The inevitable Nazi reference

From AP News My Way

MIAMI (AP) - Thousands of illegal immigrants stayed home this week amid rumors of immigration roundups that federal officials say were unfounded, leaving some industries scrambling for workers.

Len Mills, executive vice president of Associated General Contractors of South Florida, estimated at least 50 percent of workers on construction jobs in the region had not shown up for work.

"This is costing millions of dollars a day, and I don't know who is going to pay for it," he said.

Rumors of random sweeps were rampant from coast to coast Friday, prompting many immigrants to stay home from work, take their children out of school and avoid church. Their absences added to immigrants' fears, as some thought their friends and co-workers had been arrested.

Mills said he believed even some legal workers were afraid.

"Everybody's edgy," said Chris Ruske, owner of a southern New Jersey nursery. "There's an awful lot of rhetoric, and you wonder what's true. You wonder if the immigration Gestapo are coming to get you."

Construction and agriculture were among the industries most affected.

Katie A. Edwards, executive director of Florida's Dade County Farm Bureau, said nearly a third of farmworkers did not come to the fields this week.

Mari Ramos, a Peruvian nanny whose tourist visa ran out in 2003, listened when friends warned her not to take public transportation or risk arrest.

Read the whole thing.

Truly disgusting on many levels. Who's going to pay? How about the contractors and businesses who have been taking advantage of the huge supply of illegals over the years? Now seems to be a good time to identify them, since they're "scrambling for workers". But somehow immigration officials who are only rumored to be attempting to enforce the existing laws are the bad guys, the "Gestapo". Unbelievable.

Update: This is the also headline story on Drudge today.

Finally, somebody says it - our present climate models DO NOT WORK!

WASHINGTON--When would they yell "fire!" about global warming, Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg asked Bush administration officials at a hearing Wednesday, after the officials repeatedly declined to recommend action.

The officials weren't moved by the New Jersey senator's plea, but his metaphor drew a response a few minutes later from Syun-Ichi Akasofu, director of the International Arctic Research Center in Fairbanks.

"We're not sure if the house is really on fire, and to put the water there, making water damage, may be more damaging," Akasofu said........................................

..............The problem, Akasofu said, is that the most advanced computer models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, when fed real historical data, cannot reproduce what actually happened.

"This is what we call hind-casting. We're using the last 50 years of data ... so we think it's the best scientific test of the greenhouse hypothesis," Akasofu said.

Using the scientific method, researchers observe global warming, hypothesize the causes and then seek to verify those hypotheses using supercomputers, Akasofu said.

"If the computer simulation and observation agree, then our understanding becomes scientific fact," he said. "But if the computer cannot reproduce what we observed, then hypothesis has to be disproved."

In fact, he said, the models fail to reproduce the strong warming that actually occurred in the continental Arctic in recent decades. Yet many scientists cling to their hypotheses, he said.

"That gets into the area of what we call science fiction," he said.

Read the whole thing. Also read my April 7 post, if you're so inclined. Actually, the whole "global warming as a result of anthropogenic carbon emissions" hypothesis has already gone to the paradigm stage in most quarters. I hope Dr. Akasofu still has his job next week.

New Series - What Were They Thinking?

From AP My Way News


Calif. Woman Spanked at Work Sues for $1.2M

By JULIANA BARBASSA

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - Lawyers for a woman who was spanked in front of her co-workers as part of what her employer said was a camaraderie-building exercise asked a jury Wednesday for at least $1.2 million for the humiliation she claimed to have suffered.

Janet Orlando, 53, quit her job at the home security company Alarm One Inc. in Fresno and sued, alleging discrimination, assault, battery and infliction of emotional distress.

Employees were paddled with rival companies' yard signs as part of a contest that pitted sales teams against each other, according to court documents. The winners poked fun at the losers, throwing pies at them, feeding them baby food, making them wear diapers and swatting their buttocks.

"No reasonable middle-aged woman would want to be put up there before a group of young men, turned around to show her buttocks, get spanked and called abusive names, and told it was to increase sales and motivate employees," her lawyer, Nicholas "Butch" Wagner, said in his closing argument.

Lawyers for Alarm One, an Anaheim-based, 300-employee company, said the spankings were part of a voluntary program to build camaraderie and were not discriminatory because they were given to both male and female workers.

"This is being done for one reason and one reason only - money," said K. Poncho Baker, the company's lawyer.

Alarm One officials ceased the practice in 2004, the year Orlando sued, after another employee complained of being injured, according to court records.

Actually, maybe this could be used as a [de-]motivational tool in Congress every time one of them tries to tack a pork project onto needed legislation.

But will they demand welfare benefits?


