Sunday - June 28, 2009

“We didn’t know what we voted for…”

Yes, that’ll be the mantra if and when this cap and tax bill becomes law. Ditto for national kill-Republicans-and-conservatives ‘healthcare’.

We didn’t know? Why not? Because we didn’t read the bill!

I ran into this about fifteen years ago, around the time that now-Congressman Mike Turner was making his first run for Dayton Mayor. The Dayton City Commission at that time had passed, without reading, a gun-control bill that banned several common firearms from the city limits. As a then-sitting Democrat City Commissioner explained at my neighborhood association meeting, ‘We just rely on our staff to tell us what’s in the bills…’

No excuse. The buck stops with the elected official.

The issue was that the bill outlawed the very firearms the Dayton Police used. There was a huge stink, which I think may have contributed to Mike Turner’s mayoral victory. Sadly, the Dayton City Commission has always had at least a 3-2 majority, so all Mr. Turner could do was mitigate some of the more egregious legislation.

Now, the Dayton City Commission is 5-0 Democrat. We are pretty much in the same shape as Flint, MI. I expect bulldozers in 5… 4… 3…

So now Congress, also a bastion of ‘Democrats-that-can’t-read-without-staff’, passes the cap and tax bill. (I thought Democrats were for the little people?) John Boehner had this to say. After this, the ‘we didn’t know’ excuse should fail the donks:

That’s right, they don’t even read what they’re voting on.

Target for 2010: everybody that voted for this. Democrats, certainly. Especially the Stupid Party GOP members who should know better or just do an Arlen Spectre:

Mary Bono Mack (R-CA)
Mike Castle (R-DE)
Mark Steven Kirk (R-IL)
Leonard Lance (R-NJ)
Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ)
John McHugh (R-NY)
Dave Reichert (R-WA)
Chris Smith (R-NJ)

Oust them! Especially Mary Bono. (I really always liked Sonny, shame wifey doesn’t measure up.)

Justice or Politics?

SCOTUS To Judge Sotomayor’s Discrimination Decision on Monday

WASHINGTON - A closely watched discrimination lawsuit by white firefighters who say they have unfairly been denied promotions is one of three remaining Supreme Court cases awaiting resolution Monday.
...
Appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor, nominated to take Souter’s place, was one of three judges who ruled that officials in New Haven, Conn., acted properly in throwing out firefighters’ promotions exams because of racially skewed results.

The city says it decided not to use the test scores to determine promotions because it might have been vulnerable to claims the exam had a “disparate impact” on minorities in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The white firefighters said the decision violated the same law’s prohibition on intentional discrimination.

The opinion that Sotomayor endorsed has been criticized, including by fellow judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, for taking a cursory look at a tough issue. Her defenders have said the short opinion properly applied earlier cases from that appeals court.

The outcome of the case could alter how employers in both the public and private sectors make job-related decisions.

My, that’s putting it gently, isn’t it? New Haven made up a dumbed down, PC exam specifically so that “minorities” could score better on it. And they didn’t. But some white guys, who studied really hard for the exam, did. So the city threw out the results and denied the promotions. Can’t have that you know. So the white guys sued. And lost. The case is Ricci v. DeStefano. And judge Sotomayor ruled that New Haven was correct. Um, wrong-o!

In 2003, the city of New Haven, Conn., decided to base future promotions in its firefighting force—there were seven for captain and eight for lieutenant—primarily on a written test. The city paid an outside consultant to design the test so that it would be job-related. Firefighters studied for months. Of the 41 applicants who took the captain exam, eight were black; of the 77 who took the lieutenant exam, 19 were black. None of the African-American candidates scored high enough to be promoted. For both positions, only two of 29 Hispanics qualified for promotion.
...
Ricci and 19 other firefighters sued New Haven, alleging reverse discrimination, in light of Title VII and also the 14th Amendment’s promise of equal protection under the law. They said that New Haven shouldn’t have thrown out the test.

The district court judge who heard Ricci’s case ruled against him and his fellow plaintiffs. They appealed to the 2nd Circuit, the court on which Judge Sotomayor sits. In an unusual short and unsigned opinion, a panel of three judges, including Sotomayor, adopted the district court judge’s ruling without adding their own analysis.

