Thursday, December 31, 2009

Most Important Events of the Century

As the sand drains down on the current decade, it is a good time to take a look back on the events of the last 10 years and make a call on what was most significant of the young 21st century. Here are my picks in order of significance:

  1. Indonesian tsunami - More than 230,000 people died in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. The breath of human destruction was incomprehensible.
  2. 9/11 - More Americans died in New York that day than on December 7th, 1941 at Pearl Harbor. Yet the American reaction was much different. We are so tolerant that the architect of 9/11 still lives.
  3. Election of Barrack Obama - Whatever you think of the man's politics, the election of America's first black president was an historic event. We can only hope that breaking the old white man barrier will lead to the first woman president (Sarah Palin?) and the first Asian president (Bobby Jindal?).
  4. Financial crisis of 2008 - What may go down as the biggest mistake of the Bush presidency, his support of TARP 1 handed the new president Barrack Obama with a pot of borrowed money he could use to finance his socialist agenda. What the democrats could never do legislatively, Bush enabled with the bail out.
  5. Record Deficit Spending - In one year, Barrack Obama and an irresponsible Congress have run up more public debt that all past presidents combined! The consequences of their actions will linger for decades.
  6. North Korea goes Nuclear - Our fear of the clinically insane owning an atomic weapon is now a reality. Will Obama's "can't we all just get along" approach work?
  7. The Hanging of Saddam Hussein - If nothing else, it signalled to the world's despots that even they can be held accountable for their actions.
  8. Invention of the iPod - This may seem mundane, but how many inventions will you see in your lifetime that completely change an entire industry in the matter of a few short years? Remember the 1990's. All music was bought on CD or pilfered from Napster and then burned to a CD. Music was listened to from CD, in cars, home stereos or portable CD players. Flash forward to 2009. iPods and other digital music players are the predominate method of enjoying music, and while the music can still be purchased on CD, the trend is to purchase and obtain music online from iTunes or the legitimate Napster service.
  9. facebook - Those who are socially challenged, like I am, can now keep in touch with others.
  10. Digital Photography - Is film even sold now?
  11. The Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball team win their 2000th game again proving they are the cream of the college basketball crop.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Wireless Wars

I have been amused by the recent war of words between Verizon and AT&T. Millions have been spent on several series of advertisements. It began with Verizon's "there's a map for that" campaign where they called out AT&T on their sparse 3G coverage. Verizon was spot on. AT&T has a very sparse 3G network footprint. AT&T has responded vigorously, and in much the same manner a Senator would when responding to a tough question on "Face the Nation". AT&T did not like the question so they are answering a completely different one.

To understand how AT&T is slipping the question to confuse the public, you must understand what Verizon is challenging them on. Wireless 3G technology is one deployed by the major wireless carriers to enable higher speed data services to wireless devices - phones or PC air cards. If a carrier is not offering 3G at your location, the data speeds delivered to the phone or computer card are slower. Verizon has simply stated that AT&T does not offer the higher speed data services to very much of their service footprint. They are absolutely correct. AT&T has only built out the higher speed network in major metropolitan areas. If you don't live in a big city, only AT&T's slower data network is available.

AT&T cannot afford to admit this is true, so they have deceptively answered a different question. They show their larger voice coverage area as proof that Verizon is making a big deal over nothing. Verizon never challenged their voice coverage. They were very specific in mocking the AT&T 3G coverage map. It is true that you can make a voice phone call withing the coverage area indicated in the AT&T rebuttal commercials, but making a 3G data connection is not possible in most of that area.

Now AT&T has decided to go on the offensive by pointing out that you can have a simultaneous voice call and data connection on their network using the iPhone. That is true. But is it a big deal? I guess it would be nice occasionally. But more important to me would be the ability to make a fast data connection wherever I currently am. That is much easier to do on Verizon than AT&T.

AT&T advertisements commonly claim the "fasted 3G network". This is also a ruse. The truth is the 3G technology used by AT&T is the theoretical fastest, and would be the fastest service if compared to other carriers technologies in a laboratory environment. But in order to really be the fastest 3G technology, you need both the technology and the capacity. The technology is easy - it is purchased from a vendor. Capacity is hard. It requires equipping each of the thousands of cell sites across the country with expensive circuits. AT&T's reluctance to purchase the capacity along with the iPhone customer base quickly consuming what capacity is provided makes AT&T the slowest 3G network in the real world. Nearly every 3rd party test of real world wireless data speed will rank Sprint and Verizon as the top 2, with AT&T and T-Mobile bringing up the rear.

Several years ago, AT&T discovered they could redirect capital funding from their network to the marketing department, stating they have a superior network, and the customer perception of network quality would improve. This is the same thing Verizon did many years ago, starting with their "Can you hear me now" advertisements. It was very effective for Verizon, mainly because they continued to invest in their network as they advertised its superiority. As a result, Verizon is the undisputed network leader, and the consumer is aware of it. It was brilliance on their part. AT&T is trying to replicate that strategy with an inferior network. The only way they can succeed is by hiding the truth and confusing the consumer.

I find the current wireless war to be entertaining, and cannot wait for the war to escalate. I am also curious as to why Verizon has not asked AT&T to answer the specific question instead of the one AT&T wants to answer.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

My First Beatles Record

You might think this blog is reminiscing about a day in the late 1960's or early 1970's when The Beatles were popular and sold millions of records. No. I am writing about a day last week. You see, I was never a big fan of the Beatles. When they first began to sell their music, I was 8 years old and influenced by my parents disdain of their long hair. A few years later, I was repelled by their early "bubble gum" sound and immature lyrics.

I find it strange that over 40 years after the release of "Abbey Road", I decided to purchase it in it's new digitally remastered CD format. Even more ironic, Abbey Road was also the last new album released by the group. So I guess it is accurate to say I bought their latest album.

As far as the music and sound quality go, it is great. After the digital magic was applied, it sounds like a modern recording. I am considering additional purchases of the remastered CDs, going from newest to oldest. You never know, I might just become one of The Beatles oldest new fans.

Monday, December 28, 2009

2009 Thrown Shoe Awards

You probably remember the Iraqi newsman who threw his shoe at President Bush last year during a new conference. Apparently that is a sign of great disrespect in primitive cultures, so I thought I would metaphorically borrow it. The Thrown Shoe award goes to those individuals that I believe are the 1o most rotten scoundrels of 2009. Here are my picks:

10) Billy Mays - His face always reminds me how he would yell at me.

9) Senator Charles Schumer - The most outrageous liberal in congress. Thank you for sharing, New York.

8) Michael Jackson - I really don't care what he looked like, or what his father did to him - in the end he goes down in my book as an unconvicted pedophile

7) Tiger Woods - The greatest golfer ever to walk the earth, but not so good as a father and husband.

6) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - His belief that any health care bill is better than no health care bill has brought us the current pile of rubbish.

5) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi - She and Harry, two rubes cut from the same cloth.

4) Senator Barbara Boxer - She was able to fly under the radar for much of 2009, however her comment equating Viagra with abortion has vaulted her to the top.

3) Bernie Maddoff - After his conviction for bilking investors out of $65 billion, had the nerve to ask for bail because of the help he has provided prosecutors.

2) President Barrack Obama - His reckless spending designed only to create a European socialist government will cause American suffering for years.

1) Al Gore - For perpetuating the largest fraud on the citizens of the world in history.

Who did I miss?

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Order of Magnitude Upgrades

I upgrade my personal computer about every 5 years, and my cell phone every 2 years. The degree of technology change at this upgrade cycle is amazing.

