Drive Like A Dumb Ass Day

Announcing the first annual “Drive Like A Dumb Ass Day” to be held January 31, 2008.

We dedicate the first annual event to the person driving the State Highway Patrol car, license MHP J46 northbound on highway 49 at about 15:30 on 21 December, 2007.

The honoree first came to our attention south of McGee as he rushed up on traffic still accelerating. Said driver was last seen headed in the direction of Mendenhall at speeds well in excess of 90 mph.

Potential defenders may save their breath. Passing through the town of McGee he slowed to the speed limit, clearing traffic only by tailgating dangerously.

Even though the distance described is far too great for lights or sirens to have given his presence away, the driver at no time so much as blinked his blues or blipped the siren.

The committee is now accepting nominations for other identifiable examples of “Above the law” officers at all levels of enforcement.

We strongly recommend notifying the appropriate authorities when such information is available however, we caution against including identifiable information about yourself, especially if you are routinely in the jurisdiction of the offender.

The appropriate address in this case, for those interested, is: ColonelMHP@mdps.state.ms.us

A Convert

No, I didn't suddenly decide I believe man is the sole, or even primary, cause of global warming.

I have converted to Pastafarianism.



Now, can I have shrimp in my spaghetti tonight? I must ask others who are more familiar with the gospel.

For those who would know more about the FSM, I recommend this page:

http://www.venganza.org/flash/guidetopastafarianismpreloaded.swf

Highway Safety: Safety Enforcement

We’ve talked a good bit about safety enforcement in Speed Limits. Now lets look at some of the other things they can do.

Work Zones They’re a pet peeve of mine. I don’t know of anyone with an intelligent argument against lowered speeds where people are working. Can’t find one myself.

I can and will argue work zones have to be controlled intelligently for the safety of both the workers and road users.

I’ll begin by defining a couple of terms. Work Zone: A short area where work is actually taking place. Construction Zone: An area of varying length, where the roadway is in normal condition, where work may take place anytime within the next 15 to 30 days.

Unfortunately, many states have confused a construction zone with a work zone. This leads to many miles of reduced speed marking with no sign of work. That often results in drivers forgetting or ignoring the temporary limit. Then, with no additional warning, they come across workers. Well, sometimes. We’ve all driven through construction zones, sometimes for months, and never seen so much as someone leaning on a shovel, places where modern descendants of the Shoemaker’s Elves must be doing the work. Is it any wonder those speed limits are ignored?

The solution is amazingly simple, only been around for a few decades. Mark the construction zones. Then post reduced speeds and other restrictions with portable signs where workers really are present.

Wonder how many worker lives that simple change could save?

LLBs are another peeve of mine. They’re the Left Lane Bandits squatting in the left lane causing other drivers to change lanes to get around them. Does anyone beside me remember most states have laws clearly saying the left lane is for overtaking? (MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, SEC. 63-3-603: (d) Upon all roadways any vehicle proceeding at less than the normal speed of traffic at the time and place and under the conditions then existing shall be driven in the right-hand lane then available for traffic, or as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway, except when overtaking and passing another vehicle proceeding in the same direction or when preparing for a left turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway.)

LLBs are a big segment of a whole group of traffic disruptors. Other members include trucks blowing stuff out of the bed causing drivers to dodge trash, rocks, and whatever else they’re spreading. These are particularly dangerous as trash flying towards your windshield may cause a flinch resulting in sudden hard braking or even a lane change without proper checking.

Neither last nor least, are those drivers jumping lanes, weaving, or otherwise driving erratically – at any speed – they’re about as dangerous to others as you can get.

My bet is redirection of “safety enforcement” from speed to traffic disruptors alone would increase safety by 20 percent. But it won’t happen.

Speeding tickets are too big a revenue source for the government to give up just for safety.


-------------------------------
First post in the series.

McAfee, You Call This Customer Service?

The following is an exchange with McAfee Customer Support when I tried to suggest they need a way to schedule updates for some time when it will not disrupt normal operations.

Let me preface this by saying I like McAfee better than the Norton/Symantec product it replaced.

The exchange:

RE: McAfee Customer Service - Service Request #46390186 (#6356-84950329-6680)‏
From: My Name
Sent: Fri 10/26/07 10:47 AM
To: McAfee Customer Support


I call this a completly useless response. It says:

"If you want technical support, you must join a chat board. In addition, you must know enough about our product to figure out which area your question belongs in."

"Alternatively, you can spend time in a chat mode even though all you want to do is drop a note requesting a product improvement."

To use a comon phrase, this is piss poor customer support.





> Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:34:06 -0700
> From:
> To:
> Subject: RE: McAfee Customer Service - Service Request #46390186 (#6356-84950329-6680)
>
> Dear McAfee Customer,
>
> My sincerest apologies for the inconvenience you have experienced.
>
> We encourage our customers to contact our Technical Support Team directly so that they can assist you real-time with resolving the issue. You can contact our Technical Support Team via free internet chat by following the steps below:
>
> 1. Go to http://service.mcafee.com/TechSupportHome.aspx?lc=1033&sg=TS
> 2. Run McAfee Virtual Technician before you go to Chat.
> 4. Click on Continue but disregard the FAQ search page
> 5. Click on Chat and Email icon (on the left side of the page)
> 6. Choose your Country from the dropdown list and click Next
> 7. Click on Free Internet Chat then Next
> 8. Fill in the required information and click on Submit
> 9. Click on Download Chat Client
> 10. Click on Run and follow the prompts
>
> If you require further assistance, please reply to this email with the previous correspondence. Your reference number for this incident is 47600302.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> _______________.
> McAfee CS-Tier 1
>
> Safe online? Avoid dangerous web sites using McAfee SiteAdvisor™ — a FREE download from http://www.siteadvisor.com?cid=27092
> Don’t search or surf without it!
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: My Name
> Sent: Oct 25, 2007 10:49:59 AM
> Subject: RE: McAfee Customer Service - Service Request #46390186 (#6356-84950329-6680)
>
>
> It appears Cuatomer Support didn;t forward this to tech support when they realized that's where it needs to be.
>
> Might I suggest this is someething McAfee should consider a CS problem, the lack of internal communications.
>
> > Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:00:24 -0700
> From: >
To: >
Subject: RE: McAfee Customer Service - Service Request #46390186 (#6356-84950329-6680)>

> Dear McAfee Customer, >

> Thank you for contacting McAfee Customer Service. >

> As much as I would like to help you resolve your issue, I deeply regret that I cannot personally assist you because we at Customer Service, are not trained to handle technical issues and do not have the tools to correct such errors. >

> McAfee offers free and comprehensive technical support options. To avail free solutions to your concerns, please follow these steps:>

> 1. Go to http://service.mcafee.com
> 2. Click on the Technical Support link
> 3. Choose the appropriate Free Technical Support Options available: McAfee Virtual Technician, Frequently Asked Questions/Search, and Chat/Email>

> If you wish to speak to our online Technicians, you may choose our Fee-Based Support Options available. To do so, please follow these steps:>
> 1. Go to http://service.mcafee.com/LocaleSelect.aspx?lc=1033&sg=TS&pt=2&st=PHONE
> 2. Choose your appropriate Country and click on the Next button
> 3. Select the service option available>
> Should you need further assistance, please reply to this email including the previous correspondence. Your service request number for this incident is 46390186. > >

> Sincerely, >
> McAfee CS-Tier 1>
> Safe online? Avoid dangerous web sites using McAfee SiteAdvisor™ — a FREE download from http://www.siteadvisor.com?cid=27092.> Don’t search or surf without it!> > >

 -----Original Message----->
 From:
 Sent: Oct 24, 2007 7:57:05 AM
 > Subject: McAfee Customer Service - Service Request #46390186>
 > Thank you for contacting McAfee Consumer Support. >
 > We have recently opened a Service Request for support based on the information you provided us at our support website. Below you will find the details of this request for your reference.>
 > - Order #: > - Service Request #: 46390186> - Created Date:
 > - Description: We need a way to set the time automatic updates occur. Download and install temporarly takes over the system. I want to move it to the middle of the nught.>
 > If there is one, I can't find it.>
 > Thanks>

 > Please feel free to visit us at http://service.mcafee.com for all of your McAfee related support needs.>

 > Sincerely,
 > McAfee Consumer Support

 > EN> >

Global Warming Delusions (Lifted From the WSJ)

Because it's too important to risk losing when they rearrange:

BE NOT AFRAID

Global Warming Delusions
The popular imagination has been captured by beliefs that have little scientific basis.

BY DANIEL B. BOTKIN
Sunday, October 21, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

Global warming doesn't matter except to the extent that it will affect life--ours and that of all living things on Earth. And contrary to the latest news, the evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin. Most evidence suggests the contrary.

