Mount Thielsen

One of the surprising things about Roseburg is the elevation.  It just seems higher then 500 feet. Douglas County goes from the ocean to the High Cascades.  The highest point is Mount Thielsen  at 9,184 feet.  I climbed it at 50 years old.

When I lost my weight, I started looking for challenges. Recapturing youth?  Sure... why not?  Ego? Okay...  Things I always wanted to do? All of the above, plus plenty more upon reflection.

Turning 50 has been a bit of tumult.  There is some disbelief that a half century has passed. Then again, I am really happy with my life.  I am just in such a good place with good people that turning 50 is much more sweet then bitter.

Anyway - Last year I was thinking of climbing Mt. Thielsen for my 50th.  With the start of summer and all the planning and being included in plans, I kind of shunted that goal to the side.  In the back of my mind I kept thinking of ways to get up there.

So my birthday came and Tina, true to form, planned a number of fun things.  My co-workers were very gracious in accolades. I had a fun outing at a karaoke bar, and a nice dinner out with my in-laws.  It was all  a pleasant time.  I was actually having some down time from visitors, etc., when someone pulled into my driveway early Saturday morning.  The sound on our street plays tricks, and I had thought it was the neighbors.  Tina's out-loud wondering of who could that be, prompted me to investigate.

There is a context of your day-to-day life.  When something so totally unbelievable occurs, your mind can reel in flashes of justifications and possibilities.  I would categorize this as mental shock.  Which is what I experienced as my childhood friend Robert Shoemaker (Shoo) was standing in my doorway, with his teenage son Kenrick.

Shoo lives in southern California. Due to the wonders of the internet we keep in touch regularly.  His showing up on my doorstep was so beyond anything, I was just stunned and surprised .  Tina had been planning this for a year.  Which is all the more remarkable as she is usually less then able to keep surprises.

The three of us sallied forth to Mt. Thielsen.  This is just under a two-hour drive to the Trail Head near Diamond Lake.  The hike is an uphill trek for about three miles.  You go through wondrous forest with some snowy patches.  The trail vanished at one point, but was unerringly found again by Shoo's preternatural ability to find such.  The peak was slowly moving closer and closer.  I was able to keep pace with Kenrick, which I was quite pleased with due to my fitness level, as he is a sporto in wrestling and football.

With about two miles left the terrain changed. There was loose dirt with foot-sized rocks on a pseudo trail, cutting back and forth above the treeline.  Each step would be either a good step up or a slide back.  You quickly learn to plant your foot and ease the pressure in anticipation.  At this point I began to outdistance Kenrick.  We would pause at times and gather back together.  It was slow going at a lung-busting elevation.  Shoo's tenacity was remarkable.  He stated that he was concerned about making the climb, only to note his progress toward the peak and then double down on willpower.

The next section was loose rock over rock.  As luck would have it, a young Swiss gentleman by the name of Allen was not far ahead, providing a visual reference for the climb.  It was a hands and feet climb,  the last hundred feet or so.  Kenrick and I got to the top, Shoo was close behind us.

The views are spectacular.  There were geological curiosities to ponder and quite a sense of accomplishment.

Currently I am in my own personal feeling of grace.

Turning 50

It was a fun birthday.  Even though I am not really a Birth-day kind of guy.

Tina arranged, via Facebook, a karaoke outing with with my work crew b-day eve, Keeka and Kirby in tow as well.  It was a pretty good turn out.  I did not choose the best songs to sing. Two of them being way out of my range. I did save my best (Soul Man) for my last tune.

I worked early the next morning and large amounts of caffeine buoyed my, already flying high spirits.  I received a happy birthday from everyone (was even sung the Swedish Birthday Song).  There was some honest disbelief that I had hit the half century mark, with a caveat being a wish they had similar energy and fitness level when they reached this number of solar orbits.

The Happy Birthday part was expected, the latter was not.  That kind of accolade made my day, multiple times over.

Impressionist Jim Meskimen Does Shakespeare in Celebrity Voices

Wisdumb

Be careful presenting facts to a liberal for it's guaranteed to enrage him.

Summer's Eve Hail to the V: "The V" Extended Cut

Never before have I seen a commercial like this... for this...

Raise Taxes?

Obama didn't raise taxes in a lame duck session when he had 59 Democrats in the Senate and almost 260 in the House.

Scratch an atheist, find a Fundamentalist.

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/zac-alstin-notes-a-basic-principle/


Zac Alstin Notes a Basic Principle. Namely, he recognizes that when you scratch an atheist, particularly a New Atheist, you will typically find a passionately religious (albeit flatfootedly moralistic and literalistic) Fundamentalist.
I can’t tell you how often I have gotten mail from people who tell me they don’t believe in God and then almost instantly reveal that they are furious with him.  Sometimes they are furious with him for not existing, but much more often they are furious with him for not doing something they badly wanted him to do.

That’s not stuff for mockery by the way.  Because many and many a time the something God was supposed to do was “save my daughter from death by cancer” or “keep my wife from committing suicide” or many other variations of the tragedies with which the world abounds.  Many “atheists” are just broken-hearted people who can’t stand the thought that a good God would allow to happen the shock that shattered their world.  For such folk, prayer and love, far more than logic-chopping argumentation is necessary thing.  Many an “unbeliever” has felt the walls of ice melt between them and the Joy of Man’s Desiring after a wrenching, cleansing, gasping cry of pain and gush of tears after years of frozen rage.  Seldom has that happened because somebody hammered them with an apologetics syllogism about papal infallibility.  They needed healing, not a sound defeat in a debate.

