Global Warming 101.

Global warming by Doc. Roy.

1) Are Global Temperatures Rising Now? There is no way to know, because natural year-to-year variability in global temperature is so large, with warming and cooling occurring all the time. What we can say is that surface and lower atmospheric temperature have risen in the last 30 to 50 years, with most of that warming in the Northern Hemisphere. Also, the magnitude of recent warming is somewhat uncertain, due to problems in making long-term temperature measurements with thermometers without those measurements being corrupted by a variety of non-climate effects. But there is no way to know if temperatures are continuing to rise now…we only see warming (or cooling) in the rearview mirror, when we look back in time.

2) Why Do Some Scientists Say It’s Cooling, while Others Say that Warming is Even Accelerating? Since there is so much year-to-year (and even decade-to-decade) variability in global average temperatures, whether it has warmed or cooled depends upon how far back you look in time. For instance, over the last 100 years, there was an overall warming which was stronger toward the end of the 20th Century. This is why some say “warming is accelerating”. But if we look at a shorter, more recent period of time, say since the record warm year of 1998, one could say that it has cooled in the last 10-12 years. But, as I mentioned above, neither of these can tell us anything about whether warming is happening “now”, or will happen in the future.

3) Haven’t Global Temperatures Risen Before? Yes. In the longer term, say hundreds to thousands of years, there is considerable indirect, proxy evidence (not from thermometers) of both warming and cooling. Since humankind can’t be responsible for these early events, this is evidence that nature can cause warming and cooling. If that is the case, it then opens up the possibility that some (or most) of the warming in the last 50 years has been natural, too. While many geologists like to point to much larger temperature changes are believed to have occurred over millions of years, I am unconvinced that this tells us anything of use for understanding how humans might influence climate on time scales of 10 to 100 years.

4) But Didn’t the “Hockey Stick” Show Recent Warming to be Unprecedented? The “hockey Stick” reconstructions of temperature variations over the last 1 to 2 thousand years have been a huge source of controversy. The hockey stick was previously used by the IPCC as a veritable poster child for anthropogenic warming, since it seemed to indicate there have been no substantial temperature changes over the last 1,000 to 2,000 years until humans got involved in the 20th Century. The various versions of the hockey stick were based upon limited amounts of temperature proxy evidence — primarily tree rings — and involved questionable statistical methods. In contrast, I think the bulk of the proxy evidence supports the view that it was at least as warm during the Medieval Warm Period, around 1000 AD. The very fact that recent tree ring data erroneously suggests cooling in the last 50 years, when in fact there has been warming, should be a warning flag about using tree ring data for figuring out how warm it was 1,000 years ago. But without actual thermometer data, we will never know for sure.

5) Isn’t the Melting of Arctic Sea Ice Evidence of Warming?Warming, yes…manmade warming, no. Arctic sea ice naturally melts back every summer, but that meltback was observed to reach a peak in 2007. But we have relatively accurate, satellite-based measurements of Arctic (and Antarctic) sea ice only since 1979. It is entirely possible that late summer Arctic Sea ice cover was just as low in the 1920s or 1930s, a period when Arctic thermometer data suggests it was just as warm. Unfortunately, there is no way to know, because we did not have satellites back then. Interestingly, Antarctic sea ice has been growing nearly as fast as Arctic ice has been melting over the last 30+ years.

6) What about rising sea levels? I must confess, I don’t pay much attention to the sea level issue. I will say that, to the extent that warming occurs, sea levels can be expected to also rise to some extent. The rise is partly due to thermal expansion of the water, and partly due to melting or shedding of land-locked ice (the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and glaciers). But this says nothing about whether or not humans are the cause of that warming. Since there is evidence that glacier retreat and sea level rise started well before humans can be blamed, causation is — once again — a major source of uncertainty.

7) Is Increasing CO2 Even Capable of Causing Warming? There are some very intelligent people out there who claim that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere can’t cause warming anyway. They claim things like, “the atmospheric CO2 absorption bands are already saturated”, or something else very technical. [And for those more technically-minded persons, yes, I agree that the effective radiating temperature of the Earth in the infrared is determined by how much sunlight is absorbed by the Earth. But that doesn't mean the lower atmosphere cannot warm from adding more greenhouse gases, because at the same time they also cool the upper atmosphere]. While it is true that most of the CO2-caused warming in the atmosphere was there before humans ever started burning coal and driving SUVs, this is all taken into account by computerized climate models that predict global warming. Adding more “should” cause warming, with the magnitude of that warming being the real question. But I’m still open to the possibility that a major error has been made on this fundamental point. Stranger things have happened in science before.

8 ) Is Atmospheric CO2 Increasing? Yes, and most strongly in the last 50 years…which is why “most” climate researchers think the CO2 rise is the cause of the warming. Our site measurements of CO2 increase from around the world are possibly the most accurate long-term, climate-related, measurements in existence.

9) Are Humans Responsible for the CO2 Rise? While there are short-term (year-to-year) fluctuations in the atmospheric CO2 concentration due to natural causes, especially El Nino and La Nina, I currently believe that most of the long-term increase is probably due to our use of fossil fuels. But from what I can tell, the supposed “proof” of humans being the source of increasing CO2 — a change in the atmospheric concentration of the carbon isotope C13 — would also be consistent with a natural, biological source. The current atmospheric CO2 level is about 390 parts per million by volume, up from a pre-industrial level estimated to be around 270 ppm…maybe less. CO2 levels can be much higher in cities, and in buildings with people in them.

