Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Did ACORN chicanery elect Al Franken?

Franken won by only 312 votes and ACORN claimed to have registered 48,000 new Minnesota voters. You do the math...

Monday, September 28, 2009

Innovative solar cell designs

Fairly good article on new solar cell designs that allow them to blend in better with commercial and residential structures. This is generally a good thing and I am in favor of spreading out the power generating ability to lessen the reliance on a few large plants. Between these new roof / wall designs and the solar roadway panels and you have a potential large surface area to generate electricity that is dispersed over a greater area.

What is not discussed is what is the useful life of these products and what is the ROI?

In addition I am not in favor of government intervention via subsidies. They are distorting the market and suppressing the cost which skews the ROI and they are doing it with MY money. If the technology can not stand on its own and can not compete on its own, then it needs to do better in order to be viable. If it is so good, private organizations (like the Sierra Club) should be promoting it, not the government. It is not their job.

Bank of America Turns on ACORN

Now if they will only stop issuing credit cards and bank accounts to illegal aliens...

Truth in advertising

Here is the primary and secondary headlines from a National Journal article:

Health Reform And Truth-Telling
Despite President Obama's good intentions, his deviations from truth-telling compromise his credibility.


Is the secondary headline not a hoot?! "his deviations from truth-telling". What a fancy, smarmy way to say "lies". Can you just imagine the headline if the President were Bush instead of Obama? The main stream media truly are an extension of the Democratic party's public relations team. These people have sold out their profession, integrity, and even their souls for an ideology that has a proven track record of failure time and again. That has failed to do anything but treat the general population as disposable cogs in a false dream. The funny and sad thing is, journalists are one of the first groups to get "re-educated' or eliminated whenever their dream becomes a reality. Why will they never learn?

As to the actual article, here is an interesting paragraph:

As for voters, most seem satisfied with their own health care -- still the world's best in important ways -- and unwilling either to pay more to help less fortunate people or make even small sacrifices to control costs. They also seem oblivious to the real problem underlying the "death panel" demagogy, which is the unavoidable need to hold down the 30 percent of Medicare spending that goes to sometimes-unwanted, often-not-very-beneficial treatments for chronically ill patients in the last two years of life.

Sorry, but contrary to the President, Nancy and most of the media, "the unavoidable need to hold down the 30 percent of Medicare spending that goes to sometimes-unwanted, often-not-very-beneficial treatments for chronically ill patients in the last two years of life" certainly sounds like having a review of the care given to a certain"class" of patient to determine if the prescribed care is truly beneficial both to the health of the patient and the account balance of Medicare. In other (more crass words) a death panel. But that can't be! We have all been told time and again that this is a lie.

The paper then goes on to say that "we can't handle the truth" and it is actually a good thing that the President is not telling us the truth (there is that greater good thing again) as in this section:

So it would be unrealistic to expect complete candor from any president about the costs and risks of extending health insurance to 30 million more Americans. If Obama can meet the truthfulness test applied by Huckleberry Finn to his creator Mark Twain -- "There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth" -- that would be good enough for me.

Translation, we all would be idiots if we took him at his word. If we expect the President to mean what he says. We should expect him to tell us whatever he has to since he is doing it for our own good.

The article overall is reasonably balanced but it is whoppers like those noted above that continue to give people pause whenever they are told "read my lips, I did not... lie of the moment" by their elected officials.

Friday, September 25, 2009

AT&T / iPhone

AT&T and iPhone (as of today) support MMS! You might have to do a iTunes sync and update to get the new network definition files. I did not have to call them or sign up for a new/extended plan. Hope it stays that way. Works nice.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Burger King uses MotionPower to generate electricity from drive-thru traffic

Now this is just too cool. Making use of the weight of cars while slowing down to generate electricity. There is no free energy so the generating process (as it relies on the weight of the car to drive the generator) costs the car owner some energy (the car has to move up the incline in order to get the weight of the car onto the generator in order to drive down the mechanism). I am glad that they specifically note:

The manufacturer envisions larger MotionPower machines installed in places where traffic is slowing down to prevent the scheme from requiring extra energy input from vehicles.

