Saturday, October 17, 2009

LCROSS Un-fizzled?

A week ago Friday, NASA's spent LCROSS space vessel was deliberately crashed on the moon. It was a clever experiment. But it seemed to have,er, flopped. Now NASA says they have pictures. Good write up of the whole experiment by Maggie McKee at New Scientist.

UPDATE: Un-fizzled indeed. From PhysOrg:
NASA’s Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was a smashing success, returning tantalizing data about the Centaur impact before the spacecraft itself impacted the surface of the moon. "We are blown away by the data returned."

Friday, October 16, 2009

FAIL: US Foreign Policy

Charles Krauthammer writing in the Washington Post deplores backfiring US foreign policy.
About the only thing more comical than Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was the reaction of those who deemed the award "premature," as if the brilliance of Obama's foreign policy is so self-evident and its success so assured that if only the Norway Five had waited a few years, his Nobel worthiness would have been universally acknowledged.

"Not Evil Just Wrong" Premieres Sunday

Phelim McAleer's film "Not Evil Just Wrong" - billed as "the film Al Gore and Hollywood doesn’t want you to see" premieres online at Big Hollywood this Sunday night October 18th at 8pm ET (That's 9:30 in Newfoundland).

McAleer is the journalist who was stifled at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference last week when he asked Al Gore some challenging questions. More background on McAleer here.

"Not Evil Just Wrong" website and trailer here.

What The Internet Knows About You

You probably already know that Web browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc.) keep track of browsing habits. But did you know that your browser will share that information with anybody who asks? Don't believe me? Try this Website and prepare to be shocked/annoyed/chilled...

If this test comes up clear then congratulations. If on the other hand it shows anything at all, click the FAQ to find some simple solutions to protecting your privacy - like setting your browser's history to zero.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Arctic Ice Gone In Ten Years?

The BBC and the CBC are all over the preposterous Arctic Ice scare story from the Catlin Arctic Ice expedition. The BBC quotes the activists as saying the ice "could" be gone in ten years while, strangely, the CBC says it "will" be gone.

But there are significant reasons to dismiss the credibility of these reports. Anthony Watts has called this activist expedition "the scientific joke of the year" and gives us his top ten reasons why the Catlin Arctic Ice Survey data can’t be trusted.

And just when I thought the mainstream media (actually the BBC) were getting a clue about warmist propaganda. I am afraid we are going to see a lot more of this scare-mongering leading up to the Copenhagen conference in December.

By the way, if you feel sufficiently annoyed about propaganda dressed as news you can complain to the BBC here. And to the CBC here. I did.

British Media Continues Asking Hard Questions About Global Warming

And now The Daily Mail asks:

Whatever happened to global warming? How freezing temperatures are starting to shatter climate change theory.

A Cuban Punk Rocker Speaks Out

Via Reason TV:
Cuban Punk Rocker Gorki Aguila on Music, Life, and Getting Led Zeppelin Records in Cuba:

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Close Encounters Of The Moose Kind

It's moose hunting season in Newfoundland. Via Facebook, here's a video of what can happen when you don't have a tag for a cow.

Wild Newfoundland Weather!

St. John's is in the midst of a wild fall storm. The glass started dropping about 10:30 this morning and kept on going. We have had heavy rain, thunderstorms, wet snow and in the last hour we've sustained hurricane-force north-westerlies at 75 kph with gusts as high as 140 kph (87 mph).

About 20 minutes ago a 50 foot maple tree in my garden snapped off about ten feet above the ground and bounced off the roof sounding like a truck hitting the corner of the house. No damage that I can see with a flashlight, but it's not safe to be out there right now so further inspection will have to wait for daylight.

The lights are still on here (obviously) but I have heard parts of the city are blacked out. The weather office says the winds will diminish overnight.

UPDATE: No damage to the house but our 40 ring triple-trunk maple is pretty much history. It lost one trunk last night and we cut down the second trunk this afternoon. It made a nice stack of firewood for the Aspen. The third trunk is looking poorly and we'll probably take that down on the weekend.