I was 13 when the Apollo first landed on the moon. NASA claims that many cell phones, cars, and even some appliances now have more computing power than the original Apollo lander used to guide it's decent to the moon. Ten years later I bought my first personal computer. It was an IBM clone with an 8-bit 8088 processor and 640 kilobytes of RAM. It had no hard drive. Instead, I had two 1.2 megabyte floppy drives. Very rudimentary programs could be run off the floppy drives. I once bought a simple adventure game that came on 3 floppy disks. Occasionally the game would prompt me to change to a different floppy disk. We have come a long way since then, but only in steps.

My next computer was a more powerful Hyundai (yes, they made computers too) with a 16-bit 286 processor. This computer had 3 big upgrades in addition to the faster processor. It had a 1.5 megabyte floppy drive, a modem and a 30 megabyte hard drive. I wondered how I would ever fill so much space as was on my hard drive, but over time I did. I upgraded it to a 40 megabyte hard drive at the cost of $400. Today you can buy a terabyte hard drive, 25,000 times the storage, for a quarter the cost. The modem was only useful to connect to a local community college bulletin board service. There was no widespread email, nor was there an Internet since Al Gore had not yet invented it. Bulletin boards were generally a waste of time, however you could entertain yourself for a few evenings downloading useless freeware games.

My next PC had a 386 SX processor which in theory could used memory greater than 640 kilobytes. In reality all it did was swap data and code from the upper memory to the base 640 kilobyte space when needed. The result was slightly faster program execution, but program size was still restricted to 640 kilobytes of memory. The innovation that came along with their PC was a Windows 3.0 operating system. Graphics could now be mixed with text, and clipboard became used to cut and paste between applications. I did not use Microsoft Word or Excel. At the time, WordPerfect and Quatro Pro were the applications of choice.

I completely missed the 386 DX, 486 SX, DX and DX4 processing platforms. My next computer sported a Pentium 1 32-bit chip running at around 200 MHz. It had a 400 megabyte hard drive and 2 megabytes of RAM. This was the first computer that could multi-task and access memory above 640 kilobytes. I ran Windows 98 on that machine. This was the first machine I owned that was used regularly for email and Internet access. At first, my connection was dial up over a phone line, but later became broadband cable modem service. I kept it for approximately 5 years and just recently retired it.

I now own 2 computers, a laptop and a desktop. The specifications of each dwarf my last computer. Modern day computers have processors with multiple cores, each more powerful that computers made 5 years ago. Memory and hard drive space have become so cheap, that they add little to the total cost of the computer.

What I find most interesting is that current desktop has 125 times the memory, 100,000 times the storage space, a CPU that runs hundreds of times faster and gobbles 8 times as many bits per cycle as my first computer - but they both cost about the same. What will the next 30 years bring?

Friday, December 25, 2009

The Christmas Story

2:1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

2:2 Saying, Where is He that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen His Star in the east, and are come to worship Him.

2:3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

2:4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.

2:5 And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,

2:6 And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule My people Israel.

2:7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the Star appeared.

2:8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young Child; and when ye have found Him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship Him also.

2:9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the Star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was.

2:10 When they saw the Star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

2:11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down, and worshipped Him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

The Christmas Story

Matthew 1:17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations.

1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with Child of the Holy Ghost.

1:19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.

1:20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

1:21 And she shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call His Name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins.

1:22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the LORD by the prophet, saying,

1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with Child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call His Name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God With Us.

1:24 Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the LORD had bidden him, and took unto him his wife:

1:25 And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn Son: and he called His Name JESUS.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Settled Science?

Here is an excellent list from Britain's Daily Express on the 100 reasons why climate change is natural and not man-made. The s list was released in a dossier issued by the European Foundation, a non-profit organization whose goal is to advance the public good in Europe and beyond. As you scan these, remember that Al Gore says the science is settled, and the debate has concluded. Does this sound settled?

1) There is “no real scientific proof” that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from man’s activity.

2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022 percent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history.

3) Warmer periods of the Earth’s history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.

4) After World War II, there was a huge surge in recorded CO2 emissions but global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940.

5) Throughout the Earth’s history, temperatures have often been warmer than now and CO2 levels have often been higher – more than ten times as high.

6) Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time.

7) The 0.7C increase in the average global temperature over the last hundred years is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term, natural climate trends.

8) The IPCC theory is driven by just 60 scientists and favorable reviewers not the 4,000 usually cited.

9) Leaked e-mails from British climate scientists – in a scandal known as “Climate-gate” - suggest that that has been manipulated to exaggerate global warming

10) A large body of scientific research suggests that the sun is responsible for the greater share of climate change during the past hundred years.

11) Politicians and activiists claim rising sea levels are a direct cause of global warming but sea levels rates have been increasing steadily since the last ice age 10,000 ago

12) Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London says climate change is too complicated to be caused by just one factor, whether CO2 or clouds

13) Peter Lilley MP said last month that “fewer people in Britain than in any other country believe in the importance of global warming. That is despite the fact that our Government and our political class—predominantly—are more committed to it than their counterparts in any other country in the world”.

14) In pursuit of the global warming rhetoric, wind farms will do very little to nothing to reduce CO2 emissions

15) Professor Plimer, Professor of Geology and Earth Sciences at the University of Adelaide, stated that the idea of taking a single trace gas in the atmosphere, accusing it and finding it guilty of total responsibility for climate change, is an “absurdity”

16) A Harvard University astrophysicist and geophysicist, Willie Soon, said he is “embarrassed and puzzled” by the shallow science in papers that support the proposition that the earth faces a climate crisis caused by global warming.

17) The science of what determines the earth’s temperature is in fact far from settled or understood.

18) Despite activist concerns over CO2 levels, CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas, unlike water vapour which is tied to climate concerns, and which we can’t even pretend to control

19) A petition by scientists trying to tell the world that the political and media portrayal of global warming is false was put forward in the Heidelberg Appeal in 1992. Today, more than 4,000 signatories, including 72 Nobel Prize winners, from 106 countries have signed it.

20) It is claimed the average global temperature increased at a dangerously fast rate in the 20th century but the recent rate of average global temperature rise has been between 1 and 2 degrees C per century - within natural rates

21) Professor Zbigniew Jaworowski, Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection in Warsaw, Poland says the earth’s temperature has more to do with cloud cover and water vapor than CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

22) There is strong evidence from solar studies which suggests that the Earth’s current temperature stasis will be followed by climatic cooling over the next few decades

23) It is myth that receding glaciers are proof of global warming as glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for many centuries

24) It is a falsehood that the earth’s poles are warming because that is natural variation and while the western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer we also see that the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder

25) The IPCC claims climate driven “impacts on biodiversity are significant and of key relevance” but those claims are simply not supported by scientific research

26) The IPCC threat of climate change to the world’s species does not make sense as wild species are at least one million years old, which means they have all been through hundreds of climate cycles

27) Research goes strongly against claims that CO2-induced global warming would cause catastrophic disintegration of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets.

28) Despite activist concerns over CO2 levels, rising CO2 levels are our best hope of raising crop yields to feed an ever-growing population

29) The biggest climate change ever experienced on earth took place around 700 million years ago

30) The slight increase in temperature which has been observed since 1900 is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term natural climate cycles

31) Despite activist concerns over CO2 levels, rising CO2 levels of some so-called “greenhouse gases” may be contributing to higher oxygen levels and global cooling, not warming

32) Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures

33) Today’s CO2 concentration of around 385 ppm is very low compared to most of the earth’s history – we actually live in a carbon-deficient atmosphere

34) It is a myth that CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas because greenhouse gases form about 3% of the atmosphere by volume, and CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere

35) It is a myth that computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming because computer models can be made to “verify” anything

36) There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes

37) One statement deleted from a UN report in 1996 stated that “none of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases”

38) The world “warmed” by 0.07 +/- 0.07 degrees C from 1999 to 2008, not the 0.20 degrees C expected by the IPCC

39) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says “it is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will become more intense” but there has been no increase in the intensity or frequency of tropical cyclones globally

40) Rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere can be shown not only to have a negligible effect on the Earth’s many ecosystems, but in some cases to be a positive help to many organisms

41) Researchers who compare and contrast climate change impact on civilizations found warm periods are beneficial to mankind and cold periods harmful

42) The Met Office asserts we are in the hottest decade since records began but this is precisely what the world should expect if the climate is cyclical

43) Rising CO2 levels increase plant growth and make plants more resistant to drought and pests

44) The historical increase in the air’s CO2 content has improved human nutrition by raising crop yields during the past 150 years

45) The increase of the air’s CO2 content has probably helped lengthen human lifespans since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution

46) The IPCC alleges that “climate change currently contributes to the global burden of disease and premature deaths” but the evidence shows that higher temperatures and rising CO2 levels has helped global populations

47) In May of 2004, the Russian Academy of Sciences published a report concluding that the Kyoto Protocol has no scientific grounding at all.

