Dementia...

Well, not really.  But here are some tricky brain-teasers.  Try not to read ahead to the answers.  Via my cousin Mike:

Below are four (4) questions and a Bonus question to test your perception, reasoning and the quickness of your logical processing.  They are stated simply so you should try to answer them instantly. To assure the accuracy of the results, you should not take your time, but instead, answer each of them immediately.  OK?

First Question:

You are a participant in a race. You overtake the second person. What position are you in?

Answer: If you answered that you are first, then you are absolutely WRONG! If you overtake the second person and you take his place, YOU are in second place!

Try not to screw up next time. Now answer the second question, but don't take as much time as you took for the first question, OK?

Second Question:

If you overtake the last person, then you are...?

Answer: If you answered that you are second to last, then you are...WRONG again.  Tell me Sunshine, how can you overtake the LAST person??

You're not very good at this, are you?

Third Question:

Very tricky arithmetic! Note: This must be done in your head only. Do NOT use paper and pencil or a calculator.   Try it.

Take 1000 and add 40 to it.  Now add another 1000.  Now add 30.  Add another 1000. Now add 20.  Now add another 1000.  Now add 10.  What is the total?

Answer: Did you get 5000?  The correct answer is actually 4100.  If you don't believe it, check it with a calculator!

Today is definitely not your day, is it?  Maybe you'll get the last question right...  Maybe...

Fourth Question:

Mary's father has five daughters: 1. Nana, 2. Nene, 3. Nini, 4. Nono, and ??? What is the name of the fifth daughter?

Answer: Did you Answer Nunu? NO! Of course it isn't.  Her name is Mary you idiot! Read the question again!

Okay, now the Bonus round, i.e., a final chance to redeem yourself:

A mute person goes into a shop and wants to buy a toothbrush. By imitating the action of brushing his teeth he successfully expresses himself to the shopkeeper and the purchase is done.  Next, a blind man comes into the shop who wants to buy a pair of sunglasses.  How does HE indicate what he wants?

Answer: It's really very simple  He opens his mouth and ask for it...

Does your employer actually pay you to think??  If so, do NOT let them see your answers for this test!

I'm certainly not showing my answers to my boss. I don't think he reads my blog...

American Rescue Operations in Haiti...

There are quite a few Americans on the ground now in Haiti, including several thousand U.S. Marines to provide some much-needed security.  The USS Carl Vinson (at right, click to enlarge) is there as well, and its crew are already offloading supplies (food, water, and medical supplies).

It's unusual, at least in my experience, to see one of these carriers with nothing but helicopters on the flight deck.  For this mission, however, it makes total sense: the helicopters can deliver the supplies to exactly where they're needed, with no need for an airport...

Deadline...

Cute...

Mark Steyn on Brown vs. Coakley...

Need I say more?

Remember the good old days when the glossy magazine covers competed for the most worshipful image of the new global colossus? If you were at the Hopeychange inaugural ball on Jan. 20, 2009, when Barney Frank dived into the mosh pit, and you chanced to be underneath when he landed, and you've spent the past year in a coma, until suddenly coming to in time for the poll showing some unexotically monikered nobody called Scott Brown, whose only glossy magazine appearance was a Cosmopolitan pictorial 30 years ago (true), four points ahead in Kennedy country, you must surely wonder if you've woken up in an alternative universe. The last thing you remember before Barney came flying down is Harry Reid waltzing you round the floor while murmuring sweet nothings about America being ready for a light-skinned brown man with no trace of a Negro dialect. And now you're in some dystopian nightmare where Massachusetts is ready for a nude-skinned Brown man with no trace of a Kennedy dialect.

How can this be happening?

You don't need to have been in an actual coma. Subscribing to The Boston Globe, the unreadable and increasingly unread Massachusetts snooze-sheet, has much the same effect.

Go read the whole thing.  But put down your morning beverage first...

What a Crazy World We Live In...

The socialist paradise known as the People's Republic of North Korea is taking lessons on how to implement capitalism:

Perhaps as part of that plan, South Korea is sponsoring economics training courses in China, for senior North Korean officials. The training brings the North Koreans up to speed on how a market economy, and capitalism, really work. South Korea is used as an example, and most North Koreans now know, or suspect, that the situation is much different (and much better) in the south. It's believed that North Korea wants to get a guarantee, of non-interference, from the United States and South Korea, before it embarks on a program of economic reform. North Korea believes these reforms could cause unrest in the north, and doesn't want the U.S. or South Korea taking advantage of that. Actually, the minor economic reforms (farmers markets and such) over the last seven years has caused growing unrest. China is urging North Korea to get on with the economic reforms, like China did in the 1970s and 80s, and become self-sufficient. China does not want the two Koreas united (since the new Korea would likely be a democracy), but does not want to keep propping up a Stalinist dictatorship in the north.

While here in the (very successful) capitalist U.S., we're very busy trying to implement socialism (healthcare reform, cap-and-trade, enlarging unions, and radically expanding government).

What the hell is wrong with us, people?

USNS Comfort...

To most people's eyes, this is one ugly ship.

But I'll bet it looks absolutely beautiful to the Haitians when it arrives this coming Thursday.  It's on the way right now.

It's the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship with 250 beds and 550 medical personnel.

America is quietly providing real assistance, as it always does.  We already have a substantial presence on the ground there, far larger than all other countries and the U.N. taken together.  This is not to denigrate their efforts, but rather to make a point: the world depends on America's ability to project resources quickly, whether those resources are military, medical, financial, or logistical.  Private American citizens give more to foreign causes, per capita, than the citizens of any other country.  For the past 20 years, America's ability in these areas is more effective than the rest of the world combined, and that shows no signs of changing.  The rest of the world depends on us to provide (and pay for) these things.

As an American, I'm proud of these facts.  I wish we got a little more credit for them from our foriegn critics...

Only in the Politically-Correct, Bizzaro World of Public Schools...

...could a student (and his parents!) be told to get counseling because of a science fair project.