Case in point: This year's United Nations report on climate change and other documents say that 20% to 30% of plant and animal species will be threatened with extinction in this century due to global warming--a truly terrifying thought. Yet, during the past 2.5 million years, a period that scientists now know experienced climatic changes as rapid and as warm as modern climatological models suggest will happen to us, almost none of the millions of species on Earth went extinct. The exceptions were about 20 species of large mammals (the famous megafauna of the last ice age--saber-tooth tigers, hairy mammoths and the like), which went extinct about 10,000 to 5,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, and many dominant trees and shrubs of northwestern Europe. But elsewhere, including North America, few plant species went extinct, and few mammals.

We're also warned that tropical diseases are going to spread, and that we can expect malaria and encephalitis epidemics. But scientific papers by Prof. Sarah Randolph of Oxford University show that temperature changes do not correlate well with changes in the distribution or frequency of these diseases; warming has not broadened their distribution and is highly unlikely to do so in the future, global warming or not.

The key point here is that living things respond to many factors in addition to temperature and rainfall. In most cases, however, climate-modeling-based forecasts look primarily at temperature alone, or temperature and precipitation only. You might ask, "Isn't this enough to forecast changes in the distribution of species?" Ask a mockingbird. The New York Times recently published an answer to a query about why mockingbirds were becoming common in Manhattan. The expert answer was: food--an exotic plant species that mockingbirds like to eat had spread to New York City. It was this, not temperature or rainfall, the expert said, that caused the change in mockingbird geography.





You might think I must be one of those know-nothing naysayers who believes global warming is a liberal plot. On the contrary, I am a biologist and ecologist who has worked on global warming, and been concerned about its effects, since 1968. I've developed the computer model of forest growth that has been used widely to forecast possible effects of global warming on life--I've used the model for that purpose myself, and to forecast likely effects on specific endangered species.
I'm not a naysayer. I'm a scientist who believes in the scientific method and in what facts tell us. I have worked for 40 years to try to improve our environment and improve human life as well. I believe we can do this only from a basis in reality, and that is not what I see happening now. Instead, like fashions that took hold in the past and are eloquently analyzed in the classic 19th century book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," the popular imagination today appears to have been captured by beliefs that have little scientific basis.

Some colleagues who share some of my doubts argue that the only way to get our society to change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe, and that therefore it is all right and even necessary for scientists to exaggerate. They tell me that my belief in open and honest assessment is naïve. "Wolves deceive their prey, don't they?" one said to me recently. Therefore, biologically, he said, we are justified in exaggerating to get society to change.

The climate modelers who developed the computer programs that are being used to forecast climate change used to readily admit that the models were crude and not very realistic, but were the best that could be done with available computers and programming methods. They said our options were to either believe those crude models or believe the opinions of experienced, data-focused scientists. Having done a great deal of computer modeling myself, I appreciated their acknowledgment of the limits of their methods. But I hear no such statements today. Oddly, the forecasts of computer models have become our new reality, while facts such as the few extinctions of the past 2.5 million years are pushed aside, as if they were not our reality.

A recent article in the well-respected journal American Scientist explained why the glacier on Mt. Kilimanjaro could not be melting from global warming. Simply from an intellectual point of view it was fascinating--especially the author's Sherlock Holmes approach to figuring out what was causing the glacier to melt. That it couldn't be global warming directly (i.e., the result of air around the glacier warming) was made clear by the fact that the air temperature at the altitude of the glacier is below freezing. This means that only direct radiant heat from sunlight could be warming and melting the glacier. The author also studied the shape of the glacier and deduced that its melting pattern was consistent with radiant heat but not air temperature. Although acknowledged by many scientists, the paper is scorned by the true believers in global warming.

We are told that the melting of the arctic ice will be a disaster. But during the famous medieval warming period--A.D. 750 to 1230 or so--the Vikings found the warmer northern climate to their advantage. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie addressed this in his book "Times of Feast, Times of Famine: A History of Climate Since the Year 1000," perhaps the greatest book about climate change before the onset of modern concerns with global warming. He wrote that Erik the Red "took advantage of a sea relatively free of ice to sail due west from Iceland to reach Greenland. . . . Two and a half centuries later, at the height of the climatic and demographic fortunes of the northern settlers, a bishopric of Greenland was founded at Gardar in 1126."

Ladurie pointed out that "it is reasonable to think of the Vikings as unconsciously taking advantage of this [referring to the warming of the Middle Ages] to colonize the most northern and inclement of their conquests, Iceland and Greenland." Good thing that Erik the Red didn't have Al Gore or his climatologists as his advisers.





Should we therefore dismiss global warming? Of course not. But we should make a realistic assessment, as rationally as possible, about its cultural, economic and environmental effects. As Erik the Red might have told you, not everything due to a climatic warming is bad, nor is everything that is bad due to a climatic warming.
We should approach the problem the way we decide whether to buy insurance and take precautions against other catastrophes--wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes. And as I have written elsewhere, many of the actions we would take to reduce greenhouse-gas production and mitigate global-warming effects are beneficial anyway, most particularly a movement away from fossil fuels to alternative solar and wind energy.

My concern is that we may be moving away from an irrational lack of concern about climate change to an equally irrational panic about it.

Many of my colleagues ask, "What's the problem? Hasn't it been a good thing to raise public concern?" The problem is that in this panic we are going to spend our money unwisely, we will take actions that are counterproductive, and we will fail to do many of those things that will benefit the environment and ourselves.

For example, right now the clearest threat to many species is habitat destruction. Take the orangutans, for instance, one of those charismatic species that people are often fascinated by and concerned about. They are endangered because of deforestation. In our fear of global warming, it would be sad if we fail to find funds to purchase those forests before they are destroyed, and thus let this species go extinct.

At the heart of the matter is how much faith we decide to put in science--even how much faith scientists put in science. Our times have benefited from clear-thinking, science-based rationality. I hope this prevails as we try to deal with our changing climate.

Mr. Botkin, president of the Center for the Study of the Environment and professor emeritus in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the author of "Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-First Century" (Replica Books, 2001).

Highway Safety: Speed Limits

So far, we’ve agreed states have a responsibility to provide safe highways. I think we’ve also agreed speed limits are one of the major ways of providing safe travel.

How are speed limits set?

Many things go into setting a limit. Traffic, road entries and exits (access), type of environment (expressway, city street, young family neighborhood), even vehicle capabilities are included.

In the space of a blog it’s impossible to talk about every aspect so this discussion will be limited to interstate highways, that is expressways. They are consistent across state borders, built to standards set by the federal government. The standards are available from AASHTO (http://www.transportation.org/) as part of their publication, A Policy on Design Standards -- Interstate System
Standards were developed as part of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Nineteen fifty-six. Yes, with limited modifications, the interstate highways you drive today are designed according to 50 years old standards. That includes the speed limits on those expressways.

Well, if 70 was good enough then, what’s wrong with it now?

Seventy is no longer the safest speed. Not the safest because it is too slow for your safety.

Huh?

Time for more background.

Highway safety engineers have known for decades that the safest speed limit is the 85th percentile speed. That’s the speed 85% of all drivers drive at or below when given an unmarked speed limit. As with many speed related things, the reason for this is complicated. However, we can make a simple but true statement that covers most of it:

Too low a speed leads to driver inattention.

I heard that. You’re wrong, it’s not bull shirt.

If you want a personal example of the dangers of a too-slow speed limit,, take a drive on I-20 East into Alabama from Mississippi. There’s a 20 plus mile stretch with a 50 mph limit. No construction equipment, no barrels, no workmen, just a nice, fresh blacktop section where the 50 mph signs are still up. If you drive it at 50, you’ll begin suffering highway hypnosis before you’re half way through. Unless you’re in panic because everything, including 18 wheel trucks, is blowing past you going 20 to 30 mph faster.

Wonder why 70 is no longer the safest speed? Take a look at the car of 1975. Compare it to the 21st century models.

In 1975 tires were bias ply. They were short lived and far more prone to going flat. Today, tires are radial, often have 40,000 mile guarantees they outlive, and provide far more adhesion (grip) in all kinds of weather than those old tires did even on a sunny day.

The cars themselves are far more controllable. In 1975 most cars wallowed like a boat on a choppy sea. By the 21st century every car sold had much improved suspension and ride control (shocks and struts), far better than anything available when the standards were set.

These two factors alone, radial tires and improved ride control, increased safe speeds over identical surfaces by as much as 30% for every car sold. In some cases, such as the 550i, vehicles are so improved even a beginner could drive safely at nearly twice the posted speed. For those familiar with the Jackson, MS area, the north entrance and south exit to I-220 are marked at 50 mph. In that car, even a normal drive can negotiate those ramps at 80 to 90 mph safely – barring other traffic of course.

