Content managed page: The typical CM content would be the actual 'petition'.
Phase 1
Collaboration Phase: an initial draft petition would be open for comment and editorial change.
Phase 2
Viewers of the page would be encouraged to sign the petition. Signing would be digital. Minimal digital signing would require Name, City, State, and email address. (A phone number would be optional.) The email address would be sent a confirmation request. Once confirmed (by clicking on the response link) the signor's signature would be official.
The petition data would specify a threshold number off signatures before sending off to the respondents.
The respondents contact information would be attached to the petition data. (1,n)
At multiples of the signature threshold, the petition would be sent again, with all of the new signatures.
The title of the email would clearly say (n of n) signatures then n+1 to 2n of 2n signatures then 2n+1 to 3n of 3n signatures, ...
Although Topsail in not 'on the beach' it is an easy 1/2 mile walk or bike ride to the beach. Topsail also offers a tram service to the beach that runs every hour from about 8AM to 15 minutes after sunset during the summer months. In the winter months the tram service runs every two hours.
The Topsail campground is one of the nicest campgrounds we have been to. Topsail was actually a private RV Resort, until Florida purchased the land and the RV Resort to create Topsail Hill Preserve. Topsail also has a pool and a recreation area i.e. shuffleboard etc. All sites are full hookups with 50 amp electrical service. The sites at Topsail are all nicely landscaped and pretty private. All sites also are on a cement pad. It consistently ranks 5/5/5 with Woodall’s. In fact during the last few years Topsail has become VERY popular, sometimes you need to make your reservations 6 months or more from your arrival date. All reservations to Florida State Parks are handled through Reserve America: http://www.reserveamerical.com
Oracle has made an announcement which shocked market analysts and company watchers alike, the company has plans to start hiring at Sun.
Many have expected that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison would cut jobs in the new acquisition while he took a decision to hire around 2,000 sales and engineering employees.
Ellison indicated that he intended to transform his outfit into a 21st century version of IBM in the 1960s. He also said that Oracle is planning to launch products that will complement its technology work seamlessly with Sun.
The company distributed messages during an event which read "We're hiring." Oracle indicated that the company would have significant investments in MySQL and its sales team would be kept independent of Oracle's other operations. OpenOffice. org will also be kept separately.
Oracle will also try to increase compatibility between the Java runtime environment on desktops and on mobile devices while JavaScript integration will also be accelerated.
The company expects to earn a profit of $1.5 billion from Sun over the next year.
Ed. This is very good news for techies. Oracle is going to promote SUN, is able to make SUN profitable, and is going to fund open-source efforts like MySQL (which this site runs on) and Open Office. This will go a long way to relieve peoples apprehension over the Sun MySQL acquisition.
Compounds found in cannabis may be useful as part of an effective treatment for certain inflammatory bowel diseases, a new study has found.
Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, two of the more prevalent bowel diseases, are caused by genetic and environmental factors such as diet, stress and bacterial imbalance.
Researchers found that two cannabis compounds—THC and cannabidol—can play an important role in normal bowel function as well as the immune system’s inflammatory response.
Photo Release -- Northrop Grumman Announces the FIRESTRIKE(tm) Laser, World's First Weaponized Solid-State Laser for U.S. Military Services
REDONDO BEACH, Calif., Nov. 13, 2008 -- Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) today introduced the FIRESTRIKE(tm) laser, a ruggedized, high-energy, solid-state laser designed as a line replaceable unit (LRU) for battlefield applications, ready for order now.
The FIRESTRIKE TM laser LRU system is uniquely designed for scaling high-energy lasers to desired power levels. Each 15kW LRU can be combined with multiple units to fit specific warfighting missions and/or platforms, as pictured above. The result is a flexible "game-changing" military capability with tailored lethality.
Cutaway view of Northrop Grumman's 15kW FIRESTRIKE Line Replaceable Unit
The FIRESTRIKE(tm) laser offers warfighters a 15 kilowatt (kW) fieldable laser as well as a combinable LRU building block for much higher power, based on a laser beam combining architecture validated by Northrop Grumman over many years with the Joint High Power Solid State Laser program, Vesta and Vesta II.
"We are ready to deliver on the promise of defense at the speed of light with FIRESTRIKE(tm)," said Dan Wildt, vice president of Directed Energy Systems for Northrop Grumman's Space Technology sector. "The FIRESTRIKE(tm) laser power per cubic foot has been greatly enhanced from its successful laboratory predecessors."
He noted the FIRESTRIKE(tm) laser has been hardened for military uses but also was designed with life-cycle costs and reliability in mind. "FIRESTRIKE(tm) is designed for field operations and simple replacement," Wildt added.
"This is a rugged electric laser with power levels, beam quality and runtime suitable for offensive and defensive military utility. Also available is a newly designed laser current source assembly (LCSA), which is compact, and specifically developed to precisely meet FIRESTRIKE(tm)'s power needs. Combined with advanced electro optical and/or infrared sensors, the FIRESTRIKE(tm) laser can provide self-defense, precision strike and enhanced situational awareness capabilities."
The FIRESTRIKE(tm) laser is a line replaceable system that allows for scaling a laser weapon to desired power levels for specific warfighting applications and platforms. Northrop Grumman believes that FIRESTRIKE(tm) laser will form the backbone of future laser weapon systems.
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a global defense and technology company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products and solutions in information and services, electronics, aerospace and shipbuilding to government and commercial customers worldwide.
FIRESTRIKE(tm) Laser Features
Power 15kW laser Beam Quality Nominally 1.5 times the diffraction limit Size Laser head - 12" x 23" x 40" (width, depth, height) Current source - 9" x 13" x 30" Runtime Continuous, as long as power and coolant are provided Instant Turn-on Zero to full power in less than 1/2 second Safety Remote operation, customer interlock access, internal safety sensors Control Common Command and Control (C2) systems and Ethernet interfaces Low Power Setting Provides nominally 100 watt alignment beam Weight 400 lbs per LRU Ruggedization Hardened LRUs with compact SSL technology engineered for mobility and field operations
CONTACT: Linda Javier Northrop Grumman Space Technology 310.813.5614 Cell: 310.386.1644 linda.javier@ngc.com
In his eye-opening, astute new book,The Persecution of Sarah Palin, Matthew Continetti argues that the "story of Sarah Palin is the story of American political journalism's intellectual bankruptcy," and while Continetti's narrative does include plenty of lesser-known biographical detail it also contextualizes Palin into a fascinating case study of the politics of personal destruction as employed by the left-leaning cultural and media elites who constantly tsk-tsk…the politics of personal destruction. "It's not new for a prominent political figure to be hated," Continetti tells TAS. "But it isnovel when a political figure becomes so hated so quickly, and for that hatred to be based on so little information." Appalled by this persistent knowledge gap, the Weekly Standardeditor undertook the challenge of setting the record straight and answering, to his mind, "the most outrageous insults, myths, and exaggerations directed at her and her family." [More]
Officials admit shrugging off gunman's e-mails to Qaeda By JOHN DOYLE in Fort Hood, Texas, and CHUCK BENNETT in NY - AP
The FBI knew for nearly a year before his murderous Fort Hood rampage that psycho Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had repeatedly contacted al Qaeda -- but the blundering agency last night admitted it dismissed the lead.
