Why we despise Urban Intellectuals

The class warfare schism is no more evident anywhere than in Australia.

It runs the gamut from Illegal Immigration Boat People to Carbon Taxes to things as silly as as a moving van impeding a Bikeway fashioned from what previously was curb and sidewalk.

Tim Blair is one of the most interesting and humorous aussie scribes finding fun poking holes in these city leeches' hubris. Elizabeth Farrely is one of his favorite targets..  A holder of a PhD in Architecture which certifies her to critique all things mundane that despoil the cityscape, as it were..
Immediately on writing a thinly disguised treatise, for the Sydney Morning Herald, on banning motorized vehicles altogether, now the academic gentry  are biking through urbania... 

Bike haters parked in the Jurassic

...she spares no acerbic semantics in flogging a working stiff just trying to do his job.  Because to make his delivery he has to park somewhere, that being the bike lane.. and .. 
Horrors! She has to get off and walk her bike around his truck.
But it gives her fodder for her blog.

Not one but three

- you really must read it all. It's entertaining and informative.

After marveling at the coolness of the van driver.. who might just as well have told her how to fold and park her bike where the sun wont hit it...Immediately I conjure the location of her stylish walkup {wouldnt be on street level, of course}.. situated in a very upscale gentrified part of old Sydney. Right on the Bike Path, naturally.
 And picture how the removal vans got to her place.. or the deliveries of whatever stylish new accoutrements are made.
Might they not ALSO have to block the bikepaths?  Or is rear alley access a primary concern when selecting new nests for harpies?

***

Unasked and unanswered, as of yet, is:  Come the apocalyptic time and it IS coming, when everything breaks down, what does this woman have to offer in the way of reestablishing civilization?

Bless his heart: 'Can we just let the South secede?'

Remember back when the Hollywood libs threatened to leave the country after Dubya was elected.. and some great minds said the NE, NW and SoCal should secede?

How MANY of us wished they would.. or could!

Well here's a guy that goes em better.  He says the South  and those who thought like southerners ought  to be pushed out so the country would be better off.
That's be okay with me.. if all of Ohio from 50 miles south of Lake Erie is included. Or just Columbus and south.

Let's go back to just the deep blues seceding, okay?  They can have NY,  NJ, Boston, Philly, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, St Louis, the Twin Cities of Minnesota, Western WA and ORE, The SF Bay Area, LA County. All of Maine, All of Vermont.

Yes, that's ALL the main financial, Business, intellectual and Cultural centers of the US.

Oh MY!  The rest of us would be left destitute and barren.  Except maybe we could get infrastructure jobs for a while building a big wall to keep us out of those Centers of Enlightenment.
Okay.. as long as we get to keep them in. 

Only one little problem. Who we kidding.. within 10 years, the 'New US' would invade to get their fled money back.

Here's the book in question:
"Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession"

WSJ: Review

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Because there always has to be something about Race..

Does Paul Ryan's Black Ex-Girlfriend Matter? 

Ten plus paragraphs

summary:
Ryan is probably not a racist and Lou Dobbs isnt either, despite his 'anti-immigration' rants.. but if they don't agree with me and Obama, it's all the same. After all Strom Thurmond certainly loved and supported his black daughter and we all KNOW he was a racist.. because REPUBLICAN.

 

Funny.. with Face Palm

Women in Vagina Costumes demand Respect!

If you ever thought Westboro Baptist and Occupy Wall Street couldnt be outdone in invoking Alice in Wonderland logic, you discounted Code Pink..

As a female FB friend said:  "I'm not sure what to think about that"
- exactly!
Even Betty Friedan might wonder.

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Seriously.. you couldn't make this stuff up!  Wait.. I guess you could because it is being made up.

Cutter: People Mag ‘equally important’ as WH press corps

Monday Morning in WH Press room:

 What are the President and First Lady's views on whether or not Jennifer Aniston will ever re-marry?

You'll remember Stephanie Cutter from last week's foof where she forgot she was was the one who discovered the steelworker whose wife Romney killed.