10) But Aren’t Natural CO2 Emissions About 20 Times the Human Emissions? Yes, but nature is believed to absorb CO2 at about the same rate it is produced. You can think of the reservoir of atmospheric CO2 as being like a giant container of water, with nature pumping in a steady stream into the bottom of the container (atmosphere) in some places, sucking out about the same amount in other places, and then humans causing a steady drip-drip-drip into the container. Significantly, about 50% of what we produce is sucked out of the atmosphere by nature, mostly through photosynthesis. Nature loves the stuff. CO2 is the elixir of life on Earth. Imagine the howls of protest there would be if we were destroying atmospheric CO2, rather than creating more of it.

11) Is Rising CO2 the Cause of Recent Warming? While this is theoretically possible, I think it is more likely that the warming is mostly natural. At the very least, we have no way of determining what proportion is natural versus human-caused.

12) Why Do Most Scientists Believe CO2 is Responsible for the Warming? Because (as they have told me) they can’t think of anything else that might have caused it. Significantly, it’s not that there is evidence nature can’t be the cause, but a lack of sufficiently accurate measurements to determine if nature is the cause. This is a hugely important distinction, and one the public and policymakers have been misled on by the IPCC.

13) If Not Humans, What could Have Caused Recent Warming?This is one of my areas of research. I believe that natural changes in the amount of sunlight being absorbed by the Earth — due to natural changes in cloud cover — are responsible for most of the warming. Whether that is the specific mechanism or not, I advance the minority view that the climate system can change all by itself. Climate change does not require an “external” source of forcing, such as a change in the sun.

14) So, What Could Cause Natural Cloud Changes? I think small, long-term changes in atmospheric and oceanic flow patterns can cause ~1% changes in how much sunlight is let in by clouds to warm the Earth. This is all that is required to cause global warming or cooling. Unfortunately, we do not have sufficiently accurate cloud measurements to determine whether this is the primary cause of warming in the last 30 to 50 years.

15) How Significant is the Climategate Release of E-Mails? While Climategate does not, by itself, invalidate the IPCC’s case that global warming has happened, or that humans are the primary cause of that warming, it DOES illustrate something I emphasized in my first book, “Climate Confusion”: climate researchers are human, and prone to bias.

16) Why Would Bias in Climate Research be Important? I thought Scientists Just Follow the Data Where It Leads Them When researchers approach a problem, their pre-conceived notions often guide them. It’s not that the IPCC’s claim that humans cause global warming is somehow untenable or impossible, it’s that political and financial pressures have resulted in the IPCC almost totally ignoring alternative explanations for that warming.

17) How Important Is “Scientific Consensus” in Climate Research?In the case of global warming, it is nearly worthless. The climate system is so complex that the vast majority of climate scientists — usually experts in variety of specialized fields — assume there are more knowledgeable scientists, and they are just supporting the opinions of their colleagues. And among that small group of most knowledgeable experts, there is a considerable element of groupthink, herd mentality, peer pressure, political pressure, support of certain energy policies, and desire to Save the Earth — whether it needs to be saved or not.

18) How Important are Computerized Climate Models? I consider climate models as being our best way of exploring cause and effect in the climate system. It is really easy to be wrong in this business, and unless you can demonstrate causation with numbers in equations, you are stuck with scientists trying to persuade one another by waving their hands. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that climate models will ever produce a useful prediction of the future. Nevertheless, we must use them, and we learn a lot from them. My biggest concern is that models have been used almost exclusively for supporting the claim that humans cause global warming, rather than for exploring alternative hypotheses — e.g. natural climate variations — as possible causes of that warming.

19) What Do I Predict for Global Temperature Changes in the Future? I tend to shy away from long-term predictions, because there are still so many uncertainties. When pressed, though, I tend to say that I think cooling in our future is just as real a possibility as warming. Of course, a third possibility is relatively steady temperatures, without significant long-term warming or cooling. Keep in mind that, while you will find out tomorrow whether your favorite weather forecaster is right or wrong, no one will remember 50 years from now a scientist today wrongly predicting we will all die from heat stroke by 2060.

Connors World

(As stated before in my notes, Connor is my 12 year old son who has Autism.)

We have been informed of our travel plans this summer. The declaration was put forth by our 12 year old, stated in no-nonsense terms. This is what will happen...

School ends June 10th. Then we pack the suitcase, and drive to hotel called Holiday inn. We put on swim suits and swim in the pool, go to sleep. Then have waffles and drive north to Canada.

Pretty straightforward right? It does actually fit pretty well with what we are going to do, with good reason. Connor likes for things to be static, ritualistic if you will. He does not handle change. Everyone has different ways of dealing with ambiguity, some better then others. Connor has been able to see and be comforted by finding the static within the change.

He is adaptive in his reasoning. If we go to a Quality Inn, instead of Holiday Inn, he will accept the difference, because he can see that it is still a hotel. Now if the hotel does not have a pool or the waffle maker breakfast. Things are going to begin to get dicey. Yes, we can work him through the situation and he will emerge from the other side. The thing is this, we will probably have to help him through other things, so why not accommodate what we can, as it provides him a degree of comfort and control.

