Auschwitz-Birkenau...

Rachel Lucas is one of my favorite bloggers, notable for her wit and humor.

Yesterday she posted on a much more serious topic: her recent visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Poland.

Don't miss it.

Uh Oh...

Just in (via my wife):

Democrats, realizing the success of the President's "Cash For Clunkers" rebate program, have revamped a major portion of their National Health Care Plan.

President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Sen. Reed are expected to make this major announcement at a joint news conference later this week. I have obtained an advanced copy of the proposal which is named....

"CASH FOR CODGERS" and it works like this... Couples wishing to access health care funds in order to pay for the delivery of a child will be required to turn in one old person. The amount the government grants them will be fixed according to a sliding scale. Older and more prescription dependent codgers will garner the highest amounts.

Special "Bonuses" will be paid for those submitting codgers in targeted groups, such as smokers, alcohol drinkers, persons 10 pounds over their government prescribed weight, and any member of the Republican Party.

Smaller bonuses will be given for codgers who consume beef, soda, fried foods, potato chips, lattes, whole milk, dairy products, bacon, Brussel sprouts, or Girl Scout Cookies.

All codgers will be rendered totally useless via toxic injection. This will insure that they are not secretly resold or their body parts harvested to keep other codgers in repair.

The Bailout, Explained...

Via my cousin Mike D.:

The Economic smoke-and-mirrors explained:

Young Chuck in Montana bought a horse from a farmer for $100.

The farmer agreed to deliver the horse the next day.

The next day the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry son, but I have some bad news... the horse died."

Chuck replied, "Well, then just give me my money back."

The farmer said, "Can't do that. I went and spent it already."

Chuck said, "Ok, then, just bring me the dead horse."

The farmer asked, "What ya gonna do with him?"

Chuck said, "I'm going to raffle him off."

The farmer said, "You can't raffle off a dead horse!"

Chuck said, "Sure I can, Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he's dead."

A month later, the farmer met up with Chuck and asked, "What happened with that dead horse?"

Chuck said, "I raffled him off.

I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $998."

The farmer said, "Didn't anyone complain?"

Chuck said, "Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back."

Chuck grew up and now works for the government.

He's the one who figured out how this "bail-out" is going to work.

Mounting Evidence for an Impending Cooling Trend...

I've been reporting little tidbits here and there about the surprising lack of sunspots at the beginning of the current solar cycle. The low numbers of sunspots continues to the present time.

A paper just published (PDF) adds another dimension: not only are there fewer sunspots, but the ones that we have are weaker. Both factors contribute to lower solar irradiance – which means the sun is delivering less heat to the Earth.

I like this passage, from a web site that has a history of being completely credulous of anthropogenic global warming:

All of these numbers indicate that a return to Maunder-Minimum-like conditions could take us back to the conditions of the first half of last century, which would be a significant change in the climate. That would certainly take a bit of the time pressure off our attempts to limit our use of fossil fuels. But the impact would be less than we'd expect from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, meaning it would only delay some of the more significant climate changes.

It's very nice to see some actual climate science being widely published (instead of climate modeling)...

I Get No Respect...

A collection of classic Rodney Dangerfield one-liners:

I tell ya I get no respect from anyone. I bought a cemetery plot. The guy said, 'There goes the neighborhood!'

When I was born, I was so ugly that the doctor slapped my mother.

When I started in show business, I played one club that was so far out, my act was reviewed in Field and Stream.

Every time I get in an elevator, the operator says the same thing to me: `Basement?'

When my parents got divorced, there was a custody fight over me. ... and no one showed up.

I never got girls when I was a kid. One girl told me, `Come on over, there's nobody home.' I went over. There was nobody home.

When I was 3 years old, my parents got a dog. I was jealous of the dog, so they got rid of me.

When we got married, the first thing my wife did was put everything under both names — hers and her mother's.

With my wife, I don't get no respect. The other night there was a knock on the front door. My wife told me to hide in the closet.

With my wife, I get no respect. I fell asleep with a cigarette in my hand. She lit it.

A Bridge of a Different Kind...

Made out of living roots! These bridges are grown in northeastern India...

Bioluminescence...

More here.

Kitty Story...

Via my mom:

A teacher is explaining biology to her 4th grade students. "Human Beings are
the only animals that stutter," she said.

A little girl raises her hand. "I had a kitty-cat who stuttered."

The teacher, knowing how precious some of these stories could become, asked
the girl to describe the incident.

"Well," she began, "I was in the backyard with my kitty and the Rottweiler
that lives next door got a running start and before we knew it, he jumped over
the fence into our yard!"

"That must've been scary," said the teacher.

"It sure was," said the little girl. "My kitty raised his back, went Sssss,
Sssss, Sssss" and before he could say "Shit," the Rottweiler ate him!

The teacher wet her pants laughing.

WTF of the Day...

Jumpin' Jehosephat on a deep-fried carrot! Is this wrong or what?

The average salary of a civilian employed by the Federal government is more than double that of a worker in private industry.

That's just wrong, dag nab it!

Ponders...

Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?

The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?" She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

If a deaf person swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap?

If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?

Is there another word for synonym?

Where do forest rangers go to "get away from it all?"

What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?

If a parsley farmer is sued, can they garnish his wages?

Would a fly without wings be called a walk?

Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?

If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is he homeless or naked?

Can vegetarians eat animal crackers?

If the police arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?

Why do they put Braille on the drive-through bank machines?

What was the best thing before sliced bread?

One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.

Does the Little Mermaid wear an algebra?

Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

How is it possible to have a civil war?

If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest drown, too?

If you ate both pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry?

If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?

Whose cruel idea was it for the word "lisp" to have an "s" in it?

Why are hemorrhoids called "hemorrhoids" instead of "assteroids"?

Why is it called tourist season if we can't shoot at them?

Why is there an expiration date on sour cream?

Can an atheist get insurance against acts of God?