48) The “Climate-gate” scandal pointed to a expensive public campaign of disinformation and the denigration of scientists who opposed the belief that CO2 emissions were causing climate change

49) The head of Britain’s climate change watchdog has predicted households will need to spend up to £15,000 on a full energy efficiency makeover if the Government is to meet its ambitious targets for cutting carbon emissions.

50) Wind power is unlikely to be the answer to our energy needs. The wind power industry argues that there are “no direct subsidies” but it involves a total subsidy of as much as £60 per MWh which falls directly on electricity consumers. This burden will grow in line with attempts to achieve Wind power targets, according to a recent OFGEM report.

51) Wind farms are not an efficient way to produce energy. The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) accepts a figure of 75 per cent back-up power is required.

52) Global temperatures are below the low end of IPCC predictions not at “at the top end of IPCC estimates”

53) Climate alarmists have raised the concern over acidification of the oceans but Tom Segalstad from Oslo University in Norway , and others, have noted that the composition of ocean water – including CO2, calcium, and water – can act as a buffering agent in the acidification of the oceans.

54) The UN’s IPCC computer models of human-caused global warming predict the emergence of a “hotspot” in the upper troposphere over the tropics. Former researcher in the Australian Department of Climate Change, David Evans, said there is no evidence of such a hotspot

55) The argument that climate change is a of result of global warming caused by human activity is the argument of flat Earthers.

56) The manner in which US President Barack Obama sidestepped Congress to order emission cuts shows how undemocratic and irrational the entire international decision-making process has become with regards to emission-target setting.

57) William Kininmonth, a former head of the National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological Organisation, wrote “the likely extent of global temperature rise from a doubling of CO2 is less than 1C. Such warming is well within the envelope of variation experienced during the past 10,000 years and insignificant in the context of glacial cycles during the past million years, when Earth has been predominantly very cold and covered by extensive ice sheets.”

58) Canada has shown the world targets derived from the existing Kyoto commitments were always unrealistic and did not work for the country.

59) In the lead up to the Copenhagen summit, David Davis MP said of previous climate summits, at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and Kyoto in 1997 that many had promised greater cuts, but “neither happened”, but we are continuing along the same lines.

60) The UK ’s environmental policy has a long-term price tag of about £55 billion, before taking into account the impact on its economic growth.

61) The UN’s panel on climate change warned that Himalayan glaciers could melt to a fifth of current levels by 2035. J. Graham Cogley a professor at Ontario Trent University, claims this inaccurate stating the UN authors got the date from an earlier report wrong by more than 300 years.

62) Under existing Kyoto obligations the EU has attempted to claim success, while actually increasing emissions by 13 per cent, according to Lord Lawson. In addition the EU has pursued this scheme by purchasing “offsets” from countries such as China paying them billions of dollars to destroy atmospheric pollutants, such as CFC-23, which were manufactured purely in order to be destroyed.

63) It is claimed that the average global temperature was relatively unchanging in pre-industrial times but sky-rocketed since 1900, and will increase by several degrees more over the next 100 years according to Penn State University researcher Michael Mann. There is no convincing empirical evidence that past climate was unchanging, nor that 20th century changes in average global temperature were unusual or unnatural.

64) Michael Mann of Penn State University has actually shown that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age did in fact exist, which contrasts with his earlier work which produced the “hockey stick graph” which showed a constant temperature over the past thousand years or so followed by a recent dramatic upturn.

65) The globe’s current approach to climate change in which major industrialised countries agree to nonsensical targets for their CO2 emissions by a given date, as it has been under the Kyoto system, is very expensive.

66) The “Climate-gate” scandal revealed that a scientific team had emailed one another about using a “trick” for the sake of concealing a “decline” in temperatures when looking at the history of the Earth’s temperature.

67) Global temperatures have not risen in any statistically-significant sense for 15 years and have actually been falling for nine years. The “Climate-gate” scandal revealed a scientific team had expressed dismay at the fact global warming was contrary to their predictions and admitted their inability to explain it was “a travesty”.

68) The IPCC predicts that a warmer planet will lead to more extreme weather, including drought, flooding, storms, snow, and wildfires. But over the last century, during which the IPCC claims the world experienced more rapid warming than any time in the past two millennia, the world did not experience significantly greater trends in any of these extreme weather events.

69) In explaining the average temperature standstill we are currently experiencing, the Met Office Hadley Centre ran a series of computer climate predictions and found in many of the computer runs there were decade-long standstills but none for 15 years – so it expects global warming to resume swiftly.

70) Richard Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote: “The notion of a static, unchanging climate is foreign to the history of the Earth or any other planet with a fluid envelope. Such hysteria (over global warming) simply represents the scientific illiteracy of much of the public, the susceptibility of the public to the substitution of repetition for truth.”

71) Despite the 1997 Kyoto Protocol’s status as the flagship of the fight against climate change it has been a failure.

72) The first phase of the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which ran from 2005 to 2007 was a failure. Huge over-allocation of permits to pollute led to a collapse in the price of carbon from €33 to just €0.20 per tonne meaning the system did not reduce emissions at all.

73) The EU trading scheme, to manage carbon emissions has completely failed and actually allows European businesses to duck out of making their emissions reductions at home by offsetting, which means paying for cuts to be made overseas instead.

74) To date “cap and trade” carbon markets have done almost nothing to reduce emissions.

75) In the United States , the cap-and-trade is an approach designed to control carbon emissions and will impose huge costs upon American citizens via a carbon tax on all goods and services produced in the United States. The average family of four can expect to pay an additional $1700, or £1,043, more each year. It is predicted that the United States will lose more than 2 million jobs as the result of cap-and-trade schemes.

76) Dr Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, has indicated that out of the 21 climate models tracked by the IPCC the differences in warming exhibited by those models is mostly the result of different strengths of positive cloud feedback – and that increasing CO2 is insufficient to explain global-average warming in the last 50 to 100 years.

77) Why should politicians devote our scarce resources in a globally competitive world to a false and ill-defined problem, while ignoring the real problems the entire planet faces, such as: poverty, hunger, disease or terrorism.

78) A proper analysis of ice core records from the past 650,000 years demonstrates that temperature increases have come before, and not resulted from, increases in CO2 by hundreds of years.

79) Since the cause of global warming is mostly natural, then there is in actual fact very little we can do about it. (We are still not able to control the sun).

80) A substantial number of the panel of 2,500 climate scientists on the United Nation’s International Panel on Climate Change, which created a statement on scientific unanimity on climate change and man-made global warming, were found to have serious concerns.

81) The UK’s Met Office has been forced this year to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by revelations about the data.

82) Politicians and activists push for renewable energy sources such as wind turbines under the rhetoric of climate change, but it is essentially about money – under the system of Renewable Obligations. Much of the money is paid for by consumers in electricity bills. It amounts to £1 billion a year.

