« January 2007 | Main | March 2007 »

February 2007 Archives

February 1, 2007

Indy films - this is interesting...

WIRED Blogs: Table of Malcontents

Greyish silhouettes meet steampunk! This trailer for The Mysterious Geographical Explorations of Jasper Morello is breathtaking:

Set in a world of iron airships, this silhouette animation tells the story of Jasper Morello, a disgraced aerial navigator who flees his plague-ridden home hoping to redeem himself. His expedition leads him to an island which is home to a monster that may hold the cure for the Plague. The journey back is filled with dangers but, Jasper soon discovers that the greatest horror of all lies within man himself.
The Geographical Explorations as a whole refer to a series of four shorts produced in association with the Australian Film Commission: Jasper Morello and the Lost Airship, Jasper Morello and the Return of Claude Belgon, Jasper Morello and the Ghosts of Alto Mea and Jasper Morello and the Ebenezer of Gothia. Only the first short has been released, which has been nominated for an Academy Award.
This is interesting stuff...

You know - putting something like this out wouldn't have been possible five years back. What are we going to be seeing five years from now?

J.

Kyoto Treaty Refusal Blamed...

Pluto thought to be warming up. 26/07/2006. ABC News Online

Astronomers at the University of Tasmania have found that the solar system's smallest planet is not getting colder as first thought and it probably does not have rings.
Dr John Greenhill has collected observations from last month's event when Pluto passed in front of a bright star, making it easier to study.
French scientists have shared the measurements they took in Tasmania that night, which indicate that the planet is unlikely to have rings.

Dr Greenhill says the results are surprising because they show Pluto is warming up.

"It looks as though the atmosphere has not changed from 2002, which is pretty surprising because we expected the atmosphere would freeze out as the planet moved further away from the Sun," he said.

"But so far, if anything, the atmosphere has gotten even denser."

So - if even PLUTO, arguably the coldest bit of real estate in the solar system short of the Kuiper belt objects, is warming - is there a possibility that mankind ISN'T causing global warming?

Just a thought...

J.

Don't know if you're a Pratchett Fan...

But apparently his book Hogfather has been turned into a movie by Sky One.

DVD to be out around Easter. I certainly hope it'll be distributed this side of the pond, and Netflix picks it up...

J.

February 2, 2007

The old is new...

Toss out the advances and...

Florida: Crist wants touch-screen voting machines gone

TALLAHASSEE — Eager to end six troublesome years of touch screen voting in Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist wants every county to switch to paper ballots by 2008.

Crist will ask the Legislature to spend more than $30-million to replace touch screens with an optical scan system that allows a voter to mark an oval next to a candidate’s name before slipping a ballot into an electronic reader — the same way absentee ballots are cast.

The change would affect a majority of the state’s voters living in 15 mostly urban counties, including Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco.

Crist will travel today to Palm Beach County, home of the disgraced “butterfly ballot” that in 2000 became a symbol of electoral ineptitude.

This is interesting - remember how touch-screen ballots were supposed to be the remedy for the uncertainty of hanging chads and the like?

My own immediate thought? They're switching back to these because the Diebold machines, the electronic ballots and such... are too secure. You can't, for all the trouble they've supposedly had, spoof them as easily as paper ballots, or punch ballots. And that was a serious problem for a certain party which sees the national political leadership as something they're entitled to, who send out planeloads of lawyers to any place where the battle is close to ensure the votes are 'properly' accounted for.

And yes, I'm still mad about how they tossed out the military absentee ballots in Florida. They were, after all, on paper....

J.

Democrats take control and...

Wooohooo! Things are looking up!

USNews.com: Opinion: Capital Commerce: : Perky Economy Starts to Relieve Worker Angst

Perky Economy Starts to Relieve Worker Angst
Maybe the U.S. economy added 111,000 jobs last month, but maybe it didn't. Given that the Labor Department later revised higher its monthly jobs numbers 75 percent of the time last year, there's a good chance the final number for January will be somewhere north of 111,000. (More than one economist has called these preliminary payroll numbers "useless.")

The economy is 'perky'? Perky? PERKY?

What happened, did someone slip the reporter some viagra or something? Or maybe Enzyte - that Bob's pretty damn 'perky'!

There hasn't been time for anything the Dems have done to have any effect, but it's 'perky'.

Right. Like it wasn't before, but just under wraps? Maybe a brown paper wrapper? Don't want anything 'embarrasing' to slip out into public view, after all... until you can label it 'perky'!

J.

How do you end a war?

My Way News - Clinton Promises to End War if Elected

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she would not have attacked Iraq if she were president in 2002 and would end the war if elected, as she tried to blunt rivals like John Edwards who are stoking anti-war passions in the Democratic Party.

By either winning, or surrendering.

Packing up and going home ain't an option, yet it's the best one she can come up with?

Why don't we just pencil in a resumption of hostilities in, oh, 2015?

Congrats. The Dems have just lost any possiblity of my vote. And I'm thinking seriously (and those who know me know just how serious this is) of donating money to the Republican party. Yeah, they aren't perfect, but...

Damn.

J.

I'm of two minds about this.

Texas governor orders STD vaccine for all girls - Kids & Parenting - MSNBC.com

AUSTIN, Texas - Bypassing the Legislature altogether, Republican Gov. Rick Perry issued an order Friday making Texas the first state to require that schoolgirls get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.

There's the part of me that's going "Yes! Another disease down the tubes eventually!" From a public health standpoint, I'm all for it.

The other part of me, not so much. Oh, I'm not worried that the young ladies will suddenly go out fornicating like wild rabbits after they get their shots - I don't really like the way that the Legislature was bypassed. That strikes me as a bit too autocratic... and (of course) there's the idea that if THIS usage is okay, then what about other 'good ideas' that wouldn't pass a legislative smell test, much less a public vote?

We'll see how this pans out - but overall... I'm thinking he's done the right thing, though perhaps not the right way.

J.

February 3, 2007

Looks like a civil war...

Open, outright, and flighting for control.

Hamas, Fatah defy truce - Focus on Israel/Palestinians - MSNBC.com

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Fatah and Hamas clashed at Cabinet ministries, universities and security headquarters Saturday in defiance of a truce that was to have calmed the seething Gaza Strip.

Twelve people were wounded by late morning, hospital officials said, and Fatah said Hamas had kidnapped 40 of its security officials at roadblocks.

I'd wish one side or the other luck - but if they both lose the Palestinian people win. Or at least they will after the fanatics kill each other off.

J.

February 4, 2007

An odd observation...

Could this be an indication of the 'dedication' of the insurgents?

Missteps by Iraqi Forces in Battle Raise Questions - New York Times

A commander in the Scorpion Brigade said the combined American and Iraqi forces killed 470 people. He also said some of the dead Soldiers of Heaven fighters were found bound together at the ankles and suggested that the chains had probably been used to keep people from fleeing and to keep them moving as one unified group.

Nah, couldn't be. After all, the insurgents are the media's heros of Iraq, brave and bold.

But maybe not...

J.

"Ain't our fight" says Israel...

FOXNews.com - Israeli Military Opposes Intervention in Palestinian Infighting - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

JERUSALEM — Israeli military chiefs oppose launching a major ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, defense officials said, despite some concerns that bitter fighting there between armed Palestinian factions could boil over into a fresh spate of attacks on Israel.