If the vehicle is in the process of slowing down, the forward energy is being waisted as it is converted to heat by the braking system. By adding these minimal "speed bumps" to the slow-down path, energy that would have been wasted by the breaking system will instead be converted into electricity. The car going up the slight incline of the generator will dissipate forward energy similarly to the braking action while activating the generator. In these cases, this is energy that you are "giving away" anyway so might as well convert it to electricity for general use.

As with most devices in this category, I would like to see the ROI schedule.

Total defeat of ACORN?

One can only hope! This is all good news:

Just 48 hours after Republican Leader John Boehner introduced the "Defund ACORN Act," the bill -- which most Republicans thought Democrats would do anything to block -- passed by a resounding 345-75 vote. It would never have made it to a vote had not the Democratic leadership decided to allow it, and the winning total included 172 Democrats. Yes, 172 House Democrats voted to totally cut off funding for an organization that has worked for years on behalf of Democrats nationwide.

Couple that with the 83-7 Senate vote to cut off housing funds to ACORN -- a number that included 50 Democrats -- and the votes signal the complete collapse of Democratic support for ACORN.

As noted though, this could quickly change as the controversy cools. This sort of power and influence draws politicians like moths to the flame. Without vigilant monitoring (like the kind that the MSM used to do but no longer) the Democrats could back slide and fast. In the blink of an eye ACORN could not only have all of its funding back but also be involved in the census. So, be watchful and keep the pressure up!

I wonder if we will ever see the sort of congressional investigation into their operations. It is sorely needed.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

ACORN & SEIU

Looks like we now have icing on the ACORN cake! ACORN and SEIU (you remember them right, the union who's members beat up the tea party guy after calling him racial names) are partners in crime. Apparently ACORN gets a lot (that is capital LOT) of funding from SEIU, serves on the board of a number of the locals (and in some cases controls them) and is responsible for their national organizing efforts. ACORN is also involved in chapters of the AFL-CIO and HERE. I guess it is a lot easier to help communities organize when you can rely on union thugs to work "crowd control".

The MSM finally notices ACORN

About time! This illegal racket has gone on long enough with shielding from the media. It is amazing that it only took 3, THREE different offices across the country to all promote tax evasion, prostitution and child prostitution in order for the media to start to take notice. Voter fraud was not sufficient since it was done in support of the Democrats. I have to believe the only reason it is finally getting covered is that the story included video of the events. If it were just "reported" I feel confident that it would have been ignored as a "right-wing smear job" and investigated about as well as Obama's background before the election.

This comment is priceless:

Frank James on NPR's blog The Two-Way had a different take. He asked readers to remember that "ACORN's workers are coming from the same low-income neighborhoods the organization serves," and that "flaws conservatives are pointing out about ACORN are not so much problems associated with that organization per se but more about the problems of being poor and minority in urban America."

Oh, so it is OK to promote crime (to include CHILD PROSTITUTION if you are poor in America, according to NPR. Well isn't that special!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Union disbanded at Boeing Co.

I have to admit that I am pleased. My distaste for unions runs wide and deep. I believe that unions have long stopped being for the benefit of employees and instead are for the benefit of Democrats and union bosses.

If the card-check bill passes (as un-American as it is) it should at least include a provision for union ouster following the same rules. If all it takes is 51% of the employees to sign a petition to install a union then 51% of employee signatures on a petition for ouster should be sufficient as well. That would still not be equivalent (we have seen what the SEIU does to people that it disagrees with) and intimidation and strong-arm tactics would likely prevail. That was what drove secret votes in the first place.

ACORN roundup

* One report from an Acorn office was a fluke. Any large organization, public or private of any creed can be infected by amoral individuals who will try to use the organization to commit illegal or unethical acts. No organization larger than a few dozen people can police the actions of every member, all the time.

