Saturday - October 18, 2008

Just the High Notes Please

You know those water grooves that the highway department cuts into certain parts of some roads? When you drive over them they make quite a racket inside your car. Well, some bright worker figured out that if the spacing between the grooves was altered a bit, then the racket would turn into music if you drove over them at the right speed. So they tried it, and it worked, and people got a kick out of it. Naturally government stepped in and put the kabosh on things. But now they’ve figured out that it’s a tourist attraction, so they’re going to put them back. Nothing like wasting more of the taxpayer’s money, right?

LANCASTER, Calif.  — The folks who silenced the nation’s first “musical road” are singing a different tune. Workers on Wednesday began carving grooves on Avenue G that will produce notes of the “William Tell Overture” when cars drive over them.

The high desert city north of Los Angeles placed the grooves on another road, Avenue K, last month for a Honda commercial. The quarter-mile strip was engineered to play the notes — better known as the theme for “The Lone Ranger” — when motorists in Honda Civics hit them at 55 mph.

It was believed to be the first such musical road in the United States, although there are others in Japan, South Korea and Holland.  The city paved over that stretch two weeks later after neighbors complained the noise was annoying and kept them awake. The city, however, received hundreds of calls praising the road and decided to retain the concept.

“It will be a tourist attraction. It will pull people off the freeway,” Mayor R. Rex Parris said.

Many residents also liked it.
...
The city paved over that stretch two weeks later after neighbors complained the noise was annoying and kept them awake.
...
The city decided to recreate the road in an industrial area away from homes. On Tuesday the City Council approved spending up to $35,000 for the work. City officials said there has been interest from several companies in sponsoring the road and reimbursing the cost in return for publicity.

I wonder how long it will take before somebody figures out that this kind of road surface is also a speed trap? If the tempo is off, it’s a guarantee you’re speeding.

I can see the advertising angle easily. They won’t even have to put up a sign saying “this bit of road sponsored by”. Americans are so familiar with advertising jingles it would be automatic. You’re just driving along, minding your own business, and suddenly everyone in the car is singing “Extra value is what you get, when you buy Coronet.”

Let’s take this to the next level and see if this concept can’t also synthesize speech. 

Posted by Drew458     on 10/18/2008 at 07:08 AM   
Filed Under: • Amazing Science and Discoveries • Fun-Stuff •  
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   Friday - October 17, 2008

Linky Link

Fellow blogger Duane Lester sends me a link to his own blog post where he has almost 2 dozen photographs by Russell Lee Klika on display. Klika is a professional photographer, and he’s really good. Most of his pictures have that certain-special-something that I can’t quite describe, but I could call it the National Geographic Look. It doesn’t hurt that he uses a Nikon D1X either. He’s spent a lot of time in Iraq, and around our soldiers training stateside. This is good stuff.

You can see a lot more of Klika’s work here on his Flickr photostream page. All the images are copyrighted, but this one (my favorite) made the cover of a magazine. So here’s a picture of the cover of the magazine. All of the other 300 or so pictures are just as good. Enjoy.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/17/2008 at 11:23 PM   
Filed Under: • Art-Photography •  
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Let’s Never Find Out

I’m trying to catch up on the email while I do some late night laundry. Then it’s off in the morning to a local gun show. I’m hoping to find a certain kind of gun powder. I can’t believe it, but it’s true: not one retailer within 80 miles of me carries Accurate brand powder. I even tried to place an order with my former retailer ... said I’d buy 3 or 4 pounds of it. He said his supplier would only sell him the stuff in cases of 12. I guess he isn’t willing to carry any inventory at all then. Tough times I guess. Whatever.

Anyway, reader Carol sends me this MOST EXCELLENT LINK to a website that has all the anti-Obama ads done by the Let Freedom Ring organization. I don’t watch much regular TV, so I don’t know if these ads are actually running on the boob tube, but they ought to be. Simple, direct, and to the point, each points out one of the many aspects of The One that should keep him out of the White House, and closes with “let’s never find out”. And so, I give you them all: NeverFindOut.Org.

I have the bestest readers here. Thanks Carol!