For those that can’t get to Alabama, I-220, or don’t believe their own experiences, let’s look at some speed related statistics.

You may have heard of Autobahns. Those real high speed, sometimes unlimited speed, interstates in Germany. I’ll bet you’ve also heard how dangerous and deadly they are.

Not so according to statistics from the International Road Traffic and Accident database (IRTAD). Here are the numbers for 2006:

Injury Accidents per 100,000 Population.
Germany 408
USA 647 (2004, US 2006 numbers were not available)

Deaths per Billion KM
Germany 7.8
USA 9.4

Let’s also look at a report dating back to 1992 for the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration. The report, titled Effects of Raising and Lowering Speed Limits (http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html), makes a couple of very interesting statements. I quote.

Accidents at the 58 experimental sites where speed limits were lowered increased by 5.4 percent

And

Accidents at the 41 experimental sites where speed limits were raised decreased by 6.7 percent.

There we go. For 15 years, states have known setting speed limits too low could kill you. For at least as long, the policy makers have known of the improvements in cars After all, they do drive.

A few states have acted on this information, if in an unofficial way. One state has an 80 mph policy on interstates. The speed limit sign may say 70 but you won’t get a ticket unless you’re over 80.

Why haven’t the others acted? I suggest it’s a conflict of interest. They know, because their staff engineers told them, higher speed limits are safer. They don’t act because they want the ticket revenue.

What can we do about it?

I doubt educating our legislators will help. They’re the ones who get and spend the money from those tickets.

Our best bet is probably a young law firm, eager to make a name and a few bucks for themselves. A class action suit on behalf of traveling salespersons and others whose livelihood is affected by time lost to a ticket hungry state.

If they do it right, the results will be 3 speed limits. 80 for cars and smaller trucks, 70 for anything with a trailer or over some heavy weight, and, at last, a minimum speed because we all know how dangerous it is to come up on some moron doing 35 when you’re traveling at 70.

Lawyers, where are you?


------------------
First post in the series.

Highway safety: An Overview

The first thing anyone has to say about highway safety is it’s you, the driver, who has the ultimate responsibility. You have to make sure your vehicle is safe. You must drive it in a safe manner. (Yo, you, the dumb ass in the black Honda SUV on 20 West in Birmingham. Just so you know, next time you cut someone off that close they may not back down. If it weren’t for the woman passenger, I would have let you put yourself into a Franchitti flip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3NO_zYCvb4 ) And you must make sure you watch out for that dumb ass and other incompetent drivers.

The states have a responsibility; a lawyer might say a fiduciary responsibility to provide highway users with a safe travel environment. They own the roads. Some states go so far as to charge a specific use fee. All the continental states and Canada collect use fees under the guise of gas taxes and the International fuel tax agreement, IFTA.

There are four main areas of state responsibility:

Speed limits. Neither too high nor too low.

Safety enforcement. Everything from whacked drivers like dumb ass to unsafe vehicles.

Road conditions. Good surfaces, de-iced and well drained, with safe crash barriers and good emergency spaces.

Licensing. Let’s face it. American driver’s licensing requirements are a joke. A very bad, dangerous, joke.

I’ll discuss each of those areas in future entries.

--------------------------------
Future entries:

Speed Limits

Safety Enforcement

Attack America

Freakonomics recently ran a blog asking for ideas on how to attack America.

Are you appalled? Up in arms? Outraged?

Why?

Can you find a better way to brainstorm for attacks we may need to protect against than three hundred million minds looking for gaps in our coverage?

Oh sure, there will be a lot of wasted time, ideas not worth looking at. There will also be things a terrorist might think of the government hasn't.

Make it a government sponsored, public, question (again) and make us safer.

Warmest Year On Record

If you are a Kool-Aid drinker you probably believe 2005 was the warmest year ever. If you are a little better informed, you may know that went out the window and 1998 is the MDI crowds current warmest ever, still.

Did you know NASA has quietly announced the numbers are wrong all around?

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events

See the list here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt

Fox-y Nazis

For those of you who have other things to do with your days, FOX News has a show airing at 1300 ET called The Live Desk.

Like much of TV news, it has become, at times, little more than a talk show. The guests analyzing people they’ve never met, using information of questionable reliability – news reports – and reaching conclusions that are at best poorly supported opinions.

There is a round table section of the program. Manned mostly by female reporters, many of whom have law backgrounds, this group has started to frighten me.

As I write this, they’ve given a perfect example over the last couple of days. There is a guy, currently in CA, who says he’s a pedophile. Runs a web site with information on finding and connecting with young girls.

Evil, yes. Unwanted, sure as hell. Illegal, not a chance.

Not illegal. Right or wrong, the operative words are NOT ILLEGAL. These great minds, this round table of legally trained, would put this guy under the jail. Constitution be damned, under the jail.

It doesn’t bother me that these women feel this way. In a way, I agree.

It scares the hell out of me that there are millions of people who watch these Fox-y Nazis and follow along with no thought for the violence they would commit against the rule of law.

Rupe, I know Fox news is a small part of your empire. But, you need to step on this kind of activity before FNC becomes no better than the biased and anti-constitutional left we all so despise.

Making It Rain Acid

Does anyone remember the dangers of acid rain?

Acid rain has many environmental effects. It causes acidification to lakes and streams and damages trees that are at high elevations. It also speeds up the decay of building materials and paints including irreplaceable buildings, statues, and sculptures. Acid rain contributes to visibility degradation and has an impact on public health as well.

(Thinkquest)

Apparently some of the global warming loons have forgotten those things.

New Scientists reports some of the maroons blaming man for all global warming want to fill the atmosphere with sulphur.

Aside from the dangers of acid rain we spent years hearing about, it seems they haven't been keeping up with live science over guesswork computer models. See my earlier entry today for more information on atmospheric aerosols adding to global warming.

WHAT! Warming? But they said - - -

They said aerosols, the Asian Brown Cloud may be the best known example, hide the effects of anthropogenic global warming. They said without that protection we would experience much more warming, much faster.

But wait! When someone finally did real science instead of guesswork, turns out:

"We found that atmospheric brown clouds enhanced lower atmospheric solar heating by about 50%.

"[The pollution] contributes as much as the recent increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases to regional lower atmospheric warming trends," they suggested.

"We propose that the combined warming trend of 0.25 Kelvin per decade may be sufficient to account for the observed retreat of the Himalayan glaciers."

(Quotes lifted from a BBC article.)

There is another quote worth remembering. One that applies to virtually every bit of MDI, CO2, IPCC global warming "science" you see:

The scientists, from the University of California San Diego and the Nasa Langley Research Center, said

there remained a degree of uncertainty because, until now, estimates had largely been derived from computer models

.

Who, Who Are You?

Just a thought. You'll find it odd.

What does "Be yourself" really mean?

Have you ever noticed you're a different person with your parents than someone from work. And a third person with your card/knitting/Sunday School group.

None of them are not yourself. It's just you, we all, have different reactions to different times and people. With our parents, we still have remnants of the child "yourself" in our reactions till the day they die.

Oh, sometimes the differences between “yourself” are subtle. You might not realize there even is a difference. You may take the word of someone you know and trust if they tell you Henry Ford did not invent the automobile assembly line. If I say that, you’ll question me about it. There may be people you wouldn’t believe if they brought ol’ Henry himself to testify. (BTW, Ransom E Olds, Oldsmobile, patented the automobile assembly line. Ford, some of his workers actually, improved it.)

Other times, the difference between yourself may be extreme. That yourself out for a night on the town may do or say things the work yourself wouldn’t even think of.

So what’s the point?

Be yourself. If somebody doesn’t like it, maybe they should be a different themself if they want a different yourself.

The "New" Speeding Ticket

I don't know how new these tickets really are. It's the first time I've had one.

I also don't know how many states are part of this reciprocal ticketing deal.

But I like it.

Talladega Co., AL, after driving for miles and miles in one of those "Work Zones" where the only sign of work is the sign that says it is a work zone, speed limit 55, I gave up and slipped the speed back to 75 mph. (This kind of construction zone creates dangers for workers wherever they might actually be present, a different rant for a different time.)

Miles later, I get popped for 75 in a 55. Where I'm clocked, I still haven't passed a single sign of work being done. Not even someone leaning on a shovel. But I get popped.

Cop's a state man. Professional. Polite. Suspect he will agree with my rant on zones like this if he ever sees it. But he says 20 over is too fast to give me a break. Then he very carefully makes sure I understand the law has a break built in I might be able to take advantage of.

Here's the deal, and it's pretty universal as near as I can tell:

If this is your first moving violation in over 3 years,

Get permission from the judge, that information comes with your official court date notification, to take a state approved traffic ticket class. Your state, you don't have to go back to the scene of the crime.

