Monday - July 27, 2009
Monday afternoon and back with: Uncle Jay Explains The News. Couldn’t resist it.
Clearing weekend mail and was working on something else but had to post this for those who don’t see this guy.
It’s worth a peek.
Posted by peiper on 07/27/2009 at 06:48 AM
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Sunday - July 26, 2009
Oh No Toto
I don’t think we’re in Clinton anymore!
Horry Clap, we just had a tornado!
Well, almost had one? Does it still count if it doesn’t touch down?
A really nasty cell storm just came through here. We went from a typical muggy NJ summer afternoon to an intense thunderstorm in a matter of minutes. The sky went dark, the rain came pouring down. And then it changed to hail. Little hail, and lots. Then it got bigger, up to pea size, then up to marble size, with some in the musket ball range. Meanwhile the winds kicked up and started blowing hard. The lights flickered, the cable internet was flukey, and then the TV was cut out. Not by the storm, but by the Emergency Broadcast thingy. No picture, but a mechanical voice saying we were under a tornado alert, get to a safe location, high wind alert, severe thunderstorm alert in the following towns and counties ...
and in a couple minutes it was over. We got the TV signal back in time to catch the lady on the Weather Channel saying that a funnel cloud had been reported in Clinton. The storm was a fast mover; we’ve got blue skies now, no wind, dry and cool, but the clouds have moved a few miles east and the thunder from there is huge.
Damn this Climate Change shiz! I haven’t been anywhere near a tornado since 1992 or so, when I was living in upstate NY and one ripped a roof off a house in Endicott NY (next door to Binghamton, who is also getting Severe Weather right now. I always pick the right places to live! )
I can’t see any damage to any of the condos, no trees down, not even twigs really. And now the weather people are warning about localized flooding, since we got about an inch of rain in that 20 minute storm.
Posted by Drew458 on 07/26/2009 at 04:16 PM
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather •
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Caught Red Handed
(see Commie Playbook, page 37)
No English language news service is running this story!
This has been all over the Honduran and Central American press for more than 24 hours but, as Alberto de la Cruz of Babalu Blog points out, no English speaking wire service or media has picked up on it yet.
Authorities seized several computers used by former president Zelaya that contained “official” results of the constitutional referendum that was never held showing his bid to change the law so that he could run for office again winning easily.
Taking a page right out of the leftist dictator’s handbook, these computers, according to the news report, contained the official and certified results of the illegal constitutional referendum Zelaya wanted to conduct that never took place. The results of this fraudulent vote was tilted heavily in Zelaya’s favor, ensuring he could go ahead and illegally change the constitution so he could remain in power for as long as he wanted to. ACORN, I’m sure, is taking notes.
This is the man that the OAS, the UN, and the Obama State Department want the Honduran people to reinstall as their leader.
Here is a quick and rough translation of the above excerpt:
Several computers containing the results of the referendum Zelaya wanted to conduct are seized at the Presidential Palace
The National Directors of Criminal Investigation seized various computers from the Presidential Palace that had recorded the supposed results of the referendum to reform the constitution that the deposed leader, Manuel Zelaya, was planning to conduct on July 28, the day he was removed from office.
The official investigation now deals with the possible crime of fraud and falsification of documents due to the fact that some of the certified voting results had been filled with the personal information of individuals that supposedly participated in the failed referendum that did not take place because of the coup.
One of the district attorneys that participated in the operation that took place this Friday showed reporters an official voting result from the Technical Institute Luis Bogran, of Tegucigalpa, in which the specific number of people that participated in table 345, where there were 550 ballots, 450 of which were votes in favor of Zelaya’s proposal and 30 were against, in addition to 20 blank ballots and 30 ballots, which were nullified.
The seizure took place on the third floor of the building attached to the Ministry of the Presidency that had been rented to the ex-minister of the Interior, Enrique Flores Lanza. The deputy district attorney, Roberto Ramirez, declared this area as a “crime scene” and, although he did not want to provide further details, said that further evidence had been found that could be categorized as crimes of fraud, embezzlement of funds, falsification of documents, and abuse of authority.
More details here, if you can read Spanish.
Posted by Drew458 on 07/26/2009 at 10:48 AM
Filed Under: • News-Briefs • Obama, The One • Tyrants and Dictators •
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Saturday - July 25, 2009
Wasn’t that tasty?
Obama Seeks to Clarify ‘Stupidly’ Comment, Praises White Policeman
President Obama stopped short of an apology to Sgt. James Crowley for saying he “acted stupidly” for arresting black Harvard scholar Henry Lewis Gates Jr., but said he should have chosen his words more carefully.
President Obama stopped short of an apology to Sgt. James Crowley on Friday for saying he “acted stupidly” for arresting black Harvard scholar Henry Lewis Gates Jr., but said he should have chosen his words more carefully.
