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The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Chatter

In this installment of 'CHATTER', I will be dealing with only one forum.

I have received four emails about this ... the questioning if the forum is still viable.

As a former member of the forum in question who has seen it 'go to hell in a hand basket' with the wing-nuts perverting it from its targeted demographic and from the mass exodus of other members due to those same said wing-nuts to other (and better forums) I can say without a doubt the forum in question is no longer viable.

The same old tired wing-nut fantasies and fallacies are all that one finds there - this on a forum 'supposedly' open, yet consistently proves itself not to be so, a forum which has nothing to do with politics but was invaded by the wing-nuts anyway and when those of saner and more reasoned demeanor objected and stood up to counter the wing-nuts they were systematically purged from the forum all the while being accused of the very things the wing-nuts were (and continue to) doing.

So, yes, the forum is no longer viable as a forum for their targeted demographic or anyone else of consequence for that matter.

Masked man sticks up convenience store with a Klingon sword

From the "You don't hear things like this everyday" Department:

A masked man armed with a Klingon Batleth robbed a 7-11, then tried it again at another convenience store, where the clerks laughed him out of the room.
The first robbery was reported at 1:50 a.m., at 145 N Spruce St. The clerk told police a white man in his 20s, wearing a black mask, black jacket, and blue jeans, entered the store with a weapon the clerk recognized from the Star Trek TV series.

The robber demanded money and left with an undisclosed amount.

A half hour later, police received a call from a 7-Eleven at 2407 N. Union Blvd., where a man matching the previous description entered the store with a similar weapon. He also demanded money from the store clerk. The clerk refused and the robber "transported" himself out of the store on foot.

Both clerks described the weapon as a Star Trek Klingon-type sword, called a "Batleth."

Masked Man Robs Convenience Stores With Klingon Sword: Clerks Recognize Sword As Batleth

Fossils found of 42-foot-long snake

 Wp-Content Uploads 2009-02-04T160323Z 01 Btre51318Lx00 Rtroptp 3 Science-Us-Snake-Giant Researchers have unveiled fossils of the world's largest snake, a 42-foot-long relative of the boa constrictor. Paleontologists from the University of Toronto dubbed the species Titanoboa cerrejonensis for the Cerrejón region of northern Colombia where they found the remains.

From Science News:
Analyses of the rocks surrounding the Titanoboa fossils suggest that the behemoth lived on coastal plains in a wet tropical rainforest, the same type of environment frequented today by anacondas, paleontologist Jason Head of the University of Toronto in Mississauga, Ontario, and his colleagues report.

However, the researchers speculate, the climate in which Titanoboa lived was much hotter than today’s. The maximum body size that a snake species can reach is related to the average annual temperature of the environment in which it lives.

And you wonder ... why archeology and paleontology are so much fun!? Things like this discovery that's why!

Bohemian Rhapsody


Queen

And I Quote

"The Obama girls love living in the White House.
One complaint, though. Sometimes, at midnight,
when the moon is full, they can hear the squeaking
hinges on Dick Cheney's coffin."

~ David Letterman

The Internet

The South Korean government will spend an estimated $24.6-billion to build a better internet infrastructure, so that every South Korean can have 1 Gbps service by 2012.
That's about 96 times faster than the 3-10Mbps service that's considered top notch (and at top dollar) in America.

Shoved greeter sues cop

From the "It's about time somebody did!" Department:

A 71-year-old Wal-Mart greeter who contends he was shoved to the ground by a Chattanooga detective when he asked the detective for a receipt and touched his arm has filed a federal damage lawsuit.

The Wal-Mart employee, Bill Walker, says in the suit that Chattanooga has a history of failing to discipline or otherwise prosecute its officers. The suit names the detective, an accompanying officer and the city.

Read the rest here.

Did You Know ...

Banks and lenders are cutting Americans' line of credit, even (or especially) for customers who pay on time.
And that the giant corporations that have received huge government bailouts with no strings attached are leading the way at cutting credit.

More in the Boston Globe.

Items in the News

... to screw the 'little guy'!

IBM is offering to help pay relocation costs for its laid-off employees -- if they'll move to India, China, Brazil, or other developing markets, and apply for work at IBM offices there.
More on this.