From the Spain Herald

Socialists: Give apes human rights

Spain Herald

The Spanish Socialist Party will introduce a bill in the Congress of Deputies calling for "the immediate inclusion of (simians) in the category of persons, and that they be given the moral and legal protection that currently are only enjoyed by human beings." The PSOE's justification is that humans share 98.4% of our genes with chimpanzees, 97.7% with gorillas, and 96.4% with orangutans.

The party will announce its Great Ape Project at a press conference tomorrow. An organization with the same name is seeking a UN declaration on simian rights which would defend ape interests "the same as those of minors and the mentally handicapped of our species."

According to the Project, "Today only members of the species Homo sapiens are considered part of the community of equals. The chimpanzee, the gorilla, and the orangutan are our species's closest relatives. They possess sufficient mental faculties and emotional life to justify their inclusion in the community of equals."

I wonder what the cutoff in percent DNA similarity should be for a truly just society? We share about 95% of our DNA with dogs and mice. I think worms are close to 75% similar to humans and even plants approach 50%. And, given the way socialist governments have treated the mentally handicapped in the past, I'm not sure this is such a wonderful thing for the apes.

Oh no, not AGAIN


From Reuters

(the "World Crises" section, yet!)

Global warming behind record 2005 storms-US expert

Mon 24 Apr 2006 6:28 PM ET

By Thom Akeman

MONTEREY, Calif., April 24 (Reuters) - A leading U.S. government storm researcher said on Monday that the record hurricane season last year can be attributed to global warming.

"The hurricanes we are seeing are indeed a direct result of climate change and it's no longer something we'll see in the future, it's happening now," said Greg Holland, a division director at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

Holland told a packed hall at the American Meteorological Society's 27th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology in Monterey, California that the wind and warmer water conditions that fuel storms that form in the Caribbean are "increasingly due to greenhouse gases. There seems to be no other conclusion you can logically draw."

His conclusion will be debated throughout the week-long conference, as other researchers present opposing papers that say changing wind and temperature conditions in the tropics are due to natural events, not the accumulation of carbon dioxide emissions clouding the Earth.

Many of the experts gathered in the coastal city of Monterey are federal employees working under a Bush administration that contends global warming is an unproven theory.

Holland, director of the Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Division of the federal research center, said tropical storm anomalies in the 1940s and 1950s can be explained by natural variability.

But he said carbon dioxide started changing traceable patterns in the 1970s and by the early 1990s, the atmospheric results were affecting the storm numbers and intensities.

"What we're seeing right now in global climate temperature is a signature of climate change," said Holland, a native of Australia. "The large bulk of the scientific community say what we are seeing now is linked directly to greenhouse gases."

Most major hurricanes develop from African easterly waves and they have been increasing for a decade, Holland said. When they reach the warm water in the tropics, cyclones can form. If the water is warmer than usual, the cyclones can be more intense than usual and are more likely to reach the United States, he said.

Hurricane Katrina, which tore onto the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts on Aug. 29, was the deadliest hurricane in 77 years and the costliest ever, with property damages estimated at $75 billion.

This year, the weather service's Tropical Prediction Center expects more hurricanes than usual, but not as many as last year's record.

"It doesn't look as active as 2005, but I'm not sure we'll ever see another year like 2005," said said Eric Blake, one of the center's hurricane specialists, adding that 2006 may be more like the hurricane season of 2004.



Now, from the National Hurricane Center:





Do you see a clear trend? I didn't think so. We're in good company:

Is Global Warming to Blame for Increased Hurricane Activity and More Powerful Storms? Leading Climate Scientists Remain Unconvinced
Thursday March 30, 4:38 pm ET

***Expert Availability***

WASHINGTON, March 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Coming off one of the most devastating hurricane seasons in recent memory, many are quick to blame the strength and frequency of these storms on global warming. Leading climate scientists, however, say there is no link between increased storm activity and a massive change in global climate.

Dr. James J. O'Brien, director of the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Florida State University said, "Alarmists are claiming that global warming -- which they relate to the burning of fossil fuels -- have increased the intensity or strength of hurricanes. But for storms that hit the southeastern United States, there is absolutely no scientific support for a correlation between hurricane intensity and global warming." (Source: "Rita and Katrina fit normal storm patterns: meteorologist." New York Daily News. September 25, 2005.)

Dr. Roy Spencer, former senior scientist for Climate Studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, believes that Hurricane Katrina was a naturally occurring hurricane and those who tie it to global warming are wrongly politicizing science. "This catastrophe has been predicted by hurricane experts for decades and more will eventually occur -- with or without global warming."

Dr. Pat Michaels, Virginia state climatologist and research professor of environmental sciences, University of Virginia, contests that global warming may have a negative impact on hurricane intensity, claiming, "There are many more factors determining hurricane frequency and severity, some of which (such as westerly wind strength) should become LESS conducive to hurricanes as the planet warms."