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Yet MORE lunacy;  this time on the GOP side:

GOP Senate Nominee: Victims Of ‘Legitimate Rape’ Do Not Get Pregnant

Idiot! And you're running for the Senate. YOUR correct answer is:  "I'm against abortion in all cases but that should be an issue for states to decide."

And let it go at that.  Why?  Because of Federal mandating for provision under health care funding .. we just covered that in the Supreme Court. 

- not to mention that really dodgy position on a woman's body preventing contraception.

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If that isn't 'alternate universe' enough for ya.. how about:

Poo Power from your dog

or..  

A urine based ‘potion’ can act as a CO2 absorbent

 Now.. the former is ridiculous.  Burning waste and trash for power has been tried countless times and it's money loser EVERY TIME.

The second might work.. if ALL the objectionable aspects can be overcome, however there are many sewage treatment issues actually caused by household water usage reduction, and I'm pretty sure the inventor hasnt addressed those.

WWJD: The 50/100 % Tax on the Rich

Jesus believed in a tax rate of at least 50 percent. So how does Paul Ryan's budget proposal stand up?

Oh, yes.. now I remember from Sunday School how Jesus organized a Crowd to Lobby Pilate so Rome would increase taxes.  Just need to find it in scripture...
But, here's what contextual search, in my own head, turns up:

"Thou shalt not take the name of thy Lord in vain"

Since Jesus is the son of God, seems to me if you put the wrong meaning in Jesus words you are blaspheming. Of course I'm not God.. and I'm not able to judge Christakos' heart so I guess it's just 'good intentions'.
Along with these other oddities, distilled from the last five commandments:

Do not envy your neighbor for that which he has and you do not.
Do not take that which is not yours to take.  Don't even THINK about it!

In fact, I don't recall Jesus ever organizing a crowd.  As I recall, when he 'spoke to the multitudes', he was addressing each individual in those crowds. He never organized a community, or addressed the iniquities of Rome. He said: Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.."   That's pretty much it.

His only 'political action' was to upset the moneychanger tables inside the House of the Lord.

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Romney pays only 13%!!!!
Hmmm... ever wonder why you dont see the American Bar Association and H&R Block {check Joel Hyatt's political contribution history} lobbying for a flat fair tax or reducing the number of deductions?
{sarc}
'Me too!'
{/sarc}

Mitt Goes 'All-In' with Ryan

First, a prediction:
Expect many Democrat wonks to start pushing for the Obama Campaign to replace Joe Biden. He's a joke, even within the party, and in head to head debate on ANY ISSUE the Democrats pick.. Ryan will grind him up and spit him out.
As another blogger sees it:

 

- Rightreactions

I'm serious.. you read it here first.

That said.. to get support of the various grass roots Tea Party activists and voters, Romney couldn't have made a better choice. Both Pawlenty and Portman are policy liteweights compared to Ryan.

But unlike the 2008 ticket, where Palin would have been nothing but a cheerleader like Biden is now, this one promises a working partnership.  A good executive doesn't need to know all the facts about everything.. or anything, for that matter.
A good executive only needs to have the vision and execute the vision, leaving the details to his operational staff.
For President Obama that has meant his key cabinet appointments.  And if you need to know where the President really stands, you vet those people.
- Sadly, most people HAVENT read their bio's or noted their politcal positions, prior to joining the executive branch.

What Romney is going to promote is a working team.. in the full sense of the word.  Much like the left claimed Cheney was, Ryan is going to actually be the candidate for 'Chief Operating Officer' of the US.  Those familiar with corporate hierarchies know THAT is the guy who gets things done; as opposed to the Chief Executive Officer who proposes (to the Board or Country in this case) and executes.

It's a dream team in every sense of the word for those who want to save this country's economy.
But it's going to make it harder for Romney to get elected.

Because there is no way to skirt the terrible economic straits we are now in.  And fixing the problems, mainly health care and the deficit, wont be easy... the pain is going to be very much akin to pulling an infected wisdom tooth.

I propose this election is not going to be just about issues and how to resolve them, it's going to test whether or not average voters are as ignorant and fearful as the Democrats think we are.