That said, there are also any number of callow youth whose problem is not some dark wound, but simply that they are callow youth who have read some dim dumb thing that Richard Dawkins wrote or clicked on a diatribe by Christopher Hitchens and decided they are the intellectual heroes who will make them feel superior to their high school sophomore class.  These people too cannot be converted by argument because nobody can be converted by argument. Nobody can be converted by your winning smile or my clever words or his watertight philosophical proof.  These things can be prelude to conversion and rational human beings can come to acknowledge things by the light of natural reason.  But only the Holy Spirit can do the heavy lifting of opening a human heart and mind to the light of divine truth.

That means that the first thing a gung ho evangelical atheist needs is prayer, not argument.  The prayer is not so much for conversion as for de-conversion.  Because a realio trulio confirmed atheist already has a deep religious belief.  What he needs is not faith (he has that: faith in the three pound piece of meat behind his eyes).  Nope, what he needs is right faith: in God and not himself, his brilliance, his rationality, his pride.  And no mortal power can disabuse him of that wrongly ordered faith.  Only God can.

Of course, not all atheists are of the gung ho militant variety.  Some are atheists because, well, they were just raised outside any living encounter with actual faith.  Indeed, I have known a number of atheists who range from curious to wistful about faith in Christ, as though it would be nice to believe if they could, but for whatever reason the inner “click” hasn’t happened to make the life of living faith in Christ real to them.  Once again, prayer is the first thing, since only God and convert.  At the same time, such atheists are often quite open to having a real conversation about the Faith.  Such folk are often treated with profound contempt by the shallow noisy atheist Fundamentalists who have a script and are stickin’ to it.  The contempt is due to the fact that these “Christ curious” atheists actually want to use their intellects instead of merely worshipping them.

But for the dyed-in-the-wool atheist of the New Atheist Speaker’s Bureau, the use of the intellect is strictly forbidden.  Slogans and pre-fab sound bites are the key.  The same clever lines get repeated again and again in a sort of atheist liturgy that drinks repeatedly from the same stale water.  The same prophets (Dennett, Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins) are read from like the four gospels.  Slogans about flying spaghetti monsters get repeated like antiphons at Mass.  The same two arguments about “the Problem of Evil” and “How the Laws of Nature Prove There is No Legislator” get trotted out, oblivious to the fact that St. Thomas answered them both.  In addition, we hear the same fallacies again and again in the liturgy of Padded arguments: religion is for suckers, Noah never lived, why can’t women be priests, Catholics sin, some miracles are fake so all are, the Pope is not photogenic, I am smarter than you, Galileo, six day creationism, SCIENCE!, etc.

It’s all as liturgical as a kabuki or a Mass—and as predictable.  Only the New Atheist seems to be oblivious to how much he owes the religion he is attacking.  Indeed, even his blasphemies depend for their power on the God he blasphemes, which is why he spends all his time Not Believing in the God of the Bible and very little time blaspheming Thor or Odin.

Swamp Ass PSA starring Nathan Fillion

Five Ways Obama Tanked Employment

President Obama’s defenders are taking to the airwaves to rebut the charge that his actions have caused the dire employment figure we see today. The rebuttals mirror those the President is making, and they sure don’t lack in audacity.

Some of the president’s enablers, for example, continue to claim that the unemployment rate is the fault of George W. Bush (even though it has been steadily rising two and a half years after Mr. Bush left office). Others say it is the structural result of deindustrialization. A third excuse making the rounds asserts that stalled talks over raising the debt ceiling have caused uncertainty and made businesses not hire.

Let’s quickly review the record. Here are five ways that President Obama’s actions have directly contributed to Friday’s dismal jobs report, which included a rise in unemployment to 9.2%, the news that only 18,000 jobs had been created in June in a country of 300 million people, that wages have declined and that 250,000 people left the job market entirely.

• Stimulus package—The nearly $1 trillion boondoggle failed to stimulate, as we all now know, but made government grow beyond its means. Most of the stimulus bill was filled with the usual government pork or repeating failed policies of the past such as “shovel-ready” projects. Very few provisions were pro-growth and worked to encourage companies to create new, permanent jobs. Some provisions, such as increased unemployment benefits, unfortunately increase the duration of unemployment. The bottom line is that the stimulus bill was based on the flawed economic assumption that governments can spend their way back to prosperity and growth. The government stimulus bill did not create jobs; instead it filled job creators with fears of future tax hikes or more borrowing, and thus future artificially high interest rates.
• Obamacare—It took the Administration and the Democratic-held Congress a year and half to ram this piece of legislation down the throat of the American people, time that could have been spent fixing the employment picture. Worse yet, Obamacare imposes vast and expansive new regulations and made labor costs uncertain. Many businesses have said that they are not going to hire permanent workers until they understand exactly how much Obamacare is going to cost their business and raise employment expenses. Other businesses are not sure how the new Obamacare regulations impacts their bottom line, which means they are going to sit tight instead of expanding.
• Frank-Dodd Financial Bill—The heavy-handed Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill not only placed needless burdens on small as well as large financial institutions,  but has deterred investment by imposing ill-defined restrictions on those who want to invest in the economy.  And it did so without addressing the real causes of the financial crisis.
• Environmental Protection Agency regulation—Unable to get Congress to pass Cap and Trade, with its skyrocketing electric rates, the Obama EPA is skinning the cat another way—mandating costly regulation. The EPA is implementing a lineup of electric-industry regulations, including the already in-force, but-as-yet-unspecified new CO2 rules, that promise higher rates, less reliability, and a sketchy future business environment.  It’s no great surprise that firms haven’t turned up the throttle on hiring and expansion.
• Regulatory Assault on Employers—The Administration’s enforcement agencies view employers as lawbreakers who need to be brought in line. Within the Department of Labor the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Wage and Hour Division (WHD) have ramped up enforcement spending while cutting back programs that help employers understand and comply with the law. Obama’s Solicitor of Labor emphasizes the Labor Department’s focus on litigation against employers. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is twisting the law into pretzels to facilitate union organizing, going so far as to file charges against Boeing for creating jobs in a non-union state. Obama’s message to employers has been clear: “We suspect you are breaking the law and we will get you.” Small wonder they are not hiring.