The class must be 4 hours and meet a few other requirements. Cost about $40 here.

Ship the diploma off to the applicable court along with your fine.

The ticket never shows up on public records. Your insurance company will not know.

Your insurance company will not know. Where was that option when I was 16 or even 25? If I could have saved just the difference in insurance premiums from those years, I could have retired at 45.

Whoever came up with this, wherever you are, my wallet thanks you, my mortgage company thanks you (but Ditech's second mortgage dept may not like you), and I thank you.

A Good Time Was Had By All

I spent the July 7-8 weekend with the Peachtree chapter of the BMW Car Club of America (BMWCCA) at Road Atlanta..

Kiddies, I gotta tell you I haven’t had as good a time by myself since I was teenager.

I don’t think I can tell you about it without some show and tell. Here’s a youtube video lapping the track.
You can also follow along on the track map.

If you can stand it, I’ll talk us through a lap. My experience and description may vary from what you see for two reasons. I think this driver is far more experienced than I am and I had a lot more horsepower. More HP is not necessarily a good thing.

The video starts at the Start/Finish line on the front straight. By the time you get to the end of the straight and turn one, you had better have the basic lesson down pat. Break, Turn in, Apex, Go.

If you survive turn 1, get back towards the center of the road for turn 2. Two is almost a giveaway at the speeds I could get. You better do it right because of three.

Oh three, I don’t know how to tell you but the map has to be just plain wrong. Has to be. Check it out at 0:27 into the video. If 3 isn’t nearly a 90 degree right hander, I’ll, I’ll, I don’t know what but I’m not going to give this up. Way too much fun.

Back towards the center of the road for turn 4. The hard part of 4 is getting there at the right place after 3. Hope you do because it is the set-up for the Esses.

Not a clue why but the Esses are the part I do best. Run hard coming out of 4, drive them as a straightaway, brake a bit into the last Ess to set up for 5.

Five, left at good speed and keep turning left after the turn is over to get ready for 6. (Oh yeah, and to get out of the way of those who did 5 better or have even more speed.)

Six and Seven look identical on the map. Not a chance. Six has banking, 7 is flat. It makes a ton of difference.

After 7 is the back straight. Check the video starting about 1:15 into it. Ignore turns 8 and 9. At my kind of speeds, they’re not worth mentioning.

This is the part of the track where I learned the most about myself. My car, a BMW 550i, will do 130 mph and more down the straight. I can’t make myself drop over the edge of the hill, 1:40 into the video, at more than 130 and 120 is far more comfortable. That’s even knowing I can come to a complete stop before the turn if I want.

That’s turn 10A at the bottom of the hill. Take it a bit slower than flat out so you can hit 10B optimally. Gotta do B right so you can get up the hill on the gas and into 11.

Oh 11, Anybody else have a gut check moment or three with a blind drop into an off camber high-speed turn? You can see how blind it is at about 1:55 in the video.

How drop away is it? That little shack on the left is a flag person building and pit road is right there. But you can’t see the lane even that close to it.

Down the hill accelerating. Get so far left you’re in the paint stripes for the runoff (2:01 in the vid) before turning even more to the right for

Turn 12. Turn into the apex, hit the gas and go, go, go past the start/finish and under the Pirelli bridge as fast as you can for the front straight and another lap.

I’m sure others with more or less horsepower and more (there can’t be many with less) driving skill had a different view of the track. I’d love to read your experiences. Please comment with a link.

A final thought. If you’ve got a kid who thinks they’re a hot shoe, enroll them in a course like this at a track near you. They may come away still thinking they’re F1 material but now they’ll know how little they really do know. It will make them safer even if it doesn’t slow them down.

Life: the Origins

According to the best estimates available today, Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago.

Not long after that, in universal time scales, a big something slammed into earth heating things up. Really heating things up. The temperature was about 10,000 K(elvin) or about 17,500 F. This collision gave us the moon.

Earth melted. Then it cooled. Most evidence of pre-strike earth was destroyed.

Skip forward a second in galactic time. It is now a mere 3.2, maybe 3.7 billions years ago. Maybe a billion and a half years after the big crash. Here we find the first signs of life on earth.

Ignoring any biblical explanations for life, that seems to leave us here:

A) Life is easy to start. It sprang (back?) up immediately after earth was massively rearranged.

B) Life came from elsewhere shortly after the collision.

C) Estimates of when life began on earth put it way too far back.

D) The moon theory is wrong.

The moon formation theory has withstood 25 years of assault. D doesn't seem likely.

Life beginning has also withstood much testing. C doesn't seem likely either.

That means we're left with A or B and I think B implies A.

Virginia’s Unconstitutional Traffic Fines

Virginia has instituted a new set of confiscatory traffic fines. For a change, they have admitted these fines are taxes, even writing it into the law with "The purpose of the civil remedial fees imposed in this section is to generate revenue." They didn’t have to tell us that when they imposed fines of up to $3000 immediately and annual taxes on the points connected to the fine of up to $700 a year. That’s $700 for every year the points stay in the driver’s record. Some points are stuck to your record for as long as 11 years.

Leave it to lawyers to argue the constitutionality of taxing this way. Hope the Legislature and State Bar seriously question the ethics of a traffic court lawyer introducing this bill.

Be sure your traffic lawyer knows there is a very good chance this law, as it applies to speeding, violates state responsibility to provide for the welfare of its citizens. That is, it is probably unconstitutional.

“What,” you ask. “It reduces speeding and everybody knows speed kills.”

Well, in a sense speed kills. Hitting a tree at 100 mph is more likely to kill you than the same accident at 50 mph.

Realistically, too much speed kills. Too little speed causes accidents. The clearest way to see that is with the International Road Traffic and Accident database (IRTAD). Compare the land of unlimited speed, Germany, with the USA.

2006 Numbers	Total-deaths	Injury-accidents-per-100,000-population	Deaths-per-billion-km
Germany	6.5	408	7.8
USA	14.7	647*	9.4

*2004 figure. 2006 not available.

The federal government, and one would hope people who make their living defending traffic cases, have been aware of this effect since a 1992 report titled Effects of Raising and Lowering Speed Limits, DOT Report No. FHWA-RD-92-084

Virginia may argue this is a tax law, not a speed limit law. How they might do that eludes me since doing so indicates lying. No lawyer or legislature can deny with any credibility knowledge of the words de facto.

There is no intelligent argument that the fines imposed by this law are not a de facto speed law and, therefore, an unconstitutional endangerment to the citizens.

Before you see Sicko

Arm yourself with more reality than you will ever get from a Michael Mooron film.

If you're a Brit, you might not qualify for the healthcare you need. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6742149.stm

If you're Canadian, you may, probably will, wait forever to get your treatment. http://www.freemarketcure.com/whynotgovhc.php

If you're worried about the "45 million uninsured in America," see the reality. http://www.freemarketcure.com/uninsuredinamerica.php

Heck, see what USA Today has to say: In Canada, even the anti-privatization Canadian Health Coalition laments long lines. In France and Britain, the tax burden is 42% and 27% respectively, as opposed to 12% in the USA, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In Cuba, equipment and drugs are scarce. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2007-06-21-michael-moore-side_N.htm

Where Oh Where Did The Carbon Go

The National Center For Atmospheric Research, NCAR, reports CO2 climate models are wrong - again.

All these years teh global warmers have been telling us northern forests absorb almost twice as much CO2 as they really do. They've also been telling us tropical forests remove much less than they do.

What that means to you and me is simple:

Every CO2 climate model in use today is wrong. Every stinking one of them. The causes of global warming, what can or should be done about it, and predictions about it are wrong. Every single stinking one of them.

What should we do? If you live in a state that bought into the the Kyoto garbage, start pushing your government to change the way it allocates global warming funding.

If they really want to fight global warming, they have to start working very hard to bring those countries destroying their forests into the 20th century.

The poor need better than slash and burn agriculture as a means of survival.

The countries need to get serious about protecting the forests.

Someone must find ways to recover tropical forest already destroyed. They are notoriously hard to recover; no one has a good way to do it. Someone must find a way to regrow them; it might as well be you.

Get busy.

Don't forget to see Problems with Man Did It Global Warming for more inforamtion on global warming.

Coke: The 20 Oz Dribble Glass

I admit it. I'm a Pepsi drinker. But, sometimes you find yourself in an undesirable situation where Coke is all there is.

It was just such a situation I found myself in at 8 AM the other day. Coffee or Coke products. (You would expect better from a high end car dealer wouldn't you?) Don't drink coffee. Doing without caffeine at that hour is not an option. Coke it is.

So there I sit in my very comfortable waiting room leather chair. Watching the big screen TV with a remote customers can actually use.

Sip.

Dribble.

