070107 – Sunday – An apology

January 6th, 2007

Now, my wife and I have had a number of discussions over the years as to what constitutes a mountain and what constitutes a hill and perhaps we’ve even quibbled over the size of small piles of dirt in this respect.

The wifely unit - Sharon of Kansas

Part of this has been because she hails from Kansas (please, no comments about evolution – she assures me she has faith in the idea). And, when we’ve been there visiting her family, she’s often pointed out to me the Flint Hills as being the ‘high country’ in the area.

Well, I always look to see what she’s talking about and then I laugh and I say something scathing like, “You call that a hill?” And I might follow this up by suggesting that because she’s a good deal shorter than I am, perhaps she’s suffering from an optical illusion. But, my laughter and jibes aside, she always assures me in all seriousness that those are indeed the big Flint Hills.

So, you can imagine my surprise when a friend of ours came up with mountaineering articles describing actual expeditions to the highest peaks in both Kansas and Nebraska!!!

So, with great embarrassment, I am here publicly apologizing to my wife for my earlier snide comments about the highlands of Kansas and I am publishing a link to these mountaineering articles here for all to see ➡

Once the magazine cover appears, you can click on the article titles to read the stories of the expeditions.

– research thx to phk.

Posted in Personal | 2 Comments »

Scientists’ Report Documents ExxonMobil’s Tobacco-like Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming Science

January 6th, 2007

– Someday, when the damage of Global Warming is full upon us, people will be asking, “How did this happen?” and “Why weren’t we told?” And, at least some of the answers are going to lead back to these folks who, for the sake of their personal profits, helped to sell all of our futures down the river. We can only hope they get their just rewards.

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Oil Company Spent Nearly $16 Million to Fund Skeptic Groups, Create Confusion

WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists offers the most comprehensive documentation to date of how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry’s disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue. According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.

“ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer,” said Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Director of Strategy & Policy. “A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years.”

Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco’s Tactics to “Manufacture Uncertainty” on Climate Change details how the oil company, like the tobacco industry in previous decades, has

  • raised doubts about even the most indisputable scientific evidence
  • funded an array of front organizations to create the appearance of a broad platform for a tight-knit group of vocal climate change contrarians who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings
  • attempted to portray its opposition to action as a positive quest for “sound science” rather than business self-interest
  • used its access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape government communications on global warming

More… ➡

Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, Climate Change, CrashBlogging, Politics, Politics - The Wrong Way, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

White House visitor records closed

January 6th, 2007

-Doubtless, the White House wants to hide the comings and goings of those whose presence might be deemed an embarrassment to them.  “Trust us“, they are saying.   yeah, right!
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WASHINGTON – The White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement last spring in the midst of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal declaring that records identifying visitors to the White House are not open to the public.

The Bush administration didn’t reveal the existence of the memorandum of understanding until last fall. The White House is using it to deal with a legal problem on a separate front, a ruling by a federal judge ordering the production of Secret Service logs identifying visitors to the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

In a federal appeals court filing three weeks ago, the administration’s lawyers used the memo in a legal argument aimed at overturning the judge’s ruling. The Washington Post is suing for access to the Secret Service logs.

The five-page document dated May 17 declares that all entry and exit data on White House visitors belongs to the White House as presidential records rather than to the Secret Service as agency records. Therefore, the agreement states, the material is not subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

More… ➡

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THE SCIENCE CHANCELLOR

January 6th, 2007

– How refreshing, in a world of political stupidity, to find a national leader with a hard science background and the political acumen to push science’s POV into the decision making. 

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Angela Merkel, a physical chemist-turned-G8 leader, is putting science on the European and global agenda.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel—theoretical chemist, head of state during Germany’s upcoming EU presidency, and current leader of the G8—recently took a shot at the climate politicking of the United States. “To prevent global warming, the nations with the largest emissions of gases that are causing climate change will have to take part,” she stated. “That’s why we will make this an important issue again on the agenda during our G8 presidency.”

It was a bold move, considering the US delegation’s notorious avoidance of climate commitments during Tony Blair’s G8 leadership two years ago. But Merkel, whose direct diplomatic style has been dubbed “the Merkel method,” is capable of exploiting the potential of complex situations. Her political success has come as a result of both her analytical mind and her remarkable tenacity. Merkel is, in many ways, still a scientist, and Germany—the fifth-largest economy in the world—is her lab.