* Two reports from two separate Acorn offices was just a disturbing coincidence. The same reasoning as above applies, because in a large organizations, just as in a large installed base of computers, it’s possible for two separate bad eggs carrying out the same acts to show up in the same organization.

* Three identical reports of the same failure from three separate offices indicates the criminality arises from the organization itself. It is highly unlikely that, out of the hundreds of Acorn offices around the nation, the journalist just happened to wander into the three offices whose managers wouldn’t blink an eye at helping to set up a brothel using children.

Exactly, ACORN is corrupt from the top down and has stopped (if it ever was) a non-partisan community organization. The government should stop all funding to it NOW and the feds should be investigating the entire organization for things like this as well as habitual voter fraud. Will these things happen? They were iffy under a Rep president with a Dem congress. With a Dem president and congress the odds get a whole lot worse.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Voter fraud in southern Florida

I am shocked! Shocked I say!

The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office issued arrest warrants for each of the 11 suspects, all of whom worked for the local chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, (ACORN).

"It's really minor, ineffectual attempts to justify getting paid an hourly basis. It could not have impacted the voting process whatsoever. Nonetheless, we cannot turn a blind eye to this,'' Rundle added.

Really?

The group turned in 1,400 cards, of which 888 were found to be fraudulent.

If I recall, were there not a number of recent local and federal elections that were decided by fewer than 1000 votes? If 888 were found to be fraudulent in Homestead FL alone, how many would that be across the entire state? Across the entire country? But this is a trivial matter and we don't need voter ID laws, not here in this country. Not while there are elections for Democrats to steal anyway.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Congress has already exempted itself from Public Option

Predictably, however, the Heller amendment was defeated, with all 21 committee Democrats voting against it. That vote is indicative of the reality that any bill requiring Congress to be covered by the same health care as the public has the proverbial snow ball in Hades' chances of being enacted.

and

Members of Congress presently get health insurance coverage through the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), which offers enrollees nearly 300 choices among a variety of plans, coverages and costs.

The FEHBP covers federal employees and retirees, as well as Members of Congress, though the latter have additional perks of office that make their health coverage far better than that available - or affordable - for the vast majority of working Americans.

Would you have expected anything different? Me neither...

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

More Moronic Moore

Not happy to trash the health care system, spread nonsensical rumors about 9/11 and setup a sham of a fast food documentary, your favorite cinematic moron is back with another (no doubt) meticulously researched and impeccably fact checked political and cultural hit piece, this time going after the root of all evil, capitalism.



I am fairly sure (based on his prior work) that he will conveniently leave out a few "inconvenient" facts about the system he is out to trash. Things like:
  • The current financial crisis is more the result of Washington interfering with capitalism than that of capitalism.
  • Capitalism has done more to lift people out of poverty than all government programs ever have.
  • Markets work, government interference in markets does not.
  • Capitalism and free markets solve problems not governments.

Moore should put down Lennon pick up Adam Smith. He and the country would be better for it.

Smelling sweet makes mosquitoes skeet

It seems that mosquitoes don't like sweeter smells when hunting for blood.

Now scientists have discovered key differences in the body odours produced by people who are more prone to insect bites compared to those who seem resistant – they have lower levels of fruity smelling compounds in their sweat.

This would make a lot of sense based on the following:

Mosquitoes are nectar feeders, but the females also feed on blood to provide energy and proteins needed to develop eggs.

If you are a female mosquito looking for a drop or two of blood for your developing brood, you would tend to avoid things that smell like fruit.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Political Terrorism in the Hearland!

An intrepid under cover reporter does a video expose' on the Quincy Tea Party Cell and gets to the bottom of this radical political terrorist movement! I am personally shocked that the main stream media has not picked up on this story. It deserves to be seen by all Americans.

The money line: How do you negotiate with people like that?

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Can you say "projection"?

The biggest problem with the media’s understanding of the Tea Party movement is that some on the left assume (1) that the Tea Parties are Astroturfed at least as much as some of the left’s own demonstrations and (2) that the educated right hates Obama at least as much as the educated left hates Bush and Cheney. So far, I haven’t seen much evidence of either.

