9.3 degree cooling trend?

From this site: contiguous USA figures supposedly demonstrating a 9.3 degree per century cooling trend. Kind of makes all those predictions of a warmer world look a bit silly, don't it?

Figures apparently culled from the NOAA, although the site provides no direct link to source data.

All right, I've been saying that the whole warming thing was poor science since 2006, but this is a short term average, and those frequently seesaw up and down. Besides, it's still Winter.

Still, the investment package in Winter sports goods and Snowmobiles looks like coming good. I'm thinking positive. Although not necessarily in temperature.

Wrapping up warm. Log fire blazing. Larder full.

Regards

Bill

Obama betrays the UK

Spotted in one of those articles about Wikileaks in the Tellytubbygraph:

US agrees to tell Russia Britain's nuclear secrets

I mentioned this to Mrs S, who pointed out: "Didn't they send the Rosenbergs to the Electric Chair for something like that?"

Erm, aren't the UK and the USA supposed to be allies or something? This doesn't sound like the act of an ally. What the hell does the boy president think he's playing at?

Internet down

No, not mine. Apparently the Egyptians have pulled the plug on their Internet and Cell Phone networks.

Considering that the Americans are thinking about giving their boy president an 'Internet kill switch' to play with, the next few hours will demonstrate how good or bad an idea it is to give someone that much power. Because if the yanks pull the plug, everyone loses it. (H/T Budwar) This is because Verisign and (I think) all the rest of the root Domain Name Server owning companies are US owned. If the companies concerned are told to shut their servers down by Presidential Order; no DNS resolution, no dot coms, dot orgs or any of the other top level domain extensions. So, no Interweb. Well not one worthy of the name unless a lot of other countries have got reserve DNS root servers tucked away, just on the off chance. That's my understanding of the situation anyway.

More updates as it happens via American Power and Theo Spark

Latest: Hosni Mubarak 'has asked government to step down'. See above for links. Refresh often. Al Jazeera has constantly updated coverage.

Faux-memorial

Having seen the footage of the so-called 'memorial' for the six victims of the Arizona shootings, I'll say I'm not impressed. I'd even go to say it was a massive PR FAIL for the Obama spinmeisters. Look guys, can I just highlight something pretty fundamental about memorial services? Memorials are about remembering those who died, not some stage managed ego-trip for a bloody politician, FFS!

What a disquietingly creepy spectacle. Had someone gone up and given the boy president a blow job right there at the lectern there would have been whoops and cheers. I know Blair pulled a similar trick at the Diana funeral, but at least he gave the appearance of caring while grandstanding to a gullible public.

I hold no brief for either Democrat or Republican south of the 49th parallel, but the personality cult currently in operation down there makes me cringe. The hyperbole is nauseating, oleaginous, and positively emetic. Especially with the record of the current US administration. No-one is fooled, and I'll lay odds it won't do their approval rating any good at all.

Whatever happened to the quiet dignity of other people's grief, eh?

After watching that footage I am off for a wash. I feel the need to scrub my skin clean from the inside. Want to see the vid for yourself? Look it up on Youtube, because I'm not posting it here.

So the Tea party did it did they?

A lot of crass speculation flying around the leftish side of the blogosphere about who incited the assassin of six people whose number included a Judge and a 9 year old girl, also the attempted murder of a US Democratic congresswoman. A lot of it ill informed wishful idiocy.

A quick statement of position here; I hold no brief for Ex Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin or the US protest group the 'Tea Party'. Apart from me being a fan of small government and verifiable truths, but that's as far as my interest goes. As an aside, I can never understand the sheer volume of vitriol poured against Palin. She's no more gaffe prone than the current incumbent of the White House, although she does have nicer legs (Gosh, me sexist? Erm, possibly?).