The clueless G-men said that at the time, they simply chalked up the chilling e-mails between Hasan and a radical imam and other terror-tied Islamic figures to his "research" as an Army shrink.
Outraged congressional leaders immediately called for a probe into the debacle -- and the red-faced agency vowed to get to the bottom of things itself.
TICKING TIME BOMB;CNN: Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan in security-camera footage taken at a 7-Eleven just hours before his rampage.
"I think the very fact that you've got a major in the US Army contacting [a radical imam], or attempting to contact him, would raise some red flags," Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) -- ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee -- told the Los Angeles Times.
The FBI said Hasan -- who faces a court-martial -- first turned up on its radar in December 2008. [More]
Ed. Note: Homeland Security? Not with institutionalized politically correct Islamic apologetics. We should pull our collective heads out of the sand. Religious war is what we have, whether we like it or not. What is it about ''sleeper cell' did the FBI not get?
When taxpayers and conservative activists began holding tea parties to protest an out-of-control federal government's unsustainable growth, it was not entirely unreasonable to ask: Where were these people for the last eight years?
George W. Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress increased discretionary spending at twice the rate that prevailed under Bill Clinton. This dynamic duo produced a bloated transportation bill, an expensive energy bill, No Child Left Behind, Sarbanes-Oxley, and a witches' brew of legislation expanding the size and cost of the federal government. Federal outlays as a share of GDP increased from 18.4 percent to 20.9 percent.
In eight years, Washington went from running a $128 billion surplus to a $1.2 trillion deficit. Instead of recognizing that the major federal retirement programs were going broke, Bush and his supporters created a prescription drug benefit that increased Medicare's unfunded liabilities. It was the biggest new entitlement since the Great Society. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were pushed off budget to prevent the country's fiscal picture from looking even gloomier. Bush left office having rammed through a bipartisan $700 billion Wall Street bailout.
Barack Obama came into office and promptly made most of these problems worse, staying on the road to bankruptcy but pushing the accelerator all the way down to the floor. The silence of too many Republicans -- and even conservatives -- in the face of GOP fiscal irresponsibility complicated the case against Obama's gargantuan spending plans. "Until conservatives once again hold Republicans to the same standard they hold Democrats," Bruce Bartlett complained earlier this year, "they will have no credibility and deserve no respect."
Aliens Cause Global Warming: A Caltech Lecture by Michael Crichton Caltech Michelin Lecture
January 17, 2003
My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the way, in a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming.
Charting this progression of belief will be my task today. Let me say at once that I have no desire to discourage anyone from believing in either extraterrestrials or global warming. That would be quite impossible to do.
Rather, I want to discuss the history of several widely-publicized beliefs and to point to what I consider an emerging crisis in the whole enterprise of science-namely the increasingly uneasy relationship between hard science and public policy.
I have a special interest in this because of my own upbringing. I was born in the midst of World War II, and passed my formative years at the height of the Cold War. In school drills, I dutifully crawled under my desk in preparation for a nuclear attack.
It was a time of widespread fear and uncertainty, but even as a child I believed that science represented the best and greatest hope for mankind. Even to a child, the contrast was clear between the world of politics-a world of hate and danger, of irrational beliefs and fears, of mass manipulation and disgraceful blots on human history. In contrast, science held different values-international in scope, forging friendships and working relationships across national boundaries and political systems, encouraging a dispassionate habit of thought, and ultimately leading to fresh knowledge and technology that would benefit all mankind.
The world might not be a very good place, but science would make it better. And it did. In my lifetime, science has largely fulfilled its promise. Science has been the great intellectual adventure of our age, and a great hope for our troubled and restless world. But I did not expect science merely to extend lifespan, feed the hungry, cure disease, and shrink the world with jets and cell phones.
I also expected science to banish the evils of human thought---prejudice and superstition, irrational beliefs and false fears. I expected science to be, in Carl Sagan's memorable phrase, "a candle in a demon haunted world." And here, I am not so pleased with the impact of science. Rather than serving as a cleansing force, science has in some instances been seduced by the more ancient lures of politics and publicity.
Some of the demons that haunt our world in recent years are invented by scientists. The world has not benefited from permitting these demons to escape free. But let's look at how it came to pass.
Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two-week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains.
In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation: N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL [where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live.]
This serious-looking equation gave SETI a serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we're clear-are merely expressions of prejudice.
Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice.
As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion.
Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered.There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief. SETI is a religion.
One way to chart the cooling of enthusiasm is to review popular works on the subject. In 1964, at the height of SETI enthusiasm, Walter Sullivan of the NY Times wrote an exciting book about life in the universe entitled WE ARE NOT ALONE. By 1995, when Paul Davis wrote a book on the same subject, he titled it ARE WE ALONE? ( Since 1981, there have in fact been four books titled ARE WE ALONE.) More recently we have seen the rise of the so-called "Rare Earth" theory which suggests that we may, in fact, be all alone.
Again, there is no evidence either way.
Back in the sixties, SETI had its critics, although not among astrophysicists and astronomers. The biologists and paleontologists were harshest. George Gaylord Simpson of Harvard sneered that SETI was a "study without a subject," and it remains so to the present day. But scientists in general have been indulgent toward SETI, viewing it either with bemused tolerance, or with indifference. After all, what's the big deal? It's kind of fun. If people want to look, let them. Only a curmudgeon would speak harshly of SETI. It wasn't worth the bother.
And of course, it is true that untestable theories may have heuristic value. Of course, extraterrestrials are a good way to teach science to kids. But that does not relieve us of the obligation to see the Drake equation clearly for what it is-pure speculation in quasi-scientific trappings.
The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of outrage-similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new claim, for example-meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks.
Now let's jump ahead a decade to the 1970s, and Nuclear Winter. In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences reported on "Long-Term Worldwide Effects of Multiple Nuclear Weapons Detonations" but the report estimated the effect of dust from nuclear blasts to be relatively minor.
In 1979, the Office of Technology Assessment issued a report on "The Effects of Nuclear War" and stated that nuclear war could perhaps produce irreversible adverse consequences on the environment. However, because the scientific processes involved were poorly understood, the report stated it was not possible to estimate the probable magnitude of such damage.
Three years later, in 1982, the Swedish Academy of Sciences commissioned a report entitled "The Atmosphere after a Nuclear War: Twilight at Noon," which attempted to quantify the effect of smoke from burning forests and cities. The authors speculated that there would be so much smoke that a large cloud over the northern hemisphere would reduce incoming sunlight below the level required for photosynthesis, and that this would last for weeks or even longer.
crichton and drake equation The Drake Equation. Pure science -or Pure Hooey?