That's why I say 'Mitt went all in'.  He just made it harder for himself to win the November vote.  
Because if Romney tells the truth he will admit it's going to hurt everyone for a while, and may possibly not work.  Hopefully he will be able to make the case that disaster is certain on this track.
When folks see Ryan point out just how bad things are and the unsustainable direction we are heading at this time.. lots of people will prefer to put disaster off as long as possible.

UPDATE:  An article in Reason.com points out that even Ryan's budget plans don't really address much of the deficit. Maybe.. but we have to start someplace.

Ryan Plans: Radical or Weak Beer?

The Genius of Justice Roberts

The blog reaction on the rulings on Obamacare illustrates why I am MOSTLY 'Libertarian' in my politics.
Many radio talkers, like Neal Boortz, are ranting non-stop about onerous taxation.
Those who see the big picture, though, realize this - PERHAPS- was a colossal win for fiscal conservatives and federalists.
By stating that a penalty to both states and individuals under the Commerce Clause was unconstitutional, there is now precedent AGAINST the Fed withholding of state funding for ALL activities under agency programs should states refuse a new addition to the program.  Not to mention unfunded mandates threatening previously accepted funding.

The Commerce Clause has been used and abused to force compliance for years.  This may be the beginning of the end for the big nasty hammer.

On the other hand, a tax may be repealed much more quickly than it's enacted.

Keynes Addiction

Someone said 'all politics is local' and indeed it does start locally... and ends up manifested with local outrage.

But it carries down from the very top.

Every time you see a 'Tax Reform' package purporting to fix inequities and injustices, you see a few clauses in there that favor the 'friends of...'. Most often those who make their living preparing taxes and litigating tax law. You think it's an accident that Joel Hyatt -H&R Block, Hyatt Legal Services- is a Liberal.. or is that 'Progressive'?
And after all the years of trying to make sure the 'one percent pays their share' how is it exactly that wasnt fixed long ago? Hmmmm?
My long term outrage at how the economy works bears very much on taxes and government manipulation of the economy and it started 45 years ago, in the first few months of my one year in college.. when Keynesian economics was presented.
I realized I was not suited for academia when I realized I would have to listen to drivel like:
'You reduce inflation by raising interest rates and taxes.'

Indeed that's true.. if all you care about is the next two years. But when you carry those forward for more than a few business cycles and especially union contracts {remember that was the sixties} you find all you did was push inflation forward.

It seemed to me that anyone with a least degree of common sense should know that everyone is going to at least TRY to get theirs back.

You have to remember that Keynesianism DOES provide effective short term tweaks. If it didnt, it wouldnt still be around. But it also encourages market manipulation by those entrusted to promote good for all by manipulating for gain.
What economic model was used to promote the 1999 CRA? ANd the subsequent housing bust.. Keynes. See how we fixed the mortgage problem? By keeping at the same thing that caused it in the first place.

And it's self-perpetuating. When you try to fix an economy distorted by Keynes, you have to go slow. Being an addiction, withdrawing from Keynesian situation, where we borrow one third of our federal budget, must be carefully done.

So it REALLY pisses me off when I see bullshit like this:
Why Don’t Republicans Mind When Romney Talks Keynesian?
Why Don’t Republicans Mind When Romney Talks Keynesian?

Romney: Well because, if you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. So I’m not going to do that, of course.

Chait notes, bemusedly, that this deviation from orthodoxy has provoked no outrage on the right, which to him is further proof of just how cynical the Republican anti-Keynesian stance really is:

So Mitt tells the TRUTH. And people with the least degree of common sense understand that.. and it's used AGAINST him? And them?

This is why I despise 'Liberals'. Either they are too stupid to be allowed to write that BS.. or they are evil in intent. You tell me.

The bottom line is that Keynesian Economics not only lends itself to Central Planning, but REQUIRES Central Planning to fix the results of applying Keynesian Economics

It's your world...

Gee.. I havent posted in months.  And I'm starting to overload and annoy my FB friends. So I thought I'd better come back here.
Items of Interest to me:
What has Tebow done to deserve having to play for the Jets?
 