Excellent Rant on a Congresscritter...

I Love My ISP...

Earlier this year I switched from WildBlue (a satellite ISP) to SDWISP, a small terrestrial wireless network serving the valleys of Eastern San Diego County. This is a network based on point-to-point high-bandwidth radio links that connect a point-of-presence in each valley served with the wired Internet infrastructure. In our case, that means a point-to-point that connects a wired Internet connection in Alpine to a hill in Lawson Valley that's only a hundred yards or so from our home. Very nice!

But even better than the technology is the service we get from Eric Williams, the entrepreneur who founded and runs SDWISP. Unlike any other ISP I've ever dealt with (and that's a long list, both personally and professionally), Eric always responds positively and effectively. In the end, the problem always gets solved, and expeditiously, too. And there are always smiles and handshakes involved.

Today we had yet another example of his superb service. For several days we've been having intermittent trouble accessing the Internet. Today I spent some time troubleshooting it, and I discovered that problem was occuring somewhere outside my little network – either on SDWISP's network or on their Internet provider's network. I couldn't tell which. The symptom I got was a "destination unreachable" message from SDWISP's router, but that could mean lots of different things.

So I sent Eric an email describing the situation, and in a short while I got a call back from him. We talked about it briefly, and then he remembered a tweak he'd made just a week ago to the router that was sending me those messages. This tweak was an effort to tighten up security on his router (a good thing!), made at the recommendation of the router vendor. But when he and I realized what that setting was doing, we realized it might well be the source of my problem. Right then and there, Eric turned off that setting. I tested it, and sure enough, that was the source of the trouble. Problem solved!

With most ISPs I'd have spent weeks convincing them that there was an issue that they were causing, then I'd wait more weeks for them to figure out what they were going to do about it. If anything.

I just love having a little local ISP...

The Talibani and the Jew...

Via my mom:

A fleeing Taliban, desperate for water, was plodding through the Afghanistan desert when he saw something far off in the distance.

Hoping to find water, he hurried toward the object, only to find a little old Jewish man at a small stand selling ties.

The Taliban asked: 'Do you have water?'

The Jewish man replied: 'I have no water. Would you like to buy a tie? They are only US$5 ....'

The Taliban shouted: 'Idiot! I do not need an over-priced tie. I need water! I should kill you, but I must find water first!'

'OK,' said the old Jewish man, 'it does not matter that you do not want to buy a tie and that you hate me.

'I will show you that I am bigger than that. If you continue over that hill to the east for about two miles, you will find a lovely restaurant.

'It has all the ice cold water you need. Shalom.'

Muttering, the Taliban staggered away over the hill. Several hours later he staggered back, almost dead.

'Your damn brother won't let me in without a tie!'

Excellent!

A Small Victory...

Seven or eight years ago, we bought a large-screen HDTV. After doing quite a bit of research on the various technologies and models, we eventually settled on a rear-projection triple-CRT model: the Pioneer Elite Pro-620HD.

It's a monster of a TV. If the inside of the cabinet were hollow, you could use it as a residence for 3 or 4 families in some parts of the world.

We've really enjoyed this television. The picture is superb, and the user-tweakable digital color convergence has allowed us to keep it that way for all these years (I adjust it every 18 months or so).

But a couple of days ago it just quit working. The symptoms were not at all encouraging: when you tried to turn it on, the green power light would come on for a fraction of a second, you could hear some relays clicking, and then it just shut down again.

A few minutes on the web and I learned several depressing things: (1) Pioneer no longer supported this prehistoric model in any shape, way, or form (including at their authorized service centers); (2) nobody has any spare parts for it; and (3) there apparently is no longer any such thing as a television repair shop.

I was on my own.

A few more minutes of searching for our TV's symptoms led me to several articles and forum posts. There I learned that this model had a history of exactly this failure – and that at least for one person, re-soldering some “cold” solder joints on the low-voltage power supply circuit board fixed the problem. I also knew from long past experience as an electronics tech that cleaning dirt (especially away from high-voltage components) and cleaning/reseating connectors could often cure a problem.

So I decided to take the back off the beast and see what I could do. The thing was quite expensive, and I didn't want to just throw it away without even trying.

First came the easy part: cleaning off the accumulated dust of years, and reseating the connections. As I was doing this, I could observe (for the first time, actually) all the electronics in this TV. A couple of impressions: it was very nicely made (trust me, not all electronic equipment is!), and there was an awful lot of electronics. I counted 9 circuit boards in the area I could see, and I don't doubt there were more tucked away in parts of the cabinet I couldn't see.

After the cleaning/reseating, we tested. No joy. The symptoms were identical. So I decided to go for the more difficult task of removing, cleaning, examining, resoldering, and replacing the power supply board.

There are actually two power supply boards in this TV: a low-voltage and a high-voltage board. The low-voltage board was the culprit in the article I'd read online, and fortunately it was the easier of the two to get out. The board is mounted vertically at the extreme right side of the cabinet, as you're looking in from the back. There were 17 screws and 11 connectors to remove, and then out it popped. Took only a few minutes to get it out.

Then I took it to our kitchen table, and carefully examined it in the bright sunlight. It was a largish (about 12 x 18 inches) single-sided circuit board with dozens of large, high-power components on it (all of this is typical for a power supply). Right away it was obvious that someone had worked on this board since it was manufactured. The giveaway was that 30 or so solder joints had brown rosin residue remaining – something you don't see on boards that were soldered by machine (the rosin all gets cleaned off with solvents). A little more examination and I saw a pattern: the resoldered joints were larger than the majority of the joints. That led to a theory on my part: that Pioneer had a manufacturing problem that caused cold solder joints on the larger joints on the board (and being a power supply board, it had quite a few of these). Larger solder joints do require more heat, and they are tricky to get right in an automated soldering machine, so this was at least plausible.