The following year, five scientists including Richard Turco and Carl Sagan published a paper in Science called "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions." This was the so-called TTAPS report, which attempted to quantify more rigorously the atmospheric effects, with the added credibility to be gained from an actual computer model of climate.
At the heart of the TTAPS undertaking was another equation, never specifically expressed, but one that could be paraphrased as follows:
Ds = Wn Ws Wh Tf Tb Pt Pr Pe etc (The amount of tropospheric dust = # warheads x size warheads x warhead detonation height x flammability of targets x Target burn duration x Particles entering the Troposphere x Particle reflectivity x Particle endurance, and so on.)
The similarity to the Drake equation is striking. As with the Drake equation, none of the variables can be determined. None at all. The TTAPS study addressed this problem in part by mapping out different wartime scenarios and assigning numbers to some of the variables, but even so, the remaining variables were-and are-simply unknowable. Nobody knows how much smoke will be generated when cities burn, creating particles of what kind, and for how long. No one knows the effect of local weather conditions on the amount of particles that will be injected into the troposphere. No one knows how long the particles will remain in the troposphere. And so on.
And remember, this is only four years after the OTA study concluded that the underlying scientific processes were so poorly known that no estimates could be reliably made.
Nevertheless, the TTAPS study not only made those estimates, but concluded they were catastrophic. According to Sagan and his coworkers, even a limited 5,000 megaton nuclear exchange would cause a global temperature drop of more than 35 degrees Centigrade, and this change would last for three months.
The greatest volcanic eruptions that we know of changed world temperatures somewhere between .5 and 2 degrees Centigrade. Ice ages changed global temperatures by 10 degrees. Here we have an estimated change three times greater than any ice age.
One might expect it to be the subject of some dispute. But Sagan and his coworkers were prepared, for nuclear winter was from the outset the subject of a well-orchestrated media campaign. The first announcement of nuclear winter appeared in an article by Sagan in the Sunday supplement, Parade. The very next day, a highly-publicized, high-profile conference on the long-term consequences of nuclear war was held in Washington, chaired by Carl Sagan and Paul Ehrlich, the most famous and media-savvy scientists of their generation.
Sagan appeared on the Johnny Carson show 40 times. Ehrlich was on 25 times. Following the conference, there were press conferences, meetings with congressmen, and so on. The formal papers in Science came months later.
This is not the way science is done, it is the way products are sold. The real nature of the conference is indicated by these artists' renderings of the effect of nuclear winter. (Not Shown)
I cannot help but quote the caption for figure 5: "Shown here is a tranquil scene in the north woods. A beaver has just completed its dam, two black bears forage for food, a swallow-tailed butterfly flutters in the foreground, a loon swims quietly by, and a kingfisher searches for a tasty fish." Hard science if ever there was.
At the conference in Washington, during the question period, Ehrlich was reminded that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists were quoted as saying nothing would grow there for 75 years, but in fact melons were growing the next year. So, he was asked, how accurate were these findings now?
Ehrlich answered by saying "I think they are extremely robust. Scientists may have made statements like that, although I cannot imagine what their basis would have been, even with the state of science at that time, but scientists are always making absurd statements, individually, in various places. What we are doing here, however, is presenting a consensus of a very large group of scientists"
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world.
In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.
In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases.
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth. One woman in six died of this fever.
In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no.
In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no.
In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent "skeptics" around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory.
Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called "Goldberger's filth parties." Nobody contracted pellagra.
The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy. The list of consensus errors goes on and on.
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough.
Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.
But back to our main subject. What I have been suggesting to you is that nuclear winter was a meaningless formula, tricked out with bad science, for policy ends. It was political from the beginning, promoted in a well-orchestrated media campaign that had to be planned weeks or months in advance.
Further evidence of the political nature of the whole project can be found in the response to criticism. Although Richard Feynman was characteristically blunt, saying, "I really don't think these guys know what they're talking about," other prominent scientists were noticeably reticent. Freeman Dyson was quoted as saying "It's an absolutely atrocious piece of science but who wants to be accused of being in favor of nuclear war?" And Victor Weisskopf said, "The science is terrible but---perhaps the psychology is good."
The nuclear winter team followed up the publication of such comments with letters to the editors denying that these statements were ever made, though the scientists since then have subsequently confirmed their views. At the time, there was a concerted desire on the part of lots of people to avoid nuclear war. If nuclear winter looked awful, why investigate too closely? Who wanted to disagree? Only people like Edward Teller, the "father of the H bomb."
Teller said, "While it is generally recognized that details are still uncertain and deserve much more study, Dr. Sagan nevertheless has taken the position that the whole scenario is so robust that there can be little doubt about its main conclusions."
Yet for most people, the fact that nuclear winter was a scenario riddled with uncertainties did not seem to be relevant. I say it is hugely relevant. Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible.
In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends.
That is why it is so important for the future of science that the line between what science can say with certainty, and what it cannot, be drawn clearly-and defended.
What happened to Nuclear Winter? As the media glare faded, its robust scenario appeared less persuasive; John Maddox, editor of Nature, repeatedly criticized its claims; within a year, Stephen Schneider, one of the leading figures in the climate model, began to speak of "nuclear autumn." It just didn't have the same ring.
A final media embarrassment came in 1991, when Carl Sagan predicted on Nightline that Kuwaiti oil fires would produce a nuclear winter effect, causing a "year without a summer," and endangering crops around the world. Sagan stressed this outcome was so likely that "it should affect the war plans." None of it happened.
What, then, can we say were the lessons of Nuclear Winter? I believe the lesson was that with a catchy name, a strong policy position and an aggressive media campaign, nobody will dare to criticize the science, and in short order, a terminally weak thesis will be established as fact.
After that, any criticism becomes beside the point. The war is already over without a shot being fired. That was the lesson, and we had a textbook application soon afterward, with second hand smoke.
In 1993, the EPA announced that second-hand smoke was "responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in nonsmoking adults," and that it " impairs the respiratory health of hundreds of thousands of people." In a 1994 pamphlet the EPA said that the eleven studies it based its decision on were not by themselves conclusive, and that they collectively assigned second-hand smoke a risk factor of 1.19. (For reference, a risk factor below 3.0 is too small for action by the EPA. or for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, for example.)
Furthermore, since there was no statistical association at the 95% confidence limits, the EPA lowered the limit to 90%. They then classified second-hand smoke as a Group-A Carcinogen.
This was openly fraudulent science, but it formed the basis for bans on smoking in restaurants, offices, and airports. California banned public smoking in 1995. Soon, no claim was too extreme. By 1998, the Christian Science Monitor was saying that "Second-hand smoke is the nation's third-leading preventable cause of death." The American Cancer Society announced that 53,000 people died each year of second-hand smoke. The evidence for this claim is nonexistent.
In 1998, a Federal judge held that the EPA had acted improperly, had "committed to a conclusion before research had begun", and had "disregarded information and made findings on selective information."