At an impromptu appearance at the daily White House briefing, Obama said he spoke with Crowley over the phone, and said he wanted to share a beer with Crowley and Gates at the White House.
“Because this has been ratcheting up and I helped contribute to ratcheting it up, I want to make clear that in my choice of words I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically and I could have calibrated those words differently.”“My sense is you’ve got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve it the way the wanted to resolve it,” Obama added.
Earlier in the day Friday, the Cambridge and area police unions voiced their support for Crowley and called for an apology from Obama for his statement.
“His remarks were obviously misdirected but made it worse yet by suggesting somehow this case should remind us of a history of racial abuse by law enforcement,” Dennis O’Connor, president of the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, said at a news conference.
O’Connor also referred to statements made by Governor Deval Patrick—the state’s first black governor—who called the arrest “every black man’s nightmare.”
“Whatever may be the history, we deeply resent the implications and reject any suggestion that in this case or any other case that they’ve allowed a person’s race to direct their activities. However we hope they will reflect upon their past comments and apologize to the men and women of the Cambridge Police Department,” O’Connor said.
Obama has said he was surprised by the controversy sparked by his comments.
Yup, you read that right. He was honestly, actually surprised that anyone would resent his divine pronouncement, or that anyone would get their hackles up in defense or outrage of the treatment of a white police officer who dealt properly with a trouble-making, irritable, uncooperative black man. And then it turned out that Officer Coply was an official Department Racial Healer of the highest magnitude. Oopsy!
Guess what, Jinete de césped? Looks like the honeymoon, maybe she is over, no?
Posted by Drew458 on 07/25/2009 at 07:57 PM
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Up In The Air, Junior Birdmen
Yes, Drew wrote those words. I salute a very brave Frenchman!
CALAIS, France — A restored original of the plane in which Louis Blériot crossed the Channel 100 years ago took off on Saturday in a bid to emulate the French aviator’s historic feat.
A Blériot XI cloth-and-wood monoplane dating from 1934, identical to the one flown by Blériot on July 25 1909, took off around 9 am (0700 GMT), watched by several hundred enthusiasts.
Pilot Edmond Salis, wearing a leather aviator cap and goggles, with a life vest strapped to his back, told reporters before take-off that the flight was “rather exceptional.”
“Louis Blériot surely asked himself the same questions as us before taking off, but there was more uncertainty then, since nobody had ever done it before him,” he said.
Salis, who has notched up dozens of flying hours in the aircraft, then headed off in the plane bound for the English Channel port of Dover.
Around 300 French, British and Belgian pilots were due to join in the tribute, flying in waves over the Channel on board microlight aircraft, seen as the closest modern equivalent to Blériot’s plane.
Blériot’s 37-minute flight between Les Barraques near Calais - since renamed Blériot beach - and Dover convinced a skeptical public that aviation had a future.
He covered the 43 kilometres at an average speed of 65 kilometres (just over 40 miles an hour), landing in a field at the foot of Dover castle.
I love old airplanes, and if I had a pilot’s license flying one of those WWI era “kites” would be the thrill of a lifetime. But you couldn’t pay me to fly a Blériot. The design dates from 1909, and there just isn’t any there there:
The body is nothing more than a pile of sticks tied together with string. The naked little engine is mounted in a wooden bedframe screwed to the front of the pile of sticks. The wing isn’t even a wing: it’s just an airfoil. It has no undersurface; it’s just doped linen stretched over an arc. You can find sturdier wheels on a baby carriage. The pilot is “protected” from the elements by another bit of canvas. It has no windshield. The original ones didn’t even have seatbelts. The gas tank sits right under your feet, ready to burst when you land and the undercarriage gives out. I’ve seen one of these things fly - the wings sag about a foot on the ground, hanging from the upper pole on wires. It takes about 80 yards to get it up to the wicked fast takeoff speed of about 24 mph, at which point the wings curl up, and the plane is lifted into the sky by the wing wires attached to the landing gear. It literally pulls itself up by it’s bootstraps, and then zooms aloft to an amazing 50 mph top speed. 3 strong men could pick the entire airplane up off the ground and carry it around. Details here. I see ultra-light aircraft flying around here frequently. Those little things are hardly more than a lawnmower engine strapped to a hang glider, but they are both larger and more powerful than the Blériot. It’s that tiny.
However the Blériot was one of the very first airplanes that actually looked like airplanes. The craft by Wright and Curtis had the bits on backwards, so to speak. Blériot put the tail in the back, and it’s been there ever since. Note that this airplane is a Blériot XI. He had at least 4 other earlier models that were even more primitive!
But when Msr. B made it to England, he was a hero. “The new Colossus”. Even though he crash landed.
For more on this bit of aviation history and Bleriot himself, clicky-click.
