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John Stewart puts the Shirley Sherrod debacle in context.
July 28, 2010
July 27, 2010
Price Club
What a difference a week makes. At the beginning of July my hours went from a belt tightening 34 hours a week to a, do we eat or pay mortgage, 20 hours a week at the Library. Prospects for the library to even be functional next July is slim to none. So with 22% unemployment (U6 number). I have been hopefully applying to various jobs trying to land a part time or better.
The big news in town is that CostCo, after years of red tape, had finally gotten to the point of reality here in town. I applied and read that they got over 3000 applications for a scant 100 part time jobs. We went on vacation, which may have not been a fiscally good choice. Still the decompression did help and many prayers and intersession requests.
When we got back to town I re-applied and got an interview which became two interviews. That got me a call back for a third interview. Then came a job offer and acceptance. They kept talking about this being part time position. So I was planning on dual employment until such time as they would take me on full time.
Last Tuesday I had my orientation and found out I was full time! Which could have meant I had to turn in my two weeks notice. At the library I explained the situation and requested a waiver for the two weeks. They complied and Thursday I started full time at the new job.
The building opens to the public on August 12th and there is much to be done. Lots of product needs to be put out on display and even more construction needs doing. This is the literal hive of activity and my desk bound body is getting quite the workout.
Pallets are those wooden platforms that allow a forklift to gain access and move freight. They are referred to as "boards." Building a Board, means to take a shipment load open it up and unpack the product and stack it for identification and access. These boards are then situated in an area that makes sense to our shoppers (members). So you do not have baby diapers next to automotive tools. As we only have one grand opening we are very careful to make sure everything aligns up and the product is impeccably faced. While I am quite sure that the bulk of our members will not appreciate the aesthetics, some will and overall it gives a quality and care vibe of pride. The store is looking awesome!
So I am cutting shrink wrap, breaking shipping bands, carrying boards lifting, twisting, moving and learning the lingo. The first couple of nights I was really be sore and needed some liniment, massage and ibuprofen. My steel toe shoes gave me nasty blisters and bruises. Luckily the job sight was released from construction, and I was able to switch to my new balance.
Loosing the weight and being more physically fit has paid dividends. I find myself able to perform on par or better then my co-workers. I noted several times they would up their pace to match mine. My energy level has been complimented and those thanks I pass on up to the Lord.
Yesterday we unloaded 800 shopping cards and pushed them in sets of 10 (per the rules) to a location outside. For some reason moving large heavy things has always been a source of fun. I was easily the fastest at pushing and the leg pumping action was quite the workout.
The people are great. The management know all facets of the job at hand. Seeing upper management jump onto a forklift and handle it like a pro is inspiring. I have not seen any posturing or sniping. Everyone is on task and on mission.
It feels like I won the lottery, job wise.
July 25, 2010
David Sticks his Oar into the Fruity Subject of Innuendo
Recently, I had similar thoughts on the same subject. David has better writers. Enjoy.
July 23, 2010
So I have a job
A full time job with the prosepect of overtime paid at time and a half (w00t!). I went to orientation expecting to have two part time jobs... They hired me FULL TIME!
I started on Thursday, unwrapping pallets of goods. Re stocking them on nicer pallets in a display manner. Then clean up all the packing materials, rinse and repeat.
These are long physical days and my poor old body feels the mileage at the end of the day. However, I am keeping pace with the younger group (where did all the people my age go?). Surprisingly, I am feeling quite recovered after a good nights sleep. I surmise my morning four mile runs have something to do with that. Not that I have been running yesterday or today.
The people are excellent and everyone pitches in, the respect I have gleaned from my co-workers has been earned without expectation of having to do so. Good hard workers one and all.
July 21, 2010
Global Warming 101.
Global warming by Doc. Roy.
1) Are Global Temperatures Rising Now? There is no way to know, because natural year-to-year variability in global temperature is so large, with warming and cooling occurring all the time. What we can say is that surface and lower atmospheric temperature have risen in the last 30 to 50 years, with most of that warming in the Northern Hemisphere. Also, the magnitude of recent warming is somewhat uncertain, due to problems in making long-term temperature measurements with thermometers without those measurements being corrupted by a variety of non-climate effects. But there is no way to know if temperatures are continuing to rise now…we only see warming (or cooling) in the rearview mirror, when we look back in time.