Posted by Drew458     on 10/17/2008 at 11:05 PM   
Filed Under: • Politics •  
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Oh this terrible economy!!!11!!!

I’ve been driving around all week on less than a quarter tank, watching the gas prices fall. Tonight, 25 miles after the “Get Gas NOW Or You’ll DIE!!!” light came on, I filled up. $2.69.9/gal for regular.
That’s almost exactly 2/3 of what I paid once, ONCE, when gas was at it’s peak. Now to get the price to drop another 80-90¢ per gallon, so it will cost what it ought to. Yeah, $1.79.9 seems about right; run my little car just about dry and then fill it up for $20. Not $30. And certainly not $45.

185,000 miles on my little Saturn, and it still gets me a touch over 30mpg on the tank. And that’s driving New Jersey style the whole time. I can’t complain about that.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/17/2008 at 07:49 PM   
Filed Under: • Oil, Alternative Energy, and Gas Prices •  
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Damn That Global Warming

A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5,000 years ago in what is now the barren Sahara Desert.

The slender arms of the youngsters were still extended to the woman in perpetual embrace when researchers discovered their skeletons in a remarkable cemetery that is providing clues to two civilizations who lived there, a thousand years apart, when the region was moist and green.

Some 200 graves of humans were found during fieldwork at the site in 2005 and 2006, as well as remains of animals, large fish and crocodiles.

“Everywhere you turned, there were bones belonging to animals that don’t live in the desert,” said Sereno. “I realized we were in the green Sahara.”

The graveyard, uncovered by hot desert winds, is near what would have been a lake at the time people lived there.

It’s in a region called Gobero, hidden away in Niger’s forbidding Tenere Desert, known to Tuareg nomads as a “desert within a desert.”

The human remains dated from two distinct populations that lived there during wet times, with a dry period in between.

The researchers used radiocarbon dating to determine when these ancient people lived there. Even the most recent were some 1,000 years before the building of the pyramids in Egypt.

The first group, known as the Kiffian, hunted wild animals and speared huge perch with harpoons. They colonized the region when the Sahara was at its wettest, between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago.

The researchers said the Kiffians were tall, sometimes reaching well over 6 feet.

The second group lived in the region between 7,000 and 4,500 years ago. The Tenerians were smaller and had a mixed economy of hunting, fishing and cattle herding.

“At first glance, it’s hard to imagine two more biologically distinct groups of people burying their dead in the same place,” said team member Chris Stojanowski, a bioarchaeologist from Arizona State University.

Stojanowski said ridges on the thigh bone of one Kiffian man show he had huge leg muscles, “which suggests he was eating a lot of protein and had an active, strenuous lifestyle. The Kiffian appear to have been fairly healthy — it would be difficult to grow a body that tall and muscular without sufficient nutrition.”

On the other hand, ridges on a Tenerian male were barely visible.

“This man’s life was less rigorous, perhaps taking smaller fish and game with more advanced hunting technologies,” Stojanowski said.

While the Sahara is desert today, a small difference in Earth’s orbit once brought seasonal monsoons farther north, wetting the landscape with lakes with lush margins and drawing animals and people.

So now we have proof. Way way waaaaay back in the day, the Sahara was something close to Eden. And the people lived there, happily hunting, gathering, and flying their kites. They were big and strong, and probably got by just fine without National Health Care or Talk Radio.

Then things changed. Some proto-Conservative discovered fire, and it’s been all downhill since. Before you know it - in a mere 1000 years - all the grasses were gone, the forests denuded, even the rains had stopped. All because of those greenhouse gases being put into the air non-stop by those greedy people. Pretty soon they ran out of food, and had to get by on little fish, dried rats, and those awful cold MREs distributed by FEMA. To no one’s surprise, they all died out, and what was once a ripe and lush eco-sphere is now barren desert. I blame Ur-Bush for this disaster.