Communication is something most people overlook when it comes to kids. Imagine someone obviously hurting and crying. This person is not able to relate the problem. It could be physical, it could be mental, it could be emotional. As a parent it is paramount to help and without the knowing what is wrong, the knowing how to help, is nigh impossible. It can be heart wrenching. It is...

When Connor can relate to us something like vacation plans. We engage the communication fully. We will make corrections to his expectations. We have also, purposefully, altered plans in order to teach him he can deal with ambiguity. So when unforeseen events occur he has those skills.

No one is crazy about change. The more draconian the more we push back. It is our nature. Yet, our environment is one of near constant change. I suppose the human condition is one of conflict.

Athlete, am I?

Sometimes my mental definition does not seem to match a reality. Recently on Shoe's blog he announced that he had been an Athlete in High School. I recall thinking it would have been cool to have done that.

This totally disregards my two years on the swim team. Also, the countless hours playing little league baseball, skating, fencing and playing roller hockey. So what exactly is\was my definition? The more I thought about it the more I found I did not have a real definition, I just knew that it was not me.

Connor with special Olympics he is a recognized athlete. I recently ran a 10K. wouldn't that qualify?

So running down the definition: a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina.

Well I was trained in baseball, water polo and roller hockey. Those are sports. I have not done any of these activities in six years or so... Roller skating in and of itself is not a sport, although there are sports that require skating, it is not a game. Running is a sport and an activity.

I can easily say I am athletic... is that the same thing?

Tax day

It's a myth. FDR did not get us out of the Great Depression

By BURTON FOLSOM JR. AND ANITA FOLSOM

'He got us out of the Great Depression." That's probably the most frequent comment made about President Franklin Roosevelt, who died 65 years ago today. Every Democratic president from Truman to Obama has believed it, and each has used FDR's New Deal as a model for expanding the government.

It's a myth. FDR did not get us out of the Great Depression—not during the 1930s, and only in a limited sense during World War II.

Let's start with the New Deal. Its various alphabet-soup agencies—the WPA, AAA, NRA and even the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority)—failed to create sustainable jobs. In May 1939, U.S. unemployment still exceeded 20%. European countries, according to a League of Nations survey, averaged only about 12% in 1938. The New Deal, by forcing taxes up and discouraging entrepreneurs from investing, probably did more harm than good.

What about World War II? We need to understand that the near-full employment during the conflict was temporary. Ten million to 12 million soldiers overseas and another 10 million to 15 million people making tanks, bullets and war materiel do not a lasting recovery make. The country essentially traded temporary jobs for a skyrocketing national debt. Many of those jobs had little or no value after the war.

No one knew this more than FDR himself. His key advisers were frantic at the possibility of the Great Depression's return when the war ended and the soldiers came home. The president believed a New Deal revival was the answer—and on Oct. 28, 1944, about six months before his death, he spelled out his vision for a postwar America. It included government-subsidized housing, federal involvement in health care, more TVA projects, and the "right to a useful and remunerative job" provided by the federal government if necessary.

Roosevelt died before the war ended and before he could implement his New Deal revival. His successor, Harry Truman, in a 16,000 word message on Sept. 6, 1945, urged Congress to enact FDR's ideas as the best way to achieve full employment after the war.

Congress—both chambers with Democratic majorities—responded by just saying "no." No to the whole New Deal revival: no federal program for health care, no full-employment act, only limited federal housing, and no increase in minimum wage or Social Security benefits.

Instead, Congress reduced taxes. Income tax rates were cut across the board. FDR's top marginal rate, 94% on all income over $200,000, was cut to 86.45%. The lowest rate was cut to 19% from 23%, and with a change in the amount of income exempt from taxation an estimated 12 million Americans were eliminated from the tax rolls entirely.

Corporate tax rates were trimmed and FDR's "excess profits" tax was repealed, which meant that top marginal corporate tax rates effectively went to 38% from 90% after 1945.

Georgia Sen. Walter George, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, defended the Revenue Act of 1945 with arguments that today we would call "supply-side economics." If the tax bill "has the effect which it is hoped it will have," George said, "it will so stimulate the expansion of business as to bring in a greater total revenue."

He was prophetic. By the late 1940s, a revived economy was generating more annual federal revenue than the U.S. had received during the war years, when tax rates were higher. Price controls from the war were also eliminated by the end of 1946. The U.S. began running budget surpluses.

Congress substituted the tonic of freedom for FDR's New Deal revival and the American economy recovered well. Unemployment, which had been in double digits throughout the 1930s, was only 3.9% in 1946 and, except for a couple of short recessions, remained in that range for the next decade.

The Great Depression was over, no thanks to FDR. Yet the myth of his New Deal lives on. With the current effort by President Obama to emulate some of FDR's programs to get us out of the recent deep recession, this myth should be laid to rest.

Mr. Folsom, a professor of history at Hillsdale College, is the author of "New Deal or Raw Deal?" (Simon & Schuster, 2008). Mrs. Folsom is director of Hillsdale College's annual Free Market Forum.

Count down to April 17th!