The reaction of Carol Browner, head of the EPA was: "We stand by our science; there's wide agreement. The American people certainly recognize that exposure to second hand smoke brings a whole host of health problems."
Again, note how the claim of consensus trumps science. In this case, it isn't even a consensus of scientists that Browner evokes! It's the consensus of the American people.
Meanwhile, ever-larger studies failed to confirm any association. A large, seven-country WHO study in 1998 found no association. Nor have well-controlled subsequent studies, to my knowledge. Yet we now read, for example, that second-hand smoke is a cause of breast cancer. At this point you can say pretty much anything you want about second-hand smoke.
As with nuclear winter, bad science is used to promote what most people would consider good policy. I certainly think it is. I don't want people smoking around me. So who will speak out against banning second-hand smoke? Nobody, and if you do, you'll be branded a shill of RJ Reynolds. A big tobacco flunky. But the truth is that we now have a social policy supported by the grossest of superstitions.
And we've given the EPA a bad lesson in how to behave in the future. We've told them that cheating is the way to succeed.
As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact.
The deterioration of the American media is dire loss for our country. When distinguished institutions like the New York Times can no longer differentiate between factual content and editorial opinion, but rather mix both freely on their front page, then who will hold anyone to a higher standard?
And so, in this elastic anything-goes world where science-or non-science-is the hand maiden of questionable public policy, we arrive at last at global warming. It is not my purpose here to rehash the details of this most magnificent of the demons haunting the world. I would just remind you of the now-familiar pattern by which these things are established.
Evidentiary uncertainties are glossed over in the unseemly rush for an overarching policy, and for grants to support the policy by delivering findings that are desired by the patron.
Next, the isolation of those scientists who won't get with the program, and the characterization of those scientists as outsiders and "skeptics" in quotation marks-suspect individuals with suspect motives, industry flunkies, reactionaries, or simply anti-environmental nut-cases.
In short order, debate ends, even though prominent scientists are uncomfortable about how things are being done. When did "skeptic" become a dirty word in science? When did a skeptic require quotation marks around it?
To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer model."
But now, large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data.
As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs. This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well.
Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands. Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future?
And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?
Stepping back, I have to say the arrogance of the model-makers is breathtaking. There have been, in every century, scientists who say they know it all. Since climate may be a chaotic system-no one is sure-these predictions are inherently doubtful, to be polite. But more to the point, even if the models get the science spot-on, they can never get the sociology. To predict anything about the world a hundred years from now is simply absurd.
Look: If I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam?
Let's think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horse****?
Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses? But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport.
And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn't know what an atom was.
They didn't know its structure. They also didn't know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS. None of this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn't know what you are talking about.
Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it's even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future. They're bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment's thought knows it.
I remind you that in the lifetime of most scientists now living, we have already had an example of dire predictions set aside by new technology. I refer to the green revolution. In 1960, Paul Ehrlich said, "The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines-hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death."
Ten years later, he predicted four billion people would die during the 1980s, including 65 million Americans. The mass starvation that was predicted never occurred, and it now seems it isn't ever going to happen. Nor is the population explosion going to reach the numbers predicted even ten years ago.
In 1990, climate modelers anticipated a world population of 11 billion by 2100. Today, some people think the correct number will be 7 billion and falling. But nobody knows for sure. But it is impossible to ignore how closely the history of global warming fits on the previous template for nuclear winter.
Just as the earliest studies of nuclear winter stated that the uncertainties were so great that probabilities could never be known, so, too the first pronouncements on global warming argued strong limits on what could be determined with certainty about climate change.
The 1995 IPCC draft report said, "Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced." It also said, "No study to date has positively attributed all or part of observed climate changes to anthropogenic causes."
Those statements were removed, and in their place appeared: "The balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on climate." What is clear, however, is that on this issue, science and policy have become inextricably mixed to the point where it will be difficult, if not impossible, to separate them out. It is possible for an outside observer to ask serious questions about the conduct of investigations into global warming, such as whether we are taking appropriate steps to improve the quality of our observational data records, whether we are systematically obtaining the information that will clarify existing uncertainties, whether we have any organized disinterested mechanism to direct research in this contentious area.
The answer to all these questions is no. We don't. In trying to think about how these questions can be resolved, it occurs to me that in the progression from SETI to nuclear winter to second-hand smoke to global warming, we have one clear message, and that is that we can expect more and more problems of public policy dealing with technical issues in the future-problems of ever greater seriousness, where people care passionately on all sides.
And at the moment we have no mechanism to get good answers. So I will propose one. Just as we have established a tradition of double-blinded research to determine drug efficacy, we must institute double-blinded research in other policy areas as well. Certainly the increased use of computer models, such as GCMs, cries out for the separation of those who make the models from those who verify them.
The fact is that the present structure of science is entrepreneurial, with individual investigative teams vying for funding from organizations that all too often have a clear stake in the outcome of the research-or appear to, which may be just as bad. This is not healthy for science.
Sooner or later, we must form an independent research institute in this country. It must be funded by industry, by government, and by private philanthropy, both individuals and trusts. The money must be pooled, so that investigators do not know who is paying them. The institute must fund more than one team to do research in a particular area, and the verification of results will be a foregone requirement: teams will know their results will be checked by other groups.
In many cases, those who decide how to gather the data will not gather it, and those who gather the data will not analyze it. If we were to address the land temperature records with such rigor, we would be well on our way to an understanding of exactly how much faith we can place in global warming, and therefore with what seriousness we must address this.
I believe that as we come to the end of this litany, some of you may be saying, well what is the big deal, really. So we made a few mistakes. So a few scientists have overstated their cases and have egg on their faces. So what?
Well, I'll tell you.
In recent years, much has been said about the post-modernist claims about science to the effect that science is just another form of raw power, tricked out in special claims for truth-seeking and objectivity that really have no basis in fact. Science, we are told, is no better than any other undertaking. These ideas anger many scientists, and they anger me. But recent events have made me wonder if they are correct.
We can take as an example the scientific reception accorded a Danish statistician, Bjorn Lomborg, who wrote a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist.
The scientific community responded in a way that can only be described as disgraceful. In professional literature, it was complained he had no standing because he was not an earth scientist. His publisher, Cambridge University Press, was attacked with cries that the editor should be fired, and that all right-thinking scientists should shun the press. The past president of the AAAS wondered aloud how Cambridge could have ever "published a book that so clearly could never have passed peer review." (But of course, the manuscript did pass peer review by three earth scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, and all recommended publication.)
But what are scientists doing attacking a press? Is this the new McCarthyism-coming from scientists? Worst of all was the behavior of the Scientific American, which seemed intent on proving the post-modernist point that it was all about power, not facts.
The Scientific American attacked Lomborg for eleven pages, yet only came up with nine factual errors despite their assertion that the book was "rife with careless mistakes."