Some years later, Blériot was the guy who ran the company that built the Spad, one of the best fighters of WWI. He died in 1936.
Posted by Drew458 on 07/25/2009 at 04:53 PM
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Gosh, Really?
Seems like Mr. President was unfairly targeted by those same “stupid” Cambridge police when he was a student ... and then he neglected to pay his fines FOR YEARS:
According to the Somerville Times in 2007, as a Harvard Law School student, Obama got 17 parking tickets during 1989-1991 from the Cambridge Police Department that he left unpaid until just weeks before he announced his bid for the presidency.
“In other words, as a practicing lawyer in Chicago, he allowed these tickets and penalties to remain unpaid; as an Illinois state senator he allowed these tickets and fines to remain unpaid; and as a United States senator he allowed these almost-two-decade-old signs of his disdain for the law to remain unpaid,” commented John LeBoutillier on Newsmax.com.
The Washington Post said two years ago that the tickets included parking without a proper permit and parking in a bus stop.
The Associated Press reported in 2007 that Obama’s “healthy stack” of parking tickets was finally paid, including late fees, “two weeks before he officially launched his presidential campaign.”
Said Jen Psaki, spokeswoman for Obama’s campaign during his race to the White House, “He didn’t owe that much and what he did owe, he paid. … Many people have parking tickets and late fees.”
On a somewhat related note, it turns out that his homey Henry Gates is a commie radical. Well, no shiz, mo’fo!
Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor at the center of the current national race controversy, has recruited radical black activists to his university department, is a prominent supporter of reparations for the descendents of slaves and has immortalized a communist and socialist activist.
Since 1991, Gates has been teaching African American studies at Harvard, where he serves as the director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. De Bois, an American civil rights activist, sociologist, historian and author, was an avowed communist and also a socialist sympathizer.
...
Gates himself is a strong supporter of affirmative action and a key member of the reparations movement for the descendants of African slaves. He joined an effort to bring a class action lawsuit for reparations and reportedly has been working privately to urge political and business leaders to keep the issue of slavery at the forefront of social-justice discussions and to support his campaign for reparations.One of Gates’ major sources of intellectual inspiration is Herbert Aptheker, a seminal scholar of African-American history who was a radical American leftist. Aptheker was for decades a leading theorist of the Communist Party U.S.A. before resigning in 1991.
Hey, Barry O, is there any more room under that bus?
Posted by Drew458 on 07/25/2009 at 04:34 PM
Filed Under: • Commies • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •
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Saturday Link Following
America has been split into two hostile ideological camps. One is the anti-communist or anti-statist camp, which looks to traditional moral values, the Constitution, a strong family unit and the free market. The other camp is socialist or “progressive” in its outlook, globalist and environmentalist in its policies.”
There is no reconciling the two futures these camps represent. One or the other will win in the end. The war up to now has been waged in the political and social arena. The time is fast approaching when this political and social “war” will spill over into armed conflict-- real civil war. If it does, it will happen mostly because everyone thinks it impossible. For sixty years, the liberals have used our respect for the law against us. Each time they moved the line of law to further their agenda, breaking off a bit of the Constitution, we, as law-abiding citizens have backed up grumbling but complying. And why should they stop pushing us back from our God-given liberties? We’ve never pushed back to stop them. We have been TOO law-abiding.
Remember one thing: Adolf Hitler was elected, and the Nazis passed laws justifying every horrible act they later committed. In such a country, law-breaking is not a crime but a virtue.
READ THE STORY: http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2009/02/back-by-semi-popular-demand-window-war.html
Metal and wood were the means by which we won our freedom.
Metal and wood were the means by which we kept our freedom.
Metal and wood may be the means by which we regain our freedom.
Metal and wood are the final power of the people. Take away the metal and wood and the people become powerless - they can only beg, they supplicate for favors.
READ THE ESSAY: http://www.thefiringline.com/Misc/library/Metal_and_Wood.html
Posted by Drew458 on 07/25/2009 at 04:26 PM
Filed Under: • FREEDOM • Guns and Gun Control •
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And now there is one
Harry Patch, the last British military veteran of World War I, has died at 111, the nursing home where he lived said Saturday.
The Fletcher House care home in Wells, southwest England, said Patch died early Saturday.
Patch had been the last surviving soldier from the British Army to have served in the 1914-18 war. The only other surviving British veteran of the war, former airman Henry Allingham, died a week ago at age 113.
Patch was called up for service in the British army in 1917 when he was working as a teenage apprentice plumber.
A few weeks later, in one of the bloodiest battles of the Great War, at Passchendaele, near the Belgian town of Ypres, he was badly wounded and three of his best friends were killed by a shell explosion.
Patch’s death Saturday severs Britain’s living links with “the war to end all wars,” which killed about 20 million people.