Back to Seriousville; From all accounts the (Alleged - let's not forget due process) would be murderer of congresswoman Giffords, is in the mould of Leftist assassins. His high school colleagues knew him as one whose views veered far left of centre. His Facebook and Youtube postings paint a picture of someone as far opposed to the ideals of small government and personal liberty as espoused by the Tea Party as it is possible to be. So how can he be allied or inspired by groupings that are opposed to his own publicly well-documented political leanings?

You don't have to be a genius to make such an observation, and simply resorting to knee-jerk partisan playground accusations like some spoiled seven year old won't make it otherwise. Congresswoman Giffords has survived, but her attempted murder was nothing to do with her political opponents.

As for the accused murderer and would be assassin; if he is found guilty and the Board of Corrections run out of drugs to perform an execution by Lethal Injection, perhaps they'll wheel the Gas Chamber or Gallows out to edit this particular monster from humanity.

Yet another post on intrusive security checks

Now as far as I'm concerned, if one person has to go through a full security screening, there should be no exceptions. No politician, celebrity, anyone should be spared the indignity of a full body scan / 'pat down' if all the rest of those passing through an airport have to do so. This includes their entire entourage.

If there's no discrimination for us 'lower orders', then there should be no exception for anyone else. Only fair isn't it? Anything else is just elitist, and isn't that very bad?

What use is a dog?

Now I'm a 'dog' person (I also like cats, but that's by-the-by), I grew up with a dog in the house, and feel that a dog is the best barometer of a household. I've also formed the opinion that a place where people live is less of a home without a dog. They are a symptom of life and useful gauge of happiness. Especially a crossbreed or 'Mutt'. Pedigrees are a bit more tricky, having been bred mostly to a specific function and generally speaking host to a temperament which can be best described as 'Mercurial'.

Notwithstanding, my own preference is for a 'Mutt', with all their eccentricities. If dogs can be used as a reflection of their owners nature, then mine is a friendly and sometimes over enthusiastic goofball. However, when it comes to being useful, that ball of fur slumped in the office doorway earns his home and comfort just by being who he is.

My dog more than earns his keep as guardian and friend. Apart from his predilection for silent but deadly farts when Mrs S and I decide to watch a little televisual entertainment, he makes a great footwarmer on cold evenings. His hearing is many times more sensitive than a humans, warning of visitors before they get halfway up the drive. His sense of smell has an acuity many times more than the most accurate human, and possibly way more discriminating than any man made device. Although what is Chanel No 5 to him (Bear and Deer droppings) are something he and I will have to disagree on. Yet his sense of smell has prevented household fires and several other potentially hazardous situations. Yes, a good mutt is hard to beat, and mine is a good 'un.

It matters not that his lifespan is much shorter than mine, and that I will grieve terribly when he dies at the age of 17 or so years. More so because it will be me who finally has to hold him in my arms as he draws his last doggy breath. We will have had the shared joy of life, and a new pooch will have been found before then both to give him company and for him to train in the ways of master and house in his declining years, and so our parting will not be such a yawning chasm of loss.

On a slightly connected topic, having watched the growing furore over the invasive and insensitive TSA body searches and scans wonder why the hell more dogs have not been employed in US airports. Yet for all their shortfalls, as a first line of defence they are the best tool in the box. Instead of the tiresome 'everyone has to be scanned' mentality, why aren't the Yanks using a more layered response? At Vancouver airport there's always a dog or two on patrol, and being walked past a trained animal who can detect explosives more readily than a human with a backscatter x-ray device should be more effective. One or two animals walked around the departure gates are not only a first line alert for filtering out the bad guys, but also get round the massive queuing issues that make air travel such a chore.

I'm sure there are people out there who are cynophobic, or have a cultural bias against dogs, but they are in a minority and would have to go through the body scanner regardless. I know dogs aren't infallible, but they're a good first line of defence. If everyone goes through the metal detectors anyway, the airport queues move faster and still filter out the nutters who think that blowing aircraft out of the sky with them on board is somehow very intelligent. This may be unfair to some, but far better a little unfairness to a few, than a great deal to many, as at present.