What? Am I missing my mouth that badly? Not even at 8 AM; just can't be. Way too many years practice for that.

Sip.

Dribble.

Now it's on my shirt. Time to get serious.

Turns out these 20 oz plastic bottles have an insane modification to the screw tops. On the bottle the threads are disrupted by channels on opposite sides of the bottle. If you don't get the bottle in your mouth the right way or further than most of us do, it has to drip.

Has to. Even Coke can't avoid physics.

I can only conclude the person who approved this design saw a chance to stick who knows how many thousands, maybe millions, of Coke drinkers with dribble glasses.

Is Ditech Laughing At Us?

How dumb do they think YOU are?

Ditech has a commercial right now asking us what would happen if a company thought people were smart.

Then they tell us how smart we are hiding keys in plastic rocks – how dumb is that since every burglar worth the title knows what those rocks look like.

Worse, they have a Bill Clinton voice saying, “People are smart.” You and I and every thinking creature, including marine mammals, on the planet knows BJ thinks we’re all stupid. Then he proved how many really are stupid by convincing enough people felony perjury is just a blow job that he avoided conviction.

Sorry Ditech. We’re on to you. And we are getting better loans elsewhere.

Another Nail In AlGore’s Foot

The inventor of the internet made Mt Kilimanjaro's disappearing glaciers a centerpiece of his movie.

Turns out the Inconvenient Truth is global warming by any cause has virtually nothing to do with Kilimanjaro's disappearing glaciers.

In the American Scientist, Jul-Aug, 2007 issue, Philip W. Mote, a University of Washington climate scientist, and Georg Kaser, a glaciologist at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, report what is happening.

It seems the glacier has been disappearing for a century, well before the 70s when GW was first noticeable. They report a lack of new snow, something that was already happening in 1880, combined with features of the glacial shape that prevent growth, are the primary causees of shrinkage.

From http://www.exduco.net/news.php?id=1747

They attribute the ice decline primarily to complex interacting factors, including the vertical shape of the ice's edge, which allows it to shrink but not expand. They also cite decreased snowfall, which reduces ice buildup and determines how much energy the ice absorbs -- because the whiteness of new snow reflects more sunlight, the lack of new snow allows the ice to absorb more of the sun's energy.

Not surprisingly, a local weather cycle of about 1,500 years seems to be involved.

Warning note: When arguing against MDI global warming, do not apply this information to temperate glaciers. They grow and shrink differently.

Don’t forget to check Problems with Man Did It Global Warming. for more information

The Great Medical Equipment Scam

Have you ever needed or wanted something only to find out you couldn’t get it because it is “medical equipment” available only through certified providers and/or with a Dr’s orders?

Say you want to have a hit of oxygen. I understand in CA., you can stop at an Oxygen Bar and get a couple of hits. To relax you and rejuvenate all those parts that may be a bit low because they worked so hard, you understand.

Can you do it at home? Say “medical equipment.”

How asinine can you get? Here’s someone who made an oxygen generator as a 15 year old kid http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Stories/001.1/ Stick a jar over the O2 terminal, a pump from your aquarium in the jar, and breathe the output from the pump. There’s your medical equipment. Just don’t try to buy a safer, more convenient, cheaper in the long term, model. You don’t have a prescription.

Oh yeah. Be sure and test to make sure you have the right terminal. Breathing pure hydrogen can be seriously bad for you.

For those of us who snore big time, we potentially face the scam every month or two. If you’ve ever been diagnosed as snoring due to sleep apnea you see it. You likely have a CPAP, Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, machine, an air pump.

What does it do?

It is designed to run continuously for extended periods. Just like the pump on an aquarium.

The pressure can be set very exactly. Just like any pump with a properly fitted pressure valve.

It can probably take secondary input, from an oxygen tank for example. Just like any pump with a T connector in the intake

If you’re lucky, it has a heated moist air system to prevent drying your throat and nose. That’s a hot plate and water jug to most of us.

Then there are all the little plastic, rubber, or whatever they are parts like the air hose, the face mask/nose insert and the part that started this rant.

The inch long, inch diameter, connector from the pump to the water jug. That should be 20 cent part is also “medical equipment.” Just because insurance covers it, doesn’t mean we should sit quietly and let highway robbery continue in the guise of “medical equipment.”

Neither of these items, the CPAP machines and oxygen generators, as well as many other items of "medial equipment" should be hard to get. They should be on the shelves at Wal-Mart, Walgreen’s, and Irv's Discount Electronics. They’d still be safer than pet food from China.


Time to see if our congresspersons work for the medical equipment industry or us. If you don’t already know, here are your elected officials: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

Word Abuse

In which we abuse words on a whim. Got a good one? You know the address.

______________________________________________________

Gibbous Moon More than plumbers butt, not enough to get you arrested in most jurisdictions.

______________________________________________________

Flocculation An entire chicken herd orgy.

______________________________________________________

Hydrophilic Inflatable sexual device using water to achieve the most pleasing temperature and firmness.

______________________________________________________

Paranormal A straight couple; two “normals.”

______________________________________________________

Rosie Broken dyke. "The Little Dutch Boy saved Holland when he stuck his finger in the rosie."

______________________________________________________

Treadmill Modern milling device used to grind down hip joints.

______________________________________________________

Parthenogenesis Greek cover band playing only one venue.

______________________________________________________

Estaboga (Yankeespeak) Unexpected find on that Easter morning the bunny had such a bad cold.

______________________________________________________

Waitri Collective noun for waitress/waitpersons. Compare to murder of crows, gam of whales.

______________________________________________________

Just Do Something! Death By Enviro Do-Gooder

Many members of the MDI global warming crowd want to do something to save the world and they want it NOW!

Most all of us think reducing our pollutant output is good as long as it doesn’t go too far. Too far being reductions causing third worlders to continue suffering disease, malnutrition and the consequences of bad or insufficient water when technology could not only help those problems but lead to an overall reduction of pollution.

That’s not good enough for the ecowakies. They want to leap off the cliffs and do all sorts of things we could do but don’t know what the results will be. They have a history of going off half cocked with bad results. Somehow, they never seem to recognize past results of their poorly understood actions. With that in mind, it’s time to toss out a pair of examples.

Example 1
In today’s news we learned about 2 million tires tossed overboard in the name of reducing landfills by creating artificial reefs, places fish to live. http://www.local10.com/news/13454371/detail.html

Sounds like a good idea. Too bad they didn’t do the research first. Not only do fish prefer not to hang our around petroleum products, the tires didn’t stay together neatly. Now the tires are moving freely with storms and current, slipping into existing reefs they then damage or kill. If they’d not gotten their panties in a bunch, instead of a cost of millions to clean up, those tires could have made better road base or made fuel replacing new carbon based fuel.

Wonder how long it will take us to see the effects of Atlantis Memorial Reef, http://www.atlantismemorialreef.com/home.htm

Example 2
Rachel Carson and her book, Silent Spring, are personally responsible for tens of thousands of third world deaths. Malaria. For those not familiar with the story, it goes like this:

In 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring indicting DDT as the cause of many environmental problems. Somewhere the information got lost that a) DDT was being massively overused; any problems DDT was causing were attributable to that abuse, not to DDT used properly, and b) DDT was, and still is, the only known effective weapon against the malaria mosquito.

Because of the book, it's claims, and the flood of wackies, Othmar Zeidler's DDT was effextively tossed world wide by bans on use and manufacture. Fortunately, some organizations have recently had their eyes opened.

Reason Magazine carried an excellent article on the subject called Silent Spring at 40 by Ronald Bailey http://www.reason.com/news/show/34823.html

Cheap Labor, Drunk Deer, Pears, and Ice Cream Salt

I’m lazy. No point in trying to hide that from anyone. I’m also frugal.

I’d really like to thank the hunters I know for giving me this idea to let me be more of both.

I have a couple of places I’d like to kill off the stuff growing, mostly poison ivy. I’d also like to create small shallows to make starting the new plants a bit easier.

I have deer!

Deer like fruit. Apples make great bait but just about any fruit works.

I also have a pear tree, baking pears, with fruit I never use.

Voilà. Half the answer.

Here’s the plan. Grab enough pears, unripe, bug infested, fallen and rotting, doesn’t make any difference, to fill about a gallon bucket.

Slice, dice, mash, so there’s exposed meat on each pear. Add enough warm water – any temperature you can hold your hand under – to cover the pears. Speed things along with a couple of table spoons of sugar. Drop in a yeast packet.

Set in sun for the rest of the day. You can keep it for up to a week but that requires protection from insects and hungry critters.

While it's fermenting, prepare the bait spot. Dig small shallow spot, big enough to hold salt so it is level with the natural sufrace; add salt. I used ice cream salt but table salt works too. If you've got a big area, prepare several shallows and buy hundred pound bags of salt or get cattle salt with minerals.