83) The “Climate-gate” scandal revealed that a scientific team had tampered with their own data so as to conceal inconsistencies and errors.

84) The “Climate-gate” scandal revealed that a scientific team had campaigned for the removal of a learned journal’s editor, solely because he did not share their willingness to debase science for political purposes.

85) Ice-core data clearly show that temperatures change centuries before concentrations of atmospheric CO2 change. Thus, there appears to be little evidence for insisting that changes in concentrations of CO2 are the cause of past temperature and climate change.

86) There are no experimentally verified processes explaining how CO2 concentrations can fall in a few centuries without falling temperatures – in fact it is changing temperatures which cause changes in CO2 concentrations, which is consistent with experiments that show CO2 is the atmospheric gas most readily absorbed by water.

87) The Government’s Renewable Energy Strategy contains a massive increase in electricity generation by wind power costing around £4 billion a year over the next twenty years. The benefits will be only £4 to £5 billion overall (not per annum). So costs will outnumber benefits by a range of between eleven and seventeen times.

88) Whilst CO2 levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout history, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and the growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years.

89) It is a myth that CO2 is a pollutant, because nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere and human beings could not live in 100% nitrogen either: CO2 is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is and CO2 is essential to life.

90) Politicians and climate activists make claims to rising sea levels but certain members in the IPCC chose an area to measure in Hong Kong that is subsiding. They used the record reading of 2.3 mm per year rise of sea level.

91) The accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998.

92) If one factors in non-greenhouse influences such as El Nino events and large volcanic eruptions, lower atmosphere satellite-based temperature measurements show little, if any, global warming since 1979, a period over which atmospheric CO2 has increased by 55 ppm (17 per cent).

93) US President Barack Obama pledged to cut emissions by 2050 to equal those of 1910 when there were 92 million Americans. In 2050, there will be 420 million Americans, so Obama’s promise means that emissions per head will be approximately what they were in 1875. It simply will not happen.

94) The European Union has already agreed to cut emissions by 20 percent to 2020, compared with 1990 levels, and is willing to increase the target to 30 percent. However, these are unachievable and the EU has already massively failed with its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), as EU emissions actually rose by 0.8 percent from 2005 to 2006 and are known to be well above the Kyoto goal.

95) Australia has stated it wants to slash greenhouse emissions by up to 25 percent below 2000 levels by 2020, but the pledges were so unpopular that the country’s Senate has voted against the carbon trading Bill, and the Opposition’s Party leader has now been ousted by a climate change sceptic.

96) Canada plans to reduce emissions by 20 percent compared with 2006 levels by 2020, representing approximately a 3 percent cut from 1990 levels but it simultaneously defends its Alberta tar sands emissions and its record as one of the world’s highest per-capita emissions setters.

97) India plans to reduce the ratio of emissions to production by 20-25 percent compared with 2005 levels by 2020, but all Government officials insist that since India has to grow for its development and poverty alleviation, it has to emit, because the economy is driven by carbon.

98) The Leipzig Declaration in 1996, was signed by 110 scientists who said: “We – along with many of our fellow citizens – are apprehensive about the climate treaty conference scheduled for Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997” and “based on all the evidence available to us, we cannot subscribe to the politically inspired world view that envisages climate catastrophes and calls for hasty actions.”

99) A US Oregon Petition Project stated “We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of CO2, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”

100) A report by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change concluded “We find no support for the IPCC’s claim that climate observations during the twentieth century are either unprecedented or provide evidence of an anthropogenic effect on climate.”

It sure doesn't sound settled to me.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Gore's Deceit

A fish rots from the head down. I suggest that Al Gore is the rotten fish head. The self-anointed leader of the man made global warming movement has a reputation for playing fast and loose with the facts. More recently he simply ignores fact and is overtly deceitful. Today it is hard to imagine that Al Gore was once a pro-life senator from Tennessee. He changed his stance on abortion in order to run for vice president. That is really all you need to know about his character.

Al Gore stands to be a billionaire if the world swallows his climate change myth, so he continues to sell it in the face of recently uncovered research malfeasance. His response was to tell more lies. In the past few weeks he has been called out on at least 2 lies.

Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years. In his speech, Gore told the conference: "These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr. Maslowski that there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years."

However, the climatologist whose work Gore was relying upon disagreed. "It's unclear to me how this figure was arrived at," Dr. Maslowski said. "I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this." Gore later admitted that the 75 percent figure was one used by Dr. Maslowski as a "ballpark figure" several years ago in a conversation with Gore.

Before that, Gore was caught lying, or suffering from a case of extreme dementia while being interviewed by Conan O'Brien.


Conan: Now, what about … you talk in the book about geothermal energy …

Al: Yeah, yeah.

Conan: and that is, as I understand it, using the heat that’s generated from the core of the earth …

Al: Yeah.

Conan: … to create energy, and it sounds to me like an evil plan by Lex Luthor to defeat Superman. Can you, can you tell me, is this a viable solution, geothermal energy?

Al: It definitely is, and it’s a relatively new one. People think about geothermal energy — when they think about it at all — in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, ’cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot …

This charlatan, the inventor of the Internet, will say whatever he thinks sounds good. One day, the myth of man made global warming will be completely exposed for the fraud it is. By then, Al Gore will have swindled black and white, rich and poor, Republican and Democrat - in short all mankind on every continent, by causing the cost of living to spike on all products and services to pay for his green technologies and carbon credits. The scale of this hidden tax is incomprehensible. My hope is that Al Gore, as the primary perpetrator of the fraud is tried, convicted and given a cell mate by the name of Bernie Maddoff. His crimes are no less egregious.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Frank Bryant

I bet most of us have Googled our own name just to see what comes back. Google me and approximately 1.2 million hits are returned. I had to go 20+ pages in to find a return that was actually about me.

A quick check of howmanyofme.com finds that there are over 900,000 other people named Frank. It is the 31st most popular first name for a male. There are nearly 210,000 people I share the last name of Bryant. There are 612 people who carry the name Frank Bryant.

It stands to reason that another 600 or so dead people were also named Frank Bryant. So the approximately 1,200 Frank Bryants that have or still walk the earth generate 1.2 million Google hits, or approximately 1,000 hits per Frank Bryant. With my 150 blogs, facebook, google, blogger and other online accounts, I really expected to be closer than the 20th page of Google returns.

But I did find that there are some fairly famous Frank Bryants. Take this guy. He was some famous roller skater in the late 1800's.




Then there is a Dr. Frank Bryant at the University of Texas, and Frank Bryant the actor in St. George Utah, and Frank Bryant the football player who was recruited by the University of Missouri. That's not to mention the numerous Frank Bryants who are business owners or own a facebook page.

Two movie characters were name Frank Bryant. Michael Caine played one in the movie Educating Rita.

Efrem Zimbelist also Played Frank Bryant in a 1965 moving titled The Reward. He sort of looks related.

By now, this is probably a dead Frank Bryant.

This one too.



Saturday, December 19, 2009

Our Christmas Letter

I hope all of 2009, and especially this Christmas season have been as good to you as it has for Terri and I. As we prepare for the Christmas celebration, I would like to look back on the year and recount the activities and blessings that we have experienced.

I began the year continuing my employment with Sprint. In February, my role changed slightly and I picked up around 20 additional people. I now have 27 direct reports which make employee review time challenging. In September, I transitioned to Ericsson. The change has been a non-event. I go to the same building and cube, manage the same people and have the same responsibilities. The pay is the same and the benefits are slightly better than what I was receiving from Sprint. For my continued employment in this challenging economy, we are thankful and blessed.