Hallelujah: Tebow trade to Jets hits a snag

I say this as an atheist, a lifelong Jets “fan,” and a Tebow admirer: If fate intervenes at the last minute to spare this poor kid from having to play for this hopeless loser franchise, it really is a data point in favor of believers...

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Onions Make you Cry

What does it mean when real Science Journal articles read like they are trying to compete with 'The Onion'?
You tell me...
Note these are NOT from Onion.. just seem like it.

Climate Science From the Onion?

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Related?  Astrology and Climate Change

Doesnt SAY that but it's what it means, IMO. 

Interesting. Makes at least as much sense as Gore's dumb Temp and CO2 chart.
If it's true.. we aint warming, folks. We'll need all the CO2 we can pump out.

Scafetta’s new paper attempts to link climate cycles to planetary motion

 Anthony is.. well.. skeptical

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Finally...
 In 1942 a flight of P38's and B17 crash landed on Greenland ice cap. In 1992 one of the P38 was dug out from under 80 meters of ice. In 2008 another P38 in the same flight was dug out from 100 meters of ice.
Certainly, left alone, those planes will end up in the rocks under the ice cap.

Something to think about, nonetheless.
 

Hitchens goes to meet his Maker

Christopher Hitchens Dies at 62...

"The author and prominent atheist Richard Dawkins described him as the "finest orator of our time" and a "valiant fighter against all tyrants including God

He maintained his devout atheism after being diagnosed with cancer, telling one interviewer: "No evidence or argument has yet been presented which would change my mind. But I like surprises."

And, indeed, I believe he will be surprised. I wont speculate as to what happens now.
However...  God evidently has a sense of humor.
How else to explain Jesus' statement to Peter: "Upon this rock I build my church."   At once both a pun and highly ironic, as Peter had just denied Christ three times.

I've read Dawkins and I've read Hitchens.  Dawkins rails a lot against God,  a  more accurate depiction of Hitchens' views would be 'Religion Poisons Everything'.  I don't think that is true but, on general terms, it's not incorrect, either.  And I defy the most devout religionist to negate THAT.   Especially if you follow contemporary news.
But EVERYTHING?

No.  Compare and contrast, for discussion's sake, the Shaker Cult v the Amish community.
Religion poisoned the Shakers.  Where is the malignant effect on the Amish?

If Hitchens cited the Westboro Baptist freakshow.. or the global mission of the devout to kill, convert or gather tribute from all 'Infidels' he has a valid point.
Like I say, though, that isn't God, that's man's Religion.

 I've observed over many years, that there are two general types of Atheist:  Those who don't believe because they don't 'see' hard and fast proof of the greatest mystery of the universe.. and those who deny to avoid self-judgement and guilt. Of course it is usually a blend of philosophies, but with Hitchens I think it was mainly the former..

NPR, of all media, may help save us yet!

Like most conservatives I developed a deep mistrust of government funded public broadcasting.  The last thing a free society needs is an 'Official News Agency' and that has been borne out time and again by several small scandals within NPR and CPB showing they indeed carried water for 'Progressive' (read Socialist) interests.

But one thing that opened my eyes as to the credibility of NPR in particular was its handling of Congresswoman Giffords' shooting.
Unlike many commercial outlets, specifically the steaming pile at MSNBC, there was no jumping to conclusions as to the agenda and motives of the shooter. Indeed many of the blogs I read, usually labelled 'Right Wing Hatemongers' by the knuckledragging left, linked to NPR's coverage during the immediate hours afterward and not a few praised them for the factual coverage as opposed to fevered speculation that the shooter was somehow tied to Tea Party or Sarah Palin.

Of course it was quickly proven that the guy was simply a mentally ill nutjob despite the local sheriff's attempts to link him somehow to the right.
NPR, however, stayed the course in its news coverage and deserve all credit for not jumping to conclusions based on whatever political views the writers may have had. I, of course, recognize that not all the programming on NPR was as objective but I can separate opinion from news when I see or hear it.