Doctor Who Season is about to begin! The longest running sci-fi series has a new face in Matt Smith.

He replaced the beloved David Tennant last year who left us with a sad
David Tennants Regeneration into Matt Smith - Click here for the most popular videos">"I dont want to go" changing to a near manic Matt Smith.

The innovation of the series is the written in ability of a Time Lord to regenerate into another person or actor. Matt Smith being the 11th actor in the series.

Mr. Smith is the youngest Actor to take the role and has suffered many doubts of his ability based on Mr. Tennants favored portrayal. Which is pretty funny as Christopher Eccleston, the previous doctor to Tennant, was likewise deemed impossible to follow.

I myself have haunted the various Whovian websites getting those bits of information that only wet the appetite for us fanbois, and I have really liked what I have seen.

So this Saturday, tune into BBC America (check listings) or set the DVR. This is going to be quite a fun ride!

Working World

The sun peeked out yesterday and I got a good 20 minutes running among the photons. This brightened my significantly dour mood for the rest of the day.

I enjoy my job, even though DOOM is in the air. The cuts that are coming have everyone feeling down. Getting a second part time job is very tough around this area. I have a couple of prospects that I have been praying about.

On the brighter side, Trevor was able to stop his sinking ship college career. He had achieved a fiscal suspension for poor grades. At my eldest sisters suggestion Tina has me run interference at his collage. It was a little too eye opening. Personally, I cannot conceive how you can get below a B at our community collage. Just showing up and handing something in will get you a C.

We were able to work with the administration to finish up and turn in unfinished assignments. This got him back on the grants list. Part of me is glad he can further his education, part of me moans for my ill spent tax dollars.

Here is a question for you. How can a huge increase in enrollment (students = customers) mean a shortfall in revenue for the collage?? Ugh! We cannot afford to have this many customers! HELP!!!

I hope there is more sunlight today. I could use another soak.

Thought on Offensive.

When someone claims to have been “offended” by someone else’s remarks, he is usually grandstanding.

It is a choice to be offended, after all.

The Government is causing Obesity!

My buddy Flying Van is hostile towards school lunches. I believe he feels that the government is spending his money incorrectly. A point I am in agreement with.

The idea behind the lunch entitlement is that poor people can not afford to buy food or they care so little about the kids they have they choose not to feed them or they lack the training on how to purchase and prepare food. Seeing how kids are required to go to school, this makes it a logical place to feed these poor starving kids, who must be thinking about their empty stomachs instead of learning reading, writing and arithmetics.

That is to say your brain needs calories to function. Add to that the fact that hunger is a distraction and you have a prime example of the Government aiding education!

One of the primary problems with the above idea that people are starving. No doubt there are people in the US, who cannot access the cornucopia of goodness. If someone is starving the human thing to do is to get them fed, then have them to feed themselves. Finally have them help feed those who are starving.

So holding a parent responsible for providing for their child gets jettisoned. Having a community wanting to help the less fortunate is also jettisoned. And the chance of the child learning to feed themselves is shunted towards letting the government feed you.

Case in point: If you are on food stamps the USDA added incentives and other changes that targets the link between Obesity and Food Stamps with an idea to trim rampant obesity rates among low-income groups. Obesity is not caused by starvation... Right?

So we know that food stamps, from the government, are making poor people fat. Now I read that school lunches are not just making sure that hungry kid has sustenance to insure better performance. No our School lunch program, from the government, are making hungry kids Obese.

I never got\purchased school lunches. My mom made me a sandwich with some fruit and veg for quite a number of years. Sadly, many of those lunches were never eaten. Sometime around third grade I was responsible for my own lunch. Which means I had breakfast and dinner at home and ignored lunch. In HS I was on swim team and had instant breakfast (beats upchucking). Again, if I did have some lunch it was not everyday.

Basically, I was too lazy to make a lunch and too busy to bother with lunch. When I did eat, I made up for the missing meals. I did a pretty good job of burning off any extra calories as well.

Now my daughter needs to have regular intervals of food intake or she gets listless. My nephew would have to eat a certain nutritional balance to avoid nasty headaches.

To my way of thinking. Yes, we need to feed habitually hungry kids. The parents need to be held responsible or face some kind of consequence. Funding a Union does not seem to be covering the basic need.

Comic book Originals

Superman is arguably the most known comic book superhero. The iconic S and red cape has been around since that fateful day in 1938 by Siegel and Shuster.

Not really... You see they took their creation from Philip Wylie's pulp novel Gladiator. In that book our Hugo Danner had super strength, bullet proof skin and was able to leap tall buildings. He lived in a small farming community and pretended to be mild mannered to hide his secret identity and protect those loved ones.

DC Comics also has the Green Lantern which was a Creative Re-imagining of E.E. Smiths The Lensemen. Also, The Batman who's lineage is from Johnston McCulley's Zorro.

Not to say that DC comics has the lock on plagiarized characters. Marevel Comics X-men took from DC Comics The Doom Patrol quite a lot.

Also, Disney's Lion King has more then a passing resemblance to Kimba the White Lion.

Does it really matter? No, but I would say the source material deserves it's place in the sun.

Schools = social experiment with no outcome requirement.

Assume you are married and have a child who has a driving license a car which they support. Further, said child has an issue with driving too fast. As a parent you want to make sure they are safe and obeying the law.