George Taylor, Oregon state climatologist and faculty member, Oregon State University College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, says "There is no reason to expect increases in hurricanes due to greenhouse warming. Climate models, for all their problems, are unanimous in at least one respect: they predict that most of the future warming will be in high latitudes, in the polar regions ... All other things being equal, a warmer world should have fewer, not more, hurricanes." (Source: "Hurricanes and Global Warming: Is there a link?" TCSDaily.com, September 4, 2004.)

Dr. Anthony R. Lupo, associate professor of atmospheric science in the Department of Soil, Environmental, and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, believes "Hurricane activity is cyclic and over the course of a few decades, there are active times and inactive times." (Source: "Rash of hurricanes is not necessarily linked to global warming." The Kansas City Star, October 2, 2005.)

From Drudge

ABC 'THIS WEEK' HOST GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: On another -- on another front, excuse me, CIA official Mary McCarthy lost her job this week for disclosing classified information according to the CIA probably about a WASHINGTON POST story which reveal revealed the existence of secret prisons in Europe. A lot of different views. Senator Pat Roberts praised action but some former CIA officers described Mary McCarthy as a sacrificial lamb acting in the finest American tradition by revealing human rights violations. What's your view?

SEN. KERRY: Well, I read that. I don't know whether she did it or not so it's hard to have a view on it. Here's my fundamental view of this, that you have somebody being fired from the CIA for allegedly telling the truth, and you have no one fired from the white house for revealing a CIA agent in order to support a lie. That underscores what's really wrong in Washington, DC Here.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That's one issue of hypocrisy but should a CIA officer be able to make decisions on his or her --

KERRY: ... Of course not. Of course, not. A CIA agent has the obligation to uphold the law and clearly leaking is against the law, and nobody should leak. I don't like leaking. But if you're leaking to tell the truth, Americans are going to look at that, at least mitigate or think about what are the consequences that you, you know, put on that person. Obviously they're not going to keep their job, but there are other larger issues here. You know, classification in Washington is a tool that is used to hide the truth from the American people. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was eloquent and forceful in always talking about how we needed to, you know, end this endless declassification that takes place in this city, and it has become a tool to hide the truth from Americans.

So if you know that the CIA has definitely located Osama Bin Laden in a specific cave in Afghanistan and Special Ops is going in there at 9:15 tonight to get him, you should tell it to the press because, after all, it's the truth?

Another Compare and Contrast Exercise

From the Australian Bureau of Meteorology about Tropical Cyclone Monica:

DDP0002
Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology
Northern Territory
Darwin Regional Forecasting Centre

TOP PRIORITY

MEDIA: Transmitters serving the area Cape Don to Elcho Island are requested to
use the cyclone emergency warning signal with this message.

TROPICAL CYCLONE WARNING

TROPICAL CYCLONE ADVICE NUMBER 66
Issued by the BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY, DARWIN
at 11:00 pm CST Monday 24 April 2006

A CYCLONE WARNING is now current for coastal and island communities between
MILINGIMBI and PORT KEATS, including DARWIN, the TIWI ISLANDS, COBOURG PENINSULA
and JABIRU.

A CYCLONE WATCH is current between PORT KEATS and KALUMBURU in Western
Australia.

The CYCLONE WARNING between ELCHO ISLAND and MILINGIMBI has been cancelled.

At 10 pm CST [8:30 pm WST] SEVERE TROPICAL CYCLONE Monica CATEGORY 4 was located
over land about 55 kilometres west of MANINGRIDA, 80 kilometres east northeast
of Oenpelli and 310 kilometres east northeast of DARWIN, and is moving west
southwest at 14 kilometres per hour. The cyclone is expected to continue to move
west southwest and weaken as it moves across northwestern Arnhem Land tonight,
but will still be a SEVERE TROPICAL CYCLONE as it moves across the northwest
DARWIN-DALY area during Tuesday.

The VERY DESTRUCTIVE core of SEVERE TROPICAL CYCLONE Monica with gusts to 260
kilometres per hour is currently affecting parts of northwestern Arnhem Land
between MANINGRIDA and JABIRU and is expected to approach the DARWIN-DALY  area
on Tuesday afternoon with gusts to 175 kilometres per hour.

DESTRUCTIVE WINDS with gusts to 160 kilometres per hour are currently being
experienced in parts of northwest Arnhem Land, between MANINGRIDA, GOULBURN
ISLAND and JABIRU, and should progress further west and inland tonight. The
DESTRUCTIVE WINDS will then approach the northwest DARWIN-DALY area during
Tuesday morning.

GALES with gusts to 100 kilometres per hour are currently being experienced on
the northern Top End coast, and will extend westward with the cyclone,
approaching the northwest DARWIN-DALY and TIWI ISLANDS area from early Tuesday
morning. GALES may extend further west to KALUMBURU in Western Australia during
Wednesday.

DANGEROUSLY HIGH TIDES could cause EXTENSIVE FLOODING at the coast between
MANINGRIDA and GOULBURN ISLAND tonight.

