The rest of the real post is below the fold. Interjecting a side-note here.
Lieberman shows at the Republican Convention.
In excerpts of his speech released in advance to the media, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman said America needs a president that can be counted on in a time of war. For him, the candidate is Republican Sen. John McCain.
The Democrat-turned-independent says that while Sen. Barack Obama was voting to cut off funding for troops in Iraq, McCain took the unpopular position to support a surge in troops.
“Because of that, today, our troops are at last beginning to come home, not in failure, but in honor,” Lieberman says.
As much as I disagree with Lieberman on a lot of issues, I’ll say this: The man has character and I respect him.
If nothing else, I have to praise him for pissing Schumer off:
“I like Joe Lieberman, but that’s a big mistake for him,” Schumer said. “To be pro-war and to have his views on the issues, everyone respects that. But you don’t go over to the other side.”
As the Democrats were being rudely stepped on, however, Palin ignited an explosion of enthusiasm among conservatives, evangelicals, traditional Catholics, gun owners and right to lifers not seen in decades.
… Indeed, the bristling reaction on the left testifies to Democratic fears that the choice of Palin could indeed be a game-changer in 2008.
… The mainstream media, which has been holding endless symposia here on the future of media in the 21st century, is in danger of missing a central fact of that future: If they appear, once again, as they have in the past, to be people not reporting the battle but engaged in the battle, if they allow themselves to be tagged by that old tag, which so tarnished them in the past, they will do more to imperil their own future than the Internet has.
This is true: fact is king. Information is king. Great reporting is what every honest person wants now, it’s the one ironic thing we have less of in journalism than we need. But reporting that carries an agenda, that carries Bubblehead assumptions and puts them forth as obvious truths? Well, some people want that. But if I were doing a business model for broadsheets and broadcast networks I’d say: Fact and data are our product, we’re putting everything into reporting, that’s what we’re selling, interpretation is the reader’s job, and think pieces are for the edit page where we put the hardy, blabby hacks.
That was a long way of saying: Dig deep into Sarah Palin, get all you can, talk to everybody, get every vote, every quote, tell us of her career and life, she may be the next vice president. But don’t play games. And leave her kid alone, bitch.
Cranky steps in to step on yet another ass who can’t seem to find the line between “OK” and “Being an asshole”.
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Now, on to address the great glaring gaping gap in getting the facts straight on sunspot activity. I read this article this morning and screamed “ID10T!!”
Yes, our carbon butt-prints are so humongously oversized from those happy meals and sitting in our double-wide SUV’s that our climate’s influence has reached right out and touched the sun. Must check w/ McGoo and see if it has been noted in Pravda yet… Of course, he’s been moving for the last three years so he’s been out of the picture. He’s our resident expert in Pravda, if you didn’t know.
Anyway, the hyperventilating panty-wetters are at it again. This time they didn’t even hit “send” before voiding their bladders. It’s a big stinking crock of horsesh*t dead-wrong non-facts. Over at Daily Tech (red emphasis mine):
The sun has reached a milestone not seen for nearly 100 years: an entire month has passed without a single visible sunspot being noted.
The event is significant as many climatologists now believe solar magnetic activity – which determines the number of sunspots — is an influencing factor for climate on earth.
But the truth is that we are NOT at a 100 year high (days w/o sunspots). They make this sound like it’s a huge deal. Not even close. At wattsupwiththat:
Adding up every daily blank sun for the past three years, we find that the current solar minimum has had 362 spotless days (as of June 30, 2008). Compare that value to the total spotless days of the previous ten solar minima: 309, 273, 272, 227, 446, 269, 568, 534, ~1019 and ~931. The current count of 362 spotless days is not even close to the longest.
Milestone? Eh. It’s like counting the grains of sand in a baby-food jar and saying breathlessly “There were 2, 075,341 grains of sand!” Ok, yeah, so it is what it is. The point is the total number of days in the minimum isn’t all that fantastical – borders on “almost-boring”.
What was really funny in the first link (Daily Tech) was this ending (red emphasis mine):
Other researchers have proposed solar effects on other terrestrial processes besides cloud formation. The sunspot cycle has strong effects on irradiance in certain wavelengths such as the far ultraviolet, which affects ozone production. Natural production of isotopes such as C-14 is also tied to solar activity. The overall effects on climate are still poorly understood.
What is incontrovertible, though, is that ice ages have occurred before. And no scientist, even the most skeptical, is prepared to say it won’t happen again.
Got that? “No scientist… is prepared to say that [an ice age] won’t happen again.” Oh, but plenty are willing to say that global warming is a foregone conclusion? What a bunch of wankers. I’ve probably posted this before but… a bit more information on solar influences. And some bedwetter-valium here, too, although not swimming in hard factual numbers, it’s food for thought.
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Went to meet Girlhead’s kindergarden teacher tonight. Nice lady. Classroom was modern. Looked to be a nice bunch of kids. We walked out of the classroom and I turned to Cruel Wife and said “Our 5 year old daughter is being taught by a gal who is what…? Twelve?”
Man am I old. If I don’t have 18 years on that teacher I’ll eat my shorts. As granddad would say “Yep, she’s San Quentin Quail” (jailbait)
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NPR today… Ad approved of by the Obamessaiah – it was narrated by the Planned Parenthood. The lady reading the script says something to the effect that “If McCain is elected he will turn over Roe v. Wade” and talks like his first day in office it would be fait accompli. Huh? The president has no such power. It would have to go to the supreme court to be overturned or repeal initiated by congress. I can’t believe that they can get away with that kind of talk in an ad.
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Snatched a campaign button graphic from Weasel, God Bless her:
There’s a very interesting discussion on the last-second (literally) decision to declare a half a sunspot on 8/21 over at wattsupwiththat.
Ho there, steveegg!
Debates like this that drive me nuts (not a judgment on your passing of this link – I appreciate the links). Zero spots, half a spot, one spot in a month… the real point IMHO is that the spot activity is way low. Not “stop the presses ’cause we’re all gonna die” low, but noteworthy if you keep track of this sort of thing and their (potential) relevance to weather.
Just seems to me that a month is a rather arbitrary time period (from the sun’s point of view) so saying a month of consecutive days w/o spots or 11 days w/o spots… rather uninteresting.
But hey, if I tell someone that “lens centration via tangential seating surfaces in a cell is a very handy way to build an optical system”, most folks go “so what?” In a similar fashion, I guess that my response to (nitpicking) counting of sunspots could very well be because I’m ignorant of nuances that they appreciate in their field.
Ahhhh, I’m just tired and cranky. Need to stop working and go to bed.