So I resoldered every one of the large solder joints on the board – something like 175 of them. The hardest part of this chore was spotting them – my eyes don't seem to work quite as well as they used to. I've done a lot of soldering in my day, and apparently I didn't forget how (it's like riding a bicycle, you know). In the course of carefully looking for each of those large joints, I spotted 3 that looked like they might be cold solder joints, and one definite bad joint, complete with cracks.

When I finished all the soldering, we put everything back together and tried it out. Much celebrating ensued – the danged thing worked, and it has kept on working. Debbie (the primary consumer of TV around here) was very happy to have her TV back, and we were both very happy that we didn't need to go out and buy another TV.

A small victory, to be sure...but it really does feel very good to have had it!

Culture of Corruption...

It's 2004; George Bush and John Kerry are locked in an incredibly close battle for the U.S. presidency. There's a very real possibility that John Kerry would win. If he did, he'd give up his Senate seat and the Governor of Massachusetts would appoint someone to finish out his term. The Democrats controlled the state legislature, but the Governor was Republican Mitt Romney.

The other Democratic Senator from Massachusetts was Ted Kennedy. He spearheaded a successful effort to have the legislature pass a modification of the law. With the change, a special election would have to be held to choose the replacement for John Kerry, and any future replacement Senators.

In other words, we don't like the law, so we'll just change it.

Bad. But now it gets worse.

Fast forward to 2009. Ted Kennedy is dying of a brain tumor. He's not likely to live long enough to serve out his term. A special election would then have to be held to replace him, thanks to the law he fought for just 5 years ago. Now Massachusetts has a Democratic governor. Now Ted Kennedy is worried about not having a replacement for himself rapidly, as the Democrats in the Senate have only the thinnest of a majority. So what does Ted Kennedy do? You guessed it: he's agitating for a quick return to the old method of letting the Governor appoint a Senatorial replacement.

Rope (great hanks of it).
Trees (lots of them).
Some assembly required.

Funny Graphics...

My favorite:

Go see the rest.

Al Megrahi...

Well, the expected actually happened: the Scots, in a self-congratulatory fit of compassion, have released the Libyan terrorist. He flew home on Ghadaffi's private jet, and was given a hero's welcome when he got home.

Today's Wall Street Journal has an excellent editorial. It's conclusion:

More significantly, Megrahi's release is a reminder of what happens when terrorism is treated as a problem for the criminal justice system. Mr. MacAskill did not stint in congratulating Scotland (and himself) on the superior virtue his decision supposedly evinces. Terrorists will surely draw a different lesson about the will of the West to confront and punish them. And the compassion that is still owed those made bereft by the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 has now been tainted by a second Lockerbie outrage.

Exactly.

A Private Plane for al-Megrahi?

Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi (at right) is the Libyan terrorist bomber convicted of bringing down Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988. He's been serving a life sentence in a Scottish prison ever since his conviction in 2001. Recently he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, and under Scottish law this entitles him to compassionate early release. A decision about his release is expected today, and all signs are that it will be granted.

That's bad enough. The whole idea of compassionate anything for someone like him is disgusting.

But what's even worse is this: Mohammar Ghadafi, Libya's despotic leader, is sending his private $130m jet to pick up al-Megrahi and take him home to Libya.

Ugh.

The world really needs to be rid of some people, don't you think?

Sign of the Times...

Seen near Durham, North Carolina...

The Great Unraveling?

There is now a steady stream of dyed-in-the-wool liberals who are opposing Obama's healthcare initiatives. Nat Hentoff is the latest, with a piece that starts out like this:

I was not intimidated during J. Edgar Hoover's FBI hunt for reporters like me who criticized him. I railed against the Bush-Cheney war on the Bill of Rights without blinking. But now I am finally scared of a White House administration. President Obama's desired health care reform intends that a federal board (similar to the British model) — as in the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation in a current Democratic bill — decides whether your quality of life, regardless of your political party, merits government-controlled funds to keep you alive.

It's tempting to think that the liberal juggernaut is coming apart at the seams. When even leading liberal lights, the in-the-tank-for-Obama press, and the few liberal talk shows still on the air all making news by their opposition to Obamacare, it looks like things are coming apart for the liberals.

But they're not. From everything I've been able to read on the subject, this is all single-issue opposition. There have not been massive numbers of people changing their world-views from liberal to libertarian or conservative. This is simply a single issue that's not resonating with liberal base.

I'm glad it's not resonating. But when this issue is behind us, I'm sure the next one will see the liberal juggernaut back in place, just as before...

Soldier's Angels, and More...

Michael Yon (now in the thick of combat in Afghanistan) has a dispatch posted that's moving on several levels. Pay particular attention to the (completely normal) lengths that Americans went to save a wounded British soldier – and to the reason why the American's help was needed...

Yon's reporting is some of the very best you'll find from Afghanistan, just as he did from Iraq. Please consider supporting him – as an independent journalist our contributions are the only way he has to fund his very expensive trips...

Jamul Casino Update...

The latest report for Lakes Entertainment shows their investment in the Jamul Casino project continuing to look bad, at least on paper. The money quote from the report:

The net unrealized gains for the six months ended June 28, 2009 consisted of $2.2 million related to the Jamul Casino project with the Jamul Tribe and $0.1 million related to the Iowa Tribe’s Ioway Casino project due primarily to improvement in the credit markets, which resulted in lower required rates of return.

Essentially this says that Lakes' accounts believe they'd have been better off (by $2.2 million!) putting the money in the bank than investing it in the Jamul Casino project.

Also in the news is the JAC (Jamulians Against the Casino) lawsuit aiming to overturn Caltran's recent settlement with the Jamul Indian Tribe on environmental grounds. I'm no lawyer, but this sounds like pretty shaky grounds to me...

Car vs. Hydrant...

In Jamul! According to the (very short) story, this happened at around 5 pm last night, near the intersection of 94 (Campo Road) and Steele Canyon Road (i.e., near Ranch Feed, the 7-11, and the Greek Sombrero).

