Thought of the Day

Schadenfreude will be the word of the moment for the right if Hillary Clinton goes into the Democratic Convention claiming the popular vote with Obama holding the delegate lead.  The EPA might have to regulate all of the resultant smug that will descend upon Denver.

Roadside economics

One could also call this anecdotal economics, but I've noticed that the number of automobiles, boats, snowmobiles, four wheelers, trailers, etc., that are being sold on the sides of highways has grown significantly this year. That tells me a couple of things. One, people are trying to clear themselves of these assets in order to pay debts or because they are looking to buy new toys. If it is the former, and I suspect that it is, the used market for these items is going to tumble, which is going to draw more potential consumers away from manufacturers. Because of this, the anecdotal economist says that there are plenty more ripples to be felt from this economic slow down yet.

Of course, if it is the latter, I'm just plain wrong.

Oil's Speculation Problem

This is a a pretty good article.  I recommend reading the whole thing, but here's the gist of it.

A boom in speculation and trading by investment banks and hedge funds has put our energy markets on steroids. Contract volume in the futures markets has risen by a third in just the last year. Oil closed at a record high of $125.96 a barrel  on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Friday. That's double the price two years ago, a difference clearly caused by market manipulation.

 

This isn't complicated finance. The way traders push up prices is surprisingly simple. They buy in European futures markets, which don't have the limits that U.S. markets do. That drives up U.S. prices where they may already have positions. It's a move to think about next time one of these exchange chiefs talks about all of the benefits of "market globalization."

 

None of it would matter except that these markets are supposed to be driven by supply and demand. China and other rapidly growing countries may be using more, or will use more resources, but the reality is that demand and supply haven't changed enough to warrant the price of oil doubling in less than three years.

 

Here's what has changed: the proliferation of energy trading desks on Wall Street and at hedge funds. There are more than 9,000 hedge funds with $1.5 trillion under management, according to the Federal Reserve. Hedge funds, which almost exclusively use short-term strategies, do nearly 55% of derivatives trading, the kind used in energy futures, according to a study last year by Greenwich Associates.

That's a recipe for a bubble.  The problem is, the bubble won't burst until/unless the money finds a better place to go.

Do they really need to be this exact?

Yes, this will be a nitpick.  The story:

Heavy rains and another potentially powerful storm headed toward Myanmar's cyclone-devastated delta on Wednesday. The U.N. warned that inadequate relief efforts could lead to a second wave of deaths among the estimated 2 million survivors.

The International Red Cross said in a new estimate that the death toll already may be between 68,833 and 127,990.

If you are going to be quoting a range of death numbers like that, do you really have to be exact at the upper and lower limits?  Considering the real number could be any one of 59,157 possibilities, would even numbers have just sufficed?  Or are these exact numbers in a guesstimate designed to personalize this for people in some way?

Watch for the Tale of Two Interpretations

First, the story:

President George W. Bush said on Tuesday he quit playing golf in 2003 out of respect for the families of Americans killed in the war in Iraq.

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf," Bush said in an interview with Yahoo and Politico.com.

"I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal," he said.

I'm in line with interpretation number one, which is that the guy was empathetic and understood how it could be perceived by the families.

Interpretation two will be the one that grabs hold until his post presidency numbers rebound a bit. It is also the one that will rage around the left. That interpretation will be that this president was so shallow as to think that giving up golf was enough. Of course, that isn't what he said, but putting words into the mouth of this communicationally challenged President has become a cottage industry, so why should that change now?

Suspension of new supplies to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

Pointless.

The House of Representatives on Tuesday followed the Senate in rejecting the Bush administration's policy of adding oil to the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve while fuel prices are high.

The House passed legislation that would suspend crude deliveries to the U.S. emergency oil stockpile while the price of oil was above $75 a barrel, a move the White House has opposed. Oil traded at a record near $126 a barrel on Tuesday.

Much of the oil placed into the reserve come in lieu of royalty payments from the oil companies, so it isn't an out of pocket expense for the United States. Additionally, the suspension will have absolutely no affect on the price of oil. I can't say I'm outraged by the suspension, but I am sick of congress make pointless gestures because it is politically easy to do. There are much better ways they can address our energy issues, but they require standing up to irrational environmentalists, something they are loathe to even think about.

Stud

A man's man. What more can I say?

An Omaha man struggling to breathe used a steak knife to perform an at-home tracheotomy. Steve Wilder said he thought he was going to die when he awoke one night last week and couldn't breath.

Wilder said he didn't call 911 because he didn't think help would arrive in time. So, the 55-year-old says, he got a steak knife from the kitchen and made a small hole in his throat, allowing air to gush in.

Wow.

9/11, The TV Archive

I've written about the archiving of web sites a couple of times now. Here's an interesting twist on the concept. The Internet Archive allows you to watch the TV coverage on September 11, 2001, as it happened. Television and radio is generally well archived by the stations, but the public does not have access to it. Things like this open our history to more and more people, and I look forward to seeing this kind of archiving expanded upon.

Another reason to be thankful to live in the U.S.

22,000 dead and counting from a cyclone in Myanmar.  New Orleans was a disaster, but it really could have been much, much worse.

The difference between "resistant" and "proof"...

...is lost on way too many people. Here is a prime example in this McClatchey story:

The deaths of two U.S. soldiers in western Baghdad last week have sparked concerns that Iraqi insurgents have developed a new weapon capable of striking what the U.S. military considers its most explosive-resistant vehicle.

The soldiers were riding in a Mine Resistant Ambush Protective vehicle, known as an MRAP, when an explosion sent a blast of super-heated metal through the MRAP's armor and into the vehicle, killing them both.

Their deaths brought to eight the number of American troops killed while riding in an MRAP, which was developed and deployed to Iraq last year after years of acrimony over light armor on the Army's workhorse vehicle, the Humvee.

The MRAP is designed to be resistant to explosives, not "bomb proof". You might be able to make a bomb proof vehicle, but it won't be going anywhere fast, and that would create all new security problems. While the military should investigate a recent spate of explosion deaths in the MRAP in order to be ahead of the game with insurgents, the eight deaths is hardly evidence that the vehicles are not doing their job. In fact, buried in the tenth and final paragraph of the story, the reporters acknowledge that of the 8 deaths, one was due to a roll over and two due to drowning.

Oil: Supply & Demand or Bubble

The Christian Science Monitor takes a look at the new economics behind oil, namely whether supply and demand are the primary driving factors behind prices or if the weak dollar and speculation are creating high prices. Personally, I've long been a believer that oil is experiencing a bubble, but every prediction I've made has been wrong. I'm now of the opinion that the reason I have been wrong has been twofold. First, the dollar's decline has been more significant than I first anticipated. Second, and perhaps most importantly, the conventional wisdom has developed that oil and other commodities are safe investment havens in very uncertain economic times. I don't think I agree with that conventional wisdom, but until the general investment community becomes comfortable with the U.S. and global economies, this bubble will continue to grow. Eventually, it will burst, and it will burst big, but we aren't close to that point yet.

A refresher on recessions/depressions

James Ledbetter has a piece at Slate on whether the current economic downturn will be more like 1991 or the 1930's. The analysis of the current situation is less valuable than the primer on modern recessions and depression. I highly recommend keeping his piece in the back of your head while wading through all of the negative economic news that seems to overwhelm us sometimes.

Happy 5th

Today is the fifth anniversary of the lovely Mrs. Jib becoming legally obligated to put up with me. We will be doing much celebrating out in the non-bloggy world. It has been a silent week here, but that should end on Sunday when I start writing again for those of you who aren't legally obligated to put up with me.

Meet the Narwhal

If you read that headline and thought, "what the hell is a narwhal," you're not the only one. Apparently, it is a horned whale that is more vulnerable to warming water in the Arctic than polar bears.

