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...perfectly willing to go for a false statement that illustrates a truth...

The SCOTUS Kelo Decision again — this time from a leftie moonbat perspective.
Paul at Wizbang covers Howard Dean's gaffe and takes on the kids at daily kos as well — doubleplus goodness!

Kos Has a Lot of Work to Do
After Howard Dean made a complete ass of himself with the Supreme Court comment, (believe it or not) one of the Kos kids called the comments “[not] even remotely defensible.”

The poster did not explain the comments to the kids however… Which is where the fun begins:

Here's the first few comments about the quote:

1) Um What?

2) Huh? I don't understand why you are offended by Dean's words.

3) (somebody let a ringer in to explain it)

4) This issue has made people mad. The public does not know who the lefties and righties are. In fact a couple of the “lefties” are Republican appointees who interpret the law isn a supposed liberal way. … Anyway, why shouldn't we pick up on a “activist” court decision and spin it our way? … This decision made the public mad. [Let's just lie to the public, they'll never know. -ed]

5) Definitely “Bush's Court” The SCOTUS appointed Quacky president in 2000. IMO, that makes them “Bush's Court”. And in general they are pretty right wing. That make's them “Bush's Right-Wing Court”.
So, as usual, Howard Dean is Right. [emphasis in original -ed]

6) I didn't understand either until I clicked the lnk [sic]
I didn't understand the problem with Dean's quote either until I click through the link to the Dean Nation post and found the sensible observation that the eminent domain case was decided by a five justice majority that included the four “liberal” judges; Scalia, Thomas, Rhenquist were in dissent.

7) Well, here's the thing…
I'm 100% behind it. Why? Because it resonates, and I'm perfectly willing to go for a false statement that illustrates a truth., [emp mine -ed]
The GOP is the party of Big Business. Big Business (business in general) is who benefitted from the Kelo case.
So, frankly, I say it's a great line of attack. Screw accuracy — remind people that now big business can take their homes away to make a shopping mall, and that's A-okay by the GOP.

And on and on it goes. Half the Kos kids had no clue what was wrong with the statement the other half said the Dems should just keep lying about it.

Kos says he is trying to purge the moonbats from the site… From the looks of it, he's got some work to do.

Paul steped in as [xxxx - ed] a few times above…

This really illustrates the sloppy thinking of the moonbats that they would be willing to embrace a known false statement because it illustrates something that to them represents a truth. Explains a lot behind the Joe Wilson and the TANG 'scandals'

Word up — FACTS! Please, just facts and stuff that is like… verifiable…

Ahhhhhhhhh — screw them…

Cool camera

Neat small camera — Uncrate has the details:

James Bond Stealth Camera
Be a true spy with this ultra tiny digital camera that hides out in a Zippo-style metal case. Straight from Q's laboratory, the James Bond Stealth Camera ($80) takes up to 150 pictures at 640×480 size, record video up to 30 seconds long, or record up to 12 minutes of audio. The gadget also has a “James Bond 19 day surveillance mode” that automatically take photos at preset time intervals — for up to 19 days.

Actually a very nice and well thought-out feature set.
USB interface, uses one AAA battery (nothing exotic) and only $80 from these fine people.

A bad day on the runway

Ouch!!!

Click for full-size Image

Swiped from the Braden Files

An American Sheik

Meet Sheik Horn — Yahoo/AP:

Iraq Citizens Deem U.S. Soldier As Sheik
Sheik Horn floats around the room in white robe and headdress, exchanging pleasantries with dozens of village leaders. But he's the only sheik with blonde streaks in his mustache — and the only one who attended country music star Toby Keith's recent concert in Baghdad with fellow U.S. soldiers.

Officially, he's Army Staff Sgt. Dale L. Horn, but to residents of the 37 villages and towns that he patrols he's known as the American sheik.

Sheiks, or village elders, are known as the real power in rural Iraq. And the 5-foot-6-inch Floridian's ascension to the esteemed position came through dry humor and the military's need to clamp down on rocket attacks.

Late last year a full-blown battle between insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi forces had erupted, and U.S. commanders assigned a unit to stop rocket and mortar attacks that regularly hit their base. Horn, who had been trained to operate radars for a field artillery unit, was now thrust into a job that largely hinged on coaxing locals into divulging information about insurgents.

Horn, 25, a native of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., acknowledges he had little interest in the region before coming here. But a local sheik friendly to U.S. forces, name-changed, explained the inner workings of rural Iraqi society on one of Horn's first Humvee patrols.

Horn says he was intrigued, and started making a point of stopping by all the villages, all but one dominated by Sunni Arabs, to talk to people about their life and security problems.

Moreover, he pressed for development projects in the area: he now boasts that he helped funnel $136,000 worth of aid into the area. Part of that paid for delivery of clean water to 30 villages during the broiling summer months.

“They saw that we were interested in them, instead of just taking care of the bases,” Horn said.

name-changed, Horn's mentor and known for his dry sense of humor, eventually suggested during a meeting of village leaders that Horn be named a sheik. The sheiks approved by voice vote, Horn said.

Some sheiks later gave him five sheep and a postage stamp of land, fulfilling some of the requirements for sheikdom. Others encouraged him to start looking for a second wife, which Horn's spouse back in Florida immediately vetoed.

But what may have originally started as a joke among crusty village elders has sprouted into something serious enough for 100 to 200 village leaders to meet with Horn each month to discuss security issues.

And Horn doesn't take his responsibilities lightly. He lately has been prodding the Iraqi Education Ministry to pay local teachers, and he closely follows a water pipeline project that he hopes will ensure the steady flow of clean water to his villages.

“Ninety percent of the people in my area are shepherds or simple townspeople,” said Horn. “They simply want to find a decent job to make enough money to provide food and a stable place for their people to live.”