It was a poor display, featuring vicious ad hominem attacks, including comparing him to a Holocaust denier. The issue was captioned: "Science defends itself against the Skeptical Environmentalist."
Really. Science has to defend itself? Is this what we have come to? When Lomborg asked for space to rebut his critics, he was given only a page and a half. When he said it wasn't enough, he put the critics' essays on his web page and answered them in detail.
Scientific American threatened copyright infringement and made him take the pages down. Further attacks since, have made it clear what is going on. Lomborg is charged with heresy. That's why none of his critics needs to substantiate their attacks in any detail. That's why the facts don't matter.
That's why they can attack him in the most vicious personal terms. He's a heretic. Of course, any scientist can be charged as Galileo was charged. I just never thought I'd see the Scientific American in the role of Mother Church.
Is this what science has become? I hope not. But it is what it will become, unless there is a concerted effort by leading scientists to aggressively separate science from policy.
The late Philip Handler, former president of the National Academy of Sciences, said that "Scientists best serve public policy by living within the ethics of science, not those of politics. If the scientific community will not unfrock the charlatans, the public will not discern the difference-- science and the nation will suffer."
Personally, I don't worry about the nation. But I do worry about science.
BEIJING: China’s Air Force will begin to develop “offensive operations” in space, a high-ranking military official has said in a seeming departure from Beijing’s recent opposition to space militarisation.
People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force Commander Xu Qiliang said on Sunday that space militarisation, or the development of weapons and defensive technology in outer space, was a “historic inevitability” and that “competition between military forces is moving towards outer space”.
He said “some developing countries”, in addition to “major air force powers”, were changing their military strategies to improve their space capabilities, a remark analysts said was likely directed at India and the United States. [More]
Know the Law
A Varnell GA police officer recently pulled my daughter over out of his jurisdiction of Varnell. He claimed that the following law was not lawful:
O.C.G.A. § 3-3-23
GEORGIA CODE Copyright 2008 by The State of Georgia All rights reserved. *** Current through the 2008 Regular Session *** TITLE 3. ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES CHAPTER 3. REGULATION OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES GENERALLY ARTICLE 2. PROHIBITED ACTS O.C.G.A. § 3-3-23 (2008) § 3-3-23. Furnishing to, purchase of, or possession by persons under 21 years of age of alcoholic beverages; use of false identification; proper identification; dispensing, serving, selling, or handling by persons under 21 years of age in the course of employment; seller's actions upon receiving false identification
(a) Except as otherwise authorized by law:
(1) No person knowingly, directly or through another person, shall furnish, cause to be furnished, or permit any person in such person's employ to furnish any alcoholic beverage to any person under 21 years of age;
(2) No person under 21 years of age shall purchase, attempt to purchase, or knowingly possess any alcoholic beverage;
(3) No person under 21 years of age shall misrepresent such person's age in any manner whatever for the purpose of obtaining illegally any alcoholic beverage;
(4) No person knowingly or intentionally shall act as an agent to purchase or acquire any alcoholic beverage for or on behalf of a person under 21 years of age; or
(5) No person under 21 years of age shall misrepresent his or her identity or use any false identification for the purpose of purchasing or obtaining any alcoholic beverage.
(b) The prohibitions contained in paragraphs (1), (2), and (4) of subsection (a) of this Code section shall not apply with respect to the sale, purchase, or possession of alcoholic beverages for consumption:
(1) For medical purposes pursuant to a prescription of a physician duly authorized to practice medicine in this state; or
(2) At a religious ceremony.
(c) The prohibitions contained in paragraphs (1), (2), and (4) of subsection (a) of this Code section shall not apply with respect to the possession of alcoholic beverages for consumption by a person under 21 years of age when the parent or guardian of the person under 21 years of age gives the alcoholic beverage to the person and when possession is in the home of the parent or guardian and such parent or guardian is present.
(d) The prohibition contained in paragraph (1) of subsection (a) of this Code section shall not apply with respect to sale of alcoholic beverages by a person when such person has been furnished with proper identification showing that the person to whom the alcoholic beverage is sold is 21 years of age or older. For purposes of this subsection, the term "proper identification" means any document issued by a governmental agency containing a description of the person, such person's photograph, or both, and giving such person's date of birth and includes, without being limited to, a passport, military identification card, driver's license, or an identification card authorized under Code Sections 40-5-100 through 40-5-104. "Proper identification" shall not include a birth certificate and shall not include any traffic citation and complaint form.
(e) If such conduct is not otherwise prohibited pursuant to Code Section 3-3-24, nothing contained in this Code section shall be construed to prohibit any person under 21 years of age from:
(1) Dispensing, serving, selling, or handling alcoholic beverages as a part of employment in any licensed establishment;
(2) Being employed in any establishment in which alcoholic beverages are distilled or manufactured; or
(3) Taking orders for and having possession of alcoholic beverages as a part of employment in a licensed establishment.
(f) Testimony by any person under 21 years of age, when given in an administrative or judicial proceeding against another person for violation of any provision of this Code section, shall not be used in any administrative or judicial proceedings brought against such testifying person under 21 years of age.
(g) Nothing in this Code section shall be construed to modify, amend, or supersede Chapter 11 of Title 15.
(h) In any case where a reasonable or prudent person could reasonably be in doubt as to whether or not the person to whom an alcoholic beverage is to be sold or otherwise furnished is actually 21 years of age or older, it shall be the duty of the person selling or otherwise furnishing such alcoholic beverage to request to see and to be furnished with proper identification as provided for in subsection (d) of this Code section in order to verify the age of such person; and the failure to make such request and verification in any case where the person to whom the alcoholic beverage is sold or otherwise furnished is less than 21 years of age may be considered by the trier of fact in determining whether the person selling or otherwise furnishing such alcoholic beverage did so knowingly.
(i) Any retailer or retail consumption dealer, or any person acting on behalf of such retailer or retail consumption dealer, who upon requesting proper identification from a person attempting to purchase alcoholic beverages from such retailer or retail consumption dealer pursuant to subsection (h) of this Code section is tendered a driver's license which indicates that such driver's license is falsified, is not the driver's license of the person presenting it, or that such person is under the age of 21 years, the person to whom said license is tendered shall be authorized to either write down the name, address, and license number or to seize and retain such driver's license and in either event shall immediately thereafter summon a law enforcement officer who shall be authorized to seize the license either at the scene or at such time as the license can be located. The procedures and rules connected with the retention of such license by the officer shall be the same as those provided for the acceptance of a driver's license as bail on arrest for traffic offenses pursuant to Code Section 17-6-11.
HISTORY: Code 1933, § 5A-510, enacted by Ga. L. 1981, p. 1269, § 22; Ga. L. 1985, p. 753, §§ 1, 3; Ga. L. 1985, p. 782, §§ 1, 2; Ga. L. 1986, p. 789, §§ 1, 2; Ga. L. 1988, p. 1372, § 1; Ga. L. 1989, p. 1227, § 1; Ga. L. 1997, p. 1085, § 1.