To the best of my knowledge, that leaves the American Doughboy Frank Buckles, as the sole remaining veteran who actually was in the war. I gather that Canada’s John Babcock is still with us, and while he was in the service, he never saw action due to him being underage.
Australia’s Claude Stanley Choules, born 3 March 1901, may also still be alive, which would mean the title of my post is preemptive. He is the last seaman from World War I, and the last veteran in the world to have served in both world wars. Wikipedia is not a fully reliable source for this.
The book of history is closing.
Posted by Drew458 on 07/25/2009 at 07:59 AM
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Friday - July 24, 2009
On Cronkite
A Post For Peiper
JayD, this article extends the email I sent you, along with the post over at Vilmar’s.
So, to use his own words, was Walter Cronkite an honorable journalist who did the best he could?
No. What may—may—have resulted from forgivable misimpressions due to the “fog of war” long ago crystallized into obdurate lies. Cronkite never clarified the record, never admitted that the Tet offensive—the Vietcong’s surprise holiday attack on cities across South Vietnam—resulted in a military and political fiasco for North Vietnam.
This was becoming apparent even before the dust had settled in 1968, as we learn in Peter Braestrup’s indispensable “The Big Story”, one of the signal historical works of the 20th century, which meticulously analyzes the media’s failure to assess Tet correctly as a defeat for North Vietnam. Even Leftist journalist Frances Fitzgerald in her Pulitzer Prize-winning “Fire in the Lake” reported that Tet had “seriously depleted” Vietcong forces and “wiped out” many of their “most experienced cadres,” noting that such losses drove “the southern movement for the first time into almost total dependency on the north.” Her conclusion: “By all the indices available to the American military, the Tet offensive was a major defeat for the enemy.”
And so be it. The president lost Cronkite, the United States lost Vietnam. But why are the rest of us still stuck with Cronkite’s Orwellian packaging as “America’s most trusted newsman” 41 years after he totally and calamitously and obstinately blew Tet? The ongoing genuflection before “Uncle Walter” reveals something mighty weird about this body politic—something beyond the ken of a mere journalist, something more in the line of work of a really good shrink.
As for the “secretly gay” thing ... well, you can search on that if you want. I clearly remember him “coming out” or at least being “outed” some years ago. Or was it the “outies” just wishing really hard?
Posted by Drew458 on 07/24/2009 at 09:07 PM
Filed Under: • Celebrities • Media-Bias •
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CLIMATE CHANGE. IT’S CLIMATE CHANGE SINCE THEY CAN’T PROVE THE WARMING PART.
Others here, Drew especially, do a better rant on this subject then I do.
But in any case .... this fellow really shines and I think he’s funny too.
So here. Enjoy and btw ... he speaks the truth.
GREEN DESPERATION
By Alan Caruba
The environmental movement and, in particular, “global warming”, has become a joke. That is always a sign of decline. Unless you’re a comedian, when people start laughing at you it’s never a good thing.
There are often defining moments in the death of a movement and I think I may have spotted one when the Australian July issue of Rolling Stone featured a naked Miranda Kerr on its “Green Issue” cover, chained to a tree while demurely covering her naughty parts to advance the cause of koala bears. Ms. Kerr is described as a “super model” and terribly concerned that there are only 100,000 koalas left. Apparently, “global warming” has something to do with that.
If you have to use nudity to sell your nonsense, you are scrapping bottom; People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals does it all the time.
Back in the U.S. one of the biggest idiots in the U.S. Senate, a former candidate for President, John Kerry, had convened a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which predicted that “massive crop devastation, melting glaciers, water shortages, (and) millions of displaced people…will drag the U.S. military into conflict if global climate change goes unchecked.”
Observers may have noticed that Greens no longer refer to “global warming” much anymore as opposed to “climate change.” This is because (a) there is NO global warming and (b) the climate has always been in a process of change over the past 4.5 billion years. If you wanted to ensure that the U.S. military continued to receive billions for defense, claiming that “rising sea levels” will lead to conflicts is a pretty silly way of justifying it, given the threats to peace in the Middle East and elsewhere.
My friend, John Brignell, a British emeritus professor and expert on statistics, maintains a website that features a page devoted to the endless events, trends, and predictions attributed to “global warming.” It is a hoot.
Among the things attributed to “global warming” are acne, a saltier Atlantic Ocean, a decline in the duck and goose population, and, my favorite, why “global warming” is responsible for blizzards and colder winters. http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
A recent story on Discovery.com claimed that the dark-colored sheep of the Scottish St. Kilda islands may fall victim to “rising temperatures”, replacing them with lighter ones. The whole of the British Isles has been experiencing colder weather thanks to a cooling cycle that has been occurring for the past ten years. It’s worse than mere twaddle, a story like this is just one of thousands desperately trying to advance and keep alive the absurd “global warming” theory.