Merkel was born in 1954 in Hamburg, but she didn’t see much of it: Her father, Horst Kasner, decided that year to take his family to Soviet-held East Germany, where he became a pastor about 50 miles north of Berlin. Merkel attended church, despite the risks; in the communist society, churchgoing could make it almost impossible to gain admission to state-controlled university, get good jobs, or even rent an apartment.

More… ➡

Posted in Politics, Politics - The Right Way | No Comments »

070105 – Friday – Technical doo-dah

January 4th, 2007

If you’re developing software with Microsoft’s Embedded VC++ 4.0 IDE and you’ve received the following error message:

There is no device installed. Please go to Configure Platform Manager to add a device.

then follow this link: ➡

If none of that means anything to you, please excuse it as the ravings of a tech-weenie who’s had too much coffee and more than a few problems with this error messages this morning.

Cheers!

Posted in Tech-Software, Technical | No Comments »

Fox News Segment Falsely Claims That Denver Blizzard Casts Doubt On Global Warming

January 3rd, 2007

– Some months ago, a friend gave me a copy of Outfoxed – Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, which is a DVD expose of how Fox News works – and it wasn’t pretty.

– One of the problems with the world in general is that unless we exert effort to do what is in our best interests, we will all slide down the slippery slope. The co-opting of a major news outlet to clandestinely serve the interests of a political faction is what I’m talking about.

– What Murdoch is doing with Fox News is a great example. News reporters used to ‘get the facts and unbiasedly report both sides’ – it was a staple of what made decent democracies work. But a close analysis of what Fox is doing reveals that it is a very conscious effort to manipulate the perceptions of their viewers/readers in favor of their points of view. They slant things in favor of their ideologies and then cloak it all in the mantel of Fair and Balanced reporting.

– If you have doubts, and many will, get a copy of Outfoxed, Super Size Me and Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers. and have a look.

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Today, prominent climate skeptics Pat Michaels and Dan Gainor appeared on Fox News Your World with Neil Cavuto to argue that the recent snowstorms in Denver prove there is a Northeast bias on global warming. Both agreed with Cavuto’s claim that if more of those who support global warming did not live in the East Coast, or more specifically in New York, and were stationed in Denver, they might be more skeptical of global warming.

Michaels added that if you believe that warming causes cooling, you’re like my neighbors down in Virginia who think that if you put hot water in the ice cube tray, it freezes faster.

The severe blizzards in Colorado weren’t necessarily caused by global warming. But they also don’t prove that climate change isn’t happening. As the concentration of carbon dioxide increases, the frequency of extreme weather events “including snowstorms” also increases. Additionally, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2001 report notes that global average water vapor concentration and precipitation are projected to increase during the 21st century.

More… ➡

Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, Politics, Politics - The Wrong Way | No Comments »

World’s oil outlook frightening, group says

January 2nd, 2007

– Of the various threats to our joint futures, Peak Oil is the one that I believe has the softest edges. It may come in like a lion, but the more I think about it, the more I expect it will come in like a lamb. Â

– So long as the structures of civilization hold together and the growth and consumption forever mantras are still being chanted in the board rooms and halls of governance, oil will be needed. And, as the supplies decline and the prices rise, the efforts to find ever more oil, even if it is expensive and environmentally suicidal to recover, will persist.

– So, whereas the Peak Oil folks have a beautiful curve for global oil production that looks a lot like the classic ‘norm’ curve, I think the reality will be a curve rising to maximum production and then exhibiting a long slow sloping off as ever more money and effort are poured into averting and slowing the decline as we struggle to recover and consume every last drop of the stuff. In essence, we will chose to continue to deny the truth that our oil-based economies are unsustainable – because they are based on a non-renewal resource.