Abortion kills more black Americans than the seven leading causes of death combined, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 2005, the latest year for which the abortion numbers are available.
Abortion killed at least 203,991 blacks in the 36 states and two cities (New York City and the District of Columbia) that reported abortions by race in 2005, according to the CDC. During that same year, according to the CDC, a total of 198,385 blacks nationwide died from heart disease, cancer, strokes, accidents, diabetes, homicide, and chronic lower respiratory diseases combined. These were the seven leading causes of death for black Americans that year. [More]
Men who voted for Republican John McCain in last year's US presidential election saw their testosterone levels fall significantly when they learned he had lost to Barack Obama, a study showed Thursday.
Saliva samples collected from 163 men on the evening of the election showed that voters for both McCain and Obama had similar testosterone levels when polling stations closed on the east coast, but the levels in McCain backers fell when Obama was announced as the winner.
By contrast, testosterone levels among men who voted for Obama remained stable. Taking into account the fact that polls shut and results were announced at night -- a time when men's testosterone levels usually decline -- the study said the level was equivalent to a rise. [More]
Ed. Note: Now they need another study to track the most probable testosterone drop when they initially decided to vote for McCain. (I vofted for Sarah Palin, not John, nevertheless, I was impotent for weeks afterward.)
RIVERSIDE, California (Reuters) - There is something about coming to this sun-baked corner of California that feels like inspecting the scene of a crime.
Riverside, part of the thickly populated area known as the Inland Empire east of Los Angeles, has become synonymous with all the worst lending and spending practices of a property boom that busted and pushed the world's No. 1 economy into its longest slump since the 1930s.
"Welcome to Ground Zero," said Melinda Opperman, vice president at the Riverside branch of Springboard, a nonprofit counseling group that helps homeowners avoid foreclosure. "This is where the canary died."
GENEVA (Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS AG warned U.S. customers by registered mail their account details may be given to U.S. tax authorities, a method that could itself breach secrecy laws, a Swiss paper said on Sunday.
The use of registered mail and envelopes showing the sender was UBS could enable the U.S. authorities to trace customers wanted for tax evasion well before their details are handed over under a U.S.-Swiss double taxation agreement, Sonntag weekly paper said.
A spokesman for UBS declined to comment on the report. [More]
Study finds $2.6 billion taken from guns and ammunition
By Shaun Waterman THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Senators diverted $2.6 billion in funds in a defense spending bill to pet projects largely at the expense of accounts that pay for fuel, ammunition and training for U.S. troops, including those fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to an analysis.
Among the 778 such projects, known as earmarks, packed into the bill: $25 million for a new World War II museum at the University of New Orleans and $20 million to launch an educational institute named after the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat. [More...]
The Pentagon has brought forward to December 2009 the target-date for producing the first 15-ton super bunker-buster bomb (GBU-57A/B) Massive Ordinance Penetrator, which can reach a depth of 60.09 meters underground before exploding. DEBKAfile's military sources report that top defense agencies and air force units were also working against the clock to adapt the bay of a B2a Stealth bomber for carrying and delivering the bomb.
The Pentagon has ordered the number of bombs rolling off the production line increased from four to ten - a rush job triggered in May by the discovery that Iran was hiding a second uranium enrichment plant under a mountain near Qom - a discovery which prompted this week's international outcry.
Congress has since quietly inserted the necessary funding in the 2009 budget.
All this urgency indicates that the Obama administration has been preparing military muscle to back up the international condemnation of Iran's concealed nuclear bomb program, its sanctions threat and his willingness to join the negotiations with Iran opening on Oct. 1 in Geneva. Tehran may have to take into account a possible one-time surgical strike against its underground enrichment facility as a warning shot should its defiance continue. In particular, the world powers this week demanded that Iran open up all its nuclear facilities and programs to full and immediate international inspection. Failure to do so could bring forth further US military action.
According to our military sources, the earliest date for the accelerated Pentagon program to produce a super bunker buster bomb mounted on a stealth bomber is December 2009 or January 2010. This too is three years ahead of its original schedule.
Pressed into service are two US Air Force research centers for work on adapting the radar-evading stealth bomber to the giant bomb: the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base and the Munitions Directorate and Air Armament Center, both headquartered at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
Last month, DEBKAfile quoted Air Force Lt. Gen. Mark Shackelford as disclosing that the Pentagon had decided to accelerate the production of 10-12 giant bunker buster bombs in response to intelligence received of Iranian and North Korean underground nuclear plants.
ATF tells Tennessee that a federal gun law trumps the state’s
By Richard Locker (Contact), Memphis Commercial Appeal Wednesday, September 23, 2009
NASHVILLE -- The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has told Tennessee gun dealers to disregard a state statute that exempts firearms made and sold inside Tennessee from federal gun laws and registration.
The ATF says the federal laws still apply regardless of the state's move. [More ]
Norman Borlaug’s Legacy Lives On, Offering Hope To Billions
by Paul Driessen
“Since when did you become a global warming alarmist?” I kidded Norman midway into our telephone conversation a few weeks before this amazing scientist and humanitarian died. “What are you talking about?” Dr. Borlaug retorted. “I’ve never believed that nonsense.”
I read him a couple sentences from his July 29 Wall Street Journal article. “Within the next four decades, the world’s farmers will have to double production … on a shrinking land base and in the face of environmental demands caused by climate change. Indeed, [a recent Oxfam study concludes] that the multiple effects of climate change might reverse 50 years of work to end poverty.”
I mentioned that my own discussions of those issues typically emphasize how agricultural biotechnology, modern farming practices and other technological advances will make it easier to adapt to any climate changes, warmer or colder, whether caused by humans or by the same natural forces that brought countless climate shifts throughout Earth’s history, including the Ice Ages, Dust Bowl and Little Ice Age.
“You’re right,” he said. “I should have been more careful. Next time, I’ll do that. And I’ll point out that the real disaster won’t be global warming. It’ll be global cooling, which would shorten growing seasons, and make entire regions less suitable for farming.”
I was amazed, as I was every time we talked. Here he was, 95 years old, “retired,” still writing articles for the Journal, and planning what he’d say in his next column. [More]
By GEOFF EARLE in Washington and BRENDAN SCOTT in Albany Last Updated: 4:51 PM, September 19, 2009 Posted: 3:27 AM, September 19, 2009
Unlike other ACORN workers nabbed on undercover video, two Brooklyn ACORN employees have not been fired -- nearly a week after they were exposed in their office giving helpful advice to a fake pimp and prostitute on how to launder money. A spokesman for New York ACORN Housing Corp. told The Post that the employees, Volda Albert and Milagros Rivera, have been suspended without pay. "It will remain that way until the outcome of the [Brooklyn district attorney's] investigation is resolved," said spokesman Jonathan Rosen. Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes has launched a criminal probe of the incident, and the ACORN office is "cooperating fully," said Rosen. Five other ACORN workers nabbed in similar video stings in Baltimore, Washington and San Bernardino, Calif., have already been axed. In Brooklyn, the two housing counselors were caught on hidden camera by two conservative activists who claimed they wanted advice on how to set up a brothel. Gov. Paterson yesterday moved to put a 30-day hold on all state contracts with ACORN. New York ACORN's president, Pat Boone, said: "We welcome the governor's review and are confident he will find that every state dollar we've received went directly to combating New York's foreclosure crisis" and helping New Yorkers get tax credits.