And speaking of Eden, here’s today’s smut Eve.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/17/2008 at 03:29 PM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather •  
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Voter Fraud In Ohio Will Continue As Usual

Now, before you get all wound up and declare this the end of Democracy As We Know It, due to Judicial Fiat, take a minute and read the actual decision and see learn what is being said:

So, what’s the story here? The ACORN fiasco has brought out the fact that the voter registration process and records in Ohio are a mess. Of the 660,000 or more new registrations, thousands are obvious frauds. And that doesn’t even look at the voters already registered. The Republican Party brought suit against Jennifer Brunner, the Ohio Secretary of State, demanding that she get this cleaned up. It’s part of her job. The suit went right to court, and the decision was made that she provide a system for implementing voter fraud prevention methods, and verify at least 200,000 of these registrations. That decision is called a TRO, a Temporary Restraining Order.

She appealed that TRO, for whatever reasons, and the 6th Circuit Court denied her appeal. So she appealed that decision to the Supreme Court. And now the SCOTUS has agreed with her, and the TRO is gone. It is not that the Supreme Court does not feel she should be doing this as part of her job. It is not that the Supreme Court has any way of determining that she isn’t doing this aspect of her job. It’s that SCOTUS does not see that a private entity - the litigant, the GOP - has standing (ie legal grounds based on their suffering because of a ruling or law) to sue this branch of the Ohio government. Funny thing though. I would have thought that a suit, brought by a group that represents a fair amount of the public, that results in a bench order to a government worker that says “do your job” would be a straightforward and direct implementation of “the right of the people ... to petition the Government for redress of grievances.” But the whole SCOTUS decision is based on that murky legal concept of “standing”, that says you can’t make a fuss until after you’ve already suffered. So maybe the GOP should refile their suit after Election Day?

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Democratic Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, granting her a stay on Friday to a temporary restraining order from the 6th Circuit Court that ordered her to provide a system for implementing voter fraud prevention methods.

The decision by the full court repudiates the lower court’s ruling siding with the Ohio Republican Party and ordering Brunner to verify records of about 200,000 of 666,000 new voters this year whose driver’s license and Social Security records don’t match information in other government databases.

In an unsigned order, the high court ruled that it could not say whether Ohio was properly enforcing the Help America Vote Act. However, it said the Ohio GOP doesn’t have the standing to file the suit.

So the Supreme Court is not deciding explicitly in favor of voter registration fraud, m’kay? However, let’s stop for a minute and look at the upshoot of this decision. ACORN has created a disaster in Ohio. Tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of voter registration forms there are fraudulent. Even if Ohio uses some kind of photo ID for voter identification, if processing these applications generates such photo IDs then they have just distributed a huge number of fake ones. Corrupt elections are based on two things: misconduct in the ballot counting, and voter fraud. And it seems obvious that a great part of voter fraud has to begin with fraudulent voter registration. Clean that aspect up and the whole system is cleaner. Not clean, mind you, but cleaner.

We go through this crap every four years. If any government - state, federal, local - had any real wish to eliminate voter fraud they would have figured some system out by now and put it into place, and had plenty of time to fine tune it. This is not the case. How could it be, when, barely 3 weeks out from Election Day, some lower court is issuing an injunction that the Ohio Secretary of State provide a system to eliminate voter fraud? This suit never would have happened if Ohio had cleaned out this litter box long before now, and put some laws into place that would keep it clean. They are not doing their job. And now SCOTUS has ruled that you and I do not have the legal right to sue them to make them do their job. So the fraud will continue until such time as some state government official goes on a Grail Quest to clean up the voter rolls and the voting process, and gets full approval and a big green light from the State and the Courts. And that will never happen. Why? Because it hasn’t happened in the past 100 years or more. Voter fraud, fake registrations, ballot box stuffing, miscounting, hanging chads, and disenfranchisement are just noisemakers, trotted out every 4 years so that the losing parties have something to blame their loss on. Then they go back in their box and get ignored. Again. ALWAYS. Forever.

Is the voting system in Ohio a mess, and wracked with fraud? Without doubt. So is the voting system in your state. And mine. And even though a state and national purification of the system would do a great deal to restore people’s faith in their governments, nothing will be done. Ever. And now it’s been decided that you can’t even sue about it. At least ahead of time. So sit down and shut up and submit.