Terri began the year working at the Classic Images salon. The shop was sold in late 2008 to a couple who had no prior cosmetology experience. Very quickly, Terri saw the writing on the wall and began to search for a new salon to work out of. After a brief search, she settled on working for a man she had known as a product salesman for years. Her new location is named Beauty Obsessions. The location is great and the change has been positive for her and her clients. The old shop, Classic Images, recently closed so making the move on her own terms was a blessing. For the loyal clients who follow Terri to whatever shop she works in, we are thankful and blessed.

In May Terri and I were able to sell our house in Overland Park. Since moving to Basehor in October 2007, we had used the house as a rental property. During the 18 months we managed to retain a single renter who did a good job of maintaining the house, and paid their rent (mostly on time). It was a good arrangement for us as we attempted to wait out the housing downturn. We decided early in the year that we really did not want to be landlords any longer, so we put the house on the market. After a couple low ball offers, we received one very close to our asking price. For the ability to get a fair price during a horrible housing market, we are thankful and blessed.

In June, Terri and I vacationed in Destin Florida, thanks to her sister and brother in law who own a time share there. It had been 17 years since we had visited Destin. In that time, Destin had changed from a small fishing and vacation spot, to a busy resort community. The weather cooperated and food was fantastic. We even got a few rounds of golf in before driving back home via Memphis. For these vacation opportunities with close family, we are thankful and blessed.

In July, Terri and I quietly celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary. Over these 32 years of wedded bliss, we are thankful and have been blessed by 2 terrific daughters, Lyndy and Allison, their marriage to good guys, and the birth of our 3 grandchildren. It has been a wild exciting time. I can't wait to see what the next 30 years bring.

Jimmy and Allison continue to live an uncommon newlywed life. They both work at the same HyVee grocery store, Jimmy as an assistant manager, and Allison as the cash accountability clerk. They live odd hours, usually not getting home for dinner until 2:00-3:00 AM. Earlier this year, they bought a house in Shawnee. It was a 3 bedroom, 1 bath with a nice living area upstairs and another in the basement. My brother in law Steve and I built a 4th bedroom and second bathroom in the basement for them. They now have a little separation between themselves and Joey and his nurses. It has worked out very well.

Dan and Lyndy continue to live a couple blocks away from us, which means we get a lot of grand parenting time. Dan and Lyndy own a lawn and landscape business, however Dan has returned to law enforcement. He now works as a police officer in the nearby town of Bonner Springs. Madison attends full day pre-school several days a week. Clayton is a mischievous 4 year old who spends half his time looking for trouble, the other half being an adorable boy. One year old Coleton has recently learned to walk. He has a great demeanor and is a lot of fun to watch. For these 3 grandchildren, we are thankful and blessed.

As you may know by now, in June I became a blogger. I find it satisfying to write my thoughts on current events and personal memories. Sharing them with friends and family is also fun. How long I continue the effort is not known, but it hasn't gotten old yet. I like to write about a wide range of our subjects such as a recent summer project, my Nutrisystem diet, current events in general, and what I want to be when I grow up. I get the greatest satisfaction from opining on current events, however I receive the best response when recounting memories.

In November, Lloyd, Cindy and Kelsey visited from Memphis for Thanksgiving. Our niece Heather and her husband Kelly also visited and stayed in our home for a few days. Kelly has convinced me the sun rises and falls on Kentucky basketball and I am now a true fan of the program*. The time together this holiday season provided Kelly and I an opportunity to watch a game and relish the long tradition and rich heritage of our favorite men's college basketball team, the Kentucky Wildcats. We also participated in a McGugan tradition, Carpe Deal'em, on Black Friday. If you follow the link to my niece's blog, you can also watch a video summary of the event. For such a tight family relationship, and wise and thoughtful nephew in law, we are indeed thankful and blessed.

From Terri and I, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We sincerely hope that 2010 brings you many blessings.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Christmas Memories

I think for most families, Christmas traditions become habitual routines. I know they are in my family. Over the years of Terri and my marriage, our Christmas tradition has changed a little year to year, and very slowly over the course of time. I would bet it is the same way in most families. Every year since our marriage, we have spent Christmas Eve with Terri's parents and family. The early tradition was to meet in time for midnight candlelight service at the Lutheran church. Then we would go back to her parent's home for chili, boiled shrimp and oyster stew.

As we added small children to the mix, the tradition evolved to earlier services and the oyster stew was dropped. After eating, the tradition continues with opening presents to each other, all done one at a time rotating from youngest to oldest. These traditions serve to melt the entire memory into one, making specific Christmas memories more difficult to remember. But I do have a few.

The first comes from my childhood. One Christmas morning I awoke before the rest of the family and conducted a personal inspection of the presents under the tree. One gift from Santa to me was a rather large toy cannon. It had elevation and angle adjustments and it's spring loaded firing mechanism would fire a small plastic cannon shell 20-30 feet. I know this toy was later removed from the market because it had the ability to leave a large welt or even "put an eye out". My parents awoke that Christmas morning to their son reenacting the battle of the bulge in their living room.

Many years later, Terri and I bought our oldest daughter, Lyndy, and new bicycle for Christmas from Santa. Christmas Eve night, after the tradition with Terri's parents, we returned home to get the kids in bed and bring out the Santa presents. We probably retired to bed around 2 AM. The next morning we arose, prepared coffee and waited for the inevitable awaking of excited children. Nothing. At some point, we woke Lyndy and asked if she wanted to see what Santa brought her. "No, I already did" was her response. The Wilson's had been staying with us that Christmas, and apparently Lyndy and cousin Heather had checked the Santa gifts our early in the morning and went back to bed. Like father, like daughter.

Another memorable Christmas was the eve we returned home around 1 AM Christmas morning. Almost immediately our Carbon Monoxide detector sounded. Not knowing that our detector model would sound for high levels of CO or low batteries, we called the fire department who arrived in their pumper truck and checked the home for CO. The air was fine, but the batteries were low.

Then there was the year very early in our marriage when I gave Terri a handheld rechargeable vacuum for Christmas. That was the year I learned that good intentions count for nothing. I have never gifted her with household appliances since that year, regardless of how easy they would make her housework.

One of my better presents to Terri was the year that brother in law Lloyd and I gifted identical trips to Las Vegas, complete with airline tickets, condo and shows, to our wives. At first they did not know what we were giving them, as it was all bundled in a notebook. But the present and the trip became one of the more enjoyable times we have spent together as 2 couples.

As the fond memories have transitioned from sleepy children rising on Christmas morning to sleepy grandchildren rising, much has changed but much has also stayed the same. We still gather at Terri's parents on Christmas Eve, however this year Mary will not be able to cook due to her illness. Instead, Terri and sister in law, Lisa, will prepare the traditional fare. Christmas morning will find us at our daughter's home enjoying the Christmas with the grandchildren.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Christmas Decorations

Every year, my bride decorates the house for Christmas. She doesn't do it alone, but it is done with minimal help from me. You see when it come to cluttering every flat surface of our home with decorations, I am a scrooge. I would be thrilled if all we did was pull the trash sack off of last year's 4' predecorated tree and plug it in. It would also be okay with me if that was done on December 23rd and we put the sack back on and move the tree to storage on Christmas evening. The clutteredness not only affects me. Terri is also annoyed by it. So we have already taken down our large inside tree and returned it to the basement. It was only up a couple of days.

Usually, Terri recruits our grand kids to help with the decorating. They eagerly agree, so I see my scrooginess as just another way I can make Christmas more special for them. I am a swell guy. This year we started with 5 trees, 2 on the front porch, with 1 large and 2 small ones inside. Even more annoying, we have about 5 decorations that make noise - a snowman playing the piano, a musical miniature Christmas Tree, a couple of mechanical reindeer, and a teddy bear. I may have missed a couple others. The grand kids take great pleasure in a game they play where they see how many of these devices they can keep active at once. Oh well, they are my grand kids so I will endure it.