It seems that the student had an idea for how to make a motion detector, and he decided to use that idea for a science fair project.  He came up with a design that involved an empty Gatorade bottle and some electronics.  He brought his project to school to show some friends.

That all sounds great to me: an interested and engaged student, working on a science project.  What could be wrong with that?

Here's what: the school's vice-principal took one look at the kid's science fair project and decided it might be a bomb.  He called the police.  They put the school into lockdown.  They sent in a robot to examine the project – and concluded it was just what the kid said it was, a harmless science fair project.  For some reason, they also decided to search the kid's home – and they found nothing at all. 

At this point, my conclusion would be that we need to publicly horse-whip the stupid SOB vice-principal.  Following that, we should fire all the vice-principals as useless, expensive, and unnecessary bureaucracy that contributes absolutely nothing to the education of our country's youth.

Do you think that's what they did?

Nope.  The vice-principal is still employed, along with all the other vice-principals, and there will be no public flogging.  Nor any private admonition.  In fact, all indications are that the school system entirely supports the vice-principal's actions.

Worse, the school “authorities” have told the kid and his parents to get counseling, and they've stated that the kid violated school policies.

What policies did he violate, one wonders?  The policy forbidding curiousity and interest in science?  The policy forbidding personal initiative?  The policy that forbids one from bringing objects to school that might be viewed by an “authority” with the IQ of a carrot as a bomb?

So now we've got a kid (and his family) who have been taught an important lesson by our public school system: never, ever display the slightest curiousity or enthusiasm for anything that wasn't directly ordered by the “authorities”.  March in lockstep, little ones – both now and in your adult future.

How utterly disgusting. 

I don't have any children, and won't have.  But if I did, I would do anything to avoid placing them in our awful public schools...

And I'm ashamed to say that this event happened on Friday right here in San Diego.

Oh, Jeez...

It seems like every time I have the slightest optimistic twinge for the future of the human race, this person pops back into the news.  I'd call her a moron, but that would be insulting to most morons.  I need a new word...

UFO?

This evening, as every evening, around 6:30 pm I walked outside to take the dogs for the just-before-bedtime walk.  This is something they look forward to with great anticipation, and I find it very relaxing.  This time of year it's dark at evening walk time, and tonight it was very dark; no moon in the sky at all.

As we walked, I glanced over at my old friend Orion, low in the eastern sky.  Just above the horizon (in the direction pointed to by Orion's belt), I spotted Sirius – it's the brightest star in the sky, so spotting it isn't hard to do.

But then I did a double-take, 'cause I could swear I saw Sirius moving around.  Even if you're not an astronomy buff, you probably realize that the distant stars like Sirius simply don't move around in any visible way.  Before you ask, no, I had not had any alcohol (or other mind-altering substance) this evening.  With some careful observation, I could see that Sirius was moving against the background stars – and of course this is simply not possible.

What on earth could be going on?  It would have to be one really weird atmospheric effect if Sirius was moving and neighboring stars weren't!

I ran into the house and grabbed a pair of binoculars.  When I got back outside, Sirius wasn't moving.  On the off chance that position mattered, I ran back down the driveway to the exact spot where I'd seen Sirius moving before.  Still no motion.  Now I was beginning to think hallucinations, or micro-stroke, or something along those lines.

I trudged back up toward the house along the driveway, keeping an eye on Sirius.  About 25 feet further toward the house, it moved again!  I got the binoculars on it, and I saw Sirius moving relative even to its nearest dim neighboring stars.  But then I noticed another star moving – a dim star just to the right and above Sirius from my current perspective.  And it was moving synchronously with Sirius.  I watched closely for about 30 seconds, and noted that there was both motion and blinking, which acted to accent the motion.

Then it dawned on me what was going on.  As I look to the east from my driveway, I see the profile of the hill I live on about 300 feet away.  That profile is a slope, rising into the south; lower to my left and higher to my right.  The Barnicks, my friends and neighbors, live at the top of that hill.  Their power line follows the same path, but higher because it's elevated on power poles.  From my perspective, at that moment, their power lines crossed the point in the sky where Sirius was.  I'm hypothesizing that the power lines were moving in the gentle breeze, and that their motion was causing the effects that I saw.

The proof was easy.  I just waited a couple of minutes, and sure enough, Sirius stopped moving (because it had risen just enough to clear the power lines).  And if I moved a few feet further along my driveway, Sirius started moving again, because once again the power lines were intersecting it.

I can't tell you how much better I feel, now that I can explain why Sirius was dancing around in the sky!

Haiti, From the Air...

The photo at right (click to enlarge) was taken from a U.S. Air Force UAV.  It shows the Haitian National Cathedral, almost entirely in ruins.

The Air Force has a Flickr page, where you can see more such photos as they come in.  There were three UAV photos posted at the time I wrote this.

Despite the subject matter and the emotions it evokes, I can't help but marvel at the simple fact that the U.S. Air Force has a Flickr page.  The world changes in most unexpected ways...

Wow!

No matter what your take on Brown vs. Coakley, you've got to admit that this is one hell of a campaign ad:


Lots of dollars are being spent on this local race with national implications, all because the Democrats have just a single vote super-majority in the Senate – and if Scott Brown wins on Tuesday, they'll lose it...

The Meaning of “Thunk”...

Via my mom:

Awesome!

It's Not Just Me...

...who thinks the ISS is a multi-billion dollar waste of money, waiting to rain down junk upon our heads.  Michael Benson has a proposal: send it to Mars.  Not very practical, I'm afraid, and certainly not doable politically – but he certainly shares my opinion of the ISS's current value.

Zero.

Martha Coakley's Shame...

Dorothy Rabinowitz has covered the horrendous Amirault case (prosecuted by Coakley) more thoroughly than any other reporter.  Read her impressions of Coakley.

Expensive Stop...

