The Obamedia

Peter Wehner at Commentary recommends three media criticisms that are worth your time.

"The three together offer witty and piercing commentaries on how enraptured vast regions of the media are with Barack Obama."

And check the, er, comments too.

Iran Updates

Click the green image to the right for Iran updates from Andrew Sullivan.

Green Tea Slows Prostate Cancer

According to results of a study published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, men with prostate cancer who consumed the active compounds in green tea demonstrated a significant reduction in serum markers predictive of prostate cancer progression.

Banning The Burqa

From Reuters:
"France may introduce a law banning full burqas. Nearly 60 legislators signed a proposal on Wednesday calling for a parliamentary commission to look into the spread of the burqa in France, a garment that they said amounted "to a breach of individual freedoms on our national territory"."

Making Dad Look Like An Idiot

There is only one group in today's society at whom it is still possible -- and acceptable-- to aim ridicule: On TV, men, especially Dads, are portrayed as incompetent morons who need women and children to protect them from their stupidity.

From the National Post: "It's deeply sexist, but what's even more troubling is that it's invisible as a form of sexism..."

Men are a convenient target. Generally we go quietly -- and competently -- about our daily lives and pay little attention the sexist garbage around us. The trouble with not speaking up is that if we do not counter these negative stereotypes, our boys -- and girls -- will grow up believing them.

Day Seven

Theran today.

Live Tweeting the revolution. Andrew Sullivan posts continuing Twitter feeds from Iran and many new photographs.

Lifespan May Be Linked To Personality

Are you and introvert or an extrovert? If you answered extrovert, you are more likely to live longer. According to a study to be published in the July issue of the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity:

"Our ability to withstand stress-related, inflammatory diseases may be associated, not just with our race and sex, but with our personality as well... Especially in aging women, low levels of the personality trait extroversion may signal that blood levels of a key inflammatory molecule have crossed over a threshold linked to a doubling of risk of death within five years."

Sensible Climate Science Vs. Warm-Is-The-New-Cold

A huge roundup of climate science news from Piers Corbyn's WeatherAction.com. If ever you need some solid science to make an argument against the warmist religion, bookmark this:

"Climate alarmism is not based on sound science but on a political agenda which has become a new religion to justify any policy or scheme which politicians and self-serving green ideologues, deluded researchers, businesses, oil magnates and the nuclear industry want to adopt. All their long-range models have failed so far so why should anyone believe them? On the other hand our solar based long range weather and climate forecasts have proven power, so why dont polticians listen?"

And this:

"The climate alarm modelers live by hype and government hand-outs and use weasel words to explain away their failures while in fact they know not what they are doing. The current deluge of climate fantasy serves to convince the public to worry about things which will never happen. They say they are using the best forecast systems they have but let us be clear the best of failures have little merit. Frankly the best computer models they use are just more rubbish in to get more rubbish out."

The World's Greatest Mass Delusion

"When the global warming alarmist house of cards finally collapses, exposing the pseudo-science/scare-journalism axis that has perpetrated the world's greatest mass delusion, among the first led out into the public square for ritual humiliation ought to be BBC ‘science' and ‘environment' correspondents.

So why pick on the BBC? Haven't they enough troubles playing down internal reports that confirm their ideologically leftwing and liberal biases? True enough. But the BBC loves to call itself, as we have noted, the ‘world's broadcaster'... they "give us every sign that they think [global warming] skeptics are fools or knaves or both". Cometh the time then, only the highest profile ritual humiliation will do."

Mad Science - Coming To A Planet Near You?

Via KurzweilAI:

"A few scientists are considering radical -- and possibly extremely dangerous -- schemes for reengineering the climate by brute force.

Their ideas are technologically plausible and cheap, so a rich and committed environmentalist could act on them tomorrow. And that's the scariest part."

Edie Brickel -- Good Times

I don't know why I thought of my first install of Windows 95 way back in, well '95. But one of the things I remember fondly that was included was this great video of Edie Brickel singing Good Times...

Warmist Boogyman Is Scaring The Children

Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and much else says we are dangerously - and needlessly - scaring our children with the global warming boogyman:

"In a new survey of 500 American pre-teens, it was found that one in three children, aged between six and 11, feared that the earth would not exist when they reach adulthood because of global warming and other environmental threats. An unbelievable one-third of our children believe that they don't have a future because of scary global warming stories.

We see the same pattern in the United Kingdom, where a survey showed that half of young children aged between seven and 11 are anxious about the effects of global warming, often losing sleep because of their concern. This is grotesquely harmful.