I'd like to have seen that!

There's a short video at the link.

An Open Letter to Obama...

Lou Pritchett is a former Vice President of Proctor & Gamble. I'd never heard of him until I read this letter that he wrote (below), which nicely summarizes many of my thoughts about Obama. Snopes has verified its authenticity. Mr. Pritchett submitted the letter to the New York Times, and says that they never even acknowledged his submission, much less published it.

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Dear President Obama:

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.

You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.

You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.

You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.

You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.

You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.

You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America ' crowd and deliver this message abroad.

You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.

You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.

You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.

You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.

You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations.

You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.

You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.

You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.

You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Relllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.

Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

Lou Pritchett

Carter Says "Finally!"...

From my mom. Perfect.

Obama = Socialism...

This has gone completely viral over the past few days. The lefties are screaming bloody murder about it.

Interesting.

I note how they didn't scream bloody murder when far worse depictions of Bush were gleefully distributed by the same lefties who are screaming now.

I'm putting this in my sidebar until The One is gone...

One of the Many Reasons...

This is one of the many reasons why we need a revolution at the polls. We need to throw all of these bums out on the street – Democrats and Republicans alike – and replace them with a new crew that's less fiscally insane.

Take a look at what the past few administrations and Congresses have done to our tax system. Even while the lefties are fostering the meme that the “wealthy” (a very, er, flexible term that is, in progressive hands) aren't paying enough taxes, here are the actual facts: the U.S. now has the most progressive federal taxes amongst all developed nations.

“Progressive” in this context means that the more money you make, the higher the percentage of your income you pay in taxes. For the last couple of decades, it has also meant something else in the U.S.: if your income is below a given amount, you “pay” negative taxes – you get a check from the government instead of the other way around. This welfare is euphemistically called the Earned Income Credit, and of course the money for it comes from taxpayers with higher incomes – the money is being taken from them and given to the “poor” (many of whom make over $40,000 per year).

Scott Hodge has a short post over at the Tax Foundation's blog. He notes:

To put this in perspective, the top 1 percent is comprised of just 1.4 million taxpayers and they pay a larger share of the income tax burden now than the bottom 134 million taxpayers combined.

Some in Washington say the tax system is still not progressive enough. However, the recent IRS data bolsters the findings of an OECD study released last year showing that the U.S.—not France or Sweden—has the most progressive income tax system among OECD nations. We rely more heavily on the top 10 percent of taxpayers than does any nation and our poor people have the lowest tax burden of those in any nation.

Many states (including California, where I live – currently) have progressive income taxes as well, making this situation even worse.

It's not free money, folks. Those people paying the higher tax burdens are not going to do nothing while their hard-earned incomes are stolen. The easiest thing for an oppressed minority to do is to simply leave – and that's a lot easier when you have financial resources. It's happened before (think Sweden and England in the 20th century) and it's already happening now – the “wealthy” are leaving the states with the worst most progressive taxation policies (Maryland, Michigan, etc.) and headed for the states with the best most regressive tax policies (Florida, Nevada, etc). The internal immigration figures for the past few years demonstrate this rather clearly. And, though my wife and I are far from “wealthy” even by the Obamanation's flexible definition, we're starting to think about such a move ourselves – in no small part to escape the stifling total tax burden in California (said burden here comes complete with unrivaled fiscal irresponsibility and insanity as well)...

Quote of the Day...

Via reader Simon M...


ROFLMAO!

Bill Crawford's Story...

Col. James Moschgat writes:

William “Bill” Crawford certainly was an unimpressive figure, one you could easily overlook during a hectic day at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Mr. Crawford, as most of us referred to him back in the late 1970s, was our squadron janitor.

While we cadets busied ourselves preparing for academic exams, athletic events, Saturday morning parades and room inspections, or never-ending leadership classes, Bill quietly moved about the squadron mopping and buffing floors, emptying trash cans, cleaning toilets, or just tidying up the mess 100 college-age kids can leave in a dormitory.

Sadly, and for many years, few of us gave him much notice, rendering little more than a passing nod or throwing a curt, “G’morning!” in his direction as we hurried off to our daily duties.

Why? Perhaps it was because of the way he did his job-he always kept the squadron area spotlessly clean, even the toilets and showers gleamed. Frankly, he did his job so well, none of us had to notice or get involved. After all, cleaning toilets was his job, not ours.

Maybe it was his physical appearance that made him disappear into the background. Bill didn’t move very quickly and, in fact, you could say he even shuffled a bit, as if he suffered from some sort of injury. His gray hair and wrinkled face made him appear ancient to a group of young cadets. And his crooked smile, well, it looked a little funny. Face it, Bill was an old man working in a young person’s world. What did he have to offer us on a personal level?

Finally, maybe it was Mr. Crawford’s personality that rendered him almost invisible to the young people around him. Bill was shy, almost painfully so. He seldom spoke to a cadet unless they addressed him first, and that didn’t happen very often. Our janitor always buried himself in his work, moving about with stooped shoulders, a quiet gait, and an averted gaze. If he noticed the hustle and bustle of cadet life around him, it was hard to tell.

So, for whatever reason, Bill blended into the woodwork and became just another fixture around the squadron. The Academy, one of our nation’s premier leadership laboratories, kept us busy from dawn till dusk. And Mr. Crawford...well, he was just a janitor.

But you really should read the rest of the story...

RIP, Sgt. John C. Beale...

Sgt. Beale was killed in Afghanistan. More here...

Dogs Found!

A reader writes about two dogs he found (click to enlarge the flyer):

Monday July 13, 2009
Found a young female Dalmatian and a male Lasa-whatever in the middle of the intersection of Lyons Valley Road and Honey Springs.

No collars or tags.
They are a pair that live together because they stick close and sleep against each other.
Very dirty from their adventure and lots of stickers.
I've called and asked everyone around Jamul…but nobody recognizes these dogs.
I took pictures and showed them to Steele Canyon Vets but no luck.
Did the same with Jamul Vet Clinic again no luck.