HEAVY RAIN is expected to cause significant stream rises and flooding of low
lying areas in across the northern Top End tonight and tomorrow.

Details of SEVERE TROPICAL CYCLONE Monica at 10 pm CST [8:30 pm WST]:
. Centre located near...... 12.0 degrees South 133.7 degrees East
. Location accuracy........ within 30 kilometres
. Recent movement.......... towards the west southwest at 14 km/h
. Wind gusts near centre... 260 kilometres per hour
. Intensity................ CATEGORY 4
. Central pressure......... 935 hectoPascals

REPEATING: A CYCLONE WARNING is now current between MILINGIMBI and PORT KEATS,
including DARWIN, TIWI ISLANDS, COBOURG PENINSULA and JABIRU.
A CYCLONE WATCH extends southwest to KALUMBURU in Western Australia.

The next advice will be issued at 2 am CST [12:30 am WST].

This advice is available on telephone NT-1300 659 211 and WA-1300 659 210

DARWIN Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre

260 km/hr is equivalent to 163 mph. Earlier, maximum sustained winds had been reported as 178 mph. Hurricane Katrina had maximum sustained winds
of about 127 mph when it made landfall, with gusts probably around 140 mph, thought it was briefly
a cat 5 when still in the Gulf (170 mph). Anyway, here's the US National Weather Service :

EXTREMELY DANGEROUS HURRICANE KATRINA CONTINUES TO APPROACH THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA

DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL... LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED. [Gables did you say? I have 3 of them. -ed]

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.

Now, to be fair, the NWS usually is a bit more dispassionate and factual in its announcements, more like this and this . But Hurricane Katrina brought out the hysteria in everyone, I guess, and still does (global warming!). In contrast, Cyclone Monica is Australia's second major hurricane this season and the sixth or seventh storm to make landfall do far, and I haven't heard anywhere near the whining from the Australian weather service or the press that one living in US comes to expect whanever there's a natural disaster. Granted, it's the northern coast of Australia that is usually hit, which is not a densely populated area, but Monica didn't even make the front page of The Australian today. No global warming articles, no "we brought this on ourselves by driving SUVs", nothing. I'm sure it'll happen eventually, but for now it's a refreshing change.

Update: From CNS News

Quote: NASA scientist James Hansen warned that environmental activists and the media better be more cautious with their rhetoric regarding "global warming." In addition, a CBS News "60 Minutes" reporter recently compared skeptics of "global warming" to Holocaust deniers.

Hansen, who was responding to a question about the increased media coverage of "global warming" in recent months, issued the warning during a teleconference with a top Democratic congressional staff member, liberal environmental groups and journalists.

"I am a little concerned about this, in the sense that we are still at a point where the natural fluctuations of climate are still large -- at least, the natural fluctuations of weather compared to long-term climate change," Hansen, director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told the participants in the April 13 teleconference.

"So we don't want the public to hang their hat on a recent storm, recent hurricanes for example, because those will fluctuate from year to year," he said.

[break]

Milloy also said he was glad to see Hansen attempt try to reign in the linkage of recent storm events like Hurricane Katrina to "global warming."

"It's good to see Jim Hansen recognize that the global warmers have gone off the deep-end in terms of climate hysteria. I'm certain, though, that we'll have to remind him of his statement next time he takes his usual dive off that cliff," said Milloy.

Read the whole thing.

A must read!

How the Greenhouse effect really works and the truth about global warming from Steven Milloy at Junk Science . I couldn't have done it better myself, so go there and read, learn, mark and inwardly digest.

So exactly why was Chinese President Hu visiting?

I caught some of a Fox News show last night, probably Brit Hume. Anyway, Mort Knodrake, Fred Barnes and someone else whose name I can't recall were having a discussion of Hu's visit and trying to decide whether it was really a state visit since it lacked the requisite dinner and other hoopla usually given to heads of state. Towards the end of the discusion the point was made that China "really hasn't given the U.S. anything" prompting me to wonder what in the world we have that China would need to bargain for. Why should they "give" us anything, unless its the usual meaningless assurances that they will improve their human rights record, or that their massive military buildup doesn't really mean anything, or that they surely didn't mean to run up such a huge trade surplus with the U.S., it just happened.

In fact, it made me question the point of the whole visit. There is nothing the Chinese will do about any of the above concerns, and there are no threats to their continued expansion from the U.S. Trade embargoes? Higher tariffs? They're not going to happen. Too many U.S. corporations are in China's back pocket to make these a possibility. Even if the American populace got exercised enough over, say, human rights violations to demand such things they wouldn't happen. Heck, our own State Department doen't care if U.S. permanent residents are kidnapped off the street by the Chinese government. One brave soul managed to at least attempt to bring up the persecution of Falun Gong during Hu's visit, but it won't do any good. U.S. military actions? I think its safe to say that if China really wants Taiwan, there's not a lot the U.S. could or would do to stop it.