Since Thursday, 28 Palestinians have died in Gaza fighting between the militant Islamic Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah.

As I've said before, the winner in a fight between Hamas and Fatah, assuming they destroy each other, are the Palestinian people who've been lead for far too long by mad dogs masquerading as humans.

J.

February 5, 2007

Well, WE were part of it...

Super Bowl draws 3rd-largest U.S. TV audience ever�|�Top News�|�Reuters.com

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Indianapolis Colts' rain-swept victory over the Chicago Bears averaged more than 93 million viewers on Sunday, making it the second most-watched Super Bowl and third most-watched U.S. telecast ever, Nielsen Media Research reported.

The 3 1/2-hour CBS broadcast of the National Football League championship from Dolphin Stadium in Miami drew nearly 2.5 million more viewers than last year's Super Bowl matchup, in which the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks, Nielsen said on Monday.

Although I've got to admit I really only watch it for the commercials, and I wasn't too impressed with the latest ones.

The Coke commercials I've seen elsewhere. The Bud Light commercial with the crabs worshiping the cooler was kind of funny. The best of the bunch, IMO, was the following one...

Maybe next year they'll have some better stuff. This year? Eh.

J.

Heresy...

Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?

Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn't exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening. Here is why.

The orthodoxy is that Global Warming is caused by humans. As I've posted before, Pluto seems to be warming, which is certainly hard to explain by conventionally accepted GW theories.
I was as opposed to the threats of impending doom global cooling engendered as I am to the threats made about Global Warming. Let me stress I am not denying the phenomenon has occurred. The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA) that has generally continued to the present. These climate changes are well within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun. But there is nothing unusual going on.

Since I obtained my doctorate in climatology from the University of London, Queen Mary College, England my career has spanned two climate cycles. Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970's global cooling became the consensus. This proves that consensus is not a scientific fact. By the 1990's temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I'll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling.

So the politicians can go "See? We've done some good! All we've got to do is do MORE - cut emmissions, crank back global economies, hamstring business - and the problem will be solved!" Their anti-business power base is happy, they can take credit for a natural phenomena, and best of all... it'll all come around agan in 30 years or so.

Sweet deal, ain't it?

J.

February 6, 2007

I'm getting quite disgusted...

With the political process lately. The non-binding resolution has puzzled me - they're expending a whole lot of effort, hate, and discontent on a piece of legislation which is effectively meaningless. Okay, you're against the surge, you're against Bush, we've got the damn message, now could you please try to do something USEFUL?

Then I realized just WHY they were making such a big deal about it. They're being politicians. They're making noises in front of microphones to please their constituency enough so they'll stay elected. Their noises are essentially meaningless - if a politician promises you something, you'd better check your wallet to see how you're going to be paying for it, IF it ever materializes at all.

Do I really expect anything else? I mean, if they were to go off-track and actually DO something, take a stand one way or the other, they might be responsible somewhere down the road for the choices they've made! And what if what they stood for doesn't work out? Then they'll be on record as the responsible parties! This is something that (with few exceptions) the pack of political baboons we're watching flail and shriek want to avoid at all costs.

That's why a non-binding, effectively powerless resolution is so TERRIBLY important! They can take a stand without fear of any repercussion! It's a PERFECT device to amplify their wails of discontent - but it really does make them look like the baboons they are.

All noise, no substance, and yet they delude themselves into thinking they're important and irreplaceable....

J.

Talk about out there...

Astronaut charged with attempted murder - Space News - MSNBC.com

ORLANDO, Fla. - A NASA astronaut accused of trying to kidnap a romantic rival for a space shuttle pilot’s affections was charged with attempted first-degree murder Tuesday and released from jail after posting $25,000 bail.

“The intent was there to do serious bodily injury or death,” said Orlando Police Sgt. Barb Jones, referring to a new steel mallet, knife, rubber tubing and large garbage bags that police found in Lisa Marie Nowak’s possession.

Nowak, a 43-year-old Navy captain and married mother of three, had already been charged with attempted kidnapping, attempted vehicle burglary with battery, destruction of evidence and battery.

Even the best can go off the deep end. And I think driving 900 miles non-stop, donning a disguise, and getting weapons to take out your rival for an unattached astronaut (while you yourself are married) is tying concrete blocks to your ankles and jumping in at the 12 foot mark.

The woman had a job I'd give major portions of my anatomy for... and she's thrown it and all her training away.

That's really out there.

Update: The Booking picture... man, it makes you wonder what sort of non-standard chemicals she's been on...

J.

That's... interesting.

Through Netflix, I've gotten the first DVD of Wonderfalls. It's quirky, and so far rather fun. I like the series premise - a 24 year old woman working in a gift shop where the items, um, talk to her.

Yeah, it's one of those "You need to watch it to get it" shows... and apparently the networks didn't get it - it lasted all of four episodes, though they made 13.

So - the first episode wasn't bad. We'll see what the second one's like tomorrow night.

DVDs - gotta love 'em! Better than TIVO - if you don't mind being patient!

J.

February 7, 2007

Well, foo.

Air America Fire Sale - February 7, 2007

FEBRUARY 7--Bankrupt and about to lose Al Franken, its marquee star, Air America Radio is set to change hands for the bargain price of $4.25 million, according to new court documents. The sales figure was disclosed in a purchase agreement filed yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. According to the agreement, the deal between Air America's owner, Piquant LLC, and a firm controlled by Stephen L. Green, a New York realtor, calls for Green's firm to repay up to $3.25 million in loans provided to Air America after the liberal radio network filed for Chapter 11 protection last October (the company listed debts of $20.2 million). Green's company will also give Piquant LLC $500,000 and pay off up to $500,000 in network debts (the bulk of which, $349,000, is owed to the network's Manhattan landlord). Green's bid topped by more than $1.25 million the nearest offer received by Air America, according to a motion filed along with the purchase agreement. An excerpt from that motion can be found below.

Figure the Democrats will be trying to crank up the Fairness in Broadcasting act again.

You know, for all the popularity (well, supposed popularity) of the left-leaning causes, you'd have thought Air America would be rolling in the dough. They certainly got enough press coverage - yet they couldn't make it. Admittedly, the two times I listened to them I turned it off - you want to talk about frothing hate, I couldn't stand the rants about the right and Bush. Guess it goes to show, you've got a limited audience for real hate speech, which is far from the disagreement you get from the right about leftist desires.

Hate's a hard sell, unless your audience is a crowd of KKK-emulating leftists, looking to string an owl-eating SUV driver up from the nearest old-growth tree. And for all their self-congratulatory speechmaking about how they were really the majority in this country, it looks like the only ones they were fooling were themselves.

J.

I'd like something more than .2% please...

ING Direct Shop@ING Direct

Heh. Not only do they have a 4.5% interest rate on their savings, they've also got cool stuff to spend it on.

Bank of America? They've got nutthin...

Father wanted a high-interest savings account. The 0.20% (And no, that's not a misprint... not 20%, or 2%, but 0.2%) just wouldn't cut it. And I think we ought to move the little guy's savings over to ING Direct. Think I can persuade She Who Must Be Consulted About All Financial Matters?

J.

February 8, 2007

Coke & Pepsi together at last?