$79 Billion Spent on Climate Change “Science”!
Here in the United States, the Science and Public Policy Institute just announced the publication of “Climate Money”, a study by Joanne Nova that reveals the federal government has a near-monopoly on climate science funding and has spent “more than $79 billion of taxpayer’s money since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, administration, propaganda campaigns, foreign aid, and tax breaks.”
The study concludes, understandably, that “Most of this spending was unnecessary.”
The entire bogus “Cap-and-Trade” Act languishing in Congress is about selling “carbon credits.” This is just one degree more disingenuous than selling bottled water when the H2O that comes out of your kitchen faucet is as clean and safe as any you will find from an artesian well. Meanwhile, worldwide, the trading reached $126 billion in 2008.
This is why everything about environmentalism is a scam. Can you think of a single good reason to spend $126 billion for the right to emit carbon dioxide when 97% of it comes from nature? The Earth emits CO2 all the time in the form of volcanic activity, the action of the oceans, storing and releasing it. When you exhale six pounds of it every day?
The desperation you’re seeing and hearing represents Green organizations whose entire agenda is devoted to keeping Americans from having access to any form of energy, destroying our economy, and from the bankers like Goldman Sacks who figure to make billions trading carbon credits.
Americans, many of whom are increasingly out of work, losing their homes and cars, putting off vacations, college for their kids, and any prospect of ever being able to retire are growing tired of this insanity. They have more important things to worry about.
Warning Signs is a blog worth checking every day.
Posted by peiper on 07/24/2009 at 11:59 AM
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather •
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Where is Al Gore?
via
http://momento24.com/en/2009/07/22/buenos-aires-province-snow-falls-in-the-south/
http://www.metsul.com/blog/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/23/historic-snow-event-in-south-america/
In San Luis, San Juan, Mendoza and the southern part of Buenos Aires province since early this morning snow began to cover the roofs of cars and homes, the phenomenon occurred in Punta Alta and Coronel Suárez.
National Highway Autority, said that “the fall of flakes was recorded on routes 3, from Bahia Blanca to Pedro Luro, 33 from Bahia Blanca to Pigüé, and 35 from Bahía Blanca to the border with the Province of La Pampa. Thus, anticipating the arrival of a wave of polar air, slowly moving toward the center of the country. “
Bahía Blanca temperature reached minus 16 ° Celsius.
They recommended that “those who do not have to leave urgently should wait until 10, and if they need to do so drive with caution, reducing speeds to 40 or 60 kilometers per hour for cars and buses and 40 for trucks” .
And asked to “move with the low-beam headlights on, do not stop on the road or shoulder, do not make any abrupt maneuvers and, in the presence of ice slow down and avoid sudden stops.”
Alert Announced for gusty winds in: Capital Federal, south, central and eastern Buenos Aires province, northeast of Chubut, east of Rio Negro, Rio de la Plata and adjacent sea area, the area winds could reach 100 km / h.
Dude, 100kph? That’s a major blizzard!
In Bahia Blanca, a coastal city in the Southern part of the Buenos Aires, the snow storm is heavy and local authorities describe it as the worst snow event in 50 years. Roads are already blocked by snow and ice in the regional. TN news channel reports some areas of the Sierra de La Ventana could pick up even 3 feet of snow, unimaginable to the region.
Let’s be fair: it is winter in the southern hemisphere. But this is Buenos Aires, where “slightly cool” is as cold as it ever gets! Snow there is darn near unknown:
In July 9th and 10th 2007 it snowed in the city of Buenos Aires for the first time in 89 years.
So this current storm is at least the 2nd time it has snowed there in 91 years.
Somebody find Al Gore, and get him the heck out of Argentina.
Meanwhile, Senator John Kerry (traitor - MA) blathers on and on:
Chairman Kerry Opening Statement At Hearing On Climate Change And Global Security
We are here today to discuss a grave and growing threat to global stability, human security, and America’s national security. As you will hear from all of today’s witnesses, the threat of catastrophic climate change is not an academic concern for the future.
It is already upon us, and its effects are being felt worldwide, right now. Earlier this year, a 25-mile wide ice bridge connecting the Wilkins Shelf to the Antarctic landmass shattered, disconnecting the Shelf from the Antarctic continent. In four years, the Arctic is projected to experience its first ice-free summer—not in 2030, but in 2013. The threat is real and fast approaching.
Just as 9-11 taught us the painful lesson that oceans could not protect us from terror, today we are deluding ourselves if we believe that climate change will stop at our borders.