WRONG !!!
Vote them out of power. The crooked, the corrupt, and the just plain lazy and incapable. Demand that the voting process be cleaned up, made transparent, and made more wholesome than organic mother’s milk. Push for recalls to pull those in power out of office if they will not fix the problem. They represent us. WE. The People. So if WE want fair elections then WE have to get to work to make THEM do The Right Thing. That’s all there is to it. But until the Left WE can agree with the Right WE that this is what WE want, THEY are not going to do anything.

In the end, it’s all up to YOU, The Person.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/17/2008 at 01:00 PM   
Filed Under: • Government •  
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Being a Good Sport

Grace under fire much? I think this is a stroke of genius. Sarah Palin goes on Saturday Night Live, and they mock the hell out of her. And she keeps smiling and laughing, and showing them how to do her even better. Let them drag out all of their Palin Derangement Syndrome stereotypes, their “snowbilly” Alaskan stereotypes, and even whatever they can dig up to impugn Hockey Moms. She’ll take it all in stride with a smile, and with any luck give back as good as she gets. And people will absolutely adore her for it. This is a gutsy move. And if the SNL crew goes too far, will there be a backlash? I think so. I think it’s SNL and Tina Fey that are running the risks here, not Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin is stepping into the lion’s den, so to speak, when she makes her first appearance on Saturday Night Live this weekend.

Actor Josh Brolin, who plays President Bush in Oliver Stone’s new movie, “W”, will host Saturday’s episode. John McCain’s campaign confirmed Palin’s appearance to FOX News. But spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker offered no details about what the Alaska governor will say or do. The entertainment show’s ratings has surged this season largely thanks to Tina Fey’s wicked and dead-on impersonation of Palin. The hike in ratings has led to the show adding a half-hour program Thursday nights devoted to mocking the candidates.

Last week, Palin said she would love to be on the show with Fey and show her how she is really done.

“I love her,” she said. “She’s hot and she’s so talented and it would be fun to either imitate her or keep on giving her more material and keep her in business.”

Keeping her in business though is not what Fey wants. The comedian told TV Guide that she won’t keep up her much acclaimed role as Palin if she becomes vice president—much to the chagrin of political comedy fans.

“If she wins, I’m done. I can’t do that for four years,” Fey told the magazine. “And by ‘I’m done,’ I mean I’m leaving Earth.”

Fey has mastered Palin’s folksiness while targeting the perception that she is all style and no substance.

McCain called Fey a “tremendous talent” during an appearance Thursday night on CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman and predicted that Palin’s appearance will probably draw a bigger audience than his debate with Barack Obama..

“Tina Fey does a great job,” he said. “Sarah Palin enjoys it. She understands it’s part of what politics is all about.”

You won’t see The One on SNL or on any show that makes fun of him. He can’t handle that kind of truth. He takes himself way too seriously. He’s above criticism. And his army of minions will turn over ever rock and dig up every shovel of dirt they can find to destroy anyone who even thinks of saying something against him or his beliefs. Ain’t that right, Joe the Plumber?

Posted by Drew458     on 10/17/2008 at 12:30 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor • Politics •  
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Yeah, but did ACORN International register them yet?

Workers renovating a rugby stadium have uncovered a vast complex of tombs beneath Rome that mimic the houses, blocks and streets of a real city, officials said Thursday as they unveiled a series of new finds here.

Culture Ministry officials said that medieval pottery shards in the city of the dead, or necropolis, show the area may have been inhabited by the living during the Dark Ages after being used for centuries for burials during the Roman period.

It is not yet clear who was buried in the ancient cemetery, but archaeologists at the still partially excavated site believe at least some of the dead were freed slaves of Greek origin.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/17/2008 at 12:22 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor • News-Briefs •  
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Gosh what a non-surprise

Hawaii is dropping the only state universal child health care program in the country just seven months after it launched. Gov. Linda Lingle’s administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options for eliminating funding for the program. A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan.

“People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free,” said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. “I don’t believe that was the intent of the program.”