Original Source  via the Foundry.

time line for the Doctor

Research and design by the Online Dating Site

Worse Than The Church Abuse Scandals?

According to a major study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, the most in-depth investigation to date, nearly 10 percent of U.S. public school students have been targeted with unwanted sexual attention by school employees in an adult/minor context.

Titled, "Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature," the report says the mistreatment of students ranges from sexual comments to rape.

In fact, says the studies author, Carol Shakeshaft, professor of educational administration at Hofstra University, in Hempstead, New York, the scope of the school sex problem appears to far exceed the clergy abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church.

Comparing the incidence of sexual misconduct in schools with the Catholic Church scandal, Shakeshift notes that a study by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops concluded that 10,667 young people were sexually mistreated by priests between 1950 and 2002.

In contrast, the extrapolates from a national survey conducted for the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation in 2000 that roughly 290,000 students experienced some sort of physical sexual abuse by a public school employee between 1991 and 2000.

The figures suggest "the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests," said Shakshaft, according to Education Week.

Indeed, more than 4.5 million students are subject to sexual misconduct by an employee of a school sometime between kindergarden and 12th grade, says the report.

Sources:

- Carol Shakeshaft, "Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature," June 2004,http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/report.pdf

- Laurie Goodstein, "Scandals in the Church: The Overview; Abuse Scandals has been Ended, Top Bishop Says," New York Times, Feb 28, 2004,http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/us/scandals-in-the-church-the-overview-abuse-scandal-has-been-ended-top-bishop-says.html?pagewanted=all

- Caroline Hendrie, "Sexual Abuse By Educators Is Scrutinized, "Education Week, March 10, 2004,http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2004/03/10/26abuse.h23.html

And something has especially gone seriously wrong with our society when we now have an epidemic of female teachers sexually abusing their (minor) students...

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=39783

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=168525

Top Ten Ways Democrats Can Re-"Appropriate" July Fourth

10. Include a disclaimer on celebration notices warning that displays of patriotism might endanger children's welfare.

9. Have the EPA require that celebrations use only fireworks that are environmentally friendly and greenhouse gas neutral.

8. Include a ritual apology to Great Britain after all readings of the Declaration of Independence.

7. Have the National Endowment for the Arts fund naked interpretive dance troupes at July Fourth parades. Also, drum circles.

6. Burn slave-owning Founders in effigy.

5. Have the NLRB require that all parade volunteers be unionized.

4. Serve soy chai lattes at July Fourth parades.

3. A free bong hits booth at every parade.

2. Require that children have a permission slip to attend signed by . . . their school principal.

And the Number 1 way that Democrats could re-appropriate the Fourth of July is

1. Actually love their country and talk about it without always saying "I love America, but [issue probably having to do with their relationship with their fathers]."

(stolen frm Ace of Spades)

Actions Speak Louder Than Words, Mr. President

No majik involved.

At my work we sell laptop computers.  All of our systems have a nifty recovery system, where you can re-set a computer to factory install (So it is just like it would be out of the box).

Setting up a PC for home use can seem scary to a neophyte.  It is all about reading and answering questions with a toll free number by your side if the questions raise more questions.

Yesterday we had a member (customer) return a system, claiming that it had not been factory reset.  At first glance this appeared to be the case so I took the system to a work area and began the process.

I noticed the restore option was not there.  This means someone installed the OS from a disc or deleted the hard drive partition with the recovery information.  You can take any given hard drive and divide it up into smaller drives (virtually).  This gives you a semi-protected place for important stuff that will avoid most software issues.

Because this brand was not one of the usual ones I deal with, I decided to  check the bios.  Only to find it had been password protected.  Further inspection showed that the computer had an admin account that was disabled and a password protected user account, that the member had no idea what the password was.

Of course the member blamed this on the computer and the staff who had reset it to factory conditions.

Computers are such magical devices that some people assume all things are possible.  Further the human ego is such that admission of critical error that might put one in trouble is prevaricated upon.

So I have a good idea what happened, based upon what I observed, yet that is all beside the point.  This laptop is unfixable with the tools I have at werk.

Nanny State

Uninvited and damaging government intervention, stemming from a misguided desire to protect.

Ultimate Dog Teaser

This got funnier the more I thought about it.

Lets do the same thing again and expect a different result!

Who actually thinks this is a good idea?