And let us be honest. This scare was intended. Children believe that global warming will destroy the planet before they grow up because adults are telling them that."

Levant And The Left-ies

"...freedom of speech isn't a right wing or left wing thing -- it's for anyone who cares about ideas and believes in the right to disagree with each other."

Ezra Levant gains support from left-ospheric bastion Daily Kos.

A Maglev Toy Train

Jason Kottke links to a great video illustration of how maglev technology works. He also links to a story about a 4000 mile per hour undersea maglev train that could cross the Atlantic from New York to London in an hour.

Iran Day 6

Andrew Sullivan links to coverage from Britain's Channel 4.

A Family Problem Solved - Just Like That

From the BBC:

"[A passenger on] Italian airline Alitalia told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that she noticed Sicily was missing - while she was on a flight to the island. Smaller islands, such as Sardinia, were in the right place..."

Auto Industry 2.0

TheCarConnection.com reports that San Diego firm V-Vehicle Company (VVC) will set up a new automobile assembly plant in Monroe, Louisiana to build a range of high-efficiency internal combustion-engine cars.

VVC CEO is Frank Varasano, previously executive VP of Oracle Corp. Former Mazda designer Tom Matano will head up the vehicle design department. Matano was responsible for the design of the MX-5, RX-7 and 929 Miata M-Coupe among other projects.

"I am delighted to see our vision for a new American car company coming to life here in Monroe, La.," said Varasano. "We've designed and engineered this car from start to finish to give the U.S. consumer a quality car with great value made right here in America."

The VVC is backed by oil billionaire turned environmentalist T. Boone Pickens and also by venture capital company Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. which has formed an alliance with Al Gore's Generation Investment Management. Yep. That Al Gore.

Ancient Martian Lake Discovered

"A University of Colorado at Boulder research team has discovered the first definitive evidence of shorelines on Mars, an indication of a deep, ancient lake there and a finding with implications for the discovery of past life on the Red Planet.

Estimated to be more than 3 billion years old, the lake appears to have covered as much as 80 square miles and was up to 1,500 feet deep -- roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain bordering the United States and Canada."

Crazy Remote Control Airplane Competition

Via SDA:

Watch for when the plane flies straight up--in reverse! Pitch reversing propeller perhaps? From the comments: "I was on a (sic) Air Canada flight that must have had a plane like that."

Look At The Crowds

Tehran today:

Non Sequitur

How to understand the "science" of global warming.

This Is It. The Big One. The Whole World Is Watching -- Really

At TEDBlog, an interview with NYU professor Clay Shirky:

"...it seems pretty clear that ... this is it. The big one. This is the first revolution that has been catapulted onto a global stage and transformed by social media. I've been thinking a lot about the Chicago demonstrations of 1968 where they chanted "the whole world is watching." Really, that wasn't true then. But this time it's true ... and people throughout the world are not only listening but responding. They're engaging with individual participants, they're passing on their messages to their friends, and they're even providing detailed instructions to enable web proxies allowing Internet access that the authorities can't immediately censor. That kind of participation is reallly extraordinary."

And just weeks ago some were thinking that Twitter was just a fad.

Update: More from Yahoo News. Who knew we'd ever be quoting something called "Yahoo News" ahead of, say CBS. Or even CNN for that matter. And even Yahoo News is behind Twitter and YouTube on this story.

A Media Revolution In Iran

We are witnessing a political revolution in Iran to be sure. But we are also witnessing an historic media revolution.

Andrew Sullivan:

"They're shooting directly at civilians, but the civilians are undeterred. Have we ever been able to watch a revolution like this in real time? Has any mainstream media ever been able to broadcast scenes like this? Now that everyone is a broadcaster, revolutions will always be televised (or, broadcast anyway, since much of cable news is uninterested)":

Firing On Iranian Protesters

Shaky video--likely from a cellphone--of a blue-shirted gunman firing what appears to be an AK-47 at Iranian protesters. Look for the molotov cocktail at 1:44. It misses by a mile but the crowd cheers.

Annan's Global Warming Report: Worse Than Fiction

A couple of weeks ago Kofi Annan's think tank Global Humanitarian Forum issued an alarming new report predicting hundreds of thousands of deaths per year if global warming is not stopped.

"Global warming alarmists are fond of invoking the authority of experts against the skepticism of supposedly amateur detractors -- a.k.a. "deniers." So when one of those experts says that [Annan's] recent report on the effects of climate change is "worse than fiction, it is a lie," the alarmists should, well, be alarmed.