Neither have I and I don't know anyone that "hates" Obama. I know a number of people that think he is wrong for this country and is taking us in the wrong direction but "hate"? Just don't see it. Most on the right did not "hate" Clinton either. Thought he was a disgrace to the office and that he and the misses were basically acting like grifters but no hate, heck Bill seems like a real likable fellow, someone you would enjoy having a few beers with. I do admit that there are some harsh feelings toward the misses. She just can not help but rub some people the wrong way.

I did watch this exchange as part of an earlier post related to the guns at town hall events controversy. This bit did escape my notice as I was focused on the other topic.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Automatic Abundance

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Hurray for Canada

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that Section 13, Canada's much maligned human rights hate speech law, is an unconstitutional violation of the Charter right to free expression because of its penalty provisions.

This is indeed good news for all of the freedom loving peoples of Canada. The witch-hunting Canadian Human Rights Commission has had its fangs pulled today. Let us hope they don't get dentures!

Obama Advisor Van Jones: Republicans “are assholes.”

Sorry but no. Republicans are not "assholes" despite what you said and might think. Instead, Democrats are cowards. They are cowards because they want political cover for the things that they want to push through. They want to be able to say "Look, Republicans voted for this too. It was bipartisan." even if that really means only one Republican voted along. Also, the more Republicans that they can get to vote along, the more Democrats in iffy states can vote no so that they do not have to justify their vote at home come re-election time.

So, Mr. Van Jones, Republicans are not "assholes". Democrats are cowards.

Science question(s) #1

I had some thoughts...

Last year or so, NASA ran an experiment where they strung a cable out behind the space shuttle. As this cable was being pulled through the earth's magnetic field (because the shuttle was not in a geosynchronous orbit) it cause the electrons in the cable to flow, generating electricity. There was a cost to this electricity (as no energy is free) in that the shuttle did loose some orbital velocity due to the "drag" on the shuttle by the cable (that is not specifically correct but is close enough for this).

My thought is, how much electricity could be generated if we strung a cable out behind the moon? Could / would it be enough to power a moon station? At what cost? I would think it would have a negligible effect on the moon's orbit as the mass of the moon is so large. There is a LOT of pent up energy in that mass that could be converted into a lot of electricity.

There are not very efficient ways to get that electricity down to earth but if left on the moon, it would be very useful to power all sorts of moon based equipment and facilities.

How many kilowatts could be generated this way? How long would the cable need to be and what would be the real effects on the moon?

Like I said, just some thoughts that I had on my way back to the office from lunch.

Typical Times

Where is the 'Science' in this science article? I followed the link from Instapundit because the wording got my attention. Once I started to read the article I knew something was amiss. Then I saw that it was from the Times. That explains a lot, like why the following passages are in a Science article:

In the United States and much of the Western world, when a couple divorces, the average income of the woman and her dependent children often plunges by 20 percent or more, while that of her now unfettered ex, who had been the family’s primary breadwinner but who rarely ends up paying in child support what he had contributed to the household till, climbs accordingly.

What world is the author living in? Of course he doesn't contribute the same in exact dollars after a divorce than he did before. First he does not live there any more, second he has to pay for his own place to live, and third he has to pay child support (even when he has joint custody and the kids spend part/half of the time with him). His available income goes go UP by 20%? Are you kidding me? If he has any extra disposable income it is because he was kicked out of the 2400 sqr ft house he was living in and now resides in a 600 sqr ft apartment. Real fair exchange that.

the man who skips from one nubile spouse to another over time is, like the sultan who hoards the local maidenry in a single convenient location, simply seeking to “maximize his reproductive fitness,” to sire as many children as possible with as many wives as possible.

So it is also now the man's fault that his wife left him and he would like to be a couple again. She got "tired" of being married, takes him for child support and short term alimony and he is a harem builder because he is dumb enough to give another woman the opportunity to financially screw him.

“We’re so wedded to the model that men will benefit from multiple marriages and women won’t, that women are victims of the game,” Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder said.