Fortunately, America’s most trusted security voices—including those here today—have been sounding the alarm. In 2007, eleven former Admirals and high-ranking generals issued a seminal report from the Center for Naval Analysis, where Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn serves on the Military Advisory Board. They warned that climate change is a ―threat multiplier‖ with ―the potential to create sustained natural and humanitarian disasters on a scale far beyond those we see today.‖
This is because climate change injects a major new source of chaos, tension, and human insecurity into an already volatile world. It threatens to bring more famine and drought, worse pandemics, more natural disasters, more resource scarcity, and human displacement on a staggering scale. Places only too familiar with the instability, conflict, and resource competition that often create refugees and IDPs, will now confront these same challenges with an ever growing population of EDPs—environmentally displaced people. We risk fanning the flames of failed-statism, and offering glaring opportunities to the worst actors in our international system. In an interconnected world, that endangers all of us.
Nowhere is the nexus between today’s threats and climate change more acute than in South Asia–the home of Al Qaeda and the center of our terrorist threat. Scientists are now warning that the Himalayan glaciers, which supply water to almost a billion people from China to Afghanistan, could disappear completely by 2035.
Hey, fresh snow in the Alps today too, and in Africa. AFRCIA!
http://www.skiinfo.com reports that fresh snow in the Alps at the end of last week boosted snow depths at the continent’s open summerski glaciers. Tignes in France and Val Senales in Italy reported the biggest falls with 15cm (six inches) of fresh powder each. At Tignes this temporarily boosted the snow depth to 195cm (6.5 feet). Another Italian ski area, Cervinia reported 7cm (three inches) of new snow and just over the border Zermatt, which shares this world’s only cross-border summer ski area, reported 5cm of new snow. It is currently reporting, marginally, the greatest snow depth in the world at present with 422cm (nearly 14 feet) of snow on the glacier; 12cm/four inches than Austria’s Molltal glacier in second place.
Moving in to the southern hemisphere where it really is winter, heavy snow is currently falling in parts of South America, with virtually all ski areas expected to receive fresh snow in the coming days if they have not done so already.
Portillo in Chile reports 30cm (a foot) of fresh snow in the past 24 hours taking season snowfall to date past 330cm (11 feet) and base depth on the mountain to 1.5m (5 feet). The access road to capital Santiago is currently closed by snow.
In Argentina the largest area Catedral is also receiving heavy snowfall at present, reporting a 10cm (four inch) accumulation in the past 12 hours.
Fresh snow in Africa has brought snow depths up to 60cm (Two feet) at Tiffindell (South Africa) and the ski run now extends to 1km, the longest this season to date. Afriski in Lesotho is also reports it has opened for their season. Most of New Zealand’s ski areas are sitting on healthy bases of 1-2m (approximately 3- 7 feet) and most have reported moderate snowfalls of 5-10cm (2 – 4 inches) in the past week, topping up those snow packs with a nice dusting of powder.
Posted by Drew458 on 07/24/2009 at 10:12 AM
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather •
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WHAT PEOPLE LEAVE BEHIND …. AIRCRAFT AND SHIPS OF WW2.
Over the last few weeks and only a little bit at a time, the wife has been uncovering millions of bits of things left by her late mother.
The old lady was a major pack rat. Over two years ago, when the BIL was here for a visit, the three of us, he, the wife and myself, dug out the garage and discovered much junk. Things I couldn’t believe anyone would find trouble parting with. Things she didn’t even know she had anymore. But as my wife would remind me, once her mom got her hands on something, it never left. She even had her report card from the age of 12. No harm in that I guess. But so many things were stored so haphazardly and exposed to not just the elements in a leaky garage, but rodent piss and crap up in the attic among all her saved letters and cards.
Any card or letter for any occasion that she ever got, was saved. Well, not saved properly but stuffed away in bags and left. Any card or letter from anyone and not just her own kids.
Tucked away in a corner of this desk drawer is a small packet containing impossibly small brown photos and letters from her late first fiancée, whose plane was lost on a mission during WW2. The tiny packet contains the letter from his commanding officer, who knew him and wrote comforting words altho I’m not sure there are words in that kind of situation. But anyway, they’re still here in a desk that dates from the same period.
An aside. Doesn’t mean a thing really but. His name was Roy.
Recently, a new house was built next door and the new owners name is Roy.
So, about these photos. While clearing out yet more savings, and fortunately saved in a dry room and sealed for years, the wife came across these photos that date from the war. All but two are post cards. There are two plane cards that are identified as, RECOGNITION CARDS. On the back of them are also the words, “The Proficiency Test Series.”
Unfortunately, they were all apparently glued at one time, into a photo album. Whoever did it sure used a lot of glue because there are large splotches of black paper stuck to the back. Right exactly where all the technical data is. Size, speed, engines etc. Unless I can figure a SAFE way to remove the black paper to read the info under it, most of the info is lost to me. Altho actually it could easily be looked up in Google I suppose.
While this tiny collection isn’t very dramatic, no ME109s or Spitfires, I find them a treasure anyway. And so I thought you might like to see them too.