Dump fermenting fruit and any liquids in the bucket on top of salt.

And there’s the cheap – nearly free – labor. Let the deer do it.

Why fermenting fruit? Because the odor carries further. Better chance the deer will notice. And salt because when it warms up, deer like salt licks.

Now all I have to worry about is coons getting there first. Drunk deer are bad enough. Have you ever seen a drunk raccoon?

Male Prostitute Theme Song

He works hard for the money
Sometimes smells kinda funny
Makes sure socks fit jus’ right

What Number Am I Thinking Of?

Number? What number? I’m thinking “Free credit report my arse.”

You may have seen the constant commercials for a free credit report from the Experian credit reporting agency. Just go to a couple of web sites, give them your personal information, and, like magic, you get a free credit report.

Your “free” report requires giving Triple Advantage^SM Credit Monitoring a ton of personal information. Social Security Number, credit card information, everything required for identity theft, information they should be paying you for.

After giving that information for free, you are automatically enrolled in their $12.95 a month program. I quote from their site:

Payment Information
When you order your free report here, you will begin your free trial membership in Triple Advantage^SM Credit Monitoring. If you don't cancel your membership within the 30-day trial period, you will be billed $12.95 for each month that you continue your membership. If you are not satisfied, you can cancel at any time to discontinue the membership and stop the monthly billing; however, you will not be eligible for a pro-rated refund of your current month's paid membership fee.

Your “free” report comes from one of the three major credit reporting agencies. Reports from the other two, Equifax and TransUnion, may contain different information.

If you want real deal, free, credit reporting, get all three reports directly from the agencies by filling out one form.

You may say to yourself, “How do I order my free report?

Take advantage of the federal law requiring them to give you free reports. From the only website authorized to get that free information for you:

The three nationwide consumer reporting companies have set up a central website, a toll-free telephone number, and a mailing address through which you can order your free annual report.
To order, visit annualcreditreport.com, call 1-877-322-8228, or complete the Annual Credit Report Request Form and mail it to: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281. The form is on the back of this brochure; or you can print it from ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/credit. Do not contact the three nationwide consumer reporting companies individually. They are providing free annual credit reports only through annualcreditreport.com, 1-877-322-8228, and Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281.
You may order your reports from each of the three nationwide consumer reporting companies at the same time, or you can order your report from each of the companies one at a time. The law allows you to order one free copy of your report from each of the nationwide consumer reporting companies every 12 months.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/freereports.shtm

Now I’m thinking of a number. 90. Ninety days for each member of management at Triple Advantage. Attempted consumer fraud.

Let's Start Nuclear War

Vlad says a US missile defense shield in Europe increases the chances of nuke war.

We've been hearing about how a protective shield could cause a war since at least the beginning of SDI - Star Wars - under The Great Communicator. Each time I've heard it, I've thought "What a frellin dumb arse" or even less kind things.

Today, I realized they are right. Without defense, a sneak launch of any significant scale wins. No war, just a hostile takeover.

Defense shield in place, there are survivors to launch defensive strikes. AKA, war happens.

I must reluctantly agree with Putin. Even more reluctantly, I find myself saying

Let's get ready to start a nuclear war.

Diabetic Testing Glucose Spreadsheet

Not long ago my Dr decided I should do a long term glucose tolerance test. Three months worth.

No biggie you say.

Not so fast sucker. That's three times a day for 90 days. By the time you're done, it is a real pain in the - no the butt is about the only place that might not be in pain 300 pokes later.

If you scribble like I do, you probably won't be able to read what you've written a couple of hours later to transfer it to wherever you're recording it. Record it you must. Your meter probably doesn't remember or average more than 100 sticks.

I have the big sky blue L for Lazy emblazoned on my forehead. It's not that I can't add 300 numbers and average them, not even when I have to sort them into fasting and not-fasting first. It just feels too much like work. Especially when we can make a computer the work for us.

Without further ado, I present a spreadsheet for your use.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pnHgzDmM6ac7dXPnNt3oIUw

Just remember where you got it when you pass it along. (Oh, and keep your fingers out of the hidden columns :P )

Abstract, Concrete, Imaginary, and Just Plain Dumb Numbers

(Reviewed by a Master of Science in Mathematics I am lucky enough to know and would count knowing her as lucky even if she knew nothing about math (Yes, girl, if you read this, it is a compliment :-) ). )

I was recently in a discussion started around one of those on-line Mensa tests. Parts of the discussion traveled into word problems and math problems.

It went like this:

All problems are word problems.

1+1=?

Like you, when I see 1+1, I automatically think 2. But, does it really equal two?

Answering that led to thinking about numbers in general. (PurpleMath is a good site for thinking about numbers: http://www.purplemath.com/modules/index.htm )

Even though you may have looked at the many types of numbers at PurpleMath, there are two primary types of numbers.

Abstract numbers represent nothing but themselves.

Concrete numbers represent something more than themselves. An apple, an orange, a complex mix of units like horsepower.

I threw in Imaginary numbers because they sound neat. Despite their name, they are a subset of concrete numbers. They represent something even though that something cannot exist in the real world as we understand it. The item represented involves the square root of a negative number.

Just Plain Dumb Numbers is a phrase I made up because they represent by their very nature either a false impression or a lie. We sometimes see them appearing in breathless medical news reports. “Eating more than one unicorn horn a day doubles your chances of cancer.” Frightening, isn’t it? Double your chances of cancer. Your chance of getting cancer from eating unicorn horn is 1 in 1,000,000,000. Doubling your chances of unicorn horn induced cancer raise them to 2 in 1,000,000,000 or 1 in five hundred million. (Your chances of finding a unicorn horn to eat, being zilch, are never mentioned in the report.)

As you can imagine, abstract numbers aren’t much use to us beyond learning very basic math. Math so basic we begin to leave it behind about the third grade when a math book first dropped a question with concrete numbers on us. Your first contact probably went something like this:

Johnny has 1 apple. He has 1 orange. How many apples does Johnny have?

If you are like me, you probably got that one wrong when you saw it presented in the form:

1 apple
+1 orange
-------
_2_ apples

That’s fine for a grade school student to get wrong a few times.

We expect scientists, engineers, even inventory takers, to instinctively recognize the simple concept that numbers without words are pretty much useless.

Imagine the inventory taker coming back to the office. “I counted 849,322 today.” What? Where are the cans of beans, bags of rice, cups of soup? Here’s 1. Your pink slip.

Engineers, even if it’s not instinctive, should know just from their everyday work that words are essential to math.

“My car has 360!” Yeah. So? Degrees, lug nuts, horsepower? In my case, the answer is horsepower.

Horsepower (HP) makes an even more obvious example of why math without words is pointless. Without words, a horsepower is 550.

We have to have the words for HP even more than apples and oranges. HP is a mixed measurement. One HP means moving 550 lbs one foot in one second. 550 foot-pounds per second, ftlb/sec. A HP is 550 foot-pounds/second.

If you are still here, you’re probably asking if there is a point or reason for this rant.

Yes, there is. That any student could get into college believing math and words are exclusive is a sad statement about our educational system.

That the advancement of that student is the result of elementary Ed teachers who don’t know enough about basic math is an indictment of a failed system. It has failed the teachers and now fails their students.

The Rosie Spin

An employee of the loud, foul, and ugly-mouthed former talk show host has smuggled a video of her bathing into public domain.

If you thought her claims about WTC7, Iraqi Civilians, and being the Queen of Nice were unbelievable, you should see the way she's trying to deny the video.

Rosie O'Donnell bathing.

Turtle Attack! Or why I may never walk again.

Turtle Attack!. Or why I may never walk again.

Bright and early this morning, around 10, I stepped out the front door to evaluate today’s yard work. Now when you live where I do and you’re likely to be barefoot, especially right out of bed, you learn to look for snakes and other critters before you step out.

There it was, right on the veranda, hiding, pressed against the low step into the house. Not just any turtle. One of the ones that never shed their shells. Just keep growing it bigger and bigger and bigger. It’s egg laying season and she’s a couple of hundred feet up hill from the pond. (Pond, a body of water too small to hide a body in. Lake, a body of water large enough the body will be well decayed before ardent searchers find it.)

We watch Sci Fi. We know what’s coming next. She leapt at the same time I slammed the door. That would have been a horrible death, a turtle burying into my chest to lay her eggs.

“What,” you may be asking yourself, “does this have to do with walking again?”

Isn’t it obvious? I’d already gotten up way early so I took a couple of hours nap giving the turtle time to go after someone else.

When I finally got out there, preparing to seed a bare spot by roughing it up with a rake, a task akin to raking furrows into a 5-year-old concrete driveway, the muscles were too relaxed. I pulled that big muscle in the back of my left thigh. It hurts!