Oh yes — Iraq is a quagmire and we should pull out immediately.
Forgetting of course that Saddam never cared about “his people”, caring only for himself, his cronies and spreading wahabism.

A bit distressing that a Mr. Antonio Castaneda saw fit to print the full name of Sheik Horn's mentor. I substituted name-changed as this site gets scanned regularly by a number of search engines.

Hat tip to Charles at LGF

Tornado Chasing

This is insane but very very cool — from AutoWeek:

Casey vs. the Tornado
Storm chaser builds an armored Ford F-450 to drive into tornados
Earlier this year near Paducah, Texas, cinematographer Sean Casey got the scary part of his wish. “The holy grail of all footage is to get a tornado coming right at you—filming with a wide-angle lens, and having the tornado hit you, impact the camera—and that shot really hasn’t been gotten yet,” says the seven-year storm-chasing veteran. “If we can get that on IMAX, it would be a really nice, nice shot.”

Because of heavy rain, his bulky IMAX camera didn’t get the shot. Casey was hit by a tornado twice that day, events he recalls with a calm, articulate tone belying that average folks think the feat is totally, completely, insanely nuts.

“The first was like being sandblasted by 70- to 80-mph winds. The last tornado was rain-wrapped. You couldn’t see the tornado. We just drove right into it,” recalls Casey. “The wind reading was 55 meters per second, so maybe 110 mph.”

Until three years ago Casey would never have tried driving into a tornado. “One year we had a pickup and we had the camera on a helicopter mount in the back. We were trying to get to the mode where you can film at any time. It was always a hard deal to jump out of a car, set up your sticks [tripod], set up the camera and then get your shot. But we were still exposed in the back of the pickup. Going down the highway at 80 mph, if something happens you’re dead.”

“We had a close call in 2001 in a minivan where we actually locked ourselves out of the minivan,” he says. “We were really close to these tornados. It was just after that we thought, 'Let’s build a vehicle that can take some abuse.' A vehicle where if you get hit by a tornado, even a violent one, you’re probably going to be okay.”

So he built the TIV (Tornado Intercept Vehicle), a long-wheelbase 1997 Ford F-450 diesel dually pickup. No one at Ford would recognize it, though. The body has been replaced by inexpertly welded thick steel plates, and incorporates a roof turret housing the large IMAX film camera. Occupants peer out through prison-window Lexan portals.

“It’s so ugly! It’s just a big mobile tripod for the camera,” Casey says.

Here are two photos of Casey's rig:

That must be a rush.

Thinner and thinner

The Atkins company is going though Chapter 11 Bankruptcy proceedings.
Bloomberg has the story:

Atkins Nutritionals Files for Bankruptcy Protection in New York
Atkins Nutritionals Inc., founded by late diet guru Dr. Robert Atkins, filed for bankruptcy protection in New York today after struggling with increasing competition from low-carbohydrate food producers.

The company lists assets of $301 million and liabilities of $325 million in papers filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. Atkins owes UBS Securities LLC and other lenders roughly $301 million under a 2003 loan, according to court papers.

“Mainstream companies such as Unilever, Kraft, and General Mills broke into the controlled-carbohydrate market with in 2004 with well-funded, aggressive product launches,” Rebecca Roof, the company's chief restructuring officer, said in court papers. As a result, Roof said, sales in 2004 were “dramatically less than forecast.”

The problem also stems from the fact that the diet simply did not work for many people. The premise is that by eliminating carbohydrates, you force your body into a state of Ketosis. In this state, the body stops deriving the majority of its energy from glucose and starts burning its stored fats. The “diet” works like gangbusters but your breath smells like paint thiner (acetone), you have absolutely zero energy and you aren't quite there mentally (the brain has a specific need for glucose).

Most people would put a couple of days into the strict (effective) interpretation of the diet and would then backslide into a “low carb” mode letting their bodies slip out of Ketosis. Then, they are eating huge amounts of fat and not exercising as much since they are still not eating the carbs they should be for energy. Immediate weight gain.

Good thing they didn't because Ketosis is incredibly hard on the body (it's one of the last things the body does before it starves to death). We would have become a nation of skinny Kidney Dialysis patients.

A very good diet can be found here: The Hacker's Diet

To-Do lists

Gerard Van der Leun writes at American Digest and has a wonderful take on to-do lists:

The “Not Insane” To-Do List
“There is no multi-tasking. There is only the monkey mind jabbering so fast it seems like multi-tasking.”
LET'S FACE IT, we all have far too much to do. But the only reason this is so is because of the proliferation of productivity tools that respond to our insane lust to be “productive.” Driving this insanity is the To-Do list which is, being limitless, is unlimited in its ability to drive us insane. It's time to stop the To-List insanity. Toss all you've previous To-Do Listing Systems you've got out — paper and/or electronic — and convert to this new, improved certifiably not-insane system.

Prints out on 3×5 cards suitable for your Hipster PDA

A PDF file suitable for printing is located RIGHT HERE.

Don't say I never do anything to increase your sanity, because I just did.

Blogrolling

Moved the blogroll over to a manual system — a little more difficult to maintain but it loads in a snap. I checked Blogrolling's website and they are having database “issues”.

Air America Radio and the missing $480,000

What happens when the liberals find the tables turned — they squirm. :-)

Blogger Brian Maloney is covering the growing question of what Air America is doing with the $480,000 in taxpayers money that was 'loaned' to it by the director of the New York city Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club. His articles are long with lots of links for verification so I will be excerpting small bits from them.

He starts here: Federal Funds Diverted To Air America

Air America's Dirty Dough
Media Cover-Up, Bronx Community Programs Nearly Shut
What happens when the mainstream media, after years of seething over conservative talk radio's success, discover its alternative got diverted public funds, earmarked instead for inner-city youth and seniors?

