New Drone Revealed: We're Doomed

The Navy has unveiled the new X 47B unmanned combat air system (N-UCAS), via JaxAir News.

I could tell you that it looks like an early version of a Cylon raider, but...



Now let's deal with that acronym. N-UCAS. Or sounded out NUKE US. If this had been a reveal in the last season of Battlestar Gallactica, we would have been pissed off. No way! Too heavy handed!

I guarantee you that the dorks working on these drones not only watched every episode of Battlestar Galactica, they own costumes, dolls and build mock-ups of every craft from the show. Even the stupid presidential one.

Therefore, the design and name of this new drone is not only predicable but could be part of some sick self-fulfilling prophesy/fantasy straight from the Book of Pythia.

Anyway here's the ladies taking a sun bath. Thanks for destroying our planet you sick drone worker guys.

What Ever Happened To: The Ozone Hole

This is the second look back at yesteryear's looming environmental disasters. I'll call it disaster science. You know, the disasters that were going to kill us before global warmi, er climate change. Last time it was What Ever Happened to Acid Rain?

Gen-Xers should well-remember the dire predictions about the rapidly disappearing Ozone layer in the 1970's and 1980's. We were warned of skin cancers, crop failures. Starvation. Diseases. Soylent Green snack bars.

Why did we care about ozone in the first place?

Ozone (O3) is the unstable, naturally occurring little oxygen allotrope that filters UV from the sun. Without ozone we would be dead or look something like George Hamilton (expect a lot of 1970's references here).

It concentrates in the ozone layer, up in the stratosphere, about 10 miles up. By 1978, we had a protocol, THE Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to phase out the man-made production of ozone depleting chemicals - the chlorofluorocarbons (AKA CFCs).

The iconic image I have from that era is my mom (all moms) spraying the hell out of their hair with AquaNet hairspray. That stuff had CFC as a propellant. It would burn. And would make a hair helmet that could stop a .32 special.



Disaster science was in a fever pitch in those days. The UVA and UVB rays that were cruising through the thinning ozone layer were giving Patagonian sheep back sores and would eventually destroy all food crops. The ozone hole was big. Really big. And getting bigger.

There were even some really cool cartoon graphics (these were the pre-CG days you know) depicting the size of the ozone hole by 2000. That's right, the hole covered all of the US (except San Francisco) and another hole engulfed western Europe.

Science Fiction Meets Science Fact

I have a little theory about modern science discoveries, its in three parts. I call it the Irwin Allen Blind Spot Trap.

When we scientists observe and report something for the first time, like the ozone hole, there is a natural tendency to believe it must not have existed for long before we observed it. This is the Blind Spot part.

The other problem is that we are developing the ability to observe things at an amazing rate. Therefore we end up with some really good data over a very short periods of time. I'll call this the Double Blind Spot part. In other words, we tend to love technology, and new data from new technology inspires scientists to make long term projections using data that represents a tiny fraction of earth's history. In other words, statistically significant wild ass guesses (or SWAGs).

The last part. Any good scientific SWAGs has a disaster at the end. Just as Irwin Allen brought us Earthquake, the Towering Inferno - scientists seem compelled to run models that predict disaster. Otherwise, who would read that drudge.




Back to the ozone hole. It "appeared" over Antarctica just about the time we could measure it. And the observation caused all manner of panic. The problem with the science in the 1970's was that the annual ozone hole was first measured in 1956, long before the ozone-destroying CFCs were in common use. The hole appears at the end of the dark, cold Antarctic winter, lasts about three to five weeks, and then disappears.

In a rush to write their scripts, scientists forgot to notice this natural phenomena.

The science was quickly settled and the science text books were produced. We, the evil developed nations were killing the planet.

After we settled the science...well, we did some more science. Turns out, that the actual "ozone layer" is not some delicate, static and fragile wrapping about the outer atmosphere. Rather it is a volatile component of the atmosphere that is both created and destroyed by solar radiation.

[Side snark: Science is like that. Things we think we know (i.e. settled) turn out to be quite unsettled after a second or third look.]

That's right. Ozone creation (and destruction) is a self-limiting process, so we can not "run out" of stratospheric ozone. The more ozone (O3) is destroyed, the more free oxygen radicals (O1) are available to bind with free oxygen (O2) to create ozone (O3), the same applies with free oxygen (O2). And on and on it goes.

