America has this amazing International Space Station (ISS), which it spent tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to build and deploy in orbit over two decades. A historic human achievement.

A few years after the ISS was finally completed, the short-sighted incompetents inside the Obama administration cancelled the only program we had for getting to our space station. Leaving us to rely on Russia to ferry our astronauts up to and back from our space station. This of course has made the US completely reliant on Russia to use and exploit the ISS.

But with the cancellation of the program, this leaves NASA with no replacement for the Shuttle fleet when they are retired at the end of 2010. This means that the U.S. will now need to rely on the Russian Space Agency to get our astronauts into space. (Currently only the Russians and Chinese have the capability to send men into space.)

Fast forward to the current day and a belligerent Russia. Having annexed the Crimea from the Ukraine, the geniuses inside the Obama administration are once again displaying they ‘not-ready-for-prime-time’ on the big stage. If you have an Achilles’ Heal, you don’t lead with it when trying to employ diplomatic pressure on Russia:

In an internal NASA memorandum obtained by The Verge, NASA said that the suspension includes travel to Russia, teleconferences, and visits by Russian government officials to NASA facilities. NASA is even suspending the exchange of emails with Russian officials….

“Given Russia’s ongoing violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, NASA is suspending the majority of its ongoing engagements with the Russian Federation,” a spokesman said. Operations aboard the International Space Station, which is a wholly collaborative effort between the two nations, are exempt from this suspension.

Just last week, a trio of astronauts, including two Russians and one American, launched into space on a Russian rocket, headed for the International Space Station. Without a shuttle program of its own, NASA depends on Russians to ferry its astronauts to and from the station, and pays them $70.7 million per seat. The U.S. space agency is working with private American companies to develop rockets and break out of Russia’s transportation monopoly.

This is as dumb a move as I have ever seen. If this escalates Russia will maroon our people in space. Or it can just bring everyone back and leave our investment orbiting above our heads out of reach. Stopping emails from Russia to NASA counterparts? Really – that’s their plan?

Pathetic.

H/T Drudge for the image

Must be the year of the Chicken Littles. First we have a tortured version of the biblical story of Noah and the great flood:

Lost within the film’s extreme environmentalist message is that the actual sins of the pre-Flood people were a rebellion against God and also man’s inhumanity to man.

Noah’s misanthropy is revealed many times in the film. For example, when the girlfriend of Noah’s son Ham is caught in a trap and is about to be overtaken by some marauders, Noah leaves the girl to die at their hands. The film’s Noah wants to totally destroy the human race and doesn’t want his sons to have children. In perhaps the most shocking part of the film, Noah plans to kill his unborn grandchild, the child of Shem’s wife, if it is a girl.

We all know Hollywood and Christianity rarely cross paths. And the ignorance of Hollywood to scripture equals its ignorance of science and math. Got to say, Hollywood as the edge on weird and non functional clothing. But beyond that the place really is only fair at mimicking real life. True, they make lots of money. But does Hollywood (and their ilk) really make a positive impact on humanity?

Not with this kind of misrepresentation. Who do they think they are fooling? Themselves at most.

So am I surprised at the PURE COINCIDENCE of the debut of a green-stained movie about Noah’s Flood and the release of hysterical alarm bells in a new the IPCC Chicken Little report?

Professor Berry is one of three leading academics who have contributed to the health chapter of a Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report due on Monday. She and co-authors Tony McMichael, of the Australian National University, and Colin Butler, of the University of Canberra, have outlined the health risks of rapid global warming in a companion piece for The Conversation, also published on Monday. The three warn that the adverse effects on population health and social stability have been ”missing from the discussion” on climate change.

”Human-driven climate change poses a great threat, unprecedented in type and scale, to wellbeing [sic], health and perhaps even to human survival,” they write.

The so called unprecedented warming does have precedence.  Early last century there was another similar rise in temps – followed by a dip. And over the millennia Earth, Man and Nature have experienced and adapted to much of the same.

The fact is, the alarmist know the gravy train is not coming their way and are panicking. They now fear their plans to take over the energy sector of the world (scary, given what they just did to the healthcare sector of the US) is all but gone. Trillions in green boondoggle funds slipping away.

But it is even worse than that. And they are just now seeing the other shoe dropping. If Global Warming (not seen in almost 2 decades now) fizzles out as huge over reaction – guess what else slips away? The billions of dollars now being flushed down the green-toilet of wasted research. Another 10 years of no warming (or even cooling) and the gravy train will leave the green station for good.

