawyers not abusing the privilege (and I presume that’s by far the vast majority) have nothing to fear. As for those few who do, they are not above the law.

Update: Welcome Dirty Harry Readers