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Monday, May 13. 2013

A superstorm from the sun: Astronomers watching for potential catastrophe

I blame global warming

Toward Rivals, It's Craigslitigious - The company's response: lawsuits to prevent anyone from doing to it what it did to newspapers.

Stellar science schools in NYC

What Your High School Teacher Won’t Tell You

Top Urbanists Agree: Casinos Ruin Cities

Has Christianity Been Outlawed in the US Army? link fixed

Fish And Wildlife OK With Condor Deaths From Wind Farms

Is there any state where a college men's football or basketball coach is not the highest paid state official?

Who better to make the big bucks?

The Jobs Crisis: Bigger Than You Think:

We are seeing the greatest wave of economic transition since the mechanization of agriculture reduced the percentage of the labor force engaged in farming from more than half the American labor force in 1890 to less than two percent today.

The Incestuous Love-Child of the Democrat-Media Complex

Douthat: The Taxman vs. the Tea Party

Steyn: The Benghazi Lie - A failure of character of this magnitude corrodes the integrity of the state.

Talking Points on Benghazi Talking Points Changing - Out with the old, in with the new.

Cover-ups and crimes, then and now

Maine governor: So, can we back off on all of these wind initiatives yet?

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT): Credentialed, Not Educated - Despite his law degree, an MSNBC appearance revealed him ignorant of two elements of the Constitution.

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 04:51 | Comments (19) | Trackbacks (0)

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Ala Jeff Foxworthy: You know you're a squirrely "beta" when ..........your first response to a crisis is to cover your a$$ rather than confront and deal with the problem. In the case of Benghazi, CYA wasn't just the first response it was the 2nd, 3rd, and only response. Pathetic.

Does anyone still believe that HRC has a set?

I love that they blame Romney and Bush. We all know that they would have pulled out all the stops and tried to assist regardless of whether it was futile or not.

#1 Exasperated on 2013-05-13 07:13 (Reply)

Great summation, Exasperated.

The link to "Has Christianity Been Outlawed in the US Army?" doesn't work.

#1.1 mary on 2013-05-13 08:53 (Reply)

I have an uncanny knack for finding the misdirected link on my first try! Where was it Maine's governor said what about wind?

#2 Pajak on 2013-05-13 08:56 (Reply)

Found it: http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/11/maine-governor-so-can-we-back-off-on-all-of-these-wind-initiatives-yet/

Go LePage!

#2.1 Pajak on 2013-05-13 10:30 (Reply)

"I blame global warming"

And well you should. It is well known that in a solar superstorm, a cold wind never blows.

And really, if a super solar storm is going to bring catastrophe upon us, do we really want to know? It seems like a lot of worry about something beyond our power to prevent. It's not like we can turn off the sun or pull the shades. We have to sit here and take it like the insignificant creatures of a vast universe we are.

#3 JKB on 2013-05-13 09:10 (Reply)

Well, actually yes - we would and should know what is happening on the sun in terms of communications and modern technology.

Solar EMP is powerful and comms device that is digital rather than analog is very susceptible to damage and collapse from large doses of solar radiation. That's why long time hams like myself have kept our analog tube radios in good shape and ready to go if it does all go icky ballooky.

Laugh if you will, but other than EMP hardened military comms systems, the only national comms system that will be left after a big one are those of us with analog radios.

#3.1 Tom Francis on 2013-05-13 09:25 (Reply)

I'm not a teenage girl so having my cell phone stop working isn't a "catastrophe".

But we are more vulnerable to solar storms and apparently by design since we've long known the danger. They don't even mention the base reason the Air Force maintains solar observatories, the storm hitting looks a lot like nuclear launches. Best not to get that confused or we would have a catastrophe on our hands.

But as the story indicates, all this modern life is unshielded so the best we can do is put out the word not to adjust the vertical or the horizontal, you are just going to have to entertain yourself for a while.

