January 26, 2007 by mr_flood.

I don’t know how he does it, but he does it regularly:

a haiku that, for no reason whatsoever, imagines Winston Churchill as a refreshingly pragmatic elderly Jewish woman with a sluggish colon

“It’s not enough that
we do our best; sometimes we
have to drink prune juice.”

Brevity is the essence of wit.

Posted in Current Events | 1 Comment »

January 25, 2007 by mr_flood.

The evidence just keeps coming:

There’s a dimmer switch inside the sun that causes its brightness to rise and fall on timescales of around 100,000 years – exactly the same period as between ice ages on Earth. So says a physicist who has created a computer model of our star’s core.

Robert Ehrlich of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, modelled the effect of temperature fluctuations in the sun’s interior. According to the standard view, the temperature of the sun’s core is held constant by the opposing pressures of gravity and nuclear fusion. However, Ehrlich believed that slight variations should be possible.

He took as his starting point the work of Attila Grandpierre of the Konkoly Observatory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 2005, Grandpierre and a collaborator, Gábor Ágoston, calculated that magnetic fields in the sun’s core could produce small instabilities in the solar plasma. These instabilities would induce localised oscillations in temperature.

Ehrlich’s model shows that whilst most of these oscillations cancel each other out, some reinforce one another and become long-lived temperature variations. The favoured frequencies allow the sun’s core temperature to oscillate around its average temperature of 13.6 million kelvin in cycles lasting either 100,000 or 41,000 years. Ehrlich says that random interactions within the sun’s magnetic field could flip the fluctuations from one cycle length to the other.

These two timescales are instantly recognisable to anyone familiar with Earth’s ice ages: for the past million years, ice ages have occurred roughly every 100,000 years. Before that, they occurred roughly every 41,000 years.

Most scientists believe that the ice ages are the result of subtle changes in Earth’s orbit, known as the Milankovitch cycles. One such cycle describes the way Earth’s orbit gradually changes shape from a circle to a slight ellipse and back again roughly every 100,000 years. The theory says this alters the amount of solar radiation that Earth receives, triggering the ice ages. However, a persistent problem with this theory has been its inability to explain why the ice ages changed frequency a million years ago.

Via Junk Science

Posted in Climate | 1 Comment »

January 25, 2007 by mr_flood.

Arnold Kling from the Cato Institute gives us the lowdown on the new plan.

Since the President’s plan was leaked, I have seen three complaints from the left.

1. The tax break benefits the rich more than the poor.
2. The tax break encourages people to leave employer-provided health plans and instead get health insurance on their own.
3. The proposals encourage catastrophic health insurance rather than insulation.

If this is what the plan aims for then I’m all for it. I’ve long believed that insulating people from having to pay directly for their insurance does nothing but drive up costs and eliminate market forces from having any impact on the system. And that’s what employer provided health care does.

Via Instapundit

Posted in Current Events | 1 Comment »

January 24, 2007 by mr_flood.

WCR reports on an article written in the Journal of Climate about reconstructing European temperature via analysis of tree ring data. Excerpt:

Büntgen et al. write “The reconstruction indicates positive temperatures in the tenth and thirteenth century that resemble twentieth-century conditions, and are separated by a prolonged cooling from ~1350 to 1700.” Further, they note “Maximum temperature amplitude over the past 1250 yr is estimated to be 3.1°C between the warmest (1940s) and coldest (1810s) decades.” Also, the team writes “Warm summers seem to coincide with periods of high solar activity, and cold summers vice versa.”

Their reconstruction coincides with the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. Of course this is just more evidence that it’s the Sun we need to watch out for and not our gas tanks. Real fear should come when one considers the consequences of the Sun deciding to ratchet back it’s activity. We have more to fear from cooling than warming.

Posted in Climate | 1 Comment »

January 23, 2007 by mr_flood.

Check out Goldstein for a great hypothetical on how long a leash we should give the Maliki government. His article touches on something I’ve often thought about: what societies are and what are the fundamentals of their existance? Webster describes a society as

2 : a voluntary association of individuals for common ends; especially : an organized group working together or periodically meeting because of common interests, beliefs, or profession.

Individuals for common ends. What happens when a geographical location, what may be a nation, contains two distinct groups of individuals with opposing interests? Can you still call it a society? Can you call Iraq a society?

The Thirteen Colonies, in the beginning, were a society of Brits. As time passed a group of individuals decided that they disliked being British and decided to form a new society, an American one. Remember though, it wasn’t all of them that decided this, just the more passionate, the one’s willing to take up arms. Was it wrong for these impassioned rebels to force their will upon those who would chose to stay British? Was it wrong to force them to conform or leave? To force them to live by new laws that they didn’t necessarily agree with? To quash their voices? To label them traitors? I don’t think so.