You've most likely heard about the program called “Head Start” that provides many kinds of aid for impoverished pre-school aged kids.  It's the program that inspired the now-trite political phrase “...for the children!”  In fact, Head Start provides quite a bit of aid to kids who aren't impoverished and who are older than pre-school age, but never mind that. 

Head Start was first implemented 45 years ago (in 1965), and during the course of its history has consumed well over $100 billion dollars (over $8 billion last year).  It's budget has risen every year by an amount well in excess of what you might expect from inflation and the population of impoverished kids.  From that perspective, it looks like any other classic government entitlement program.  Naturally and predictably, by any rational standard (including common sense), its bureaucracy is top-heavy with administrators.

Cato published a study last summer that looks at the actual effectiveness of Head Start.  This is something that the program itself has carefully avoided – another hallmark of a government-run entitlement program.  Cato's analysis is detailed and well worth reading.  Unlike most such studies, this one is very easily summarized:  Head Start is completely ineffective.

Hey, I guess that's just like most government programs, too!

I sure don't want these people running my health care...

Sober Up...

The graph at right (click to enlarge) shows the job losses over time in this recession (in red) as compared with other recessions since World War II. 

It's not a happy picture.  By extrapolation, we haven't hit the job-loss bottom of this recession yet.  Other indicators are improving, but for many people job losses are what hits home the worst – and clearly we have a ways to go yet on recovery in this recession.

More here.

Haiti...

Most of us can do little beyond the simple contribution of money to help the Haitian people devastated by the earthquake.  If you're like us, and would like to do what Americans have always done in such situations...I've added a widget at right to make it easy...

My Kind of Doctor!

Via reader Simi L.:

 I love this Doctor!

Q: Doctor, I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true?

A: Your heart only good for so many beats, and that it...don't waste on exercise. Everything wear out eventually. Speeding up heart not make you live longer; it like saying you extend life of car by driving faster. Want to live longer? Take nap.

Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?

A: You must grasp logistical efficiency. What does cow eat? Hay and corn.And what are these? Vegetables. So steak is nothing more than efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef also good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And pork chop can give you 100% of recommended daily allowance of vegetable product.

Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?

A: No, not at all. Wine made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that mean they take water out of fruity bit so you get even more of goodness that way. Beer also made of grain. Bottom up!

Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?

A: Well, if you have body and you have fat, your ratio one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio two to one, etc.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?

A: Can't think of single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No pain...good!

Q: Aren't fried foods bad for you?

A: YOU NOT LISTENING! Food are fried these day in vegetable oil. In fact, they permeated by it. How could getting more vegetable be bad for you?!?

Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?

A: Definitely not! When you exercise muscle, it get bigger. You should only be doing sit-up if you want bigger stomach.

Q: Is chocolate bad for me?

A: Are you crazy?!? HEL-LO-O!! Cocoa bean! Another vegetable! It best feel-good food around!

Q: Is swimming good for your figure?

A: If swimming good for your figure, explain whale to me..

Q: Is getting in shape important for my lifestyle?

A: Hey! 'Round' a shape!

Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.

AND.....

For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat

and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat

and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine

and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine

and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats

and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION:

Eat and drink what you like.

Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Office 2010...

Geek humor at its finest...

Random Observations...

My mornings are very busy these days; I'm handling all the household chores in addition to my usual morning routine, as Debbie is back in Indiana taking care of her mom (who's doing great!).  So this morning you'll just get a quick dump of some random observations...

On my morning walks with the dogs (usually at about 3:30 am), I take advantage of our clear skies and low light pollution to do a little sky-watching.  On Sunday morning, I spotted a satellite (I don't know which one, but it was brighter and bigger than most – might have been the International Space Station).  From my perspective, it crossed from NW to SW, covering an arc of perhaps 100° of sky.  One of the best satellite crossings I've ever seen.

This morning I took a gander at the constellations.  Usually I start with Orion, which is for me the most recognizable constellation – but Orion has already set by this hour in the winter time.  The Big Dipper was almost straight overhead, though, and I tried (and failed) to see the double in Mizar.  Sigh...

Two of our dogs (Mo'i and Lea) are being medicated for various ailments (nothing serious) and all of our dogs get some supplements every day.  I have an elaborate schedule of twice-a-day “pill events” where all this stuff is dispensed.  This morning was the grand conjunction of all schedules, resulting in a veritable pile o'pills for me to administer.  Believe it or not, it's actually kind of fun to do this.  The dogs are all very eager, because some of the pills are (apparently) quite yummy. 

The favorite one for everybody is a fish oil supplement, which comes in rubbery capsules.  The dogs squeeze these between their teeth until they pop (audibly), squirting fish oil at high pressure into their mouths.  The dogs get the funniest looks on their faces when this happens – a brief period of pure canine ecstasy. 

Some of the pills are crunchy-tasty, and all the dogs act with them just as they would with a dog treat.  No problem with those pills.

Then there's the rest of them – horrible smelling and tasting things that no self-respecting dog would ever consider eating.  Unless, of course, they were embedded in a small dollop of cream cheese, in which case they will battle each other for the right to gulp it down.  Debbie discovered this cream cheese trick a while back.  We get the cheap little tubs of generic whipped cream cheese – quite awful stuff, really – and just wrap the pills in it.  Works every time. 

Debbie and I have had these nice Motorola flip phones for quite a while now.  They have all sorts of features that we've never used, especially texting and sending photos.  But now that Debbie's back in Indiana with her mom, and without a computer, we've started to learn how to use these features.  To our surprise, it's possible to send emails from a phone, and to send emails to a phone.  So despite her being without a computer, we're still able to communicate much as we normally do via email.  Debbie really hates typing on the phone, though.  She wants an ordinary keyboard to plug into it ...

Computer-Generated Video...

The video below claims to be 100% computer-generated.  If that's true, it's by far the best I've seen.  Makes me wonder what's going to happen to conventional movie-making – maybe in the future it's going to be an army of computer artists instead of sets, actors, and all the familiar trappings of cinema...



The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

One Doesn't Know What to Say...