I would think the authors of this report do not...  I could be way wrong...

Weinermandius

I read a hyperlink from a Twitter sage
Who said: "A vast and trunkless dick of stone
Stands in an archive. Near it on the page,
Half sunk, a shattered screencap lies, whose tone
And wrinkled pecs and leer of middle age
Tell that its subject kept that poontang rapt
Who yet discuss, in coed Facebook throngs,
The man who chased them and his hand that fapped.
And on the EXIF these words appear:
`My name is Weinermandius, Dong of Dongs:
Look on my junk, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal bulge, manscaped and bare,
The lonely intertubes stretch far away." 

Lets fund illegal alien advocates!

Cecilia Munoz, La Raza’s senior vice president and lobbyist, joined the Obama administration as director of intergovernmental affairs in 2009. Since then, Judicial Watch reports, federal funding being poured into the organization has more than doubled: READ MORE.

Update Weiner gets a job offer

Has to be read...

Tony Weiner exit.

A short time ago I blogged about the NY representative with an attempt at satire in the title.  Today I found he resigned his position.  I would like to state, had I known he would have taken my posting so personally, I would have titled it more straightforward.

Anyways...  I openly commented on his departure and a liberal friend responded that he was being harangued for his actions.  I countered that President Clinton did not forswear his position, with much more grave indiscretions.

Her response was quite telling.  As it was Weiners denial and attempt to blame others that was at the crux of the issue.  Not his pervy indiscretions.   I ponder if he had come out and exclaimed it was, indeed, his own photos sent out to the nubile twitter fans, he would have kept his job, nay, been glorified by the left for his bold honesty...

Should he have resigned?  Yeah, I think so.  But, he should have owned up and resigned from the beginning.  At this point it is just sycophantic toadying.

Summer stuffering...

There is stuff that needs doing around the house.  Always is...

That's the thing with houses.  You always have stuff to do.  Whee!

I got some railroad ties to help de-grass the lawn slope on the North side.  We also need to move some stuff from Diana's room.  We would use the patio, but that has become a problem.  The roof of the patio is leaking.  So I got some nasty black tar stuff to seal the roof, so we can clean up the mess so we can move the stuff.

This black satanic mess is going to cost you clothing and shoes, not to mention any equipment needed to apply.  I am not sure how it got on various locations upon my body.  I am thinking it hid and jumped at times.  In my mind the job should have gone pretty quickly.  It was cloudy so I climbed up and began.  The sun broke out of the clouds about the time I was covered in so much junk I could not apply sun-screen.  Also climbing up and down the ladder was not an easy option either, as Connor was happily using said ladder to observe my work.

Finally the bucket was well short of the 300 square foot roof.  Even short of the 250 square foot promised.  so I had to clean up and drive out to get another bucket.  Finally finished, I started the chore of using petrol as a cleaner for the sticky mess that I had become.  It seems I had carefully spilled blotches all over the greater Pacific North West.  I got my hands pretty well then arms then legs and finally feet.  I jumped into the shower with a bottle of dawn to clean off  the gas smell.

Then I found several large black area's on the back of my legs and eyelid....  Ugh!  Another round of gas followed by a shower later and I thought I was cleaned.

I went through the backyard and pulled up piles of tar grass and spread some dirt on other tar messes.  During this I got a bunch on my nice shorts... Not even sure why I wore them...

Tina found a few more spots and cold cream actually worked.  That stuff is just scary...

So now the patio should be rain proofed...

Petition to Apply Affirmative Action to Basketball Team

Gotta love how Collage kids think...

Bump in the Road

US Is in Even Worse Shape Financially Than Greece: Gross - CNBC

US Is in Even Worse Shape Financially Than Greece: Gross - CNBC

Exclusive: The Fed's $600 Billion Stealth Bailout Of Foreign Banks Continues At The Expense Of The Domestic Economy, Or Explaining Where All The QE2 Money Went

Exclusive: The Fed's $600 Billion Stealth Bailout Of Foreign Banks Continues At The Expense Of The Domestic Economy, Or Explaining Where All The QE2 Money Went

Well this is a fine How do you do...

Malthus and other predictions.

Recently the end of the world forecast did not occur. Curiously there was some angst that it might. Of course this was followed by ridicule and a new date for the end to um... begin.

I was thinking about The Population Bomb's' opening lines the authors state that nothing can prevent famines in which hundreds of millions of people will die during the 1970s (amended to 1970s and 80s in later editions),

There was the coming ice age, back in the 70's as well.

Peak Oil has been one false prediction after another.

And Man Made Global warming has had its own set of doomsday clocks.

So how many of these world shattering predictions have to come and go before we take them in the context they deserve?  Skeptical.

Pedophile Weiner.

Patterico has gone after the NY Representative more then any other entity I have seen.  While it should be viewed in the correct context, it is very damming.

Part One:


Part Two:


Part Three:

At a minimum this is a creepy icky guy, who represents the people of New Yorks Ninth District.

Nobody

Nobody can say we aren't progressive, hip, postmodern, ironic and extremely stylish as we kill ourselves.

Huge Number of Businesses to Drop Health Insurance, Thanks to Obamacare | The Foundry

Huge Number of Businesses to Drop Health Insurance, Thanks to Obamacare | The Foundry

I suppose, that having individuals pick up insurance on their own, instead of it being a job benefit would provide for more of a marketplace...