Tuesday July 14, 2009
I'm taking both dogs to Steele Canyon Vets to see if they have chips and to get cleaned up.
They will keep them until Friday evening…when I come back from North County.
Also, posted FOUND DOGS flyer at the Jamul Trading Post, Jamul Vet Clinic, Steel Canyon Vet and along Skyline Truck Trail..

Awesome loving dogs. Please help me find the owners!

If you know these dogs, please give him a call!

Amazing Video...

Of one of our warriors who took an RPG to his thigh, and lived to tell the tale – because of his fellow warriors who took great risks to save him. Bring Kleenex.

Titanium Tea Strainer...

If you're a tea drinker, as I am, I highly recommend these strainers (under $15).

Here's to You, Mr. Jefferson...

Awesome, with Tea Party snaps:

Building a Radio, from Scratch...

Ran across this fascinating story from World War II, about British prisoners in a Japanese POW camp who built a working radio receiver from scratch. A taste:

I should come back to the capacitors on that, because we had to insulate the layers of those which we did by putting a layer of newspaper (a few people had newspaper and various things, for other reasons than newspaper of course, but then we had no other toilet requisites in the party) and by soaking this in some coconut oil we could insulate each layer after we wound it, and with a piece of this bee wire - we had something like fifty feet of it - wound round this part of the fish plate, we made a fairly good choke coil. And then a bigger capacitor, which was no trouble, having had success with the small one, to just wrap as much tin foil as we could round another sheet of newspaper which finished up about 18 inches long by about three quarters of an inch in diameter. We didn't even try to measure the capacitance of it, because we couldn't do anything about it anyway, except put more wire on. And that in effect was a fairly good rectifier, a very dangerous one because we had the 110 all right but we had a bit over that by the time we had rectified it, and we don't know because we had no means of measuring it.

Finally, the valve; we joined the valve by winding the clean little bee wire around it and then plugging it with any insulating material we could get to make it stick, - no valve holder, of course. So eventually we produced a receiver of sorts, except it wouldn't oscillate. We tried building more, another choke coil, and this went on for ages; there was no possibility we could get this valve to oscillate. I think it's recommended according to a friend of mine who had an amateur license, he thought that about 120 volts was the best we could get and there was no way we could get that by trying to smooth this any more. So the only avenue open was to bribe one Chinese working at the power station who was very much our way, and of course in those days was a nationalist Chinese.

For my readers unfamiliar with antique British English, a “valve” is what Americans would have called a “vacuum tube”, or just “tube”. For my younger readers, a vacuum tube is a device used for electronic amplification and rectification before the advent of semiconductor transistors and diodes.

Now I have built some electronic devices (including a radio receiver) from bits and pieces. My dad helped me build an old-fashioned crystal radio this way. But we had some purchased components (the headphone, the rectifying crystal, wire, etc.), easy access to things like waxed paper and aluminum foil, and some basic test equipment. These POWs not only had extremely limited materials at hand (though they were uninhibited about bribes, blackmail, and theft), they had no test equipment and no reference material. For instance, when they designed a capacitor, they had to either remember or re-invent the basic formulae describing capacitance!

One side-effect of our rapidly advancing technology base is that there are now relatively few people who understand the basics and fundamentals. In electrical engineering, for example, most time is necessarily spent on advanced integrated systems, and very little on the fundamentals of components. After all, in modern design work that newly minted engineers are likely to do, there's little use for the primitive components such as those the POWs made. On the other hand, back then electrical engineers generally were directly involved in the design of such components – so that knowledge would have been much more widespread in the engineering community...

Remember This Photo?

One of our warriors, caught by a firefight with the Taliban at an, err, inopportune moment. The photo made him famous. Now this:

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - The soldier who was photographed fighting the Taliban in his boxer shorts says he's glad to be back home in Texas after his yearlong deployment to Afghanistan—especially on the Fourth of July.

Specialist Zachary Boyd says he initially thought he'd get in trouble after an Associated Press photo showed him with other soldiers behind sandbags—while wearing his pink boxers and flip-flops, plus his helmet and bulletproof vest.

The Fort Worth soldier said he had jumped up from a nap when his unit came under fire and didn't want to waste time putting on his uniform.

But Boyd has been praised for his courage.

And now that he's home in Fort Worth he says his boxers will be displayed in the 1st Infantry Division museum at Fort Riley, Kansas.

Gotta love 'em...

America...

Thanking the Troops...

Two hundred and thirty three years ago today, our ancestors declared this country's independence from Britain. Our soldiers fought the Revolutionary War to make that declaration reality, and in all the intervening years, through many skirmishes, battles, and wars, our armed forces have kept this country a free and independent nation.

If you happen to see one of our warriors today, take a moment to thank them, won't you? You'll be glad you did, too. A couple of weeks ago I bought a cup of coffee and doughnuts for a couple of Army soldiers as we all waited for our flights at the Houston Airport. I sat down with them for a short conversation. Turns out they were both headed to Afghanistan on their second tour, and they were looking forward to it – they feel like they're doing something that matters, that makes a difference. And their smiles and warm words told me how much it meant to them to be acknowledged and appreciated...

If you'd like to make a more tangible contribution, I can't think of a better way than donating items, money, or your time to Homefront San Diego. These fine folks – all volunteers – find ways to help out the families of our deployed warriors.

San Diego is an expensive area to live in, yet we have more military here than in any other County in the U.S. Many of our lower-ranking military really don't make enough money to make ends meet – and when they're deployed, things can get very difficult for the family they left behind. Simple things that most of us would consider just irritating can become almost insurmountable challenges for them. For instance, the wife of an E-4 Marine with a couple of kids may simply have no way to handle a transmission problem on her car – she can't afford to get it fixed, she can't fix it herself, and yet she absolutely has to have the car to get around. Homefront San Diego will step into such a situation and find a way to resolve it. They're very creative about the solutions – maybe they'll find a local shop to fix it for free (or for parts cost); maybe they'll find a replacement car; or maybe they'll simply pay for getting it fixed. But one way or the other, they'll get that family back in its car. One can easily imagine what a relief it would be to the deployed warrior to know that his or her family has a safety net like Homefront San Diego to fall back on...