If you're like me, and you go here, you'll be both entertained and repelled, amused and appalled, and you'll have no idea what to say about it...

First Book of Government...

Via my mom...

FIRST BOOK OF GOVERNMENT ...


Obama is the shepherd I did not want.
He leadeth me beside the still factories.
He restoreth my faith in the Republican party.
He guideth me in the path of unemployment for his party's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the bread line,
I shall fear no hunger, for his bailouts are with me.
He has anointed my income with taxes,
My expenses runneth over.
Surely, poverty and hard living will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will live in a mortgaged home forever.
I am glad I am American,
I am glad that I am free.
But I wish I was a dog ...
And Obama was a tree.

In the past few weeks, I've noticed more and more of my lefty (or left-leaning) friends starting to voice their disatisfaction with Obama. One in particular astonished me with her sudden transformation from a slavering Obama lover into a disenchanted Democrat/liberal/progressive who is now starting to listen to the Tea Party types. I told her about Reason magazine (which she had never heard of), and after reading their web site for a while she up and subscribed.

Enough transformations like that and I might look more favorably on Obama, for an entirely unexpected reason!

Yup, She's Got Experience...

Via my mom:

A woman applying for a job in a Florida lemon grove seemed to be far too qualified for the job.

The foreman frowned and said, "I have to ask you this; have you had any actual experience in picking lemons?"

She replied: "I've been divorced three times and I voted for Obama."

Sunspots Disappearing?

An interesting post over on Watts Up With That? about the declining magnetic field strength of the sun's “spots”. Note that the vertical axis (magnetic field strength in gauss) is exagerated by crossing the X axis at 1800 instead of 0.  But still, the downward slope is clear enough.

The article speculates that if and when the field strength dips below about 1300 gauss, the sun's spots will become invisible.  No big loss there, but there are other consequences: slightly lower solar luminance and more cosmic rays striking our atmosphere (and therefore easier cloud formation, and therefore cooler climate). 

In other words, this looks like an influence on our climate that is in the opposite direction of global warming.  A considerable body of climatologists believe that solor cycles like these, combined with details of the earth's orbit (its elliptical shape, precession and other “wobbles”, etc.), are the primary drivers behind historical ice ages. 

Hmmm....

You Think I Shouldn't Worry?

Via my mom...

It's So Cold!

Via my mom...

The Walking Mini-Economy...

Reader Larry E. sent me this email, which is a nice piece of commentary all on its own:

I have a friend that lives on the island of Leyte in the Philippines. He lives there with his wife on his small military retirement check. That retirement check isn’t large by any means, but in this small town on a pretty remote island in the Philippines, he is fairly wealthy. And because he is relatively wealthy by the standards there, he constitutes a small island of prosperity wherever he goes. He is a walking mini-economy.

He has a house and some land and he employs several people in the household and that tenant farm the rice fields and coconut groves. In an area where only a single member of a household may have any income at all, this is pretty significant for the local economy. Of course, he is purchasing things himself, but each of these people now has more than just food money, they also have spending money. That spending money is spent at local businesses, which then do better themselves. He is paying for several kids to attend school in a place where most cannot go because they can’t afford the paper and pens. He is covering the costs for kids of some of his wife’s relatives and kids of some of his employees. Additionally he pays for another to attend nursing school that then might be able to find a job herself. He is an incredibly generous person. The direct and indirect benefits to the local population from this one “wealthy” person are quite significant.

Now there is two ways to look at this man. The local populace can look at him with gratitude for the generosity he continually shows, or they can look at him with resentment that they do not have all he does.

Here to America we have a lot of relatively wealthy people. Many of whom are incredibly generous with what they have achieved. People who have created businesses that subsequently employ other people. Those other people then have not only food on the table, but additional money to spend which supports other businesses etc. These all create their own mini-economies. That success spreads out and the more successful that business and that entrepreneur, the further that effect can spread.

Some are wildly successful and make billions of dollars. Most of those give hundreds of millions to charity. But more importantly, they constitute their own islands of prosperity. Really large islands. The money that they make, the success that they and their businesses have spreads out to countless others. Employing directly a gigantic workforce but indirectly affecting millions of others as that prosperity spreads out to employees, families, businesses and so on.

Ideally there would be enough of these mini-economies or Islands of Prosperity throughout the country that their influence overlaps much like overlapping circles of various sizes. I would contend that in the United States that is largely the case. In fact, the United States as a whole has been the largest Island of Prosperity of them all for decades. And like other Islands, its effect spreads out quite a ways, globally in this case. The enormous impact from trade and jobs and the incredible generosity possible due to our own prosperity at home spreads everywhere, positively affecting the well being of an entire planet. If the United States fails, the largest source of prosperity on the planet fails. And if that happens, the entire planet is negatively affected.

We can look at these successful people in two ways. We can look at them as models to aspire to and with gratitude for the effect their success has, or we can resent this success and try to take it from them.

Capitalism encourages aspiring to do better. Raising the bar and by doing so improving the overall level of success around you.

Socialism feeds on that resentment. Reducing everyone’s success to the same level and ultimately destroys the prosperity that made it possible.

I prefer to aspire to more.

Larry

Word.
And ditto.

Dodd Bails Out...

Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat, Connecticut, announced this morning that he will not seek re-election in 2010.  This is probably a smart move on his part, as the polls are showing that he'd lose even if he were running against Osama Bin Laden.  This drop in his popularity came about because his corruption has been exposed – he's been trading his powerful position on the Finance Committee for favors from the financial industry for years.  The most notorious examples of this are the sweetheart (low interest) mortgages he received from Countrywide, and the multi-million dollar “cottage” some “friends” in the financial industry gave him.  There's much, much more; it's now crystal-clear that Dodd is a corruptocrat of the first order.  He deserves to go to jail, but getting him out of office is a reasonable start.

