I have been dousing this blog with a lot of heavy political fluid lately, so I thought it was time for something a little lighter. This is a video on a David Attenborough episode on the Lyre bird. At the beginning you hear regular bird calls, but 1:55  in it gets pretty amazing….

Tweet This Post

I can keep updating, if they can continue to embarrass themselves: NEW UPDATE- APRIL 15, 2010

LATEST UPDATE 03/29/10: UN Climate Chair Apologizes

UPDATE MARCH 2nd 2010: And the good time just keep rolling. Professor Jones admits to writing “awful emails” and that he didn’t share data or climate change models, but that he didn’t obstruct the peer review process. What??? The Institute of Physics disagrees. ‘Unless the disclosed emails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research and for the credibility of the scientific method.

‘The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital.”

The scandal keeps on going: Professor Phil Jones, the scientist at the center of the Anglian climategate, admits data missing/flawed….02/15/10

Newest Update to climate scam/scandal 02/05/10 and here

this just in: Climate scientist at center of scandal steps aside……

UPDATE: Major climate center hacked and damaging emails showing fraudulent gerrymandering of climate findings.

Alchemy of the Dark Ages was a pseudo science that sought to control and coerce nature’s most precious secrets. It is  most famously known for it’s search for turning lead into gold and it’s search for eternal life. In future generations are today’s climatologist going to be known as serious scientists intent only on fact and truth or are they going to be known as alchemists who sought political and financial benefits?

Over the Epochs the earth has warmed and cooled several times, cycling between ice ages and warming periods. That is fact. Every scientist must acknowledge this. The swing in these periods has been explained as anything from a reversal of the earth’s magnetic poles to a shut down of the gulf stream “conveyor belt” to releases of ice sheet methane and deep sea frozen methane deposits. These very diverse and unrelated theories are overshadowed by the science “fact” that climatologists put forth that man is the single greatest threat to the earth and industrialization since the 1800’s has caused global warming through atmospheric increases of carbon dioxide.

Let’s look at some more facts. How accurate are the current climatological models? Not very, if you consider that they couldn’t predict the current cooling period or explain the cooling periods of the 1970’s or 1850’s. Or that, in my opinion and that of a growing number of scientists, of the little understood role of the Sun and solar activity which has been ignored by climatologists and their climate models. Gerald Traufetter of Der Speigel recently wrote of the troubling aspects of the recent cooling period of the past decade that has confounded and caused consternation among man made global warming proponents and has sent them scrambling for explanations. If global warming  caused by carbon dioxide releases are on a continual steady increase, then logic would dictate a continual and steady increase in global temperatures.

Part of the problem as I see it is the myopic and egocentric view humans have and refusing to see things over a larger period than the one they currently occupy. When we conveniently disregard past global warming and cooling periods that presage the industrial period it calls into question all current findings and so called facts. I love it when a global warming expert makes this statement “these are the warmest temperatures the earth has seen in over 1,000 years”, without ever addressing the elephant in the room “what was going on 1,000 years ago that made it so warm then?”

If you have lived over the past 46 years I have, you have seen causes come and go. Global Cooling, Stop Nuclear Energy, Save the Whales, Save the Rain Forest, Save the Ozone Layer, and so on until we now arrived at the current crisis, Global Warming. Some of the causes were real and got much deserved attention and real crisis’ were averted and some were just down right silly. Is it good to conserve energy? Yes. Is it good to explore alternate ways to decrease dependence on fossil fuels? Absolutely. What I object to is the chicken little and not very scientific ways we allow ourselves to be influenced into action.

I have to wonder, with all the grant money into climate research, billions of dollars that are at stake and political pressure being expended to convince us man made global warming is real, what are today’s climate scientist going to be known for? I am betting future generations will write it off much as we do alchemy today. Funny, archaic, and ultimately doomed to ridicule.

Tweet This Post

I hope I am just being overly cynical. Truly I do. I would hate to think that anyone in a position of power would politicize health issues for personal gain. But I cannot shake the feeling that is exactly what is currently happening. Oh, I am not so naive to think that it doesn’t go on all the time. Prescription drug lobbyist that are keeping drugs from crossing the border. Insurance companies that withhold treatment or payments for treatment. Doctors who order unnecessary procedures and tests or gaming Medicare. I get it.