So it is no wonder Hollywood (and their complete lack of basic science knowledge) have probably timed the release of Noah with the release of the IPCC report? Because as everyone knows – American’s are just a bunch of ignorant dupes, easily played. We would never be able to connect those dots!

Update: Hot Air goes for the Ghost Buster analogy for IPCC!

Throughout the 21st century, climate-change impacts are projected to slow down economic growth, make poverty reduction more difficult, further erode food security, and prolong existing and create new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging hotspots of hunger,” the report declared.

Too funny. That all looks to be the likely result of government intervention, not CO2, IHMO – end update

BTW: the worst Hollywood technical goof I have to endure is in the movie Battleship – a movie I really enjoy. In that movie the satellite LANDSAT 7 is supposed to be a Deep Space communications satellite communicating with the alien invaders and their home world.

I guess Hollywood doesn’t get why the bird is called “LANDSAT”. LANDSAT 7 is a low earth orbiter. Deep Space is defined as from the Moon’s orbit out.  It is also not a communications satellite (which are at a much higher orbit and actually look stationary from Earth’s surface). LANDSAT 7 faces Earthward – making measurements of the “land“. Therefore it whips around the world ever 90-110 minutes (depending on its orbit design, I just did not look up the specific orbital period). Which means it is only overhead 5-15 minutes and then only maybe once a day.

I have to just get through that crap in the movie, which shows a serious intellectual laziness that someone in Hollywood could not take the time to just Google the mission page and comprehend what it means. And if you can’t comprehend, then ask someone who can. I get through it, but every time I am amazed at the ignorance on display.

I mean – duh!

This story had me rolling because it is based on a very shaky conclusion. And yet, the media ignorantly (and yes, I chose that word carefully) report it without any comprehension of the concept of statistical linkages.

Youths who play video games are more likely to think and act in aggressive ways, suggested a study out Monday of more than 3,000 schoolchildren in Singapore.

The research, published in JAMA Pediatrics, a journal of the American Medical Association, was based on more than 3,034 children who were studied over the course of three years.

Frequent use of video games was linked to higher rates of aggressive behaviors and thoughts, according to self-reported answers to survey questions by the children.

The other possible (and probable) conclusion is aggressive kids enjoy aggressive video games, non-aggressive kids enjoy non-aggressive games.. You can naively run the same kind of  study and conclude wearing dresses makes one more likely to become female. Or playing football makes one more likely to become male (or aggressive, or large and muscular, etc).

Of course there is a correlation between aggressive games and aggressive personalities!

But I am confident if you compare those who prefer a good game of Life to those who prefer to play football, you will find and even STRONGER correlation. But it does not mean the game created the human psyche.

Duh!

This shocking headline at Drudge pretty much encapsulates the heartless, consumer-driven nature of modern society. Where individuals are throw away commodities. Where consumption obliterates the human rights of some to feed the needs of others. Today humanity is hitting a point I once naively thought was too cold, callous and abhorrent to reach. We have a whole new meaning for the term “Green”, renewable energy:

The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found.

Ten NHS trusts have admitted burning foetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat.

Last night the Department of Health issued an instant ban on the practice which health minister Dr Dan Poulter branded ‘totally unacceptable.’

There is an aspect of the current aggressive Russian actions that people probably completely overlooked, and that is a stupid, short sighted decision made by this administration a few years back. That decision has made the US impotent in the face of Russia today. I wrote about that decision at the time:

Short Sighted Fools In DC

There is a rule on NASA missions that we can never design or implement a mission which relies on foreign resources to succeed or be safe. It has been a major barrier to international joint efforts forever because just about everything in a space mission is critical to its success. You can’t have a successful Hubble, for example, if you can’t get it into orbit, can’t communicate with it on a daily basis, can’t respond quickly to anomalies.

…

The norm is for a  mission to be self sufficient in terms of US resources to operate within all expected and emergency scenarios. Until Obama, Pelosi and Reid took charge that is.

Now the International Space Station is incapable of being supported by American technology and resources. Not since the Democrat fools in the last Congress and this White House retired the space shuttle fleet AND ALSO cancelled the program to replace that fleet with another (cheaper) mode of transportation (i.e., the Orion program):

The Obama Administration’s proposed cancellation of the Constellation program in February 2010 and was signed into law October 11, [2010]

This job killing myopic act illustrates the clumsy, unthinking rashness of this White House and the last Congress. Apparently the President wanted Americans with shovels working, not exploring space and holding onto our technical edge in that final frontier of humanity. This White House is the first since Kennedy to halt America’s leadership in having people in space.