The Science is Re-Settled

Like OJ Simpson pulling George C Scott from a burning building during an earthquake after a plane crash with an impending dam break - the earth was saved. Was it the Montreal Protocol or previously unknown natural compensating factors? Decades down the road, it looks like it was both. But mostly natural factors.

You see, the holes never engulfed those nasty industrialized nations. And the old science said it could take a decade to get those big ole CFC molecules fully circulated. Not to mention the CFCs that were still produced in third world countries. According to the settled science, the ozone layer could not be saved until 2050. Bad science. Bad

Either way. The hysteria cooled to a concern, eventually fading to a footnote. The new science books sheepishly navigate the topic and respectable scientists don't talk about the ozone anymore.

In the end, what did this crisis bring us? I could make an argument that the ozone hole killed Elvis and brought us frustrating pump bottle hair spray. I could also argue that the ozone hole is like an ex girlfriend. Remembered but left unspoken.

Want to know more? Here are my sources.
CFC Production Yes we still use a lot of that stuff

Steven Milloy at Junk Science

THE EPA

Spike TV for some palate cleansing videos after all of this sciency stuff

File Under Unintended Consequences

The green movement has brought about so many unintended consequences so fast we hardly have time to count them. Here is another.

Cool traffic lights take heat on snowy risksTom Greenwood / The Detroit News
Some northern states are reporting a unique problem with light-emitting diode traffic lights: the cool burning LEDs don't generate enough heat to melt ice and snow that accumulates in front of the lenses on the signals.

Although there are no LED-related reports of crashes or deaths in Michigan, it has reportedly led to dozens of accidents in other states.

Seriously. I can imagine engineers and scientists of the past actually considering this before they let a product go out the door. Glass covered lights, 20 feet in the air...blowing snow...

"We are working on the problem," Dutta said. "We may put a longer shade on the light to shield it from ice and snow, but we're not sure about putting a heater into the light. A heater would cost us money to run the lights, which we don't want to do.

Are traffic engineers to real engineers, what political scientists are to real scientists? I mean, how in the Hell does this turn into a problem you "work on?" How do you miss this?

But don't worry...

...it has reportedly led to dozens of accidents in other states. But we will come up with something down the line: in terms of energy and life cycle savings of LEDs, this is a tiny problem."

A tiny problem huh? Three people get a heart attach while taking Celebrex and the entire market is killed.

Anything for the Greening of...

I guess if we can sacrifice our economy for cap and trade and we can print 30 billion a year for that Copenhagen nonsense, then killing a few people and wrecking a bunch of cars is an easy decision...as long as it is done to "save the planet."

If "greening..." were a conservative idea, it would have been litigated, legislated, and perp walked to GITMO. If Greening were conservative, it would have been water boarded by the ACLU while Janeane Garofalo pulled out it's fingernails. But the media will always ignore these examples because they don't fit the Big Narrative.

Nothing to see here...

The Greatest Fox News Slideshow...Evah

Seriously. Watch it all the way to the end, there is a treat waiting for you.

LINK

Hint:

Bowfishing Jumping Carp And Hot Chicks Noodling Catfish...Oh Hells Yeah!

With the recent news about Chinese Silver Carp making their way ever closer to the Great Lakes, I was looking for some video. Then I came across this...it's called Aerial Bowfishing. Someone is going to get hurt.



The glowing arrow shots are the best.

It's Saturday night, so how about some hot chicks noodling catfish!!!

Vaginaplasty?

This was on Drudge (via the BBC), but I couldn't let it pass without comment.

Women are undergoing surgery to create perfect genitalia amid a "shocking" lack of information on the potential risks of the procedure, a report says.

And by perfect they mean...

...which generally involves reducing the amount of tissue that protrudes from the lips which cover the vagina.

OK, so its called labioplasty, but what kind of man would want LESS of that. Am I alone on this? When I saw the headline I assumed the doctors would be going the other way with that.

I have to wonder if this is some sort of pedophillic desire to make women look like little girls.

Whatever. I'm against it.

The Bush Recovery of 2009

How about another installment of Democrat Logic.

As I understand the current state of Democrat thinking, here are the basic assumptions regarding our current economic state.