Unlike other ACORN workers nabbed on undercover video, two Brooklyn ACORN employees have not been fired -- nearly a week after they were exposed in their office giving helpful advice to a fake pimp and prostitute on how to launder money.
A spokesman for New York ACORN Housing Corp. told The Post that the employees, Volda Albert and Milagros Rivera, have been suspended without pay.
"It will remain that way until the outcome of the [Brooklyn district attorney's] investigation is resolved," said spokesman Jonathan Rosen.
Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes has launched a criminal probe of the incident, and the ACORN office is "cooperating fully," said Rosen. [More]
WASHINGTON—According to a new report released this week by the Department of Health and Human Services, 74 percent of all American children camping out in their backyards never, ever make it through the night.
The study, which surveyed hundreds of innocent children between the ages of 7 and 12, found that, in almost all cases, sleeping outdoors in a tent with a flashlight and comic books and who knows what else lurking around in the dark ended in horrible tragedy. [More ]
Sunlight can readily liberate hydrogen from water as a result of a novel solid catalyst that mediates that reaction with unprecedented efficiency, according to researchers in China who developed the catalyst. The study advances the decades-old search for an inexpensive way to produce hydrogen, a versatile fuel, from water, an abundantly available resource.
A key challenge to tapping into solar energy on a broad scale is developing an effective way to store that energy. One strategy calls for using sunlight to produce fuels such as hydrogen, which in many ways is considered an ideal energy carrier. Using sunlight to evolve hydrogen from water photolytically is one direct route to converting solar energy into fuels. But most photocatalysts suffer from significant shortcomings. [More ]
Israel has become one of the most important economies in the world, and is second only to the United States in its pioneering of technologies benefitting human life, prosperity, and peace.
Like the Jews throughout history, Israel poses a test to the world. In particular, it is a test for any people that lusts for the fruits of capitalism without submitting to capitalism’s imperious moral code. Because capitalism, like the biblical faith from which it largely arises, remorselessly condemns to darkness and death those who resent the achievements of others.
At the heart of anti-Semitism is resentment of Jewish achievement. Today that achievement is concentrated in Israel. Obscured by the usual media coverage of the “war-torn” Middle East, Israel has become one of the most important economies in the world, second only to the United States in its pioneering of technologies benefitting human life, prosperity, and peace.
But so it has always been. Israel, like the Jews throughout history, is hated not for her vices but her virtues. Israel is hated, as the United States is hated, because Israel is successful, because Israel is free, and because Israel is good. [...More...]
One of the dirtiest campaigns ever conducted for the U.S. Senate is finally over. And to the dismay of anyone who cares about decency and decorum in “the world’s most exclusive club,” the chief mud-thrower has been declared the victor. [More]
Monday night Democrats voted to shut down the U.S. House Representatives rather than allow a handful of Republican Congressmen to speak on the floor. What could have been so offensive or frightening about our discourse that Speaker Pelosi felt she had to protect her party by gagging free speech in the House? [More]
The surviving parts of the world's oldest Bible were reunited online Monday, generating excitement among scholars striving to unlock its mysteries.
The Codex Sinaiticus was hand-written by four scribes in Greek on animal hide, known as vellum, in the mid-fourth century around the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great who embraced Christianity.
Not all of it has withstood the ravages of time, but the pages that have include the whole of the New Testament and the earliest surviving copy of the Gospels written at different times after Christ's death by the four Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The Bible's remaining 800 pages and fragments -- it was originally some 1,400 pages long -- also contain half of a copy of the Old Testament. The other half has been lost. [More] View the Bible manuscript online at http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/
The politics of personal destruction
There is no shred of decency in the DNC. The party, The press, and the largely liberal media have taken the low road with regard to the Governor of Alaska ever since her run for the vice presidency. She has decided to leave the Governorship for the sake of Alaska, and for her family. It's a sad day. She will leave office on July 26th. I personally think this is not a strategy aimed at a White House run in 2012, but a withdraw from politics. Mrs. Palin has incurred over $500,00 in legal expenses fighting pollitically motivated lawsuits. I will miss Sarah Palin. I Thank her for her service to the country with regards to Energy.
Who do we on the right look to next? Who hasn't the press already tainted with unsubstantiatable accusations and innuendo? When will the public at large stop listening? I remain ever hopeful.
* Genetic condition had ruined his lungs and left him unable to sing * He became so skeletal, doctors believed he was anorexic * He had nightmares about being murdered – and wanted to die * He used swine flu as an excuse to avoid coming to England * He thought he was agreeing to 10 concerts – it was 50
Whatever the final autopsy results reveal, it was greed that killed Michael Jackson. Had he not been driven – by a cabal of bankers, agents, doctors and advisers – to commit to the gruelling 50 concerts in London’s O2 Arena, I believe he would still be alive today. [More...]
WASHINGTON, June 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Consumer advocate Ralph Nader today issued the following statement on GM's bankruptcy filing:
Today's bankruptcy declaration in federal court by General Motors is an avoidable, crude weapon of mass devastation for workers, dealers, auto suppliers, small businesses and their depleted communities. For GM's voiceless owners -- the common shareholders -- it is a wipeout.
The proximate cause of the bankruptcy was supposed to be the inability of GM and the government's auto task force to reach an accommodation with GM's bondholders. But late last week, the bondholder problem was moving toward rapid resolution, and was clearly resolvable. Why then are GM and its multibillion government financier proceeding with bankruptcy?
The bankruptcy and the GM restructuring plan are the product of a secretive, unaccountable, Wall Street-minded government task force that assumed power because of a Congressional abdication of historic magnitude. By all rights, the restructuring plan should have been submitted to Congress for deliberative review and decision.
There is little doubt that GM's chronic mismanagement and the deep recession require restructuring and scaling back the auto giant. But the bankruptcy and restructuring plan appear poised to do so in ways that will needlessly harm the stakeholders meant to be helped by Washington's rescue of GM?
Revolutionary new web software could put giants such as Google in the shade when it comes out later this month. Andrew Johnson reports
Sunday, 3 May 2009
The biggest internet revolution for a generation will be unveiled this month with the launch of software that will understand questions and give specific, tailored answers in a way that the web has never managed before.
The new system, Wolfram Alpha, showcased at Harvard University in the US last week, takes the first step towards what many consider to be the internet's Holy Grail – a global store of information that understands and responds to ordinary language in the same way a person does.
Although the system is still new, it has already produced massive interest and excitement among technology pundits and internet watchers.