When I did the scan, the file was so large that I reduced them to what you see here. Hope I didn’t spoil anything and they show up ok on your computers.
ID Info for aircraft below.
TOP LEFT: THE IMPERIAL AIRWAYS FLYING BOAT “CALEDONIA” used on the two-way Atlantic Mail Service
TOP RIGHT: THE MAYO COMPOSITE PLANE - MAIA
... LEFT: SHORT “SINGAPORE” ............................... RIGHT: SHORT “SCION SENIOR”
The following info provided on the front of the cards.
TOP LEFT: (no name or id given)
NEW MILITARY HIGH SPEED PLANE FLYING OVER THE FLEET
TOP RIGHT: “OXFORD” AIRCRAFT (no other info or id)
BOTTOM LEFT: AIRCRAFT RECOGNITION CARDS
Part of the back that’s readable has following info.
“Proficiency Test Series”
THE DONIER DO 24
GERMAN RECONNAISSANCE FLYING BOAT.
Three 880 hp BMW 132 (? covered) radial motors. Crew of 6. Gun turrets in nose. Bomb load, 12 bombs of 110 lbs can be carried under wings.
MAX SPEED 195 at 13,000 ft.
RIGHT: AIRCRAFT RECOGNITION CARDS
“Proficiency Test Series”
THE De HAVILLAND FLAMINGO
Two 930 hp Bristol .......? all the rest is covered up.
Ships in the extended part below.
Posted by peiper on 07/24/2009 at 09:16 AM
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff • History • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles • UK •
• Comments (6) • Trackbacks(0) Permalink •
Can the US President save the patient?
Always interesting (almost) to read the comments and questions and see how foreign journalists are covering the USA.
So many of you at BMEWS have commented on health care and recently Wardmom (love that lady) really opened up on the subject, that I don’t have anything to add. So I’ll leave it to you ppl.
I find this to be a very interesting read and I do agree about the profit motive as I have personally seen and posted under comments somewhere else,
at least one reason for sky high medical pricing. And I also believe it’s true that many doctors and hospitals are gouging the public.
When I turned 50, the group ins. plan I’d had for years started charging $1,000 a month. It was going up every month it seemed They were losing members in the plan and were forcing ppl to quit the plan, which of course we had to do.
Barack Obama is staking his leadership on health care reform. Alex Spillius reports
By Alex Spillius
Jul 2009AMERICAN health care has always been a bit of mystery to the rest of the developed world. Just why does the richest country on earth have an immunisation rate worse
than Botswana’s? Why do 38 other countries have lower infant mortality rates? And why are there 47 million people out of a population of 300 million without medical insurance?Barack Obama, perhaps unwittingly, turned to Alice in Wonderland to try to explain the issue to his public, which can find the system as confusing as the rest of us.
“If there’s a blue pill and a red pill and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that’s going to make you well?” he asked, before providing part of the answer. “The system right now doesn’t incentivise that.”
American doctors tend to prescribe the expensive pill because they are paid more to do so. They may also be over-inclined to remove tonsils, as the President highlighted, because “the doctor may look at the reimbursement system and say to himself, ‘You know what, I make a lot more money if I take this kid’s tonsils out’.”
As a consequence, costs have soared into the realms of fantasy: a sixth of the US economy, $2.4 trillion (£1.45 trillion), was spent on health last year.
Health care reform is Obama’s biggest domestic priority, so great that he cleared the airwaves for a prime-time press conference from the White House on Wednesday evening devoted almost entirely to the issue. He has made it his job to ensure Americans can wake in their beds safe in the belief that they have a health care system that is reliable and affordable. And the President knows that if he doesn’t get this right, he may find
he isn’t sleeping in the White House after 2012.The goal of reforming America’s private sector-dominated system has consumed Democrats since the Second World War. All along, they have craved something akin to the National Health Service and they regard it as a deep source of national shame that so many millions are poorly cared for.
Yet as Britain was legislating for care from the cradle to the grave in 1945, the Murray-Wagner-Dingell bill, an attempt to introduce universal coverage, was failing in the US. It was defeated largely by the American Medical Association, the powerful doctors’ group, which vowed to “resist the enslavement of the medical profession” and demanded $25 from each member to pay for a highly effective lobbying of Congress.
The Democrats, however, scored a significant victory in 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson, exploiting the mass sympathy created by John
F Kennedy’s assassination, managed to push through Medicare and Medicaid, two programmes that belie the myth that there is no free care in the US. In fact, all those over 65 are covered by Medicare, while Medicaid covers about 40 per cent of the poor, most of them children. Another scheme, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, assists children from families of modest income who earn too much for Medicaid. Hospital emergency rooms are also obliged to treat anyone who walks in, no matter how trivial the complaint. As a result they are always packed with sore throats and ankle sprains.In the boom years, the system worked well – it still does, in fact,
from many patients’ point of view.