The polar bear has become an icon of global warming vulnerability, but a new study found an Arctic mammal that may be even more at risk to climate change: the narwhal.

The narwhal, a whale with a long spiral tusk that inspired the myth of the unicorn, edged out the polar bear for the ranking of most potentially vulnerable in a climate change risk analysis of Arctic marine mammals.

The study was published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Ecological Applications. Polar bears are considered marine mammals because they are dependent on the water and are included as a species in the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The narwhal is an ugly little beast. Don't expect environmentalists to throw the polar bear overboard in favor of it.

Note to professional media types

For the love of God, please start getting this right because it makes you sound stupid. Follow closely now.

You do not write a blog. You write a post. At a blog. Just like you do not write a magazine or a newspaper. You write an article for a magazine or a newspaper.

I know that the occasional use of blog as a verb confuses you all, but this is no longer a new phenomenon. Get it right, please.

Only in Wisconsin

A cow, drunk driving...I don't think this could happen anywhere else but here.

Helen McCollum says she was just trying to help a guy staggering down the highway after he had hit a cow in the middle of the road.

Instead, she was arrested on a drunken driving charge after hitting the same cow, which did not survive.

"I was helping this guy and I was busted," McCollum  called The Capital Times to say today. "This is why people don't stop and help others anymore."

The Dane County Sheriff's Office reported that Michael Geisler, 43, Edgerton, hit the cow standing in the middle of Wisconsin 73 shortly after 3 a.m. Wednesday morning. The accident happened near County B. Geisler was slightly injured, the sheriff's office said, but refused to be taken to the hospital. He was not charged with any traffic violations.

Do you get the feeling that even the cow was drunk? 

Et tu, forests?

Arrrggghhh! Even the forests are warming the globe!

An outbreak of mountain pine beetles in British Columbia is doing more than destroying millions of trees: By 2020, the beetles will have done so much damage that the forest is expected to release more carbon dioxide than it absorbs, according to new research.

The study, led by Werner Kurz of the Canadian Forest Service, estimates that over 21 years trees killed by the beetle outbreak could release 990 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - roughly equivalent to five years of emissions from Canada's transportation sector.

The outbreak has affected about 33 million acres, or about 51,562 square miles, of lodgepole pines. Bark beetles also have killed huge swaths of pines in the western United States, including about 2,300 square miles of trees in Colorado.

"When trees are killed, they no longer are able to take carbon from the atmosphere. Then when dead trees start to decompose, that releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere," Kurz said.

That could exacerbate global warming that contributed to the outbreaks in the first place. Warmer temperatures have allowed beetles to survive farther north and at higher elevations.

With all this unstoppable CO2 leading to warming, we should save a bundle on our winter fuel oil, natural gas, and wood heating, shouldn't we?

The Only Penis Post of the First Decade of the 21st Century

I don't anticipate doing this again for another decade, so if you want to read peener news, you'll have to go elsewhere until 2018. So, without further fanfare, here we go.

-Used right, they might prevent prostate cancer. Only the good die young, I guess.

-They can't effect the gender of a baby as much as the momma's diet. So much for that X and Y chromosome thing.

-The damn things are just plain disappearing again. I wonder which of my insurance policies would cover that.

Why are we so stunned?

By this:

Harry Morse, a spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Game, said Miller was killed by the 5-year-old bear during the making of a promotional video for Randy Miller's Predators in Action center. The bear's fate has not been decided.

The bear, named Rocky, recently appeared in the Will Ferrell sports comedy "Semi-Pro." Center owner Randy Miller, the victim's cousin, was a stunt double for Ferrell in a wrestling match with the bear.

A trained bear is still a bear. A cute bear is still a bear. A professional might be able to control a lot of a predator's conduct, but the one thing that none of them will ever be able to control for is the fact that they are still working with a predator. As such, it may attack with no provocation.

Deep Thoughts, By Tim Robbins

From the Patriot Post:

"[J]ust when we were close to a national news media providing a general consensus on what the truth is, along comes the Internets [sic] that allows its users a choice on the kind of news it watches and the YouTube. My God, we've got to stop them." —actor Tim Robbins

I doubt he was joking when he said it.

Designer breeds, human-style

Sometimes silly thoughts flood my mind when I'm driving, and this morning was a prime example.  Designer breeds of dogs, like the shitspoo (wait, is that one popular?), are all the rage these days.  If we broke humans out into breeds by nationality/ethnicity, we Americans would be all the rage, too.  I, for one, would be a Norwippewa.  Who doesn't love a Norwippewa?  The lovely Mrs. Jib would be a Germrish.  I've known a number of good Germpoles in my life and think they get a bad rap.  Oddly, you don't meet many Fraglish people, though.

 

Anybody out there part of a hot human designer breed? 

Denver! Denver! Denver

As of this writing, Hillary Clinton is winning the Pennsylvania primary, and by a significant enough margin for her campaign to likely continue its hobble towards Denver. The public is going to be so sick of the Democratic nominee by the time he or she wins, John McCain is going to seem like a breath of fresh air.

"No, it was us. Really. Seriously, dude."

Odd.

Al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has blamed Iran for spreading the theory that Israel was behind the 11 September 2001 attacks.

In an audio tape posted on the internet, Zawahiri insisted al-Qaeda had carried out the attacks on the US.

He accused Iran, and its Hezbollah allies, of trying to discredit Osama Bin Laden's network.

Correspondents say the comments underline al-Qaeda's increasing public hostility towards Iran.

There you have it. First, earthquakes in the Midwest. Then, Al Qaeda exonerates Israel. Next? Plague and pestilence.

Did you feel the Great Midwestern Quake of '08?

I did here in southern Wisconsin.  I had woken up at 4 a.m. and was struggling to get back to sleep when a stand in my bedroom start to shake, along with all of the knick knacks that were on it.  I could feel it a little bit in the bed, too.  I think this is the first I've not slept through one of these gentle Midwestern tremors.

Playing with Fire

History is one of this country's worst subjects, so it really shouldn't surprise me that our elected leaders are this historically vapid.

Iraq's financial free ride may be over. After five years, Republicans and Democrats seem to have found common ground on at least one aspect of the war. From the fiercest foes of the war to the most steadfast Bush supporters, they are looking at Iraq's surging oil income and saying Baghdad should start picking up more of the tab, particularly for rebuilding hospitals, roads, power lines and the rest of the shattered country.

"I think the American people are growing weary not only of the war, but they are looking at why Baghdad can't pay more of these costs. And the answer is they can," said Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Nelson, a Democrat, is drafting legislation with Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana that would restrict future reconstruction dollars to loans instead of grants.

Their bill also would require that Baghdad pay for the fuel used by American troops and take over U.S. payments to predominantly Sunni fighters in the Awakening movement. Plans are to propose the legislation as part of a war bill to cover spending through September.

I find it funny. If pressed, every one of these congressional leaders would fall over themselves to praise the Marshall Plan and the Democratic administration that ushered it in. Yet they themselves are so weak and politically self serving that they are willing to pursue similar feeble but expedient policies that once set a post-Great War Europe on the path to a second world war. Are they really interested in stabilizing Iraq once and for all, or do they want an Iraq III if it means political gains today? While Iraq should play a growing role in its own future, lawmakers walk a dangerous line with this gambit if they demand too much.

The time has come to fight back against California

Again, California tries to make choices for businesses and consumers via legislation:

California shoppers could end up paying recycling fees if they decide to haul their groceries home in plastic bags.

Two bills scheduled to be considered tomorrow by the Assembly Natural Resources Committee would authorize fees of 15 cents or 25 cents a bag.

The idea is to discourage supermarkets and large drug stores from using plastic bags.

I can only think of one way to get around this fee and still teach California about unintended legislative consequences: Non-biodegradable, Styrofoam shopping bags. Made at environmentally unfriendly plants in China. I begin outsourcing on Monday.