– Geo-political instability is in our future.  Even as you read this, the worlds major oil consuming powers; China, the US, Japan, India, Europe, among others, are all jocking for position to secure their oil futures. Before this is over, wars will be fought. Some think that’s the real reason why the US is in Iraq – regardless of the reasons given to the public. Does anyone seriously think that China, for instance, is going to go quietly back to bicycles and hovels when there are still viable oil fields, say, in Central Asia?
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By Andrew Garber, Seattle Times

Food shortages, cars abandoned, another depression. It’s the stuff of nightmares — and the type of future an eclectic group of engineers, computer experts and others in Seattle believe could await us.

They’re not religious zealots predicting Armageddon, nor survivalists digging bomb shelters. They believe the world is about to start running out of gas.

Literally.

Members of Seattle Peak Oil Awareness expect world production of oil and gasoline to peak soon, if it hasn’t already, and hard times to follow. Similar groups are popping up around the country from Boston to Portland, despite oil-industry assertions that there’s nothing to worry about.

How bad things could get depends on whom you talk to. Some peak-oilers expect car travel to largely disappear and food supplies, which depend heavily on fuel to produce and distribute, to decline.

More… ➡

– Research Thx to Ken

Posted in Peak Oil, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

Music of the Hemispheres

January 1st, 2007

“Listen to this,” Daniel Levitin said. “What is it?” He hit a button on his computer keyboard and out came a half-second clip of music. It was just two notes blasted on a raspy electric guitar, but I could immediately identify it: the opening lick to the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar.”

Then he played another, even shorter snippet: a single chord struck once on piano. Again I could instantly figure out what it was: the first note in Elton John’s live version of “Benny and the Jets.”

Dr. Levitin beamed. “You hear only one note, and you already know who it is,” he said. “So what I want to know is: How we do this? Why are we so good at recognizing music?”

This is not merely some whoa-dude epiphany that a music fan might have while listening to a radio contest. Dr. Levitin has devoted his career to exploring this question. He is a cognitive psychologist who runs the Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University in Montreal, perhaps the world’s leading lab in probing why music has such an intense effect on us.

More… ➡

– this is from the NY Times and they insist you have an ID and a password to look at their content. That’s the bad nows. The good news is you can get these for free and you only have to sign up with them once to do so.

– research thx to LA

Posted in Science | 2 Comments »

Trounced at Polls, Kansas GOP Is Still Plagued by Infighting

December 31st, 2006

Party Puts Ousted Official In His Opponent’s Old Post

Phill Kline is not one to slink away — and the ideological wars inside the Kansas Republican Party show no sign of ending.

The fiercely antiabortion Republican attorney general in Kansas lost his reelection bid in November when moderate Republicans voted in droves for Paul Morrison, a longtime Johnson County district attorney who became a Democrat in hopes of vanquishing Kline.

Statewide, Kline got barely 4 in 10 votes. In Johnson County, the state’s most populous county, his loss was more dramatic. That made it especially shocking after the election when Republican precinct leaders in the county chose Kline to finish the final two years of Morrison’s term as prosecutor.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D), a vocal Kline foe, refused to sign his nomination papers, a ceremonial task, lambasting a “small narrow group of partisan political operatives” for choosing him. At the Westside Family Church in Lenexa, after precinct leaders backed Kline over a Morrison aide 316 to 291, Republicans showed just how divided they are.

“The moment Phill Kline got the nomination, half the room got up and walked out,” said Scott Schwab, the county GOP chairman. “It wasn’t so much yelling or cussing. They threw up their arms and said, ‘What do we do now?’ ”

Kline’s reincarnation as Johnson County prosecutor reveals the depth of the continuing Republican split in Kansas and suggests challenges faced by the GOP nationwide as it tries to recover from its Nov. 7 losses and build toward 2008.

More… ➡

Posted in Politics, Politics - The Wrong Way | No Comments »

Ancient ice shelf breaks free from Canadian Arctic

December 29th, 2006

TORONTO, Ontario (AP) — A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada’s Arctic, scientists said.

The mass of ice broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 800 kilometers (497 miles) south of the North Pole, but no one was present to see it in Canada’s remote north.

Scientists using satellite images later noticed that it became a newly formed ice island in just an hour and left a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake. (Watch the satellite images that clued in ice watchers)

Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island and could not believe what he saw.

“This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years. We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead,” Vincent said Thursday.

More… ➡

Posted in Climate Change, Rising Ocean Levels, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

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