Roger Pielke, Jr., an expert in disaster trends at the University of Colorado calls the report a "methodological embarrassment" and a "poster child for how to lie with statistics" that "does a disservice" to those who take climate change issues seriously."

The Wall Street Journal asks: "If the case for global warming is so open and shut, why the need for a report as disingenuous as Mr. Annan's?"

Archeological Inventory At Tranquility Base

What Apollo 11 left on the moon for future archeologists.

Could We Finally Control Aging?

I hope so:

"Researchers at The Wistar Institute have defined a key target of an evolutionarily conserved protein that regulates the process of aging. The study, published June 11 in Nature, provides fundamental knowledge about key mechanisms of aging that could point toward new anti-aging strategies and cancer therapies."

GM Killed The Wrong Brand

I knew that. Via Wired:

CarGurus.com surveyed 1,693 online automotive consumers and found 44 percent felt The General should have kept Pontiac. The informal Wired poll is even more emphatic.

Personally if someone made me Car Czar, I would have killed Hummer and Saturn, sold Saab back to the Swedes (which they are doing), let the Chinese have Buick and build Pontiacs as they should be built: North American-style driver's cars. Better than Volkswagens, cheaper than BMWs. And who's to say a Pontiac can't have a turbo-diesel four AND rear wheel drive. Pontiac GTD.

Anyway, as much as I wanted to grow up to be a "Pontiac man", GM lost me back in the 70s to VW just when I was, well, growing up. Crappy as those early watercooled VWs were they were head, shoulders and torso over anything contemporary from GM in any price class.

Levant Slams Rights Commission

Ezra Levant continues his war with the Canadian Human Rights Commission in today's National Post:

"...what is remarkable is that, far from being chastened by the public condemnation its bad behaviour has provoked, the CHRC has called for even more censorship in Canada... it’s an embarrassment that an organization with the words “human rights” as its middle name would be behind such an attack on our civil liberties."

Should Bloggers Have A Right To Anonymity?

Purely an academic question from my point of view, but thousands of anonymous bloggers must be concerned about being "outed" after this ruling from the British High Court.

I believe bloggers generally should have the courage of their opinions and should be up front about who they are. Anonymity places the burden of proof on the reader. That's problematic. To me a hidden blogger may be hiding something else. But at the same time, anonymity may be the only way to safely get a story out.

Having said that, the blogging cop in the story broke his professional oath of service. The court ruled "it is not part of the court’s function to protect police officers who are, or think they may be, acting in breach of police discipline regulations from coming to the attention of their superiors.”

So the right to anonymity is not challenged, except in the case where an oath already exists.

Mind Reading Technology Surprisingly Close

From Popular Science via Instapundit:

"Even leaders in the field are shocked by how far we've come in our ability to peer into people's minds. Will brain scans of the future be able to tell if a person is lying or telling the truth?"

"Will brain scanning count as testimonial self-incrimination in a court case, or will it fall into the same category as submitting hair and blood samples? Other questions to consider: Can fMRIs act as trustworthy lie detectors or indicators of racial prejudice in a hate crime, and should the tests be admissible in court?"

Iran Insurrection Continues

Video from Iran this morning:



Close to real-time updates from Andrew Sullivan even though his blog at The Atlantic seems to be under some sort of denial of service attack.

Update: Get live scrolling Twitter feeds at Twitterfall. Click on Tehran in the left column. Note that these "tweets" are coming from all over the world, but many are from Iran.

Frost Warning For June 15

June temperatures are below average across large swaths of Canada this year. Newfoundland is no exception. From Environment Canada:

"St. John's and vicinity
10:30 AM NDT Monday 15 June 2009
Frost warning for St. John's and vicinity continued

This is a warning that at or near zero ground temperatures will cause frost... especially inland in low lying areas tonight."

But local weather is not climate, you say? Well here's some climate data for you--check out the Spring Trend Comparison Chart.

Beaker's Ode To Joy

A Boor And A Coward

Victor Davis Hanson on David Letterman.

And this from James Lileks:

"That’s the culture: a flat, dead-eyed, square-headed old man who’ll go back to the writers and ask for more Palin-daughter knocked-up jokes, because that one went over well. Other children he won’t touch, but not because he’s decent. It’s because he’s a coward."

From the comments:

"...his comedy has been reduced to demonstrations of private political indulgences and a distasteful smugness and conceit that he possesses the moral high ground. I look forward to his retirement. He clearly hates what he’s doing, and I’m tired [of] pretending it’s worth watching."

When even James Lileks calls him a coward, Letterman is done. Finally.

Coup In Iran

Photo of the year.

From the Guardian: An attempted coup in Iran.

