Palin Lies - Numbers Don't

Sarah Palin by the Numbers

Sarah Palin may lie, but numbers don't

by Dan Kurtzman

Excerpt:

2007: the year in which Sarah Palin first obtained a passport

312: the number of nights during her first 19 months in office that Palin charged taxpayers
a "per diem" totaling $16,951 for staying in her own home -- an allowance intended to
cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business

$500 to $1,200: the fee that Wasilla charged rape victims to pay for post-sexual assault
medical exams, after the city cut funds during Palin's tenure that had previously covered the exams

$150: the cash payment offered by the Palin administration to hunters
who turn in legs of freshly killed wolves gunned down from airplanes

Read the rest here

Obama and the Forty-Year-Old Virgin

Obama and the 40-Year-Old Virgin
by Joe Conason

Excerpt:
Regrettably but predictably, the success of Obama has revived traditional knee-jerk racism
on the American far right – and the latest examples are more blatant than latent.

In Michigan, right-wing operatives are seeking to aggravate white Democrats by linking Obama
to Kwame Kilpatrick, the mayor of Detroit who leaves office today in a deal with prosecutors.
A brief clip of Obama praising Kilpatrick last year, long before his indictment, is the centerpiece
of an inflammatory ad appearing on cable channels in Macomb County outside Detroit, where
white Democratic voters reside who may be susceptible to such appeals to prejudice.

Behind the ad is "Freedom’s Defense Fund", a Washington-based PAC that is actually the
front for a group of Republican consultants affiliated with an outfit called BMW Direct Inc.
They specialize in racial politics, having put together a dubious “Black Republican PAC”
that deploys African-Americans to attack Democrats.

Read the rest here

Plants make aspirin-like chemical

When plants are stressed out, they generate aspirin-like chemicals. The aspirin isn't used to reduce headaches, primarily because plants don't have heads. Scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research detected significant quantities of methyl salicyate, a chemical form of aspirin, above a forest canopy. The capability of plants to emit the chemical had been known previously but only observed in a laboratory setting. From a press release:

(Lead researcher Thomas) Karl and his colleagues speculate that the methyl salicylate has two functions. One of these is to stimulate plants to begin a process known as systemic acquired resistance, which is analogous to an immune response in an animal. This helps a plant to both resist and recover from disease.

The methyl salicylate also may be a mechanism whereby a stressed plant communicates to neighboring plants, warning them of the threat. Researchers in laboratories have demonstrated that a plant may build up its defenses if it is linked in some way to another plant that is emitting the chemical. Now that the NCAR team has demonstrated that methyl salicylate can build up in the atmosphere above a stressed forest, scientists are speculating that plants may use the chemical to activate an ecosystem-wide immune response...

The discovery raises the possibility that farmers, forest managers, and others may eventually be able to start monitoring plants for early signs of a disease, an insect infestation, or other types of stress. At present, they often do not know if an ecosystem is unhealthy until there are visible indicators, such as dead leaves.

"A chemical signal is a very sensitive way to detect plant stress, and it can be an order of magnitude more effective than using visual inspections," Karl says.

"Plants in Forest Emit Aspirin Chemical to Deal with Stress"

Ike helps uncover mystery vessel on Alabama coast

When the waves from Hurricane Ike receded, they left behind a mystery - a ragged shipwreck that archaeologists say could be a two-masted Civil War schooner that ran aground in 1862 or another ship from some 70 years later.

The wreck, about six miles from Fort Morgan, had already been partially uncovered when Hurricane Camille cleared away sand in 1969.
Researchers at the time identified it as the Monticello, a battleship that partially burned when it crashed trying to get past the U.S. Navy and into Mobile Bay during the Civil War.

After examining photos of the wreck post-Ike, Museum of Mobile marine archaeologist Shea McLean agreed it is likely the Monticello, which ran aground in 1862 after sailing from Havana, according to Navy records.
"Based on what we know of ships lost in that area and what I've seen, the Monticello is by far the most likely candidate," McLean said. "You can never be 100 percent certain unless you find the bell with 'Monticello' on it, but this definitely fits."

Other clues indicate it could be an early 20th century schooner that ran aground on the Alabama coast in 1933.
The wrecked ship is 136.9 feet long and 25 feet wide, according to Mike Bailey, site curator at Fort Morgan, who examined it this week.

The Monticello was listed in shipping records as 136 feet long, McLean told the Press-Register of Mobile.

But Bailey said a 2000 report by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determined the remains were the schooner Rachel, built at Moss Point, Miss., in 1919 and wrecked near Fort Morgan in 1933.
He said the wreckage appears to have components, such as steel cables, that would point to the Rachel rather than an 1860s schooner.