The answer, with one key exception: they pretend it didn't happen.

Yes, only because of a New York Daily News tidbit do we know that Bronx-based Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club nearly shut down major programs recently, because almost $500,000 in governmental grant money was instead diverted to Air America's liberal radio network.

An excerpt from the tidbit:

According to published reports, the allegations involve Charles Rosen, the founder of Gloria Wise who has stepped down as executive director, investing city contract funds in Air America Radio, the liberal talk radio network.

Brian goes on: Air America Funding Issue Heats Up

What's Next?
Holding Air America Accountable For Funding Scandal
Now that Air America's sleazy funding scandal has received more attention, how can we continue to demand full accountability from the firm?

Here's where things stand:

—- Since the company isn't denying it received at least $480,000 in taxpayer funds meant for a Bronx community center, why doesn't it feel the need to repay the money, simply because of a network ownership change?

If any of the money was repaid, why won't they tell us? Some radio talk hosts have begun on-air campaigns to demand it be returned.

—- Why did Air America's response to our reporting leave out so many important details? The deflection of blame was unfortunate enough, worse was the refusal to address so many questions.

What do they have to hide?

—- Did any of Air America's talk show hosts address the controversy on Wednesday or Thursday's shows? If not, then their Bush-bashing credibility is forever shot.

How can they talk about ethics, integrity, or scandal, when the biggest one originated in their offices?

And on: Air America Issues Second Statement In Funds Scandal

Scandal Heats Up
Is Air America Answering Questions, Or Creating More?
So far, in seeking to determine whether Air America benefited from taxpayer money meant for a community youth center, we've accomplished two things: sending the blogosphere into action mode and compelling the company to respond to the developing firestorm.

Early Friday morning, I was made aware of a new, second press statement on the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club scandal. A number of emails and blog comments quickly followed, leading me to wonder if there was some kind of organized effort to turn the tables.

Sure enough, at the Daily Kos (king of the liberal blogosphere), there is this new post:

This post is a longish one as Brian does an in-line Fisking and then asks 11 questions.

Brian then offers: Liberals Not Happy With Air America Scandal Reporting

Backlash Begins
A “Fake Story”, What Took Lefties So Long?
If you've at all followed previous sticky liberal flaps, the routine should by now be clear:

First, it's silence, then quiet consultation, followed by a “collective” response, repeated verbatim across the Internet and mainstream media.

On Air America's taxpayer funding diversion scandal, it was inevitable liberals would snap out of their stunned silence and fight back.

Don't forget, Air America has been the realization of an ages-old lefty dream, to take on Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio. They're not going to let $480,000 in taxpayer funds meant for a community center, going instead to the network, get in the way.

The only question was how long it would take.

Answer: about four days. That must have been some pow-wow. How do we spin a way out of this mammoth mess?

When it came to how they would respond, there was never any question: with all of the usual tactics, name calling, trickery and nastiness.

What they're saying this weekend reveals much about the state of “progressive” politics.

Step one is to kill the messenger, that happens to be me this time.

It's a “fake story”, Brian Maloney is “sweaty”, “baloney”, plus all of the usual radical-right labeling highlight (lowlight?) what we've so far seen. I'm noticing the same attack pattern across sites, with cut-and-pasted copy.

Emanating first from the Daily Kos, the nation's largest liberal blog site, it then spreads to smaller sites. I'm accused outright of making up a story:

It's fun to check in with Memeorandum now and then to see what the righties are linking to. Yesterday they were swarming like flies to a carcass to a story that appears to be phony.

Again, these are just excerpts from much larger articles and Brian has links to other sites with documentation so this story is not going away anytime soon.

France grows some brass ones!

Roger L. Simon reports that France is showing a lot more courage than England when it comes to dealing with their local Islamofascist population.

Jeanne d'Arc fights back!
According to the Telegraph, the French are suddenly getting tougher on terror than the British:

The gulf between British and French treatment of preachers of hatred and violence was thrown sharply into focus yesterday when France announced the summary expulsion of a dozen Islamists between now and the end of August.

A tough new anti-terrorism package was unveiled by Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister and a popular centre-Right politician.

His proposals reflect French determination to act swiftly against extremists in defiance of the human rights lobby, which is noticeably less vocal in France than in Britain.

Imams and their followers who fuel anti-western feeling among impressionable young French Muslims will be rounded up and returned to their countries of origin, most commonly in France's case to its former north African colonies.

Mr Sarkozy also revealed that as many as 12 French mosques associated with provocative anti-western preaching were under surveillance. Imams indulging in inflammatory rhetoric will be expelled even if their religious status is recognised by mainstream Muslim bodies.

Those who have assumed French citizenship will not be protected from deportation. Mr Sarkozy said he will reactivate measures, “already available in our penal code but simply not used”, to strip undesirables of their adopted nationality. “We have to act against radical preachers capable of influencing the youngest and most weak-minded,” Mr Sarkozy told the French daily Le Parisien.

Roger then goes on to comment:

Strip “undersireables” of their citizenship? Can you imagine how our civil liberties organizations would react if one of our major politicians started talking that way? Those “progressocrats” (how's that for a neologism?) react like the proverbial stuck pigs when someone gets a Koran wet. And back in the day I would certainly have sympathized with the ACLU, et al, on this. But we have reached a rather extraordinary pass. The limit of free speech has traditionally been defined as “yelling fire in a crowded theatre.” We're light years beyond that now. Who cares what anyone's yelling? They're blowing up people in subways.

It has taken a long long time but people are starting to see the truth that Islamofascism is not a viable culture. Any culture based on raw hate and fear is not worth perpetuating.