Because of that turtle, I may never walk again.

See, told you it all made sense.

Hand 'em Over: Good News For The Good Guys

The other day someone gave 100,000 airline miles to Operation Hero Miles. I don't want to imagine how much time he spent sitting on tarmac to earn that many miles. I do know there is no better use for them. Fischer House runs the program, getting returning military, in need of travel home, together with donated miles.

Probably more important, familes of the wounded can use miles to visit their guys who are hospitalized or in recovery. http://www.heromiles.org/

Fisher House, the people running the program, also provide housing to families in need from $10 to the outrageous price of $Nada. http://www.fisherhouse.org/aboutUs/aboutUs.shtml

I'm familiar with the House, pre-Katrina, at Keesler AFB. Well worth the time to write a check and mail it.

These two are not the only places we can show our support. A quick internet search can point you at dozens of helpful organizations. Some sites link to other sites too. Far example, http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/americasupportsyou/help.html

If you can't afford a buck or three, call your local Guard, Reserve, or Active Duty base to see what you can do in person.

(Did I mention the guy with a million miles of pudding? Really! http://www.flyertalk.com/pudding.htm )

Technorati sez:

Technorati sez:
"Give me the userid and password for your blog."

Fromz sez
"Are yot out of your frelling minds?"

But they'll advertise me if I stick a line of code in a post and let them know. Here's the line:
Technorati Profile

They also wanted my real name. Like I even told my ex-wife what that is.

Renaldo Grimaldi
Those Grimaldis
(Yeah, riiiighhhttttt!)

Hurricanes: Not Just Hot Air

“The processes that govern the formation, intensity, and track of Atlantic hurricanes are still poorly understood,” said Donnelly, an associate scientist in the WHOI Department of Geology and Geophysics. “Based on this work, we now think that there may be some sort of basin-wide ‘on-off switch’ for intense hurricanes.”

Next time some internet know-nothing tells you man made global warming (MDI) caused Katrina and we're all going to die this year because of more man made high intenstiy hurricanes (Haven't we all met too many of those?), ask them if they're scientifically literate enough to read this new report from Woods Hole.

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=11912&tid=282&cid=27546

Hey Wayne! Your Mileage Ain't Worth My Life

Wayne Gerdes is king of the Hypermilers. What is a hypermiler? It is a driver who intentionally drives in illegal, stupid, and downright dangerous ways in the name of maximum miles per gallon.

In an article about Gerdes, Dennis Gaffney opens, in Mother Jones, with: “Drafting 18-wheelers with the engine off, taking death turns at 52 miles an hour, and other lessons learned while riding shotgun with the king of the hypermilers”
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/01/king_of_the_hypermilers.html

Is that enough to chill your blood?

On a racetrack, where all the drivers are skilled professionals, drafting is the cause of the big one. The most obvious place to see it is at NASCAR restrictor plate races.

When you and I do it, it is called tailgating. That, of course, is following so close you don’t have your full option set available if the vehicle you are following makes a sudden move. With a big truck, drivers can’t see ahead so breaking or sudden lane changes are always a surprise. Our hero, Wayne, further complicates matters by turning off his brakes. Yes, turning them off.

Even on the latest cars, when the power is off, power brakes go away quickly. You can test it for yourself, safely, in a big box store parking lot late at night. Make sure it’s late and empty. Many cars also lose steering.

It just gets better and better with this guy doesn’t it? He’s taking full cloverleaf, 270 degree, “death turns,” well above the speed limit with no brakes and likely no steering. Mea Culpa. I sometimes go that fast too. With the power on, great tires properly inflated*, and a car designed to do it. (The kid who sold me a BMW 5 series required me to say “designed to do it.”)

Should we keep going?

How about disrupting traffic flow? Many people beyond these hypermorons don’t realize how dangerous that is to not only themselves, but others too.

Do not take my word for it. See what the Arizona Department of Transportation (DOT) says about it:

Experience has shown that safety goes hand-in-hand with smooth traffic operation. Disrupting the smooth flow of traffic increases the probability of accidents.
Erratic traffic operation may be caused by vehicles stopping or slowing in the roadway, passing and weaving maneuvers, or surprise elements. For example, unwarranted traffic signals, unreasonably low speed limits, and too many signs may cause driver confusion and indecision.
Slower speed does not necessarily mean safer traffic operation. The chances of a driver becoming involved in an accident are least when he/she is traveling at the average speed of traffic.
http://www.dot.state.az.us/highways/Traffic/Trafeng.asp

You may not get out of a ticket with it but they’re telling you driving at 90 when traffic is averaging 80 – 85 mph is safer than driving at 55, especially when you take 20 minutes to get up to 55.

So read Gaffney’s article, visit some of the mileage sites he mentions. Remember, some of the stuff they’re going to tell you is not only stupid or illegal, it is dangerous to everybody on the road with you.

*Tire inflation is the most important thing most of us can do to save energy.
Too Low pressure requires more gas to roll and makes the car dangerous.
Too High pressure wears out the center of the tire – more energy because they don’t last as long – and causes loss of control due to reduced road contact.

Rosie, Elizabeth, and Bawbawa

Did anyone else notice?

Barbara Walters didn’t seem to care when O’Dumbass was spouting propaganda and lies, implying US troops are the terrorists in Iraq. As soon as Elizabeth stepped in to pin O’Donnell down on some of those lies, Walters suddenly found it time to end discussion?

No surprise. Walters is just another far left MSM journalist. At least she’s no longer pretending to present news.

Just another random thought.

The Immigration LOTTery

Senator Trent Lott recently said approximately: "Our mistake was not getting out front and explaining the immigration bill."

The Vast American Conspiracy says

Not true. Your mistake is trying to foist off a bill giving preferential treatment to criminals and inviting yet another 20 million illegals into the country.

We've seen what happens when our government sucks up to businesses for cheap labor and illegals for new votes. We're not falling for the BS any more.

Reuters Has Left the News Business

Yes, it is official. Reuters has left the news business.

I admit it. This isn't news to anyone who reads with a critical eye. Just, this article about the current Michael Mooreon film, it's such an excellent example of how to write propaganda, I had to bring it up again. http://www.reuters.com/article/reviewsNews/idUSN2027073520070521

First lesson: Get your main falsehood in early, before people stop reading. Less than 20 words in, we encounter "Sicko" posits an uncontroversial, if not incontrovertible, proposition: The health care system in the U.S. is sick." Uncontroversial? Better look around Reuters. There are millions of us who think the US health care system works better than the Canadian or British systems. Many of them are Canadians and Brits, people who come to the USA for treatments they can not get or not get in a timely manner from their medical systems. That is, if they can afford to come after their governments suck the taxes for their "FREE" health care out of their pockets.

Second lesson: Make your lies sound like the masses agree. Remember the Soviet "Bolsheviks?" The minority who gained power in good part simply by calling themselves the majority. (Bolshevik is Russian for majority.) While the discussion is, as always with Moore, a uniquely American one, audiences in Europe and other markets will want to eavesdrop for the sheer fun of seeing Americans wallow in problems they solved years ago. Do freaking tell.

Those of you living in northern tier states know better. If you've needed high end care, you've probably waited longer than you wanted because the system was full of Canadians who couldn't get that care at home. Unlike Reuters, I won't ask you to take my word for this. Here's a recent article from a drug policy researcher at the University of Victoria and founder of Media Doctor Canada, which evaluates reporting of medical treatments in Canada’s media: http://commonground.ca/iss/0705190/cg190_drugbust.shtml

G=Four paragraphs into a 3 page article. If you're looking for something to write a master's thesis on, this display of propaganda is a great place to start. If you're not, read the article with a critical eye and see how hard Kirk Honeycutt works to spin you.

If you agree with me, contact a Reuters editor and give 'em hell: http://today.reuters.com/HelpAndInfo/ContactUs.aspx

Problems with Man Did It Global Warming

I make no claim to be a scientist qualified to fully evaluate all the science on either side of the Man Did It (MDI) claims. I do claim enough intelligence to see serious problems with much of the MDI "science."

To that end, I've decided to join in with the heretics, skeptics, and members of the vast right wing conspiracy bringing you science opposed to the highly politicised bovine excrement coming from the IPCC and their friends. I will update this post from time to time as I re-find or encounter new information indicating problems with claims and models as well as comments from real scientists who are not part of the "Global Consensus" man is at fault.

Khabibullo Ismailovich Abdusamatov, mathematician and physicist at the laboratory of solar physics [ at the Saint Petersburg-based Pulkovo Observatory ] and supervisor of the Astrometria project of the Russian section of the International Space Station tells us the world will go through a major cooling period, possibly rivaling the Little Ice Age (LIA), in mid 21st century. He says it is a result of reduced solar output resulting from normal cycles. One of many articles: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/2006/02/07/scientist_predicts_mini_ice_age/2345/
If anyone finds his paper in english translation, please post a link.