Hawaii lawmakers approved the health plan in 2007 as a way to ensure every child can get basic medical help. The Keiki (child) Care program aimed to cover every child from birth to 18 years old who didn’t already have health insurance — mostly immigrants and members of lower-income families.  It costs the state about $50,000 per month, or $25.50 per child — an amount that was more than matched by HMSA.  State health officials argued that most of the children enrolled in the universal child care program previously had private health insurance, indicating that it was helping those who didn’t need it.

Like I said the other day, it’s a basic cost-benefit analysis thing. Why pay for something the government will give you for “free”? And this is exactly what is going to happen under Obama’s health care plan. Faced with a choice between paying for some or all of their employee’s health insurance, or letting the government pay for it, no employer in their right mind will hesitate. Exactly the same thing will happen, only on a scale orders of magnitude greater. And we’ll have instant Socialized Medicine, in which the government becomes a near monopoly in the health insurance business. And that’s not Free Market Capitalism. That’s not Representative Democracy. That’s pure Socialism. Hell, it’s Communism; the government will be taking over a private sector business. It will not be possible to write laws, which pass the Constitutional “equal treatment” test, which force employers that presently provide health benefits to continue to do so, while giving other employees who do not have this benefit the ability to sign up to receive government health insurance for free. Or even for reduced cost. Once the government becomes an insurance agency any citizen can sign up, and will sign up, and the whole health insurance industry edifice crumbles to dust over night.

Your solution to the “health care crisis” is fundamentally flawed, Senator Government. It will not work, period.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/17/2008 at 12:01 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Health-Medicine •  
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WHY BARACK O’BENOTHING CAN STILL LOSE. (ok that isn’t exactly how todays headline read)

I stole that (O’benothing) from Rich. And I ain’t sorry.

Actually, there was a large banner headline in this morning’s paper that does read,

WHY BARACK OBAMA CAN STILL LOSE. 
Hey, I like waking up to that sort of thing and immediately booted so I could post the story and start everyone’s Friday BMEWS on a good note.

On the other hand of course, I didn’t actually read every single word until I put it here.  Shows my desperation huh?  We NEED us to win. If not,
Palin in 2012.  GOF might not be a bad choice either or Drew. But both are busy and Kim duToit is retiring, ya can never find Doc Jeff, Wardmom is quite busy with family. Hell, all you guys who I think have more on the ball then those referred to as, “our leaders” seem a lot smarter then those in power.
Vilmar would be a great Attorney General or head of the FBI and he never takes prisoners.  But he isn’t interested either.  Turtler another possible choice as he’s smarter then the DC stuffed shirts too.  I bet he’s too busy as well.  And at the very least, any one of these people could write damn better and more to the point speeches then those being given by any candidate of either party at the present time.

Damn, that leave me.  Me?  Nah. It’s my back ya know and besides I have IBS.  Where do I sign up for benefits?

US elections: Barack Obama’s lead failing to reassure Democrats

By Anne Applebaum
Last Updated: 5:01pm BST 16/10/2008
Page 1 of 2

It’s all over bar the voting, if you believe some of yesterday morning’s headlines. Despite all of the prepping and practising, the rehearsing of grins and grimaces, the third and final US presidential debate – the last chance either candidate had to dramatically alter the course of the campaign – offered no huge advantage to either side. John McCain did well, but not well enough. Barack Obama was a little flat and passionless, but it was his debate to lose and he didn’t lose it.

# US election coverage in full

For the most part, the two candidates in fact sounded like two reasonable people who have agreed to disagree. But however much of a landmark that high level of civilized discourse may be in American political history, it also leaves us exactly where we were at the beginning of the week: Barack Obama is ahead. In some polls, he is way ahead, by 10 percentage points, or even 14. Boosted by an economic crash which voters blame on the Republicans – and which McCain has floundered trying to solve – Obama’s position has only been buoyed, in recent days, by the shrill rhetoric of McCain’s vice-presidential nominee. For once, nastiness isn’t working in this election, or at least not yet: When Sarah Palin described Obama as a man who has been “palling around with terrorists”, McCain actually dropped in the polls even further.