In 2003, the New Haven Fire Department in Connecticut gave an exam meant to gauge eligibility for promotions to lieutenant and captain. Scores for Hispanics and for African-Americans ranged from 34 to 59 percent of the scores for whites. Because of the way the promotions were structured, no African-American and only one Hispanic would have won any of the 15 promotions. The question then became whether the Civil Service Board would validate the test results.

After five days of hearings, the board decided the exam was flawed.

“The measured thing to do was to decide not to promote based on that exam,” says Acting Corporation Counsel Victor Bolden.

The lawyer for the white firefighters, Karen Torre, says there was nothing measured about the city’s action. She says the decision amounted to reverse racial discrimination, pure and simple.

“There’s no question that their race and skin color were the driving motivation behind the decision not to promote them,” Torre says of the white firefighters.
...
Frank Ricci, the lead plaintiff in this case, is not a naturally gifted test taker. In an affidavit, he said he has dyslexia, that he studied as much as 13 hours a day for the firefighter promotional exam, that he paid someone to read the textbooks onto audiotapes, prepared flashcards and worked with a study group. And he passed.

Still, the test Ricci took was not necessarily a properly designed promotional exam.

Kenneth Yusko, a specialist in employment testing, says psychologists aren’t sure why certain written tests produce racial disparities in certain job categories, but they do.

“Typically, a written test has a large amount of what we call adverse impact,” Yusko says. “It really does reduce diversity.”

Yusko says experts have learned ways to adjust the testing process without compromising merit.

The law surrounding testing is complicated. In 1971, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that employment tests have to be job-related to ensure that extraneous criteria are not used intentionally or unintentionally to screen out applicants because of their race, gender or ethnicity.
...
Critics of the New Haven test say relying too much on multiple-choice tests and structured oral exams can produce officers who are “book smart” but “street dumb.”

Torre, the lawyer for the white firefighters, responds that the test used by the city was carefully designed by an independent firm, that the oral exams were conducted by panels of predominantly minority examiners from outside the district, and that the takers who studied hardest got the highest marks.

[hey, let’s hear from a natural born politician - lawyer Chris Meade, who represents the city of New Haven. Doublespeak much?]
“The plaintiffs were not passed over for promotions. They were not denied promotions. No one less qualified has been promoted. In fact, no one has been promoted at all,” Meade says.

Just one more piece of America brought down by Affirmative Action. Just like the banks and the mortgage industry. Just like the government. Word is that 2 blacks and 2 hispanics, or more, were supposed to ace the exam. Maybe they knew that ahead of time, so they just rode their color and didn’t bother to study?

I will stand up and cheer if SCOTUS overturns Sotomayor’s inept decision. Discrimination is discrimination, period. This test was specifically designed to be as ethnic-neutral as possible. It’s not the fault of the exam that the people who studied the most got the best grades. Too bad if the required number of blacks and browns didn’t score where they were expected to. And since New Haven had decided to use this exam to base promotions on, it’s beyond unfair for them to change the rules after the results (that they didn’t like) came in. That’s discrimination.

But I fully expect justice to be bitch-slapped by politics. Sotomayor’s decision will stand, because Teh One has nominated her for the Supremes. And overturning her, just before her nomination hearings, will look bad. And anger Teh One. Can’t have that. Heck, overturning her now might even cost her the job. And any wise Latina ought to understand that.

443 Days To Go?

Gee, this seems familiar somehow, doesn’t it?

Britain Demands Release of Embassy Employees in Iran

Iranian authorities have detained several local employees of the British Embassy in Iran, a move that Britain’s foreign secretary Sunday called “harassment and intimidation” as he called for their release.

Iranian media reported Sunday that eight local embassy staff were detained for an alleged role in postelection protests, but gave no further details. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the employees were detained Saturday, but did not say how many were taken into custody.

The detentions signaled a further hardening of Iran’s stance toward the West which has become increasingly vocal in its condemnation of a crackdown on opposition supporters.