What I am talking about is the system gaming the populace. The government by and for the people being used to hammer home a health care bill that won’t pass if the costs are too high.

The Houston Chronicle is reporting on the new mammography guidelines issued by U.S. Preventative Task Force today. According to Dr. Diane Petitti, vice chair of the task force, the change in the guidelines will “represent a better way of maintaining the benefit of screening while reducing the harm..” What are the new guidelines you are asking?”  And what harm?? They recommend that women now wait until they are 50 years old before they have a breast exam. The standard for the past forty years has recommended that women start breast exams at the age 40. The reasons for the change given are nominally because the potential for false negatives are somehow greater for women in their 40’s and the potential for harmful unnecessary treatments given to women who don’t need them.

Sorry, not buying it. According to Dr. Kent Osborne, director of Baylor’s Cancer Center and Breast Center, breast cancer in women in their 40’s tends to be more aggressive so early identification is imperative to treatment. Also, logic dictates that even if a false negative is recorded, that is only the first step. Treatment is not begun until positive I.D. of cancer is found through biopsy and the correct course of treatment is assigned. Mammograms are simply an early warning system and the benefits outweigh any  stress or fears caused by a false positive which can be cleared up with an in office procedure.

So, I say again, not buying it. At the risk of sounding paranoid, I ask why? Why now? I pray I am wrong, but the only answer I can come up with is that the powers that be that are crunching the health care bill numbers and trying to get the public to take it’s medicine are taking preemptive measures to bring down the cost of health care by reducing the amount of preventative exams. The only way to know for certain is to continue to watch as this unfolds, and see who blinks first. If you see other pronouncements come from on high regarding prostate and other such exams, we may have entered a Brave New World where the individual matters less than the group.

Tweet This Post

At least that is what the oft confused Palm Beach County attendees claimed at a recent Al Gore presentation on global warming. You remember the Palm Beach FL voters right? They are the ones who, after 40 to 60 some odd years of voting, claimed they couldn’t understand that they were voting for Pat Buchanan instead of Gore in the 2000 Presidential election that Bush “stole”.

Palm Beach Post article

“Confused Palm Beach County voters helped thwart Al Gore’s 2000 bid to become president of the United States, but he was introduced as “president of the planet” when he returned here Saturday night to deliver an environmental lecture.”

It seems they just can’t get it right down there in God’s waiting room.

Not all were impressed by His Highness though, over 200 protesters showed up as well.

“Cap & Tax — Don’t Be Fooled: Al Gore Will Make billions,” read a sign carried by Alan Tudor, who drove from Tampa to attend Saturday’s protest.

“Gore’s Favorite Green Product? Your money in his pocket,” said another sign.

I love the fact that the tickets sold for between $44.00 and $339.00 went to a charity that Gore chairs. Would really like to see the books opened on that one.

I predict that at some point in the next decade, Gore will be doing the Madoff walk.

Tweet This Post

According to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, he has one

In a story gleaned from the Politico website, on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009, Perry declared that “this is an administration hell-bent toward taking American towards a socialist country. And we all don’t need to be afraid to say that because that’s what it is.”
He also went on to claim that the Obama administration was “punishing this state”, for what he never says, by using something called “the alien transfer and exit program” to flood Texas with illegal aliens picked up in other states. Let us set aside if any of this is true, as no proof was offered other than hearsay by the Governor himself, and the fact that those of us in Texas are familiar with the Governor and his penchant for hyperbole. What interests me is the why. Why this inflammatory rhetoric and why now?
Rick Perry, who is currently the longest sitting Governor of Texas, is ostensibly making a run for an unprecedented 3 rd consecutive four year term in office, and he faces his first real test in years in Republican challenger Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson. But is that all there is to this? If it is, then why is he attacking Obama and not Hutchinson? You could argue that he is painting her as a do nothing Senator that has been weak in the face of the Obama political whirlwind. Maybe. But he didn’t even remotely connect her with that here. It may be part of a larger strategy that will reveal itself further down the road, but I doubt it. Rick Perry has never missed the opportunity to use the homespun, Texas twang hammer when a more subtle and nuanced approach would do. I don’t believe he is simply playing the part of the dutiful Republican party stooge either.