Glenn Forest, another archaeologist who examined the wreck, said a full identification would require an excavation.
"It's a valuable artifact," he said. "They need to get this thing inside before it falls apart or another storm comes along and sends it through those houses there like a bowling ball."

Meanwhile, curious beach-goers have been drawn to the remains of the wooden hull filled with rusted iron fittings.

Fort Morgan was used by Confederate soldiers as Union forces attacked in 1864 during the Battle of Mobile Bay.

"It's interesting, I can tell you that," said Terri Williams. "I've lived down here most of my life and I've never seen anything like this, and it's been right here."

Carter had a powerful energy idea

Jay Hakes
Sunday, April 22, 2007

Thirty years ago this month, a solemn Jimmy Carter sat behind the historic Resolute desk in the Oval Office to announce to a prime-time national television audience his new comprehensive energy plan. In the most memorable line of the evening, the president declared the challenge of energy "the moral equivalent of war."

The Carter energy strategy was both praised for its ambition (the written version had 113 parts) and derided for its interventionism -- critics tried to brand it with the acronym MEOW.

Contrary to common mythology, Carter was far from a lonely voice calling for strenuous action. After the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74, both of his predecessors, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, called energy the nation's top priority and set an ambitious goal for "energy independence" (eliminating reliance on foreign oil by 1980, no less).

New Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, D-Mass., gave energy such high priority that he immediately took the unprecedented step of establishing an omnibus committee headed by Rep. Thomas "Lud" Ashley, D-Ohio, to shepherd the complex Carter plan quickly through the House. Congress scuttled Carter's recommended gasoline tax, and a bitter divide over natural gas deregulation in the Senate stalled the whole energy package for a year and a half. But with considerable support on both sides of the aisle, most of his plan did become law.

Similarly, when the Iranian revolution led to another severe oil shortage in 1979, Carter took the politically dangerous step of starting to decontrol crude oil prices by executive order and produced a flurry of energy bills, many of which also won eventual congressional approval.

Calls for energy independence continue to reverberate through the energy debates of today. On the whole, however, the rhetoric of that earlier era creates considerable dissonance for the modern ear.

In his address of April 18, 1977, Carter used the word "sacrifice" (or "sacrifices") eight times and argued: "Conservation is the quickest, cheapest, most practical source of energy." He repeatedly decried the "waste" of scarce fuels. Moreover, energy plans in the 1970s set bold goals and put meat on the bones to achieve them. Nixon, Ford and Carter called for sharp drops in oil imports and Carter set a goal of obtaining a fifth of America's needs from renewable energy by the turn of the century. Ford and Congress set strict standards for automobile fuel efficiency to offset high-priced foreign oil.

To help displace fossil fuels, Carter and Congress established generous tax incentives for solar energy and gasohol -- now called ethanol. U.S. use of renewables remains at 6 percent, the same as when Carter took office, but the European Union last month raised eyebrows by calling for the same 20 percent goal for renewables by 2020.

Since oil imports have risen from 9 million barrels a day in 1977 to the current level of 12 million, there has been a tendency to view the efforts of Carter and others to cut reliance on oil from unstable sources as quixotic. But a closer look at the data shows otherwise.

By the time Carter left office, imports had dropped to 7 million barrels a day. Within a few years, they fell to 5 million. The plunge was the result of higher oil prices, a weak economy, the Alaska oil pipeline and new federal policies such as the auto efficiency standards. The slide in oil imports defanged the grip of oil-exporting countries on the world market and helped achieve considerable independence from foreign suppliers.

Since then, the trend of oil imports, rather than a straight line upward, has been a hockey stick. Foreign deliveries dropped sharply and then (after earlier supply and conservation efforts were largely abandoned) started a new upward trajectory, allowing OPEC to again seize control of the market early in 2000.

The largely unremembered "victory" in the war on imported oil was temporary. It is still worth noting, however, in an age when many think that making dramatic cuts in the security risks of dependence on Persian Gulf oil or in greenhouse gases resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels is just too difficult.

It remains to be seen whether America has the appetite for a new moral equivalent of war to deal with oil imports and climate change. But the lesson of the successes in the earlier war is that we shouldn't operate under the delusion that efforts to deal with these great challenges -- which are indeed daunting -- have to prove fruitless.

Jay Hakes, head of the Energy Information Administration from 1993 to 2000, is director of the Carter Presidential Library.

Unknown Mozart fragment found in French library

Though I am not the biggest Mozart fan out there this is exciting ...