Iran has accused the West of stoking unrest, singling out Britain and the U.S. for alleged meddling. Last week, Iran expelled two British diplomats, and Britain responded in kind. Iran has also said it’s considering downgrading diplomatic ties with Britain.

On Sunday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported that eight local employees of the British Embassy in Tehran were detained for what was described as a “significant role” in unrest after the election.

Well Gordo, whatchu gonna do now?

My America

Leave your chewing gum, tabacky, and your razors at the door,
and we’ll tell you bible stories like you’ve never heard before

B.A.G.2.C. Day

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A gun-toting Kentucky pastor says it’s OK to bring weapons to church — at least for one day.

Ken Pagano asked his flock to bring their unloaded handguns — in holsters — to New Bethel Church in Louisville for a celebration of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Consitution that guarantees the right to bear arms.

When the event got under way Saturday, about 200 people — many carrying small firearms — sat in the Pentecostal church sanctuary.

“We are wanting to send a message that there are legal, civil, intelligent and law-abiding citizens who also own guns,” Pagano said in greeting the audience, which included people who do not belong to his church.

“If it were not for a deep-seated belief in the right to bear arms, this country would not be here today,” he said, drawing hearty applause and exclamations of “amen!”

Pagano says he got the idea for the event after some of his church members expressed concern about the Obama administration’s views on gun control, though the president hasn’t moved to put new restrictions on gun ownership. He says the gathering was meant to promote safe gun ownership.

The “Open Carry Celebration” included a handgun raffle, patriotic music and screening of videos on gun safety. The church hung patriotic banners on the wall that read “In God We Trust.”

Now, ain’t that America, land of the free? Go to church and win a gun. Out. Standing.

   Saturday - June 27, 2009

Keyboard Apoplexy

Cap & Trade Passes House
8 RINOS seal the deal; 3 from NJ
EPA Hides Facts About Global Warming




Sorry, I can’t write about this. I’m simply losing the will to blog about politics. It’s all wrong, every last part of it. 234 years to create America, 6 months to tear it down. It’s insanity. And it gets worse every day. This bill is insanity. The whole Carbon Credits concept is a con. It’s a shell game. This bill is an act of national suicide. Millions of people will be put out of work. This little recession we’re in is about to become a decades long depression. It’s just insane. And tens if not hundreds of millions of citizens are supporting this just as hard as they can. I give up.

Climate change? You, me, and everyone else can’t do jack shit divided by diddly-squat about climate change. It’s bigger than all of us put together. And it’s beyond insane for the most productive nation on earth to jump on the brakes when the entire rest of the world is going to do nothing. You think they’re going to stop burning anything they can put a match to in India and China? Fat chance. That’s a third of the population of the planet right there in those 2 countries. Maybe as much as half; you simply can’t count that many people accurately. Do you think Mexico is going to be concerned about CO₂ emissions? Hell no. They’re too busy trying to earn enough money to have something to eat. Indonesia? Oh please. Not a chance. Nope, it’s just the suicidal, white-guilt infused idiots in the West that are on board this faux program to screw ourselves and send all our money to some turd world shit holes, so that the illiterate disease infested peasants there can afford to breed even faster.

Cap & Trade? Same idea, different name. It’s just as big a bone headed idea as you can find:

* It’s a Massive Energy Tax
* It Will Not Make a Substantive Impact on the Environment
* It Will Kill Jobs
* It Will Cause Electricity Bills and Gas Prices to Sharply Increase
* It Will Outsource Manufacturing Jobs and Hurt Free Trade
* It Will Make You Choose among Energy, Groceries, Clothing and Haircuts
* It Will Be Highly Susceptible to Fraud and Corruption
* It Will Hurt Senior Citizens, the Poor, and the Unemployed the Worst
* It Will Cost American Families Nearly $3,000 a Year
* President Obama Admitted “Electricity Rates Would Necessarily Skyrocket” under His Cap-and-Trade Program (January 2008)

Make no mistake about it. . .this bill affects EVERYBODY.  Not just conservatives, or liberals; Republicans, or Democrats.  This bill will raise the cost of living by THOUSANDS of dollars EACH YEAR for every American family. 