Now that organization has put up several other interesting items of interest to Conservatives and Libertarians:

Libs, Warming and the Money Train

Cartoon by Josh...From Bishop Hill blog

One thing you can say about the devout of any religion, they will never change their views based on science or even fact put right in their faces. Despite serious papers such as this:
Submission to the Inquiry into Carbon Tax Pricing Mechanisms

There is in fact no empirical evidence that global warming is mainly man-made. If there was, we would have heard all about it. Tens of billions of dollars has been spent looking for it.
Climate scientists readily concede that there is no direct evidence that global warming is caused by our carbon dioxide. Instead, they say that our knowledge of how the climate works is embodied in their climate models, and the climate models say that global warming is man-made.
Models are logically equivalent to someone punching in numbers and doing sums on a calculator - models are calculations, not evidence. The problem is that the models contain many guesses and assumptions about how things work, and some of them are wrong.

Here are four bits of evidence that the climate models are fundamentally flawed...

Read the entire article

And they tend to project this irrationality upon their opponents without regard to logic or even the tendency of people to take the easy way out whether it applies to income or just self image.  And they never want to apply simple rules of life experience to their own beliefs.

People who wouldnt think of investing in some crackpot scheme promoted by email spammers or have their driveways sealed by some guy in a pickup truck holding a garden sprayer will bite on 2 cents out of 100 dollars worth of CO2 sending the planet into a burning inferno.
At the same time they see no urgency when their own government's annual budget is written on IOU's.

Warmists claim that  skeptics are either ignorant or financed by big oil and energy interests ignoring the fact that all their heroes depend on urgency in taxing carbon for thier livelihoods.

Who is gonna spend tax money on proving that there's no emergency and even if there is, there's really nothing we can  do about it?

I'm finding that I am settling intto 'elderly curmudgeon' mode now and I really get irritated by people who dont address these simple flaws in human nature.  Not so much the devout.. they are who they are.  But the people who believe they may be right.  The agnostics, as it were.

Let's face it.. the 'climate scientists' who promote this most urgently are exactly the same as the scantily clad woman standing more than 15 minutes on a street corner in a seedy neighborhood. 
They arent waiting for a bus, they arent checking out the weather.. they're promoting their income and protecting their lifestyles.
They are whores.

As for me, I dont believe man is causing climate change to any significant extent.  If carbon was doing it, the continued rise in carbon dioxide would show at least in rising ocean temperature.  It isnt.
Not only that, the computer models on which all their religion is based did not predict what is happening now. More importantly, they predicted things that are not happening now.

All the extreme weather events they point out arent extreme and arent unusual when addressed historically.

And guess what... I dont really care if the earth is warming so I dont have anything invested in denying it.  It wont affect me .. I'll be dead.
And somehow I think my kids and grandkids will have more urgent things to deal with.  Like trying to live in more than a subsistence manner while trying to pay back the huge federal debt my generation ran up, supposedly in their name.

Danger! Man made Warming causing seas to dry up; Tax Carbon Immediately!

Der Spiegel: Global Warming ... Causes Sea Level Drop…Through Weather Shifts!

Global sea level has dropped by more than half a centimetre over the last 12 months. That equals 5 metres of sea level drop over the next 1000 years – at least that’s what my computer simulation shows.

Now how on earth are the island states supposed to cope with all this expanding land? What a catastrophe! We have to immediately form a special commission charged with the task of managing the great transformation of these regions and setting down ecological guidelines. Professor Schellnhuber – it’s up to you!”

- from the notricks page.
Now, of course, that's absurd, and it's meant to be.  

But the point it makes is exactly on target.  When you want to find the truth you follow the money.  Frauds like the Goreacle of course bray about skeptics being in the thrall of Big Oil or whoever but of course NEVER name names or end up with categorical undeniable trails... everytime they've tried to link the Koch Bros, for example, they've hit a dead end so they just lie about it.

How about we follow THEIR money.. it's been right there all along..

Reasons to be a Global Warming Skeptic

Read the whole thing but here is the money quote:

 Now, it happens I did my PhD work on Federally funded modeling, from which I developed the NBSR Law (named after the group for which I worked):

All modeling efforts will inevitably converge on the result most likely to lead to further funding.

