Hitchens and Rushdie vs the Democratic base.
(Language warning.)
(Listen for the applause moments.)
h/t Damian Penny
The Sound Of Settled Science
With all due respect Mr.President … (pdf)
We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated. Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now. After controlling for population growth and property values, there has been no increase in damages from severe weather-related events. The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior. Mr. President, your characterization of the scientific facts regarding climate change and the degree of certainty informing the scientific debate is simply incorrect.
h/t Bob G.
What Does The “E” Stand for in EFS?
“Entrepreneurial”, as in “Entrepreneurial Federation of Saskatchewan”.
So far, so good.
Now, if you were looking to bring in a keynote speaker for your entrepreneurial federation’s AGM and business luncheon, whose names might pop into your head?
Actually, let’s narrow this down. Whose would be the last name to pop into your head?
Put your guess in the comments, before looking at the answer here. Your only hint – it’s a well-known Canadian.
Now, don’t go blabbing the answer in the comments. Gag, mock and constern all you wish, but no hints! I want to see if anyone guesses it.
“I have a question.”
“Does anybody know whether Barack Obama knows how to change a tire? “
Similar thoughts from Krauthammer;
Obama owns GM, and I don’t know about you, Bret, but I’m deeply reassured that the largest company in America is owned by a guy with the vast private sector experience of Barack Obama.
His speech today, as always, was eloquent, and it appeared clear, but it really is not. It’s not exactly clear what he is aiming at.
As I understand it, I think, though, the plan here is to send GM into Chapter 11, either a real Chapter 11 or a disguised one in 60 days, and to send Chrysler over to Fiat or the wolves, whichever will take it.
With GM, the reason that I suspect it is going to end up in Chapter 11 is because he would not have offered the guarantee on warranties otherwise. The reason people are worried about a Chapter 11 is, that the argument is if that happens, people will not have confidence in the company, and the sales will dissolve.
But you have got to ask yourself as a constitutional aside where in Articles II of the constitution is the president allowed to unilaterally guarantee auto warranties? I mean, tomorrow it will end up — we started with bank deposits, money markets, auto warranties, and tomorrow it’s toasters.
But if you have Democrats in power, nobody asks about the constitutional questions.
We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Giant Fans
Some folks have oil wells.
Some folks have coal fields.
And some folks have oil wells in their coal fields.
Saskatchewan – what a country!
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The Shand power station and two draglines are in the background. There’s another dragline working a couple hundred yards to the right of the pumpjack. |
Somewhere out there a Green Party voter just turned blue and clutched their chest.
Sorry about that.
…
Oh, what the heck.
Might as well pick off a few Liberals while I’m at it.
Reader Tips
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Monday night jazz show, here are Charlie Rouse and his quintet, featuring Blue Mitchell, Art Taylor, Walter Bishop, and Earl May performing Pretty Strange (5:21). I didn’t know that Charlie and Blue had played together before! Cool, man. Mmm, mmm, this is yummy good.
Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.
Dear God;
“Please send form 25-B (Application for De-Baptism) to the address provided below, as I have recently become an Athiest.”
Y2Kyoto: SDA Special Events Reminder
Well, is my face red.
As people around the world spent the evening of March 28th marking the Hour of Power, Human Achievement Hour, and the Ceremonial Banishment of the Snows, the World Wildlife Fund was encouraging others to participate in an event they called “Earth Hour” to “raise awareness” of something they call “global warming”.
Environmentalists hail Earth Hour as a big success
“The world said yes to climate action, now governments must follow,” the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said a day after hundreds of millions of people worldwide followed its call to turn off lights for a full hour.
From an Antarctic research base and the Great Pyramids of Egypt, from the Colosseum in Rome to the Empire State building in New York, illuminated patches of the globe went dark Saturday night to highlight the threat of climate change. Time zone by time zone, nearly 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries dimmed nonessential lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
WWF called the event, which began in Australia in 2007 and grew last year to 400 cities worldwide, “the world’s first-ever global vote about the future of our planet.”
“Last night’s message from the masses was loud and clear: Delay no more, real action now!” Kim Carstensen, the leader of WWF’s Global Climate Initiative, said in a statement.
Well, here in Saskatchewan, not so much. SaskPower: Earth Hour Had “No Measureable Effect
Had I known, I’d have helped get the word out.
But back to the WWF – what is this “climate action” that they speak of?
“Using the carbon footprint calculator on the WWF’s own web site, the 36,800-mile trip in a Boeing 757 jet will burn about 100,000 gallons of jet fuel to produce roughly 1,231 tons of CO2 in 25 days — that’s the equivalent of putting about 1,560 SUVs on the road during those three-plus weeks and that doesn’t even include emissions related to local air, ground and water transport and other amenities.”