All the Chinese government's despotic and imperialist tendencies were supposed to melt away as U.S. corporations spread capitalism throughout the land, weren't they? Weren't the Chinese people going to demand more freedoms as they become increasingly affluent and exposed to Western values? Wait a minute, they did. It didn't work so well, did it?

Anyway, back to the point, which was why President Hu was here. I think there is one thing the U.S. might do that would put a serious crimp in China's plans, something that really worries Hu. We could be forced to take looney President Ahmadinejad's nuclear ambitions seriously and start a military action against Iran, seriously diminishing China's oil supply. I imagine that Hu has already cautioned Ahmadinejad about provoking this, but if A. really does believe in all this 12th imam apocalyptic stuff it might not do any good. So, I guess the next step for Hu would have been to get some assurances from the U.S. that we will not act precipitously in the matter, probably the real reason for his visit. I wonder what his backup plan is if Iran does stay crazy. Has he been visiting Venezuela and Cuba, too? And Chinese companies do practically own the Panama Canal. Hmmmmm.......

Leaf blowers: Tools of Satan?

We’ve had an early and beautiful spring in this part of the country. Last week the azaleas and dogwoods were blooming. All Nature was robed in shades of pink, purple, and the tender yet bright green of new leaves. Only the nonirritating members of the class Insecta were out and about – butterflies flitted, honeybees buzzed, earthworms did whatever they do. The mockingbirds were showcasing all the new songs they had learned over the winter as they competed with the cardinals, bluebirds, juncos, towhees, and all the other songbirds that I can’t identify yet. Temperatures were warm, humidity was low, skies were blue. In short, we were as close to Paradise as we are ever going to get in this life.

We were inspired to clean off the back deck, the weather being so fine and all. Swept off the old leaves, cleaned the winter grunge off the furniture, brought out the houseplants that had been languishing indoors all winter. Things looked so nice that we decided to fire up the grill and eat dinner out on the deck. So we iced down some beer, opened a bottle of good wine, set the table, and prepared to enlarge our carbon footprint on the unsuspecting ecosystem. No sooner had the steaks come off the grill then: REEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE- someone fired up a leaf blower. It wasn’t either of our next door neighbors. They are fine, upstanding, considerate, God-fearing members of society. I know this because we have lived next to them for over ten years and neither one has ever bought or used a leaf blower. No, this came from further down the block, though it might as well have been next door. Conversation became impossible. Aside from the shear volume of the thing, its wail had a piercing quality that penetrated deeply and painfully into the skull. After enduring this for a few minutes, we ended up taking our dinner inside.

Forty-five minutes later the aural assault ended. We were finished eating by then, but still had coffee and cigars and the remains of a rare evening when neither of us had to work. So, innocently as little lambs, we went back onto the deck to watch the stars come out and enjoy …….REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Of course that’s what happened. It sounded slightly further away than before. It may have been a completely different blower altogether. No matter. The point is that it gave this relaxing evening, this almost perfect day the soothing atmosphere of a dentist’s office during a root canal. And why? So somebody could blow all their leaves and grass clippings into the street instead of raking them up and taking personal responsibility for them.

But, I hear you say, this is America. People have a right to use leaf blowers if they so desire, it’s in the Constitution. Somewhere. It’s in the same amendment that guarantees that nothing bad or inconvenient will happen to you as an American citizen, ever, and if it does it’s the government’s duty to fix it, even if it’s your own damn fault. (liberal argument) Or, you could say that market forces will determine what we do and if it’s cheaper and more efficient to use leaf blowers, people will use them (conservative argument). Well, I look at what sex is usually handling the leaf blowers and I say you’re both wrong. The reasons are entirely Freudian. Take a good look – a long, stiff nozzle depending from the waist overpowering everything its owner points it at. I know a lot of Freud has been discredited, but he’d be right on with this one.

Well, market forces may come to the rescue on this one after all. Gasoline is now $2.75 a gallon around here at the cheap stations and all indications are that it will continue to go up. The demise of the leaf blower would be the one bright spot in an otherwise gloomy fuel scene.

Update- Apparently they also affect testosterone levels:

Neighbors feud over leaves; head-butting and a hammer get action

Posted Monday, November 24, 2003 - 10:54 am


By John Boyanoski
STAFF WRITER
jboyan@greenvillenews.com

Two Landrum neighbors got in a fight Sunday morning after allegedly blowing leaves on each other's lawns, according to an incident report.

A Greenville County sheriff's deputy called to the scene couldn't figure out who started the incident, so neither neighbor was charged, according to an incident report. The men's names were blacked out of the report.

One man said he saw his neighbor blowing leaves onto his property around 9:45 a.m., according to the report. He blew them back with his leaf blower.