Still, this mess-ed up bill is just getting more and more horrendous.

Salon Abortion Story Conflicts with Original | NewsBusters.org

Salon Abortion Story Conflicts with Original | NewsBusters.org

Weiner

In case you are wondering (from having read or watched various news outlets).  Rep. Anthony Weiner is a Democrat...

The Other Lottery: Are Philanthropists Backing the Best Charter Schools? | Andrew J. Coulson | Cato Institute: Policy Analysis

The Other Lottery: Are Philanthropists Backing the Best Charter Schools? | Andrew J. Coulson | Cato Institute: Policy Analysis

LOL | David Mitchell's Soapbox

Questioning

Unemployment is up. Gas prices are up. Food prices are up. Home prices are down. And debt is exploding.

Exactly how is that a record that anyone on either side of the aisle can feel good about?

Newsweek ??science?? Editor??

Wow, talk about misinformed...

The tornadoes = global warming argument reminds me of something we read over and over during the past several winters of severe cold and snow: "Weather is not climate."

 The zealot AGW cult chanted this phrase as if it were The Mantra Against Facts, every time someone pointed out that climatologist's models did not predict the cold weather we've been getting (until AFTER we started getting it).

As soon as a weather related tragedy strikes they hypocritically ignore what they said and started bleating, "IT'S CLIMATE CHANGE!! IT'S CLIMATE CHANGE!!"

Example:

Even those who deny the existence of global climate change are having trouble dismissing the evidence of the last year. In the U.S. alone, nearly 1,000 tornadoes have ripped across the heartland, killing more than 500 people and inflicting $9 billion in damage. The Midwest suffered the wettest April in 116 years, forcing the Mississippi to flood thousands of square miles, even as drought-plagued Texas suffered the driest month in a century. Worldwide, the litany of weather’s extremes has reached biblical proportions. The 2010 heat wave in Russia killed an estimated 15,000 people. Floods in Australia and Pakistan killed 2,000 and left large swaths of each country under water. A months-long drought in China has devastated millions of acres of farmland. And the temperature keeps rising: 2010 was the hottest year on earth since weather records began.

From these and other extreme-weather events, one lesson is sinking in with terrifying certainty. The stable climate of the last 12,000 years is gone.

The climate has been stable for the last 12,000 years? Yeah, that Little Ice Age between the 16th and 19th centuries was the picture of stability.

And though this has been a very active tornado season, it's hardly biblical as well as likely caused by this year's La Niña according to a majority of meteorologists on both sides of the global warming debate.

Alas, science really isn't important to this "science editor" who also seemed to miss an obvious point with her hyperventilation "The Midwest suffered the wettest April in 116 years." That means 116 years ago, when there was far less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the planet was a bit cooler, the Midwest suffered a wetter April.


Example:

Picture California a few decades from now, a place so hot and arid the state's trademark orange and lemon trees have been replaced with olive trees that can handle the new climate. Alternating floods and droughts have made it impossible for the reservoirs to capture enough drinking water. The picturesque Highway 1, sections of which are already periodically being washed out by storm surges and mudslides, will have to be rerouted inland, possibly through a mountain.

So in just a few decades, all the orange and lemon trees in my state will be gone, there won't be enough drinking water, and much of the gorgeous Pacific Coast Highway will be kaput.

That's going to wreak havoc with property values.

Example:

Because of the CO2 that has already been emitted, we're on track for an additional 5 degrees of warming...New York, which is looking at an average temperature increase of up to 3 degrees Fahrenheit by 2020, is planning to paint 3 million square feet of roofs white, to reflect sunlight and thus reduce urban heat-island effects.

So, it took 155 years for temperatures to rise 1.37 degrees Fahrenheit. If we continued at this pace it would take 565 years for us to rise another five degrees.

Yet this so-called "science editor" claimed New York could see its temperatures increase by as much as three degrees in only nineteen years.

Which is why Newsweek should be ashamed of itself for allowing such nonsense to be published.
If only the folks associated with this publication possessed such a thing called shame.

Liberals no longer disdain the patriot act?

Long read but makes the point

The patriot act was renewed with only the smallest of whimper, from the same media that sited Bush as the incarnation of  Mao Zadung.

One can only conclude that it was the color of George Bushes skin!  Damn Racist media!

Climate Scientists Subverted Peer Review | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary

Climate Scientists Subverted Peer Review | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary

From 2009. Peer review is crucial to a climatologists work being validated.

Unless said review only disproves what your getting funding for proving...

Indirect Solar Forcing of Climate by Galactic Cosmic Rays: An Observational Estimate

Indirect Solar Forcing of Climate by Galactic Cosmic Rays: An Observational Estimate

By Roy Spenser, Ph. D.

Stimulus Cost 1 Mil Private Jobs? - Investors.com

Stimulus Cost 1 Mil Private Jobs? - Investors.com

Tax Idea...

Here is a thought the more you pay in taxes the more your vote counts. This way those who vote to increase the size of government but contribute little to keeping that government afloat can sit on the sidelines?

President 2012

The only thing that could stop the GOP from getting the White-house, is another McCain like selection.

Personally, I would love to see Paul Ryan get the nod. He would have to run though.

Another fallen believer in Global Warming.

Carbon warming too minor to be worth worrying about

By David Evans

This may be crazy!

