As you all know, global warming is the greatest hoax empiracism has ever perpetrated. You can see from the latest data and analysis from NSIDC that we're clearly headed into a new ice age. Bust out the woolies and fire up the coal furnace: it's going to be a cold one! (I've added a red trend line to highlight the seriousness of the problem; the original graph can be seen in the previous link or here.)
Advertising is propaganda, and by and large it drives me crazy. Advertising has become the most pervasive education system on earth, pervading even (especially, actually) the system of social infrastructure we call "education." I rail against it too much, perhaps, but if so, it's because I have become painfully aware how effective it is in promoting beliefs and decisions that do not, over the long run, make sense in terms of human survival.
As we approach the 40th anniversary of the first Apollo Moon landing, The Telegraph has this depressing bit of news for us:Some people believe that Buzz Lightyear, the fictional cartoon character from the film Toy Story, was the first man on the moon.In a survey, which reveals "deeply worrying" levels of ignorance about the Apollo space programme, which sent three men to the moon forty years ago this month, 11 out of 1009 people surveyed thought Buzz Lightyear was the first person to step onto the moon. A further 8 people thought it was Louis Armstrong, with less than three-quarters correctly answering that it was Neil Armstrong.The survey, undertaken on behalf of E&T magazine, published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology, also revealed that over a quarter of all people do not believe the astronauts actually landed on the moon.
So Black Butte is considered to be a cinder cone that developed on the normal fault that created Green Ridge.
From a few miles east of Sisters, looking west; Black Butte is about 10 miles away, and the Cascade crest is socked in.
Looking up and NW at the peak from its base. It's subtle in the original image, but with a little tweaking, you can more clearly see what I was trying to capture in this picture: a snowbow!
The Worthingtons, an Oregon City couple who believe in faith healing rather than secular medicine, are charged in Clackamas County Circuit Court with second-degree manslaughter and criminal mistreatment for failing to seek medical care for their daughter.(...)
The child died on March 2, 2008 after being sick for several days. "She struggled so long she couldn't struggle any more," Leonhardt said. Ava could have been saved, right up to her last hour, with medical treatment, he said.Ignorance not supposed to be used as an excuse for breaking the law. Yet apparently the Worthington's ignorance, that medicine works better than prayers, is being used as an excuse to try them for manslaughter and mistreatment rather than murder.
The BBC is reporting, "Visitors to the website www.codexsinaiticus.org can now see images of more than half of the 1,600-year-old Codex Sinaiticus manuscript." 
http://www.tattoodisasters.com/2009/06/29/six-pack/
http://www.buzzfeed.com/reddit/something-is-not-right-herepic/
http://pictureisunrelated.com/2009/06/30/some-people-will-do-anything-to-be-cool/
http://francescoexplainsitall.blogspot.com/2009/07/word-from-mega-shark-producer-himself.html (This is a real film that I don't plan on watching; here's the trailer)
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/07/cartoons_controlled_burn_or_pl.html
http://thereifixedit.com/2009/07/02/epic-kludge-photo-ahhh-air-conditioning/
http://criggo.com/2009/07/03/thats-a-huge-difference/EAST HANOVER, NJ—A new report released by the Food and Drug Administration Monday suggests that regular consumption of Oreo's Double Stuf cookies could lead to an increased tolerance to stuf.http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/report_double_stuf_oreos
Asked if he has plans to run for public office, he replied, “I hope not. You know, I talked to God about that and he was like, ‘No.’”http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/01/plumber-god/
He continued, “I believe he’s gotten me on this grassroots movement. If I can encourage leaders to step up, that’s what I would like to do. That’s a heavy role. That’s something I don’t know if I am prepared to do yet.”
But Wurzelbacher said he will keep that door open if God ever calls him to be that leader.
http://criggo.com/2009/07/05/error/
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2009/07/on-sale-now.html
And my suspicion regarding question two...
Yeah, they're repeats, but they do seem appropos. Faith and guts are all about not thinking or planning.