Today the International Space Station we spent billions of tax payer dollars to deploy can only be accessed via Russian manned launch systems. America has no method to send or retrieve our astronauts to this national treasure without Russia.  And Putin knows this. Everyone knows this.

We are being held hostage because Democrats made a bone-head decision and violated a common sense law regarding America’s access to space. And that is why we can only bluster and bluff as Vlad marches into Crimea.

Major Update: Did more researching to confirm the health concern I have, and discovered this [pdf]:

This material is water with 26% dissolved salt. …

Airborne mists are corrosive …

Contact with material may cause irritation to the eyes and skin. Flush immediately out of eyes and/or off of skin.

Prolonged and/or repeated skin contact with this material may cause irritation and dermatitis.

Inhalation of salt mists may be irritating to the nose, throat and lungs. Ensure adequate ventilation is available

It has been tough this winter, with all the cold temps and snow. But what has been even worse is the new process for salting the roads. It is a complete disaster, both from a driver safety perspective and from a health perspective.

To understand why driving on the roads has become such a hazard, you have to realize governments have moved from the traditional salt crystal method to a salt brine spray with additives to make it stick like hell to the road – and your windshield:

The traditional road de-icer is road salt, which is fairly inexpensive. However, a significant amount of salt must be distributed onto the road in order to be effective. Whether applied as solid crystals or as a brine solution, salt is ineffective at melting ice below about -10F or -23C.

Some municipalities prefer to spray a brine solution prior to a predicted snowfall. This helps prevent the initial accumulation of ice or snow.

This salt brine mixture was probably OK. It has been in use since around 2009.  But like any salt, it will be washed away with the melting snow and ice.  Which is how is should be. If the salt can wash away, it won’t remain to be a driving and health hazard. But someone got a bright idea and ran square into the law of unintended consequences:

Although the mix of sugar beet juice with salt brine costs far more than pure brine, it can be cost effective simply due to the greater stickiness of the combined fluid. It does not require as many applications during the course of a winter.

More here:

A splash of beet juice, a dollop of molasses, a squeeze of cheese brine. In the coldest weather, the recipe for safer roads often goes beyond the usual sprinkling of salt.

Across the nation’s snow belt, transportation officials are in the market for cheap and environmentally friendly ways to make rock salt work better by keeping it on the roads longer and melting ice at lower temperatures.

…

In Milwaukee, road crews are experimenting with plentiful cheese brine, a leftover from cheese making. New York and Pennsylvania are among states trying sugar beet juice, while molasses and potato juice are flavoring roads elsewhere.

While on the surface this sounds grand, the fact is the very ‘stickiness’ that saves money makes driving and breathing dangerous.

It begins with tire spray:

Car and truck tires (especially truck tires) pretty much atomize the water on the road and throw it up in the air as a mist.  And when a road has been treated with the “sticky” variety of salt brine it comes down on your windshield and sticks – in some areas literally like molasses. I attempted to drive to work today, and was unable to go very far because my windshield required CONSTANT cleaning. My washer reservoir was full (I now drive with extra bottles in the car), but I would not have made it the 20 miles I need to go without pulling over and refilling. Strangely, it was not wet enough on the road to allow me to slipstream behind someone and use their tire spray to save on washer fluid. It was too dry on the road – and too sunny.

Every snow, when the sun is out, has 100’s of people pulled over while 100’s more drive by with their windshields coated with sticky salt brine. Now that is a recipe for disaster! It is not making roads safer.

Worse, that sticky, briny mist is carrying salt and other road dirt into the air and into our lungs.  Look at what the salt does to the cars, roads, rails and nearby trees!  Now just imagine what your lungs look like.

I personally put my car on internally recycled air when the salt is down. I was having huge breathing issues until I did. Think of how much you are inhaling of atomized sticky salt brine when you drive? And heaven forbid you have asthma or other breathing issues.

This is an engineering disaster. It sounded good on paper, but in practice the sticky salt brine has created dangerous driving conditions with salt-caked windshields, the need for people to pull over on busy roads to fill washer fluid, and a very likely health risk that makes second-hand smoke look quaint.

Hopefully we learn our lessons before too many people get hurt.

