Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Duh!

HillaryClinton.com - Media Release: "Sports legend and social activist Billie Jean King announced her endorsement of Hillary Clinton today."

PETA Power

New York Times: In what animal-welfare advocates are describing as a "historic advance," Burger King, the world's second-largest hamburger chain, said yesterday that it would begin buying eggs and pork from suppliers that don't confine their animals in cages and crates.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Unusual Aviation Pictures


Airdisaster.Com Forums - View Single Post - Sucked In / Hacked Up? Do Tell

Airdisaster.Com Forums - View Single Post - Sucked In / Hacked Up? Do Tell: "THE NEDELIN DISASTER copyright Crashman 2006
Hell on Tyuratam Pad 41 "

Masturbating trespasser booted from frat - Crime

Masturbating trespasser booted from frat - Crime: "'Obviously, she was very disturbed,' Nye said. 'It was not how a normal person would respond to people.'

The woman told fraternity members that her name was Melissa and she was a student at Eastern Michigan University, according to the police report.

Fraternity members said they will throw out two couches in the living room because of the incident, Nye said.'Obviously, she was very disturbed,' Nye said. 'It was not how a normal person would respond to people.'

The woman told fraternity members that her name was Melissa and she was a student at Eastern Michigan University, according to the police report.

Fraternity members said they will throw out two couches in the living room because of the incident, Nye said."

Why Bad Beliefs Don't Die (Skeptical Inquirer November 2000)

Why Bad Beliefs Don't Die (Skeptical Inquirer November 2000): "it is often confusing and irritating to scientists and skeptics that so many people's beliefs do not change in the face of disconfirming evidence. How, we wonder, are people able to hold beliefs that contradict the data?"

Monday, March 26, 2007

Fife's best selling weekly newspaper ::


Best selling newspaper? No wonder with such important reportage!
:: Dunfermline Press >> Fife's best selling weekly newspaper ::: "A PUB regular has been barred from his favourite Dunfermline boozer – for indiscriminate wind breaking.A PUB regular has been barred from his favourite Dunfermline boozer – for indiscriminate wind breaking."

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Not good

British Airways Flight 9 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "'Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.' "

Saturday, March 24, 2007

FOX News 72%

We don't trust quite as much, poll finds: "Alabama voters, according to this month's poll, also have some or a great deal of confidence in the Red Cross and other voluntary organizations (83 percent), Fox TV news (72 percent), federal programs such as Social Security (67 percent), the presidency (63 percent) and CNN cable TV news (62 percent). "

Amazing this is news.......

The Idaho Statesman - Always Idaho: "A bill to make English Idaho's official language passed the House on Monday.
The bill dictates that all official government business should be done in English, with certain exceptions for such things as education, public health and public safety.
The bill has already passed the Senate and awaits only the approval of Gov. Butch Otter, who has said he will sign it. All Treasure Valley Democrats and Caldwell Republican Bob Ring voted against the bill. "

Thursday, March 22, 2007

State Spending Spree - WSJ.com

State Spending Spree - WSJ.com: "Jennifer Granholm, the Democratic governor of another declining Midwestern industrial state, is also seeking a $1 billion-plus tax business tax increase to fund what she's calling her 'invest in Michigan' budget. The state, with more last jobs than any except Hurricane-ravaged Louisiana, hopes to reward businesses that invest more funds and create more jobs in Motor City by socking them with a higher tax bill."

Water on the brain | Herald Sun

Water on the brain Herald Sun: "Premier Steve Bracks has a watering can in the sink to catch the water from the hot tap while he waits for it to run warm, and Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu declares: 'When I swim I take particular care not to splash.' "

Deliberately clueless on intelligence

Deliberately clueless on intelligence: "SALT LAKE City Mayor Rocky Anderson wants to impeach President Bush. In arguing that point, he asked Fox News' Bill O'Reilly Tuesday, 'Have you seen the National Intelligence Estimate that was provided in October of 2002, in which the intelligence agency under the State Department said that Iraq was not building up a nuclear capability, that this whole story about the aluminum tubes (reportedly sought by Saddam Hussein in Niger) was completely off base?'
I decided to re-read the NIE excerpts that the administration released. What does the report say? 'Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.' "

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Roy Spencer Oral Testimony for 19 March 2007

Roy Spencer Oral Testimony for 19 March 2007: "University of Alabama Climatologist Roy Spencer's Oral Testimony

March, 19 2007


I would like to thank the Chairman and members of the Committee for the opportunity to provide my perspective on the subject of political interference in government-funded science.

I have been performing NASA-sponsored research for the last twenty-two years.
Prior to my current position as a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, I was Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, and was an employee of NASA from 1987 to 2001."


During the period of my government employment, NASA had a rule that ANY interaction between its scientists and the press was to be coordinated through NASA management and public affairs. Understandably, NASA managers do not appreciate first learning of their scientists' findings and opinions in the morning newspapers.