Wal-Mart, union join in health care effort

WASHINGTON — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. CEO Lee Scott joined one of his toughest critics, labor leader Andrew Stern, on Wednesday to unveil a political campaign to promote universal health care coverage.

The two longtime antagonists are helping lead a coalition of labor and business leaders urging Congress to end the nation's reliance on employer-backed health insurance and develop a system for providing universal low-cost coverage within five years.

I'll be honest - I'd rather see WalMart provide health care than the Government. I lived with government health care for 9 1/2 years, and had 'access' to it (if I didn't mind taking a day to drive across town and pray at the VA shrine for help) since then. I've had mandatory physicals that took months to complete, thanks to rescheduling and 'absent' doctors. I'll take private sector health care, thank you very much.

But.... not everyone can afford it. (Hell, I couldn't myself for about 6, 7 years after I got out of the AF. Luckily, the worst thing that happened during that time was the flu - and THAT one episode made me a firm believer in flu shots.)

I was emphatically NOT a fan of Hillarycare, because the numbers (for me) just didn't add up. Supposedly, as proposed at the time, it would cost businesses about $700 extra per employee to provide health care for EVERYONE in the country.

Figure 200 million people employed - that's about $140,000,000,000 - or $140 Billion a year. Figure there's 350 million people in the US that would be under the umbrella - that divides out to a health care fund of $400 per person.

During the time we're looking at I had a workman's comp claim - went and got four stitches in the back of my hand. Got some of the paperwork - and they charged workman's comp $650 for the visit and the followups.

By the time administrative costs were figured in, (shall we estimate 20%?) that $400 per person is down around $320 - which might get you one doctor's visit if you don't have anything seriously wrong. Even making the employer match the 'contribution' (and because there was no way to opt out of the program for either victim or physician, it would be pretty solidly coerced out of my paycheck) gets you up to a point where you could get six stitches.

And I think 20%'s kind of low for government overhead....

So - would WalMart be any better? I tend to think their overhead would be lower, and they could be competitive with other insurance companies.

Besides - think what they could do for aftermarket accessories! Stents in three colors for $8.97, hip and shoulder joints for $97.53 (and a small installation fee...) and bilateral hernia repair specials!

This might work out pretty well. Strange that WalMart would get together with the unions to provide it, though...

J.

Small things... have unexpected results.

Let's be honest - we live in a world where lying and cheating aren't unusual, and misrepresentation of someone's words is an acceptable form of debate (especially in the political arena). Yet we still manage (somehow) to make our society function... though by the news it sure looks like there's more sand than grease in the gears.

One of the things we learn along the way (or are told) is that honesty is its' own reward. Well, it's good to tell yourself that when you pass by the honor snack bar over in B-25 and drop in your 50 cents for the candy bar you snag. After all, if you pay for the candy bar, whoever is running it will buy more candy bars - ensuring there will be one later when you pass by again. Sure, you could take the candy bar without paying - and I'll admit to having done that a couple of times when I didn't have the cash on me - but then I pay for three when I go by again and get another candy bar. This soothes my own sense of honesty and fair play.

I think, sometimes, that I've got an overly developed ethical sense. Part of it comes, I think, from screwing up pretty badly along the way and trying to make amends, part of it from being excessively critical of my own actions in the present. (It's one of the things I wish I could crank down sometimes.) Part of it also comes from a sense that how I act when the little guy ISN'T watching is just as important as how I act when he IS. And if I don't have the habit of honesty when he's NOT around, I'm going to be dishonest sometime when he is. And he's going to see that.

I don't want to fail him like that.

I know the world will fail him soon enough. When he gets old enough to comprehend our political system as it is instead of how it's portrayed in our school books, he'll look at what goes on and hopefully understand that the people we elect to office are human beings - with all the faults and foibles that come with the territory, as well as the virtues and moments when the right thing is done even if it turns out to be an immediate disadvantage for the doer. (There's been a number of times in the last decade when I've corrected salesfolk when I was undercharged for some items - sometimes even when Aaron's been with me.) Doing the thing that's right can be costly sometimes, and you'll not get much appreciation for it. In politics the expedient thing seems to win out over the right thing a lot of the time, with the politician being able to tell himself it's the 'right' thing. But I have a hard time lying to myself like that.

And the school he's in - it's not representative of the world at large, or even the school system. Kids aren't allowed to namecall, be nasty with each other, or engage in the petty cruelties that are the norm in public school when the teacher isn't watching. Eventually he'll be out of it, and then we'll see what we've managed to teach him morally. Give him small examples of virtuous behavior - and perhaps when he's tempted to do the wrong thing he'll instead do what's right... even if it doesn't gain him much advantage.

So I can't slip when he's watching... or even when he's not. A man is made of many things, of many moments, of many choices and the consequences thereof - and what may seem trivial to one man is a source of regret and semi-constant atonement and amends for another. I owe it to the little guy to be the best example I can - because what other role models for fatherhood does he have?

J.

February 9, 2007

Well, that's just plain wierd.

I did a diatribe on honesty last night...

Part of our work involved acting as a cleaning and evaluation point for computer gear coming off-lease. We've seen some strange stuff come through, including ancient LCD projectors with odd lens arrangements (requiring a 180 degree spherical screen - apparently for some VR project that didn't pan out) rack mount servers, literal tons of computers, small portable PCs and the like. We... accumulate... the odd items, then shove them over to either the salvage section or return them to the lease agent. But we cleaned out the cages today, found a lot of one-off stuff that's so old it wouldn't be salable on EBay.

At the end of the day we were cleaning up. On one of the pallets was a rack-mount server pull-out LCD monitor. It had definitely seen better days - there were some scratches on the face of it that went through the anti-glare coating and carved out divots in the plastic. It was going to be junked anyway, so I asked the boss what he wanted for it. He shrugged. "We've written it off anyway - if it works and you want it, take it." I tried it, and it worked. (There's some pixels that aren't firing, but that's to be expected. The gouges are a different matter, but not noticeable in the dark.)

Ethically, I believe I'm clear on this. My boss approved me taking it, otherwise it would have been discarded. It's about seven years old, if not older and been written off by the company as damaged. I offered to pay for it, and was told it was junk.

Wierd. I go on about honesty one day, and the next get a monitor. Karma's real interesting at times.

Of course, the question is... was it right to take it?

J.

February 10, 2007

Your Tax Dollars At Work

The Governmental Answer to Bird Flu.

The Turbo-Powered 4-Engine Radar-Assisted Cargo-Carrying Bird Impaler.

Get 'em one at a time!

J.

All Blondes, All the Time.

My Way News - More Tests Needed in Smith Death Case shows that the cause of death for Anna Nicole Smith is still uncertain.

But was she worth 24/7 media attention now that her slow-motion train wreck of a life is over?

I'll freely admit that the camera was kind to her. The few minutes of video I saw once from her reality-tv show... not so much. There's some people who are at their best when time can be taken to craft a visual, stationary persona, and she was one of them. When she moved, or spoke, the illusion was shattered. With her main assets being a pretty face and a nice figure, topped of with a pair of hypertrophied mammary glands, it's both remarkable that she made it as far as she did, and unfortunately ended up with the people who likely assisted her in giving her everything she needed... or thought she did. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for... you might get it.