They blew the leaves back and forth for a while before they started blowing air in each other's faces, according to the report. The first man then told the other not to blow leaves on his yard.

His neighbor allegedly responded by head-butting him three or four times, according to an incident report. The first man then went inside, but his neighbor allegedly yelled, "Come out and fight like a man."

The neighbor alleges the first man hit his leaf blower with a hammer, according to the report. He also stated the first man scratched his nose when he knocked his dust mask off.

My suspicions were justified!

See my very first post. (scroll down)


From CNS news: (bold highlights added)

Media Darling on 'Global Warming' Assailed by Colleagues
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
April 17, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - NASA scientist James Hansen, profiled by the New York Times, "60 Minutes" and other media titans as a renowned scientist with unassailable credibility on the issue of "global warming" and a victim of White House censorship, is actually a loose cannon at NASA who lied about the alleged censorship, according to one of Hansen's former colleagues as well as a current co-worker.

George Deutsch, a former NASA public relations employee who resigned his job in February, told Cybercast News Service that he was warned about Hansen shortly after joining the space agency. "The only thing I was ever told -- more so from civil servants and non political people -- is, 'You gotta watch that guy. He is a loose cannon; he is kind of crazy. He is difficult to work with; he is an alarmist; he exaggerates,'" Deutsch said.

Deutsch provided Cybercast News Service with agency internal documents and e-mails detailing the frustration among NASA public affairs officials over Hansen's refusal to follow protocol when it came to granting media interviews. See NASA Memo Here (PDF)

On Dec. 14, 2005, Hansen released to ABC News a letter to the editor, which he had originally sent to the research journal Science. Hansen was also featured in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," during which he declared that 2005 had tied 1998 as the warmest year on record. But according to an internal memo provided by Deutsch, Hansen failed to clear his scientific data or his ABC News media appearance with NASA headquarters in Washington.

Hansen, director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told ABC News his scientific conclusions before he told his fellow NASA scientists and the NASA public affairs department, according to a memo dated Dec. 15, 2005, and entitled "PAO (Public Affairs Officer) Point Paper."

Hansen's release of the temperature information "was not properly coordinated with Headquarters and was disseminated without our knowledge or approval," read the PAO Point Paper written by Deutsch and fellow NASA public relations official Dwayne Brown. Brown, currently a senior public affairs officer with NASA headquarters, confirmed the memo's authenticity in a telephone interview on April 13.

"NASA has not officially released any data declaring 2005 tied with 1998 for the warmest year on record, only Dr. Hansen has. Dr. Hansen acted independently of Headquarters and approved PAO channels when he spoke with ABC News and gave them his letter to the editor," the Deutsch/Brown memo stated.

During an interview earlier this month with Cybercast News Service, Deutsch elaborated on the agency's frustrations with the high-profile Hansen. "When you are as big a name as Dr. Hansen is, and you make a proclamation like that, it is really NASA policy."

Hansen's appearance on ABC News and his release of unapproved data caused internal anxiety at NASA, Deutsch said. "None of his [scientific] peers had agreed with [2005] being the warmest year on record yet, and knew about the findings saying that it was.

"Why don't you tell the rest of NASA it is the warmest year on record before you tell ABC?" Deutsch asked. "This is one of those things that really, if you do it enough, it is a fire-able offense."

It was the subsequent effort by the NASA public affairs office to require Hansen to follow proper protocol when talking to the media that led the scientist to tell the New York Times in January that he was being "censored," according to Deutsch.

"I don't think Hansen has ever really been censored," said Brown, a career civil servant with over 20 years' service at NASA. "We at public affairs have been very supportive of all our scientists. [Hansen] has always been welcome to talk about this data. I mean, we encourage our scientists to talk about the data. That is what they get paid to do."

Hansen's subsequent complaints to the media that he was being censored prompted an incredulous reaction at a NASA public affairs staff meeting, Deutsch said. "Someone said James Hansen is making claims of political censorship. And everyone in the meeting just groaned -- groaned, like 'What a joke,'" Deutsch said.

"When you cry censorship and there isn't any, I mean you are crying wolf," Deutsch said. "So, [Hansen] wanted to do it his way. He's got a big ego, he's a control freak guy, and he wanted to do it his way, so he did. And he knows that there is not going to be any real crackdown on him. If someone is going to say something, it's not going to be a political appointee," Deutsch said.

The 24-year-old Deutsch was a political appointee at NASA after working for the committee that coordinated President Bush's second inauguration in January 2005. Deutsch eventually resigned from NASA when it was revealed that he had falsely indicated on his resume that he had graduated from Texas A&M University.

Deutsch, who provided his university transcript to Cybercast News Service, was one class short of fulfilling the requirements for graduation at the time he took the job with NASA in 2005.