(quote source - Heritage Foundation)

... and yet it passed.

It’s over. It’s done. This is the last cut, the final nail in the coffin. If this nonsense becomes law, the United States of America will go under. At best we’ll survive in name only as a “worker’s paradise” where the select, generational elites run every aspect of our lives, and everyone else will be worse off than slaves.

All because We The People put a black guy in the White House, because “it was high time we had a black president”. No other reason. None. And all his crooked cronies and self-hating ultra-leftist power mad lying bastard cohorts got control. That’s the Change we’ve been Hoping for.

Hey 52ers, I hope you’re happy now. You’ve ruined it for everyone, including the people who actually work to pay into the system. So what are you going to do when every state goes bankrupt? Hey, I know, vote yourselves a union, vote yourselves a raise, vote yourselves another 100 trillion dollars created out of thin air at the printing press.

The one basic aspect of civilization is waste heat. Period. Good old Delta H. Can’t have anything without it, assuming you don’t want to live in the forest and eat raw nuts and berries while you shiver.



No, I can’t do it. It’s over. Thanks to the Republican Party, lead by my very own New Jersey Representatives Leonard Lance and Chris Smith. Liars and sell-outs. There is no Hope, the horizon is black, the end is near. If this bill, or even the larger parts of it, passes the Senate and gets signed into law then we are toast. And it’s going to happen.

Soon it will be a hate crime to have a contrary opinion. I might as well stop now. The inmates are running the asylum, and they’ve put the biggest loonie they could find in charge. And they adore him.

Space News Today

Today’s Space Weather: No sunspots, no solar flares, with a mild and light solar wind. A cool and quiet day in the cosmos.

Solar wind
speed: 414.3 km/sec
density: 7.2 protons/cm3

X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A0 2025 UT Jun27
24-hr: A0 2025 UT Jun27

Daily Sun: 27 June 09

The sun is blank--no sunspots.
Credit: SOHO/MDI

Links for more solar details here and here, along with the asteroid threat level [currently at zero].

While the sun had 200+ sunspot free days in the latter half of 2008, it has not been sunspot free for all of 2009. But we are at a minima in solar cycle 24, and sunspot activity continues to be very low.

In just under an hour, NASA will try again to launch the latest GEOS-O weather satellite, scheduled for 6:14PM EST. The weather has not been cooperative. If today’s window is closed, NASA will try again Monday.

GOES-O is the latest weather satellite developed by NASA to aid the nation’s meteorologists and climate scientists. The acronym stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite. The spacecraft in the series provide the familiar weather pictures seen on United States television newscasts every day. The satellites are equipped with a formidable array of sensors and instruments.

GOES provides nearly continuous imaging and sounding, which allows forecasters to better measure changes in atmospheric temperature and moisture distributions, hence increasing the accuracy of their forecasts. GOES environmental information is used for a host of applications, including weather monitoring and prediction models.

UPDATE: Mission is GO

GEOS-O reaches for the sky. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

The GOES-O satellite lifted off from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 6:51 p.m. EDT atop a Delta IV rocket. From a position about 22,300 miles above Earth, the advanced weather satellite will keep an unblinking eye on atmospheric conditions in the Eastern United States and Atlantic Ocean.

Muslim policeman who was told by his boss that he resembled Osama bin Laden, SUES. and WINS!

Off to the damn Moonbat races again looks like.

Ok so it doesn’t seem fair to some, to have a guy in a position of authority, the cop’s boss, making fun of him or his religion. No wait a minute.
Why not in some cases?  Look at this guy.  Does he even look like he fits in?  To western eyes, he does look like a jerk.
I’m assuming the Brit term, “prat” means jerk.  Well hell. he damn well does.  And they are noisy too so why is this all discrimination ?  Maybe I forgot the meaning of the term.  He’d been singled out but lets face it, how can anyone not single him out?
Why is it discrimination to say out loud that Muslim prayers sound like “shouting and wailing?” WTF are they gonna ban under that word next?
Why is it racial and religious discrimination to state the obvious? Given our images and the given the looks of the enemy, he does look like a terrorist.