A well placed dog can help get round quite a number of security issues on a number of levels. Either as a detector or deterrent. So, dogs are useful. Even flop eared, goofy, and occasionally smelly pets like mine. We need more of them. Especially when the enemy doesn't like them much.

Them that's fightin words

The following rebuttal is mine alone. I do not speak for my husband, for my friends, for my children, but solely for myself.

I am tired of being told to sit down and shut up.

I am tired of being told what I can and can not say.

What is “acceptable”, while my ideas and values are mocked and trampled.

Wow. That's one pissed off military mother. The lady's plain, no-nonsense eloquence is quite frankly startling.

H/T Celestial Junk

Unnecessary

Picked up via Drudge. They employ perverts at airport security checks now?

Is this real? What half witted excuse for a perverted paedophile thought they should strip search a child in public for heavens sake? What the hell do the TSA think they're doing? There's a classic class action waiting for an ambitious Tort lawyer right there.

It goes without saying that the child in question was not an 'ethnic'. The cack-handed TSA is becoming America's shame.

Our girls are coming over for Christmas, and one connection on a very reasonably priced flight, meant that they would have to go through such a security check as the connection was at Chicago's O'Hare airport. Needless to say, we went for the very much more expensive direct flight option. My Sister in Law will be here for Christmas, and she's talking about driving all the way from Minnesota rather than submit to these unnecessary procedures.

For crying out loud, one guy got arrested for stripping as a protest at the crotch level pat downs. This situation has gone past satire into WTF! territory without breaking step.

One is minded to remark at this point that Israeli flyers have the highest security risk in the world, and their checks are far less intrusive, and far more cost effective.

P.S. Here's the Eyetube version if Youtube shut the vid down.

US Mid terms, some observations

Still trying to get my head around the near revolution going on south of the border, but it looks like a caning for the Incumbent from the electorate at Congressional level. The Republicans have taken the Senate, and what looks like a slim majority in the Governor's Mansions.

No doubt the minions of the various spinmeisters will be out in force, trying to put their stamp on the results. Lamestream media pundits will be out trying to tell everyone what to think; i.e. that this is either Racist, or in some other way challenges the supremacy of their God.

The Tea Partiers have, no matter what claims to the contrary, had significant impact on these elections, and from their beginnings back in 2007, have come a very long way in a very short time. In spite of considerable lamestream propaganda, one might be forgiven for adding. In some ways the clumsy assaults on their credibility have had limited effectiveness, in others totally counter productive. Because one neither needs to be a towering intellect to see where the blinkered ego's who think the world owes them their living have tried to take the USA, nor an Economic mastermind to see the damage done. Yet this is where the self-declared towering intellects have brought the West.

To recap; the current crisis has it's roots in Carter's Community Reinvestment act, extended under Clinton, and when the Banks sold on the ever expanding poor risks, it only took a modest downturn to create the current situation. The current Democrat led administration has done what the previous Republican one did, which was throw money at the problem because they were prevented from staunching the flow by a congress hooked on buying votes. The fallout is as we see. The bailouts essentially failed, with the irony that the Chinese, once cold war enemies opposed to capitalism, now virtually own America.

The road back to US prosperity will be a long hard one, and the only way Government can stimulate a 'recovery' is to do some infrastructure projects on the scale of the Interstate highways or Hoover Dam to provide some sort of demand. Failing that, get the hell out of the way and cut taxes and regulation to the point where the middle income bracket can afford to spend on consumer goods, and give tax breaks to small and medium sized companies willing to invest. It's what I'd recommend. Not that anyone is going to ask of course.

Up here in the not quite frozen north, the Provincial Premier sent cheques for CAD$154.00 to young people, funded from the highly unpopular HST. Considering it probably took something like double that to actually collect the tax, possibly more, the extra money gained for the exchequer might as well have stayed in people's pockets. As is well established; government is an horrendously inefficient means of transferring money around.