General Motors and Chrysler are using a portion of their bailout billions to sue the Obama administration over his decision to allow California and other states to enact more serious fuel standards.
More on this.

If you use your American Express card at Wal-Mart, they'll recalculate your credit score and possibly lower your credit limit or cancel your card.
More on this.

One of the shrub's and cabal's last-minute rule changes allows drug makers to more easily peddle their medicines for "off-label" -- non-approved -- uses.
More on this.

AT&T passes along fraudulent billing by third-party or fake phone companies, so you might want to check your bill closely.
More on this.

What they are saying

Some of what they are saying ...

James Cave says "I love this blog!"

Alison Holder says "Great job, keep it up."

Huong Peng says "Nice blog."

Horst Haberland says "Ich Lieben"

Patty Jensen says "Your blog opened my eyes, thank you."

Jennifer Lacky says " I look forward to reading this blog everyday."

B'rrrr Friggin' Rabbit

It's bloody cold outside right now!

We are going into the single digits overnight around here with the winds howling and no cloud cover to act as a blanket to keep what little warmth that is in the atmosphere close to the ground.

B'rrrr Friggin' Rabbit, Indeed!

Don't let the economic crisis get in the way of addressing global warming.


Addressing US lawmakers this past week, former Vice President Al Gore urged let them to not let the economic crisis get in the way of addressing global warming. Snip from transcript:
We have arrived at a moment of decision. Our home - Earth - is in grave danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, of course, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings.

Moreover, we must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization at a time when our country must simultaneously solve two other worsening crises. Our economy is in its deepest recession since the 1930s. And our national security is endangered by a vicious terrorist network and the complex challenge of ending the war in Iraq honorably while winning the military and political struggle in Afghanistan.

As we search for solutions to all three of these challenges, it is becoming clearer that they are linked by a common thread – our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels. As long as we continue to send hundreds of billions of dollars for foreign oil – year after year - to the most dangerous and unstable regions of the world, our national security will continue to be at risk.

As long as we continue to allow our economy to remain shackled to the OPEC rollercoaster of rising and falling oil prices, our jobs and our way of life will remain at risk.

Moreover, as the demand for oil worldwide grows rapidly over the longer term, even as the rate of new discoveries is falling, it is increasingly obvious that the roller coaster is headed for a crash. And we’re in the front car.

10-year-old dies, found hanged at school

A 10-year-old Illinois boy has died after he was found hanging from a hook in his elementary school bathroom.

Officials at Oakton Elementary School in Evanston called 911 after finding fifth grader Aquan Lewis unresponsive at about 3 p.m. Tuesday.

School janitor Elliott Lieteau says the boy had been pulled off a hook and was lying on the floor when he entered the restroom.
He says he performed CPR on the boy.

Anquan was pronounced dead early Wednesday at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

The Cook County medical examiner's office says Lewis was apparently found hanged.
Authorities have released few details about the incident.
But school district spokeswoman Patricia Markham called it an accident.

*****
She may call it an accident but the coroner says it was suicide.

What in the seven hells makes a 10-year-old commit suicide?!?!?!
There better be some serious questions being asked and answered in Illinois!

83 years after teen disappears, police reopen case

Talk about 'Cold Cases' ...

British detectives said this week they are looking into the 1926 disappearance of a 16-year-old after hearing new evidence about a deathbed confession made decades ago.
The investigation is believed to be one of the country's oldest cold case reviews ever.

Emma Alice Smith disappeared as she cycled between her home and a nearby railway station 83 years ago.
Her disappearance has been unsolved - and her body missing - ever since.
But that could soon change: David Wright, the teenager's great-nephew, said that he came forward to tell police about the confession, a long-held family secret.

Wright said his mother told him that in the 1950s, a man - whose identity has not been revealed - claimed responsibility for the teenager's death, but the confession was never made public.
Police also were not told at the time.