2) Why Do Some Scientists Say It’s Cooling, while Others Say that Warming is Even Accelerating? Since there is so much year-to-year (and even decade-to-decade) variability in global average temperatures, whether it has warmed or cooled depends upon how far back you look in time. For instance, over the last 100 years, there was an overall warming which was stronger toward the end of the 20th Century. This is why some say “warming is accelerating”. But if we look at a shorter, more recent period of time, say since the record warm year of 1998, one could say that it has cooled in the last 10-12 years. But, as I mentioned above, neither of these can tell us anything about whether warming is happening “now”, or will happen in the future.
3) Haven’t Global Temperatures Risen Before? Yes. In the longer term, say hundreds to thousands of years, there is considerable indirect, proxy evidence (not from thermometers) of both warming and cooling. Since humankind can’t be responsible for these early events, this is evidence that nature can cause warming and cooling. If that is the case, it then opens up the possibility that some (or most) of the warming in the last 50 years has been natural, too. While many geologists like to point to much larger temperature changes are believed to have occurred over millions of years, I am unconvinced that this tells us anything of use for understanding how humans might influence climate on time scales of 10 to 100 years.
4) But Didn’t the “Hockey Stick” Show Recent Warming to be Unprecedented? The “hockey Stick” reconstructions of temperature variations over the last 1 to 2 thousand years have been a huge source of controversy. The hockey stick was previously used by the IPCC as a veritable poster child for anthropogenic warming, since it seemed to indicate there have been no substantial temperature changes over the last 1,000 to 2,000 years until humans got involved in the 20th Century. The various versions of the hockey stick were based upon limited amounts of temperature proxy evidence — primarily tree rings — and involved questionable statistical methods. In contrast, I think the bulk of the proxy evidence supports the view that it was at least as warm during the Medieval Warm Period, around 1000 AD. The very fact that recent tree ring data erroneously suggests cooling in the last 50 years, when in fact there has been warming, should be a warning flag about using tree ring data for figuring out how warm it was 1,000 years ago. But without actual thermometer data, we will never know for sure.
5) Isn’t the Melting of Arctic Sea Ice Evidence of Warming?Warming, yes…manmade warming, no. Arctic sea ice naturally melts back every summer, but that meltback was observed to reach a peak in 2007. But we have relatively accurate, satellite-based measurements of Arctic (and Antarctic) sea ice only since 1979. It is entirely possible that late summer Arctic Sea ice cover was just as low in the 1920s or 1930s, a period when Arctic thermometer data suggests it was just as warm. Unfortunately, there is no way to know, because we did not have satellites back then. Interestingly, Antarctic sea ice has been growing nearly as fast as Arctic ice has been melting over the last 30+ years.
6) What about rising sea levels? I must confess, I don’t pay much attention to the sea level issue. I will say that, to the extent that warming occurs, sea levels can be expected to also rise to some extent. The rise is partly due to thermal expansion of the water, and partly due to melting or shedding of land-locked ice (the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and glaciers). But this says nothing about whether or not humans are the cause of that warming. Since there is evidence that glacier retreat and sea level rise started well before humans can be blamed, causation is — once again — a major source of uncertainty.
7) Is Increasing CO2 Even Capable of Causing Warming? There are some very intelligent people out there who claim that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere can’t cause warming anyway. They claim things like, “the atmospheric CO2 absorption bands are already saturated”, or something else very technical. [And for those more technically-minded persons, yes, I agree that the effective radiating temperature of the Earth in the infrared is determined by how much sunlight is absorbed by the Earth. But that doesn't mean the lower atmosphere cannot warm from adding more greenhouse gases, because at the same time they also cool the upper atmosphere]. While it is true that most of the CO2-caused warming in the atmosphere was there before humans ever started burning coal and driving SUVs, this is all taken into account by computerized climate models that predict global warming. Adding more “should” cause warming, with the magnitude of that warming being the real question. But I’m still open to the possibility that a major error has been made on this fundamental point. Stranger things have happened in science before.
8 ) Is Atmospheric CO2 Increasing? Yes, and most strongly in the last 50 years…which is why “most” climate researchers think the CO2 rise is the cause of the warming. Our site measurements of CO2 increase from around the world are possibly the most accurate long-term, climate-related, measurements in existence.