California Budget Crisis...

The entire planet knows that the state of California is in the midst of an awful budget crisis. The legislature has been unable to agree on a budget, primarily because the politicians are unable to bring themselves to significantly reduce expenses, nor can they find any politically acceptable way to raise taxes to pay for what they want to spend. Meanwhile, the state is completely out of money and has taken to paying many with IOUs, and forcing state workers to take several days per month in unpaid furloughs.

So one could be forgiven for thinking that the state legislators would be busy in meetings focused on resolving the impasse. If that's you, then your innocence and naivete are showing. Our legislators are meeting, all right – but they're discussing just about anything other than the budget impasse. For example, here's some video of a committee debating the propriety of lopping cow tails (with Schwarzennegger's admonishments):


Rope.
Tree.
Some assembly required.

Hopeyness and Changitude of the Day...

The Obama administration's total commitment to respecting the science.

WTF of the Day...

No animal was hurt in making that meat at your grocery store.

Oh, my.

I really don't know what to say.

But consider this: the person who wrote this is (presumably) an adult – and an eligible voter. What does that tell you about the viability of a representative democracy? Hmm?

Preserving the Declaration...

How the original Declaration of Independence, handwritten in ink on parchment, is preserved.

John to Abigail...

On July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote this letter to Abigail Adams (his wife):

Had a Declaration of Independency been made seven Months ago, it would have been attended with many great and glorious Effects . . . . We might before this Hour, have formed Alliances with foreign States. -- We should have mastered Quebec and been in Possession of Canada .... You will perhaps wonder, how such a Declaration would have influenced our Affairs, in Canada, but if I could write with Freedom I could easily convince you, that it would, and explain to you the manner how. -- Many Gentlemen in high Stations and of great Influence have been duped, by the ministerial Bubble of Commissioners to treat .... And in real, sincere Expectation of this effort Event, which they so fondly wished, they have been slow and languid, in promoting Measures for the Reduction of that Province. Others there are in the Colonies who really wished that our Enterprise in Canada would be defeated, that the Colonies might be brought into Danger and Distress between two Fires, and be thus induced to submit. Others really wished to defeat the Expedition to Canada, lest the Conquest of it, should elevate the Minds of the People too much to hearken to those Terms of Reconciliation which they believed would be offered Us. These jarring Views, Wishes and Designs, occasioned an opposition to many salutary Measures, which were proposed for the Support of that Expedition, and caused Obstructions, Embarrassments and studied Delays, which have finally, lost Us the Province.

All these Causes however in Conjunction would not have disappointed Us, if it had not been for a Misfortune, which could not be foreseen, and perhaps could not have been prevented, I mean the Prevalence of the small Pox among our Troops .... This fatal Pestilence compleated our Destruction. -- It is a Frown of Providence upon Us, which We ought to lay to heart.

But on the other Hand, the Delay of this Declaration to this Time, has many great Advantages attending it. -- The Hopes of Reconciliation, which were fondly entertained by Multitudes of honest and well meaning tho weak and mistaken People, have been gradually and at last totally extinguished. -- Time has been given for the whole People, maturely to consider the great Question of Independence and to ripen their judgments, dissipate their Fears, and allure their Hopes, by discussing it in News Papers and Pamphletts, by debating it, in Assemblies, Conventions, Committees of Safety and Inspection, in Town and County Meetings, as well as in private Conversations, so that the whole People in every Colony of the 13, have now adopted it, as their own Act. -- This will cement the Union, and avoid those Heats and perhaps Convulsions which might have been occasioned, by such a Declaration Six Months ago.

But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. -- I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. -- Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

John got the date wrong – we celebrate July 4th, when the Declaration of Indepdence was issued – but everything else still fits.

If John could somehow be transported to see the current Union and its history, I wonder what he'd think of it? There's much I'm sure he'd be proud of. I'm equally sure he'd be appalled at the degree to which the modern U.S. intrudes upon its citizens. The rate of taxation would astonish him – it far exceeds the tax levels that formed part of the motivation behind the original revolution.

But it would be most interesting to hear his overall “take” on the situation...

On Astrology...

Astrology is a blatantly inexplicable waste of time. Its proponents fall into two categories: informed, soulless charlatans who profit from hoodwinking gullible people, and ignorant putzes who cannot fathom the single digit arithmetic necessary to understand why astrology could not possibly work. It’s a 1970s-era fantasy clung to by the simple-minded who cannot possibly admit that the complexity of their own, boring lives has now exceeded their ability to figure it out for themselves, and as a result they need to blame their self-inflicted misfortunes on imaginary mind powers radiated from space. Astrologers and the people who believe in it are caught up in a mindless fantasy world of spells and crystals. The only difference between astrologers and the dorks who dress up in Hobbit costumes whacking each other with foam swords is that the latter group is smart enough to know, at the end of the day, they really aren’t Middle Earth characters. Grow the foxtrot up, put a brain back in your head, and face up to the fact that you and only you alone are responsible for your life, already.

What he said.

The 2012 Pelosi GTxi SS/RT Sport Edition...

Iowahawk improves an already great parody:

Barone on the Dangers of Liberal Judges...

Well, that's not actually his theme, but it might as well be – at least in this passage:

This is the sort of thing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg described in the text as just the workings of politics. Writing in Slate, Yale Law faculty member Emily Bazelon goes further. She laments that the promotion test rewarded memorization and that it favored "'fire buffs' -- guys who read fire suppression manuals on their down time."