We have never decorated the outside of our house with lights even though we both enjoy seeing what other people do to theirs. There is one decorated home in the Kansas City area we visit as often as we can. Many of you have also seen or heard about it. You can see pictures here. Each year, tens of thousands of locals make their way to this guy's home, line the street with parked cars and wander his front yard in complete amazement of his display. The city assists by turning his street into a one-way street during the season. Even so, he has always had complaints from his neighbors over the 44 year history of the display.

This year, the problems have increased. The KC Confidential web site has reported that one Iranian neighbor is complaining nightly about the traffic and the crowds. One recent night he confronted the crowds assembled in the decorated front yard demanding payment for his inconvenience. This guy makes my scroogy nature look tame, and for that I thank him. The battle has moved to City Hall, where I am sure a solution that allows the tradition to continue will be reached. If you find the time this year to visit the home at 7611 Falmouth, don't forget to look for an Iranian guy and wish him a Merry Christmas.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The Deniers of Climategate

I just watch Senator Markey's (pronounced malarkey) defense of man made global warming on FOX News Sunday. It appears the deniers of climategate will use as a defense the voluminous supporting information from other sources as proof the earth is warming. I guess they feel that enough people will support their cause if they believe there is other scientific information to support the myth of man made global warming.

Good enough. At least they have shown their cards. The defense is so easily overcome. First, the specific data referenced in the Climategate emails was foundational to their cause. It was not a single finding that led to multiple additional findings. Instead, it was the basis that was used by other researchers as they conducted their own studies - which surprisingly enough, also found that mankind was causing potentially catastrophic warming of the planet. When you disprove the foundational keystone of a theory, the entire theory collapses. To say that we have other evidence is just smoke and mirrors.

We really should not be surprised that multiple researchers came to the same conclusion. It is a typical behavior I have seen many times in the business environment. The business analogy goes like this. A CEO is briefed on a new product and gets excited. He commissions his team to initiate project A to build or sell the new product. Business case investigation begins as each department identifies how they can bring shareholder value by implementing project A. Any fact not helpful to proving in project A is ignored. In the end, a compelling volume of "facts" are presented to the CEO - most of which are false, while the rest are exaggerated.

Project A is approved to proceed. At some point in the project life cycle, somebody identifies an issue with how Project A was presented and approved. Is project A stopped? No, instead, other so called facts that led to the approval of project A are updated (manipulated) to salvage the project and continue with implementation. In the end the truth comes out when Project A does not provide the expected level of success. The project is written off as sunk cost.

The same thing is now happening within the global warming research community. The CEO (United Nations) commissioned a study that was intended to prove how man is warming the planet. Dissenting views and facts were squelched. Data that did not lead to the desired outcome was ignored or manipulated. In the end (2007) a report several inches thick was presented back to the United Nations. Not surprisingly it concluded that man made global warming was true.

Now we find that in the case of man made global warming, one foundational finding was manipulated. True to the business analogy, supporters are turning to other "facts" to make their case. With evidence of outright fraud, are we really supposed to believe the rest of the findings are valid? I won't. I believe that most won't unless global warming is a tenant of their faith within the religion of political correctness.

My belief is that over the next few months, additional research findings contained in the 2007 report to the United Nations will also be found to lack the scientific rigor expected of such a study. One by one they will fall apart as independent investigations are conducted. In the end, man made global warming will be uncovered for the hoax it is, and people will go to jail.

Unfortunately, I doubt if the primary hoaxster, Al Gore, is one of those.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Favorite College Basketball Teams

I love this sports season. College basketball, to me, is the last pure amateur sport that continues to receive significant TV air time. Just about every night of the week I can tune into a game and see amateur college students putting forth maximum effort. Their only reward is a win, and for a very few, a chance to make it a well paying career. March Madness steps up the intensity. Every shot, pass and steal takes on added meaning since one loss is the end of the dream. I have several favorite teams:

  1. Kentucky* - What a rich heritage and tradition this team brings to the court. For a change this year they also bring talent. Freshman John Wall is a pleasure to watch in his only college season before going pro. I am sometimes amazed that Kentucky's opposition doesn't study up on the history of the program and immediately concede defeat. If they did, we might see the first undefeated season by any team since 1975-76 when Indiana went 32-0.
  2. Kansas - It is unfair that Bill Self was allowed to bring back his entire starting team from last year, plus add a solid recruiting class. If freshman Xavier Henry can learn to jell with the leadership of Sherrod Collins and Cole Aldridge, this team may be the only obstacle in Kentucky's path to a national title. **
  3. Duke's next opponent - Nothing makes me smile as much as a Duke loss. To me it reaffirms that preferential referring is not enough to win every game. I believe that college basketball referees are are a subset of the larger Duke fan and alumni group.
  4. Missouri's next opponent - I really don't hate Missouri. The desire to see them lose started when Norm Stewart was the coach. Norm had the knack of taking a group of highly talented players and doing nothing with them. Rarely did they win the Big 8 title/tournament, or make it to the NCAA sweet sixteen. But they did have a knack for spoiling Kansas' season. It was as if Missouri's only goal each season was to beat Kansas. So while my desire to see them lose is now irrational, it still makes me smile. Mike Anderson will turn this team around. It will just take him another year or two.

* Assuming they are cleared in all investigations that may be opened concerning misconduct or NCAA rules violations.

** Well, there is also the NCAA

Monday, December 14, 2009

Abortion

Those that call themselves pro-choice sometimes see us pro-lifers as simple-minded. They believe we are so caught up in our dogma that we cannot process all the nuances of the abortion debate. I think that not only can we process those nuances, we already have. You see, the largest difference between a pro-choice and pro-life ideology is that pro-lifers usually have strong and defined core principals that allow us to quickly process all aspects of the abortion debate, find the key decision point, make our decision and be comfortable with our position. Pro-choice supporters must parse everything they say in order to appear consistent and looking out for women's rights. That is one reason they call the pro-life movement anti-choice or anti-abortion. The pro-life name is most accurate, but has positive vibes. Anti-anything has a negative connotation, so they use it instead.

In any abortion debate, I tune out the noise. The key fact in my mind is that abortion kills a child. If anyone were to change my mind, they would need to make me believe this is not true. The arguments used by the pro-choice crowd are usually one of the following:


  • It is not killing, since it is an unviable fetus. I am not swayed by viability arguments. Viability is a very slippery slope. If you believe it is okay to abort a fetus because it is not viable, then you might also believe you can kill those who rely on some type of life support. Respirators and feeding tubes are used to sustain the otherwise unviable. An argument that these are just a temporary bridge to viability doesn't work either. The womb is also temporary.
  • Right to choose - The freedom of choice argument does not sway me either. I support choice. I just prioritize the life of a child higher than a parent's right to choose to kill it.
  • Rape, incest, or the life of the mother - I also do not get engaged in debating all scenarios. Over 95% of abortions are for convenience. The manager in me would rather debate the most significant reason for abortion before turning to the reasons that occur less often. If we all agreed that abortion for convenience was wrong, I am sure we could find common ground on the rest. Until then, it's a legal procedure so the mother makes the decision.
  • Men cannot comment - I understand that men cannot understand how unplanned pregnancy feels to a woman. But saying that men cannot comment is like saying men cannot take a position on rape, or that you cannot have an opinion on car-jacking unless you have been car jacked. Men have consciences too. We can weigh in on abortion.
Pro-lifers can stand strong in their belief that abortion kills a child. Any argument from the pro-choice position is always based on lesser considerations. The words they use is also an indication on what a thin rail they stand. Take Barbara Boxer's recent statement during the health care debate. Speaking about an amendment that would restrict government funding of abortion, she said it discriminated against women and went so far as comparing men getting a prescription for Viagra to a woman getting an abortion. I think she is smart enough to see a difference between pills and abortion, but in order to make her argument she must equivocate. It is shameless.