She wanted to be thought of as a Marylin Monroe-ish archtype. I don't think she made it - she didn't have the intelligence or personality of Marylin, or the talent. At best, she'll be remembered as an archtypical blonde... all hair and boobs, a pretty face with nothing behind it.

And her suriving child... that poor baby will have one hell of a life in the spotlight... assuming she survives long enough to grow up. I'm thinking that the death of Anna's son, and now her death, were simply the means to set up a way to get hands on the millions left behind.

RIP, Anna Nicole Smith - you got what you 'wanted', and that may well have been the worst thing that could have happened to you.

J.

February 11, 2007

Mayflies, opining on coolness from a cloud shadow...

Or, I'm starting to become a believer in man-made global warming. Yes, I know I've been saying all along that I thought the time scale we've been looking at has been way too short. And that other factors may well be part of the problem - as evidenced in

An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change-News-UK-TimesOnline

So one awkward question you can ask, when you’re forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is “Why is east Antarctica getting colder?” It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. ... The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.

That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do. After becoming much more active during the 20th century, the sun now stands at a high but roughly level state of activity. Solar physicists warn of possible global cooling, should the sun revert to the lazier mood it was in during the Little Ice Age 300 years ago.

Climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis. The 20th-century episode, or Modern Warming, was just the latest in a long string of similar events produced by a hyperactive sun, of which the last was the Medieval Warming.

The Chinese population doubled then, while in Europe the Vikings and cathedral-builders prospered. Fascinating relics of earlier episodes come from the Swiss Alps, with the rediscovery in 2003 of a long-forgotten pass used intermittently whenever the world was warm.

So the world warms and cools - and it's difficult to determine from a short time frame just where we are in regards to global warming or cooling. (And if you're in certain sections of NY this week, I think you'd be pretty skeptical on the Global Warming thing, personally, as you look at ten, twelve feet of snow outside your window.)

Richard A. Lovett has written an article for Analog SF Magazine called "The Ice Age That Wasn't", which postulates that human action has indeed changed the climate... that if it wasn't for the invention of agriculture about 12,000years back, the precessions of a 41,000 year cycle, a 26,000 year cycle, and a 100,000 year cycle would have us in a pretty chilly situation right now. Agriculture started really bumping up the amount of methane in the atmosphere 5000 years back, according to a source article by William F. Ruddiman. (I'd link directly to the Analog article, since the source article is heavy wading, but it's not available for free on-line.)

Through ice core reading, methane peaks and valleys were found - with the peaks caused by an abundance of rotting vegetation. Methane levels fluctuate with the 100k, 41k, and 26k year cycles. The last peak was about 11k years back... but about 5000 years ago, the drop turned around and started going up, way before it could have normally. The abstract of the article kind of lays it out -

The anthropogenic era is generally thought to have begun 150 to 200 years ago, when the industrial revolution began producing CO2 and CH4 at rates sufficient to alter their compositions
in the atmosphere. A different hypothesis is posed here: anthropogenic emissions of these gases first altered atmospheric concentrations thousands of years ago. This hypothesis is based on three arguments. (1) Cyclic variations in CO2 and CH4 driven by Earth-orbital changes during the last 350,000 years predict decreases throughout the Holocene, but the CO2 trend began an anomalous increase 8000 years ago, and the CH4 trend did so 5000 years ago. (2) Published explanations for these mid- to late-Holocene gas increases based on natural forcing can be rejected based on paleoclimatic evidence. (3) A wide array of archeological, cultural, historical and geologic evidence points to viable explanations tied to anthropogenic changes resulting from early agriculture in Eurasia, including the start of forest clearance by 8000 years ago and of rice irrigation by 5000 years ago. In recent millennia, the estimated warming caused by these early gas emissions reached a global-mean value of ∼0.8 ◦C and roughly 2 ◦C at high latitudes, large enough to have stopped a glaciation of northeastern Canada predicted by two kinds of climatic models. CO2 oscillations of ∼10 ppm in the last 1000 years are too large to be explained by external (solar-volcanic) forcing, but they can be explained by outbreaks of bubonic plague that caused historically documented farm abandonment in western Eurasia. Forest regrowth on abandoned farms sequestered enough carbon to account for the observed CO2 decreases. Plague-driven CO2 changes were also a significant causal factor in temperature changes during the Little Ice Age (1300–1900 AD).

...

The hypothesis advanced here is that the Anthropocene actually began thousands of years ago as a result of the discovery of agriculture and subsequent technological innovations in the practice of farming. This alternate view draws on two lines of evidence. First, the orbitally controlled variations in CO2 and CH4 concentrations that had previously prevailed for several hundred thousand years fail to explain the anomalous gas trends that developed in the middle and late Holocene.

This is a theory of global warming that I can live with. It takes in long-term geophysical cycles, short term population trends, and covers objections and anomalies sufficiently well that it appears pretty comprehensive.

There's one big problem with it. It ain't politically correct, and IF through some wierd crash program we were able to sequester significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, we'd see temperatures drop like a freezin' rock. As laid out in an article he did for Scientific American... Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: How Did Humans First Alter Global Climate?

The consequences of these surprising rises have been profound. Without them, current temperatures in northern parts of North America and Europe would be cooler by three to four degrees Celsius--enough to make agriculture difficult. In addition, an incipient ice age--marked by the appearance of small ice caps--would probably have begun several thousand years ago in parts of northeastern Canada. Instead the earth's climate has remained relatively warm and stable in recent millennia.
This is science the way it's supposed to be - come up with an end state, make theories, and find facts to fit the theory, not the other way around. It's a thick read, but I think it's worth the time expended....

J.

February 12, 2007

Unintended consequences...

Raise the minimum wage - and jobs go away. Isn't that a strange thing?

New wage boost puts squeeze on teenage workers across Arizona

And so the law of unintended consquences rears it's ugly head - it's hard to argue that this was unforseen. But it DOES show how much Democrats 'care' about the poor - they care so much they'll enact laws that end up making more of them, in the guise of 'helping'.

J.

For something somewhat different...

Tales of Future Past explores the future as it SHOULD have been. Everything from heliport-topped houses to space travel, food pills to atomic power - it's covered here.

Funny, though - they never predicted computers as being so common that people would have one or more in their houses...

J.

Economy Sucks - Surplus Widens.

Federal surplus widens to $38.2 billion in January - MarketWatch

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. federal budget surplus widened by 82% in January to $38.2 billion from $21 billion a year earlier, the Treasury Department reported Monday.

The surplus is slightly below the Congressional Budget Office estimate of about $40 billion.

January usually as a surplus month because many individuals must make estimated tax payments, analysts said.

Receipts rose 13% year-over-year to a record $260.6 billion, while outlays increased 6% to $222.4 billion, the Treasury said.

Notice how the Dems aren't beating the 'Gotta do something about the Economy' drum any more?

They're not completely stupid.

J.

This look familiar to you?

It doesn't to me.

Michael Yon : Online Magazine � Blog Archive � What in the World is This?

Mystery-Weapon.jpg

In the face of all this “new” controversy about “foreign” weapons in the battle space, I recalled some of the many photos I.ve taken of caches of weapons captured by Iraqi and American forces in Iraq. The photo above is from one of these.