"I had more credits than are required to graduate, but I needed one math class," Deutsch said, noting that he participated in the class of 2004's graduation ceremony.

He also attracted controversy for recommending that the word "theory" be added to each reference of the "Big Bang" on NASA 's website. Deutsch said he was simply making recommendations to comply with Associated Press style.

He also denied published reports that he sought to prevent Hansen from appearing on National Public Radio last December. In January, Hansen's public affairs spokeswoman Leslie McCarthy told the New York Times that Deutsch had refused to allow Hansen to be interviewed by NPR because Deutsch considered the radio network "the most liberal" in the country.

'Global warming martyr'

Deutsch provided Cybercast News Service an internal NASA e-mail dated Dec. 9, 2005, which he claims shows that the December 2005 NPR interview request was treated fairly. Hansen's claims of censorship were a result of senior NASA managers wanting to allow scientists with more seniority than Hansen to do the interview, according to Deutsch.

"His bosses expressed interest in doing the [NPR] interview. [The e-mail] proves we took the NPR interview request very seriously. We didn't brush it under the rug. We didn't do anything like that," Deutsch explained, adding that Hansen ended up doing a later NPR interview.

Deutsch said the NASA public affairs staff met with senior leaders at the agency to discuss the problems with Hansen, and the topic of firing Hansen was raised, but the conclusion from the meeting was that such an action would have "huge political fallout," so the idea was rejected.

"Your first reaction is how can we stop this problem completely, and so that was one of the ideas going around," Deutsch said. "But it's never anything that people got too serious with or too far with because they realized it would be just way too dangerous. He would become a global warming martyr, and that is what he wants."

Hansen sees himself as "this global warming guy fighting the big mean Republican bureaucracy," Deutsch added.

NASA established new media guidelines for its employees in March, but in retrospect, Brown acknowledged that miscommunication from all sides contributed to the Hansen controversy. "I regret that this played itself out. But the agency has always been open, will be open."

As Cybercast News Service previously reported, Hansen publicly endorsed Democrat John Kerry for president in 2004 and received a $250,000 grant from the charitable foundation headed by Kerry's wife.

In addition, he has acted as a consultant to former Democratic Vice President Al Gore's slide-show presentations on "global warming."

Hansen, who also complained about censorship during the administration of President George H. W. Bush in 1989, previously acknowledged that he supported the "emphasis on extreme scenarios" regarding climate change models in order to drive the public's attention to the issue.

Several phone calls to Hansen's office seeking comment were not returned. But Hansen in February referred to Deutsch as "only a bit player" in the controversy surrounding the Bush administration's alleged censoring of science.

Actually it's really depressing that I was probably right about the motivations behind the cries of censorship. Scientists are supposed to behave more rationally than this, at least when dealing with scientific matters. Another myth busted!

Courtesy of Regret the Error:

A map showing the spread of bird flu in Europe (pages 4 and 5, April 8) accidentally included Yugoslavia, which is no more. It should have shown Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Slovenia. Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, was similarly anachronistically described as Yugoslavia's capital in Weatherwatch, page 33, April 4. Link

That's OK, I can't keep track of the Balkans, either.

OK Class, Compare and Contrast:

Courtesy of the Islamic Republic News Agency:

Iran-Spain-UN April 8, 2006
The United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero here Thursday stressed Iran's right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Addressing a joint press conference, Annan and Zapatero said negotiation is the best solution to Iran's nuclear case.

It is quite right that Iran reminds the world of its right to access to peaceful nuclear energy, said Annan adding Tehran should fulfill its commitments within the regulations of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

He praised efforts made by Iran and the European states to resume talks and settle Tehran's nuclear case, encouraging the sides to boost the move.

"No state plans to deprive Iran of its right to peacefully use nuclear energy.

"Iran insists it is not willing to develop nuclear weapons. The easiest way (for Iran) is to give guarantees to the international community that its nuclear program is quite peaceful and conducted under the IAEA supervision and within its regulations."
The Spanish prime minister stressed the need for a guarantee from Iran that its nuclear activities are peaceful.

Zapatero added the nuclear case should move toward a breakthrough.

He urged the international community to find some mechanisms that are appealing to Iran.

Such an agreement should call on Iran to respect the international regulations and oblige the international community to display its capacity and not to let a disadvantageous process begin.

Now read this from the Telegraph

Iran has missiles to carry nuclear warheads
By Con Coughlin
(Filed: 07/04/2006)

Iran has successfully developed ballistic missiles with the capability to carry nuclear warheads.

Detailed analysis of recent test firings of the Shahab-3 ballistic missile by military experts has concluded that Iran has been able to modify the nose cone to carry a basic nuclear bomb. The discovery will intensify international pressure on Teheran to provide a comprehensive breakdown of its nuclear research programme.

Last week, the United Nations Security Council gave Iran 30 days to freeze its uranium enrichment programme that many experts believe is part of a clandestine attempt to produce nuclear weapons.