Why can’t certain minorities just accept and adopt the way things are here in the west?  Cause they’ve been empowered and enabled by the stupid ass system in place.
Just occurred to me again. I say again because I forgot it once.  The minorities are not the whole problem. The danger comes from the traitorous enablers.

Gee, is there no country left anywhere in Europe that doesn’t appease and coddle and cater to muzzies? 

Muslim police officer likened to Osama bin Laden wins £11,000
A Muslim policeman who was told by his boss that he resembled Osama bin Laden and looked “a prat” in Islamic dress has been awarded £11,000 by a tribunal.

Tariq Dost leaving an employment tribunal in Birmingham. Photo: NTI

Civilian recruitment manager Darren Yates, who works for West Midlands Police, was setting up a stand at a jobs fair when he made the comments to Pc Tariq Dost, 40.

He compared Pc Dost’s beard to the al Qaeda leader’s, told him he “looked like a terrorist” and referred to Muslim prayers as “shouting and wailing”, the panel in Birmingham heard.

Pc Dost won his claim for racial and religious discrimination against West Midlands Police and was awarded £11,000. However, his claim for victimisation was not proved.

Chairman of the panel, Pauline Hughes, said: “We accept that he is a devout Muslim and his evidence that has faith is integral to his being. He and his faith are not distinguishable. It is core to him. The remarks, particularly in relation to religion would have caused him a great deal of upset and distress.

“This was a sustained cause of conduct and the remarks made were offensive to the claimant and more so because he is a very religious man.”

Pc Dost was working in the force’s recruitment department as a positive action officer when he made the allegations against his boss in November 2007.

Mr Yates taunted Pc Dost when he arrived at the recruitment fair in Birmingham’s NEC whilst off-duty and dressed in traditional Islamic clothing, the panel heard.

Giving evidence, Pc Dost said: “I believe he felt uncomfortable with me because of my appearance. I found them (his comments) to be discriminatory and ignorant and embarrassing.”

“I found it to be highly offensive and demeaning and discriminatory towards myself and Muslims as a whole,” Dost said. “His actions were racist and Islamaphobic.”

Speaking after the tribunal in Birmingham, Pc Dost said: “I feel vindicated and very happy the tribunal has found that West Midlands Police has treated me in a racial and discriminatory manner. It saddens me that I had to bring tribunal action to get some form of justice. I do feel that I have had justice.”

SOURCE

   Friday - June 26, 2009

Growl

You know what I hate? I hate when a blogger puts up a post that really, really begs private comment, and then supplies a false email address. I spent the better part of an hour doing research, running numbers, and building graphics - to scale, no less - and then put it all in an email ... that got rejected, because the account didn’t actually exist.

So here’s the picture. I won’t give the details, but they’re obvious: we are vulnerable as all hell to EMP. I have no doubts at all that the USA is the most integrated circuit intensive nation on earth. Sure, Japan may have more per person, and way cooler cell phones too, but we’re about 500 times the size of them.

And this is just about the one and only way Mr. Me So Ronery can make good his threat to destroy the US that he came out with the other day, that the Pentagon sneered at. All it takes is ONE MIRV MISSILE. Just one, with just 3 warheads. Heck, our ICBMs had 10 or more each.

60 miles up isn’t even half the altitude of Low Earth Orbit. Maybe we should nuke the NorKs on July 3rd, just to play it safe.

I don’t mind offending those I have no respect for, BUT .. Fury as police hold party for travellers!

This has been one hell of a 24 hours for us, wife and I, as we have suddenly discovered we will be libel for the expanse of moving water mains due to the building next door.  Which is not the point of this post.

We were away all day yesterday and I’ll post separately on that as well as the very convoluted and very pricey water problem.  Nothing in this country it seems, can be done easily and straightforward.
Anyway, it’s been quite busy and I am only now catching up on mail etc.

I saw this story the other day and I did think about posting it and decided against as I wanted to highlight another article with relation to these folks and crime.

As it turns out, I was made aware of the discomfort and in fact total disapproval of my suggestion that perhaps it was time to rid the country of these vermin through the application of Genocide.  Even Drew thought I was over the top with that suggestion.  And he isn’t alone.
Perhaps I need to use different words.  Maybe PEST CONTROL would have been a better term.