None of the military persons who've seen the photo were able to identify the weapon depicted in it.

If you can identify it, put in a comment over at his site.

It almost looks more like a toy. Wide in the back, a pipe forward - if this were a toy, that'd make some sense. By the handgrip, it's about 5 inches in diameter toward the rear. The shoulder stock is... crude. I don't see any way of holding and aiming it comfortably. A recoilless rifle of some kind? No, because it almost seems like this was designed to be fired prone... A scope for aiming, which implies fairly good long distance accuracy (or hoped for, at any rate...) which implies a fair bit of range. Maybe a missile launcher?

It'd be nice to see the diameter of the bore. That'd help a lot.

Anyway, if you've an inkiling, inkle over to Michael Yon's site, and let him now.

J.

February 13, 2007

Mookie Bails...

Why? Because he fears the 'ineffectual; surge.

ABC News: Al Sadr Fled Iraq, Fearing U.S. Bombs

Feb. 13, 2007 — While members of the U.S. House of Representatives take turns weighing in on President Bush's planned troop surge in Iraq, the focus in Iraq is not on the arrival of more U.S. troops, but the departure of one of the country's most powerful men, Moqtada al Sadr and members of his army.

According to senior military officials, al Sadr left Baghdad two to three weeks ago and fled to Tehran, Iran, where he has family.

Al Sadr commands the Mahdi army, one of the most formidable insurgent militias in Iraq, and his move coincides with the announced U.S. troop surge in Baghdad.

Seems he didn't want his turban disturbed by a JDAM... not that he's DONE anything that would warrant such an action... right?

J.

Hmmm. - Updated

Officer called hero after Utah rampage - Crime & Punishment - MSNBC.com

SALT LAKE CITY - An off-duty police officer having an early Valentine’s Day dinner with his wife was credited Tuesday with helping stop a rampage in a crowded shopping mall by an 18-year-old gunman who killed five people before he was cut down.

A day after the shooting, investigators struggled to figure out why a trench-coated Sulejmen Talovic opened fire on shoppers with a supremely calm look on his face.

...

Talovic had a backpack full of ammunition, a shotgun and a .38-caliber pistol, police said. Investigators knew little about Talovic, except than he lived in Salt Lake City with his mother and was a Bosnian refugee, according to Reuters. He had four minor incidents with police when he was a juvenile, police said. He was enrolled in numerous city schools before withdrawing in 2004, the school district said.

A Bosnian refugee? Hmm. Wonder what religion he was?

And lest I be accused of insensitivity... if you'll take a look at the wiki entry for the Bosnian war - you'll be hard pressed to find a mention of Islam in the article. Up at the top, they quickly redefine Bosnian Muslims as 'Bosniaks', a term I hadn't heard before in the news.

Ain't that odd? It's like they don't want to mention the 'm' word for whatever reason...

Update:

Over at 'Talk' portion of the Wiki article about Talovic, there's quite a discussion about his ethnic and religious background, with folks arguing that any mention that he's a Muslim should be stricken from the record.

Well, at least some are arguing that Wiki needs to put out ALL the info, not just what's PC.

Why the need for everything to be politically correct? Who decides what is correct and what is not? It is up to the individual to decide what is PC and what is not, rendering it completely useless without some objective standpoint to judge it. The man was Muslim; that is a fact of the case, and therefore it belongs. Why is everyone so damned liberal here!?!
And apparently he had a mullet. That's damn suspicious right there.

J.

February 14, 2007

If it isn't treason...

What is it?

Over at Victory Caucus, they found the following bit of interesting news at MoveCongress.Org. Now, I haven't heard of either of these two sites before, but what's displayed is pretty interesting.

I DID see the original quote, and it was as it was highlighted in yellow. Undermining the President's policy is probably an unfortunate choice of words - but it's what was there. And last I checked, that wasn't on the list of things you should do on your summer vacation... unless you're Benedict Arnold.

Yeah, I know - it's harsh and unfair, Murtha's a vet, a hero, worth more than me, yada yada yada... but in his own words he intends to undermine the President.

Screw that. One more example of why I've learned to distrust anyone with a D after their name - except for Miller and Lieberman.

Written by N.Z.
Wednesday, 14 February 2007

Just in case there was any doubt about the true intentions of the defeatists in Congress, check out the following, which was sent out via email and can be seen (until they smarten up and decide to edit it) here :

 

 

Coming Tomorrow!!

CHAIRMAN JACK MURTHA TO OUTLINE COMMITTEE STRATEGY ON BUSH’S IRAQ FUNDING REQUEST THURSDAY MORNING AT 11:00 AM EST ON MOVECONGRESS.ORG

Join Us!
 
Join us tomorrow at 11:00 AM EST when Congressman Jack Murtha will outline new details of a strategy to use his Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense to oppose the Bush war in Iraq. Congressman Jim Moran, another Committee member, predicts the Committee action will be the “bite” that follows this week’s Congressional “bark” – the three-day debate on a non-binding Congressional resolution.

The Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense has begun consideration of the president’s $93 billion supplemental appropriations request for Iraq. Action on the request will be the first opportunity for the new Congress to exercise its “power-of-the-purse” over the Iraq war.

Chairman Murtha will describe his strategy for not only limiting the deployment of troops to Iraq but undermining other aspects of the president’s foreign and national security policy. Chairman Murtha discusses these steps in a videotaped conversation with former Congressman Tom Andrews (D-ME), the National Director of the Win Without War coalition, sponsor of MoveCongress.org.
Join us here tomorrow for this exclusive interview.
 

 
(highlighting and emphasis on the key sentence mine.)
 
Update 8:11pm EST:  And as predicted, MoveCongress.org has sanitized their page and removed the offending sentence above. Sorry kids: multi-hour response time just doesn't cut it here in the big leagues. Gotta be faster than that !
 

They DID catch on after a while, probably due to the increased traffic as people went "I don't BELIEVE they'd put that up on-line" - but as I said I saw it also. Wish I'd had the chance to do a screen-shot of it, but I wasn't at a system where I could do so.

Of course, it probably was just some overzealous e-mail writer.

Probably.

Trust in the Dems. They know what's best for the country, for the people. Hopefully, they'll also supply large tubs of vaseline, 'cause otherwise it's gonna hurt like hell when they get into power.

J.

February 15, 2007

But remember, the Surge won't work.

That's why they're trying so hard to block it. After all, war is a Bad Thing, the Worst Thing Of All, and you shouldn't fight one, ever. ESPECIALLY when it looks like you could win.

Official: Al-Qaida in Iraq leader wounded - Conflict in Iraq - MSNBC.com

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq was wounded and an aide was killed in a clash Thursday with Iraqi forces north of Baghdad, the Interior Ministry spokesman said.

The clash occurred near Balad, a major U.S. base about 50 miles north of the capital, Brig. Gen Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.

Khalaf said al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri was wounded and his aide, identified as Abu Abdullah al-Majemaai, was killed.

It'll just make the insurgents mad, and put more of our forces in harm's way.

We ought to just release him, turn around and walk away from Iraq - right? Let things take their course, and in thirty years or so we can open trade relations with whatever is left.

Just like we did with Viet Nam.

Of course, it'll be kind of rough on the folks we leave, probably be a couple of million deaths before it all settles out - but hey, it's not like they can VOTE for the Democrats or anything... They're just not important at all.