Genpets

A new 'product' from Biotechnology company Bio.Genica:

From their website:

Rethink Nature
Nature has never been a closed system, nor has it ever been balanced - we as a species have been affecting it for thousands of years. It has been our inspiration, and by choosing the best it has to offer we have been able to create absolute perfection. Patenting of living systems has become slowly accepted as our outlook on life has changed. As it is obvious that Genpets™ have never, and would never exist in nature, it seems silly to even question them as a patented technology.

Unlike other domesticated pets, Genpets™ have not been torn from their natural environment and forced to quickly adapt to a foreign habitat; instead, they are fulfilling a pre-designed destiny. Now doesn’t bioengineering nature make far more sense? Nature to us, is nothing more than inspiration for rough parts. We have picked out the best of everything to create absolute perfection.

Before you start reaching for your credit card, this is the work of Canadian artist Adam Brandejs. Each Genpet is robotized so they move and twitch in their packaging. The heart rate monitor shows activity.

Hat tip to we-make-money-not-art for the link…

Urban Archeology

I am fascinated by ruined industrial buildings. When I lived in Boston there were a few sites I liked to visit.

Here is one that is amazing — Canfranc

From their website:

In 1853 Juan Bruil, himself executive director of a bank, from Zaragoza already had the idea to install a train connection through the central Pyrenees, the shortest link between Madrid and Paris. He submitted his proposal comprising 30 pages to the “Friends of the Country”; the latter a club of influencal enterpreneurs. In the same year at Christmas two engineers received a particular present: they should work out the initial plan for the project. This marked the begin of the quarrel regarding the best route and the fight of representatives of towns and provinces, who wanted to take advantage of the plans. It almost took 30 years until in 1882 the government approved the project. At the beginning however there was the problem to built a tunnel through the Pyrenees and no solution to it. Over 15 years experts watched the weather before they agreed on the valley of Aragón and Canfranc as the future site of the boarder train station as well as the southern end of the tunnel. Technical obstacles and diplomatic difficulties marked the development of the construction project; the construction work were repeatedly stopped and caused delays. In 1915 the tunnel, which was 7875 meters long, was finished; the architects built an artificial plateau by using the stones taken out of the mountain and on this area the building of the train station arised, a mixture of classicism and art nouveau.

“The Pyrenees do not longer exist”, proudly called King Alfonso XII. of Spain at the inauguration, general Primo de Rivera and the president of the French Republic being present. After 70 years of planning and construction work people of the sparse mountain valley hoped for a bit of the luxury built there, intended to attract guests from all over Europe to stay in the hotel of the train station. However already during the time the connection was built the Spanish government refused to adjust the width of their rail tracks according to the European standard, thereby planting the seed for the project to fail. Each passenger had to pass passport controls in the train stations, each bit of luggage customs, goods were shifted by crane from one train to the other. Soon it became apparent that the loss of time in Canfranc caused the connection to become ineconomic for hauliers. Only 8 years after its opening on account of the Spanish civil war the Somport tunnel, cutting through the Pyrenees and connecting France with Spain, became closed. Also during the second world war the connection remained closed. Thereafter again, but not for long, Canfranc became important, yet in 1970 when on the French side the rail bridge of Estanguet collapsed it was the end of the international rail traffic. Today on the Spanish side there is a train connection from Zaragoza to Canfranc and back twice per day.

Click for full size Images

Quite a bit of history in that place…

The disappearing Blogroll

I use blogrolling to maintain and show my Blogroll.
A nice free service that sometimes takes a few extra seconds to load but is free and the bloggers interface is a nice and easy one to use. (did I mention that it's free?)

Well, it seems to be down tonight. I have been looking at a few (also free) plug-ins for my blog software that also support Blogrolls and I think it might be time to start seriously implementing one of them.

Look for some changes in the next week or so (things are busy at the farm now that the weather has finally turned around and things have warmed up).

…watch — it will have been down because they are upgrading to a much faster server piped into an OC48 connection…

Give a Man a Fish

A spot-on assessment of African Aid and what its end result is.
From Yahoo/AP

Economist Blames Aid for Africa Famine
In Niger, a desert country twice the size of Texas, most of the 11 million people live on a dollar a day. Forty percent of children are underfed, and one out of four dies before turning 5. And that's when things are normal. Throw in a plague of locusts, and a familiar spectacle emerges: skeletal babies, distended bellies, people too famished to brush the flies from their faces.

To the aid workers charged with saving the dying, the immediate challenge is to raise relief money and get supplies to the stricken areas. They leave it to the economists and politicians to come up with a lasting remedy. One such economist is James Shikwati. He blames foreign aid.

“When aid money keeps coming, all our policy-makers do is strategize on how to get more,” said the Kenya-based director of the Inter Region Economic Network, an African think tank.

“They forget about getting their own people working to solve these very basic problems. In Africa, we look to outsiders to solve our problems, making the victim not take responsibility to change.”

Hat tip to Charles at LGF for the link.

Optical Illusion

One I had seen before (a good one!) and two I had not. (also good!)

View them yourself here.

#3 is amazing.

Brand Name Recognition

From BoingBoing comes this story:

Toronto's Quick Boy Movers: incompetent and bullying
Back in June, Joey “AccordionGuy” DeVilla got a blog-comment about a moving company in Toronto called Quick Boys Moving, in which the commenter complained about the dreadful service he'd received from them.

Last week, someone from Quick Boys tracked Joey down on his work phone. They tried to intimidate him with legal threats into taking down the comment. At the time, the comment was the second result on Google for “Quick Boys Movers.” Joey took the comment down temporarily and contacted the poster, a friend of his, who confirmed the story. Then he reinstated the comment and wrote a long entry explaining that Quick Boys is not only unqualified to help you move house, they're also thugs who try to censor their critics.

Joey's an engaging writer and many people are linking to his post, which has now risen to the number one spot for “Quick Boys Movers” on Google. There's a moral in there, somewhere.

The original article is here: At Last, My Blog Lands Me in Hot Water!