Believe it or not, sometimes a $13,500 tab is good for business

I'm pretty sure that my opinion on the $13,500 tab run up at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Orlando is going to run against the opinion of every single blogger out there, but hear me out before you blast me. First, the story.

When the U.S. Postal Service rang up a $13,500 tab at an Orlando steakhouse, it spared no expense during a five-hour meal that government investigators are calling "abusive" in its extravagance.

The order -- charged to government credit cards -- included more than $3,000 for drinks, more than $500 for shrimp cocktails and almost $900 for mini crab cakes, according to the Government Accountability Office, the investigate arm of Congress.

And then there's the steak.

"The better question is probably what they didn't order," GAO investigator Gregory Kutz said Wednesday. He counted 81 entrees -- including just about every kind of steak -- from the 2006 feast at Ruth's Chris Steak House on Sand Lake Road.

At first blush, that is downright offensive. It sparked a question in my mind, though: Was this pure extravagance or was there a purpose to this dinner? So I read the rest of the story and found this:

McKiernan said the dinner was intended to help woo corporate clients of the U.S. Postal Service, which competes with carriers such as UPS and FedEx for business. "It was just the opinion of the GAO that the cost was excessive," he said.

These included liquid expenses such as Courvoisier, Belvedere and Johnnie Walker Gold Label, according to the GAO report. "Ruth's Chris is a very fine restaurant, and at a fine restaurant, you find fine products," McKiernan said.

Business is still very much about personal relationships, whether the businesses are small, medium, or large. In my life in business, dealing with customers much smaller than the ones that the USPS was wooing, I've seen bills nearly this large. And if you think that was expensive, you should see the money some companies outlay on parties for their customers and prospective customers, usually people just like you and me, at trade shows. The fact is events like this go a long way in developing and securing personal bonds that can be the tipping point that brings in millions and millions of new business, and sometimes prevents other millions of dollars going to the competition. In a vacuum, a $13,500 dollar bill is grotesque. When you consider what the return on investment could possibly be from a dinner like that, it can be a bargain. Would you spend $13,500 if the pay off was potentially $1 million, $20 million, $50 million or more in new business? You bet your butt you would.

Random thought

Sputum is a gross word for a gross thing. Talk about your perfect marriage.

My out of whack priorities

The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography, Adrees Latif, discusses the death in the streets of Myanmar that he witnessed through the lens of his Canon 5D. His story is brief but sad and riveting. But what part of the article did I find myself reading most intently? His camera settings and why he chose them. As a person, that's wrong. As a semi-pro photographer, I found myself surprised at his choice of ISO 800.

California, where childhood fun goes to die

Remember those fun, metallic helium balloons you used to pine for as a kid? Well, the next generation of California kids may never get to enjoy them.

California would become the first state to ban helium-filled metallic balloons under a bill unanimously advanced Tuesday by a legislative committee.

Sen. Jack Scott, D-Altadena, said the party balloons frequently break free and float into power lines, where they can cause electric wires to arc.

He said they cause millions of dollars in losses for utility companies and businesses that lose electricity. Pacific Gas and Electric Co., the main utility in Northern California, says the balloons caused more than 200 power outages last year in its coverage area.

California, you really need to consider bumping your legislature back to part time status. They have way too much time on their hands.

Plasma bulb the next big thing?

The incandescent light bulb has been banished by congress, so now the jostling begins for the next big light bulb technology. Some are in love with the CFL while many others (myself included) hate it for everyday use. LEDs are making some headway but have a ways to go. So might the plasma bulb win out in the end?

At 140 lumens/watt, these pill-sized plasma light bulbs by Luxim are a pretty awesome contender for "light of the future". They are almost 10 times more efficient than traditional incandescent light bulbs, twice as efficient as current high-end LEDs, and they also beat CFLs, most of which are around 50-80 lumens/watt.

I know too little about this technology to make any pronouncements, but I hate CFL's so much (except for certain uses) that I'm willing to hear out any new technology that bury those miserable fluorescent bulbs.

Stone's Bush to begin soon

I'm predicting a flop at the box office for Oliver Stone's Bush.

President George W. Bush is a foul-mouthed, reformed drunk obsessed with baseball, Saddam Hussein and a conflicted relationship with his dad. Or at least that's how he's portrayed in the script for Oliver Stone's upcoming feature "W."

One of the script writers claims to have read 17 books on the topic of George W. Bush. I have a sneaking suspicion that by "books" he meant "posts at Huffpo."

Go Green, Kill the Newspaper

Heh. I was just watching the 10 O'clock news on NBC 15 out of Madison, and in a short piece on going green, they recommended ditching your newspaper subscription and reading the paper online instead. I'm sure that just thrilled the folks at the Wisconsin State Journal.

Nominee for Quote of the Year

This is funny:

"I still haven't decided how to split the cow," he told the newspaper. "She should just say what she wants -- the part with the horns or the part with the tail."

Here's the context.

Regretting the Asterisk Even More

This brief interview makes me think of the asterisk and hate it even more than I already do.

My biggest problem with global warming apocalyptics

Here is my biggest problem with the global warming crowd. Let's pretend for a moment that they are right. What does man (and all warm blooded life, for that matter) have a more difficult time adjusting to-warmth or cold? With additional warmth, man can still grow crops and wild mammals can still find food. With increased cold, crops become difficult to grow in sufficient quantities and large winter starve-offs of mammals are common. So while we would have to figure out how to adapt, would warming really be the end of the world?

And this leads into my biggest pet peeve about the 20th/21st century environmental movement. The natural state of nature is change. This entire planet is in a continual state of flux. Still, for some reason our environmentalist consciouses want to freeze nature in it's appearance as of sometime in 1970. That is about the most anti-environment mindset I can think of.

The Consequences of Legislative Actions

Hillary Clinton on the Tonight Show:

I was in Indianapolis the other day, and I was shaking hands after I spoke. And there was this young boy, about 11 years old. And he was trying to tell me something, ya know, and the crowd was yelling. So I leaned over and he said, "You know, my mom makes minimum wage, and even though it went up, her hours were cut so were not making any more money. Can you help her?" You know, when somebody says something like that to you, it really does energize me and, yeah, I can, I'm going to really try to help you.

Point number one: This is a typical bullshit political story. I don't care who tells it, be it Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Socialist, etc., etc. This is always a made up story. And Hillary should hope that it is a made up story, because if it isn't, then it proves what any number of conservatives have been saying from the get go, and that is that wages are something that a politician can't just decide to increase. When business are faced with forced increases in their labor costs, they have to find ways to absorb those increases. One way is to employ fewer people. Another is to offer fewer hours to those they employ already. I know that Hillary was pandering to economic divisions with this bogus story, but she did more to prove what her opposition says about minimum wage than her opponents could ever hope to.

Hillary as Rocky Balboa

Earlier this week, Hillary Clinton compared herself to Rocky.

Of course, this lead a lot of bloggers to note that Rocky got his ass kicked by his black opponent.

I, for one, don't think that's what she meant. I think Hillary was fantasizing about the sixth Rocky installment. You know the one...remember, Rocky's a widower? Yeah, I think that's the Rocky Hillary wishes she was.

I miss all the fun

During the day, the Beltline in Madison is literally at my back. If I look over my shoulder, I can see the traffic moving in both directions. Still, I was somehow oblivious to this.

Happy Birthday Mom

Just wanted to day that.

Muslims Outnumber Roman Catholics

I find this an odd comparison, but then again, I'm one of those upstart, troublesome Protestants:

Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world, the Vatican said on Sunday.

Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, who compiled the Vatican's newly-released 2008 yearbook of statistics, said Muslims made up 19.2 percent of the world's population and Catholics 17.4 percent.