I don’t care at all if I bother with words the ppl I have no use for. But I sure as heck do NOT want to upset those I like and in fact have huge respect for.
I also don’t want people to suddenly get the idea that BMEWS has turned itself into some kind of extreme right wing wanker site full of would be Nazis.

I suppose someone with my background should be careful or better yet avoid the suggestion that the answer to problems with society is Genocide.
But please understand it is born out of impotent frustration and a fair amount of rage. I wish I could lie about it and claim the words simply pop out like the blast from a gun when one pulls a trigger.  Instead though, I gave it some thought and after seeing this mess for so long, I really came to the honestly held belief that the problem would not only never go away but rather it would become worse.  Unless that is, people came to the same pov and recognized this problem for exactly what it is, and acted in an extreme way to rid themselves of the cancer.
An invasion from the inside (mostly), by people who who care not a tinkers damn for the laws or customs or the people whose neighborhoods they invade and pave over.  An enemy that uses and abuses the very country and people they take residence in.  I’ve seen these folks in action, and I do not feel very kindly toward them. 

When Lyndon quite rightly asks, who’s next? The Jews?  I can only say of course not and besides.  Outside of poisoning a few Christian water wells and inventing the common cold and oh yes, spreading the plague, we haven’t done the things I been seeing here, perpetrated by the objects of my damnation.


AND THEN OF COURSE I READ STUFF LIKE THIS .........

Fury as police hold party for travellers at force’s grand HQ to ‘improve relations’
By Andy Dolan

A police force is spending thousands of pounds on a party for travellers, Roma people and gipsies at its headquarters. Warwickshire Police has lined up a traditional Roma band, dancing, storytelling, children’s art workshops and even a ‘graffiti project’. The fete will take place on Saturday on the landscaped lawns of Woodcote House, the force’s grand HQ on the outskirts of the village of Leek Wotton.

Yesterday critics condemned the event - to be held by the country’s second smallest force - as a waste of taxpayers’ money. It will take place only two miles from Kenilworth, where residents and councillors have accused officers of failing to police properly a horse fair which regularly attracts thousands of travellers. Police chiefs said yesterday they hoped the event would help defuse tensions between different traveller groups, the force and the public.

But Mark Wallace, campaign director for the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: ‘These are recession times and police budgets are severely stretched as it is, and the taxpayer would not want them spending on things like this. ‘Police money should be spent on catching criminals and fighting crime, not PR exercises.’ George Illingworth, a councillor, said he sometimes ‘wondered what side the police were on’. Mr Illingworth’s Kenilworth Abbey ward was ‘invaded’ by travellers parking illegally during a chaotic horse fair on the outforskirts of the town last July.

He said: ‘There were gangs in the streets, people felt intimidated and there were reports of shoplifting.’ He admitted that the police had ‘upped their game’ at the two subsequent horse fairs. At the most recent, in April, armed police were deployed after gunshots were reported, although no weapon was found.

The Assistant Chief Constable Warwickshire Police, Bill Holland, defended the decision to stage the party.
Mr Holland, who also speaks for the Association of Chief Police Officers on gipsy and traveller issues, said: ‘ Unauthorised encampments have become a source of friction between police and gipsies and travellers.

‘We know education is at the heart of some of these contentious issues. ‘This is set to be a really new and engaging event which we would welcome all members of our communities to attend. ‘As well as having something on offer for everyone to enjoy, the event is a step in the right direction to improving relations between police and the travelling community.’

Last year, an unauthorised travellers’ site was built near the country retreat of Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell, on the outskirts of Shipston- on-Stour in Warwickshire.
It was built over the Easter bank holiday weekend when officials could not intervene.

Grand setting: The party will be held in the grounds of Warwickshire Police’s country house head quarters in Leek Wootton

SOURCE

   Thursday - June 25, 2009

Walloped Wallabies

Wasted Wallabies Create Opium Crop Circles


Like, wow, mate, no worries at all, except for these groovy colors!!