Computer experts believe the new search engine will be an evolutionary leap in the development of the internet. Nova Spivack, an internet and computer expert, said that Wolfram Alpha could prove just as important as Google. "It is really impressive and significant," he wrote. "In fact it may be as important for the web (and the world) as Google, but for a different purpose.
Tom Simpson, of the blog Convergenceofeverything.com, said: "What are the wider implications exactly? A new paradigm for using computers and the web? Probably. Emerging artificial intelligence and a step towards a self-organising internet? Possibly... I think this could be big."
Wolfram Alpha will not only give a straight answer to questions such as "how high is Mount Everest?", but it will also produce a neat page of related information – all properly sourced – such as geographical location and nearby towns, and other mountains, complete with graphs and charts.
By HELENE COOPER and JACKIE CALMES Published: December 13, 2008
CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, spoke several times with Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois about possible candidates for Mr. Obama’s Senate seat, aides close to the presidential transition team said Saturday.
Mr. Emanuel has not been accused of wrongdoing by federal prosecutors. A Democratic transition aide said that the two men had discussed a wide range of people who might fill Mr. Obama’s seat, but that Mr. Emanuel had not engaged in any deal-making with Mr. Blagojevich, who was charged last week by federal prosecutors with conspiring to turn a profit from the appointment.
The conversations between Mr. Emanuel and Mr. Blagojevich, first reported by The Chicago Tribune, were captured on wiretaps, according to another official close to the transition. [More at the NY Times]
Joe Wurzelbacher lashed out at former GOP presidential nominee John McCain Tuesday, the man who made Wurzelbacher famous as “Joe the Plumber.”
Wurzelbacher told conservative radio host Glenn Beck that he felt “dirty” after “being on the campaign trail and seeing some of the things that take place.”
Recalling a conversation he had with McCain about the $700 billion financial industry bailout in September, Wurzelbacher said: “When I was on the bus with him, I asked him a lot of questions about the bailout because most Americans did not want that to happen.”
“I asked him some pretty direct questions,” he continued. “Some of the answers you guys are gonna receive — they appalled me, absolutely. I was angry. In fact I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him.”
Asked why he didn’t leave McCain’s campaign if he was “appalled” by the candidate, Wurzelbacher said, “honestly, because the thought of Barack Obama as president scares me even more.”
While Wurzelbacher was critical of McCain during the interview, he had nothing but praise for his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. “Sarah Palin is absolutely the real deal,” he said.
MOSCOW, November 24 (RIA Novosti)
A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts.
Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily Izvestia published on Monday: "The dollar is not secured by anything. The country's foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse."
The paper said Panarin's dire predictions for the U.S. economy, initially made at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago at a time when the economy appeared strong, have been given more credence by this year's events.
When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: "It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world's financial regulator."
When asked who would replace the U.S. in regulating world markets, he said: "Two countries could assume this role: China, with its vast reserves, and Russia, which could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia."
Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: "A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles."
He also cited the "vulnerable political setup", "lack of unified national laws", and "divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions."
He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.
He even suggested that "we could claim Alaska - it was only granted on lease, after all."
On the fate of the U.S. dollar, he said: "In 2006 a secret agreement was reached between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. on a common Amero currency as a new monetary unit. This could signal preparations to replace the dollar. The one-hundred dollar bills that have flooded the world could be simply frozen. Under the pretext, let's say, that terrorists are forging them and they need to be checked."
When asked how Russia should react to his vision of the future, Panarin said: "Develop the ruble as a regional currency. Create a fully functioning oil exchange, trading in rubles... We must break the strings tying us to the financial Titanic, which in my view will soon sink."
Panarin, 60, is a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has authored several books on information warfare.
In Alaska, The Drill Is Gone
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, November 24, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Energy: Remember those 68 million acres House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the oil companies had to use or lose? According to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, they can't drill there either. [MORE]
From Bob Parks, Black and Right - November 23rd, 2008
Yet one more mainstream media type (who was in awe of all things Obama just a few months ago) now assumes he's making news by telling us all that the press was anxiously promoting one side over the other.
Media bias was more intense in the 2008 election than in any other national campaign in recent history, Time magazine's Mark Halperin said Friday at the Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election.
"It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war," Halperin said at a panel of media analysts. "It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage."
Mr. Haperin, thanks for the tip. I was beginning to believe that Barack Obama won this election fair and square.
UAW’s ‘No Concessions’ Policy Killing Big Three, Expert Says
Friday, November 21, 2008 By Tiffany Gabbay
United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger
(CNSNews.com) – The Big Three automakers are forced to pay 85 percent of union benefits to members of the United Auto Workers union who aren’t working – even if their plants have been closed.
Industry analysts say union labor agreements that obligate the Big Three to pay millions of dollars to workers who are no longer working are a major reason why the automakers are in trouble – a problem that no short-term bailout can fix. [MORE]
Planet Has Cooled Since Bush Took Office
– Scientists Continue Dissenting – Gore Admits 'I've failed badly' - Global Sea Ice GROWS! Global Warming Theory has ‘failed consistently and dramatically’ [MORE]
Proof that the choice of Sarah Palin as VP helped the McCain Campaign
The Pew Research Center says: "Yet those who cited Palin's selection as a factor in their vote -- 60% of all voters -- favored McCain by 56% to 43%."
60% of voters said Sarah Palin was a factor in their choice. Of that 60%, 56 % voted for McCain. That should stop all this nonsense about Sarah hurting the ticket. Unfortunately, it probably won't. Here is why.
[ed. note] NOAA has an article that pretty much makes the same claim about the hot October that never was. We are waiting for them to recant. They are also predicting warmer than usual winter temperatures.
By Christopher Booker
A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.
This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.
So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.
The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year. (more...)
November 5 2008 Michael Crichton 1942-2008
Michael Crichton has been on my mind a lot over the last few weeks. I was shocked to see that he had died on Tuesday Nov. 4 2008 from a long private battle with cancer. Crichton is the well know author of books like the 'Andromeda Strain', 'Jurassic Park' and 'The Congo'. He was also a screenwriter and filmmaker, who turned many of his titles into hit movies. He was an M.D. from Harvard where he graduated summa cum laude. The thing many don't know about Crichton that he was an articulate and convincing skeptic of global warming.
Here is a lengthy interview with Charlie Rose done on February 2007 where is views on Al Gore, and global warming are discussed extensively.
The High Veracity Digital Press
Oracle has made an announcement which shocked market analysts and company watchers alike, the company has plans to start hiring at Sun. 
Compounds found in cannabis may be useful as part of an effective treatment for certain inflammatory bowel diseases, a new study has found. 
WASHINGTON—According to a new report released this week by the Department of Health and Human Services, 74 percent of all American children camping out in their backyards never, ever make it through the night. 
Yet one more mainstream media type (who was in awe of all things Obama just a few months ago) now assumes he's making news by telling us all that the press was anxiously promoting one side over the other.