But Dodd's bailing out can also be seen as part of a larger pattern here: Democrats have been retiring at a prodigious rate.  If I'm counting correctly, we're now up to 11 House members and 3 Senate members who are not coming back after 2010.  If the Republicans were to pick up some of those House seats and just one of the Senate seats, the Congressional balance of power would be significantly shifted away from the Democrats.  It would be a Congress much more conducive to complete gridlock – my favorite place for a federal government to be (because nearly everything they do is bad, so the less they can do, the better).

Some observers are predicting that the folks who have already bailed out are just the beginning of a tsunami of “retiring” Democrats.  If that's true, that's just lovely – and a very hopeful omen for the outcome of the 2010 mid-terms...

ClimateGate: See For Yourself...

American Thinker is running a series of daily graphs showing how the AGW folks “adjusted” the raw station temperature data.  Oddly enough, those adjustments all seem to change data showing one thing into data showing another thing altogether!

The graph at right is their graph for yesterday.  It shows the raw data (in blue) and “adjusted&rddquo; data (in red) for Kremsmuenster, Austria.

Just by eyeballing it, you can see that the raw data shows little if any trend in any direction, while the adjusted data shows a clear warming trend.

As many observers have noted, if you take all the raw data that independent analysts have been able to obtain, there is no clear trend in it.  The trend emerges only after these sorts of adjustments have been applied.  It's as though you weighed yourself every morning for 10 years, plotted the resulting data, saw that there was no declining weight pattern – so then you go back and “adjust” the data to show that you had a higher weight in the past.  Now you can claim that your weight is going down!

Off to the Airport...

We're headed to the airport this morning – the wife is catching a flight to go visit her mom in Indiana.  Kate (her mom) is in her 90s, and about three weeks ago took a tumble in her bedroom that broke five ribs, punctured a lung, and lacerated her liver.  Tomorrow Kate goes home, and for the first few weeks her daughters (one of whom lives in the area) will be taking care of her.  They'll also be observing...we want to be sure that Kate is actually up to living on her own (she's starting to have doubts herself).

It's gotta be tough to be in Kate's situation.  She's been living on her own in her Indiana farmhouse for most of 40 years since her husband died.  All her friends and most of her relatives are in the immediate area.  She used to work in a nursing home, so she knows better than most what the conditions are like there.  She refuses to go live with either daughter, knowing what an imposition it would be (whatever the daughters say about it).  She relishes her independence. 

But now her body and her mind are starting to betray her.  This latest incident would be funny if it weren't so scary – she took that fall while making her bed in the morning.  Her feet got tangled up in the blankets and she fell against her nightstand.  So Kate's faced with some very tough choices here, and so are her daughters...

Meanwhile, I'll be spending my evenings and weekends taking care of the menagerie – currently that's four dogs, seven cats, a few hundred hummingbirds, and a few dozen quail.  In our kitchen, the meds for our dogs currently under treatement are lined up with written directions – it's complicated, with a total of 9 different medicines given at intervals ranging from 12 to 48 hours.  Some of the pills have to be wrapped in cream cheese to entice the dogs to eat them; others they think of as treats.  One of the bigger challenges is making sure that the right dog gets the medicine – sometimes the intended target will spit out the pill (after sucking all the cream cheese off it!), and another dog will scarf it up.  Sigh...

Simple Home Remedies...

Via my mom:

AMAZINGLY SIMPLE HOME REMEDIES

Avoid cutting yourself when slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop.

Avoid arguments with the Mrs. about lifting the toilet seat by using the sink.

A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives; then you'll be afraid to cough.

You only need two tools in life: WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.

Always remember: Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem.

And finally, a daily thought:

Some people are like Slinkies – not really good for anything, but they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs.

Oh, yeah – I know some Slinkies, all right...

Burt Rutan on AGW...

If you're interested in aviation or space flight at all, you almost certainly know of Burt Rutan – widely considered the most innovative aviation engineer ever.  He's famous for so many things it's hard to keep track of them all, but they include: gyroplanes, several of the private spacecraft (including Virgin's), the first aircraft to fly around the world, the Veri-Eze homebuilt experimental airplane (and it's relatives), and much, much more.  He's one of the world's foremost experts on composite materials.

He's not a climatolagist.  But he's one very smart guy with a world-class BS detector.

Burt Rutan thinks the AGW hypothesis is a complete fraud, and he thought so long before ClimateGate.  I just found out about Rutan's views myself.  His credibility is very high with me; I reacted to his thoughts here much as I did when I discovered that Freeman Dyson was an AGW skeptic.

Check out Rutan's presentation on the subject (including videos) at Watts Up With That.  Excellent stuff.

What's It Mean to be at War? Obama Has No Idea...

Mark Steyn takes Obama and his administration to task for their responses to the Knickerbomber:

"suspect..." "charged..." The president can't tell an allegedly alleged suspect (which is what he is in Obama fantasy land) from an enemy combatant (which is what he is in cold, hard reality). But worse than the complacent cop-show jargonizing was a phrase it's hard to read as anything other than a deliberate attempt to mislead the public: the president referred to the Knickerbomber as an "isolated extremist." By this time, it was already clear that young Umar had been radicalized by jihadist networks in London and fast-tracked to training in Yemen by terror operatives who understood the potentially high value of a westernized Muslim with excellent English from a respectable family. Yet President Obama tried to pass him off as some sort of lone misfit who wakes up one morning and goes bananas. Could happen to anyone.

Read the whole thing here.

2010 – the Year of the Chickens...

The chickens coming home to roost, that is.  Victor Davis Hansen has an interesting piece on how some of the lamer moves on the part of the Obama administration are likely to create some unhappy consequences sometime this year...

The Gathering Storm...

Scary graphic, but the message is dead serious.  At every turn, our liberal congress-critters are doing their best to limit one of American's most fundamental rights: the right to bear arms.

I just hope we have enough concerned citizens to beat back these efforts...

Year In Review...