Wallabies are getting stoned on Tasmania’s opium poppy crops and hopping about in circles.

Attorney-General Lara Giddings says wallabies have created crop circles of squashed poppies as they increasingly hop in to the fields eating the poppy heads.

That causes them to get high and run around in turns creating crop circles, she told a budget estimates hearing.

“The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles,” Ms Giddings is quouted in The Mercury newspaper as saying.

“Then they crash. We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high.”

Tasmanian Alkaloids field operations manager Rick Rockliff said wildlife and livestock which ate the poppies were known to “act weird” - including deer and sheep in the state’s highlands.

“There have been many stories about sheep that have eaten some of the poppies after harvesting and they all walk around in circles,” Mr Rockliff told The Mercury.

Tasmania is the world’s largest producer of legally grown opium for the pharmaceutical market.

About 500 farmers grow the crop supplying the market with about 50 percent of the world’s raw material for morphine and related opiates.

Ms Giddings was answering questions about the security of Tasmania’s poppy stocks, which are considered some of the safest in the world.

So, the important question to ask, southern hemisphere and all that, when the wallabies go round in circles, do they go clockwise or counter-clockwise? (shall we kick them in the widdershins or turn them into deiseal?)

This worn out wallaby takes a chill pill after playing Twirl Girl in the flower patch

Posted by Drew458     on 06/25/2009 at 09:55 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor • News-Briefs •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Michael Jackson also dead today

About an hour ago, Michael Jackson died. At first the gossip sites said it was cardiac arrest, but now the hospital and his mother have released a statement.

I really liked his early musical career, but his personal life and his plastic surgery really turned me off.

This was a rumor at first, but it has now been confirmed.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/06/pop-star-michael-jackson-was-rushed-to-a-hospital-this-afternoon-by-los-angeles-fire-department-paramedics--capt-steve-ruda.html

Posted by Drew458     on 06/25/2009 at 06:03 PM   
Filed Under: • Hollywood • Music •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

The Dead Have Arisen?

It’s not much of an admission, but I was a Deadhead back in my late teens and early 20s. Not one of those totally immersed in it, wild Children of Nature types, going On The Road and living out of a VW camper, making ends meet by selling grilled cheese sandwiches at concerts ... but I got myself to dozens of shows, owned all the albums, a bunch of bootlegs, and didn’t listen to much else in the way of music for several years. Eventually my musical world expanded, and my time at those concerts eventually led me to become an audiophile. In terms of sound, and to play with the old audiophile idiom, there was so much there there at the shows, that the issued vinyl, a plain old stereo, a good Fisher phonograph, and a good set of speakers was quite a let down. Hell, it was a disaster. And that was one of their better albums.

And that’s one of the things that made being a Deadhead difficult. You could talk forever about fusion, jug band music, blues, rock, jazz, musical communication, brain surfing, into, the whole bit. But you couldn’t share it via vinyl. Nor via cassette tape. The World’s Greatest Jam Band could not put together an album with decent sound. Ever. Never, not once. Europe ‘72 was about the worst thing ever pressed into vinyl. Well, maybe Live Dead on 8-track. Things got a little better towards the middle 80s, but not by much.

The band mostly broke up when Jerry Garcia died in 1995. I say mostly, because everyone in the band was almost always in some other bands at the same time, and after a couple of fits and starts there is once again a group touring called The Dead. It’s the surviving band members, lately with the help of Jeff Chimenti and Warren Haynes. Death never stopped this band; I’m pretty sure that more members have died over the years than are currently playing in the band. [see? that deadhead shit is still in me somewhere]

Anyway, pretty much the only way to make an outsider understand was to drag them to a concert. Sure, they could sort of glean something from albums or bootleg tapes, but it just wasn’t right. In the mid to late 90s a series of concert tapes were turned into CDs, the whole Dick’s Picks and From The Vault collections, and they were mostly great, but they weren’t really there.

I pretty much moved on with life. It’s only once in a great while that I turn out the lights, crank up the very fine stereo, and leave the world behind for a couple hours. But while surfing through Amazon last week, I traipsed down the Dead Aisle and read the reviews on a couple of throwback albums. Newer releases of old master tapes. And I gave it a try, just to see.