Iran denies it is trying to acquire a nuclear arsenal. But ballistic missile experts advising the United States say it has succeeded in reconfiguring the Shahab-3 to carry nuclear weapons.

The Shahab-3 is a modified version of North Korea's Nodong missile which itself is based on the old Soviet-made Scud.

The Nodong, which Iran secretly acquired from North Korea in the mid-1990s, is designed to carry a conventional warhead. But Iranian engineers have been working for several years to adapt the Shahab-3 to carry nuclear weapons.

"This is a major breakthrough for the Iranians," said a senior US official. "They have been trying to do this for years and now they have succeeded. It is a very disturbing development."

The Shahab 3 has a range of 800 miles, enabling it to hit a wide range of targets throughout the Middle East - including Israel.

Apart from modifying the nose cone, Iranian technicians are also trying to make a number of technical adjustments that will enable the missile to travel a greater distance.

Western intelligence officials believe that Iran is receiving assistance from teams of Russian and Chinese experts with experience of developing nuclear weapons. Experts who have studied the latest version of the Shahab have identified modifications to the nose cone.

Instead of the single cone normally attached to this type of missile, the new Shahab has three cones, or a triconic, warhead. A triconic warhead allows the missile to accommodate a nuclear device and this type of warhead is normally found only in nuclear weapons.

According to the new research, the Iranian warhead is designed to carry a spherical nuclear weapon that would be detonated 2,000 feet above the ground, similar to the Hiroshima bomb.

Although US defence officials believe that Iran is several years away from acquiring nuclear weapons, they point out that the warhead could hold a version of the nuclear bomb Pakistan is known to have developed. Iran has acquired a detailed breakdown of Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

The development of the Shahab-3 is just one element of a wide-ranging missile development programme.

In 2003 the Iranians concluded another secret deal with North Korea to buy the Taepo Dong 2 missile, which has a range of 2,200 miles and would enable Iran to hit targets in mainland Europe.

Earlier this week the Iranians announced that they had successfully test-fired a new missile, the Fajr-3, which has the capability to evade radar systems and carry multiple warheads.

Hmmmmmmm.....SO we need to find methods that will "appeal to Iran"? Sounds like the only thing that appeals to them is the prospect of lots of smoking radioactive holes in the ground.

Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House

An article published yesterday at the Washington Post.

Apparently some government scientists are feeling unhappy and "intimidated" because "Americans are not getting the full story on how the climate is changing." The usual comparisons to Nazi Germany and the old Soviet Union are made. There's a lot more, of course, but apparently they're upset because they're no longer allowed to say any old thing they want to the media on the subject or publicly draw policy conclusions from their research. (e.g. "We must cut anthropogenic CO2 emissions in half IMMEDIATELY if the planet is to survive this century!!!")

Why does this bother me? There are so many more significant issues out there to blog about- immigration, radical Islam, national security,China, N. Korea, etc. I probably will comment on these another time. I guess the article stirred a lot of thoughts I've been mulling over for some time about my field, atmospheric science, and science in general.

When computers became a practical reality, it was a real revolution for the physical sciences, especially those that are mathematics intensive. No longer did you need a room full of graduate students to do the computations necessary for even the simplest mathematical model. Computers are fast, efficient, and don't get tired and make arithmetical errors. What a boon! Especially in the atmospheric sciences where the models must use complex, nonlinear differential equations to come close to reality. (You can use linear equations for some simple problems, but they are very limited). Anyway, as time as gone by, atmospheric science has come to rely on these models, which are full of assumptions about how researchers think the atmosphere works. Even with all the computational power, some things are just not well described mathematically such as water phase changes and cloud physics. When you add the other factors that must come into play in any climate model - interactions with oceans and their currents, solar inputs, feedback effects within the atmosphere itself, you've got one big, nonlinear, honkin' model that probably has its own feedback effects.

The problem I have with all this is not the models themselves, but their godlike standing, shall we say, in the atmospheric community. They are useful tools, but are NOT the last word on climate, nor should they ever be. If I learned anything at all from studying Chaos theory, it is that nonlinear computations are just not accurate after a certain point, and past that a random guess is as good as any output from the computer. Yet, when I was a graduate student, 90% of the seminars I attended were people trotting out their latest models and speaking as though they were accurately predicting what the future climate will be. What is even more discouraging is that there seems to very little effort going into figuring out how the real world climate works. Most research positions seem to consist of minding a supercomputer and running or adapting models as though that were the only way to approach the problem.

So I think the real complaint from the government scientists in the article is not so much that they have vital information to impart that is being censored as it is that they can't bring out the latest scary results from their climate models and have their 15 min. of fame. Nobody in the media wants to hear about uncertainties or Poincare. But "we're all gonna die" has a certain ring to it and will get you at least a mention in the papers.