Yup, it's that time of the year – when Dave Barry does his review of the year past.  A sample from this one:

In government news, top Washington thinkers, looking for a way to goose the economy along, come up with the ``Cash for Clunkers'' program, under which the federal government provides a financial inducement for people to take functional cars, which are mostly American-made, to car dealers, who deliberately destroy these cars and sell the people new replacement cars, which are mostly foreign-made. This program, which was budgeted for $1 billion, ends up costing $3 billion and is halted after a month. The administration declares that it has been a huge success, which everybody understands to mean that it will never, ever be repeated. With this mission accomplished, the top Washington thinkers are free to train all of their brainpower on the nation's health-care system.

It Just Hit Me!

Three readers sent variations of this to me today – it must be rattling around all over the intertubes:

My dog sleeps about 20 hours a day. She has her food prepared for her. She can eat whenever she wants, 24/7/365. Her meals are provided at no cost to her. She visits the Dr. Once a year for her checkup, and again during the year if any medical needs arise. For this she pays nothing, and nothing is required of her. She lives in a nice neighborhood in a house that is much larger than she needs, but she is not required to do any upkeep. If she makes a mess, someone else cleans it up. She has her choice of luxurious places to sleep. She receives these accommodations absolutely free. She is living like a queen, and has absolutely no expenses whatsoever. All of her costs are picked up by others who go out and earn a living every day.

I was just thinking about all this, and suddenly it hit me like a brick in the head: Holy Shit, my dog is a liberal!

Mark Steyn on the Health Care Bill...

My long-time readers know that Mark Steyn is one of my favorite columnists.  His own life experiences lend him extra credibility on health care issues: he was born and raised in England, moved to Canada as an adult, and then more recently moved to the U.S.   So he has direct personal experience with the two health care systems most frequently cited by American liberals as the model that the U.S. should aspire to.

Naturally, Mr. Steyn has some opinions on the wisdom of this.  Here's a taste:

That’s why Nebraska’s grotesque zombie senator Ben Nelson is the perfect poster boy for the new arrangements, and not just another so-called Blue Dog Democrat spayed into compliance by a massive cash injection. There is no reason on earth why Nebraska should be the only state in this Union to have every dime of its increased Medicare tab picked up by the 49 others. So either that privilege will be extended to all, or to favored others, or its asymmetry will be balanced by other precisely targeted lollipops hither and yon. Whatever happens, it’s a dagger at the heart of American federalism, just as the bill’s magisterial proclamation that the Independent Medicare Advisory Board can only be abolished by a two-thirds vote of the Senate strikes at one of the most basic principles of a free society — that no parliament can bind its successors.

These details are obnoxious not merely in and of themselves but because they tell us the truth about where we’re headed: Think of the way almost every Big Government project bursts its bodice and winds up bigger and more bloated than its creators allegedly foresaw. In this instance, the stays come pre-loosened, and studded with loopholes. Because the Democrat operators — the Nancy Pelosis and Barney Franks — know that what matters is to get something, anything across the river, and then burn the bridge behind you.

And here's where you can read the whole thing.

American Education...

Here's an interesting piece by an American educator noting that her foreign students out-perform her American students by a wide margin.  This is a phenomenon I've blogged about many times in the context of hiring U.S.-educated employees versus foreign-educated employees.

She ascribes the difference to “work ethic” differences, but the actual examples cited seem to speak more to the lack of motivation and seriousness of the American students.  To me, those imply cultural factors that are tough to pin down in any simple way.  The sum of them, though, is this: it's ok for an American to be an uneducated git upon completion of high school or college.  There are no unhappy consequences, other than certain careers being out of reach.  This is not true in many other countries; there, first of all, you'd never graduate without actually having achieved certain measurable sets of knowledge or skill.  Second of all, should you fail to reach these, you'd be greatly looked down upon.

How can we fix this?  I'm afraid I'm not optimistic about it...

The BVD Bomber: Inside Story...

Put down any breakfast beverages you may have in your hand.  Swallow anything in your mouth.  Then read this sample of IowaHawk's latest satirical masterpiece, wherein he brings you the inside story straight from the Christmas Day BVD bomber himself, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab:

I pretty much dozed off after that, but then it was like "BING! Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. In twenty minutes we will begin preparations for our final descent into Detroit, so if you have to use the restrooms, blah blah blah." Crap, I had completely forgotten to blow up the plane, and the concierge was giving me the hurry up sign. So I walked back to the loo, and there was already a line of hippies. So I told them, "hey dude, do you mind? I really gotta pinch one bad." I guess my eyes were kinda dilated from the suicide relaxants, so they let me by.

Lemme ask you: have you ever tried to inject a glycerin detonator syringe into some plastic explosives glued under your nutsack, while you were stoned out of your gourd, in an airplane bathroom, during Lake Erie turbulence, while some stupid hippie is pounding on the door? Take my word for this, it. is. a. mofo. I must have stabbed myself in the junk eight or ten times before I finally got it smoldering. So I stroll out of the loo, real casual-like, with my nuts on fire, and headed back to my seat to blow out the fuselage.

Read the whole thing here.

Blogger Up...

I have more-or-less recovered from my bout with the flu.  I'm functional enough this morning to go into work (I've been playing hooky the past couple of days). 

The best part about being sick is how good it feels when you're done...

Indeed...

Who Thinks of These Things?

ClimateGate: Merry Christmas Hockey Stick...

Via Steve McIntyre:

Iran...

Charles Krauthammer on the year of living fecklessly, a review of what Obama has done wrong on Iran.

Reading this, I can't help thinking how much better it would be have an eyes-wide-open realist like Krauthammer determining our Iranian strategy, rather than Obama and his “engagement” policy that's so reminiscent of Chamberlain.

On the other hand, the New York Times yesterday published a commentary piece that essentially said it's time to bomb the crap out of Iranian nuclear facilities.  That's about as expected (coming from the NYT) as a clean-shaven Santa.  Obama's left reacted in a tiredly predictable way, insisting that military action can't work and only engagement can.  The lessons of history apparently really can't be learned...