What are the degree of options?

Do not allow them to drive is at one end with Do nothing at the other. I propose that most parents will do something within those parameters. I can think of a handful of discussion and demonstrations that would be pretty persuasive. In other words I would be inclined to have a sliding scale starting with discussion and education, which falls closer to the Do Nothing end.

The above analogy is a pretty typical problem solving exercise. Analogy? Oh, did I forget to mention this is about Childhood Obesity?

Obesity does have a number of health risk factors. It is a problem. So how to solve that problem?

Same degrees of options apply Do nothing to incarcerate the individual until they show proper health habits...

Seeing as how we do have mandatory schooling in this country and, to me, this is an educational issue. How about evaluating each kids health and informing the parents?

Or Having a class on exercise and health benefits, with Instruction, Hands on and Reading components makes a certain degree of sense.

If you wanted the same thing but done private sector you could push that burden to insurance companies with something like lower rates if your fit, or some insane idea like that.

Federally you could impose a Fat Tax on anyone obese. (okay, getting to much on the sillier end of things).

Of course you do need to factor in that being Fat does not pose health risks to everyone. (Here is the layman term press release of same). There are "thin" people with the same health issues as fatter ones. So why target the fat? Why not target the unhealthy? or why target anyone? Why not target everyone?

At Connors school the decided to eliminate the icing from the cinnamon rolls (because 48 less calories will solve obesity in children?). They also made the soda machines carry non-sugar\low sugar beverages. Anyone who has met Connor can see he is not in the fat category. If you spend a day with him, you know he falls into the fit category as well. Further he has a very tough time with Change. So I get a phone call from a lunch lady (who apparently loves Connor's demeanor) asking permission to add icing to his cinnamon roll. Curiously, I was not consulted to remove said icing.

As for the soda machines, what was the outcome? Jr. High students left campus to the corner store and bought a 64 ounce soda, instead of the 12 ounce they were drinking. So kids drank MORE SUGAR!

Connors Birthday Party at School.

Keep in mind that at 12 years of age certain social attitudes can prevail. Unless your Connor.

We got the following e-mail from his teacher:

Hello! We just had a little party for Connor. He wanted to dance for his party so we did! We had the party from 9:25 to 10:05 so that our PE and literacy helpers/peers could be here also! They all had a blast! I think it went well. Michael, our literacy peer, taught us how to do the moonwalk, the worm, and breakdancing! Connor loved the "spinning" that I did with him. I was taking his hands and sort of showing him how to swing dance and he turned in into a spin! It was fun but boy was I dizzy!

Connor never brought up dancing for his birthday at home. However, for the last week, in anticipation of his birthday, he has broached the subject at school with regularity. Most classes have parties in the afternoon. Connor, no doubt, pushed this agenda and God Bless his teacher for understanding and getting the helpers/peers involved.

Helpers/Peers are your typical everyday Jr. High students who have a period where they assist the special needs room. The fact that they enjoyed and participated above and beyond really speaks to the infectious nature Connor wields. (Just come to a family function where we pray before meals and Connor has us do a wave, to which my family lovingly complies)

Fiscal responsibility.

Obama, to much fan-fair, Praised the Pay-as-you-go rule. The media high-fived and there was much rejoicing. There was talk of fiscal responsibility and joyous singing praise of the deficit hawk Obama. The meaning, at first glance, is to make sure any bill is funded prior to passing. That means you cut other programs or raise revenue by some other means. That sounds good right? Not adding to the debt or deficit with any new expense. Pres. Barry says: “the American people are tired of politicians who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk when it comes to fiscal responsibility.”

The same bill raised the deficit limit to 14.3 Trillion. This is disturbing to anyone who has a household budget. Liberals just shrug and think it is a good thing to borrow that much more money to help the economy. Because nothing makes you richer then being in more debt... [/facepalm]. Also, because they passed PayGo they are now fiscally responsible... Trust in them...

Enter Senator Jim Bunning who stated his intent to block a $10 billion spending bill until it is offset by cuts elsewhere, or payed-for-as-they-go. Which should have gotten him the same high praise from the media right? I mean Pres. Obama got accolades as did the Congress for fiscal responsibility? This is a Republican joining the Democrats! Bi-Partisan support for PayGo! This is winning!

Nope, Jim Bunning is\was being vilified for his mean spirited fiscal responsibility. So as I sit mystified at the MSM and the hypocrisy. The Democrats are going to pass healthcare despite the fact they do not have the votes, nor the ability to under the rules that they operate. Pelosi said this is the most Ethical Congress ever! Which can only be true if your Ethics are situational...

Source:

Bunning’s Spending Hold Makes Him a Cad to TV Nets, Focus on His Supposed Victims

Jim Bunning's fiscal hardball jams GOP

More on the Bunning Benefits Blockade

Expert advice for the cost of Pastrami

You might have a bathroom in your house you rarely use. Chances are, if your a parent, this bathroom is the hovel of your beloved children. When I say rarely use, I mean that in the fullest sense of the word. You might jump in for a biological need here and there and ponder the inability to keep the counter clean, but thats all.