"For the first time in history we are no longer at the top: the Muslims have overtaken us," Formenti told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in an interview, saying the data referred to 2006.

Why is the Vatican comparing the whole of Islam to Roman Catholicism? Islam is not without its theological divisions. Sunni, Shi'a, and Sufi are all Islamic 'denominations', if you will. Is the Roman Catholic church still that steeped in its belief that it is the only Christian Church that it is willing to make this nonsensical comparison?

The Flood of 2008

'08 Rock River Flood 002
Originally uploaded by Jibby7

I took a drive out Blackhawk Island Road in Fort Atkinson today. Flooding like this is typical about once a year. This year is going to be much worse, though, as the National Weather Service is projecting the river to crest about a foot and a half higher than this. The road itself usually floods but most years you can still pass through. I tried today but stopped after a few hundred feet because two to three inches of water was flowing over the road at very high rate of speed. If we get the amount of rain over the next 36 hours that forecasters are projecting, this is going to be a flood people are going to remember for a long time.

Well Spoken Words on Fitna

From the folks at Power Line:

So, let's see: Fitna says that a propensity to violence is inherent in Islam, a deeply controversial proposition. The film can't be shown anywhere because people are afraid of...something. So instead, the film is posted online, where millions of people view it. But after 24 hours or so, the film is taken down because threats of violence are made by...someone. I dunno, it's really puzzling. The one thing that everyone agrees on is that it's ridiculous to think that Muslims can be violent. So the headchopping threats must be coming from...someone else.

And yet some will still go out of their way to excuse...someone else...because some other Muslims aren't violent. The fact is a not insignificant minority of Muslims are fanatically violent, enough so to present a threat to life and liberty across the globe. Ignoring this fact accomplishes nothing but paying that problem forward.

I will add one thing, even though I really shouldn't have to do so but I know somebody will comment to the contrary if I do not. I do not believe that all or even a majority of Muslims are violent threats. I, like many others, have come to know Muslim men and women over the years. I've liked and respected them, but I harbor no doubt that there is small but very significant number of Muslims willing and enthusiastic about pursuing violent ends. In and of itself, that would be manageable. The problem lies in the sizable number of Muslims who are not violent but theologically empathetic to the violent members of their religion. It is that empathetic support network that amplifies the impact of the violent fanatics.

The Cutting Edge Stories of the New York Times

This is not a new story but it the Times runs with it anyway:

Jose Fernandez said he decided some time ago that on his salary as a restaurant worker, he was better off without his 1996 Toyota 4Runner. He hoped to make a nice bit of cash from its sale. Before he could do that, though, someone beat him to extracting value: A thief sneaked under the sport utility vehicle with a battery-powered saw, slicing from the Toyota’s underbelly what may be one of the most expensive small parts of the auto world: the catalytic converter, an essential emissions-control device made with small amounts of metals more precious than gold. Who knew?

I've been hearing about this for at least a year and a half. Who knows, maybe this was just news to those at the Times. I'm sure they don't hob knob with the common folk who make their livings in some association with the automobile.

Protecting Preemies from Noise

I've been to a NICU once, and during that visit there were just four of us adults in the room with a handful of preemies. We made sure we kept the volume on our conversation low, but as wide open as the room was, I wondered what it was like when many people were there. The babies need their rest during that stage and the rooms seemed potentially conducive to noise. Given that, I'm think this system is a great tool for NICUs.

Warning lights hover over the snoozing patients in Riley Hospital for Children's neonatal intensive care unit, ready to flash whenever sound levels creep beyond normal conversation. As decibels rise, the colors on the new monitoring system change from green to yellow to red, hushing chatty parents or doctors so the babies get the rest they need to develop.
[...]
Smith, 43, had no training as a sound engineer and no plans to become an entrepreneur when his son Sean was born five weeks premature in 2000. But he noticed Sean flinch in response to bright light in the NICU of St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital, and he wound up designing a system to soften the unit's lighting.

Then the nurses asked him what he could do about sound.

"That's really when I realized that there was no good way out there to measure sound, other than your standard, hand-held meter," he said.
[...]
The former car mechanic filled hours of spare time in the evenings and on weekends researching sound standards and building a system.

Smith, who tinkered in radio and TV electronics in high school, hired an acoustical engineer to help. They created a ceiling-mounted system of microphones that picked up sound and funneled data back to a large control panel.

"There was a lot of wiring, a lot of labor, a lot of programming," he said.

St. Vincent paid around $100,000 for the system, which it installed about five years ago. Smith had no interest in shopping his invention to other hospitals because the work took so much time.

Other hospitals came a knocking though, and now this system is Smith's business. I wish him and his his system all the success in the world.

For Once He Was Lost, But Now He Is Found...In a Strip Joint

Bad pastor.

Police say a pastor who was reported missing from his home in western New York has been found at an Ohio strip club.
[...]
Detective Matt Sturgeon said Rhodenizer was disoriented when confronted by police and said he felt "emotionally guilty."

Why the qualifier on his guilt? I'll bet a communion wafer (and I think I can go to hell for that) he didn't feel an ounce of guilt, except for being caught.

Huge, Sucking Hole of Death Possible in France?

Many would say it already is a huge sucking death hole, but this guy sees a bigger threat:

Walter F. Wagner and his colleague Luis Sancho have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to stop work on the Large Hadron Collider, a gigantic atom smasher on the Franco-Swiss border that's set to start operations in May.

Physicists hope its incredible energies will form briefly-lived new particles that could shed light on the origins of the universe, among other marvels.

The plaintiffs' concerns? That the LHC could accidentally create strange new particles that would instantly transform any matter they touched, engulfing the Earth, or, even worse, make a rapidly expanding black hole that could consume the entire planet.

I support him and his lawsuit, if only because I've long suspected that the French would be the death of all of us. (HT: Still at Real)

Hillary claims an 'oops'

By now most of us have seen the two videos.  In one, Hillary Clinton claims to have dodged sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia 12 years ago when leaving an airport.  In the other, we see Hillary being greated by children at said airport with a younger Chelsea watching.  Now her campaign says 'oops, that's not what she meant.'

 

The absurdity of the idea that the Secret Service would allow a First Lady to enter an area as hot as Mrs. Clinton described notwithstanding, what lead her to decide to embellish a story like that?  She's lived in the video age her entire life.  Did she not think that some news organization out there would still have video of her trip to Bosnia?  Did she not think that people on that trip would remember what really happened.

 

If you are running for office, you just aren't allowed to tell fishing stories.  You get caught in your embellishments.  This shows bad judgement and a certain lack of political sense on her part.  She had the chance to starve Obama of momentum while she sets up a convention floor battle.  Instead, this story hands the momentum right back to him.  There will probably still be a convention battle, but she needs every once of credibility she can get going into it.  Stupid moves like this don't accomplish that.

The Final Indignity

An elephant is a better photographer than I am.

I'm guessing it wasn't a good flight

I'm pretty sure this was a pants filler for all passengers:

The gun carried by a US Airways pilot accidentally went off on a flight from Denver to Charlotte on Saturday, causing the plane to be pulled from service, the airline said on Monday.

No one was injured by the shot, and the aircraft landed safely in Charlotte. Flight 1536 had 124 passengers, two pilots and three flight attendants aboard, US Airways said.

The pilot was a Federal Flight Deck Officer, permissioned by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to carry a firearm.

I support allowing pilots to carry arms, but they've got to take great care to make sure they are carrying securely.

I bet the passengers were well behaved for the rest of the flight.

The 4,000

I have an idea for a political cartoon. Unfortunately, I can't draw, so I'll have to explain my cartoon for you all. In it there are a group of reporters and anti-war protesters wearing pointy paper hats and holding noise makers, yelling in unison 5!...4!...3!...2!...1!...4000!