I am going to state categorically that the world will not come to an end this month.  Despite this going against the Jedi beliefs, there it is... an absolute...

Good thing I have some noteworthy peers.  Read On

hat's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane -
Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn -
world serves its own needs, regardless of your own needs. Feed it up a knock,
speed, grunt no, strength no. Ladder structure clatter with fear of height,
down height. Wire in a fire, represent the seven games in a government for
hire and a combat site. Left her, wasn't coming in a hurry with the furies
breathing down your neck. Team by team reporters baffled, trump, tethered
crop. Look at that low plane! Fine then. Uh oh, overflow, population,
common group, but it'll do. Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its
own needs, listen to your heart bleed. Tell me with the rapture and the
reverent in the right - right. You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright
light, feeling pretty psyched.

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in foreign tower. Slash and burn,
return, listen to yourself churn. Lock him in uniform and book burning,
blood letting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle,
light a motive. Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh,
this means no fear - cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament,
a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives
and I decline.

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

The other night I tripped a nice continental drift divide. Mount St. Edelite.
Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs.
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom! You symbiotic, patriotic,
slam, but neck, right? Right.

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine...fine...

(It's time I had some time alone)

Be Productive

The other day, a co-worker brought up that the phrase, "Be Productive" had become a buzz word. One that is tossed about by management with no definition.

That, in turn, reminded me of a co-worker from years past who's attitude was, "If they want me to show initiative they have to pay me more".  This really is a head scratcher, "We are not going to be of greater value, unless you pay us that value first".  When you consider that there is a job to be done and managers want the job done well and efficiently.  They should be rewarding those who are meet expectation and promoting those who exceed expectation.

Someone who is productive will be given a task, they will look for ways to do the task better, quicker, smarter.  The task will be finished and they will be ready for the next task given.  They will also be proactive when they spot a task that needs doing.

Employers are taking a chance on any given worker. The resume, application, interview process is a way to minimize risk.  Most people are not happy when they spend too much on something or when something of value is lost, stolen or destroyed.  You can see why a manager will be relieved when they hire someone who is productive.

On the other hand, if you have an employee who has shown to be productive, there could be a tendency to leave them in that job.  The worker is attempting to show greater value and in turn wants the opportunity to receive greater value.

The extra 0.3 millimeters of fictitious sea level rise will add up to 1.2

Source

Catastrophic sea level rise is one of the most valued hole cards played by alarmists in the global warming debate. In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore showed computer generated images of what Manhattan would look like if sea level rose 20 feet. Building on this theme, elevation charts of coastal cities have become a staple in global warming presentations by Al Gore wannabes. But what happens when sea level in the real world does not rise nearly as much as alarmists predict? If you are a NASA-funded gatekeeper of sea level data, you merely doctor the data.

Faced with the embarrassing fact that sea level is not rising nearly as much as has been predicted, the University of Colorado’s NASA-funded Sea Level Research Group has announced it will begin adding a nonexistent 0.3 millimeters per year to its Global Mean Sea Level Time Series. As a result, alarmists will be able to present sea level charts asserting an accelerating rise in sea level that is not occurring in the real world.

Human civilization readily adapted to the seven inches of sea level rise that occurred during the twentieth century. Alarmists, however, claim global warming will cause sea level to rise much more rapidly during the present century. United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) computer models project approximately 15 inches of sea level rise during the 21st century. That’s more than double the sea level rise that occurred during the twentieth century. A more “mainstream” prediction among alarmists is 3 feet of sea level rise this century. Some alarmists have even projected 20 feet of global sea level rise this century.

Satellite measurements, however, show global sea level rose merely 0.83 inches during the first decade of the 21st century (a pace of just 8 inches for the entire century), and has barely risen at all since 2006. This puts alarmists in the embarrassing position of defending predictions that are not coming true in the real world.

The University of Colorado Sea Level Research Group is coming to their rescue. The NASA-funded group claims glacial melt is removing weight that had been pressing down on land masses, which in turn is causing land mass to rise. This welcome news mitigates sea-level rise from melting glacial ice, meaning sea level will rise less than previously thought. However, it is very inconvenient for alarmist sea level predictions. Therefore, instead of reporting the amount by which sea level is rising in the real world, the Sea Level Research Group has begun adding 0.3 millimeters per year of fictitious sea level rise to “compensate” for rising land mass.

The extra 0.3 millimeters of fictitious sea level rise will add up to 1.2 inches over the course of the 21st century. While this is not monumental in and of itself, it will allow alarmists to paint a dramatically different picture of sea level rise than is occurring in the real world. For example, the current pace of 8 inches of sea level rise for the present century is essentially no different than the 7 inches of sea level rise that occurred last century. However, with an artificially enhanced 9.2 inches of sea level rise, alarmists can claim sea level is rising 31 percent faster than it did last century.

Even under this scenario, sea level is not rising nearly as fast as IPCC and other alarmists have predicted. Nevertheless, a quick Google search of “sea level” and “global warming” shows an overwhelming number of items claiming dramatic and accelerating sea level rise, with very few items reporting that alarmist predictions and computer models are being contradicted by real-world data. The newly adjusted NASA-funded sea level data will merely add fuel to the errant fire.

Ow

The Amazing power that is Global Warming!

Is there nothing Global warming cannot do??!!

Climate change 'threatens UK wi-fi connections', says government report

Oh what irony, that one of Al Gores inventions would attack the other!!??