We have such a bathroom and the 50 year old plumbing from the tub is quite fond of holding onto refuse matter such as congealed soap scum mixed with biological matter. The steel pipes of yore assume a rough pitted interior over 1/2 a decade.

Before Tina and I built our master suite the bathroom in question was more closely maintained (mea culpa), by myself. So I take a goodly amount of blame for the drain backing up.

The inability to drain somehow became a forbidden topic and kept as such in the dark, I was late to the rescue. Which is to say, the chemical warfare that proceeded upon my knowledge should not make it back to the EPA. While some small amount of opening was aquired that allowed for a seepage of water over time would drain the tub, it was far from adequate and quite the source of embarrassment for my lineage.

Plumbing is genetically grafted into my families code. If water will not flow and\or drain, you have two kinds of people in the world. My family and those who call my family in desperate need.

I admit that I was stymied and frustrated as the clean out plug that should have allowed me to fix the inconvenience was not made out of brass as is should have. It was fused solid. My mind danced around various ideas of how to get this fixed and hit knowledge barriers that confounded me at one point or another.

I consoled myself with the idea that I would just rip out the whole damn mess and replace it with ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene). Another round of chemical warfare actually did the job, relieving my mental burden. The tub drained, showers could be held for all, the rejoicing began.

I purchased some more chemical agents and instructed my eldest to maintain the flow. With that I moved on to other projects to ponder and procrastinate upon.

Little did I know that my instructions lacked the crucial bit of informing me if the tub stopped draining. As time passed it did just that. The Chemical was used up and no request was made to purchase more. I suffered from out of sight out of mind.

Lo and Behold the enemy surge counter plugged up the drain and thereby gained a foothold that would not be overcome by nothing short of genocide.

Yes, it was the plumbing or me... (yes, I am playing this out for high drama).

At this point there was a call to the expert. My pop. A man to whom plumbing knowledge is first nature. He had several suggestions and was going to send my brother over to take a look at the particulars of this project. Then he came up with the idea of using this "Internet thing" to strengthen his understanding of the situation.

Digital camera in hand, I took a few shots like those above.

The reply was a concise set of directions:

Unloosen the 1-1/2" nut above the trap on the waste and overflow.

then you cut the 1-1/2' trap arm into to remove that part; then unscrew the other piece from the tee.

Then re place the pipe and trap with two 1-1/2" male adapters and a 1-1/2" Plastic trap.

very good pictures.

Which, of course, created a series of questions in my mind. God smiled upon me and my Pop decided this quest was worthy of three hours (round trip) of driving on a Sunday afternoon. With my mom playing side kick we sauntered into the daylight basement and he verified that which he already knew.

The entire project took about an hour. The time saving techniques and the picking out of parts still sparks amazement. Where I would guess stumble and formulate with doubt, his laser like precision makes short work of this blockage and the water doth flow.

Oh, I neglected to mention, that he also lent a hand with re-establishing the laundry room sink that had been back burnered, by me way too long.

There is a lot to respect and love about my parents. They do set the bar.

Superbowl Abortion advertisement

Copy Pasted from here: By Jeff Miller

Being both a Catholic pundit and living in Gator country by contract I am required to comment on the Im Tebow Superbowl ad. A lot of pixels and ink have already been spilled over this so I will spill some more.

Those who support legal abortion often chaff at being called pro-abortion - the much prefer pro-choice. No doubt they believe this is the case, but in reality there are few if any who see abortion and not having an abortion both a morally neutral acts of exactly the same weight. After all what was the last time you saw a Planned Parenthood Maternity Ward or a NARAL Home for Unwed Mothers.

The fuss over the Tim Tebow ad really proves this. The ad presents one side of choice so what is the big deal to them? A mother talking about the decision to choose life is not exactly controversial since all of our mothers did exactly the same thing.

The obvious reason they hate they so much is that it shows the reality of "choice" the existence or the snuffing out of a human being. Over the years more and more people whose mothers considered abortion and decided against it have been talking about this fact. They are survivors of a "choice". There is also the case of abortion survivor Gianna Jessen who lived despite the attempt to abort her. The pro-abortion side is upset that they can't run similar ads. In fact they have been able to find zero aborted babies willing to film a Superbowl or any other ad for them. They can't even find people who want to take their mothers to task for having them. Those that each day regret their mothers did not abort them.

Tim Tebow does not represent a tissue mass or any other ecumenism euphemism for a child in the womb, but the normal consequence of not stopping life while in the womb. A Heisman Trophy winner is present because he mother choose life over the doctor's suggestion. Though Joy Behar said he could just as easily have become a "racist." Great idea Joy Behar - we should kill all children to prevent such an occurrence. Seeing Tim Tebow and hearing this story can remind us of the 50 Million individual persons who did not survive their mother's choice.

The abortion industry and abortion supporters have always been about minimizing or hiding reality. Women are told across the world falsehoods about the stages of the child in their womb. Terms are used to describe this that have no bearing on the reality. Over and over Ultrasound has been called a weapon because it helps to visualize reality. Laws requiring that women be properly informed about the life in the womb and presented with factual medical and scientific information about this are blocked time and again by the pro-abortion crowd.

A mother choosing life is polarizing and divisive. What a sick culture we live in.