9) Are Humans Responsible for the CO2 Rise? While there are short-term (year-to-year) fluctuations in the atmospheric CO2 concentration due to natural causes, especially El Nino and La Nina, I currently believe that most of the long-term increase is probably due to our use of fossil fuels. But from what I can tell, the supposed “proof” of humans being the source of increasing CO2 — a change in the atmospheric concentration of the carbon isotope C13 — would also be consistent with a natural, biological source. The current atmospheric CO2 level is about 390 parts per million by volume, up from a pre-industrial level estimated to be around 270 ppm…maybe less. CO2 levels can be much higher in cities, and in buildings with people in them.
10) But Aren’t Natural CO2 Emissions About 20 Times the Human Emissions? Yes, but nature is believed to absorb CO2 at about the same rate it is produced. You can think of the reservoir of atmospheric CO2 as being like a giant container of water, with nature pumping in a steady stream into the bottom of the container (atmosphere) in some places, sucking out about the same amount in other places, and then humans causing a steady drip-drip-drip into the container. Significantly, about 50% of what we produce is sucked out of the atmosphere by nature, mostly through photosynthesis. Nature loves the stuff. CO2 is the elixir of life on Earth. Imagine the howls of protest there would be if we were destroying atmospheric CO2, rather than creating more of it.
11) Is Rising CO2 the Cause of Recent Warming? While this is theoretically possible, I think it is more likely that the warming is mostly natural. At the very least, we have no way of determining what proportion is natural versus human-caused.
12) Why Do Most Scientists Believe CO2 is Responsible for the Warming? Because (as they have told me) they can’t think of anything else that might have caused it. Significantly, it’s not that there is evidence nature can’t be the cause, but a lack of sufficiently accurate measurements to determine if nature is the cause. This is a hugely important distinction, and one the public and policymakers have been misled on by the IPCC.
13) If Not Humans, What could Have Caused Recent Warming?This is one of my areas of research. I believe that natural changes in the amount of sunlight being absorbed by the Earth — due to natural changes in cloud cover — are responsible for most of the warming. Whether that is the specific mechanism or not, I advance the minority view that the climate system can change all by itself. Climate change does not require an “external” source of forcing, such as a change in the sun.
14) So, What Could Cause Natural Cloud Changes? I think small, long-term changes in atmospheric and oceanic flow patterns can cause ~1% changes in how much sunlight is let in by clouds to warm the Earth. This is all that is required to cause global warming or cooling. Unfortunately, we do not have sufficiently accurate cloud measurements to determine whether this is the primary cause of warming in the last 30 to 50 years.
15) How Significant is the Climategate Release of E-Mails? While Climategate does not, by itself, invalidate the IPCC’s case that global warming has happened, or that humans are the primary cause of that warming, it DOES illustrate something I emphasized in my first book, “Climate Confusion”: climate researchers are human, and prone to bias.
16) Why Would Bias in Climate Research be Important? I thought Scientists Just Follow the Data Where It Leads Them When researchers approach a problem, their pre-conceived notions often guide them. It’s not that the IPCC’s claim that humans cause global warming is somehow untenable or impossible, it’s that political and financial pressures have resulted in the IPCC almost totally ignoring alternative explanations for that warming.
17) How Important Is “Scientific Consensus” in Climate Research?In the case of global warming, it is nearly worthless. The climate system is so complex that the vast majority of climate scientists — usually experts in variety of specialized fields — assume there are more knowledgeable scientists, and they are just supporting the opinions of their colleagues. And among that small group of most knowledgeable experts, there is a considerable element of groupthink, herd mentality, peer pressure, political pressure, support of certain energy policies, and desire to Save the Earth — whether it needs to be saved or not.
18) How Important are Computerized Climate Models? I consider climate models as being our best way of exploring cause and effect in the climate system. It is really easy to be wrong in this business, and unless you can demonstrate causation with numbers in equations, you are stuck with scientists trying to persuade one another by waving their hands. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that climate models will ever produce a useful prediction of the future. Nevertheless, we must use them, and we learn a lot from them. My biggest concern is that models have been used almost exclusively for supporting the claim that humans cause global warming, rather than for exploring alternative hypotheses — e.g. natural climate variations — as possible causes of that warming.
19) What Do I Predict for Global Temperature Changes in the Future? I tend to shy away from long-term predictions, because there are still so many uncertainties. When pressed, though, I tend to say that I think cooling in our future is just as real a possibility as warming. Of course, a third possibility is relatively steady temperatures, without significant long-term warming or cooling. Keep in mind that, while you will find out tomorrow whether your favorite weather forecaster is right or wrong, no one will remember 50 years from now a scientist today wrongly predicting we will all die from heat stroke by 2060.