Hi-ho. Better log off and go and do some work. TTFN.

US Mid term results

There is a map showing the results as they are called here.

Live twitterers and election blogging here.

The only question remaining is how big this Tea Party thing is going to be?

The more I think about it....

The more I think about why this man wasn't the first non-caucasian President of the United States. Instead of the current incumbent.

Powell has more statesmanship and financial acumen in his little finger than Obama and his entire team, yet Powell actually endorsed him. Hmmm.

Just the idle thoughts of an expatriate Englishman trying to make sense of American politics on Mid term election day.....

Publish my agenda - or the hostages get it!

A Police marksman despatched a hostage taker who invaded his ex employers premises and threatened to kill three employees unless the Discovery Channel changed their editorial policy to 'Save the planet'. Video here. (Links fixed)

Funny that. Since 2004, Discovery channel was one I stopped watching because of all the 'Green', 'Save the planet' Disneyfied kitsch they stuck into every natural history programme. It got nauseating. How many times can you sit through stuff you can see is factually warped to an agenda without turning it off or blowing a blood vessel? Especially when repeated twice a day.

What the hell, a Neo-Malthusian (Humanity is killing Gaia, all humans must die) suffers the fate he was wishing the rest of humanity. No great loss there. I know it's heartless, but so was threatening to splash his ex co-workers blood all over the carpet to 'save the planet'. Maybe all those others who so blandly spew the self same poisonous doctrine could do the rest of us mere mortals a favour and do a Jonestown. At least the planet would then be safe from them.

Sorry about the original link; getting careless in my frail (Hah!) dotage.

Now he tells us.....

Turns out ex US President George W (Miss me yet?) Bush didn't want Gordon Brown to be the UK Prime Minister. All I have to say is; neither did I, neither did I.

Not being resident in the UK any more and shortly to apply for full Canadian citizenship, I feel the whole question is rather academic, but any damn fool could see how unbalanced Brown was and is by the reports filtering out via Guido Fawkes and others. The reports of violent temper tantrums and other unseemly behaviour were a good indicator of how unsuitable Brown is for high public office. No wonder George W voiced his concerns; maybe his aides used to read Guido's regular mocking revelations?

As for the policies; it was IR35 that broke me and a whole lot of others. Only a complete and utter dolt with the attention span of a lightly stunned gnat could think otherwise. That and thinking raids on pension funds could ever be 'revenue neutral'. Yet the British electorate bought into the Blair bullshit three times in a row, and those of us with even the slightest hint of prescience made our plans and got out.

As for the current Labour thinking about 'taxing the rich'; it's a fairy tale for buffoons. The true rich have clever accountants to keep their money out of the hands of the voracious maw of HMRC, so higher taxation will only ever hurt the people who can't afford top flight financial advice and who can't mobilise their capital quickly. Namely the less well off, who will be impoverished by such policies. The result is that the tax take goes down when the rates go up because of the simple law of economics which says that the more taxation, the less production.

Brown of course ignored all this, and reportedly got very upset when reality conflicted with his stratagems. Hence the reports of tantrums which told anyone with a functioning brain cell that he was never going to be fit for purpose.

/PREACHTOCHOIR
/RANT

Oh, and just to rub it in; guess who's on a best selling T-Shirt right now (As if you didn't already know).
I think they do miss you George W, I really do, now the chickens have come home to roost.

How many?

Whether you agree with Beck and / or the diverse aims of the US Tea party movement, it does seem to me that their numbers / influence are being talked down. Mainstream press reports have often indicated far fewer than the videos posted as attendees at these events. Was there violent disorder? No. Unlike others from the opposite ends of the political spectrum.

It's at times like these I switch off the rhetoric from both camps and use my own eyes. How many were there? Only a 'few thousand'? I think not. Even to my observation, I think the crowds at both the 'Restoring Honor' and Tea Party protests last year easily breached six figures, and no CGI.