J.

Then again...

Maybe a little war ain't a bad thing.

Iraq: The Battle for Baghdad Begins

If you've been following the action long enough, you can pick out the accurate stories. And the talk on the street and in the shops is also pretty dependable. That said, most people believe al Qaeda in Iraq is finished. After boasting last Fall that they would establish a safe zone in western Iraq, and failing to do anything close to that, the Islamic terrorists lost whatever credibility they had left. Most of the terrorist bombings these days are the work of Iraqi Sunni Arab organizations, who still believe that if you make the Iraqi Shia Arabs mad enough, they will get so nasty that neighboring Sunni Arab nations will feel compelled to invade. This plan has split the Sunni Arab nationalists, mainly because the invasion shows no sign of happening, and the brighter terrorists point out that the Saudi army is unlikely to win against the Americans. In a trend that began two years ago, Sunni Arab factions are continuing to battle each other. U.S. troops stand aside when they encounter "Red-on-Red" fighting, then deal with the winner.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi Shia Arab militias, especially the Sadr forces (the Mahdi Army), have lost whatever unity and discipline they once had. Factionalism has taken over as several of Sadr's lieutenants compete for popularity and territory by driving Sunni Arabs out of Baghdad neighborhoods. Most of Iraq's Sunni Arabs have been chased from their homes since 2003, and that process has accelerated in the last year. The Iraqi Sunni Arabs are quite wealthy compared to Iraqi Shia, and the Shia gangs have been fighting each other over the loot, and the power. Gang war, literally, because many of the militiamen moonlight as gangsters (or vice versa).


While the number of terror bombings has been declining in the past year, the crime rate has not, and most people in central Iraq are looking forward to the "Battle for Baghdad." Brigades of troops are arriving from the Kurdish north and Shia south, and more American troops can be seen on the streets. There are more raids in Baghdad. But all the average Iraqi wants is safer streets, fewer kidnappings and a little peace and quiet. Realizing that that kind of paradise is not likely to be found in the Middle East, Baghdad has been suffering a major brain drain in the past year, with the most educated fleeing for foreign countries. Europe and North America are preferred destinations, but any place with a lower crime rate will do.

We're not in the end-game yet, but maybe we're getting toward the end of the third quarter? Just wish there were a clear scoreboard we could look at... though I think Saddam's death and Mookie's departure certainly boosted the numbers for our side...

J.

February 17, 2007

Funny, the things that don't get covered...

Take a look at what's not deemed important...

Pajamas Media: [Paris Blues] Underreported, underattended, overrated, and underplayed
Well, bad things do go away because they're not reported - and then they come back and tear great chunks out of your cultural hide later.

J.

Happy About Surrender

Yahoo! News Photo

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) smiles during a news conference following a House of Representatives vote on the Iraq resolution, on Capitol Hill in Washington February 16, 2007. (Jason Reed/Reuters)

The fools can't see the forest for the trees. They're so hot to do anything they can to damage Bush they don't give a damn about long-term effects.

As long as they can get into power, it doesn't matter what happens with the WoT, it doesn't matter what happens in Iraq, it doesn't matter what happens in Europe or the ME. Power is everything - and it doesn't matter in the long run what the aftereffects are of what they do to get that power.

What a damn joke on us.

J.

February 18, 2007

Technology's always changing...

But it sure seems like the problems don't!

YouTube - Introducing the book

Enjoy!

J.

A Quick brief on the Surge.

AEI - Short Publication

In brief, it outlines the purpose and thinking behind what's going on. The last sentence is the kicker.

Failure in Iraq today will require far greater sacrifices tomorrow in far more desperate circumstances.

Committing to victory now will demonstrate America’s strength to our friends and enemies around the world.

So... think about what the Dems are showing when they commit to failure in Iraq. Because that's what they're doing, for all their talk about 'supporting the troops' - they want to lose, not win. To win would mean Bush was right, and that can't be tolerated at all.

J.

February 19, 2007

I just don't get it.

(That's nothing new, right?)

I'm looking at this non-binding resolution against the surge crap that the Dems have tried to pull, and it really makes no sense to me. But then, I tend to work more in the realm of reality than political fantasy, and that's about all I can see that the Dems have been doing - indulging in political fantasies.

A non-binding resolution is essentially not worth the paper it's printed on. Yet these folks are acting like it's the most important piece of legislation to come down the pike since, oh, the Repeal of Prohibition. That's an awful lot of effort and political good will spent to... do what? Send Bush a message? Send the soldiers a message? Send the enemy a message? Or is it simply for the pleasure of political masturbation, and they aren't thinking about what's going to happen after they get their rocks off? Or an appeal to the nutroots side for more support?

Because Bush will still be in office. The soldiers will still be there. The surge (which by many accounts is actually going well) will still happen. The folks who want to destabilize/destroy Iraq will still be trying to destabilize/destroy Iraq. Iran's not going to stop developing nuclear weapons, and neither will NK.

So precisely what, aside from a momentary warm feeling and a sticky mess, did it accomplish?

I wonder if the Dems figure that in 2009, if they get the Presidency and both Houses, they'll go "Okay, got THAT out of the way. NOW we'll deal with the WoT!" Of course, that they're years late won't matter - and they can always blame Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons on Bush - but that excuse is going to wear pretty thin, pretty fast.

Failing in Iraq will mean hundreds of thousands dead, if not millions. Iran getting nuclear weapons very possibly means an attack on a major city - and it could be either in Israel or the US, whichever is easier. The Dems don't take the war seriously, except to evaluate it in terms of short-term political advantage, and at this point any attempt to start taking it seriously would be (to my mind) questionable at best.

Do I think the Dems have any clue what they're doing in the long run? No. I see no indication of that. It would appear they think they can ignore anything that's happening overseas with impunity.

Do I think the Dems, if they got full control, would have a clue? No. There will be plenty of 'feel-good' stuff passed and they're going to be pretty ham-handed with the economy and the military, but the effects (like the results of the minimum wage hike and the luxury tax) will not be what they expect. But they'll be able to blame Bush, for a year or so, and handwave off doing something constructive/appropriate on the WoT (also blaming Bush) but eventually their constituency will want them to actually DO something....

And I don't think they've got a clue about what to do with that any more.

J.

February 20, 2007

I'm getting more than a bit disgusted...

With the craven political cowardice and opportunism of the current crap of Democrats.

No, that's not much of a typo above - I'm REALLY disgusted with the loudmouthed anti-surge, anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-victory, anti-troop bastards that inhabit that poisoned ground inside the Beltway. All I can say is, it must be the water.

On a brighter note - another bit that indicates that maybe something's working in Iraq... bizzare as THAT may sound.

IraqPundit: A Baghdad Homecoming

Here’s a quick snapshot of the Baghdad security crackdown, from my own family’s point of view. My story involves only a single household, but – so far – it has a happy ending. I don’t pretend that this one household’s story is a counterweight to all the misery and murder that the crackdown is intended to address, but it’s my profound hope that this story is – or soon will be --representative of many other such individual tales that will be told by many other Iraqi families.