My guess as to what he is playing at here is nothing short of setting his sights on the presidency itself. He needs to be in office in Texas when he makes that run, and another four year term would just fit the bill. I would offer him a word of caution that University of Texas football coach Mack Brown preaches to his players on any given Sunday; don’t overlook your next opponent.

Find more videos like this on Mywesttexas Chatter

Tweet This Post

This is the one day out of the year we Americans have chosen to honor our veterans. Veterans Day took its modern form officially on November 11th 1938. But it’s beginnings were rooted years before when it was called Armistice Day, the end of WWI, also known as the  War to end all Wars.  Ironically two nights before it was officially recognized by the Federal Government, on November 9th, 1938,  Kristallnacht heralded the ominous beginnings of a world not at peace but one  in turmoil. The Great war, the war to end all wars, was unfortunately, not. The following year, Poland would be invaded by Hitler’s Germany,  signaling the beginning of WWII,  which in turn would eventually release the specter of nuclear war upon the world.

At each and every juncture, there have been men and women who have stepped into the breach and defended the liberty that we all take for granted everyday. They fight and die, so that we don’t have to. And we offer them little to no thanks. We short change them on health care, on protection by our government, on materials and even a lack of focus by our leaders in their current wars. Yet they go on, doing their duty, serving their country.

We give them one day, so as you go out today, try to do at least one thing to thank a vet.

P.S. Here are the combined James E. Taylor and Seven Lakes High School Bands performing a tribute to the American soldier playing “America The Beautiful”.

PART 2: SLHS Band and JET Band\’s Joint Halftime Performance 11-6-09

Tweet This Post

On April 7th, 2009 Homeland Security Secretary Janet Nopolitano released a report entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment”. The report was met with much deserved incredulousness and disbelief from conservatives while liberals  hailed the report as proof that due to  ” Bush’s War” , American soldiers  were in danger of becoming just as radicalized as their Muslim counterparts. The problem was the DHS had no proof, only speculation. The report itself concedes that “(U) Key Findings (U//LES) The DHS/Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) has no specific information that domestic right wing* terrorists are currently planning acts of violence…” It  cynically speculates that right wing extremists were poised to court homecoming soldiers for memberships into their homegrown terror organizations ala Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh. After a firestorm of criticism, Nopolitano gave a stumbling apology and dismissed accusations that the report was politically motivated, while at the same time defending it’s assessments.

Since that report we have had numerous cases of homegrown islamic extremism paraded on the nightly news which culminated this past week with the shootings at Fort Hood by Major Nidal Hasan. According to Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff, the FBI failed to investigate Maj. Hasan, even after it had been revealed that he was in contact with radical cleric Anwar al-Awalki, after they concluded that such communication fell under the auspices of “Free Speech” (Newsweek). WHAT??? Are you kidding me? If anyone screamed ‘radicalized soldier” Hasan is their man. If you wanted to create a test profile, to issue to field agents in order to give them an idea what to look for when looking for a radicalized soldier, this would be it. Yet, at the exact same time that Major Nidal Hasan was communicating with radical islamic clerics overseas, was proselytizing to his patients and trying to reach out to Al Qaeda, the DHS and FBI were more concerned with phantom radicalized right wing soldiers which have yet to materialize.

They had it right, there were, and I think it safe to say, still are radicalized soldiers, only they were looking in the wrong direction.

UPDATE:  It looks as if I am not the only one who thinks this may be the tip of the iceberg. Pentagon May Probe Fort Hood Massacre.

“The Army’s No. 2 officer bluntly said Tuesday that officials fear more people like Hasan may be undetected inside the armed forces.

“I think we always have to be concerned about that,” Army Vice-Chief of Staff Peter Chiarelli said…”

Tweet This Post