1. The recession of 2008/2009 was entirely Bush's fault.

2. The recession is either over, or nearly so.

See: Bernanke, AP Economic Revival, Obama: Worst Behind Us

3. TARP Money has been spent, but the so-called Stimulus (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) has had very little of its funds obligated...actually spent. The numbers range from 10.2 to 18 percent. The higher numbers may reflect a different accounting method: one that puts the money on the "spent" side of the ledger as soon as it is given to the states.

4. Bush was primarily responsible for TARP.

5. Obama was responsible for ARRA (he signed it after all).

If the above 5 items are true, as Democrats tell us there are, then #2 is attributable to #4 since #5 has not had enough time or expendature to have made a difference. In other words, this is President Bush's recovery.

Furthermore, it is entirely logical to attribute part of the stock market resiliency to the Bush tax cuts set to expire next year.

So, thank you Mr President (Bush), according to your political enemies, this is your recovery.

Thomasville, AL: End Of Summer Purge

Its been a long summer. Football is here and now is a good time to clear out the notebook.

Notables:

My nephew got a ticket for driving without a seat belt. It cost him $25. No I'm not missing a zero. As you recall, the Thomasville Times warned you on June 4th about the click it or ticket program this summer. Tsk Tsk.

.................

A local Doctor from India brought back some seeds to plant in Alabama soil. Shhhhh...Don't tell the USDA, but I think we have a new invasive species.

And grow they did. "He told us they would run, but we didn't think they'd take over the whole world," Stephens joked. The two vines have grown so rapidly of late, they have become intermingled and it's hard to tell one vine from another at first glance.

The broad green leaves resemble Kudzu and the vines have flowers that bloom in the early evening. The leaves when rubbed, give off a faint smell of peanut butter.

When taunted, the flowers growl and have a faint smell of flesh.

.....................

Ozelle Hubert sets a new record for the most meaningless election protest. He lost by 60%.

You should probably call Obama...oh you did. I'm sure he'll be putting you on his to do list...right after rewriting the national anthem.

He (Ozelle) said he also believed that the actions was a conspiracy of a special interest group in retaliation to Barack Obama being elected the nation's first African American president.

He sent a copy of the letter to Obama, state officials, the state Democratic Party, the U.S. Justice Department and the local media.

We'll be checking in on Ozelle to see how things progress.

...................

And as I understand things, the mayor is still tired of conspiracies.

...................

And for the reallly big show the Canebrake Players of Demopolis to put on the musical "Big River.

Counting Tree Rings: Global Warming Makes It Hard For Scientists To Count

I'm ripping this from Andrew Orlowski again. This is about as boring as a scientific scandal can be. Hockey stick graph excluded of course.

A scientific scandal is casting a shadow over a number of recent peer-reviewed climate papers.

At least eight papers purporting to reconstruct the historical temperature record times may need to be revisited, with significant implications for contemporary climate studies, the basis of the IPCC's assessments. A number of these involve senior climatologists at the British climate research centre CRU at the University East Anglia. In every case, peer review failed to pick up the errors.

At issue is the use of tree rings as a temperature proxy, or dendrochronology. Using statistical techniques, researchers take the ring data to create a "reconstruction" of historical temperature anomalies. But trees are a highly controversial indicator of temperature, since the rings principally record Co2, and also record humidity, rainfall, nutrient intake and other local factors.

Picking a temperature signal out of all this noise is problematic, and a dendrochronology can differ significantly from instrumented data. In dendro jargon, this disparity is called "divergence". The process of creating a raw data set also involves a selective use of samples - a choice open to a scientist's biases.

Yet none of this has stopped paleoclimataologists from making bold claims using tree ring data.

In particular, since 2000, a large number of peer-reviewed climate papers have incorporated data from trees at the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia. This dataset gained favour, curiously superseding a newer and larger data set from nearby. The older Yamal trees indicated pronounced and dramatic uptick in temperatures.

How could this be? Scientists have ensured much of the measurement data used in the reconstructions remains a secret - failing to fulfill procedures to archive the raw data. Without the raw data, other scientists could not reproduce the results. The most prestigious peer reviewed journals, including Nature and Science, were reluctant to demand the data from contributors. Until now, that is.

At the insistence of editors of the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions B the data has leaked into the open - and Yamal's mystery is no more.

From this we know that the Yamal data set uses just 12 trees from a larger set to produce its dramatic recent trend. Yet many more were cored, and a larger data set (of 34) from the vicinity shows no dramatic recent warming, and warmer temperatures in the middle ages.