One aspect of the security crackdown that has received little attention involves Baghdadis who have been driven from their homes as a result of sectarian conflict. According to a story in the Iraqi newspaper, Alsabaah [Arabic], the security plan will allow hundreds (and ultimately many more) of these families to return to their own houses. One such successful return involves my own relatives.

Good luck to them!

J.

Indentured Servitude...

My old Motorola cell phone (almost two years old!) has pretty well worn out the battery. Swung by TMobile to see about getting a new battery - and walked out with two new phones. (One for me, and one for She Who Occasionally Needs A Phone who's been using my hand-me-down Nokia.) After figuring out what was REALLY needed, (like connectivity, comfort in the hand, and a reasonable battery life) I ended up choosing the Samsung t209. No Bluetooth, no camera, few bells - but it'll do the job, and is nice and loud.

And it was 'free' - actually, it cost two more years tied to the TMobile leash. But that's not that bad - there's connectivity wherever I'm likely to need it, even out in ABQ (not that it's an issue any more).

Still, I could wish that consumer electronics like the below were available.

Why is U.S. always last in line for new phones? - The Practical Futurist - MSNBC.com

What are we missing? Just one example in Barcelona this week was the Samsung Ultra Smart F700, a sleek elegant black phone with a high-resolution color touchscreen, slide-out keyboard, a five megabyte auto-focus camera, all operating on an ultra-high-speed wireless network that will download a 4 megabyte MP3 song in four seconds. The Ultra Smart F700 looks as cool as Apple’s upcoming iPhone — and actually does more. But we’re not going to see it in the U.S. for a long time to come: for starters, we don’t even have a network it will run on.

Sigh. It's rough being a gadget junkie on a budget...

J.

Germans produce Offensive Float.

Might want to look at it quick, before they decide to 'hide' it a bit deeper.

Getty Images NewsMaker - Detail View

Dusseldorf, GERMANY: A carnival float showing two identical men with long beards and armed with explosives and a gun, takes part in the "Rose Monday" carnival procession in Duesseldorf, western Germany, 19 February 2007. One man is marked with the word ?Reality? and the other with ?Cliche?. Many floats with political messages can be seen at the traditional "Rose Monday" carnival street parade where party-goers fill the streets in fancy dress and beer consumption soars. AFP PHOTO DDP/VOLKER HARTMANN GERMANY OUT. (Photo credit should read VOLKER HARTMANN/AFP/Getty Images)

After all, we must not offend those adherents of "The Religion Of Peace" who might take offense and start to kill people.

More info on the parade here.

I'm thinking that people are starting to realize that threats and beheadings aren't indications that a religion is peaceful.

You know, I really kind of miss those days when I could delude myself that Islam wasn't a threat. And I know that it's a small portion of Islam that's a threat - but that intolerant minorty certainly paints the majority in a bad light. The tolerant majority had better get a handle on how to deal with the intolerant ones PDQ, or there's going to be even more hell to pay.

J.

Running for two years...

There's just SO much time to make mistakes in the Presidential race.

foxcarolina.com - News, Weather, Video - Greenville, Spartanburg, Asheville, Anderson | Edwards: Israel NOT a threat to world peace

WASHINGTON John Edwards' presidential campaign wants to make it clear that he doesn't consider Israel a threat to world peace.

A spokesman for the 2008 Democratic candidate issued a statement today denying such a report on Variety.com.

Columnist Peter Bart reports that Edwards told a Hollywood fundraiser last month that the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities is perhaps the greatest short-term threat to world peace.

Remember - the Democrats count on the gullibility of their constituency. Faced with a transcript, what are you going to believe?

Yes - it's possible to mis-speak. But after a while, you've got to wonder if it's really a misstatement at all.

J.

February 21, 2007

Chem Warfare in Iraq

But remember, the insurgents are the good guys here, battling against the eEvile Iraqi Gubbiment.

My Way News - Iraqi Insurgents Use 2nd 'Dirty' Bomb

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Insurgents exploded a truck carrying chlorine gas canisters Wednesday - the second such "dirty" chemical attack in two days - while a U.S. official said ground fire apparently forced the downing of a Black Hawk helicopter. All nine aboard the aircraft were rescued.

The attacks offer a sweeping narrative on evolving tactics by Sunni insurgents who have proved remarkably adaptable.

Military officials worry extremists may have recently gained more access to firepower such as shoulder-fired anti-aircraft rockets and heavy machine guns - and more expertise to use them. The Black Hawk would be at least the eighth U.S. helicopter to crash or be taken down by hostile fire in the past month.

The gas cloud in Baghdad, meanwhile, suggests possible new and coordinated strategies by bombers trying to unleash toxic - and potentially deadly - materials. "Terrorists are using dirty means," said Brig. Gen. Qassim Moussawi, an Iraqi military spokesman.

Well, when what you're doing isn't working (winning the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis through market bombings) you have to try something else. It would also make sense, in a rather disgusting sort of way, to try to boost the 'bang for the buck' of each suicide bomber expended. And putting gas/chlorine canisters in the vehicle would do that...

Something I'm wondering - just how limited is the pool of suicide bombers? Yeah, I know that there's a fair supply of them, but I find it hard to believe that the sectarian animosity inside Iraq would suffice to provide a whole lot of splody-dopes. They're like any munition inside a weapons-system, with the unfortunate drawback that it literally takes years to produce, indoctrinate, and train a self-guided protoplasmic bomb-carrier.

What will happen when/if they run out?

J.

February 22, 2007

If even RUSSIA gets it...

AJacksonian made an interesting observation in Rusted Sky: Chem Warfare in Iraq - he pointed to an article in RIA Novosti, pointing out that Iraq isn't Viet Nam. (To emphasize the point, they say it's much worse than Viet Nam ever was. Oh, well. You've got to expect that...) If THEY can see the differences, why can't our Democrats? (Oh, never mind. I know - it's not in their political interests.)

Time will tell one way or the other in Iraq. I tend to think it can be stabilized, but our political hacks prepping for a bugout make me think that when we demonstrate a lack of the will to win, there's no way we CAN win and all the bastards that want to turn Iraq into a hellhole have to do is wait a couple more years until our political winds change.

And it makes me wonder how many of those bastards are in our Congress.

J.

Well, it's about time.

About time SOMEONE decided to take a chance.

Cosmic Log : Bigelow shoots for the moon

Even as Bigelow Aerospace gears up for launching its second prototype space station into orbit, the company has set its sights on something much, much bigger: a project to assemble full-blown space villages at a work site between Earth and the moon, then drop them to the lunar surface, ready for immediate move-in.

In an exclusive interview this week, Las Vegas billionaire Robert Bigelow confirmed that his company has been talking about the concept with NASA – and that the first earthly tests of the techniques involved would take place later this year. The scenario he sketched out would essentially make Bigelow a general contractor for the final frontier.

NASA's become pretty risk-adverse, willing to spend years testing to avoid even a possibility of something not working. The Space Station is a marvelous case in point there - how many different design studies were done before they started bending metal to actually see if something worked? Perfection was the standard, and it takes a long time and is very expensive.

Bigelow seems to be going "Let's put something up, and see if it works. If it doesn't, we'll learn something from the failure and not make the same mistake again."

Of the two methods, that's the faster and cheaper. When it comes to man-rated spacecraft, that's another matter - but you can still learn a lot from sending up prototypes to test out the systems, instead of designing it to death and watching the budget balloon.