Skools

The mantra I hear from teachers about the failings of our academic institutions is "Blame the Parents."  Closely  following this is the request for more monies to 'fix' the problems.

I have two kids make it through Public education with one moving through the same. I ponder how such a simple notions of, blame the parent and more cash will fix this can hold water.

As far as cash goes, I would love to see the fiscals for federal level, state level and local level.  In my way of thinking a yearly check sent to the principal of each school saying "Pay for everything this year with this, save the rest for emergency" would flood the coffers.  Is that as simplistic? Dunno.  It's only a random thought.

Also, if Parents are to blame for the failings.  Why do home schooled kids do so well?  I mean that is usually the parents providing education, right?

How do private schools do so much better with less funding?  Of course they can pick and choose students.  Of course they can pick and choose students.  Taking that into account, they still outperform.

I see the blame more put on the Administration at the Fed and State level and the Unions.

Super True Stories: Best. Conspiracy. Ever. (Ep. 2)

Jerusalem had a lot more skyscrapers in 37 AD than I would have expected ...

Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine

This is just prophetic.

Fog of War

Press Secretary Jay Carney blamed the below differing stories on the 'fog of combat.'

THEN: Osama Bin Laden was armed with an AK-47 during the raid.

NOW: The Al Qaeda leader was actually unarmed but did resist before he was shot.

THEN: On Monday, the White House said Bin Laden was involved in a firefight, which is why the SEALs killed rather than captured him.

NOW: On Tuesday, however, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Bin Laden did not fire on the SEALs.

THEN: Counter-terrorism chief, John Brennan said a woman, thought to be one of bin Laden’s wives, was used as a human shield during the raid and was killed.

NOW: Amal Al-Sadah, 27, bin Laden’s youngest wife, is thought to have rushed at the Navy SEALS and was shot in the leg but not killed. The woman who died was said to be the wife of one of his aides, caught in the cross fire. 

THEN: A White House transcript said it was bin Laden’s son Hamza who was killed in the raid.

NOW: They then corrected that to another son Khalid.

THEN: The night of the raid, administration officials held a telephone briefing for reporters. 'During the raid, we lost one helicopter due to mechanical failure,' one of the administration officials said.

NOW: Later in the same call, another official contradicted that: 'We didn't say it was mechanical.'

Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two

LMFAO - Party Rock Anthem ft. Lauren Bennett, GoonRock

"Vitamins?"

Stimulus by Fed Is Disappointing, Economists Say

Wow... Really?  Gosh...

About Jesus, historically.

 There are numerous non-biblical accounts concerning Jesus and we have documents close to the original manuscripts attesting to his life and works, some dating to within the 1st century.

Consider that the earliest manuscripts we have for Homer's Illiad, for example, are 500 years from the original.
Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars, 1,000 years.
Herodotus's History, 1,300 years.
There are only 643 manuscripts of Homer's Illiad available to us; 10 for Gallic Wars; 8 for Herodotus's History.

The manuscripts we have of the Bible's New Testament, including the accounts of Jesus' life, are as close as 25 years to the originals and number over 24,000. As far as ancient documents go, nothing really compares.

There is much less documentation for Alexander the Great. So, it isn't the lack of evidence at issue. It is whether or not one believes the accounts that are written in the ancient documents.

Hold it against me 266 Rein Marines Official Version

Brilliant!

Media bias on Parade.

Part II

Part III

Happy Birthday Tina!

Today is well regarded as my wifes birthday.

The Top Five Environmental Disasters that Didn't Happen

In honor of earth day.

Joke still needs a good punch line.

What does Al Gore and Charles Manson have in common?

Climate Change. Is there NOTHING it can not do?

Global warming causes bear attacks...

GDP question.

So, if you get around $938 billion from the rich, and basically $2,000 billion from everybody else, that gives you $3 trillion (rounded up).

Then you have a budget deficit of one to $1.4 trillion, where is the money coming from?

You couldn't close the deficit if you confiscated everybody's money.

UN Scrubs Errant 50 Million Global Warming Refugees Prediction From Website

UN Scrubs Errant 50 Million Global Warming Refugees Prediction From Website

As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, the United Nations in 2005 wrongly predicted there would be 50 million environmental refugees by the end of the previous decade as a result of global warming.

Aaron Worthing noticed Friday that the 'handy map" the U.N. had created to identify places most at risk for such population migrations has been removed:

You might remember the other day I pointed out how the UN predicted 50 million climate refugees by 2010, a prediction that came up laughably short of the mark by only around 50 million. Well, if you go to that post and click on the link to the UN page making that claim… something funny happens. You get this:

Isn't that nice?

Worthing has cached screenshots of that page's content for those interested.

The man that first reported the irony of this U.N. prediction, Asian Correspondent's Gavin Atkins, noted Saturday:

In 2007, UN Under-Secretary General and Head of the UNEP, Aachim Steiner told a conference in Africa:

So I have initiated a number of reforms that will begin in the next few weeks.

Some however have already begun in terms of looking at how we can improve the transparency and accountability of this institution

He also received the Steiger Award for straight-forwardness, honesty, fairness and helpfulness.

Is the deletion of this map without adequate explanation an example of Mr Steiner’s transparency and accountability?

Indeed.

Is this what we can expect from the U.N. in the future - when one of its predictions of doom and gloom don't pan out, the evidence will get scrubbed?