But if these polls are reliable, then Obama isn’t merely going to win, he’s going to win by a landslide. Not only will he be president, but the Democrats will sweep the Republicans out of Congress as well. Indeed if these polls are truly reliable, there’s really no more point in watching or writing about the presidential campaign at all: We should all change subjects, and start talking about things like “Obama’s America” and “Does the Republican Party have a future?” instead.

And yet – If it’s all over bar the voting, then why is no one acting like it’s over? More to the point, why are Democrats so nervous? So anxious is one liberal friend of mine that she has decided to fly home to Virginia – a swing state – in order to vote. She lives in Europe, but she doesn’t trust the post to get her absentee ballot there on time. She also doesn’t believe in 14-point poll leads: who knows, in this election every vote might count. So anxious is another friend that she sends out regular emails to everyone on her mailing list, whatever their politics, urging them to vote Obama. It’s become rather irritating.

Nervousness is on display in the press as well. Slate magazine last week produce a spoof instructional video, explaining to Democrats why, in case of an unexpected McCain victory, they should move to Canada (Mounties at the border will provide you with instant socialised medicine! Abortion will be free!) Another Slate columnist produced a “McCain Victory Survival Kit,” a “just-in-case guide for reporters just in case Obama collapses,” complete with pollsters to call for emergency on-air interviews, and a list of explanations. Pretty much all of the major newspapers, meanwhile, have been “hedging” their articles about the huge Obama poll leads with lengthy accompanying articles explaining the myriad ways in which pollsters make mistakes: No one wants to be caught totally unprepared by a shock Republican victory, and no one believes a shock Republican victory is impossible.

Clearly, some of that anxiety is derived from recent historical experience. Al Gore was supposed to win too, after all, and so was John Kerry. An advantage eighteen days before the election hasn’t, in American history, always translated into an advantage on the day itself.

Democrats and journalists are also simply spooked, and legitimately so, by the weirdness of the entire 2008 campaign: Too many things that weren’t supposed to happen have happened, and vice versa. A year ago, the conventional wisdom said that the McCain campaign was finished; Hillary Clinton had the Democratic nomination clinched; Rudy Giuliani (remember him?) would be a strong Republican contender; Obama might be an acceptable vice-president, though perhaps too young and inexperienced to be taken seriously. And everything turned out differently.

More to the point, there are a still number of unknown and unknowable factors in this particular campaign, some with potential to seriously skew the polls, number one on this list being is the so-called “Bradley effect.” This piece of pollster jargon is a theory named after Tom Bradley, a black mayor of Los Angeles who lost the California governor’s race despite being ahead in the polls. In essence it states that a certain number of white voters, wanting to appear progressive, will always tell pollsters they intend to vote for a black candidate, but in practice will not do so. Some think the Bradley effect may be exaggerating Obama’s lead, perhaps by as much as 6%. 

http://tinyurl.com/5n4avc

OK so, this means there might still be some hope.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/17/2008 at 02:42 AM   
Filed Under: • Politics •  
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   Thursday - October 16, 2008

News From The North

In a move that was supposed to increase domestic timber production, Russia has doubled the export tariff on “round timber”, ie tree trunks. But it turns out that Russians have plenty of round timber thank you, and the export tax has dried up foreign purchases. Oops. Government Mentality seems to be a world wide pandemic.

The boost in Russian export tariffs on round timber has not resulted in more domestic processing, as intended by Russian authorities. On the contrary, major parts of the Russian forestry processing industry experiences decline and are threatened by crisis.
Russia this year introduced a major increase in export tariffs on round timber in a bid to boost domestic processing. By next year, the export tariff will amount to 50 EUR per cubic meter, a 100 percent increase compared with last year.

Now, figures from the Republic of Karelia—one of the former main timber export regions – show that processing is not flourishing as intended by Moscow, but rather experiences negative growth.

According to Regnum, regional First Deputy Minister of Forestry in the Republic of Karelia confirms that timber processing in the region is falling and that the negative growth is expected to increase in the period ahead.