In all there are 252 cores in the CRU Yamal data set, of which ten were alive 1990. All 12 cores selected show strong growth since the mid-19th century. The implication is clear: the dozen were cherry-picked.

The scientists essentially flattened out the Midieval Warm Period and exaggerated the data in recent decades...making the now imfamous Hockey Stick Graph, used to great effect by ALGORE and the UN. The whole thing is an elaborate fake.

Go here for more to learn more on the fake graphs. And then maybe you too could get millions in grants.

North East Passage...Open For First Time?

The sea lane or passage, from northern Europe to Asia, was sailed earlier this month. According to the Reuters and UK Telegraph, this was the first time:

They travelled from Ulsan, South Korea, in late July to Siberia by way of the North East Passage, a sea lane that, in years past, was avoided because of its heavy ice floes.

Scientists report that the Arctic Ocean ice cap has been shrinking to unprecedented levels in recent summers, because of global warming, opening up many passages that were ice-choked in earlier times.

The passage.



Turns out, believe it or not, they were wrong. Way wrong.

Andrew Orlowski at the UK Register, tracked down the original reporting and found more sloppy reporting (at best) or eco-terror mongering (standard operating procedures) from the MSM.

The route offers significant gains over the alternatives via Suez or the Cape, it's shorter, quicker and cheaper. But until technological advances in the early 20th Century it was considered too hazardous for commercial operation.

Since the 1930s the route has seen major ports spring up, carrying over 200,000 tons of freight passing through each year, although this declined with the fall of the Soviet Union.

The UK Independent still has this headline on their website:

A Triumph for Man, a Disaster for Mankind
Two ships are finishing the first commercial navigation of the fabled North-east Passage. It is an epic moment – but also a vivid sign of climate change in the Arctic

Media hype. Check. But where is the hysterical quote from Greenpeace? Oh hells yeah, we got that too.

"This is further proof that climate change is happening now," said Melanie Duchin, Arctic Expedition leader on board the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, who added that the development put greater pressure on world leaders to agree a major emissions cut at their Copenhagen meeting in December. "This is not a cause for celebration but cause for immediate action," she said.

I believe this is getting Salem Witch Trial crazy...in that these people really believe what they "feel" is true, therefore science must back it up. When you believe, facts back you up naturally. And when someone does research, they are apostates that are going straight to HELL!

You Lie!

I Rep. Joe Wilson was looking to sell some T-shirts, he certainly is off to a good start. Its a pithy little slogan that has gotten everyone's attention.



How about this little video, Bush getting booed by the democrats while he discusses the need for social security reform.


Wilson was not only right to do it, but it should have been more coordinated. They should have chanted "let us in" or "talk to US" and made the issue about Obama refusing to discuss any republican ideas. The ideal time was right after Obama said, "I'll take ideas from everyone..." Its a shame that opportunity was missed.

Obama Joins The Other Firsters: To Become UN Security Council Chair

So Obama can't play God...it's above his pay grade. And now he is going to chair the Security Council at the UN.

It has never happened before. I guess other presidents had a full plate. Isn't this, to turn his own phrase, below his pay grade?

Here's a funny:

“The council has a very important role to play in preventing the spread and use of nuclear weapons, and it’s the world’s principal body for dealing with global security cooperation,” Susan Rice, US envoy to the UN, said last week.

OK, where. Which country has been stopped exactly?

Maybe Obama just feels more comfortable with like minded people. You know the ones who blame this country first for everything.

Here is the current council:

The Council is composed of five permanent members — China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States — and ten non-permanent members (with year of term's end):

Austria (2010)
Japan (2010)
Uganda (2010)
Burkina Faso (2009)
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (2009)
Viet Nam (2009)
Costa Rica (2009)
Mexico (2010)
Croatia (2009)
Turkey (2010)

Now there is a group we can count on to do the right thing. Maybe this will give him a chance to catch up with family?

Paint The Town Red: Firsters Rail Against Capitalism At Venice Film Festival

UPDATE: A picture of the lovely couple. Chavez blows kisses while Oliver Stone...naw that's just too easy.



Looking at the headlines from the Venice Film Festival, its hard not to notice the strong anti-capitalist theme throughout. Hollywood's favorite dictator, Hugo Chavez, is there and he brought his personal media consultant, Oliver Stone, with a fresh "documentary" about the beloved leaders "great life story."