It represented the best of America: dynamic, entrepreneurial and driven by consumer needs rather than the diktats of central authority. Now its bad elements have come to represent the worst: bloated, excessive, over-driven by profit and mired in bureaucracy.The US spends an annual $6,000 more per capita than any other industrialised nation on health care, but by almost every measure, its people are unhealthier. The reasons are manifold: insurance is not mandatory, so for a decade premiums for those who do want to be covered have risen three times faster than wages. Rapidly emerging new technologies have driven up costs, while doctors, as the President noted, are rewarded for services provided and not for the health of their patients.
Fear of litigation, physicians argue, has made them cautious and liable to over-prescribe and over-test. A mild complaint about poor sleep in the doctor’s surgery will see you walk out with a large prescription. A bad back? Let’s get you a scan. Didn’t show much? Let’s do an MRI. How about a spinal fusion operation, which won’t really work?
Then there are horror stories that the President says fill his letter box every day. Principal among the system’s ills is the fact that a lost job means lost insurance, because most people’s coverage is purchased by their employers.
The system is also replete with traps: insurance commonly only kicks in after two weeks with a new employer. This wasn’t much help to a glass-cutter from Virginia who, four days into a new job, woke up in hospital with a broken neck and a bill for $15,000 after a game of American football went badly wrong.
It wasn’t much help for Jim Howe’s daughter, either, who nearly died in a car crash four years ago, just days before his insurance came into effect. “The family had gone without coverage before, when I had been unemployed for short periods, but nothing had ever happened to any of us,” he said. Subsidised insurance of $1,200 a month was unaffordable when he was out of work. “It is
always just a crap shoot. You hope for the best.”Thirteen operations and $300,000 in fees later, his daughter is on the verge of bankruptcy and her credit rating – which will affect her ability to get a mortgage – is in tatters.
By Obama’s own admission, if he was starting from scratch, he would want what is called a “single payer system”, a version of the NHS funded from the sole source of income tax. America’s multi-level structure is, however, far too complicated to demolish.
doctors, as the President noted, are rewarded for services provided and not for the health of their patients.
OK, I need someone to explain this to me. Aren’t things like payments predicated on “services provided?” I might be a bit dense here but ... doesn’t Drew for an example, get rewarded for services he provides whether its as a tech or a window cleaner? Is Obama suggesting then, that a doctor should not be paid unless he can cure the patient? If not, is he supposed to provide service free?
Posted by peiper on 07/24/2009 at 02:54 AM
Filed Under: • Economics • Health-Medicine •
• Comments (6) • Trackbacks(0) Permalink •
Thursday - July 23, 2009
Just Another Day In Joisey
NEWARK, N.J. – The mayors of three New Jersey cities, two state legislators and several rabbis were among more than 40 people arrested Thursday in a sweeping corruption investigation that began as a probe into an international money laundering ring that trafficked in goods as diverse as human organs and fake designer handbags.
Among 44 people arrested Thursday were Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano III, Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini, state Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith and state Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt.Ridgefield Mayor Anthony Suarez, who is also an attorney, is charged with agreeing to accept an illegal $10,000 cash payment for his legal defense fund.
The number of arrests was noteworthy even for New Jersey, a state that has seen more than 130 public officials plead guilty or be convicted of corruption since 2001.
“New Jersey’s corruption problem is one of the worst, if not the worst, in the nation,” said Ed Kahrer, who heads the FBI’s white collar and public corruption investigation division. “Corruption is a cancer that is destroying the core values of this state.”
Gov. Jon Corzine reacted to the probe Thursday morning by saying, “any corruption is unacceptable — anywhere, anytime, by anybody. The scale of corruption we’re seeing as this unfolds is simply outrageous and cannot be tolerated.”
In separate money laundering complaints, several rabbis from Brooklyn and New Jersey were charged with offenses ranging from the trafficking of kidneys from Israeli donors to laundering proceeds from selling fake Gucci and Prada bags.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the investigation initially focused, with the help of the cooperating witness, on the money laundering network that operated between Brooklyn, Deal, N.J. and Israel. The network is alleged to have laundered tens of millions of dollars through charities controlled by rabbis in New York and New Jersey.
What this story DOESN’T tell you ... is that 42 of the 44 people arrested SO FAR ... are Democrats.
Right, Wing Nut (an official Joisey Blawg) is on the case, naming names, and posting the video!
Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, busted
Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, busted
NRO puts it all nicely ...
Total of 44 Arrested in FBI Probe - Your Usual Bribery, Corruption, and Human Organ Trafficking
Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini, busted
Posted by Drew458 on 07/23/2009 at 09:30 PM
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Government • Corruption and Greed •
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.
- Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
- Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
- Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
- Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.