While pulp and paper production in the region the first half of the year increased 1,9 percent, the growth has been reduced to only 0,3 percent seen over the last nine months. The situation is worse in timber processing where the decline amounts to 16 percent year-on-year. The drying-up timber exports to Finland might now put the regional industry in crisis. A major part of the industry remains hesitant towards extend operations in Russia. As a matter of fact, a number of companies are strongly against the higher export tariffs imposed by Moscow.

Of course, for every border there’s a way to get across it, and for every tariff and law there’s somebody willing to look the other way ...

The World Wildlife Fund says Finland is one of Europe’s biggest importers of illegally felled timber. Most of it comes from Russia.
The WWF says that in 2006, 10.4 million cubic metres of illegal or suspect timber was exported from Russia, and nearly half of this passed through Finnish mills, Yle News reports.

Finland is currently in a heated debate with Russia over the latter’s strong increase on export tariffs on round timber. The Finnish pulp industry is highly dependent on the Russian raw materials.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/16/2008 at 07:25 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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Now that’s moxie, baby

Baseball fans can take a hike ... Fearless Leader will be talking. Put down the remote, don’t open that beer. Pay attention. Pay attention!!! And do as you are told. And don’t go and try to change the channel. Fearless Leader the Boy Prince Urkel The Big Goatse Senator Government will be on all the networks at once! And his minions will know if you turn off the TV!

Major League Baseball agreed Wednesday to push back the start time of Game 6 of the World Series by about 15 minutes so that Fox Broadcasting Co. could sell Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama half an hour of prime time on Oct. 29.

The campaign also has bought the same time period—8 p.m. on Oct. 29— on CBS and NBC so that he can run a 30-minute program on all of the networks. Each network is selling the time for between $950,000 to $1 million. Buying time on all of the major broadcast networks would allow Obama to reach more than 20 million people on the Wednesday before the election. A spokesman for Fox said the network will make available a similar 30-minute block of time for the Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain, if he chooses. Time for McCain would be either later that night (if there is no Game 6) or the following evening.

Major League Baseball did not have an immediate comment.

This could be your last chance to accept the words of The One. Watch carefully. Take notes. Submit. And vote properly and often. Black Jesus is watching. It is not arrogance that lets him pre-empt this time slot. It is his right, his duty, and he’s doing it for your own good. Resistance is futile. Otherwise you are a racist.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/16/2008 at 07:00 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
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How smart should a President be?

Quick - how old are you?

Are you sure?

Of course you are. Everyone knows how old they are. Except Obama.

All of the background information on Obama says he was born on August 4th, 1961. Today is October 16th, 2008. Obama is 47 years, 2 months old. He won’t turn 48 for another 10 months. Last night at the debate, when he was poo-pooing his connection to William Ayers, Obama said “40 years ago, when I was 8” that Ayers had carried out his acts of domestic terrorism.

In his book Fugitive Days, William Ayers says that he ‘participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972,’. Assuming this is accurate, Obama would have been 8 or 9 when the NYC Police Headquarters was bombed 38 years ago, 9 or 10 when the Capitol was bombed 37 years ago, and 10 when the Pentagon was bombed in May 1972, 36 years ago.

Even Ayers’ first bombing, that of a statue that commemorated victims of an 1886 riot, took place in 1969, 39 years ago, when Obama was 7 or 8.

So the numbers don’t add up. Unless Obama knows of some bombing Ayers carried out that the rest of us are unaware of? If so, that’s the kind of information no one who is just a passing acquaintance of Ayers would ever know about, isn’t it? But even if there was some bombing 40 years ago, Obama would have been 6 or 7 at the time, not 8.

I want to vote for a President who can do basic math AND has a keen grasp of his own basic personal data. Is that too much to ask?

Posted by Drew458     on 10/16/2008 at 12:30 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor • Politics •  
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Baby-faced gang of ‘feral youths’ named and shamed after reign of terror.