Wright's mother was told about the confession by her aunt, Emma Alice's sister, Lily, who died in 1995.
"A gentleman, on his deathbed sometime in 1952 to 1953, had confessed to killing her sister.
But she felt she was unable to bring it to light because her own father had just passed away," Wright said.
"It was also a very small community and to make an accusation like that would have been scandalous in those days."
Those sorts of things were hushed up or brushed under the carpet."

In December 2007, Wright broke the silence and went to police in Sussex, asking them to look into his great-aunt's disappearance.
Last month, they said they planned to reopen the case.
"I was very, very surprised when they said they would investigate it.
I didn't think anyone would be interested," he said.

Emma Alice had worked as a servant in a large house near her home in the village of Waldron, about 60 miles south of London.
She was the second of eight children; Wright's grandfather was Emma Alice's older brother.

Police said they want to find Emma's body for her family's sake rather than to make an arrest.
"The family are keen to trace the body of Emma, if that is possible, in order that she can be given a proper burial and laid to rest with her close family," said Detective Chief Inspector Trevor Bowles, of the Sussex Police Major Crime Branch.
"A number of local people have already assisted us and have been able to fill in some of the many gaps which exist."

Given the years which have passed, this is inevitably a difficult task.
"Detectives are fitting the cold case investigation around their existing caseload, Detective Inspector Mike Ashcroft said.
He said that officers, using maps of the time, have already identified the likely path Emma Alice would have taken, and that they will begin searching the ponds along the 2.5 mile route between her home and the railway station.
Experts have already assured the detectives that human remains will still be present, even after more than eight decades of decomposition.
"I'm pretty certain that if there's a body in a pond, we'll find it," Ashcroft said.

In an alternate universe ...

Former Gitmo inmates on Saudi wanted list

A Saudi government spokesman says 11 of the Saudis on its recently issued most wanted list are former Guantanamo detainees.

Gen. Mansour al-Turki of the Saudi Interior Ministry said that among the 85 people listed by the government, 11 had been released from the U.S. detention facility in Cuba and passed through government-sponsored rehabilitation programs.

A total of 117 Saudis have been freed from Guantanamo, al-Turki says, with the vast majority not getting into further trouble.

Monday, the Saudis issued a wanted list of Saudis and two Yemenis living abroad and suspected of involvement with al-Qaida.

Australian state on snake alert

The rain-battered residents in northeastern Australia were on alert today for snakes in their bathrooms and crocodiles in the road following repeated storms that have sent local wildlife in search of dry land or a safe haven.

More than half of Queensland state was declared a disaster area Tuesday because of the rains that started in late December and are expected to continue.

In Queensland's hardest-hit town of Ingham, David Harkin was preparing to evacuate after watching floods wash through his two-level home.

He said he's seen several snakes around his home since the latest storm hit Sunday.

"That's why I keep the broom here (at the front door) to chase the snakes away," he told reporters.

Some 2,900 homes have been damaged in Ingham and hundreds of people evacuated to a temporary shelter.

Science News

In Science news Today:

Health News

In Health news today:

DEA quits Bolivia

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has removed all its agents from Bolivia, complying with orders by President Evo Morales, officials said.

The DEA began pulling agents out several weeks ago and the last agents left Thursday, the Los Angeles Times reported. The development comes even as Bolivian officials say coca cultivation and cocaine processing are growing.

Read the rest here.

*****

Yeah, and if you believe it - I have this land about three miles east of Miami I am looking to unload, cheap!

The Mummy


Pinky and The Brain

Ten Most Disturbing ...

Check out the ten most disturbing animals on earth, here.

Something you should know

Here is something you should know.
But they won't tell you.

Top 25 Web Cams of 2008

If you are so inclined check out EarthCam's Top 25 Web Cams of 2008.

Environmental Foursome

The American Institute of Physics has a great resource in "The Discovery of Global Warming" -- a deep and long look at the history of climate science. If you're interested in understanding how the interdisciplinary scientific consensus on the reality of deadly human-caused climate change arose, this is the right place to start.
It is an epic story: the struggle of thousands of men and women over the course of a century for very high stakes. For some, the work required actual physical courage, a risk to life and limb in icy wastes or on the high seas. The rest needed more subtle forms of courage. They gambled decades of arduous effort on the chance of a useful discovery, and staked their reputations on what they claimed to have found. Even as they stretched their minds to the limit on intellectual problems that often proved insoluble, their attention was diverted into grueling administrative struggles to win minimal support for the great work. A few took the battle into the public arena, often getting more blame than praise; most labored to the end of their lives in obscurity. In the end they did win their goal, which was simply knowledge.