Rollin, rollin, rollin... keep up that good trollin'!

Best of the last week in celebrity news:

Al Gore Says Debating With Him On Climate Science is Moral Equivalent of Racism

I say that discussion is the intellectual equivalent of '69', with raincoat.


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The Hill:

Vt. senator credits Obama with quick action on Hurricane Irene

 A Democratic senator touring hurricane damage in Vermont on Monday credited President Obama with a successful response to the disaster.

"Glad Pres. acted quickly on VT disaster declaration," Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) tweeted.

Obama declared emergencies in New York, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Virginia last week ahead of Hurricane Irene's expected landfall. The federal declaration allowed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to mobilize resources and predeploy response teams to areas likely to be affected by the storm.

 Glad the Pres was on the ball on this.. unlike Bush and Katrina for Louisiana

Oh.. wait... that's right. You cant declare a federal disaster area unless the incompetent political hack running the state asks you to...
Never mind!

 Vermont was hit hard with record   flooding: some photos HERE

- Photos of Sen Leahy handing out warm blankets, serving soup and sandwiches to the displaced and suckling orphaned infants still being processed.

 - Rumors that Sean Penn was on his way to Vermont with a rowboat and a carton of beer cups were untrue, according to his agents.

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 In Envir-ornamental News..

U.S. to beat Brazil as world's leading ethanol exporter

With U.S. corn-based ethanol relatively inexpensive, U.S. ethanol producers have been able to win out contracts to supply countries that previously imported ethanol from Brazil. U.S. farmers have also benefited from Brazil eliminating its 20-percent import duty and lower European tariffs on ethanol.

Since the federal renewable fuel mandate classifies sugarcane ethanol as an advanced biofuel, but corn-based ethanol as only a biofuel, it's quite likely the United States will continue to export corn-based ethanol to Brazil while at the same time importing mass quantities of the sugarcane-based biofuel from Brazil.

Milo Minderbinder, anyone?

 Related..
Nestlé CEO: Biofuels Have “Returned Hundreds Of Millions Back To Extreme Poverty”
Must be some sort of trick or spin.. everyone knows multi-national corporations are evil and hate poor people.

Whatever happened to 'Question Authority'?

I guess it all depends on who the authority .. dare I say 'establishment' is.

Schizo lamebrain leftists now call those who question government or funded academics 'idiots morons and deniers'.
heh...

Judith Curry, a climate scientist who is NOT a skeptic or denier because she recognizes the ridiculous flawed science and arguments fomented by the Goracle flock:
Cool dudes

Cool dudes: the denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States

Aaron McCright and Riley Dunlap

article in press, Global Environmental Change.

The article is unavailable online, but I received a copy of the article and the press release via email. From the press release:

Research Highlights

* Conservative white males are more likely than other Americans to report climate change denial.

Well, here's the thing: CWM's already have a finely tuned Bullshit Detector. What the liberal left dont understand is that they have turned theirs off, so as to feel comfy with their world views.
Isnt it funny, also, that it's conservatives and Libertarians that point out the too-cozy ties of wall street and the executive legislative branch members?

I guess it's all down to whose gore is being oxed.

NASA: CO2 is not a cozy quilt, not even much of a blanket

Forbes: NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth's atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Finally we're seeing science confirming what common sense tells anyone who bothers to think.

- CO2 is increasing due to human activity but because it re-radiates, not reflects, it doesnt have much effect on the real source of climate .. oceans.
- All that heat produced by human energy use is ending up in space just as it should.

Of course anyone who has common sense would know to look at the motives of anyone predicting climate catastrophe in the first place . By that I mean 'follow the REAL MONEY'.

But lemmings ave always trusted their leaders, haven't they.

To Ashley: Power Wives

My niece is getting married today. Scott's getting a winner.
There's not a lot of daughters in my family - some sort of chromosome thing, I'm told.
But those few are certainly capable of 'going all Wendi' for their man.