Meanwhile, as Krauthammer points out, Iran is another year closer to having the bomb that absolutely everyone knows they're trying so hard to make.  If they obtain that bomb, the political dynamics of the Middle East will be changed in ways that are to the detriment of every other Middle Eastern nation, and they all know it.  So my bet is that the most militarily capable nation in the Middle East (Israel) will mount the attack that the U.S. won't make – and that they'll be covertly aided by some countries we ordinarily think of as Israel's enemies.  Candidates are Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq...

Around Our House...

...are animals.  Lots of animals.  More animals than most people could imagine sharing their space with.  Only crazy people like us would think this was a desiable situation.

Our four dogs (seen here posing in front of our Christmas tree) and seven cats are quite happy today.  The dogs got presents (tug toys that squeak – everything a dog could desire) and everybody got lots of yummy food.  At right, the dogs are (clockwise starting with the black-and-white border collie): Racer, Mo'i, Lea, and Miki.   The angelic-looking kitty framed by the wreath is Halala Pala, affectionately known as the “Ha”.  He is the king of deception; his angelic looks conceal a devil on loan from Hades.  Curled up asleep is Maka Lea, who also looks angelic and innocent – but who actually is a well-practiced bully that rules the feline hierarchy here with unrelenting claw and vigilance.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all 12 of my regular readers!

  

Mao on a Christmas Ornament – at the White House!

I've no idea what the process was that led to this, nor do I know if these ornaments were approved by either of the Obamas personally.

But I do know this: as an American who cares about his fellow humanity, presenting Mao – responsible for more human death and misery than any other person in all of history – in such a context is insulting, wrong, and outrageous.

I can't even begin to imagine what anyone involved was thinking...

AGW: The Met Releases Code and Data...

Steve McIntyre gets a Christmas present...

ClimateGate: A Climate Scientist Speaks Out...

Interesting WSJ piece by self-described “odd person” Hans Von Storch, a well-known climate scientist and participant in the IPCC process...

ClimateGate: The AGW Timeline...

An excellent graphic (in PDF form) showing the significant events in the development of AGW theory, from a skeptic's perspective.  Hat tip to JoNova.

Blogger Down...

With the H2N2 flu, or something much like it.  As I write this, I'm running a slight fever, I'm breathing mainly through my mouth, I've lost my speaking voice, and I ache all over.  And this represents an improvement!

I'm looking forward to more improvement by tomorrow morning.  Maybe I'll be able to speak again!

Lame Moments in Technology...

An excellent list of the decade's less, er, impressive moments...

Oh, Jeez...

The Democrats are playing dangerous games again.  This time they're trying to make Senate rules changes inside a bill – something that has never been tried before, to my knowledge.  Normally a Senate rules change requires a 2/3 vote, which of course the health care reform bill will never get.

There are several such rules changes embedded.  The most egregious one is on page 1020 of the bill:

It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.

They want to prohibit future Congresses from modifying or repealing this bill.

Of course, future Congresses can defund the bill, effectively repealing it.

What a bunch of clowns!  Dangerous clowns, though...

Political Hari-Kari?

Peter Wehner concludes a commentary piece:

Mr. Obama has revived the worst impressions of the Democratic party – profligate and undisciplined, arrogant, lovers of big government, increasers of taxes. The issues and narrative for American politics in the foreseeable future has been set — limited government versus exploding government, capitalism versus European style socialism, responsible and measured policies versus reckless and radical ones.

Barack Obama is in the process of inflicting enormous damage to his presidency and his party. And there is more, much more to come.

I'm hoping he's right – that by shoving this corrupt, awful health care “reform” bill down our collective throats, the Democrats are committing political hari-kari.

Read the whole thing.

ClimateGate: Steyn on Copenhagen...

A teaser:

So just to recap: The Prince of Wales, a man who has never drawn his own curtains, ramps up a carbon footprint of 2,601 tons while telling us that western capitalist excess is destroying the planet. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the railroad engineer who heads the International Panel on Climate Change and has demanded that "hefty aviation taxes should be introduced to deter people from flying," flew 443,226 miles on "IPCC business" in the year and a half before the Copenhagen summit. And Al Gore is a carbon billionaire: He makes more money buying offsets from himself than his dad did from investing in Occidental Petroleum.

Go read the whole thing.

Legal Murder...

In Virginia, the police believe it is legal to kill newborn babies...

Doesn't common sense have a place in here somewhere?

ClimateGate: Copenhagen Crash...

Was the outcome at Copenhagen the best one possible?

ClimateGate: Wikipedia Police...

An interesting look at how Wikipedia's AGW articles were maintained in a deceptive way...

A Non-Work Weekend...

I haven't worked (for my job) even 5 minutes this weekend.  I can't remember the last time I did that.  Please note that this is not a complaint – I love the work I do.  I work long hours because I want to, not because anyone asks me to.  I'm just making the observation that I haven't worked at all this weekend.

But that's not to say that I just stayed in bed or watched TV!

Friday night I replaced our kitchen sink's faucet.  This is challenging mainly because it involves lying on your back under the sink, working overhead in a very tight space.  The old faucet (a top-of-the-line Moen) had a piece of cast iron in its guts that had rusted and falling apart (after 8+ years of good service).  I replaced it with a new top-of-the-line Moen – but one whose innards are entirely made of brass and stainless steel.

Saturday morning I assembled Debbie's Christmas present.  Crazy woman that she is, a couple of months ago she announced that the only thing she wanted for Christmas was a barbeque grill.  We've had a cheapie “baby” grill for the past year, and we've gotten much good use out of it – and I'm a frequent beneficiary of the good food resulting.  So I had no objection to this notion.  I did some research, asked some friends, and ended up selecting a Weber Genesis S-310.  The best price (including free shipping in the equation) was from Amazon, so I ordered it about 10 days ago, and had it in just two days.  I was a little shocked at its weight: 220 pounds.