And here’s the sense in which Malthus was right: he had a fundamentally valid model of the pre-Industrial Revolution economy, which was one in which technological progress translated into more people, not higher living standards. This homeostasis only broke down when very rapid technological change finally outstripped population pressure for an extended period.Of course, Malthus’s predictive failure wasn’t accidental. Technological takeoff was the product of a newly inquisitive, empirically-minded, scientific culture — the kind of culture that could produce people like Malthus.
At this point in the recession, you've probably become familiar with the term "zombie bank," a financial institution that can continue operating, thanks to government support, even though its debts outweigh its assets. Now it's time to add a related descriptor to our public discourse: "zombie politician." The term describes a political figure whose electoral worth is less than zero and whose ideas are totally bankrupt, but who can continue to offer up political guidance because he's kept on life support by media-generated oxygen.(Marc Cooper in OregonLive) Gingritch may be the poster boy of this phenomenon, but honestly, can you name any nationally prominant republicans who don't fit this description? As I've said before, I take no joy in the complete shambles the republicans have made of their party. I pointed out to a friend earlier that, contrary to her statement that the republican front line "has turned out" to be crazy, my feeling is that the party leadership has actively promoted the photogenic members who have demonstrated abilility to talk in non-sequitur soundbites, and actively avoided showcasing members who acknowledge that sometimes hard problems don't have simple answers. The fact that the photogenic soundbiters are lunatics is almost predictable.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.The explicit declaration itself comes only in the penultimate sentence:
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.If you have been able to read and comprehend those two passages- sadly, too many residents of this country cannot- you really should take a few minutes to read, and savor the beauty of, the entire document- even if the laundry list of complaints aginst King George gets a little tedious (from our perspective) after a bit. Then take a few more minutes to really think about the context, and how important the statement is, not in terms of just our history, but to world history. Then think about the courage required for the founders to produce it and make it public, knowing that it would precipitate war with what was at the time one of the worlds great military powers.
Military officials told South Korea's Yonhap news agency that they appeared to be Scud-type missiles and described them as more dangerous than the short-range weapons fired Thursday. Government sources in Japan and South Korea told reporters that the missiles may have been Nodongs.My suspicion here is that Kim Jong Il is simply embarrassed by having a phallic weapon called "Nodong." I think he should be approached with sympathy and understanding. Let him express his anger and humiliation about the Nodong situation.
Image from APOD.Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) announced this afternoon she will resign from office on July 26 and return to private life, a stunning decision by last year's Republican vice presidential candidate to leave office before the end of her first term.(...)
"We've seen a lot of nutty behavior from governors and Republican leaders in the last three months, but this one is at the top of that," said John Weaver, a longtime friend and confidant of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)...Way to establish those poli-creds, Sarah. Or maybe your widdle feewings wuz hurt by Jonah suggesting that you were morally capable of doing anything wrong? Yah, youbetcha! I bet that was it!
Palin hastily called a news conference this morning at her home in suburban Wasilla, giving such short notice that only a few reporters actually made it to the announcement. State troopers blocked late-arriving media outside her home, and her spokesman, Dave Murrow, finally emerged to confirm that Palin will step down July 26. He refused to give details about the governor's future plans.So not only was the announcement scheduled for a Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend, it was announced in such a way that made it very difficult for media to cover. Based on what I'm seeing so far though, this is a pretty big earthquake in terms of awareness. The best clip I've seen for illustrating the meandering, self-promoting speech, and the trademark Palin trait of repeating the same catch phrases over and over and over is the AP clip in the WaPo piece above. I'm trying to find a clip that starts from the beginning of this mind boggling speech; if I find one, I'll post it.