"There seems little doubt now that something resembling a coup d'état has been attempted in Tehran. The next few days will reveal if it is to succeed. In scenes not witnessed since the mass protests that brought about a revolution that deposed the Shah in 1979, violent demonstrations have broken out in multiple Iranian cities. Crowds chant anti-Ahmedinejad slogans such as "Death to the Dictator". Hundreds of thousands of supporters of the candidate heavily defeated in Friday's presidential election, Mir Hossein Mousavi, have rejected his defeat – claiming foul play. They are joined by key figures from Iran's political elite including the Association of Combatant Clerics who are calling for the result to be annulled. All three defeated candidates, including the conservative Mohsen Rezaee, a former head of the Revolutionary Guards, reject the election results as fraudulent."

"Overnight in what looks like a purge of the opposition up to 100 opposition figures were arrested including reformist politicians such as the brother of ex-President Mohammad Khatami and Mohsen Mirdamadi, a leader of the 1979 hostage crisis; further arrests included journalists such as Ahmad Zeidabadi; other reports suggest Mousavi and fellow reformist candidate Mehdi Karroubi are under house arrest. Although communications across Iran have been severely restricted, it seems that protests continued late into the night with crowds clashing with security forces, the basij militia and vigilante groups."

Update: More news here and here. Oustanding collection of videos and photos here.

Update 2: Iranian government cracks down.

Update 3: Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic is doing yeoman's service compiling coverage from all over the blogosphere.

Ship Breaking Boom For Bangladesh

From Terra Daily:

"A controversial global treaty to clean up the ship recycling industry will mean a boom in business for the Bangladeshi magnates whose workers pull the often toxic vessels apart, experts say. About 25,000 men are employed on the Sitakundu coastline of south-east Bangladesh, exposed to dire conditions and the risk of poisoning from asbestos, mercury and other substances. Ships are driven into the 10-kilometre (six-mile) stretch of beaches on high tides and then taken apart, with their steel recycled for uses such as construction. The new rules also say about 1,000 single-hull oil tankers currently at sea must be mothballed by 2010 -- a deadline that means more business for Bangladesh."

Here is a Google Maps embed of a satellite photo of the area taken in November 2008. You can scroll and zoom in on the ships and beaches.


View Larger Map

Up In 3D

We saw Pixar's Up in 3D yesterday and enjoyed it very much. The 3D experience was interesting and didn't distract from the experience as much as I expected, but I came away thinking the film would probably have been just as good in 2D. Then today I read that my all-time favorite film critic Roger Ebert does not approve of 3D. Not at all.

Global Cooling Ignored - Food Crisis Looms

Christopher Booker writing in The Telegraph:

"In Canada and northern America summer planting of corn and soybeans has been way behind schedule, with the prospect of reduced yields and lower quality. Grain stocks are predicted to be down 15 per cent next year. US reserves of soya – used in animal feed and in many processed foods – are expected to fall to a 32-year low."

And this:

"One of our biggest worries is that our politicians are so fixated on the idea that CO2 is causing global warming that most of them haven't noticed that the problem may be that the world is not warming but cooling, with all the implications that has for whether we get enough to eat."

Read the comments as well for (mostly) enlightened opinions.

"The Height Of Arrogance"

Lorrie Goldstein writes in today's Toronto Sun:

"Let me put an argument to you which will enrage the entire congregation of The First Church of Global Warming. That is, that man-made climate change does not pose an existential threat to humanity. That it is, rather, one of several environmental challenges we face, but that to elevate it to a threat above all the others -- to argue we are living in the "End Times" unless we immediately do as they say -- is absurd."

800 Workers Recalled In Hamilton

"U.S. Steel is calling 800 laid-off Hamilton employees back to work, breathing some life back into its mothballed Canadian operations. The Pittsburgh steelmaker, which acquired Stelco Inc. in 2007, will restart its Hamilton coke ovens and begin recalling workers in the coming weeks..."

Harper Warns Against Canada-US Trade War

Stephen Harper says the U.S. faces a "significant threat" of retaliation over the Buy American clause from Canadian provinces and cities that intend on shutting U.S. companies out of bidding on Canadian infrastructure projects.

Via the National Post:

"Quite frankly the biggest risk we have to global economic recovery is an increase in protectionism," Mr. Harper told Fox host Neil Cavuto in a wide-ranging discussion on the economy and Canada-U.S. bilateral issues."

"The worst possible signal that we could send to the world right now would be an increase in protection and particularly a procurement trade war between Canada and the United States."

Canada is by far the US's largest trading partner and all around best friend.