That's quite a level of integrity at the organization largely responsible for all the world's panic over carbon dioxide emissions.

This should make folks even more skeptical of anything coming from this outfit.

charter

Some for-profit charter school chains are corrupt, therefore every charter school is bad, and the charter movement must be opposed...


wth?

So whats wrong with this?

New Federal Tax Code:

After the first 50,000.00 dollars of income (the monetary payment received for goods or services, or from other sources, as rents or investments). Individuals will be taxed 20%.  (20% is a number I pulled out of a hat).

Rhetoric

Nasty political discourse is something that has always been.  If you look back in some archives you will find it much nastier then it is now.

Easy

It is very easy to justify the purchase of a bike.

Easier still, when it is used as the primary method of going to and from a paying job.

Even more so, when gas prices move upward at a wallet gutting pace.

Learning to ask the right questions.

Sales is an interesting occupation.  At Costco our members (customers), see us in our red vests and ask the location of various things.  Or they have particular questions about computers or televisions. Sometimes they just need someone to load a safe onto a cart.

We emphasize customer service, even if there are only a few of us on the floor.

So when a members starts a conversation with: "A while ago you had a..."  I have a sense of dread.  Usually this item is something we do not have and may, or may not have in the future.  I can check the item and see if there are any in stock, at the warehouse etc. This only provides me a two week window on any given item. If you see something at Costco and you want it... buy it.  Because, it may not be there the next visit.

Answering the "why do you not have something" is a slippery slope.  Luckily, we have many long time Costco employees who have honed a response with experience. So I listen dutifully when one of these explanations, are spoken from a knowledgeable one. The corporate philosophy is to be honest and forthright.  Which works well for me.  I have never had management tell me not to tell a member something honest.  However, presentation in these situations is key.

Work Friends

Tina pointed out how anti-social I am.

A group of people from my work head out to a local bar on to sing Karaoke. I got a hankering to go and after a couple of false starts we were able to attend. It was fun enough that we were able to go a second time and even stay much longer. (even though Tina has early work the next day.)

Tina commented on how this was the first time, since we moved up here, that I showed an interest in going out with people from work. I was pretty sure this was not true, in retrospect she is right.

I have to go back to Planet Photon (a place I worked) before I can find myself working with work people I liked hanging out with. Well, there are my skate guard jobs. However, I skated there socially prior to working.

So what is so non-compelling about my previous "work friends?" How has this changed?

I have a great group of friends that I have been in contact with, the social network of Facebook has given me the opportunity to re-connect with many others. Moving up to Oregon, did pluck me from my social circle, and I have never felt much of a need to re-establish one.

TV contrast ratio

TV contrast ratio is one of the most controversial specifications when comparing televisions from manufacturer to manufacturer because the industry doesn't have an agreed upon standard of measurement.

Without a standard, we don't know exactly how each manufacturer tests their displays and how their process differs from other manufacturers. As a result, industry experts recommend using contrast ratio only when comparing HDTVs made by the same manufacturer.

The general thought among industry experts is that static contrast ratio is a more reliable measurement because it is more consistent with how the viewing display will show content rather than a "what if" scenario that dynamic contrast ratio employs.

Dream

I had a dream vivid enough that I remember having a dream. There has been quite a long time since that happened.

I remember it being very detailed. Now I can only recall bits and pieces.

Being on a hillside, wearing something like my dead cowboy staple costume that limits my peripheral vision. Possibly sans eyeglasses. Seeing a car pull-up. It is supposed to be dark, but it is more of that 70's television dark with sharp shadows.

I was looking around quickly as if anticipating something, when I notice a looming shadow, meaning something large and probably menacing is behind me, further up the hill.

I think I was supposed to be scared but I recall being annoyed and thinking: "Great, now I have to fight this, whatever it is..."

Dreams sure are weird.

Dinosaurs.

In talking with a fundamentalist about creation and the fall, he was surprised that Catholics did not share views.

Later I decided to look it up in the Catechism:

390 The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.

396 God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God. the prohibition against eating "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" spells this out: "for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die." The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.

So you could interpret the two trees literally. The Catechism (the common teaching of the Church) seems to take them symbolically, one representing the opportunity for immortality in union with God and the other representing the moral limits that man must respect or fall out of harmony with God.

Finally,

310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better. But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world "in a state of journeying" towards its ultimate perfection. In God's plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.

Fast food = Bad food?

A recent facebook wall conversation linked homeless obesity with fast food.

That started me thinking about Taco Bell. Way back when, they had large pressure cookers and a deli style slicer. The ingredients that came in consisted of dry Pintos, heads of iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, onions etc. They did not open until 11:00, giving the morning crew a chance to prep for lunch. They would cook the meat, pressure cook the beans, slice the veggies and grate the cheese.

This is a far cry from the current fare. So what is the difference?

Fast food is a volume business. With minimum wage laws they need to up efficiency in order to stay viable. They are in a fight for every consumer. With a business model like this they have guys in cubicles crunching numbers and coming up with charts, graphs and figures to lower the cost of business. At the same time you have to maintain a uniformity and quality that makes people desire the product.

A factory that makes the items and a distribution system must make fiscal sense. Which makes fresh food a thing of the past. So more stuff to enhance the taste and degrade the waste.

Some places have bucked the trend; Subway, for instance. I wonder what the profit on a five dollar foot long is really?

President Barack Obama's First Ad of 2012