The scientists who labored to understand the Earth's climate discovered that many factors influence it. Everything from volcanoes to factories shape our winds and rains. The scientific research itself was shaped by many influences, from popular misconceptions to government funding, all happening at once. A traditional history would try to squeeze the story into a linear text, one event following another like beads on a string. Inevitably some parts are left out. Yet for this sort of subject we need total history, including all the players — mathematicians and biologists, lab technicians and government bureaucrats, industrialists and politicians, newspaper reporters and the ordinary citizen. This Web site is an experiment in a new way to tell a historical story. Think of the site as an object like a sculpture or a building. You walk around, looking from this angle and that. In your head you are putting together a rounded representation, even if you don't take the time to inspect every cranny. That is the way we usually learn about anything complex.

Climate Change Economics is an excellent, thorough and ongoing look at the economics of climate change mitigation. Aimed at legislators and people interested in policy implications of climate change, CCE offers a series of well-organized directories of white papers and technical information from a variety of sources for people trying to understand why it makes good economic sense to take immediate, drastic measures to curb emissions and mitigate the effects of anthropogenic climate change.
In practice, economists' analyses of the effects of climate change and the positive and negative returns to mitigation efforts have generally come to agree that a constant discount rate is not appropriate, and that the rate must generally decline over time. They do NOT agree on a rate at which to start the calculations, nor on the way in which the rate should be reduced over time.

Looking back at the table, it is obvious that the rate that applies at first - and how long it applies - will play a major role in the prevent value derived. Using a 5% rate for the first decade, for example, would leave under 62% of the FV in the PV, even if the discount rate used for the rest of time was zero. That is why many analysts claim that the discount rate for possibly catastrophic outcomes (possible but not known) should be negative relative to the known investment results, which would push calculations of PVs toward using the 0.6% rate rather than in the direction of the 7% rate.

This argument is not based on risk alone, which is what is used in investment analysis, but on the combination of risk and uncertainty, factors that combine to shape all forecasts, but especially those of processes and events about which we know relatively little, such as the processes of global climate change and species survival and extinction.

So the question of the initial discount rate used, and why it is used, is central to any analysis of the economics of climate change and alternative policies intended to slow the growth of greenhouse gasses.

A frequent shibboleth used by the climate change deniers is that the Medieval Warm Period -- a period of apparent global climate change in medieval times -- indicates that the Earth's climate rises and falls all the time, and that therefore, human beings don't cause global warming. In this paper, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration investigate the best scientific findings on the Medieval Warm Period hypothesis, with special emphasis on the massive, wide-ranging, independent UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They conclude that "the late 20th and early 21st centuries are likely the warmest period the Earth has seen in at least 1200 years."
In summary, it appears that the late 20th and early 21st centuries are likely the warmest period the Earth has seen in at least 1200 years. For a summary of the latest available research on the nature of climate during the "Medieval Warm Period", please see Box 6.4 of the IPCC 2007 Palaeoclimate chapter. To learn more about the "Medieval Warm Period", please read this review published in Climatic Change, written by M.K. Hughes and H.F. Diaz. (Click here for complete review reference). Discussion of the last 2,000 years, including the Medieval Warm Period, and regional patterns and uncertainties, appears in the National Research Council Report titled "Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years", available from the National Academy Press.