I needed a miracle ... and I got two. To Terrapin and Live At The Cow Palace are both albums from the end of the Keith & Donna era, what could be considered the peak of the wave for the Old Kingdom - First Intermediate Period of the GD. They’re published on HDCD, whatever that is, and the sound is ... pure. No hiss, no pop, no scratch. No filtering. The band doesn’t sound like they’re 5 miles away. The music actually has a soundstage, and not the millimeter tall, 2 foot wide kind you usually get even on most “good” CDs. Somebody, somewhere, did something right. Both CDs are concert recordings, but from the instrument feeds, not from microphones out in the audience.  So they don’t have the background noise and they don’t have that sense of power, that electric aural intensity of a few hundred thousand watts coming your way through 200 speakers in the old 4 story tall Wall of Sound. But these CDs do have a presence nonetheless. They’re quite forward, and here that’s a good thing.

I was prepared to be let down. I am thrilled to be let up. And further up. A 19 minute Sugaree, a 23 minute space jam filled Playing, and a 15 minute Morning Dew? With several Drums?? 2 albums with 5 CDs filled with into? With actual detail - you can sometimes hear Keith or somebody kicking the piano, keeping time. Takes me back, in the best possible way. And without the chemically induced ball of orange light travelling up and down my spine this time. I’m too old for that shit. But it’s nice to wake up the memory that the best Snoopy Dance is done to a kickin’ rendition of Sugar Magnolia [the 8 1/2 minute S.M. on Cow is darn good, but it isn’t truly magical].

When in doubt, twirl.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/25/2009 at 04:20 PM   
Filed Under: • Music •  
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Mostly late to the party

“Blow A Hole In The Sky”



What a great choice of words. A superb expression, or the title of an unknown Heinlein story? Nope, just Mother Nature popping a zit, as seen from above. Safely far above!

Framed by a circle of clouds, this is a stunning illustration of Nature’s powerful force. A plume of smoke, ash and steam soars five miles into the sky from an erupting volcano. The extraordinary image was captured by the crew of the International Space Station 220 miles above a remote Russian island in the North Pacific. The round hole in the clouds is thought to have been caused by the shockwave of the initial explosion. At the centre lies the billowing mushroom tower of grey and brown ash. For volcano experts, the most exciting part of the image is the layer of smooth white cloud that caps the plume - a little like a layer of snow on a mushroom. This cap of condensed air is created from the rapid rising and then cooling of the air directly above the ash column.

What an amazing coincidence of timing. The space station had to have been just about exactly over the volcano, and these pictures had to have been snapped within a second or two of the start of the major eruption.

h/t to the entire blogosphere, but I saw this first at Theo’s. I emailed friends these links first thing this morning, but I had work to do, so I couldn’t post it until now. Who cares? These are more than once-in-a-lifetime photos. They’re once-in-a-all-of-history photos.

See More Below The Fold

Like me, it’s probable that you’re thinking, damn, that’s a lot of CO₂ going into the atmosphere. And it is. But from what I gather, volcanoes only produce about 1/10th of a percent of the CO₂ that people do.

And since it’s all part of the natural Carbon Cycle, I have a proposal to “cure” Global Warming: grow more clams. And lots more yummy oysters! Fight Global Warming and World Hunger at the same time!! Their shells are made from calcium carbonate, CaC0₃. This is where the Carbon always goes. In a few million years it will be limestone and shale, and in a half billion years it will get spat out of a volcano again. Just like everything else was originally.

Carbon Cycle Linky-link

GET ME OUT OF HERE ...

Posted by Drew458     on 06/25/2009 at 02:29 PM   
Filed Under: • Amazing Science and Discoveries • Nature •  
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Things I Never Knew, Part 6 million and 3

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2009/06/col-ed-mcmahon-dies.html

http://www.militarymuseum.org/McMahon.html

Somehow it seems more impressive that I never knew this until after he was gone.

Semper Fi-yooooooooo.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/25/2009 at 02:15 PM   
Filed Under: • Hollywood • Military •  
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