A rather odd fact is that Planned Parenthood is responding to this ad by having two men, an ex-footbal player and a Gold Medalist, talking about women's rights being respected. Now could you imagine the outcry of a pro-life ad involving two men talking against abortion? The pro-abortion crowd would go crazy criticizing it for being so out of touch and not being able to speak for women.

Though I guess Planned Parenthood could get lots of men who favor abortion to do commercials for them. They could speak how abortion saved them from being trapped in a relationship. How abortion enabled them to maintain their lifestyle of treating women as objects and to keep pretending their was not natural consequence of sex. Predatory males certainly love legal abortion. In the meantime pro-abortion supporters want to remain to keep their head in the sand and to deny that a women's choice determines if a person will continue to live or not. Tim Tebow should just go away and not remind them of the consequence of "choice".

For us who are pro-life it reminds us to pray for those mothers in difficult situations that are considering abortion as a solution and to help them in every possible way that we can.

Crazy is as Crazy does.

Discussion on Flying Van and Shoo's blog reminded me of a Froggy story.

His dad (I believe as my sieve like brain tells me) was working with a gentleman with a mental disorder. The nature of this disorder manifested itself in the gentleman assuming he was dead. He walked around and spoke and did all the normal everyday things. He would just purport to be demised.

During the course of discourse Froggy's dad came up with a hypothesis he presented.

"Tell me, dear sir, can dead people bleed?"

"Can dead people bleed? Of course not! are you mad?"

"Seeing as how your dead, we should do a pin prick test on your finger to prove to me your state"

The man agreed and a pin prick later the blood did flow. The man was quite taken aback and stared at the crimson liquid as it slowly flowed.

"Amazing, what do you know! Dead people DO BLEED!"

~fin~

News Organization of Record

FNC or Fox News gets blasted by liberals as being horribly biased. Further, anyone who watches the show is painted as having a mental handicap at worst. The same groups will fawn over MSNBC, the Huffington Post and Media Matters, laughingly stating these are truth sayers.

Why do people watch the news they watch? One would have to assume it is entertaining and informative and in general reasonable by the given observer.

So which news organization do most people watch? Fox News.

Which only means they are popular, what about Trust in the Information? Fox News again.

Well, that could be due to them catering to conservatives? Public Policy Polling nationwide survey of 1,151 registered voters Jan. 18-19 found that 49 percent of Americans trusted Fox News, 10 percentage points more than any other network. 30 percent of Democrats polled said they trusted the network

Does this mean they are "Fair and Balanced" as they logo? Actually it does.

The non-partisan Center for Media and Public Affairs found only Fox News Offered Obama Historically Normal Scrutiny in 2009.

Lets taking something as politically charged as an election, a biased network would thow in for their ideology right? Apparently so unless your Fox News.

During coverage of the Massachusetts special election, CNN and MSNBC aired only a fraction of the Republican candidate's speech. CNN only ran 26% of Brown's speech 82% of Coakley, while MSNBC aired 37% of Browns 100% of Coakley. Fox News Channel carried 100% of both speeches.

Yeah, well what about Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly? Okay, yes FNC has conservative shows. Those biased shows are doing much better viewer ship then the biased alternatives.

Now for the shocker. I get the bulk of my news from news.google.com. Which is a portal type site for all the news organization. The next place I usually hit is The Telegraph website (it is a United Kingdom site). Next I hit Mother Jones Headlines, then TownHall.com.

If I have some reading time then Newsbusters or Rush Limbaugh. I should note that these sites are a quick read then following the provided source links to re-read.

As far as FNC goes, I occasionally watch O'Reilly. I never have watched an entire show. I will catch the talking heads if there is something breaking in the world or elections that I am watching. Other then that I steer clear of televised news.

So when you hear someone spouting on and name calling the liberal assumption that people in general are stupid. Remember this is the product of intellectual elitism. Do not fall for that.

These folks believe you should live, watch, read, eat, believe, and think like they do.

Virus on my sons PC

There is an ongoing trend of pop-up webpages that attempt to simulate anti-virus programs. The nasty thing about these is what they do to a system.

If you click anyplace on the screen you have the potential of installing software. If you have Vista or Windows 7 you will get a window asking if you really want to install. Windows XP, it just does it, unless your system has anti-malware that is up to snuff.

Best way to get out of this if you don't? Bring up the task manager, and stop the process. In some cases you have to stop the Explorer.exe process itself! I am fairly hands off PC guy at home. I will give instruction but I am loathe to have my kids rely on anyone directly intervening.

When my kids wanted a CD burner, I pointed them were they could find pricing and features. After one was purchased I left it up to them to install. My daughter built her first PC from parts I had secured, I did have to step in on some of the more perplexing bits. All in all it has been a pretty good policy. I have been big on having backups on flash drives and saving big documents often.

So last night my son described what could only be a Trojan style virus as pictured above. A quick visual and assurance that he had not clicked anyplace on the window, had me issue instructions.

Reboot your computer into safe mode. You do this by spamming the F8 key.

Run a virus scan while in safe mode. Fix\Repair\Delete the bad mojo.

Run the cleaner software after that.

Reboot and see the results in Regular mode.

He did (there was some questioning around the F8 key working as it should). Upon Reboot the malware re-asserted its alpha dog status. It quickly became apparent that it wanted to take me on. To which I say "BRING IT!"