Heh…

Danger Will Robinson Danger

A group called EAR (Electro-Acoustic Research) is bringing the designs of three prominent analog synthesizers designers and acting as a central clearing house for marketing kits and pre-built units in the two most popular form-factors.

Some of these designs are modern interpretations of unique and classic designs of the past including:

The Livewire FrequenSteiner Filter
Exclusive re-release of Nyle Steiner's Classic Synthasystem filter

Oakley Sound Octal Resonator
Eight independent bandpass resonators with Selectable Mono or Stereo Outputs

The Model 21 Milton Model 21A Shmilton and 21B Expander
The infamous Milton sequencer comes to Eurorack format!

…and much much more. There has been a wonderful renaissance in Analog Synthesis today. Many of the original patents on circuits have lapsed into the public domain so people are taking the designs and bringing them up to date so you have the richness of sound but the thing stays in tune and the parameters don't drift.

I have a modest system assembled from kits from this place: Synthesis Technology plus some homebrew circuits I've built over the years. Fun stuff.

Squashed

Seen at Flickr:

Heading north on I-79 in Pennslyvania on the way to Ontario last week I ran across the leftovers of this accident, where it appears a semi-trailer load of squash hit the overpass. There were truck parts all over the place, and the remains of the trailer were still stuck to the concrete pylons. It was probably a pretty bad wreck, and likely someone got hurt or killed, but the field of squash was just too damn surreal for me, I had to turn around and laid in the median taking pictures of the carnage.

The set with two more images is here: Flickr Squash

Talk about a hostile work environment

From the Texas CentreDaily:

Police chief faces daunting task of cleaning up violent border town
After seeing eight cops murdered during his first 15 days on the job, Police Chief Omar Pimentel has adopted a Gandhi-like approach to law enforcement.



“My message is very clear: I am not here to confront anyone,” he said from his well-cocooned office at police headquarters. “I am not here to fight.”

And who could blame him? Nuevo Laredo is one of the most dangerous towns for police in the Western Hemisphere, and he is the top lawman.

Gunmen in the crime-ridden border town have slain 17 current and former police officers since Jan. 1.

Pimentel's predecessor, Alejandro Dominguez, 52, who had vowed to clamp down on organized crime, was gunned down less than seven hours after becoming police chief June 8.

Yikes! Drug runners and two rival gangs.
Tell me again how the “War on Crime” is working?

I don't do drugs (Cider and Beer are my choice) but they should be legalized and you would need a Dr.'s prescription or some license to get. This would deny the majority of the revenue to the criminal gangs plus, the end user would get a consistently pure product at a reasonable price. The Government would get their taxes — what's not to love!

WWBRD?

With the news that some large tiles were observed falling from the shuttle during its launch, BoingBoing poses the question: WWBRD:

In light of recent NASA woes regarding the Shuttle program, and new questions about its future, some suggest a “WWBRD” sticker campaign:

What Would Burt Rutan Do?

One Boing Boing reader provides this interpretation.

(Thanks, Lisa Julie/Doug Humphrey)

And Velociman has a rather pissed and pithy commentary on why the tiles are failing:

Yar, the shuttle fleet be grounded agin. Why? That pesky foam flying off at liftoff, damaging the orbiter, and all.

Let's back up. Why is the foam flying off? Because the original application method involved the use of Freon, that bastard gas, and the environmentalists pissed their trou over it. And so they took Freon out of the application process, and we ended up with seven incinerated astronauts over Tejas. And now we have another crew pissing their respective trou over their reentry.

Fucking madness. The introduction of Freon to the space program is miniscule. Bullshit. But we will slaughter astronauts like fatted calves, to appease the environmentalists.

On the other hand, true boys with the Right Stuff love it when the odds are skewed agin them. Anyone seen the odds on reentry at Tunica?

Thanks a lot people — you “saved the planet” but are killing people one by one.
Anyone got any actual quantitative proof of Freon's damage?
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New body in Solar System discovered

Interesting report from Space.com:

Object Bigger than Pluto Discovered, Called 10th Planet
Astronomers have discovered an object in our solar system that is larger than Pluto. They are calling it the 10th planet, but already that claim is contested.

The new world's size is not at issue. But the very definition of planethood is.

It is the first time an object so big has been found in our solar system since the discovery of Pluto 75 years ago.

The announcement, made today by Mike Brown of Caltech, came just hours after another newfound object, one slightly smaller than Pluto, was revealed in a very confusing day for astronomers and the media.

The new object, temporarily named 2003 UB313, is about three times as far from the Sun as is Pluto.

“It's definitely bigger than Pluto,” said Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy. The object is round and could be up to twice as large as Pluto, Brown told reporters in a hastily called NASA-run teleconference Friday evening.

His best estimate is that it is 2,100 miles wide, about 1-1/2 times the diameter of Pluto.

Very cool — we all know about Sedna which is smaller than Pluto. Now, they are talking about a class of bodies that are much larger than Pluto. And lots of them…

The murder of Theo van Gogh and his son

The Islamic culture is dead. A Fatwa upon them all.
And this from a pork-eating Dhimmi.

Strong words but strong reasons too.

It wasn't bad enough that this 14-year-old's dad was butchered in public in Amsterdam (shot, then a knife to the throat and then a letter pinned to his chest with the knife). Now these offspring of monkeys and swine are targeting his son.

The website ADN Kronos has the story:

NETHERLANDS: VAN GOGH'S SON ASSAULTED
The 14-year-old son of controversial film director Theo van Gogh, slain by an Islamic extremist last November, is said to have been threatened and assaulted by Moroccan teenagers in Amsterdam and insulted by his classmates. The allegations were made during an interview the boy's grandparents gave to the Dutch television channel Nova. Amsterdam police have not confirmed any threats or aggression against Lieuwe van Gogh.