PLEASE See the link for the faces of these 9 miserable little shits!  They do not deserve to live but of course ... they’re getting ASBOS.
Now what the heck makes the authorities think these bastards can be “shamed.” More then likely they will brag about it in school. Assuming they attend school.  By right, their fingers should be broken one by one.  Next offence an arm.  Or an eye. The thing is, they are all of them old enough to know exactly what they were up to.  But there wasn’t any fear of reprisal or penalties. None!  What incentive do these creeps have to feel fear?  What examples have they seen that would make them think twice?  None.  And so it goes on. And on.

The Wild Runts: Baby-faced gang of ‘feral youths’ named and shamed after reign of terror
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 2:35 PM on 16th October 2008

Nine schoolchildren were named and shamed today as a hoodie gang nicknamed
‘The Wild Runts’ were given ASBOS and threatened with jail.

The two girls and seven boys aged between 12 and 16 ‘roamed the community like a pack of dogs’, as racial taunts, violence and vandalism left neighbours gripped by fear.

The youths hurled bricks into people’s homes, scratched cars, started a string of fires, opened guttering, and yelled abuse at the people on the Wigan estate.

Last June, police joined forces with the council and housing groups to nail the youngsters after complaints over a four-month period.

Locals were given anonymity in return for testifying against the gang and some were rehoused in another area.

Today, Amanda Browitt, aged 14, her brother Connor, 15, Callum Doran, 15, Connah Doran, 12, Katy Sharrock ,16, Michael Lee, 14, Lewis Tracey, 12 , Joshua Tracey, 15, and Liam Brogan, 14, were given ASBOs threatening them with jail if they break the law or gather in large groups.

More…
Father almost beaten to death has his home burgled as doctors battle to save his life
Man, 21, collapses and dies in street after chasing yobs who threw lit firework at his bedroom window.
Just another week in an island paradise folks.

The two-year orders also threatened them with up to five years in jail if they are caught using threatening, abusive, or insulting words in public.

They are also forbidden from causing harassment, alarm or distress to any person not of the same household and avoid contact with other associates of their gang.

Terrorised: The Beech Hill Estate near Wigan where the gang started fires and threw bricks into residents’ windows

In two separate sittings, Wigan magistrates court heard how the gang terrorised the neighbourhood on the outskirts of the town with investigators saying racial abuse, wanton vandalism, harassment, threats and intimidation were hallmarks of the gang’s activities.

People and property were the targets and a catalogue of evidence was presented to the court.

As part of the court orders, the gang must not congregate in any group of more than three individuals within certain parts of Beech Hill whilst behaving in a manner causing, or likely to cause, any other person to fear for their safety or property, or the property of another.

One local too frightened to be named said: ‘These youths were an absolute menace. They may look like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths but the reality is they have brought us nothing but misery.

‘Some of these kids are so small some might think it unbelievable for us to be terrified of them.

‘But they were very menacing indeed. They would wander around the estate like a pack of wild dogs - they always seemed to be be together in a pack. To us they were the wild runts.

‘They are just feral youths. They are wild. In general they just trouble makers. When they are in there gangs they can be up to anything.’

Another local Ian Shaw, 43, said: ‘This used to be a place with real family values, now its hell. These guys pick on the elderly and throw stones and start fires. Even when the Fire Brigade came out and put the blazes out they would start abusing them too.

‘They’ve got such a reputation, kids from other estates are coming over to fight with them. Its like gang warfare. They walk down the street with a key or whatever and scratch every car what is parked on the street.

‘There use to a be playing field behind us with an obstacle courses and basketball courts. Now they are gone. They set fire to the whole lot and the council had to take all the remains away.’

Joan Johnson, 66, retired said: “I was at home, sitting watching television and I saw a brick being thrown towards me. There are always cracks on my window.

‘They have broke my side window and it has me over £80 to get it fixed. I’m retired I shouldn’t have to go through this.”

“They have also thrown eggs at my house. I would move but we are too old and have nowhere to go.’

Inspector Glenn Jones of Greater Manchester Police said: ‘This is a landmark case and sends out the message that all of us - community safety agencies and decent people in local communities - can work together to combat crime and anti-social behaviour.’

http://tinyurl.com/473l6c

Posted by Drew458     on 10/16/2008 at 11:43 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Daily Life • UK •  
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