Well liberal groups are but not anyone that bothers to actually look at the statistics behind marriage, divorce and child support in America.

but the capacity of women across cultures to dissolve relationships that aren’t working has been much underestimated.

Especially in America by liberals where the no-fault divorce allows either partner to basically walk away from a marriage without cause or concern and more and more women are doing just that while men are getting crushed under child support payments.

A few child support facts:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau report, non-custodial fathers pay some or all of their support obligations 77% of the time, and non-custodial mothers make full or partial payment 75% of the time.

Of all fathers who have custody of their children, more than 92% of them work, either full or part-time, while 78% of custodial mothers are employed.

So men are just a likely (or more so) to pay some or all of their child support verses women and when men do have custody of their children they are 14% more likely to have a job than women.

Also Sanford Braver, Ph.D researched the statement that a mothers standard of living goes down after a divorce while a fathers goes up and finds it false.

Among the myths under attack: the "disappearing dad'' who initiates the divorce and then deserts his children; and the widely cited 73 percent drop in standard of living that divorced mothers and children suffer (an alleged error in arithmetic by Harvard researcher Lenore Weitzman). Braver's calculations indicate that post-divorce mothers and fathers share about the same standard of living, at least in the beginning.
In case you are interested, more info here.

An't it a beatch when facts get in the way of a good "story" be it in the science section or the opinion page?

And the astroturfing escalates...

It seems that liberals are no longer happy vandalizing the offices of their own side in an attempt to get the public to turn on the tea-partyers. They now seem to be moving on to false accusations of making death threats against democratic politicians.

If it were not for bloggers, most people would not know what is really going on here but as one of the commenters point out, this will eventually succeed. Either by making a false charge that sticks or by serving up a sacrificial lamb. If and when that does happen, will the MSM point out that this was an aberration and rare or will they instead lump in all of the astro-events with the one actual to gain more traction? Which do you think?

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Packing heat at town hall protests

I listened to this entire diavlog where the discussion was primarily on folks that bring guns to the town hall protests. Michelle Goldberg was adamant that this should not be happening and that the main point of those bringing guns to these events is for intimidation. Megan McArdle did not approve of people open carrying at these events either but did not see it as an "evil" thing. Neither person could come up with a "legitimate" reason for someone to have a gun at one of these protests.

If it helps them any, I have one. To date, only anti-health care protesters have been accosted (by union thugs no less). I could imagine that some of these anti-health care protesters are carrying at these events for self-defence.

As to Michelle's point that people just don't take guns to events, I beg to differ. There are a multitude of people that have carry permits that carry all the time. Just because you don't see it, does not mean that there are not guns there.

Megan also had Michelle on the ropes when she pointed out that there is at least one documented case of a liberal carrying a gun at one of these events and that gave Michelle great pause.

More examples of liberal support for debate and discussion

Watch the linked video. It shows a "Health Care for America Now" (HCAN) organizer instructing supporters in how to disrupt a town hall meeting if someone dares to ask an questions that might undermine their cause. He tells them to stand up to block the person from view, to hold up any signs they might have and if that does not work, start chanting in order to drown them out. These people are SO confident in their ideas on heath care reform that they will stomp on any rebuke or counter argument instead of debating. As to all of the "sheepal" Americans that are eagerly soaking up these instructions (and asking clarification questions) they should be (but won't) ashamed of themselves.

The Truth About American Exceptionalism

I can remember a time when a common citizen didn't have to explain American greatness to the President...

Outstanding Bill Whittle, a must watch!

Putting solor panels into roads

The Department of Energy just gave $100,000 to upstart company Solar Roadways, to develop 12-by-12-foot solar panels, dubbed "Solar Roads," that can be embedded into roads, pumping power into the grid.

Sounds like something to try and I am glad they are looking into it. I would wonder about the efficiency verses cost as well as the affects of vehicle wear, chemicals, etc. on the efficiency of these devices. Would also want to see the dollars per kwh over the usable lifetime. Basically, what is the ROI.