Whichever way you cut it, that's a lot of pissed off people. Yet CBC gave equal story time to a much smaller rally led by the Rev Al Sharpton. Hmm.

Update: Just had a look at the pictures over at Gateway Pundit and a couple of other sites. Then measured up the area using Google Earth.

The ruler indicates the length of the area covered in people at the 'Restoring Honor' event. That's an area just over half a mile long by a quarter mile wide. Working on the pictures published at Gateway Pundit, and assuming a crowd density of one person per square yard, a space three feet to a side, and given that a third of the visible area taken up by the event has no people on; let's say at total area of 258133 square yards occupied at one person per square yard average density. That means over a quarter of a million people at a conservative estimate.

That's impressive.

You what!?

Apparently our colonial cousins to the South (at least their Administration) seem to be having a major attack of the stupids. They are awarding one of the greatest enemies of British personal liberty ever the 'Liberty Medal'. This award is allegedly given to those whose actions represent the founding principles of the United States.

In the words of ex-Tennis Champion John McInroe; "You cannot be serious!"

The Yanks are awarding a medal celebrating 'freedom' to a person whose government created over a thousand new criminal offences? Someone, somewhere has lost it big time. Said award, like the Nobel 'Peace Prize', is now devalued to a worthless political backhander. A backslap between professional politicians. Nothing more. Then again, maybe that's all these political awards ever are. I hope it's not taxpayer dollar they're giving him.

You know, there have been times I've fervently wished Blairs (and Browns) lungs would spontaneously combust so I could pointedly refuse to piss down his throat to put out the conflagration. Clucking bell.

Mind you, the medal is being awarded by Bill Clinton, so perhaps the Americans have discovered the true art of irony after all. I need a drink.

H/T Angry Exile

Well......

So much for a 'low carbon' lifestyle.

Derisive laugh.

Getting home

I've been checking my visitor stats, such as they are, and noted a number of visitors from Tampa, Florida. If you guys are looking for a way home or into Northern Europe in a tearing hurry I have a suggestion.

Current status indicates that transatlantic flights into Madrid, Spain may still be operating. Also, there is a highly efficient, fast and comfortable TGV service from Madrid into France, and from there all points North and East. I've used this train myself on a trip from Cordoba to Paris, and from Paris into London via Eurotunnel. It's clean, quiet and fast. So if you're really, really, really, (Why?) desperate to get back to the UK or Northern Europe and don't mind the extended cost and journey time, there's your way home. Miami to Madrid; Madrid to London, and don't forget to book your seat. A simple ticket purchase isn't enough.

Give the respective airlines a phone call and check the current status of flights to Spain. Don't just rush down there and hope for the best. The bright side is you even get to miss Heathrow or Gatwick (Awful places). Good luck.

For those who want to get home to the UK and don't mind a longer ferry trip, there are ferries across Biscay to Portsmouth and Plymouth from Spain.

Update: Looks like Eurotunnel are claiming they are full, although other sources are claiming otherwise. You could almost fly into Spain, buy a junker (cheap knackered car) and try driving home via the ferries.

This could get interesting...

Kind of a 'what will happen' situation if it's not a spoof. Although taken at face value, there appear to be a lot of pissed off people south of the border. I'll see what my Sister in Law down in Minnesota has to say apart from she's glad the snow is finally beginning to melt.

Back to work. TTFN.

BTW: Bye bye, NHS Blog Doctor, hello UK News Network. H/T Grumpyoldtwat

What's not to like?

One cool piece of kit which beats the hell out of the snowblowers they sell at Canadian Tire and elsewhere. The speed this webcam equipped robot can clear sidewalks looks awesome. My brother in law, who lives in Minnesota (Where they know about snow and cold) says he wants one for next Winter. He might even make a few extra bucks hiring it out.

Nor was there a clipboard to be seen, or 'elf 'n safety officer involved in its making.

H/T Scoakat