Forbes: Wendi Deng And Wives Who Stand Behind Their Men

When May-Bowles charged toward Murdoch with a foam pie, Deng’s protective instinct kicked in, signaling to the world that she will stand behind her man through scandal, humiliation and even assault. Here’s a look at the women you’d want on your team—the power wives who have gone to bat for their men.

Murdoch Derangement Syndrome

The News of the World scandal seems to have infected the imaginations of every liberal in the English speaking world.. the jackals smell blood, Rupert Murdoch blood, and they're going to go in for the kill.

Or will they.

I remember the liberals' heady days after the election of 2006, Almost every lefty blog and many columnists speculated that now was the time to IMPEACH!
Impeach Bush, Impeach Cheney, Impeach Rumsfeld.

The grounds for that action was always a little nebulous, of course, though it usually had to do with lying about Saddam's WMDs. Some of us that had seen these things before knew that 'impeachment' wasn't about to happen.
Oh, how I wished it would.

But it's not in the nature of hyenas and jackals to actually physically attack prey that can defend itself and I knew the Dem's would never impeach. It would most certainly have a bad outcome for them. Among other inconvenient revelations, it would come out that Saddam actually promoted the idea of his WMD's long after he put them out of reach in order to protect himself from them being turned against him.

News of the World occupied a special place in British news. In many ways like the National Enquirer and the New York Daily News do here. As a soccer fan, though, I rarely took it seriously.. its coverage of the Premier League focused more on player personality and gossip than sport analysis and commentary. in other words, for a sports fan, NOTW was irrelevent. I assumed it was for other subjects, as well.. just a bottom feeding tabloid. But it was the most read paper in the UK. Albeit one that actually subsidized 'The Times', an altogether different sort of paper.

There is no doubt that certain folks are going to jail for invading the privacy of private citizens, and it will be justice. But those who are culpable were not idiots, then, and they aren't now.
Whether they thought Murdoch was winking when he responded to the prior hacking bad acts or they believed that their performance was more important than News Corp policy guidelines, it's a sure thing that Rupert has culpable deniability.

Murdoch's enemies, though, see a chance to deny him his media goals; in Uk, his taking over of BSkyB, a sports network. In the US, striking against the hated Fox News. It's not clear what forcing Murdoch to lose Fox would do, though. Certainly there would be no shortage of media companies eager to assume ownership, and little chance of its format changing as a result. If anything, new owners would take the network even further away from 'the moderate center'.. I use the lefty view in that phrase; moderate to them being MSNBC.

So just as during the hue and cry for Dubya's impeachment, I really WANT a full investigation and hearing of Murdoch. The absolute worst outcome would be that he did know something and prosecuting ol' Rupert; but the next step would be using the precedent to investigate the New York Times and their role in hacking and disclosure of information vital to our national security.

Whether the lefties are stupid enough to follow that path remains to be seen. My gut tells me they are.. they never seem to see further than 2 steps ahead.

My common sense tells me that lefties are not that stupid and this is all baying at the moon. Which is, after the feasting on dead and decaying carcasses, in the true nature of hyenas and jackals.

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Bonus:
Totally non-partisan proof that creative genius is incremental:

Reggie Watts!



-via The Crack Emcee

Byte is Back and so is Jerry Pournelle

The KIM-1, circa 1970's

Byte magazine is back. It was the prime publication for the 'personal computer geek' in the seventies. All us geek old-timers know Byte magazine was the go-to source for 'What's happening now' in the small computer field.  As a hardware guy who sucked at math, I was most interested in the applications.  I was very good at visualizing what could be done with those early microprocessor systems, in fact I bought a KIM-1 board for use as a cassette controller for an early autodialer prototype.
Yes, I was indeed responsible for some of those spam 'Vote for Me' phone calls if you got them in the mid seventies. But I only made two of them and that would have been only if you lived in the Dayton area.

Well, what's old is new again, and a booming field in the geek community are projects involving 'microcontrollers' but compiled from high level language.
Two examples of this are 'Arduino' and 'Nerdkits'
Hopefully Byte - now online only- will cover this and regain the enthusiasm of the homebrew hobbyist.
I know I have a project I'd like to build, if I can find someone to do that pesky software work.