Some have been waiting with anticipation over the past week for the 4000th U.S. soldier to die and now they've finally gotten it. I find the countdown and anticipation abhorrent, especially since the story is predominantly about not how heroic yet tragic each of those 4,000 were, but rather how bad the war is, largely because of what party was in charge when it started.

On Hollywood

The lovely Mrs. Jib and I are currently watching Bridget Jones's Diary. This was a role that Hollywood raved about, in part because of the weight that Rene Zellweger put on for the role. Unfortunately for Hollywood (and Zellweger), we both agree that she was actually at her most attractive when she was at that weight. Hollywood acted as though she had really packed on the pounds, but frankly, Zellweger was anything but fat in that role. She had her natural curves and shape. Of course, in Hollywood that's just not acceptable. That's very unfortunate.

Snow Friday

I remember the Good Fridays of my youth quite well. The day stood out because it seemed like almost every Good Friday from when I was 7 to about 18 had sunny weather.

What the hell happened to those days?

Granted, Easter is quite early this year. Still, where did this snowstorm come from? It is the end of March. The Wisconsin spring high school baseball season starts in two weeks. That means that even in the Northwoods, the snow is usually gone by the end of this month. Global warming my ass. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: This was the worst winter that I can remember.

And I do have one little gripe for Dane County. I know the interstate has embarrassed you guys twice this winter, so I can't blame you if you gave it a little extra love and attention today. Did you put all of your damn plows on it, though? U.S. Highway 12 is a major artery through your county, too, but when I drove home from work on it this afternoon it looked like a plow hadn't touched it all day. The snow depths in your county weren't all that bad-maybe 4 or 5 inches-but a major U.S. highway was treacherous. I think you can manage your snow clearing a little better than that.

The 'Everybody Does It' Defense

It's funny. When there is a Republican sex scandal, the tone of MSM stories generally get prudish. When there is a Democrat sex scandal, the tone shifts to either 'it's just sex' or 'everybody does it'. The latter is this story's approach.

Philly to build 2nd tallest building in the world...

...that would be, at best, fourth largest upon its completion. So really, with the Chicago Spire and New York's Freedom Tower likely beating them to 1500 feet and above, why bother bragging about 2nd?

And they both reached for the gun!

There is nothing funny about this headline, but I can't help but think of the film version of Chicago when reading it:

Tosa man Tasered after lunging for gun.

A Word of Caution to My Blogging Friends and Opponents

While you are all completely justified in flogging the police department in question here, I do recommend carefully and thoroughly reading any totally anonymous blogger before extending your credibility to defend him or her. I suspect most bloggers are linking to the story in knee jerk fashion (again, the police department is due criticism in this case) without stopping to determine if the blogger in question could cause them embarrassment now or down the road.

What, they can't play tennis?

The Ukranian military should make this into a recruitment poster. What I'm left to wonder is if that is the "hot but not good enough for the women's tennis tour" division of the Ukranian military.

SNL Classic: Reagan Mastermind

This is one of my favorite SNL clips ever.

'Tis Good to be Home Again

Las Vegas always is, at the very least, an interesting experience. Coming home after a trip to Las Vegas is always better, especially when the home you are returning to seems to be breaking winter's icy death grip. I feel like I was blindsided by a Mack truck, which makes being home even better. My left foot is the equivalent of a blown tire that I decided to drive on for four days. My knees and ankles are shocks that have gone bad, and my calves just plain hurt like hell. I'm now parked in my recliner, and I don't think I'll be leaving it until Monday.

Checking In

I am so far out of the loop it isn't even amusing. My RSS feed reader is at 2507 unread items, and that doesn't include all of the sources that have capped out at 200 items. Despite that, the Elliot Spitzer story has penetrated my isolation from the news. Given that, I want to relay an anecdote uttered by my former co-blogger Col. Ollie. When asked about the story, he said, "Never has a politician had a more appropriate last name."

I don't care who you are, that was funny.

Programing Note

I was just working my way out of a light time here but I'm afraid I'm going to be entering another. A surprise business trip has come up and I'm going to away from the blog for the next week. I'll be checking in and even posting when the opportunity arises, but it is going to be very, very light.

The fun of blogging

Something happened today that made me realize that I've had a pretty blessed blogging career so far. On Tuesday, I wrote a post at the Wisconsin Sports Bar entitled "Favrepocalypse." This morning, a couple of commentors over there said that the post was quoted on Fox News in the run up to Favre's presser today. I was tickled. Because of blogging, over the past 4 years I've been quoted on MSNBC and Fox News, on a major Wisconsin radio station, on a New York Times blog, and I've had the chance to be on the radio personally. That's not too bad a ride. Thank you to all of you who've read Jiblog, the Badger Blog Alliance, and the Wisconsin Sports Bar.

The One-Way Manned Mission to Mars

This is intriguing but potentially self defeating.

However, one former NASA engineer believes a human mission to Mars is quite doable, and such an event would unify the world as never before. But Jim McLane’s proposal includes a couple of major caveats: the trip to Mars should be one-way, and have a crew of only one person.

In McLane's opinion, such a mission would be more easily accomplished because of the reduced amount of supplies needed and the elimination of the biggest challenge-returning to Earth. He also believes that there would be plenty of pioneering, tough individuals who would be able and willing to enjoin such a mission. I agree with him on that, but there is always the risk of that individual cracking after months or years without any direct human contact. Man has lost people on space missions, but we have never lost a human to space. I can see the worst case scenario being so traumatic that it actually sets manned missions to Mars back by decades.

U.S. State, 160, Commits Suicide

(Jiblog News Network)-In a stunning turn of events, the U.S. state of Wisconsin was found dead today of an apparent suicide.

The state was found hanging from a tree near Lake Superior by the state of Minnesota.

"I was just looking wistfully out across the Mississippi River like I do everyday," said the melancholy Land of 10,000 Lakes. "The scene was different, though. Wisconsin wasn't there. I looked up and there it was, swinging from that tree."

Federal officials were immediately called to the scene. Resuscitation was attempted but the state, weakened from years of being bled dry by high taxes, never regained consciousness.

This afternoon, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that a suicide note had been found near the U.P. of Michigan. While the text of the note has not yet been released, confidential sources say that it showed a state extremely distraught and depressed over the retirement announcement by Green Bay Packer Brett Favre.

Officials are very concerned about the U.P. of Michigan, as it has been taking Wisconsin's death particularly hard. Late this afternoon, the U.P. was seen wailing and muttering, "No dere, no way, not Favre, not Wisconsin." A suicide watch may be placed on the Upper Peninsula as its lifelong partner, Lower Michigan, is broke and on life support, further deepening the U.P.'s grief.

Funeral arrangements are pending, but relatives are asking that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to Illinois so it can finally have a football team.

It was a frosty Tuesday morning in March

Thanks for the memories, Brett.

Hugo Chavez making noise

I see this as little more than saber-rattling:

South America was on the brink of war yesterday as Venezuela and Ecuador amassed troops on the Colombian border in response to the killing of a Marxist rebel leader.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened to join the rebels in a war to overthrow hard-line Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a key ally of the United States, deploying tanks, fighter jets and thousands of troops along the Colombian border.

It is worth watching, but I doubt that Chavez will pull the trigger-at least not this time. I can see any number of reasons that might be behind his troop movements, though. First, it allows him to see what a response to possible military action would be and how far he can push the envelope. That can be very useful information should he ever decide to start a shooting war. Second, it allows him to further his carefully crafted populist image as a leader who will stand up to the United States and all of its allies. Third, sometimes a bluff is enough to increase power and influence in a region if it works. Whatever the reason(s), I suspect that this is just the beginning of Chavez lead confrontations in Latin America.