She is outraged that a fire department might want to promote firefighters who know more about suppressing fires, rescuing victims and protecting their colleagues rather than simply promote a predetermined number of members of specific racial groups whose self-appointed political spokesmen back the politicians in office.

Poster of the Day...

More here.

The Mustache, on Iran...

John Bolton is one of the consistently sane and adult voices on Iran. From his piece in today's Washington Post:

Only those most theologically committed to negotiation still believe Iran will fully renounce its nuclear program. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has a "Plan B," which would allow Iran to have a "peaceful" civil nuclear power program while publicly "renouncing" the objective of nuclear weapons. Obama would define such an outcome as "success," even though in reality it would hardly be different from what Iran is doing and saying now. A "peaceful" uranium enrichment program, "peaceful" reactors such as Bushehr and "peaceful" heavy-water projects like that under construction at Arak leave Iran with an enormous breakout capability to produce nuclear weapons in very short order. And anyone who believes the Revolutionary Guard Corps will abandon its weaponization and ballistic missile programs probably believes that there was no fraud in Iran's June 12 election. See "huge credibility gap," supra.

In short, the stolen election and its tumultuous aftermath have dramatically highlighted the strategic and tactical flaws in Obama's game plan. With regime change off the table for the coming critical period in Iran's nuclear program, Israel's decision on using force is both easier and more urgent. Since there is no likelihood that diplomacy will start or finish in time, or even progress far enough to make any real difference, there is no point waiting for negotiations to play out. In fact, given the near certainty of Obama changing his definition of "success," negotiations represent an even more dangerous trap for Israel.

I just hope he's right about Israel's willingness. That boils down, I think, to whether or not Obama has any success muzzling Bibi (Netanyahu). History would suggest that Bibi is hard to muzzle, fortunately...

The Issue For American Healthcare...

A slight exaggeration, perhaps. But Warren Meyer of CoyoteBlog has been consistently making the point nicely illustrated on the graph at right: that as people have more personal responsibility for paying the costs of their medical care, the prices come down.

The blog post linked above makes the case in much more detail. The fundamental point, though, is very simple: when people have to pay for something themselves, they'll start making decisions based on the value to themselves.

Outside the healthcare arena, everybody seems to accept this notion without argument. For example, when you buy a car, you weigh the cost of a particular model against its value to you. This gives the manufacturers a huge incentive to deliver more value for the dollar – the direct result of which is we can buy the marvelous machines that are today's cars (or computers, or whatever) at historically astonishingly low prices.

But healthcare in America today doesn't work this way. Patients have zero incentive to shop for more healthcare value for the dollar. Why should they, when the insurance company is going to pay for nearly whatever they ask for? Ditto for doctors – they actually have disincentives for saving money. Their best interest (reduced litigation) is to over-order both diagnostics and theraputics.

Meyer's suggested fix is to reform healthcare to reintroduce market forces. I'm in 100% agreement with him on that general principal. There are a bazillion ways one could actually do this, and picking one would make an interesting public debate. But...I'm afraid that politically any such plan is dead on arrival. Americans have gotten used to their healthcare system, and they like the open-ended nature of it. Why wouldn't they? And, unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans do not understand that our current system is headed inexorably toward a very painful collision with the wall of economic reality...

Guess Who Gets the California IOUs?

Felix Salmon (Reuters) offers this handy chart (click to enlarge) of who California will “pay” with IOUs and who will get cash.

There seems to be a 100% correspondence between cash payments and politically connected groups, and no application whatsoever of common sense or morality. Our overlords have decided that instead of funding the genuinely needy with California's tight cash, we're going to fund government workers' pensions – that would be those same government workers that spent their way into this mess.

Where is the justice in this?

Here's my suggestion for justice:

Rope (lots of it).
Trees (Muir Woods would make a nice spot, wouldn't it?).
Politicians (all of 'em - let's start over!).
Some assembly required (easy stuff, folks – just a few basic knots).

Flying Pig Moment...

When Helen Thomas bludgeons Obama's press representative over the White House's tightly controlled “town hall” meeting, you know that somewhere pigs are flying...


What this all means, I don't know. All I know is that I certainly never expected, a mere six months into the Obama administration, to see the press doing anything other than kiss Obama's butt – especially Helen Thomas...

Frankensenator...

Al Franken has won the election, says the Minnesota Supreme Court. The blow-by-blow battle for this election is too complicated and convoluted for a mere blog post – I'd need 100 pages or so to do it justice. But my take on it is real simple: Franken and his lawyers were very clever, very ambitious, and completely uninhibited by concerns of propriety or legality – and they stole that election, plain and simple. This has consequences:

• Minnesota now has a certifiable lunatic as a senator. That sounds awful, but Franken is not the first such Senator, even in the current Congress. I suspect there are at least 10 others that fit that category (and no, they're not all Democrats).
  
  
• The Democrats will now have 60 votes in the Senate, enough to quash any Republican attempt at a filibuster (and the filibuster is the only way Republicans can currently stop a bill if the vote is purely partisan). Some commentators are making this sound like the end of the world. I don't think it's quite that bad, and it's not like this is the first time that's ever happened. In practice, politics is far from a precise science – and it's actually quite difficult to find an issue on which all 60 Democrats will vote their party's way. What traditionally happens in these scenarios is that the minority party identifies a few vulnerable votes in the majority party, and then puts enormous pressure (mainly through publicity) on those Senators to vote against their party – and this technique, more often than not, works just fine.
  

To me, the biggest impact of Al Franken's win is his rather open and blatant theft of the election. I've read extensively about the Minnesota contest, and it's clear to me that Franken won basically through simple and effective manipulation of the electoral process and the subsequent court battle – not by the now somewhat quaint and old-fashioned way of having the most votes. I'm not saying that this is the first time an election in the U.S. has been stolen, for clearly others have been. What's different here is that there was (so far as I know) no rigging or vote-buying done here – this election was stolen by litigation. And that's a scary precedent. Clearly we will see more of this, and I can't see any way that's good for the country...