The family lawyer, Gijs de Westelaken, specified that after the murder, which profoundly shocked Dutch society, Lieuwe was attacked by some young Moroccan youths while he was walking the dog. The boy is said to have suffered bruising, but only spoke about the incident to his mother and did not lodge a police complaint.

On another occasion he is said to have been threatened with a pistol by two young men of North African descent in the neighbourhood where his father had lived. Neighbours called the police but when they arrived the attackers had fled.

According to his grandparents, Lieuwe was also subject to harrassment and insults at school, and was forced to change class after various classmates told him “it is a good thing your father is dead”.

An Amsterdam police spokesman said that in the aftermath of the murder of the filmmaker, they were in frequent contact with the boy's mother and that Lieuwe had been under police protection for a period.

The Dutch director - a descendent of the painter Vincent van Gogh - caused controversy with his film 'Submission', broadcast in the Netherlands last August, which criticised the treatment of women in Islamic society.

He was murdered as he cycled to work in Amsterdam last November. The assailant shot Van Gogh and slit his throat. A letter was also pinned to his chest with a knife, quoting the Koran and threatening the Dutch-Somali MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who wrote the script for the film.

A young radical Islamist was on Monday given a life sentence for the murder. Dutch-Moroccan Mohammed Bouyeri, 27, had confessed to the killing during his trial and told the court he would do it again if he had the chance.

Read the last sentence again: “Dutch-Moroccan Mohammed Bouyeri, 27, had confessed to the killing during his trial and told the court he would do it again if he had the chance.”

Emphasis mine… If you have read my blog for a while, you will know that my first wife and I were involved in Sufism which is a branch of Islam and I met some wonderful and gracious people from the Middle East. I have nothing against the followers of Mohammed.

I am pissed as hell at a small bunch of theocrats who have seized power over there and who are perverting this graceful spiritual practice and turning it into the tool for a classical Marxist power grab and consolidation move. These people are not your friends and multi-culturalism is not viable.
Not now or ever.

Wahabbism delenda est…

Separated at Birth

There was a story a few days ago about the Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, a Ms. Catherine Baker Knoll. She showed up — uninvited — at the funeral for a Marine who was killed in Iraq and used the service as a sounding board for her anti-Iraq views.

Gerard Van Der Leun covers this with his usual thoughtfulness and succinct prose. He also offers up two photographs of Ms. Knoll:

Truth in Packaging
HERE'S THE OFFICIAL PORTRAIT of Catherine Baker Knoll, Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania.

She's the weasel who “showed up uninvited at a Marine's funeral and voiced her anti-war views.” Passed out her card too. Just so those in attendance would remember who not to vote for.

But was she really who she said she was? Perhaps it was another of “Karl Rove's Dirty Tricks.”

Here's a photograph of someone purporting to be “Catherine Baker Knoll, Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania.”

Sheesh — I can see using a flattering photo but please use a non-photoshopped current one…

Bubble Cows

No, this is not some new Japanese dairy drink involving tapioca.

As I had mentioned in my previous post, the people at UC Davis are doing some excellent environmental work.
Here is another example from USA Today:

Researcher looks to clear the air about cow emissions
In a white, tent-like “bio-bubble” on a farm near Davis, eight pregnant Holsteins are eating, chewing and pooping — for science. “The ladies,” as they're called by University of California researcher Frank Mitloehner, are doing their part to answer a question plaguing one of California's largest agricultural industries: How much gas does a cow emit?

The findings will be used to write the state's first air quality regulations for dairies and could affect regulations nationwide.

But before he explains how it works, Mitloehner wants one thing to be clear.

“We're not talking about flatulence,” he says.

He emphasizes the point because his research has been dismissed as “fart science,” a label he says doesn't do justice to the seriousness of his work.

There are more than three million cows in California, the vast majority living in the booming Central Valley, home to some of the most polluted air in the country. How much to blame the cows and how much to blame the cars for the bad air is no small concern.

Mitloehner's research has suggested that cows are responsible for far fewer of the compounds that contribute to smog, known as volatile organic compounds or VOCs, than previously thought, perhaps as little as half the amount.

Here is a photo of the good Dr. Mitloehner:

Interesting work — the idea that cows produce methane has always been out there but always accompanied with lots of “computer models” and various handwaving. Good to see that someone is taking a quantitative view of this…

Thanks China!

It has been known for years that the prevailing winds in the Northern Hemisphere go from the West to the East (the Coriolis effect causes this). It has also been known that China's rampant air pollution problem (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)is carried to our shores and contributes to our own problems.

A team at UC Davis (more on UC Davis in the next post) has found out that the levels reaching our shores are higher than previously thought. ScienceBlog has the story:

U.S. Gets More Asian Air Pollution Than Thought
Air pollution blows across the Pacific Ocean from Asia to North America far more regularly than was previously thought, says a new UC Davis study. The findings are likely to affect attempts to clear hazy skies over much of the U.S. and to understand how growing Asian air pollution will influence global climate change.

“Occasional, large-scale Asian dust storms had led us to believe that this pollution traveled east in infrequent, discrete events,” said UC Davis atmospheric scientist Steve Cliff. “As it turns out, Asian pollution, particularly in the Sierra-Cascade range and elsewhere in the American West, is the rule, not the exception.”

That may make it hard to meet air-quality goals set by the federal Clean Air Act, Cliff said. “Assuming Asia continues to develop as predicted, with commensurate energy needs from combustion, we will continue to increase our 'background' haze in the U.S,” he said.

It also may change the prevailing notions of long-range aerosol transport, which are used by scientists trying to predict climate change using computer models, he said.

Most of China's energy comes from high-sulfur Coal.

Someone I knew was in Beijing about fifteen years ago during winter and the air was enough to make their eyes water. It's worse, a lot lot worse.