I’m told they’re turning the cabin lights down.
More World Wildlife Fund tours for the carbon-reducing set: the Galápagos (multiple year round departures, including Galápagos Multisport ), snorkeling Thailand, Botswana by Land Rover, and the “end of the earth appeal” of Borneo.
If you tickle those ‘tangs, they giggle like schoolgirls!
Related – “The kicker, though, were the dozen or so floodlights grandly highlighting several trees and illuminating the driveway entrance of Gore’s mansion.”
Prospects Brighten For Buggy Whip Industry
He liked engineering Detroit so much he bought the industry.
What does it mean if a President can force the resignation of a CEO that still answers to shareholders?
Or force a merger?
The rationale was drawn from the infinite corporate experience that President Obama brings to the table …
[Wagoner] is considered responsible for increasing GM’s focus on trucks and SUVs—at the expense of the hybrids and fuel efficient cars that have become more popular in the last couple of years.
In other auto news: American hybrid sales fall off a cliff
The Sound Of Settled Science
… the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson has quietly resided in Princeton, N.J., on the wooded former farmland that is home to his employer, the Institute for Advanced Study, this country’s most rarefied community of scholars. Lately, however, since coming “out of the closet as far as global warming is concerned,” as Dyson sometimes puts it, there has been noise all around him. Chat rooms, Web threads, editors’ letter boxes and Dyson’s own e-mail queue resonate with a thermal current of invective in which Dyson has discovered himself variously described as “a pompous twit,” “a blowhard,” “a cesspool of misinformation,” “an old coot riding into the sunset” and, perhaps inevitably, “a mad scientist.” Dyson had proposed that whatever inflammations the climate was experiencing might be a good thing because carbon dioxide helps plants of all kinds grow. Then he added the caveat that if CO2 levels soared too high, they could be soothed by the mass cultivation of specially bred “carbon-eating trees,” whereupon the University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner looked through the thick grove of honorary degrees Dyson has been awarded — there are 21 from universities like Georgetown, Princeton and Oxford — and suggested that “perhaps trees can also be designed so that they can give directions to lost hikers.” Dyson’s son, George, a technology historian, says his father’s views have cooled friendships, while many others have concluded that time has cost Dyson something else. There is the suspicion that, at age 85, a great scientist of the 20th century is no longer just far out, he is far gone — out of his beautiful mind.
But in the considered opinion of the neurologist Oliver Sacks, Dyson’s friend and fellow English expatriate, this is far from the case. “His mind is still so open and flexible,” Sacks says. Which makes Dyson something far more formidable than just the latest peevish right-wing climate-change denier.
Reader Tips
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Sunday night classical music show, here are the noted basso profundo Vladimir Miller and the choir of the Valaam Monastery (a stauropegic Orthodox monastery in Karelia, located on the largest island in Lake Ladoga, the largest lake in Europe), performing Do Not Reject Me In Old Age (6:38).
Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.
(Note from Kate – I’m currently on the road, so posting frequency will be slow over the next few hours. Things should be back to normal by tomorrow evening.)
1,587 Canadian News Stories On The “Red Eye”
Because Greg Whats-his-name is the enemy;
“So we had in our custody a top commander of the Taliban, against which we have been at war for eight years and which, far from surrendering, has continued fighting and killing American troops throughout that time. But because Guantanamo Bay is purportedly a blight on our reputation in the international community (whatever that means), and because we have thus been under pressure from the Left to shut it down, we released the said top Taliban commander even as things were getting worse in Afghanistan. He, as anyone might have predicted, has gone straight back to the jihad. Now things have gotten so bad we’ve had to send more troops, and the guy we released is playing a key role fortifying enemy forces and helping them prepare roadside and suicide bombings against the increased forces we’re sending.
But not to worry. The administration is working hard to make arrangements to release most of the remaining 240+ detainees so the President can make good on his commitment to close Gitmo by the beginning of next year.”
Where Have All The Heroes Gone?
It’s so hard to believe in anyone anymore.
Alternate Headline: “Slap Chop demo goes horribly wrong”.
Great Moments In Investigative Journalism
Conspiracy revealed;
Mr. Olbermann named Twitter “the worst person in the world” for allowing a fake account under his name, but it turned out that MSNBC was running the account, unbeknownst to Mr. Olbermann, says Mr. Stone.
But not before he blamed Fox News.
Y2Kyoto: “Global warming is one of those holy causes in which journalists may freely lie”
“…and indeed must and do.”
Earth Hour in Times Square – before…
and during.
Update: Heh.