Well its about time I get back to current events. The big milestone at work is past, so we can all go back to something resembling a 40 hour work week. [Note: the emphasis]. So let’s begin with reality – and climate.

I ran across this article on WUWT, and I really wanted to emphasize a portion of the document:

Perhaps the simplest way to expose the fallacy of “extreme certainty” is to look at the historical record. With the historical record, we do have some degree of certainty compared to predictions of the future. When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today, yet life flourished at this time. Then an Ice Age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2 was 10 times higher than today. There is some correlation, but little evidence, to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia. The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming.

Today we remain locked in what is essentially still the Pleistocene Ice Age, with an average global temperature of 14.5°C. This compares with a low of about 12°C during the periods of maximum glaciation in this Ice Age to an average of 22°C during the Greenhouse Ages, which occurred over longer time periods prior to the most recent Ice Age. During the Greenhouse Ages, there was no ice on either pole and all the land was tropical and sub-tropical, from pole to pole. As recently as 5 million years ago the Canadian Arctic islands were completely forested. Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species. There is ample reason to believe that a sharp cooling of the climate would bring disastrous results for human civilization.

What the settled science indicates here is very important. We live – today – on an an unusually cold Earth.

Got that? Compared to recent geological history, the Earth we inhabit is colder than usual. The Little Ice Age we have been coming out of (until recently) was even a more rare event. That means the odds are Earth’s climate will warm up again. It really is only a question of when, not if. And it will do so whether humans are around or not.

So wen people babble on about Global Climate Change and the fear of a warmer Earth, they should be immediately challenged to explain why the current rare COLD conditions should be maintained instead of going back to the norm? And even better, how could humankind achieve such a reversal of natural forces beyond our current comprehension?

And when these scientifically challenged (and yes, this group does include people with PhDs) point to CO2, then simply point them to the other historic fact: it has been much warmer and much colder than today on Earth. And during some of those periods, there has been TEN TIMES HIGHER than today! That means managing CO2 will do NOTHING to warm or cool the planet.

These two facts – scientifically based and not seriously challenged in terms of what happened in Earth’s geologic past – obliterate the entire argument about Global Warming induced by us meager humans via CO2. Vaporized as a logical conclusion.

Michael Mann might have an ego the size of a planet (dude: that is a comedic analogy to a paranoid robot in Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy – so put your lawyers away), but just because he thinks he can change the forces of nature does not mean he actually can!

Word Press is under a serious attack. basically bots are creating accounts, trying to get access. I have turned of new accounts. You may be able to comment if you had an account. Will take days to fix.  I will probably have to authorize every new comment.

Please be patient.

I really, really, really enjoyed the Super Bowl.  And normally a blow-out like we saw last night is boring, but this year there was a lot of emotion and drama in the blow-out, which made it more interesting.

First off, the Broncos where just out-played. The ‘Hawks came hungry. But that is only the tip of the story.

The Broncos were the clearly the favorites of the NFL establishment (including the announcers, etc). It never occurred to them a team of seasoned veterans could be so demolished by a team of younger, low-draft-rounders. I heard it all night, how the ‘Hawks were built around “lesser” talent. And everyone kept waiting for the more seasoned, well known stars to get back in the game.

And the Broncos never could bounce back. This Super Bowl was very much a Cinderella Bowl. A team that had never won the national title, and was coached by a “college coach” who selected less known talent to fill his ranks, won. It was a great David and Goliath battle and that is why, even lopsided, it was a great game. And of course the impact on Manning was the heart -tugger. But Manning was good this season, and he can bounce back if he chooses.

Congratulation to the Seahawks, and may their youth result in many more dominating years ahead!

Now to the half time show: FANTASTIC.  Bruno Mars just hit gold, because he really nailed it with that new sound and look to what I see as the best of Motown.  Just awesome.  And while I like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, their spastic stage antics did not compare well to Bruno Mars’ band. Looks like the next generation in music also gave the ol’ guard a lesson in showmanship as well. And being over 50, it is pretty interesting I found that one of the best half time shows I have seen as far back as I can remember. Surfing the Mars’ offerings as we speak.

As to the Super Bowl Ads: horrible. Some were even disturbing.  Loved the VW ad with wings and rainbows. Some others were good (but not memorable). But I was giving a thumbs down 80% of the time. They were the big losers, probably even worse than the Broncos

Update: Ed Morrissey and others pan the ads as a bore.