Pilot averts crash landing

I've experienced unpleasant landings before, most notably hard landings in Orlando and Milwaukee because of high winds, but thankfully I've never experienced anything like this. If I'd have been on that plane, I'd have really been white knuckling it on the second approach. Hopefully the passengers thanked the pilot for his skill in saving the plane during the first approach.

How forgetfulness can bestow pleasant surprises

I, like most Wisconsinites, have an abundance of built up ice but no salt. Anticipating a worse winter than usual, I'd doubled up my salt supply in December and I still managed to blow through almost all of it. So yesterday I went digging through my shed. I knew that somewhere in there was a nearly full bag of sand that would at least make my icy sidewalks safe. After moving my lawn furniture and digging to the bottom of a round tub that would be better served cooling a quarter barrel, I found my bag of sand. Much to my surprise, though, was a bag of pure gold right next to it. 2 winters ago, I did not use all of my salt. In fact, I ended up with a full, unopened bag left over. I had stored it away for future use and then forgotten about it. Finding that bag of salt was probably more exciting to me than any gift could have been at that moment. When you are 16 years old, it is unimaginable that finding a bag of salt will be terribly exciting when you're 32, but it was.

Long Live PETA

I give PETA plenty of hell here, all of it well deserved. Despite the fact that their own animal shelter is positively lethal for stray & abandoned pets, I'm okay with PETA sticking around as a whack job protest organization, but only on one condition. They must continue to hold protests like this (pic sfw, others in slide show may not be). As long as they do, I'll put up with their idiocy in exchange for their entertainment value.

Happy Leap Day

I'm back, and I'm damn cranky.

Don't Say 'Won't'

I'm curious how the WDNR can make this assurance with a straight face:

The Department of Natural Resources is reassuring Rock County residents the cougar spotted in various areas won't prey on pets.

Really? Cougars are predatory animals. Upon what evidence can they make that assurance with any credibility? They can say it is unlikely that the cougar will prey on pets, but even that would only be based on assumptions. If you live in northern Rock County, I recommend that you keep a close eye on your pets despite this assurance.

My biggest fear about Obama

Here is what scares me right now. Barack Obama is running an idealist's campaign in a world in which a premium should be placed on realism. Idealism is a sirens' song at times when people want to cower from realism, though, and pursuing the sirens' song is rarely what is best. I fear the American people are headed down an even more painful road than the one they chose to travel down in 1976.

Reaching a Petroleum Ceiling

Steady yourself. The media and experts are predicting a crisis in gas prices.

Gasoline prices, which for months lagged behind the big run-up in the price of oil, are suddenly rising quickly, with some experts saying they could approach $4 a gallon by spring. Diesel is hitting new records daily, and oil settled at a record high of $100.88 a barrel on Tuesday.

The increases could not come at a worse time for the economy. With growth slowing, energy increases that were once easily absorbed by consumers are now more likely to act as a drag on household budgets, leaving people with less money to spend elsewhere. These costs could worsen the nation’s economic woes, piling a fresh energy shock on top of the turmoil in credit and housing.

[...]

Mr. Kloza said he expected gasoline to peak around $3.50 to $3.75 a gallon nationwide. Geoff Sundstrom, AAA’s spokesman, echoed that view and added that gas at $4 a gallon is possible this summer. “We’ve gone from a worrying situation for gasoline to one that is quite alarming,” Mr. Sundstrom said.

$3.50 I can see, even $3.75 at the upper end. I doubt we'll see $4, though. Why? Well, because I think both the American and the global economy has absorbed about as much of the run up in energy costs as it can. Energy costs cannot continue in an upward direction indefinitely because there just isn't the ability for people to absorb it beyond a certain point. Sooner rather than later, we are going to begin to see a significant reduction in energy consumption as a result of the high prices. That is going to result in a slow down in consumer demand as people begin to reign in their spending to afford the energy that they do use, and that is going to further reduce demand for petroleum. We could see a protracted economic slow down because of this, and if we do, it isn't going to be pleasant. A protracted economic slow down here is going to have a ripple effect through the rest of the global economy, though, and that is in turn going to result in further reductions in petroleum consumption and demand.

On top of that, continued high petroleum costs at the upper limit of what the economy can afford will encourage further investment in new sources of energy. If we are lucky, the most successful of those sources will not exacerbate inflationary pressures by taking food staples off of people's tables (cough, ethanol, cough). Markets, like nature, like balance. At some point, the global economy will slow or contract to balance energy shortfalls.

Scenes From a Deck

The deck in my backyard is mourning dove central for this neighborhood. It is not unusual to see a dozen or more of the birds congregated below the feeder on my deck, in the a tree near the feeder, or on the arbor. I suspect that the elements of my deck-food, cover, and abundant sunlight-are what attract them, and I really don't mind as long as cardinals and other song birds continue to visit. In fact, my deck has become something of a wildlife utopia. Even when my cat is out there, she minds her business as long as other animals mind theirs (chipmunks excepted-she hates those little bastards).

Well, as is nature's way, utopia was disturbed recently. Despite our relatively close proximity to the country, we've seen next to no birds of prey during our time here. So as I watched a dozen or so mourning doves out my deck doors, it came as a great surprise to see a hawk of some sort flash into my field of view. It took every bird back there by surprise. It plucked a mourning dove off the top of the arbor and as quickly as it came, it was gone, scattering the rest of the birds with it. Since that little bird nook has been so tranquil over the years, I was stunned watching it. What was particularly fascinating to me was how much that hawk took the rest of the birds by surprise. The bird sanctuary is hemmed in by a fence on two sides, the arbor on a the third, with a tree in the middle, so the hawk had to dodge some obstacles to pick up its lunch, and still it had its pick of sedentary birds.

That area was silent for much of the rest of the afternoon. I was curious to see how long the 'regulars' would stay away. Most did not come back for the rest of the day, but five mourning doves did return late in the afternoon and it was kind of an amazing sight. One dove returned before the rest, and it took up the place on the arbor where the other had been snatched up early in the day. A little while later, four additional doves returned, and they did something I've never seen them do before. Typically, their attention is focused inward on the bird feeder and the seed on the ground. These four birds, however, took up positions on my fence, looking outward. Two sat on each fence, and they were equally spaced. They looked like four little sentries. All five remained in those positions until dusk, at which time they grabbed a little bite to eat and took off for the night. Outside of the one hour last year where my tree saw a cardinal convention (there were so many I thought they were choosing a pope), it was the most interesting hour of animal watching I've had on my deck.

Where was the questioning of China?

Sigh.

A different kind of doubt still lingers, though, expressed by policy analysts, some politicians and scientists, and not a few foreign powers, especially China and Russia:

Should the people of the world be breathing a sigh of relief that the risk of a half-ton of frozen, toxic rocket fuel landing who knows where has passed? Or should they be worried about the latest display of the United States’ technical prowess, and see it as a thinly veiled test for a shadow antisatellite program?

Really? Is it really necessary to question the intentions of the United States? Does everything really have to be that anti-American? After all, let us remember, it was the Chinese who first blew a satellite out of the sky, and there was very little doubt as to what their goal was. Had the fuel tank of this satellite landed in the center of New York, London, Paris, Toronto, Moscow, or Beijing, there would have been holy hell to pay. Shooting it down was precisely the right thing to do. Since China already opened the door to using offensive weapons against satellites, I have absolutely no problem if the United States chooses to use data from this for military intel. China and any other countries looking at first strike capabilities against satellites need to know that doing so will ensure a similar action will be taken against their communications and intelligence properties in space. In the spirit of MAD, people should be cheering the fact that no one nation (ahem, China) has this capability.

But really, why?