Reader Tips
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Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Saturday night distinguished lecture, documentary & interview series, and to our Earth Hour 2009 radio show, here are David Gallo and Bill Lange presenting their talk on The Deep Oceans: A Ribbon of Life (1998, 13:21). TED sez that in tonight’s talk, which “features vibrant video clips captured by submarines, David takes us to some of Earth’s darkest, violent, toxic & beautiful habitats: the valleys and volcanic ridges of the oceans’ depths, where life is bizarre, resilient and shockingly abundant.”
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As David mentions in tonight’s show: “Proust said that the true voyage of discovery is not so much in seeking new landscapes as it is in having new eyes. […] The first thing we see coming out of the sea floor, after a volcanic eruption, is bacteria [and then worms, shrimp, crabs, fish, &c…] You’ve got these little chimneys, sitting here, smoking away ~ this stuff is toxic as hell, by the way, you could never get a permit to dump this in the ocean ~ and it’s coming out all around [the earth]. It’s basically sulfuric acid […] and animals are thriving in it […] and we probably came from there. […] As an ecosystem, they’ve been stable for billions of years […] Is it sensitive? Yes. Is it fragile? No. […] Everything on this planet works by cycles and rhythms […] It’s not a disaster, it’s rhythmic. What we’re learning now […] you can’t listen to a five billion year long symphony, get to today, and say stop, I want tomorrow’s note to be the same as today. [That’s] absurd.”
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So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, whether you’re a photosynthesist or a chemosynthesist, or dare I even say, a thermosynthesist or an infosynthesist; or an optimist or a pessimist; whether you prefer flanged or threaded fittings, already: what is your net result but axiological? Some people turned their lights off, some people turned their lights on, and Earth dumped thousands of tons of sulfuric acid into her oceans, and life goes on. And this is why I can never get over de gustibus non disputandum est, or Professor Irwin Corey singing Today, It’s a Dream Away by Talk Talk (1982, 3:30).
Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.
Y2Kyoto: “We’re glowing like lab mice here”
From Australia…
Click! Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click.
to the Middle East…
(UN approved)
to Manitoba…
(photo courtesy “freethinker”)
Canadians nationwide are marking this Hour in our own special ways…
Don’t forget!
International Clean-Your-Oven Hour
Great Canadian Air Conditioner Stress Test
Timmy’s Drive Thru Appreciation Hour
Save the Hummer Canada Pledge Drive
And the Ceremonial Banishment Of The Snows!
Ladies and gentlemen – start your electricity meters!
That’s right. We’re getting a half-hour jump on them.
(The green lettering is a nice touch, yes?)
Update – That’s the spirit!
More reports roll in – Saskatoon SHINES!
~$ ping shahamat.org (bumped)
Update: SDA GETS RESULTS! The Canadian hosted site is down.
~$ ping www.shahamat.org
PING shahamat.org (74.126.5.246) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from amray.ca (74.126.5.246): icmp_seq=1 ttl=237 time=134 ms
Rusty Shackleford explains: Official Taliban websites are being hosted in Los Angeles, Houston and Winnipeg…
A reminder that providing business services, even free ones, to the Taliban violates the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Each IEEPA violation of carries a fine of up to $250,000.
These businesses generally use automated web based forms and so are probably unaware that they are breaking federal law and U.N. Security Council Resolutions by dealing with the Taliban. Please contact them with the information provided below and let them know who it is they are giving an internet platform to.
Remember, the “Voice of Jihad” websites are the Taliban’s OFFICIAL websites and are OFFICIAL propaganda outlets for the Taliban’s OFFICIAL spokesmen, Qari Youssef Muhammad and Zabihullah Mujahid. The IEAP website is another OFFICIAL website which is under the direction of Abdul Wasay, (aka, Mullah Agha Jan Mu’Tasim) the former finance minister for the Taliban and current head of the “political commission”. Wasay/Mutasim is currently on the UN Security Council’s sanction list.
But even if it wasn’t against federal and international law to provide business services to the Taliban, it is highly immoral. We, the United States and Canada, are at war with the Taliban. Every day members of the Taliban attempt to kill NATO troops. Some days they succeed.
Alternate Pashtun “Voice of Jihad” URL: http://www.shahamat.org/
=74.126.5.246 = Amray Hosting (Winnipeg, Canada) = Internet 123
Southfield, Michigan
Amray: registration@amray.net
Amray Abuse: http://www.amrayhosting.com/mail/mform.php
Internet 123 abuse: rpd@123.net
Taliban e-mail: rayhamat@live.ca
David Akin Hears Voices
Reports Of Conservativism’s Death
…have been greatly exaggerated;
“The signing event at Tysons Corner is mobbed. The end of the line has been warned that they will have a 5 hour wait minimum and may not be able to see [Mark] Levin for an autograph. But the line continued to grow. Hasn’t even begun.”
Update: Now there’s video
Related: Sean Hannity – taking the jobs CNN won’t do!