I have been swamped with work – or more correctly swamped surviving the wondrous Obama economic mess. The good news is we may be seeing some light ahead, and it is not a train!

This and the fact that past 6 years of Obama’s leadership mess is still settling in has given me pause to blog. The GOP has missed the point, the Social Right still has its blinders on (confusing their right to open expression with a demand everyone follow their views). We are still in a tail spin, heading for a brutal impact.

How many ways can you write “Epoch Fail”?

Sadly, Dylan Farrow was able to discover one more way. I say “sadly” because she was forced by a ‘me’ society gone mad to try and protect the victims of this rampant self-absorption we are now immersed in. Many of those in Hollywood (and the liberal, wealthy left) are slipping into debauchery. Too many are unable to find a reason to exist and therefore sink into the abyss of self-reward.

Just compare someone like Bono or other wealthy folks fighting for the “not so fortunate” and one Woody Allen. Which one is more common? Which one is more admired in popular culture? Which one is more Nero than Plato? Which path will America take? Honestly, I don’t know, but I know what I would prefer.

Dylan Farrow asks some hard hitting questions. She is giving America a well-deserved wake up call. For example, do we simply sit on the side lines and let the corrupt and debased among us bring our culture down to their level?

That he got away with what he did to me haunted me as I grew up. I was stricken with guilt that I had allowed him to be near other little girls. I was terrified of being touched by men. I developed an eating disorder. I began cutting myself. That torment was made worse by Hollywood. All but a precious few (my heroes) turned a blind eye. Most found it easier to accept the ambiguity, to say, “who can say what happened,” to pretend that nothing was wrong.

How does this differ from witnessing a rape, mugging or murder and simply stand by? Or not testify? Or worse, praise the criminal and chastise the victim?

How does this differ from stripping millions of people of their health care, and then force their costs to skyrocket so that they cannot afford the most basic items? How do we stand by in the face of carnage and simply ignore or rationalize away those suffering?

Do we turn a blind eye and deaf ear so the gravy train (or power trip) is not disrupted by hard decisions and deeds? Is this the price of our moral soul these days – save the party, save the career, save the powerful and self absorbed, save the arrogant know-it-alls wasting their “one verse” in the grand story of humanity?

Last week, Woody Allen was nominated for his latest Oscar. But this time, I refuse to fall apart. For so long, Woody Allen’s acceptance silenced me. It felt like a personal rebuke, like the awards and accolades were a way to tell me to shut up and go away. But the survivors of sexual abuse who have reached out to me – to support me and to share their fears of coming forward, of being called a liar, of being told their memories aren’t their memories – have given me a reason to not be silent, if only so others know that they don’t have to be silent either.

Today, I consider myself lucky. I am happily married. I have the support of my amazing brothers and sisters. I have a mother who found within herself a well of fortitude that saved us from the chaos a predator brought into our home.

Here is the difference between Dylan Farrow and Woody Allen. It takes a lot of self discipline to raise a family, protect them and not sink into self obsession. Conservatives tend to shy away from the disaster of “its all about me”, and instead promote SELF sacrifice (not government mandated sacrifice). Liberals eschew the bonds of discipline, self control and “off limits”. Why, they ask, can’t they wallow in self appeasement? Why do I have to have limits? That is why liberals react so intensely to religion. It is their bane. (BTW, I am not including main stream democrats in with liberals).

What happens when self appeasement becomes the main priority in a life? You get the sickness of Woody Allen. To satiate his desires he knew no bounds. He is the epitome of self absorption. And he comes from a culture and industry that has been the most recalcitrant to get rid of the casting couch, the exploitation of sex, least able to respect self control. Hollywood is obsessed with obliterating the “Off Limits” signs in society. And they now have the results of that obsession.

My hat is off to Dylan, for surviving and standing up. I sadly have known of too many instances of sexual predation (both real and imagined) with friends and colleagues and family. It is the most abhorrent of acts of “me-ism” out there. When someone’s needs reduce humans to simple objects (read victims), they have reached the pinnacle of no limits.

We will see how Hollywood and America react to Dylan Farrow – and we will chose a path. She has made sure of that.

Update:  Another example of someone who hates limits desperately needing some:

“Now that liberals have forwarded their agenda by inserting a mass gay wedding into the Grammys, conservatives must match them tit-for-tat by having a mass shooting at the Country Music Awards,” Maher said Friday during his HBO program, “Real Time with Bill Maher.”

Simple, childish minds are cute in children. Not so much in supposed mature adults.