On Honduras...

Joel M. writes to ask me what I think of the shenanigans in Honduras. This editorial at Investor's Business Daily sums up my take on the overall situation very well. But this excellent Ramirez cartoon perfectly summarizes my take on the politics...

The Spirit Still Moves...

Spirit – NASA's Martian explorer, that is – is still alive and kicking on the surface of Mars, over five years into it's 90 day planned mission. Two big events recently: an unexpected windstorm cleaned the dust off its solar panels, giving it a big energy boost, and it got stuck in the sand. The crew at JPL is carefully maneuvering, trying to get unstuck. The fact that one of the six wheels is stuck (and has been, for a long time now) isn't helping.

But during all the messing about trying to get unstuck, Spirit is still doing science. At the moment, it's taking advantage of the fact that its wheels are digging through the loose, sandy soil to study what's been exposed. And it's interesting stuff!

The Quite Possibly Never-Ending War On Ants...

Almost a year ago, in my ant-conquering arrogance, I made a crazy statement about almost being ready to declare victory. I hereby officially retract that grotesquely optimistic statement.

However...that is not to say that the RTV strategy is without value. Quite the contrary. Before about a year ago, our routine reaction to discovering ants was to break out the weapons of mass ant destruction (chemical weapons, that is) and madly spray them over anything that crawled within a 150 foot (or so) radius of our home. Most commonly this approach would immediately reduce the ant numbers, but not drive them completely away.

The new strategy, now being employed for about a year, is much different. No weapons of mass ant destruction are involved – just some ordinary RTV (self-curing silicone rubber, commonly sold in caulking tubes). I simply follow the ants (generally in the kitchen) back to whatever hole they're entering from, and caulk it. After that, for somewhere between 10 minutes and 2 weeks, we are ant-free – completely, totally, and utterly ant-free. And this despite the lack of chemical warfare on the ant nests outside.

This morning was quite typical. We noticed a few ants running around on our kitchen island – these were “explorers”, looking for some tasty treat. I gave them one – a dish of sugar water. Three hours later, there was a well-defined ant trail between the dish of sugar water and their entry point, which was a crack between the baseboard and the wall. I caulked the crack and cleaned up all the ants I could see with a paper towel. I knew from experience what would happen next – you can see it in the photo above.

First, the RTV caulking acts like some kind of repulsion shield to the ants – they won't touch it. That's the blue-circled area in the photo. Second, they'd start congregating in total confusion nearby the old entry point. I think what's going on there is that more and more ants show up, each laying down a pheremone trail, and that just attracts other ants all the more. About an hour after I caulked the crack, I took the photo above. In another couple hours, there will be another congregation – the more far-ranging explorers trying to get back to the nest.

So now we're ant-free once more. But I have no idea how long it will be until they pop up somewhere else...

Jamulian Morning...

Yesterday morning I went “down the hill” a bit later than usual, as I was called into work unexpectedly. As I crested the hill on Skyline Truck Trail, just before coming down into Jamul, this scene greeted me. It's typical for this time of year – clear and sunny east of Jamul town, but foggy as you get closer to the town.

These two photos aren't the best – I took them with my cell phone. But you'll get the idea...

The photo at left is looking to the south from my vantage point. The mountain in the distance on the left is Otay Mountain; to the right is San Miguel. The small peak just below Otay is Jamul Butte.

The photo above right is toward the west. San Miguel is in the center, with a couple of smaller, much closer hilltops jutting out of the mist like little islands...

Ulysses, RIP...

One of our most productive robotic explorers is nearly at the end of its road. Ulysses was launched (via space shuttle) in 1990, and reached it's orbit around the sun in 1992. Ever since then – nearly 18 years – it's been doing great science. Its measurements of the sun, and most especially the sun's magnetic field, have contributed enormously to humanity's knowledge about the solar system.

Ulysses is yet another JPL/ESA project that far exceeded its original expectations, sending home years more science data than was originally planned. Last year the Ulysses team was almost ready to end the mission due to some failures – but some very clever engineering eked out yet another year of successful operation.

But now a combination of circumstances has brought a decision to shut down Ulysses. The biggest factor appears to be this: it's low-powered radio transmitter and great distance means that Ulysses can only be heard on JPL's 70 meter antenna network. This network has great demands upon it, so its time is valuable. Ulysses has been getting by with “spare time” use of the antenna network, meaning that it took whatever dregs other missions made available through last-minute scheduling changes, etc. Ulysses is getting further and further from earth, so its signal is weaker and weaker – which means a lower and lower bitrate on the data even when it can get antenna time. Simultaneously the demands on the 70 meter antenna network are getting even more intense. So the mission controllers decided that Ulysses had finally reached the point where the science value of its data was no longer worth the cost, both in terms of antenna time and in terms of maintaining the mission team.

So on June 30 (this coming Tuesday), the mission controllers will send a signal to Ulysses to tell it to turn itself off. It will remain permanently in orbit around the sun, a monument to mankind's achievments that will remain no matter what we manage to do to ourselves...

More information here, here, and here.

Anthropomorphic Global Warming Skepticism...

Image via Wikipedia

As I've noted in previous posts, skepticism about anthropomorphic (human-caused) global warming is on the rise. Here's yet another piece of evidence for that: a nice piece in the WSJ by Kimberly Strassel, a well-known political columnist. She writes:

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

Some of this skepticism, I'm sure, is the natural result of the political machinery absorbing the enormous cost of global warming “mitigation”, and wondering whether this cost made sense politically. A few politicians may even be wondering if the cost makes sense in ordinary terms (e.g., the benefit is greater than the cost). But mostly, I suspect, the new skepticism is derived from the politician's hyper-sensitivity to issues that might stand between them and re-election – and they're hearing from the electorate that global warming mitigation is most definitely one of those issues. I know my congress-critters have heard from me on that point, loud and clear – and two of them have responded by indicating that they're hearing such resistance a lot.