She then asked why the Senate could even consider restricting access to a legal procedure that only applies to females. If the subject was hysterectomies, I am with her. But this is a debate about abortion. If you truly believe abortion takes a life, her argument becomes deceptively specious. Any argument that must rely on deception, parsing of words, and attacking the motives of their opponents is not a well founded position. This is the ground pro-choice supporters own.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

I Like to Watch - Pawn Stars

My youngest daughter turned me on to a new show on the History Channel. Pawn Stars is a reality show about the pawn business. It is shot in a large pawn shop located near the Las Vegas strip. The pawn shop owner, Rick is the main character. His son "Big Hoss", his father "The Old Man", and a doofus named"Chumlee" round out the cast members. As the owner says in the shows opening, "You never know what is going to come through that door next".

I see the show as analogous to Antiques Roadshow for white trash. The items brought in for sale or pawn range from an airplane, a race car, a propeller owned by Charles Lindbergh, a Coke machine, an ejection seat from a 1950's aircraft, a 1750's musketoon, to a mechanical bucking bronco. Once the item is brought in, Rick the owner assesses the item for value. If needed, he brings in experts for an assessment and valuation. Sometimes the item must be tested to ensure it works. Firearms are a good example. Chumlee is used for this as safety of the weapon is uncertain. Once the item is deemed to be legitimate and a value is place on it, the negotiation begins.

The seller always wants the valuation amount, and Rick always counters with a low ball offer. Most of the time, they agree on a price somewhere in the middle, but closer to Rick's low ball offer than the valuation price. Many times the item must then be restored before Rick can sell it. A 1965 Shelby Cobra was restored in a recent episode. It came into he pawn shop as a chassis and body. Rick paid $30k for it after verifying the authenticity, then put another $80k in it for a full restoration. Final value was around $160k.

I have enjoyed each episode I have watched. It is a great combination of seeing old rare "things", like in the Antiques Roadshow program, however I always questioned their valuation of rare items. Their value was always an estimate with no one ready to actually pay that amount. Pawn Stars take the transaction to the next seedy steps with a negotiation and sale. Check it out. Two half hour episodes are on Monday evenings at 8:00 PM.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Copenhagen Update

For those of you who are not following the news coming out of the Copenhagen Climate Summit, an alternative to the Carbon Credit plan was proposed yesterday. The new plan was developed in hopes of reducing public outcry over rising energy prices. The new plan is based on the generally accepted and peer reviewed conclusion that each time a cow farts in Argentina, a penguin or a polar bear in Antarctic dies.

In the new proposal, it was acknowledged that cow flatulence is not the only cause of global warming. Human farts also contribute, however it was conceded that average human fart volume is somewhat less than cow fart volume. This finding was careful to exclude Taco Bell customers so not to skew final results. Even though fart volume is lower in humans, fart frequency was found to be far more controllable than with cows. This conclusion was reached after reviewing findings from the 2 year, $30 billion dollar study where a group of cows were reminded daily to curtail their flatulence. This invaluable study found that controlling cow farts was not a realistic and that fart control techniques would be more effective if expanded to other mammals.

The new global warming remediation proposal has shifted to humans. Humans tend to understand language better than cows which improves overall feasibility of the greenhouse gas reduction plan. The basis of the new plan mimics Al Gore's Carbon Credit Model. Each person is allowed to fart twice each day (as per Kyoto Protocol). Two farts per day was found to be a reasonable reduction in the average methane fartprint for most individuals. Just as in the Carbon Credit plan, those who fart only once would be allowed to sell that "fart credit" to someone who fart three times each day.

Governance of the plan was also discussed with the following recommendations:

  • The United Nations would monitor global fartload to ensure it does not exceed 12,000,000,000 farts per day
  • Each participating member country would assign monitoring and reporting duty of their country's fartload to a Fart Czar
  • The Fart Czar has the power to broker additional fart credits to their citizenry not to exceed 10% of total fartload
  • Each Fart Csar is empowered to create policies that encourage new fart monitoring or fart prevention technologies, such as personal fart monitors, fart credit markets, fart credit pooling and personal fart plugs
  • The Fart Csar may determine that children under 6 and retirees over 65 are exempt from methane fartprint monitoring since many cannot control their gaseous secretions
  • The Fart Csar working with the country's agricultural leadership may use proceeds from fart credit sales to subsidize bean farmers who will be decimated by this methane reduction plan
Initial reaction by the countries represented at the Copenhagen talks was mostly positive. Mexico was a notable exception claiming the rules unfairly penalized their citizens due to the high levels of fiber in their traditional diet.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

It's Just Weather

One glance at the blog title and you are probably sure this will be another man made global warming rant. Wrong! This rant is about the local Kansas City media, and how they react to a forecasted storm. I cannot believe the media reaction is the same in other towns, but maybe it is.
As I write this blog, it is noon on Monday. For several days the local meteorologists have been calling for 2 storms to hit the KC area. The first was due yesterday, with a forecast snowfall amount of 1-2 inches. We were advised to be careful on the roads both last night as the snow was falling, and this morning as the left over residue (also known as water) refroze. We had heavy flurries for an hour or two last night. It never stuck to the streets, nor the grassy areas. There were no slick spots this morning.

Storm number 2 is due to hit late tonight, and be with us through the day tomorrow (Tuesday). The forecasters has been consistent in calling storm #2 much larger. It really could not be smaller than storm #1 or nobody would even notice it. Storm #2 snow fall predictions range from 6 to 12 inches. Most forecasters are adding the caveat that even a small change in the expected track could put Kansas City into the higher amount, or we could be complete missed. I am suspicious.

Last night on the 10 PM news local reporters were live from the public works locations interviewing authorities on their preparedness to handle the storm. There will be more of the same tonight. Those same reporters will stand outside their local news studios tomorrow to report on whether snow is falling. It is the winter version of what also happens in the spring time.

Whenever a line of spring storms approach Kansas City, reporters scramble for the best vantage points for viewing the coming rain. Some stations even re-task traffic helicopters for live shots of the storms from every angle as they move into town. The local "Chief" meteorologist then commandeers his stations air time for the evening as he repeats local reports from weather spotters or public safety related to the storm. He does so standing in front of the local radar loop. Sometimes, an off-duty reporter will call in from their home for first person reporting on the storm.

Come on folks, it's just weather! There is nothing on earth that is older than weather. Why they believe that a snow or thunder storm deserves "National Emergency" attention is beyond my ability to rationalize. Not to mention they usually preempt my favorite TV shows, only to replay them at 2 AM the next Saturday morning.

It is just too inconvenient. To top it off, local meteorologists are nearly always wrong on their forecasts. Typically the local weather men over estimate the storm's impact and duration. So all those live spots televised beside a large pile of sand, all the chicken little screeching, and after all the embellishing and exaggerating of the next "big" storm , it turns out to be a non-event. So what do these TV weathermen and women do then? They look to the long range forecast and immediately start talking about the next chance for rain or snow, and whether that system has the potential to become severe.

In my opinion, the coverage of local weather events has gone too far. I can always look out the window to see if it is raining. The weather radar on my computer and phone give me all the advanced warning I need of weather events. I really want to see the new episode of Intervention tonight at 9PM as planned, and not an hour of in depth analysis of the impending storm. (I am safe since Intervention is on A&E)

But for now, my lunch break is over so I must bring the blog to a close. I also need a few minutes to check the National Weather Service and a couple of weather sites to see if tomorrow's storm is holding together. They may even have updated the snowfall projections!