CO2 concentrations of 380 PPM are going to kill us all. Yeah, OK. Somehow they never mention concentrations of 7000, yes seven thousand, parts per million (PPM) during the Cambrian period. Global temperature was about 22C at the time. Stayed there as concentrations fell to about 4000 PPM. Then the worst nightmare of the MDI crowd happened. Temperatures, with CO2 concentrations still at 4000 PPM, began to fall. Big time. The Ordovician - Silurian ice age was beginning. Worse, for the MDI gang, concentrations then started rising as temps continued falling.

Graph Image http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif
Source Page http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
Developed by CR Scotese: http://www.scotese.com/ScoteseCV.htm

Augie Auer, clearly a member of the universal consensus, says "Man's contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn't change the climate if we tried," he maintained.

"We're all going to survive this. It's all going to be a joke in five years," he said.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaruherald/4064691a6571.html

Death Of The Hockey Stick! The global warming hockey stick from Mann et al is dead. You may remember the hockey stick temperature chart is a keystone of MDI global warming. (The stick: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/04/sci_nat_enl_1092666337/img/1.jpg )

Real scientists finally looked at it and pronounced it dead. They used the sometimes too polite language of science so you'll still see people trying to make out like it's a valuable tool. That's easily debunked with the first paragraph of the National Academy of Sciences report. http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11676

WASHINGTON -- There is sufficient evidence from tree rings, boreholes, retreating glaciers, and other "proxies" of past surface temperatures to say with a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years, according to a new report from the National Research Council. Less confidence can be placed in proxy-based reconstructions of surface temperatures for A.D. 900 to 1600, said the committee that wrote the report, although the available proxy evidence does indicate that many locations were warmer during the past 25 years than during any other 25-year period since 900. Very little confidence can be placed in statements about average global surface temperatures prior to A.D. 900 because the proxy data for that time frame are sparse, the committee added.

Let's look at the last 400 years or so. That's 1600 to present for grins. We're starting that time during the Little Ice Age, LIA, claims to the contrary, evidentialy supported as a world-wide event. Just 50 years before one of three minima (coldest periods). We continue through the LIA's end in about 1850. Cripes gang, I hope we're warmer than then. The cheeseheads would be really upset if a polar bear chomped Favre during a game. :-) The start date for the LIA is still up for grabs. 1250 when the Atlantic Ice Pack started growing? 1300 when warm summers in Europe stopped being dependable? 1550 when evidence suggests a global glacial expansion began? The first minima in 1650? So much for warmer than any time during the last 400 years since they were in an ice age. That call's so hard I could have made it.

Less confidence for the 600 years before 1600? Not according to the IPCC and Mann. They toss the Medieval Climate Optimum (MCO, ~800 - ~1300 AD) out the window just as they try to toss the LIA. As with the LIA, there is enough evidence suggesting the MCO was worldwide to make a viable argument.

Guess they didn't ask the Vikings who "discovered" Greenland about 1000 AD (AKA CE). Don't forget ancestors of modern Inuit who lived there off and on since about 2500 BCE (AKA BC).

Evidence from Greenland, superior evidence due to our knowledge of things mankind, suggests the island was warmer then than today by a couple of degrees C.

The NRC report and National Academies coverage should have been straight up so no one could be confused about the non-value of Mann's work.

Michael Crichton made an excellent comment about consensus science. "Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had." Did he have anything useful to say about "science" when the alleged scientists refuse to release either their data or processes?

What was Mann's excuse for withholding it until Congressman Barton demanded it in 2005?

Little Ice Age (LIA) and Medieval Climate Optimum (MCO or MWP) Even though the IPCC chose to ignore the LIA and MCO, the evidence they were global phenomena is far superior to evidence for the IPCC GW lynchpin hockey stick
http://w3g.gkss.de/staff/storch/pdf/soon+baliunas.cr.2003.pdf

This Just in: Hot Air Study Melts Global Warming Theory
Global warming alarmists may want to expedite their efforts to hamstring the global economy with greenhouse gas regulation. A new study touted as showing that we’re not sufficiently panicky about manmade carbon dioxide emissions actually supports the exact opposite conclusion. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,275267,00.html

Woods Hole: Not usually known as a hotbed of climate heretics does remind us the entire MDI fracas is built on data too limited to be reliable: Natural climate changes like the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period are of interest for a few reasons. First, they occur on decade to century time scales, a gray zone in the spectrum of climate change. It continues with Geological data clearly document globally coherent climate change on thousand-, ten thousand-, and hundred thousand-year time scales, so why is the record so confusing over just the past 1,000 years? http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=282&cid=3842
We should all recognize they are saying approximately "Short term climate change, anything less than 100 years, doesn't tell us a whole lot. The last thousand years are unusual in the long term record." When we hear a real scientist (Not Internet Al) talk about MDI global warming, we might want to consider if their wording is shaded to stave off attacks by the politicians.

George W. Bush did not cause Hurricane Katrina! http://fromzcorner.blogspot.com/2007/05/processes-that-govern-formation.html

Hurricanes: Not Just Hot Air

Just Do Something! Death By Enviro Do-Gooder

Another Nail In AlGore's Foot Why he was wrong about Mt Kilimanjaro's glaciers.

Where Oh Where Did The Carbon Go NCAR reports CO2 sinks are not what the models say.

Brown clouds heat atmosphere, may create as much as half the warming blamed on CO2.

Warmest year on record moves to 1934.

Excellent article explaining why many scientists believe the sun is driving temperature changes and some believe we may see a 1.5 degree C cooling by 2020




Stay tuned for more updates to this post.

Two Plus Two; More Than Four

More than a few people, including military members, have asked why military blogs and sites like MySpace have been cut off to them.

A story told by an acquaintance of mine. The names have been changed to protect the intelligent.

It's about 2+2 becoming something more than 4.

In the early '70s, those of us volunteering at the Pima County Air Museum noticed that there was a new type of U-2 flying overhead daily, from Davis-Monthan. Much bigger, and obviously not a mod of the original design. Aviation Leak had never mentioned it.

Rick, who was then just graduating from high school, went to the squadron and asked about it. He got the usual, "no comment", but was called back a few weeks later, and I went with him.

We were told, (obviously messages had gone back and forth from Washington,) that they could not answer any questions with facts, but.... The Commander would take written questions, and pass them on, to be returned with a 'yes', or 'no comment' answer. A yes meant it became declassified and we could publish it.

The PCAM becomes spies. We photographed flying airplanes, frequented bars and snooped crew conversations over brews. NOBODY ever said anything directly, but we were able to fill in the blanks on a lot of stuff, and gave a lot of questions to the Colonel.

We got the designation "U-2R" cleared for publication, and pretty much got the story that is in print today about that airplane.

Finally, Rick got another call to be a guest speaker at the U-2 wing commander's call. He told the whole story, and said it was the quietest group of people he had ever seen. They had all thought they were security aware, but when they saw what an 18 year-old kid could find out about them...?

And that, boys and girls, is why your military relative or friend is no longer allowed to post even unclassified information in public places.

Me, I now blame Rick for what seems like two years of weekly briefings, security training documents, and assorted lessons in not talking about your job.

Gore's Fear Mongers On the March

Al Gore’s at it again. In case you haven’t heard, he’s creating an army of fear mongering global warming propagandists. According to NewsMax.com (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/4/25/113847.shtml?s=ic), the first 50 are already doing damage as I type.

If you are like me, you like to be cool in summer, warm in winter, and have a hot shower more than twice a month. We must counter the propaganda before they scare the average person into voting for government controls on our energy daily lives. Let us set our own thermostats. Don’t make us drive eco-wacky selected vehicles; we like our BMWs and pickup.

Now is the time to act. When one of the fear mongers appears near you, attend. Ask questions. Write local papers pointing out the presentation was one sided and presented false information.

Stop back here often for updates to the problems with MDI (Man Did It) science.

Here are three things you can start with:

CO2 increases follow temperature increases by hundreds of years. That is bas ackwards to the MDI claims.

Climate models are not worth believing in. No less an authority than the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences ay MIT says so. Even if I were an MDI apostle I do believe I’d have to pay some attention to him. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17997788/site/newsweek/

The MDI crowd often uses charts and graphs customized to exaggerate their claims. This site uses three different graphs covering the same 120 years to make the point. http://hallofrecord.blogspot.com/2007/02/global-warming-its-how-you-say-it.html

Just for grins, an article on temperature oscillations on a 1500 year cycle and the LIA (Little Ice Age)/MWP (Medieval Warm Period) temperatures: http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V4/N46/EDIT.jsp