Up on the screen, its Michael Moore's latest, "Capitalism, A Love Story."
A 2 plus hour scab picking exercise that concludes "Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil."

Taken as a whole, this Venice Film Festival looks like a gussied up political rally for Hate America Firsters...or just Firsters.

As the master scab picker, Moore has gutlessly picked subjects that play to his Firster base. Why not examine the horrors of political repression by modern-day dictators or the treatment of women in Muslim countries. Instead Moore chooses to make films that come across as being made by an overweight, hormonal teenager who is angry at a slightly overbearing father. Good thing for him he keeps choosing his father subjects well, because the really evil ones cut peoples throats, or worse - disinvite you to those fabulous Hollywood parties with the 10 count shrimp.

And how about ol' reliable, Oliver Stone. His "documentary" plays like a pre-teen girls' love letter complete with XOXOXO and a Hello Kitty stamp. Stone, the Lion of Hollywood Firsters, lovingly presents Hugo's story as Venezuela's "peaceful revolution" since Chavez came to power in 1998: that "he(Chavez), who grew up in a peasant family, is an emblematic figure of bottom-up change."

I guess being a Firster is like living a life of a perpetual child: you know where the dangers are and are able to avoid them while living at home and complaining about Dad.

Rockwood Tn Youth Crying Tears of Blood: Channeling The Regal Horned Lizard

No really! Tears of blood. They said they took him to a specialist (in blood tears?) and they were stumped.



Now for the news you won't get from the State Controlled Media.


And of course this seems like a good excuse for...From Dusk Till Dawn.

Global War On The CIA

The following article was written by Kent Clizbe. He is a former member of the CIA's Directorate of Operations. In 2001, in the aftermath of Sept.11th, he returned to the CIA to serve multiple Counter-Terrorism deployments. In 2005, he was awarded the Intelligence Community Seal Medallion for his anti-terrorism work.

His editorial here was published in Newsmax. It will leave you seeing red.

In the early days and weeks after September 11, 2001, a small cadre of men (and a few women) with vast amounts of intelligence experience reported to the Langley, Virginia headquarters of the CIA. These unsung heroes were then dispatched across the globe to run operations against the Al-Qaeda conspirators who leveled the World Trade Center and struck the nerve center of the US military.

The FBI, a domestic law enforcement agency, did not have the ability or skills needed to track down and strike the attackers overseas...and the Pentagon was like an elephant attacked by a mouse — mighty, but helpless in its mammoth rage.

Kent Clizbe notes that the CIA field officer corps were basically a grey bearded skeleton staff left in the "wake of the Clintons' anti-intelligence" purging of the CIA.

Their mission in the wake of 9-11: “Deny, Disrupt, Destroy.”

As a group these officers, "sacrificed the quality of their marriages, participation in their children’s and grandchildren’s lives, the profitability of their businesses, and more. Personal and professional issues festered and rotted while they fought to keep America safe and prevented further attacks on our homeland."

And the blood squirting from your eyes part...

In contrast, where was Eric Holder? Before leaving President Clinton’s employ, he orchestrated the pardons of several Puerto Rican separatist terrorists. Then in 2003, as a partner in the Washington law firm of Covington & Burling, Mr Holder’s client, Chiquita Brands, admitted paying to support terrorist death squads in Colombia and paid a $25 million fine. During the time that my friends worked to disrupt and destroy terrorist networks threatening America, Holder’s firm represented — for free — 16 terrorist detainees held at Guantanamo.

Has he made any personal or professional sacrifices since his country was attacked in 2001? If he has, it is difficult to find them. When the Special Prosecutor comes calling, maybe someone from Covington & Burling can represent my colleagues for free, like they did for Lakhdar Boumedienne and ten other terrorists in Gitmo.

And with Obama and Holder bringing the same Deny, Disrupt, and Destroy mentality to bear against the men and women of the CIA, the question is why? Why does this country have to keep purging it's overseas intelligence operations with every other administration? And where will the next generation of CIA officers come from who are willing to sacrifice comfortable lives only to return to vilification and prosecution?

The answer is they won't come. And someday we will have another 9-11 commission spending months staring at the obvious and drawing politically motivated conclusions to protect the interests of the permanent bureaucracy in Washington that holds such contempt for men and women like Kent Clizbe.