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.