It's a forgotten melody, sketched in black ink in a swift but sure hand.
The single manuscript page, long hidden in a provincial French library, has been verified as the work of Mozart, the apparent underpinnings for a Mass he never composed.

The previously undocumented music fragment gives insight into Mozart's evolving composition style and provides a clue about the role religion may have played for the composer as his life neared its turbulent end, one prominent Mozart expert says.

A library in Nantes, western France, has had the fragment in its collection since the 19th century, but it had never been authenticated until now, partly because it does not bear Mozart's signature.

Ulrich Leisinger, head of research at the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, Austria, said Thursday that there is no doubt that the single sheet, the top third of which has been cut off, was written by the composer.
"His handwriting is absolutely clearly identifiable," he added. "There's no doubt that this is an original piece handwritten by Mozart."Leisinger said the work had been "entirely forgotten."

Such a find is rare: The last time unknown music in Mozart's handwriting came to light was in 1996, when a portion of an aria was sold at Christie's, Leisinger said.
The library does not plan to sell, but if it did, the single sheet would likely be worth around $100,000, the expert said.

In all, only about 100 such examples of musical drafts by Mozart are known.
There have been up to 10 Mozart discoveries of such importance over the past 50 years, Leisinger said.
The sheet was bequeathed to Nantes' library by a collector in the 19th century, along with one letter from Mozart as well as one from his father.
Both the letters were published in Mozart's complete correspondence, said Agnes Marcetteau, director of Nantes' municipal library.
In an annotation dated Aug. 18, 1839, Aloys Fuchs, a well-respected autograph hunter who collected works from more than 1,500 musicians, authenticated that the handwriting was that of "W.A. Mozart."
But strangely, the work never attracted much attention, partly because it did not bear Mozart's signature and partly because the catalog notation about it was extremely brief and bland, Leisinger said.

The library contacted Leisinger to authenticate the work last year.

Some of the first part of the fragment is in D minor, while the second is in D major and marked "Credo" - a major clue that the work is a sketch for a Mass, which typically includes such a movement, said Robert D. Levin, a professor at Harvard University who is well-known for completing unfinished works by Mozart.

Circumstantial evidence, including the type of paper, suggests Mozart did not write the material before 1787, said Leisinger.
Mozart died in 1791 at the age of 35.
"What this sketch leaf confirms in a most vivid way is Mozart's true interest in writing church music toward the end of his life," Levin said.
Mozart had planned to become the choir and music director of Vienna's main cathedral, although he died before he could take up the post.
But because Mozart had become a Freemason, some have questioned the sincerity of his interest in religious composition at that period of his life, Leisinger said.
Mozart's famous Requiem, unfinished at his death, was commissioned by a mysterious benefactor.

But the rediscovered fragment likely stemmed from inspiration alone and suggests "to a certain degree that being a Freemason and a Roman Catholic was not a real contradiction" in Mozart's eyes, Leisinger said.

For anyone who wants to try sight-reading the fragment, a bit of detective work is required. Musicians must work out the key signature and clef based on other clues in the music. The tempo is also mysterious.
And there is no orchestration.
"It's a melody sketch, so what's missing is the harmony and the instrumentation, but you can make sense out of it," Leisinger said. "The tune is complete."

Philip Gossett, a music historian and a professor in music at the University of Chicago, urged caution about interpreting the fragment.
"It is certainly not something that can just be scored up and played as Mozart's," he said.
Nonetheless, modern-day composers are going to take a crack at an orchestration.
And in January of next year, the Nantes library says, Mozart's 18th century Mass is expected to have its first performance.

Green Living Guidelines

Defining Green

Good news for you, Kermit: It's not that hard being green anymore. Products claiming green status seem to be popping up all over, and support for the concept has almost become a given. In fact, the only hard part now is pinning down exactly what it means to be green.

Joyce Mason, vice-president of marketing for California's Pardee Homes, has an answer. The company built its first Energy Star home in 1998 and has built 3,000 energy-efficient houses with environmentally friendly materials since 2001. Here's this residential builder's definition of green:

• Minimizes the use of nonrenewable energy, water, and other natural resources.
• Provides a house with a healthy indoor environment built in a community with a healthy outdoor environment.
• Uses products that reduce harmful effects on the environment.
• Controls house size.
• Designs appropriately for the climate zone.
• Treats a house as a system of interrelated components.