Okay, I don't have a lot of time, but I do want to comment on one thing, the New York Times' piece on the supposed John McCain affair with a lobbyist. While I do think that it is a hack job, and I love bashing the Times as much as anyone, I'm not seeing the conspiracy. It would be pointless for an ideologically driven New York Times to launch that particular salvo now, very far in advance of the general election. From an ideologically strategic point of view, it would be stupid to sit on that story and then launch it now, after it can hurt McCain in the primaries but before it can really damage him in the general. Face it, the story is a hack job and little more. There is no C-O-N-spiracy.

Total Eclipse of the Moon

2008 Lunar Eclipse 001
Originally uploaded by Jibby7

Just in case you missed it. The next one won't occur until shortly before Christmas of 2010.

Use 'Em & Lose 'Em, Hillary Clinton Style

When you are Democratic presidential candidate and United States Senator Hillary Clinton, you can request a polka band to play at your campaign stop and then skip town without paying them.

Whitewater’s Steve Meisner, a nationally known polka bandleader, doesn’t want political campaign rhetoric landing on the keys of his accordion.

The Steve Meisner Band played at Hillary Clinton’s rally Monday evening at the Monona Terrace.

It was on short notice, and the band requested $200 for the time and effort and a photo op with the New York Democrat. Not much considering the campaign communications director had announced online fund raising garnered $15 million in 15 days this month, according to several Web sites.

The band left without a penny or a Polaroid.

$200 is pretty cheap, so it isn't as though Meisner was gouging them, and I'm sure that the check is in the mail, as long as they didn't bring her on stage to the tune of "Too Fat Polka."

The Wisconsin Primary & Other Ruminations

*One word sums up how I feel about this primary: Blech.

*At the risk of being labeled a heretic in this GOTV society, I did not vote today. I was tied to a telephone all day, but if I had been inspired, I could have made it to the polls before they closed. I was not so inspired. I could not bear making a strategic vote for either Clinton or Obama in the Democrats' primary, and I'm just not yet ready to pull the lever for John McCain. I also didn't feel like making a pointless 'principle' vote for anyone else.

*Yes, I know, I should have gone anyway for the down ballot votes. My funk is deep, though.

*So Fidel Castro has resigned. That's newsworthy, but things aren't going to change much. Fidel's been ill long enough for Raul Castro to have an orderly succession plan in place.

*If my count is correct, I received 5 robo/campaign calls from the two Dem candidates. Obama won that count, too.

*I'm not a big fan of open primaries, but in this instance, cross-over voting did not make a bit of difference.

*For the record, corn ethanol still sucks. It leaves us one drought away from disaster.

*I think I'm suffering from some sort of political depression. Politically speaking, I feel like sleeping through this entire presidential election. The cause is this Dole-Clinton deja vu I have setting in over a possible McCain-Obama contest.

*This Wisconsin winter has been so bad that for the first time in my life I've found my mind wandering in regards to how nice it would be to live somewhere else.

*As for Lindsey Lohan's photo shoot in New York magazine-at first I wondered who in their right mind would disgrace Marilyn Monroe by choosing Lohan to do a tribute spread to her. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that it is actually a little fitting.

*If messiah Barack Obama turns water into beer, then and only then will I consider voting for him, but only if he promises to run the presidency from my sink.

A Bad Winter About to Get Worse

This has been a miserable winter in Southern Wisconsin. In fact, I'm about ready to consider it the worst one I've lived through. Not too shabby considering I grew up in the northwestern part of Wisconsin during a time known for snowy winters. We've had multiple Snowpocalypses this year, a phenomenon we normally only get to joke about once or twice a year, and the local meteorologists have been warning us about another one for a couple of days now. This storm has just started to roll into my neck of the woods, and its first punch isn't pretty. It started raining about 15 minutes ago, and upon hitting any surface, that rain has turned to ice. I can already ice skate across my wood deck. I'm not sure how long it is going to ice, but we are scheduled to get 4 to 6 inches of snow on top of whatever ice we get. Other parts of the country can tell you that an ice storm followed by wet, heavy snow is a recipe for disaster. Right now, I'm hoping that the air temperature gets warm enough here to melt that accumulating ice before the snow sets in.

Perspective on Corn Ethanol

Ever wonder how much corn we grow for fuel, not food? A lot.

The pending global food crisis is due, in part, to a rich twist of irony: One of the factors driving up the price of T-bone steak, a dozen eggs and a carton of milk is a perfectly edible vegetable, a staple of many diets - corn.

To add to the irony, we're growing more corn than ever before. We're just not eating it.

"The U.S. is now using more corn for production of ethanol than our entire crop in Canada," says Kurt Klein, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Lethbridge. "It's huge."

And it is going to get bigger. In 2000, world production of ethanol totalled 20 billion litres. In 2007, world production climbed to 60 billion litres. In the month of January alone, six billion new litres of ethanol were produced in the U.S., Mr. Klein says.

God help us all if we have a sustained drought here in the corn belt.

(Cross posted at the BBA)

Potentially the worst spring television ever

Hurray, the writers' strike is over. A lot of popular shows plan to have 4 to 8 new episodes in April and May (excluding my new personal favorite Chuck). That's less than 2 months from now. That means episodes need to be written and produced in weeks. This is going to be one ugly spring for television. I'm almost glad my favorite won't be back until fall.

Oh Jealousy

I admit it. I'm jealous. The Wisconsin primary is almost upon us, but it is the Democrats having all the fun. I have zero desire to go to an event to listen to Barack Obama talk about nothing, or Bill Clinton blame his low turnout on Milwaukee radio host Charlie Sykes, or watch Hillary Clinton blubber and bawl. Now if Mike Huckabee cried, while on the air with Sykes, talking about a second spitter*, that would be fun.

(*Fans of Seinfeld, the show about nothing, might understand that reference.)

Dining the Super Delegates

Interesting.

Jason Rae is a typical junior in college.

He spends several hours a day in class at Marquette University in Wisconsin where he is majoring in history and political science. He is closely following the Marquette basketball team and has the Golden Eagles' schedule memorized.

But not many 21-year-olds start their Monday with a personal breakfast with Chelsea Clinton, as Rae did this morning at the student union at the nearby University of Milwaukee.

Rae got the one-on-one treatment from the former-and possibly future-first daughter because he is a Democratic National Committee member from Wisconsin and thus a "super delegate," one of the 796 free agents who can back any candidate in the race for the Democratic nomination.

That's normal, alright. I'm sure Barack Obama already has plans to send his wife to take this guy out to dinner.

Q: What is John McCain's best friend right now?

A: A mini Mike Huckabee surge.

It is close to impossible for John McCain to lose the Republican nomination now that Mitt Romney is out of the race. He has enough delegates racked up that it would take a complete collapse on his campaign's part to blow the nomination. If Mike Huckabee can make a semi-serious run at McCain, though, it would force a lot of conservatives who dislike McCain into his corner against a candidate they have trouble taking seriously. It wouldn't make them avid McCain fans, but it would speed along their acceptance of him.

The Coddled Chelsea Clinton

"Pimped out." By now, everyone knows the significance of that phrase. Because MSNBC substitute host David Shuster used that colloquialism (somewhat incorrectly, I might add), he's now a suspended substitute host at MSNBC, all because the Clintons raised a fuss in order to protect their little girl. I supported the Clintons' overprotection of Chelsea during Bill's presidency, much as I supported the Bushes' overprotection of Jenna and Barbara. The media is at its irresponsible worst when it attacks the teenage to college aged children of presidents or other politicians. Chelsea Clinton is no longer in that category, though, and the Clintons are continuing to build a very high wall around her. If Chelsea were not involved in Hillary's campaign, I could understand that, too. But she is. She is an adult woman helping in a political campaign, and as such she is fair game, just as any other member of any presidential campaign.

It is fair to question whether Hillary Clinton is using her daughter for her own political good. Granted, Shuster chose a fairly ineloquent way of doing so, but it was not a slur, period. MSNBC's cowardice is another, different example of the media at its worse, but this time it is example of the media's weak spine. This should surprise nobody, though. The media has been cowed by Clinton handlers every time a reporter has even attempted to acknowledge Chelsea on the campaign trail.