From Nature's excellent Climate Change section, excellent summation of the year's research into anthropogenic climate change -- that is, the hard scientific evidence from unbiased, independent scientists indicating that climate change is real, caused by humans, and dangerous to the planet.
4. The hockey stick holds up

A follow-up to the infamous 1998 'hockey stick' curve confirmed that the past two decades are the warmest in recent history. Climatologist Michael Mann's contentious graph has become a symbol of the fierce debates on evidence for global warming, to the extent that an independent investigation into the study was performed at the request of US Congressman Joe Barton. The 2006 report that resulted from the Barton enquiry criticized Mann and colleagues for their reliance on tree-ring data from bristlecone pines as a proxy to reconstruct Northern Hemisphere temperatures over the past 1,000 years. Although their earlier work had been largely vindicated, in September the same team revised their global surface temperature estimates for the past 2,000 years, using a greatly expanded set of proxies, including marine sediments, ice cores, coral and historical documents (Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 13252–13257; 2008). The team reconstructed global temperatures with and without inclusion of the tree-ring records: without their inclusion, the data showed that recent warming is greater than at any point in at least the past 1,300 years; inclusion of tree-ring data extended this period to at least 1,700 years. According to the Christian Science Monitor: "It still looks a lot like the much-battered, but still rink-ready stick of 1998. Today the handle reaches further back and it's a bit more gnarly. But the blade at the business end tells the same story."

The S word

... let it snow, let it snow, let it snow ...

A few inches of the white stuff is on the ground right now.
The weather gurus got it right this time.
(Of course they said we'd not see any snow here but higher in the mountains would)

Now everyone can go outside and make naked snow-angels or is that make snow-angels naked - I can't remember which way it goes right now.


Or maybe go for a hot fresh Kripsy Kreme!

Liars and Fools

Liars and Fools for the day are:


Meet the Press', Gregory lies saying Social Security will "pay out more than it's taking in by 2010"
That is mathematically impossible (even with the fuzzy numbers the repugicans are so fond of using in lieu of actual numbers).

Dimbulb: the shrub wasn't partisan
Oh, my gawd! Tell me another one, quick!

Faux's O'Really declares war on the New York Times after it calls him out on immigration
And they are quaking in their boots to be sure ... not!

CBO report debunks repugicans' stimulus talking point
It isn't hard to debunk any 'talking point' the repugicans spew ... a hunk of granite could (and probably has or will)

Washington Post's Kagan falsely claims OMB "has ordered a 10 percent cut in defense spending"
Well, that is a bold faced lie.

repugicans turn to Joe the Plumber (who's not a plumber) for economic advice on stimulus bill
Need I say more ...

Expect no penalty for Dick Armey's sexist comment on-air
Probably got this one right, more's the pity.

Wall Street Journal ignores reality in claiming US corporate tax rate "is higher than in all of Europe"
Damn, it must be wonderful in Fantasyland this time of year.

Faux News chooses tax delinquent Morris to criticize Daschle's tax problems
Ok, I get it - the old 'takes one to know one' thing, right?

Steele's uninformed new talking point: No government has ever created a job
If you need more proof he's an idiot read this drivel.

FAUX Business is still misrepresenting the CBO analysis of Obama's stimulus plan
Ok, is this new?

Faux's Brick mocks government acronym that doesn't exist
Thus living up to his moniker 'Brick' as in 'Thick as a ...'

ABC's Tapper ignored CBO report, advanced repugicans' claim that recovery bill is "not a stimulus plan"
Ignoring reality is just standard routine for these bozos.

Washington Times echoes recovery bill falsehoods on undocumented immigrants, ACORN
Again, are you surprised?

Man accused of threatening Obama pleads not guilty

A Colorado man accused of threatening to kill President Barack Obama and blow up a suburban Minneapolis mall has pleaded not guilty.

Twenty-year-old Timothy Gutierrez of Cortez appeared in federal court in Durango on Tuesday for arraignment and a detention hearing.

He was ordered detained without bond.

Gutierrez is charged with sending threatening e-mails to the FBI in Washington, D.C.

Prosecutors say the first e-mail threatened Obama, and the second said explosives would be used to damage or destroy property at the Mall of America.

Gutierrez has said the threats were a prank.

He turned himself in January 29th at the FBI's office in Durango.

*****

Hey, Gutierrez let me clue you in on something ... if it was - as you say - a prank ... t'weren't funny, McGee

Our Readers

Some of our readers today have been in:

Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
Morganton, North Carolina, United States
Sarajevo, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bucharest, Bucureste, Romania
Sheridan, Oregon, United States

Daily Horoscope

Today's horoscope says:

The work is coming in, and so is the money.

You bet it is!