Hard shut down (holding the power button for around 10 seconds).

Reboot and spam the F8 key (hitting it over and over until the DOS text looking screen comes up)

Boot into safe mode. Pull up the Registry and start looking for the installation tracks.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Desktop Security 2010
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Desktop Security 2010
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon “Shell” = “C:\Program Files\Desktop Security 2010\Desktop Security 2010.exe”
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\User Agent\Post Platform “Desktop Security 2010″
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run “”
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run “Desktop Security 2010″
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run “SecurityCenter”

Google the offending item and see that it is a nasty one. Further it looks like it installed a bunch of other random crap as well as infected the System Restore file. Ugh...

Pull out the batman utility belt (my flashdrive). Webroot spysweeper, CCleaner, Revo Uninstaller. Then some followup dective work shows me that AVG and Defender are compromised. Further they have not been updated in quite some time.

Which means a Dad lecture about safe computing to follow...

Uninstall the offending programs, reboot to safe mode + networking and install the latest version, update and scan. Suprise it actually finds some hidden nasties as well.

Windows update and grab the security updates and one final scan. "This house is clean"

A reboot and nary a sign of the nasty. I re-started system restore and started gathering my copious piles of notes, graphs and charts for the lecture...

How Taxing works

Why is it that anytime there is the suggestion of lower taxes it is viewed as “Helping the rich”?

Suppose that every day, ten men go to the bar, and drank exactly $100 worth of beer among them. If they paid their bill similar to how you pay taxes, the breakdown would be roughly as follows:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank contentedly together in the saloon bar until the barkeep, meaning to be helpful, presented them with a dilemma.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “you’re my best customers. To show you how much I appreciate your patronage, I’d like to give you a discount. From now on, I’ll knock $20 of the total bill for your drinks”.

Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group wanted to carry on splitting their bill in the same way. So, the first four men, those least well off, would continue to enjoy free beer. What of the other six? How could they divide the $20 discount in such a way that everyone got his fair share of the windfall?

They realised that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was. This is how the bill now looked.

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100 per cent saving).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33 per cent saving).

The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28 per cent saving).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25 per cent saving).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22 per cent saving).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16 per cent saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to enjoy free booze. But, as they left the pub, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a buck out of the $20 saving,” declared the sixth man. ”Why should he get $10?” - Referring to the tenth.

“Your right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a buck as well. It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!”

“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back, when I got two measly dollars? The system is rigged in favour of the Rich!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. It’s always the worst off who get neglected!”

The nine men dragged the tenth into the carpark and gave beat the crap out of him.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beer without him. But when the bill came, they found that their money didn’t even cover half of it.

The point is that any general tax cut is bound to favor the people paying the most already.

Of course, if your objective is equality rather than prosperity, you can design a fiscal system around the expropriation of the tenth man. But, he is unlikely to hang around waiting for you to apply it.

Oregon Land of the Unemployed and overtaxed!

I started ThinkOregon to shed light on the economic pain that hard-working Oregonians are dealing with each day. My daytime job provides a unique perspective on a fairly broad cross-section of the state's economy, and how hard the recession has hit Oregonians.

Writing in this journal has also broaden my perspective: I now have a deeper appreciation for how economically interconnected we all are. There is truth in "what happens to one of us, happens to all of us."

I received an email from a reader last night that was very much like all the others. I've sanitized the identity of the author and included the bulk of it below. The theme is all too familiar: a dramatic reductions in revenues, layoffs and an underlying despair that, for some reason, this time, just penetrated me to the core.

Most "Vote Yes" supporters will read the email and immediately take out their calculators to figure out how much, if any, this ThinkOregon reader will have to pay if Measures 66 and 67 pass. They'll proclaim with great joy "see he only has to pay $XXX.XX ... isn't that a small price to pay for schools and social services?"

This myopia seems especially grievous to me. It's a gut wrenching exercise in futility to constantly have to point out the blinding glimpse of the obvious: opposition to Measures 66 and 67 have never been about any one tax bill, but rather the overall negative impact on Oregon's fragile economy.

I've never been concerned about the direct costs of Measures 66 and 67 on my own pocketbook. I am, however, deathly afraid of how it will change the spending habits of my customers... and the customers of other small business owners around the state.

The recession took trillions of dollars of spending power out of the economy and now hundreds of thousands of Oregonians on unemployment and food stamps live that reality each and every day.

Why is it so difficult for the "Vote Yes" campaign to see how Oregon businesses are dependent on the patronage of others? The details in the email below aren't nearly as important as the lesson of how we are so utterly dependent upon the spending habits of others.

The "Vote Yes" campaign's mantra of "it's only $150" is utterly misleading as it takes the focus off the economic disaster that will be caused by $733,000,000 in new, permanent and retroactive taxes. More spending power that will be drained from the customers of Oregon small businesses. More customers of Oregon businesses will change their spending patterns. And ultimately, more Oregon small businesses and their employees will suffer.

Yet the "Vote Yes" campaign seems content to push their way to head of the line -- past the jobless, past those hanging on by a thread -- to demand even more.

As we approach the end of this election, Oregonians don't need a calculator or an advanced degree in economics to decide how to vote... we simply need to see the forest for the trees.

Copy pasted from Here.