We should just all be thankful that Shuster didn't use the correct colloquialism, because the Clinton outrage would have been difficult to stomach. I have little doubt that Hillary is indeed whoring her daughter out politically for her own good. And for the record, pimping or whoring, that's ultimately a criticism of the Clinton campaign, not Chelsea.

A Quick Question

I've seen numerous people imply that if he wins in November, John McCain would not run in 2012. Has he ever explicitly said that? I ask because I don't see a man of John McCain's ego not running for re-election unless he is physically incapable of doing so. While 76 is awfully late in life to try to run a presidential campaign, I don't see McCain stepping aside.

Corn Ethanol at a Long Term Competitive Disadvantage

From my post at the BBA:

The science and the processes behind cellulosic ethanol are still being worked out, but once that brand of ethanol production gets its feet, the corn based ethanol made in places like Wisconsin and Minnesota is going to be hard pressed to compete. To wit:

A new cellulosic ethanol plant that promises to produce renewable biofuel for less than $1 a gallon has a new partner.

ICM, a Kansas-based ethanol plant design, engineering and support firm, has a new agreement with Illinois-based Coskata, which made headlines when it announced it could produce next-generation ethanol made from waste, plant materials or other biomass, rather than corn, at a fraction of the cost, and with a fraction of the pollution and political fallout.

The southeast could stand to become this country's major ethanol producer. It offers a good climate for fast growing ethanol stocks like switch grass, and it likely has the land capacity to farm those stocks without seriously hampering food production. If we in the Midwest choose to prop up the production of corn ethanol legislatively now, we will likely continue to do so in the future and assure ourselves of higher fuel prices than other areas of the nation where cellulosic ethanol production may proliferate.

Is this it for Mitt?

There are lots of reports out there that Mitt Romney is dropping out of the Republican race, and probably doing so in a speech at CPAC while I write this. If so, it removes any lingering doubts about John McCain's status as the presumptive Republican nominee for President. What a strange, strange trip it has been. Romney appeared strong all along to people that closely followed Republican politics. He always seemed to be everyone's second choice, though. Fred Thompson got drafted into the race and developed a small but hard core following. Unfortunately, Thompson was never able or willing to leverage that dedicated base to convert the numbers of followers needed to even be competitive in the race. In some ways, his appearance in the race acted as a road block to second fiddle Mitt, and when Mike Huckabee started to pick up momentum amongst evangelical, socially (but not economic or security) conservative voters, the road opened up for John McCain to win the nomination through name recognition and respect amongst a plurality of voters who like weren't the closest followers of conservative or Republican politics, as well as non-conservative Republicans. And now here we are. Some of us, maybe many of us are, are stunned as to how it all came about, and we now have six to nine months to come to terms with how we want to go forward.

I Curse Winter

Ugh. That was a good old fashion snowstorm. I just spent two hours snow blowing, and I have a good sized machine. Depths ranged from 10 inches in wind swept areas to about two feet in the drifts. I'd say we probably got 15 inches here. I could definitely stand going another decade before seeing another storm like that.

Rove to Join Fox

Heh. This should adversely affect the traffic numbers at the Daily Kos as lefty heads explode:

Karl Rove, the strategist behind President George W. Bush's ascendancy to the White House, will join Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel as a contributor starting with Super Tuesday, the network said.

The only thing that could do more to shorten the lifespans of the left's more nutty members would be if Cheney joins Fox News in 2009 shortly after Halliburton buys the network.

The Healthy Are a Burden on the Health Care System

I love it when conventional wisdom gets turned on its head a little:

Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it doesn't save money, researchers reported Monday. It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars.

"It was a small surprise," said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the Netherlands' National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, who led the study. "But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more."

In a paper published online Monday in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, Dutch researchers found that the health costs of thin and healthy people in adulthood are more expensive than those of either fat people or smokers.

So does this mean that part of the solution to expensive health care is to eat, drink, and die younger?

Prediction Time: John McCain Edition

If John McCain wins the Republican nomination, I predict that the Democrats' nominee will try to do at least three things to him in the general election. The first thing that candidate will try to do is prod McCain into losing his temper as many times as possible. When John McCain loses his temper, it isn't a pretty sight. Second, they will attempt to show him as physically tired, something that will probably be very evident on a 70 plus year old man trying to campaign 12 hours or more a day. Third, they will try to strand him in a political no man's land by moving to the center and taking away as many moderates as possible. I'm not sure if they'll be able to maneuver in such a way as to further the wedge between Senator McCain and some conservatives, but if they see an opening, I'm positive they'll try. If they do those things, I can see McCain losing in a landslide, and that's part of the reason I hate the concept of electability. The concept of electability is fine when you are comparing a lower tier candidate like Ron Paul to a higher tier candidate like John McCain, but amongst the top tier candidates it usually falls to poll numbers that are meaningless this far out from the general election. The fallacy of electability is the trap I see a lot of Republicans falling into as they migrate to John McCain right now, and I can see the Democrats taking advantage of that in the general election.

A Classic Freudian Slip

Bob Knight, the all time winningest coach in NCAA Division I basketball history, and perhaps the most notorious jackass the game has ever seen, has resigned at Texas Tech. That's news, but I'm not always satisfied with the news. Sometimes, I like the minutiae, and in this story from Rivals.com, I found it:

He and Dean Smith are the only mean who have played and coached for a national champion. (emphasis mine)

Heh. I wonder what the author thinks of Bob Knight. I'm sure it will be corrected, but until it is, it is a rather amusing typo.

An excellent point on the state of the Republican Party

At times during this race for the Republican presidential nomination, things just haven't made much sense. Why is it conservatives can seem to be of one or two mindsets on the candidates, but the results moved towards a third or fourth candidate? Well, Patrick Ruffini makes an excellent point on how the math can work out:

Some assume that because conservatives are the largest bloc of GOP voters, their preferred candidate (Romney) ought to win. And that if he doesn’t, this large bloc has slipped into minority status and/or irrelevance. This analysis is fundamentally flawed.

It doesn’t just matter who you win, but how much you win them by. A 15-point lead with conservatives doesn’t do you much good if McCain’s lead amongst the smaller moderate bloc is 30 points. A McCain victory wouldn’t mean that moderates dominate the GOP; it would mean that for whatever reason conservatives didn’t think Mitt Romney was the second coming of Ronald Reagan and were divided.

Of course, this means that some of you conservatives out there that are holding your noses and going McCain, not because you like him but because you think he's inevitable, are making a particularly obtuse choice.

This just ain't right

The photo at this link is not Photoshopped. Apparently this gas station really is in the landing flight path of the airport.

Update
This is even worse.

UW Whitewater Opens New University Center

A piece of UWW's building splurge opens:

While most of the James R. Connor University Center was being razed and rebuilt, the campus community walked the fence perimeter, trudging up ramps and grumbling about the inconvenience.

But now the complaints have faded in the shadow of a new University Center that recently opened to rave reviews from students.

The building was dedicated today.

I find myself oddly nostalgic for that dump of a UC that marked my five years at UWW. The last time I was in the old UC was when Ward Churchill made his infamous visit to the university. Soon the university will be opening a new building for the business college, and another prison like building of my college years will be converted to offices. Future UWW grads are going to be somehow softer for it.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Hopefully someone shoots that dirty little ground rat before it sees its shadow. That is all.

There is a joke in there somewhere

I like Poland and if I ever get to Europe, I want to visit the country. As such, I don't partake in telling Polish jokes, even though I've been told hundreds at the vary least. Still, a headline like this just begs for one, doesn't it?

U.S. backs modernizing Polish air defenses