I don’t think it would be wrong for the advocates of democracy to completely and utterly quash the voices of those who oppose them. To declare even the slightest affront to the current government as treason. To say to them ‘We wish to form the bonds of a new society, if you don’t like it, leave or die’. To make a bill of rights that only applies to those who wish to be members of the new way and to strip away the rights of those who stand against it. Are you evil or have you lost your way if you choose to protect your people, your society, without regard for the rights of your enemies? I don’t think so.

Isn’t it a bit insane that we condone the killing of those that fire lead bullets at government forces but consider those who fire liturgical bullets to be untouchable?

Posted in Philosophical Musings | 1 Comment »

January 22, 2007 by mr_flood.

Over at Kos we read this tantalizing headline:

Chinese Anti-Satellite Blast Product of U.S. Star Wars Policy

The proof of such a statement? Well, according to Mr. Meteor Blades it is this:

However, if U.S. space policy is specifically designed with the intention to deny freedom of action to adversaries, then other countries are going to want the same. And if the U.S. isn’t willing to sign treaties attempting to hinder aggressive use of space, then what cautious world leader would not conclude aggressive intent on the part of the U.S.?

You see, China and other nations really have no interest in developing space weapons, they’re only doing it because they see us as being aggressive. You could substitute ‘U.S.’ with the name of any nation and it would be just as valid, which invalidates the the whole thesis.

Darn it, if we would just act all peaceful and stuff so would everybody else!

Posted in Current Events | 1 Comment »

January 19, 2007 by mr_flood.

Via Instapundit:

On Dec. 5, Newsweek magazine touted an interview with then-incoming House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes as an “exclusive.” And for good reason.

“In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq,” the story began, Mr. Reyes “said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a ’stepped up effort to dismantle the militias.’ ”

“We have to consider the need for additional troops to be in Iraq, to take out the militias and stabilize Iraq,” the Texas Democrat said to the surprise of many, “I would say 20,000 to 30,000.”

Then came President Bush’s expected announcement last week, virtually matching Mr. Reyes’ recommendation and argument word-for-word — albeit the president proposed only 21,500 troops.

Wouldn’t you know, hours after Mr. Bush announced his proposal, Mr. Reyes told the El Paso Times that such a troop buildup was unthinkable.

Go figure. Maybe it had something to do with that Sunni/Shiite confusion thing.

So it goes with our modern day politicians, partisan to the core. They have no interest in serving the people of this nation. They are only interested in getting reelected and blind partisanship. This one just happens to have a few more bricks short of a load than the rest of them.

Posted in Current Events | 1 Comment »

January 18, 2007 by mr_flood.

Harry Reid (D) has introduced a bill that would…

registration of bloggers with more than 500 readers, and who comment on policy issues.

Via Arms and the Law some relevant portions of the proposed law…

FILING BY GRASSROOTS LOBBYING FIRMS- Not later than 45 days after a grassroots lobbying firm first is retained by a client to engage in paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying, such grassroots lobbying firm shall register with the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Representatives.’.

Translation: registration of a thing is always the precursor to regulation of that thing.

The list of democrat allies decrying the Bush admin’s supposed intrusion into the private lives of Americans is legion. Will the list be just as long decrying this intrusion? Of course not.

Fascism:

2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

Via The Corner

Posted in Fascism Watch | 1 Comment »

January 18, 2007 by mr_flood.

From the Washington Post:

The Senate Finance Committee is considering a proposal to sharply limit the earnings corporate executives and other highly paid employees can place tax-free into deferred compensation plans, one of the most popular executive benefits in corporate America.

Translation: there’s a whole lotta money changing hands out there that we don’t have our grubby little hands in - let’s make a law.

Fascism:

2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

Posted in Fascism Watch | 1 Comment »

January 18, 2007 by mr_flood.

I can’t decide whether the following is a transparent attempt to keep the Kids all riled up or a display of utter ignorance.

He makes the following statement:

The first two are the sort of unmitigated anti-Latino and anti-immigrant drivel that drives English First and a significant portion of the Republican base.

…about the following two items:

Reason One:

The RNC Chairman should unite the Republican Party. Mel Martinez divides the GOP.

Martinez’s strong support for an amnesty/guestworker program for illegal aliens places him well outside the mainstream of the Republican Party.

If Martinez wins on January 20th, Republican elected officials who oppose amnesty or support official English can be expected to find themselves debating the chairman of their own party on television.

Reason Two:

Mel Martinez’s impressive personal story as a Cuban immigrant will not attract other Hispanic voters to the GOP.

There is no such thing as a “Hispanic vote.” Cuban Americans traditionally vote Republican while Puerto Rican Americans overwhelmingly vote Democratic. Even Mexican Americans disagree about amnesty and guest worker programs, given that they all too often must compete with illegal aliens for jobs.

So, maybe you can help me figure it out. Is he being deliberately obtuse to work up the partisans into a frothy anger or is he really ignorant of the fact the neither of those two statements is remotely anti-immigrant or anti-Latino?

Don’t you just love partisan hacks lacking in any objectivity?

Posted in Current Events | 1 Comment »