And Jerry Pournelle was big in personal computing futures, writing in Byte in the here and now, and with Larry Niven in some of the best science fiction.
He's back with Byte as well.

I know I'm going to be reading the new on-line Byte with some interest, hoping that we'll see some references to what's going on in the hobbyist fields, but I wont be privy to  that if I have to sign in to see it..  because to register, I have to provide a whole lot of info, including my snail-mail address.

Sorry, just getting my junk mail down to a manageable amount based on info provided as long as twenty years ago. So unless there's some real goodies I'm missing, I'd rather pay money to read it.

- H/T Instapundit

Don't get taken

In hot weather like we're having now, it only SEEMS like your air conditioning is more likely to fail.

But lots of people are going to be more likely to pay for unnecessary repairs and replacement than usual because they can't bear the thought of losing their comfort.

Let me just say that this sort of weather will make membership in 'Angie's List' a bargain for those who have Air Conditioner problems. The reason being of course that those highly rated HVAC companies are less likely to do unnecessary work.

I've taken care of 40 plus older residential units for ten years and in that time exactly TWO AC systems have had to be replaced.  Both were WELL over 20 years old.
It pays for you to know what your outside unit - the condenser - sounds like when it's running well.
Before a compressor fails it will start to make more noise/ get louder than usual, this may continue for days, weeks or even years.  But do make a note of it.  Chances of that compressor suddenly failing without warning -getting louder-a re very low.
There are two common failure parts in the condenser: 
The power relay called a 'contactor' and the motor capacitor{s}. When the AC suddenly quits working, odds are over 90% it's one or the other at fault. 

If the capacitor fails, the fan and/or the compressor tries to run but cant get started.
- Retail price of capacitor: $25-$35

If the condensor fan motor itself fails, it will be relatively hard to turn.  It should react like a pedestal fan. Easy to turn.
With thermostat in 'Off' position, try to turn the fan with a ruler or thin wood piece. If it's stiff or hard to turn, the bearings are bad.. actually usually 'dry' but it may not be worth having it lubricated. It has sealed bearing and must be disassembled to do it.
- Chances of fan motor failing electrically - almost zero.  If it turns easily, and tries to start but wont.. chances of bad capacitor about 99%.
Retail price of fan motor: $150-$200.

If the outside unit does nothing at all, listen for a faint hum. That is the relay coil trying to start it. It is getting a signal from your thermostat. The A/C breaker may be tripped, in your inside box, the fuse {if any} in the outside box may be blown or the relay may be bad.
- If there's no hum, check to see if you can turn the furnace blower on by changing thermostat switch from 'auto' to 'on', your furnace breaker may be tripped or there's an electrical problem in your furnace controls.

- If there is a hum, the compressor and fan do nothing, and your outside unit is getting power, that relay/contactor  is probably bad. Common in ten year old or more.

Ice on lines to condenser unit.  Means bad furnace airflow 90% or low refrigerant - not likely because it only happens at a certain point of capacity. Change filter or your furnace blower is bad or blocked air return registers.
If the outside lines have ice, that means your inside coil is a solid block of ice.  Turn heat/cool OFF, furnace  blower 'ON' and allow at least 2-3 hours for ice to melt. You will likely have water puddling around the furnace when that's done.
Use cheap furnace filters in cooling season.  The wet inside coil gets those little bits of dust anyway. and the airflow is better.

more later as I think of it.

The Not So Simple Life

On another site I frequent:

Kate Moss asks Royal Air Force to stop Afghanistan-bound flights during her wedding.

Cheeky RAF said No! Imagine that.

(Who is Kate Moss again?)

***

Looking for a more authoritative source on that than Fox News - cuz they're just full of bile and hate, ya know.. also found:

Paris Hilton: 'I thought I'd be married by now'

Gem Quote:

she said that watching her reality show, The World According to Paris, helped her see the way things really were.

I guess she means she watched it sober. Too bad she didn't watch 'The Simple Life' that way.. she might have been married by now.