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Update Tuesday at 12:47: The forecast was that we would get 2" of snow overnight causing difficult traffic conditions, and the snow would continue through out the day, heavy at times. The reality is we received a dusting on the north side of the city, nothing anywhere else, and it is now raining. The Winter Storm Warning continues until 6AM tomorrow. The talking heads are still out on street corners giving first hand accounts of the weather.
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Update Wednesday at noon: It rained until around 6PM last night, then snowed for a few hours. We did get 2-3 inches of snow, but nothing as large as forecast. I guess the storm missed us by just 50 miles or so. Just north of town has a foot of snow, temperatures in the single digits and winds in excess of 40 mph. Sounds like a lovely day. Here in KC, it's just cold. Thee is another potential snow storm coming in over the weekend. I am sure the local news stations will start hyping that storm tonight at 5, 6 and 10 o'clock.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Obama's Approval Rating

On two occasions I have blogged about Obama's falling approval rating. On June 30th, I wrote that his approval had fallen from a high of 65%, to 59%. while his disapproval rating had grown from a low of less than 20% to 34%. Then on August 3rd, I wrote that his approval had fallen to 54% and disapproval has risen 40%. My prediction was that at the current rate, his disapproval rating would exceed his approval rating as soon as October, but definitely before year end. So what has happened since then?

My source is RealClearPolitics.com, who track an average of all polls. They now show Obama ratings at 48% approve, 45% disapprove. While the predicted cross over has not yet occurred in the average poll, the Rasmussen poll shows his disapproval rating higher than his approval while the FOX News poll shows an even split at 46%. This next month may see a swing large enough to create the cross over in public perception of Obama's job performance. Three critical issues are coming to a head that will split his supporters. Barrack stands little chance of maintaining his majority approval rating into 2010.

  • Afghanistan - Obama has now taken ownership of the war in Afghanistan, and a weak ownership it is. Call it surgette-lite. What is most surprising, is that Barrack has timidly adopted the same plan for which he criticized George Bush. The strategy will not play well to his base who wanted both wars to be ended as Obama promised during the campaign. Instead, Obama has attempted to appease his base by defining an end date. Maybe Barrack is using some Orwellian advice. George Orwell once said that the fastest way to end a war is to lose it.
  • National Health Care - This is the centerpiece of Obama's administration. The abomination that was passed by the House of Representatives will followed by an equally flawed but different Senate version. A government option will survive as will the funding restriction on abortion. Both of these items will split his liberal support. End the end, most conservatives and independents, and a large percentage of liberals will not be happy with the federal health care legislation.
  • Cap and Trade - Climategate has assured that Obama's cannot win with his stance on America's leadership role in fighting the global warming. But Obama cannot retreat from it. He needs the extra revenue Cap and Trade will bring into the government coffers to pay for a portion of his reckless deficient spending. Climategate will make a bad federal deficit even worse.

Since assuming office, Obama's approval rating has sunk 17% while his disapproval ratings have risen by 25%. At some poin during December 2009 his job performance disapprovals will become higher than his approvals.

I really do not believe that approval ratings are the best measure of a President's performance. I do believe they are the "proof of a mandate" every President needs to push his programs through a spineless Congress. The impending approval/disapproval cross over will essentially neuter Obama and end his socialist agenda. For that, we can all be thankful.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

I Say MERRY CHRISTMAS

Did you know that 78.4% of Americans identify themselves as Christian, yet each year we are asked to substitute the word Holiday for Christmas. It has become PC to celebrate the Holiday Season. Holiday Parties have replaced Christmas Parties in the workplace, and we show our tolerance by wishing each other Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. Why?

Only 22.6% of Americans identify themselves as non-Christians. A majority of this group love to celebrate Christmas if only the for the commercial and not the true reason. Is our behavior because we are afraid of offending other religions? If so, we are surrendering our religious celebration for a small percentage of a small percentage. Less than 2% of Americans identify themselves as Jewish. The Jews I have known are not offended when wished Merry Christmas. They can do their own real time translation from Merry Christmas to Happy Hanukkah.

If not the Jews, are we trying not to offend the Buddhists? They represent less than 1% of the population. Surely we are not trying to protect the sensitive ears of Muslims. They represent only .6% of the population. Not to mention the fact their scripture teaches them to be intolerant of other religions (at best), and to kill the infidels (at worst). I could really care less if a Muslim is offended by a Christmas greeting or party.

So if you reasonably assume that 90% of non-Christians are not offended by the word Christmas, then our PC behavior is intended to console at most, 2.5% of the population. Is this a case of the minuscule minority dictating the behavior of the vast majority? And what would be the harm in wishing a member of this minuscule minority a Merry Christmas? If it is so offensive to them, could they show a modicum of tolerance?

In reality, the people who go to the ACLU to remove Christmas from the season are another small percentage of the minuscule minority. Yet they beg the attention of the media and get their way many times. Who are the intolerant ones?

At the campus I work, the lobby of each building is decorated this time of year with a Christmas Tree, a Menorah, and a Kinara. Listen close and you can hear me scratch my head. The Kinara is a symbol of Kwanzaa. Kwanzaa is not a religion, nor is it political or a Christmas substitute. It is simply an African American cultural celebration. So why is the Kinara place beside the Menorah and Christmas tree? This is like a child's riddle - which one doesn't belong with the others? I would assume that at least 78.4% of African Americans would also celebrate Christmas, so why would Kwanzaa get equal attention? Answer: Too many people with too much time on their hands are being irrationally PC.

I will continue to wish my friends, family and whomever I cross paths with a very Merry Christmas. You can have a happy holiday if you choose, but I wish you a Merry Christmas.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Carpe Dealem (Seize the Deal)

This past Black Friday, I and my niece Heather, her husband Kelly, my brother and sister in law Lloyd and Cindy, Lyndy and Terri participated in a Kelly McGugan family tradition. We seized the deal - carpe dealem. The object of the adventure is to strategically attack various stores on Black Friday morning in order to obtain more than our share of door-buster deals on Christmas gifts. It starts on Thanksgiving day by studiously reviewing all Black Friday circulars in the daily paper. Each participant notes the store, opening time and deal they are interested in. These facts are then used to plan out the routes and timing of the shopping "commando raid".

Many of you might think this does not sound like Frank, and you are right. My main objective on all prior Black Fridays was to avoid all malls, department stores and other merchants at any costs. When I lived close to Oak Park Mall I wouldn't leave the house on Black Friday. But this year was different. With Kelly and Heather in town for the holiday, I offered Kelly a way to continue his family tradition here in Kansas City with a group of carpe dealem rookies. To my amazement, he accepted the challenge.

On Friday, November 27th at 3:45 AM we began our big adventure. Kelly, Lloyd, Heather and I set out in the first vehicle, while Cindy, Terri and Lyndy followed up a few minutes later in a second. We began our commercial assault at the local Super Walmart where a few deals were collected. From there we proceeded to the Legends shopping center, Target, Best Buy, Kohls, and Lowes, while the second vehicle started at Sears, and then hit Pennys, Target, Home Depot, Jo Anns, and a few other stores I have forgotten.

The crowds were dense and the lines were long, but in the end we emerged victorious. Personally, Terri and I saved over $1,000 over retail price on our purchases. Most of the savings came from purchase of an elliptical trainer ($400 off), a compressor with 2 nail guns ($200 off), 16 serving flatware set ($105 off) and a GPS ($100 off). The other participants also experienced deals of at least 50% off retail price.

By 8:00 AM, group 1 had purchased everything on their list. Group 2 completed their assignments by 9:00. We spent the rest of the day watching football and napping.

The consensus of the rookies that participated was that we found the experience interesting, but are not eager to do it again next year. We will see if a year passing reinvigorates the desire, or stiffens the resolve to sleep in. Either way, carpe dealem can be summarized as all "for the glory of the deal". My niece Heather writes a blog and along with her version of the events, she has included a video summary complete with interviews from the participants.