Yesterday morning I finally had the time to open the box and see what I'd gotten myself into.  Unpacking it carefully took the better part of an hour, and left our living room strewn with dozens of large metal parts and bags full of small parts.  My first impressions were positive: the packaging was very well done, finished metal parts were covered with protective plastic film, and all the fabrication work looked to be top notch.  There were a half-dozen or so large aluminum castings, all very well made.  All but a few of the steel parts (and all of the exposed parts) were stainless steel, and heavy gauge (which is where the 220 pounds came from).

There was but a single sheet of instructions, which was a little worrisome given the quantity of (often mysterious-looking) parts littering the living room.  But as I started in on the assembly, I found the instructions to be clear and complete.  I had very little trouble finding the right parts and putting them together.  About the only critique I can make of the instructions is that there were a couple of occasions when the size of the part I was looking for was so different than what I'd expected (based on the drawing) that I had trouble identifying it – but compared to most such assembly experiences, that is a trivial criticism.  The fit of every single piece was literally perfect – I had no banging, sawing, filing, or “encouraging” to do.  Best of all, when I finished (after about three hours), there wasn't a single part missing, or left over – and the resulting grill looked great and felt solid.

But now that we owned a “real” grill, we had to wander down the hill to buy and fill a propane tank.  We took the opportunity to stop by the Bravo Cafe to deliver our Christmas gift to Manoli (and to receive ours in return!).  We had one of his delicious-but-gut-expanding breakfast burritos (which was the end of our eating for the day).  Then we went home and tried out the new grill.  Worked the first time, producing large quantities of heat with no effort at all.

We are now ready for serious grilling!

ClimateGate: McIntyre Takes Apologists to the Woodshed...

The ClimateGate revelations have vindicated Steve McIntyre's publicly voices suspicions in a big way.  You might expect he'd take on a gloating tone, and I'd certainly understand it if he did – but he didn't.  However, some of the AGW apologists have said some things that are just plain contrary to the facts revealed in ClimateGate, and the amazingly level-headed McIntyre has completely ignored them.

Until now, that is.  I guess he's had enough...

ClimateGate: Russia Claims Data Cherry-Picking...

Oh, boy.  Now the Russians are saying that the CRU carefully chose which Russian weather station data to include in their data set.  They carefully chose those weather stations showing a warming trend. 

Steve McIntyre has been suspicious of the Russian data (as used by CRU) for years.

See here for details from McIntyre and here for Delingpole's reaction.

The Economy is So Bad That...

Via reader Jim M.:

The economy is so bad that:


I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.


I ordered a burger at McDonald's and the kid behind the counter asked,  "Can you afford fries with that?"


CEO's are now playing miniature golf.


If the bank returns your check marked  "Insufficient Funds," you call them and ask if they meant you or them.


Hot Wheels and Matchbox stocks are trading higher than GM.


McDonald's is selling the 1/4 ouncer.


Parents in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and learned their children's names.


A truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico .


Dick Cheney took his stockbroker hunting.


Motel Six won't leave the light on anymore.


The Mafia is laying off judges.


Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen.


Congress says they are looking into this Bernard Madoff scandal. Oh Great!!   The guy who made $50 Billion disappear is being investigated by the people who made $1.5 Trillion disappear!


And, finally...


I was so depressed last night thinking about the economy, wars, jobs, my savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc.,  I called the Suicide Lifeline. I got a call center in Pakistan, and when I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited, and asked if I could drive a truck.

ClimateGate: That Didn't Take Long...

The Department of Energy (DOE) sent a notice that starts as below to 8,000 or so employees of its Savanah River Site in South Carolina:

December 14, 2009

DOE Litigation Hold Notice

DOE-SR has received a “Litigation Hold Notice” from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) General Council and the DOE Office of Inspector General regarding the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England. Accordingly, they are requesting that SRNS, SRR and other Site contractors locate and preserve all documents, records, data, correspondence, notes, and other materials, whether official or unofficial, original or duplicative, drafts or final versions, partial or complete that may relate to the global warming, including, but not limited to, the contract files, any related correspondence files, and any records, including emails or other correspondence, notes, documents, or other material related to this contract, regardless of its location or medium on which it is stored. In other words, please preserve any and all documents relevant to “global warming, the Climate Research Unit at he University of East Anglia In England, and/or climate change science.”

Read the whole thing here.

Sounds like litigation.  I wonder who is suing who, and on what theory?

ClimateGate: IPCC Head Isn't Quite as Independent as You'd Think...

Dr. Rajendra Pachauri is the head of the IPCC, and much in the news recently as he defends the CRU and its work from the ClimateGate revelations.  I got curious about just who this guy was, as I'd never heard of him before.  Turns out several other people were curious, too – see here and here. 

The gist of it is that Dr. Pachauri is one extremely well-connected man – well-connected with dozens of energy-related businesses, that is.  As James Delingpole puts it:

Nevertheless, with the best will in the world, does the good Dr Pachauri not feel there might be certain potential conflict-of-interest issues between his role as head of the IPCC and his sundry business interests?

To which I say...“Hmmmm...”

ClimateGate: Mainstream at Last...

Clive Crook in the Financial Times:

Yet how did the establishment respond? It said that this is how science is done in the real world. Initially, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change defended the scientists and played down the significance of their correspondence. Al Gore said he had not read the e-mails (they were stolen, for heaven’s sake) and that they were reassuring.

When, inexplicably, that did not quell the scandal, the climate-science establishment argued that even if CRU’s work was excluded from consideration, plenty of other evidence supported its findings. Maybe so, thinks the fair-minded voter. But the independence of other big research groups is not entirely clear. In any case, many scientists had just called the e-mailers exemplars of best practice. Why should one expect other researchers’ standards to be any different?

Which leaves smearing the doubters as opponents of science itself. They are either stupid or evil; “flat-earthers” or “deniers” (akin, that is, to Holocaust deniers). Supporters of the consensus no doubt lap this up. The voters who need to be convinced are less likely to. On the whole, people object to being called ignorant or evil. That is not how you bring them round.

When you've lost the FT, what's left?  Your dog?