Some hated you out of the fear that you might stop Barack Obama's unfolding coronation. Others because you seemed to expose the snobbery, arrogance and ideological pieties of elite feminism. Your beauty, your status as a working mom, your blue-collar husband, your bravery in taking on the political establishment in Alaska, your proud status as a pro-lifer and mother of a special-needs child: All of these things were -- and are -- deeply threatening to a secular left-wing cultural elite.Well, actually, no, Jonah. Speaking for myself, first off, I don't hate Sarah Palin. I was ready to welcome a voice of sanity and intelligence from a prominant republican... it has been such a long, long time since I've heard one. It's just that she didn't have either of the qualities I've been longing for in an opposition party member.
Second, peddling a few platitudes and truisms about free markets and limited government is no substitute for really knowing what you're talking about. Yes, you can talk well about the stuff you know -- oil drilling, energy, etc. -- but beyond your comfort zone, you fall back on bumper-sticker language that sounds fine to the people who already agree with you but is useless in winning over skeptics.Yeah, there's that... noting in passing that she knows nothing about oil drilling or energy, I'd really like poitical aspirants to know something about something. Anything, really. I'd also like them to understand that charging fees for access or rights to state-controlled resources, then distributing the revenues or benefits derived from those fees to citizens of the state, is, you know, socialism.
No more Goldberg columns for me... I'll settle for excerpts in other's blogs from now on. They've done just fine up to now.
(Click for exciting Full-Size!) On June 25th the senator voiced support for opening up uranium mining in Arizona and countered environmentalists by assuring them that the the Earth has been around for "6,000 years..." and has lasted that long without environmnental laws. She said it twice.Yeah, the earth has been around for six thousand years, and it has lasted that long without mass extinctions or asteroid impacts either. How is it we keep electing buffoons to positions of power? As I pointed out in my first post today, we must have geological resources. But to allow idiots to make or shape decisions regarding how and where these resources can be extracted is not a good idea.
From Abstruse Goose. (click over for full, readable size). This is at once charming, nostalgic, funny and scary. That has to be really tricky to pull off. So my TV memories go out to somewhere in the neighborhood of Beta Aquilae to Mu Arae... probably closer to the latter. The first show I distinctly remember is "Days of Our Lives." My babysitter watched it. I seriously hope that when we discover other intelligent life forms out there, they're not sitting around in LazyBoys, watching our reruns.
While the House of Representatives approved a requirement last week that American utilities generate more of their power from renewable sources of energy, and the Senate will consider similar proposals over the summer, China imposed such a requirement almost two years ago.(...)
This year China is on track to pass the United States as the world’s largest market for wind turbines — after doubling wind power capacity in each of the last four years. State-owned power companies are competing to see which can build solar plants fastest, though these projects are much smaller than the wind projects. And other green energy projects, like burning farm waste to generate electricity, are sprouting up all over the country.
And now, just 15 months later, with construction of coal-fired plants having slowed to one a week and still falling, it appears that China will have 30,000 megawatts of wind energy by the end of next year — which was previously the target for 2020, Mr. Li said.Now in fairness, there are some doubts as to the effectiveness about many of the projects, and as things sit now, AltEn constitutes only a small proportion of the total. But this enormous push has created enough of an energy base that instead of completing two coal-fired plants per week (just think about that number for a moment), China is now only completing one per week.
But is something missing?
Yes, there is...
Heeeere's Jebus!
Now in Green!
Red!
And Orange! Still looking for blue...
Across the street from the (fairly) new Kelly Engineering Building on the ever-lovely OSU campus. Thanks to Todd (another Interzone Person I haven't posted yet) for telling me about this new appearance!
ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company, is continuing to fund researchers who cast doubt on global warming, despite public promises to cut support for climate-change sceptics.Do you see the problem here?
(click to enlargify) Interesting set of mineral statistics reduced to a fairly mind-blowing graphic: the total lifetime mineral consumption of an "average" person born in the US. I have some nits I could pick with the above picture (e.g. sometimes reporting as "ores," generally oxides, and sometimes as refined products), but however you cut it, the numbers are stunning. From this report (300 Kb PDF), found at the Minerals Information Institute. MII is apparently a group dedicated to disseminating educational materials on the topic of geologic resources, a mission I strongly support. (with some caveats that I won't fuss over too much)
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