Instead of blowing all this money on Kyoto and making a very tiny clean “island” on this planet, why not take a fraction of that $$$ and spend it in nations like China and India where some very simple, cheap and effective techniques would reduce the atmospheric pollution by a factor of over 100 and would be a lot more effective than some top-down nanny-state fiat from the halls of Brussels…

Oh, I forgot, the EUnuchs don't “do” effective…

Back in town...

I headed down to Seattle to pick Jen up yesterday. She was due to be extracted from the trailhead around five PM and we were planning to rendezvous at another party member's house a few hours after that. (another person was doing the extraction — I dropped them at the insert six days previous).

To make a long story even longer, it was a no-show and no cell-phone availability for anyone including the person doing the extraction. I stayed at a cheap motel, hung out in Tukwilla (groan) until around four and headed up home to take care of our critters.

I got a call from that areas Detective office about an hour ago that the SAR team has located them and they are fine. They should be out sometime tonight and I'll be heading back down tomorrow to get Jen.

Should be a good story.

Feeling much relieved!

Best of the Web Today

One of my visit-every-day places is the Best of the Web Today.

They are celebrating their fifth birthday and going over some of their earlier writing — excellent stuff…

Light posting today

Jen is winding up a five-day backpacking trip today and I'm driving down to extract her.

Posting will resume tomorrow.

A Gasoline Powered Sofa

Sweet story about Mark, a Sofa, a 10-horsepower Tecumseh engine and some welding:

There is a love story in there too.

Fun stuff!

Wheeeeeee...

Thunk!!!

Another asteroid to watch — CBS/SciTech has the story:

Asteroid May Buzz Earth In 2029
Humans live in a vast solar system where 2,000 feet seems a razor-thin distance.

Yet it's just wide enough to trigger concerns that an asteroid due to buzz Earth on April 13, 2029 may shift its orbit enough to return and strike the planet seven years later.

The concern: Within the object's range of possible fly-by distances lie a handful of gravitational “sweet spots,” areas some 2,000 feet across that are also known as keyholes.

The physics may sound complex, but the potential ramifications are plain enough. If the asteroid passes through the most probable keyhole, its new orbit would send it slamming into Earth in 2036. It's unclear to some experts whether ground-based observatories alone will be able to provide enough accurate information in time to mount a mission to divert the asteroid, if that becomes necessary.

Chicken Little was right.

Missing - send out the SAR teams

Google Earth is drop-dead amazing.
Microsoft is scrambling to play catch-up using their once ground breaking TerraServer database and machines.
(I was working for the MSFT SQL Server lab when TerraServer moved back from an independent company into MSFT's hands — it is not the best now but it was amazing when it was first created.)

The UK website “The Register” has an interesting look at an oversight on MSFT's part:

Microsoft's Earth deletes Apple HQ
Not one but two Register readers emailed us to tell us that MSN's Virtual Earth is promoting a world free of the menace of Apple Computers.

If you've got time on your hands - stand up Jens and Stefan - have a look at Apple's Cupertino headquarters from Google and MSN's rival map sites. Both sites offer aerial photos alongside maps. MSN's version is here and Google's is here.

See the difference? Google shows the Apple Cupertino HQ - a lovely, shiny building probably full of iPods. MSN on the other hand shows an apparently empty field. Not as much as a black turtle-necked jumper remains of Apple's headquarters. This could be no more than an old picture taken before Cupertino was built or a glimpse of an imagined future.

How this terrible error came about is not yet clear. Nor can we be certain who else has been removed from Bill's upgraded planet.

Reg reader Michael Sage pointed out that zooming in on the UK will reveal towns like Norwich and Lowestoft long before little old London appears. Is London next to be removed? We need to know.

Even more disturbing MSN's Virtual Earth still shows the twin towers of the World Trade Center in all their pre-9/11 glory.

No comment from Microsoft HQ as yet but we'll keep you posted.

Sheesh — this was not an omission on MSFT's part, they were just using a horribly old dataset.
I visited a few sites I remembered from the TerraServer days and they are unchanged.
Whomever let this go live should be drawn and quartered.

Very cool idea!

Use the infrastructure but develop something unique.
We-Make-Money-Not-Art has the link to this clever idea:

Spray leaves DNA evidence on burglars
UK firm Redweb Security has developed an “i-powder” to be used against burglars. The biosyntethic substance carries a “uniquely-traceable DNA code” registered to the owner and can be mounted in the ceiling, door or on the wall. When projected onto the perpetrator, the i-powder sticks like glue to clothes and skin and cannot be removed for several weeks, making it far simpler to catch and convict intruders.

“The key feature of our technology is that it irrefutably identifies a criminal with the scene of the crime,” explained Clive Smith. “Each device containing i-powder is registered either to its owner or a precise location, and the unique DNA code contained within the substance remains detectable for several weeks. In this way, RedWeb presents law enforcement agencies with a weight of forensic evidence to assist in securing a conviction.”

The company;s website is here: Redweb Security
They are using a synthetic 'tagged' DNA that allows the PCR machines at forensics labs to detect vanishingly small samples off criminals hands and clothing.
Another tool added to their kit-bag with little or no change to their infrastructure.
Very cool!

SPAM can be bad for your health

Just ask a Mr. Vardan Kushnir — from MosNews Russia:

Russia’s Biggest Spammer Brutally Murdered in Apartment
Vardan Kushnir, notorious for sending spam to each and every citizen of Russia who appeared to have an e-mail, was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Sunday, Interfax reported Monday. He died after suffering repeated blows to the head.

I feel sorry for anyone who suffered from his loss but still, parts of me are going Boohhh-Yeah!!!
I get several hundred stupid spams (correct domain but wrong address) each and every day. I have a good set of scripts that dumps them into /dev/null so it's not a really big problem but I still have to pay for that bandwidth.