July 20, 2010
Tax cut expiring... more problems...
Tax cuts are unrealized revenues, not unfunded spending.
Unfunded spending occurs when money, based on faulty premises, is secured for spending on entitlements.
Historically tax cuts have produced more revenue, because people tend to spend more for goods and services, which, in turn, creates more production and hiring, thereby increasing the tax base (revenue) for the federal government to spend.
If the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire at the end of the year, tax payers will be paying more to the federal government and less for goods and services. That may create a bump in tax revenue, but the private sector will remain stagnant. Without a healthy private sector economy, the federal government will begin to experience shrinking revenue to pay for entitlements and the salaries of public employees.
In this country the federal government is obliged to protect the citizens from enemies, foreign and domestic. With the remaining income from tax revenues, the federal government uses the remaining revenue for goods and services as legislated by Congress. They produce the budget and the President approves or disapproves.
The budget for 2011 is way overdue for the President's signature. Perhaps they see the dilemma they may be facing by allowing the tax cuts to expire and unemployment at 9.5% and AARA not producing the intended results.
Documents show media plotting to kill stories about Rev. Jeremiah Wright | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment
Jonah Goldberg: Rep. Ryan's "Roadmap" a realistic plan to remake the tax system - latimes.com
Jonah Goldberg: Rep. Ryan's "Roadmap" a realistic plan to remake the tax system - latimes.com
If you are not familiar with Rep. Paul Ryan. You should be.
July 19, 2010
Mystery for White House: Where Did the Jobs Go? - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com
Mystery for White House: Where Did the Jobs Go? - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com
Um... There are no jobs because the Administration is destroying the mechanism that creates them...
July 18, 2010
July 17, 2010
Thoughts Echo'd about the Republican party
- Cowardly.
- Washington Insiders, blind to We the People.
- Fearful of the MSM and the DC social set.
- The mistakenly believe that if they do not rock the vote, when they are in power the Democrats will act the same way.
Huffington Post
“If you’re looking for the usual flame-throwing, name-calling, and simplistic attack dog rhetoric....don’t bother coming to The Huffington Post.” ~~Arianna Huffington
Yeah, she actually said that! To me its more like Mos Eisley.
July 16, 2010
Morning Bell: The Lawyers and Lobbyists Full Employment Act | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.
Morning Bell: The Lawyers and Lobbyists Full Employment Act | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.: "By delegating so much to the regulators, Congress is inviting everyone interested in the outcome to make more campaign contributions, as they intervene in the regulatory process to influence the regulators. Nothing is settled. It’s a gold mine for members of Congress."
Essen
Okay so far we have learned that the Human was designed to run across various terrain for long periods of time. Also, our brains have constructed devices to put over our feet that render the amazing running ability null to some humans. All in the name of comfort and safety.
So moving on to a leap that probably I should not make... How are people supposed to eat?
Hunter-gathering-farmers with a brain capable of innovations such as preserving food for later, is really damn versatile. It is easy to imagine gathering stuff to eat and running prey to death, using tools and traps to speed up the process. Learning what seeds are and how to use them.
You get the idea that our brain keeps working to take the hassle out of survival...
"Wow Thag, we just ran that elk to death and it took four hours! I wish it did not take so long and so far!"
"Hmmm, what if we run it into a canyon and throw rocks on it from above?"
"Good Idea Charlie!"
You would think that we would get hungry, eat until we are sated then move on to another project. But, that is not really what goes on. Instead we are eating at intervals that suit our surroundings. Plus, we have that food preparation (I do not mean microwave).
I guess it kind of kills off the instinctual. It does make it easier then going hungry for a few days then coming across a carcass...
So convenience, lack of hassle and subscribed intervals have dampened whatever other stuff we had programmed into our heads and allowed us time to make shelter, medicine, clothing, transportation, plumbing, cheese in a can, Air Conditioning and World of Warcraft.
Not a bad trade off in my mind. Although, there is that nagging oh look how awful we have become notion, that public school, no doubt, has brain washed into me. It has also allowed the creation of the Diet and Exercise industry.
And still we eat when we do not need too and way more then we should... I keep hoping I can re-develop that God given trigger that says: "STOP EATING"
Ah well... At least my brain is allowing me to count calories in the meantime...
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