It was no secret within NASA that I was skeptical of the size of the human influence on global climate. My views were diametrically opposed to those of Vice President Gore, and I believe that they were considered to be a possible hindrance to NASA getting full congressional funding for Mission to Planet Earth.

So, while Dr. Hansen was freely sounding the alarm over what HE believed to be dangerous levels of human influence on the climate, I tried to follow the rules. On many occasions I avoided answering questions from the media on the subject, and instead directed reporters to John Christy, my co-worker and a university employee.

Through the management chain, I was politely told what I was allowed to say in congressional testimony. In fact, my dodging of committee questions regarding my personal opinions on the subject of global warming was considered to be quite humorous by one committee, an exchange which is now part of the congressional record.

I want to make it very clear that I am not complaining -- I am only relating these things because I was asked to. I was, and still am, totally supportive of NASA's Earth satellite missions…but I understood that my position as a NASA employee was a privilege, not a right, and that there were rules I was expected to abide by.

Partly because of those limits on what I could and couldn't say to the press and congress, I voluntarily resigned from NASA in the fall of 2001. Even though my research responsibilities to NASA have NOT changed since resigning, being a university employee gives me much more freedom than government employees have to express opinions.

So, while you might think that the political influence on our climate research program started with the Bush Administration, that simply isn't true. It has ALWAYS existed. You just never heard about it because NASA's climate science program was aligned with Vice President Gore's desire to get rid of fossil fuels.

The bias started when the U.S. climate research program was first initiated. The emphasis on studying the PROBLEM of global warming, of course, presumes that a problem exists. As a result, the funding has ALWAYS favored the finding of evidence for climate CATASTROPHE rather than for climate STABILITY.

This biased approach to the funding of science serves several goals which favor a specific political ideology:

1) It grows government science, environmental, and policy programs, which depend upon global warming remaining as much a threat as possible.

2) It favors climate researchers, who quite naturally have vested interests in careers, pet theories, and personal incomes.

3) And, it provides justification for environmental lobbying groups, whose very existence depends upon sustaining public fears of environmental disaster.


I'm NOT claiming that a global warming science program isn't needed -- It IS. We DO need to find out how much of our current warmth is human-induced, and how much we might expect in the future. I'm just pointing out that the political interference flows both ways -- but not everyone has felt compelled to complain about it.

(This concludes my oral testimony).

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Power Line: An Enemy So Evil...

Power Line: An Enemy So Evil...: "Insurgents in Iraq detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle with two children in the back seat after US soldiers let it through a Baghdad checkpoint over the weekend, a senior US military official said Tuesday. "

Hooters doesn't fit the image of the Big Beaver corridor?


Hooters: It's last chance to settle Troy: "Hooters has sought a liquor license transfer for its new location on Big Beaver and Rochester roads. The council voted against the transfer in June, saying the restaurant doesn't fit the image of the Big Beaver corridor."

I thought water levels were supposed to go up!


Is this what AlGore ment when he said "everything that is supposed to be up is down. And everything that's supposed to be down is up"?

Great Lakes levels plunge in February: "One other possible factor: A 1960s dredging project in the St. Clair River has eroded the river bottom to twice the depth originally intended. Federal officials have estimated the project, which essentially opened a bigger drain hole in a river that lets out water from Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, has lowered water levels in those two lakes by a foot or more."

Would the liberal media lie to us?


That would NEVER happen....would it....?
Polar bears 'thriving as the Arctic warms up' International News News Telegraph: "However, Prof Derocher conceded that some polar bear-related evidence of the damaging effect of global warming was misplaced.
Contrary to concern over a celebrated photograph of a bear and its cub floating on a tiny iceberg, the animals often travel in that way, he said.
'Bears will often hang out on glacier ice or large pieces of multi-year ice,' he said."

Monday, March 19, 2007

First class journalistic laziness

Airline Moves Dead Body to 1st Class: "A first-class passenger on a flight from Delhi to London awoke find the corpse of a woman who had died in the economy cabin being placed in a seat next to him, British Airways said Monday.
The economy section of the flight was full, and the cabin crew needed to move the woman and her grieving family out of that compartment to give them some privacy, the airline said.
The first-class passenger, Paul Trinder, told the Sunday Times newspaper that he was sleeping during a February flight from India and woke up when the crew placed the dead woman in an empty seat near him. "
Well, what is it? Next to Mr Trinder or "near" him? Why not report "on his lap"?
At least Drudge titled the link "The Final Upgrade". Now, that's journalism!

What a surprise!



Throwing money at a problem doesn't fix the problem. The graph looks similar to the money vs educated kids in American public schools.
TCS Daily - An Easterly Aid Wind Blows Out of Canada: "Apparently, Canada's Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade has read the CGD and IMF reports and discovered an inconvenient truth. While the Committee knew with certitude the levels of ODA that have gone into Africa, it couldn't determine their effect on the intended beneficiaries—with the sole exception that they were worse off than before.
This must mean that these same funds have found a way Out of Africa. "