The company matches products with these principles in four categories (more to follow on each):

• Energy smart
• Earth smart
• Health smart
• Water smart

Energy-Smart Products

Many products that reduce harmful effects on the environment are on the market now. Often they are simple and inexpensive, offering green benefits whether you're planning to build or remodel. Others are practical only when the cost can be incorporated into a mortgage; this way the upfront cost can be spread over time and made up for in savings on your monthly utility bill. Here's a short list.

• Programmable thermostat
• Compact fluorescent lighting
• Adequate insulation and home sealing
• Energy Star appliances
• Energy-saving home electronics
• Solar water heater
• Tankless water heater
• Energy-efficient windows and doors
• High-efficiency heating and cooling
• Photovoltaic solar cells

Earth-Smart Materials

Minimizing the use of nonrenewable resources usually involves the intentional selection of alternative materials in building and remodeling. This is partly behind the upsurge in the popularity of bamboo flooring, for example. Such products have to be attractive, durable, and reasonably priced to attract attention -- and many companies are working to provide these products. Here are some other examples.

• Engineered structural wood products are manufactured from fast-growing trees and recycled wood chips, thus helping to safeguard old-growth forests.
• Rapidly renewing wood flooring also protects old-growth forests. Examples include lyptus (a fast-growing eucalyptus that looks like cherry or mahogany), cork, and bamboo.
• Recycled content carpet, commonly known as "pop bottle carpet," uses plastic and recovered textiles and is more resilient and colorfast than conventional carpet.
• Cellulose attic insulation is made from recycled newspaper and sprayed in for superior sealing.

Health-Smart Approaches

One common concern for parents in recent years has been the effect of dust and residue from lead in paint. Radon has also been a big issue. Evidence of how important both of these home health issues has become is that disclosures are now typically required as part of any residential real estate transaction.

Creating and maintaining a healthy home environment is obviously important for anyone with allergies or heightened sensitivity to noxious odors or pollutants. But today's consumers are becoming more attuned to these issues regardless of special needs, and that's a good thing for everyone. Consider these highly effective product solutions for a healthy home.

• Low- or no-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints
• Central dehumidification to reduce mold and mildew
• Central air purification and ventilation systems
• Central-vacuum system
• Flooring that doesn't harbor dust

Water-Smart Products and Techniques

The main water issues in the home are purification and conservation. Great strides have been made in both areas in recent years. One of the more interesting advances is permeable pavement, which is especially effective at helping filter chemicals that leak from cars parked in the driveway. Here are more examples.

• Drought-tolerant plants reduce the amount of time and money you'll spend on irrigation.
• Xeriscaping challenges the assumption that grass should always be the dominant design element of a yard and lets the climate determine what makes the most sense.
• Water-efficient appliances such as front-loading washing machines have attracted great consumer interest, and low-flow showerheads and toilets have been mandated by law.
• Water purification devices that use carbon to remove contaminants and reverse osmosis systems are effective in the home.
• Permeable pavement lets rainwater seep through, which reduces runoff and allows the soil underneath to act as a natural filter.

All in a day's work ...

Another day, another milestone.

All in a day's work.

Cafferty File

Do you think the repugicans are listening?!

Nah, me either!

Celebrate it today

It's International Talk Like A Pirate Day today, so don't forget to talk like a pirate today!

Some Ike victims may not be allowed to rebuild

Now if this isn't a fine kettle of fish!

Hundreds of people whose beachfront homes were wrecked by Hurricane Ike may be barred from rebuilding under a little-noticed Texas law.
And even those whose houses were spared could end up seeing them condemned by the state.

Now here's the saltwater in the wound: It could be a year before the state tells these homeowners what they may or may not do.
Worse, if these homeowners do lose their beachfront property, they may get nothing in compensation from the state.

The reason: A 1959 law known as the Texas Open Beaches Act. Under the law, the strip of beach between the average high-tide line and the average low-tide line is considered public property, and it is illegal to build anything there.

Over the years, the state has repeatedly invoked the law to seize houses in cases where a storm eroded a beach so badly that a home was suddenly sitting on public property.
The aftermath of Ike could see the biggest such use of the law in Texas history.

FEMA Says No to Ice For Hurricane Survivors

Hurricane survivors are being put at risk in Texas and other hot weather states because the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is no longer providing ice in relief situations, say watchdogs, relief workers and local leaders in Hurricane Alley.

"It's frustrating that the government can deliver $85 billion to bail out AIG, and they can't deliver ice in Texas," said Ben Smilowitz, executive director of the Disaster Accountability Project (DAP), a nonpartisan organization that monitors the nation's disaster response system.

*****

Just remember boys, when any catastrophe strikes (other than a large corporation or financial institution ran into the ground and the Fed rushes in to bailout the uber-wealthy) you're on your own!