Excellent decisions by King County - #5237

An interesting article in today's Seattle Times

Effort here to charge London suspect was blocked
The Justice Department blocked efforts by its prosecutors in Seattle in 2002 to bring criminal charges against Haroon Aswat, according to federal law-enforcement officials who were involved in the case.

British authorities suspect Aswat of taking part in the July 7 London bombings, which killed 56 and prompted an intense worldwide manhunt for him.

But long before he surfaced as a suspect there, federal prosecutors in Seattle wanted to seek a grand-jury indictment for his involvement in a failed attempt to set up a terrorist-training camp in Bly, Ore., in late 1999. In early 2000, Aswat lived for a couple of months in central Seattle at the Dar-us-Salaam mosque.

A federal indictment of Aswat in 2002 would have resulted in an arrest warrant and his possible detention in Britain for extradition to the United States.

“It was really frustrating,” said a former Justice Department official involved in the case. “Guys like that, you just want to sweep them up off the street.”

The moke in question:

We had him, we knew his history and we let him slip through our fingers.
And then, he goes and does this.

A quote...

…from someone who could call a spade a spade and be done with it:

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”

To excerpt one part to read it again:

“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.”

Clean up your own house before you attempt to control ours…

Back in town

A very long two days…

Jen and I went down Friday to where her other two hiking partners were living (also close to the trail-head). It is in a city close to Seattle and we have become wimps, we had to deal with lights and noise and neighbors!!!! Horrors!!!! Spent the night there and got about two hours sleep — tossing and turning…

Got up promptly at 5:00AM (Oh-Dark-Hundred in my book) and they were safely off on the trail at 7:00am. Drove back up to Seattle, had breakfast at Mom's Restaurant (awesome place) and went over to my parent's to help them sort stuff for their upcoming move.

Arrived home around 3:00pm, took care of the critters (everyone was fine but don't ask them that; they were cruelly abandoned and left with insufficient provisions and the television was turned to the wrong channel, the masseuse didn't show up on time, etc. etc. etc…)

Went for dinner to a local wonderful Mexican place and am now just settling into the computer.

I'm tired and I am going to sleep after I make sure the world hasn't blown itself up or gone Liberal (and I really don't know which would be worse…)

Bush on Piracy

Interesting — President Bush just named Chris Israel to be the US's first Piracy Czar.

Ars Technica has the story:

Bush announces new Piracy Czar
President Bush has created a senior-level position in his administration for the purposes of battling piracy and counterfeiting. The position was given the go-ahead late last fall by Congress, and its primary aim is to thwart global piracy, which purportedly costs American businesses US$250 billion a year.

The first Piracy Czar will be Chris Israel, who was previously deputy chief of staff for Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. At the top of the agenda for now is China, which recently made pledges that it would crack down on rampant piracy in that country. Why piracy and why now?

The skyrocketing U.S. trade deficit — which reached a record $618 billion last year — has compounded U.S. concerns about piracy and counterfeiting. Companies that produce movies, music and software and other intellectual property account for a growing share of what the United States has to sell to the rest of the world.

Knocking $250 billion off that would be great, but economic realities won't allow for that to happen overnight. The massive black market in China is spurred in part by monopoly pricing—namely, prices are too high, and the only competition to bring them down is illegal competition. While pirated copies of Star Wars might sell for $1 on the street, 20,000 sales of that pirated DVD do not translate to 20,000 sales of $15 legit DVDs in the absence of piracy. It's going to take a long time to get an established and legitimate market for American entertainment exports setup in China, and its going to need businesses to realize that the key to success in the market is pricing, not enforcement. (And then, maybe they'll realize that for other markets, too.)

Interesting — Carlos Gutierrez is no idiot so someone who was his deputy chief of staff is probably pretty effective at this sort of stuff. It will be interesting to see any reaction from nations (China) that will be impacted by this enforcement…

Light blogging today and tomorrow

Jen is leaving for a five-day backpack and I will be driving her to the trailhead several hours south of us.

Last minute scrambling to get everything together.

Artists unsure on the concept

What a friggin' twit.
A Mr. Mark McGowan — well, the Guardian has the story:

Gushing Faucet Could Land Artist in Court
Mark McGowan went into the tiny backroom kitchen of a south London gallery three weeks ago and flipped on the cold water. He didn't turn it off, and doesn't plan to for an entire year.

“The Running Tap,” as it's called, is McGowan's effort to protest against wasted water in London by blatantly letting it go down the drain.

“When you've got the tap on at home, you don't think about it. That's why this is art, because it makes people consider it,” the environmentalist said.

The gushing faucet is an expensive exhibition that could waste about 3.9 million gallons of water. It could also land McGowan in a legal battle with Thames Water, the utility company. The circular sink has already swallowed about 193,000 gallons of water during a season declared the driest in London since 1976.

The project has outraged Thames Water, which said it could cost about $23,320 if the faucet runs for 365 days. The water company pleaded with McGowan to close the tap, but in vain.

“I think he certainly made a point,” said Thames Water Spokeswoman Hilary Bennett. “We understand where he's coming from and we're sympathetic to that. However, he should turn it off now.”

After two angry Londoners shut the tap off, McGowan turned it back on.

“If you're going to waste some water, you might as well waste it for a year,” McGowan said. “It's always good to complete projects.”

And this self-centered unthinking 'artiste' thinks that being an environmentalist makes this all worthwhile.

'Yo Mark — word up dude.
Get a bunch of these new-fangled 'solar cell' things and get yourself a marine “Bilge Pump” (and the name is supremely appropriate for the type of art you are reaching for).

Do an ecological recirculating 'virtual tap'

After all, you are pissing away 3.9 million gallons of water that could be turned into Bass or Guinness…

Fool!