Canadian Opels Built In Russia to Challenge Chevrolet?

The Truth About Cars reports that GM is finally ready to sell its German Opel subsidiary to the Canada-Russia consortium of Magna-Sperbank. GM fought hard to avoid the sale:
but with the major obstacles to the deal overcome there’s little left to do but grin and sign the papers. And then sit back and watch as Opel’s technology is leveraged to create a modern (and heavily subsidized) Russian auto industry which will challenge Chevy’s position in the Eastern European markets.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Why Is US State Department Hiding Its Analysis Of Honduras?

Jim DeMint is a Republican senator from South Carolina and is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He just got back from a fact-finding trip to Honduras. He writes in the Wall Street Journal:
In a day packed with meetings, we met only one person in Honduras who opposed Mr. Zelaya's ouster, who wishes his return, and who mystifyingly rejects the legitimacy of the November elections: U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.
And this from the Cato Institute:
In the interest of democracy and transparency, the State Department should immediately release its legal report. Maybe then we (which includes much of the hemisphere) will be less mystified about what is driving Washington policy toward Honduras. Or at least we’ll have a better insight on the administration’s understanding of democracy.
Virtually the entire world understands that what happened in Honduras was not a coup, it was the lawful exercise of Honduras' democratic constutution. That is, the entire world except the Obama administration.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Speaking Truth To Power - Until They Stifle You

The Wall Street Journal fact-checks Al Gore's responses to environmental journalist and film-maker Phelim McAleer's impertinent - and inconvenient - questions. How surprised would you be to know that Al Gore is dead wrong?

Video here if you are new to this story.

As God Is My Witness I Thought Turkeys Could Fly

Well that immortal line isn't in this clip, but Les Nessman's historic description of the WKRP Thanksgiving Turkey Bombing stands by itself. Oh the humanity!

Hat tip Damian Penney.

PS. Happy Thanksgiving!

UPDATE: Found it!

A Prize Well Deserved

The winner of the 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is David McKenzie, a 55-year-old Quality Systems consultant and writer from Federal Way, Washington. This is his entry:
Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the “Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.
Well deserved sir. Well deserved.

And Dishonorable Mention goes to Lisa Mileusnich of Willoughby, Ohio:
He slowly ran his fingers through her long black hair, which wasn't really black because she used Preference by L'Oreal to color it (because "she was worth it"); her carrot-colored roots were starting to show, and it reminded him of the time he'd covered his car's check engine light with black electrical tape, but a faint orange glow still shone around the edges.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Journalist Muzzled At Journalism Conference

Al Gore spoke to about 500 members of the Society of Environmental Journalists in Wisconsin yesterday. About 200 protestors stood outside in the cold. In an unusual move, Gore took questions from the floor. Among the journalists present was Phelim McAleer, producer of the new anti-global-warming-hysteria film Not Evil Just Wrong and a member of the Society.

When McAleer tried to ask Al Gore a question about the errors in his film An Inconvenient Truth that were enumerated by the British High Court the organizers surrounded him and cut off his microphone.

Just so there is no mistake about it: the Society of Environmental Journalists cut off the microphone of a journalist asking a legitimate question in order to protect a politician. This is disgraceful.

Here's the video:



Oh, and if you are wondering about the truth about the polar bears, click here.

UPDATE: From Glenn Reynolds: "Like questioning communism at a Pravda editorial board." Links to Washington Examiner's Mark Tapscott who calls the Society of Environmental Journalists "Homers" - sports writers who only root for the home team.

Coping With Being Laid Off. Again. And Again.

Have you ever been laid off? Can you imagine being laid off again? And yet again? As the world struggles through the worst economy in 50 years more and more people are being laid off multiple times. They are likely to blame themselves. More depressing, so do potential employers. Some suggestions on coping with multiple lay offs this week in the Wall Street Journal.