J.

Let the nose of the camel...

into the tent, and pretty soon, you'll find yourself out in the cold and the camel filling the tent.

Daily Express: The World's Greatest Newspaper

MUSLIMS: 'BAN' UN-ISLAMIC SCHOOLS
21/02/07
By Gabriel Milland

DEMANDS for a ban on “un-Islamic” activities in schools will be set out by the Muslim Council of Britain today.

Targets include playground games, swimming lessons, school plays, parents’ evenings and even vaccinations.

And the calls for all children to be taught in Taliban-style conditions will be launched with the help of a senior Government education adviser.

Professor Tim Brighouse, chief adviser to London schools, was due to attend the event at the capital’s biggest mosque.

His presence there was seen as “deeply worrying”, and a sign that the report was backed by the Government.

Tory MP Greg Hands said: “The MCB needs to realise it has to move closer to the rest of the community, not away from it.

“The presence of Tim Brighouse implies Government back­ing of this report. This is very worrying.”

Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society said the report was a “recipe for disaster”.

He added: “Schools with even just a handful of Muslim kids will find they have to follow these guidelines because there aren’t the staff to have one set of classes for Muslims and another for the rest.

“The MCB shouldn’t try to force its religious agenda on children who may not want it. The Government needs to send the MCB packing. Schools should be about teaching, not preaching.”

We'll see where this goes. I hope like anything it doesn't go anywhere - the Brits have it bad enough already.

J.

February 24, 2007

Yes! Yes! Yes!

BWAHAHAHA!!!!!

Tired of mowing the lawn? Pave it over - Lawns & Landscaping - MSN Real Estate

FINALLY the idea's gone mainstream - all I've got to do is convince She Who Must Be Consulted it's time to call in the concrete trucks!

J.

Personally, I am fan of #15.

The Greatest Innovations of All Time

And 10, 11, 12, 13...

But the big thing is... each of those increased what could be done at the time. Although it's kind of early to see how #14 will shake out, there's potential advances in medicine that'll really be amazing.

It's also kind of odd to consider just how fast change is happening, and if you look at the list, you'll see the last 7 occurred in less that 250 years, while the first 7 took centuries to make an impact...

J.

Bad assumptions there...

BREITBART.COM - Iran: U.S. Not in Position to Start War

Iran said Saturday the United States was not in a position to take military action against it and urged Washington and its allies to engage in dialogue.

"We do not see America in a position to impose another crisis on its tax payers inside America by starting another war in the region," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters.

They're making an assumption that any response to a provocative act would be either ground or air based conventional weaponry.

I suppose it would depend on the provocation. If it were something really noticeable, like a nuke on Israel - I can see a justification for two or three nuked cities in response. And I'd hate to see that happen, by the way. I'm pretty content with only having two nukes used in war in the last 60, 70 years.

Still - Iran's got to realize that they're very vulnerable, and can have the shit kicked out of them on very short notice. It all depends on just how nasty they want to play it.

J.

February 25, 2007

Unprecedented cooperation...

Report: 3 Gulf states agree to IAF overflights en route to Iran - Haaretz - Israel News

Three Arab states in the Persian Gulf would be willing to allow the Israel Air force to enter their airspace in order to reach Iran in case of an attack on its nuclear facilities, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasa reported on Sunday.

According to the report, a diplomat from one of the gulf states visiting Washington on Saturday said the three states, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, have told the United States that they would not object to Israel using their airspace, despite their fear of an Iranian response.

Al-Siyasa further reported that NATO leaders are urging Turkey to open its airspace for an Attack on Iran as well and to also open its airports and borders in case of a ground attack.

According to a British diplomat who spoke to an Al-Siyasa correspondent, Turkey will not repeat the mistake it made in 2003, when it refused to open its airspace to U.S. Air Force overflights en route to attacking Iraq.

Notice the emphasis? Looks to me like Iran's neighbors aren't necessarily sanguine about the intentions of Amadamnutjob and his mullah handlers.

It would seem the protestations of peaceful intent aren't believed by those folks. Makes you wonder just why, and just why so many in the West are trying their hardest to paint Iran as innocent and the US as the aggressor.

J.

February 26, 2007

"Do as I say, not as I do..."

Tennessee Center for Policy Research

Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.

Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

But hey, he works HARD for that electricity! He's got an image to maintain, and he's putting the word out on global warming! So who cares if he leaves his windows open year-around, and has an air-conditioned pool house? He's an ex-VP, he shouldn't EVER have to sweat or shiver!

I'm reminded of the line from Animal Farm - "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." You've got to wonder about an environmentalist who'll not even TRY to be an example to the great unwashed masses, but instead rely on his 'moral authority'.

J.

Aw, buggers.

Common painkillers raise heart risk - Yahoo! News
Apparently tylenol and ibuprofen raise your blood pressure.

Damn. I'm only taking two arthritis strength tylenol an evening, along with 800 mg Ibuprofen. If I don't, I can pretty well kiss a good night's sleep goodbye. During the summer I can drop down to only 200/400 mg ibuprofen....

Dang. I've been wondering why my BP's been going up.

J.

With tax time approaching...

Why not take a look at some financial urban legends?

10 financial urban legends - MSN Money

Every now and then you read about a retiree snookered in a Nigerian bank scam, or some nitwit marched off to jail while still insisting the income tax is illegal, and you just shake your head and wonder who could believe that guff.

And yes, you DO have to pay taxes....

Dang it.

J.

February 28, 2007

It's getting harder to ignore...

Iran's 'contribution' to the war effort. I'm sure that the folks who are crtitical of this report are really just doing it so there will be as much 'accuracy' as possible in the news...

Oh, all right! Stop laughing at the concept. I agree, it's a ridiculous notion.

Jules Crittenden � More Stuff

A polyurethane blob dressed up to look like a rock, all full of Iranian stuff. Found in the back of a truck in a raid in Hilla:


The new evidence includes infrared sensors, electronic triggering devices and information about plastic explosives used in bombs that the Americans say lead back to Iran. The explosive material, triggering devices, other components and the method of assembly all produce weapons with an Iranian signature that has never been found outside Iraq or southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah is believed to have used weapons supplied by Iran, the Americans say.
But Iran's not involved. Nope, not Iran! They're keeping well out of this! No reason to go to war at all!

I swear, it's getting rather pathetic watching the reflexive, almost convulsive denial of Iranian involvement in Iraq. It'd be like the BBC in the Blitz trying to persuade Londoners that the bombs weren't bombs at all, but instead they're gas mains blowing up.

Yes, I know they have an agenda. Yes, I know they want Bush to lose. But I really, really don't think they realize that Bush losing means the US losing - and the US losing means that the war for civilization (unless you call burquas and endless sectarian violence with a side-order of suicide bombers sprinkled with beheadders 'civilization') will get much bloodier and much more costly than anything they would have imagined under Bush.

And if they DO, and don't care so long as Bush/Republicans/the United States gets slapped down, then they're even shorter-sighted than I would have thought possible.

J.

About February 2007

This page contains all entries posted to Rusted Sky in February 2007. They are listed from oldest to newest.

January 2007 is the previous archive.

March 2007 is the next archive.

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

Powered by
Movable Type 3.36