BTW, another reason to keep a gun or guns on hand. In the event of a super solar storm, you won't be able to call 911 nor will their vehicles start so they can come running. Just don't fall for those "smart" guns.

#3.1.1 JKB on 2013-05-13 09:57 (Reply)

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT): Credentialed, Not Educated

Chris Murphy is the dumbest Senator ever elected to the Senate and we're talking about some real jackasses when that class of idiot comes up. I've met him (when he was running against Nancy Johnson) and I can tell you - you look at his eyes and there is nobody home. I'm serious - this guy is not only stupid, he's dangerously stupid.

He got where he is because his father is one of the main Partners in Shipman & Goodwin one of the biggest corporate law firms on the East Coast and a heavy Democratic Party contributor. Plus, CT is a true blue state so they can afford to elect politicians like him - and Dick "I'm a Vietnam Vet" Blumenthal and Dan "I can't read or write, but I have a law degree and now I'm Governor" Malloy.

A superstorm from the sun

Cycle 24 has been a weird one - erratic as heck. We're approaching Cycle Max which should occur sometime in the July through January time frame and other than some really spectacular CME's (Coronal Mass Ejections) there really hasn't been a lot of solar activity. There have been lengthy Cycle 24 periods where there hasn't been any solar activity at all.

The whole of solar science is fascinating. Everything from the size of the sun (which is variable) to what happens when large groupings of gamma or x-ray particles hit the sun - it all has an effect on the solar furnace and thus our climate on Earth.

#4 Tom Francis on 2013-05-13 09:21 (Reply)

I went out on my front porch to take some pictures of the solar eclipse last Thursday and the sun was naked as a jaybird. With my binoculars I could see just one small spot group, which was gobbled up soon after first contact.

#4.1 Agent Cooper on 2013-05-13 20:52 (Reply)

PS: I forgot to say that there is no astronomical evidence that the size (diameter) of the sun is variable on human timescales---although it obviously varies on stellar evolutionary timescales---that cannot be accounted for by instrumental uncertainties and/or solar cycle-driven changes in the terrestrial atmosphere.

#4.2 Agent Cooper on 2013-05-13 21:09 (Reply)

We have low-level IRS employees targeting groups for political beliefs, mid-level State employees leaving colleagues to die in the desert, the president drawing "red lines" against White House policy.

Just what kind of an Executive branch are they running over there. Everyone running around doing whatever they want. Who is in charge? Has the government become so big as to be ungovernable?

This would never have happened under Bush. That guy was responsible for everything. Even things constitutionally or legislatively out of his control. A Democrat mayor and governor run screaming to the North abandoning their citizens to the ravages of decades of public works corruption, Bush's fault. Peaceful Muslims crash airplanes into building in US cities, Bush's fault.

Given by all predictions, Democrats will be in power for the foreseeable future, and they have demonstrated in inability to effectively control the lower-level employees of the government, it seems the only thing to do is to reduce the size and scope of government to a level that they can manage.

#5 JKB on 2013-05-13 09:32 (Reply)

"Has the government become so big as to be ungovernable?"

Yes, no doubt about it.

#5.1 phil g on 2013-05-13 12:32 (Reply)

Tar and feathers may not work. I'm thinking Roman Decimation.

Make the survivors think real hard about things.

#5.2 Sam L. on 2013-05-13 13:11 (Reply)

Toward Rivals, It's Craigslitigious
This article takes an analogy too far -- what Craigslist did to newspapers was take away a source of revenue (classified ad sales) by offering a new alternative that had several advantages for both the purchasers and readers of those ads.

If they had done so by wholesale copying of the ads that had been purchased in those newspapers, using the efforts of the newspapers ad-selling and administration in order to increase the base of ads on their website in order to draw in readers, that would be more apropos.

This is what the competing startups are doing to Craigslist -- they are copying the information in craigslist ads, diluting those ads with content from other classified ad sites, and using them to attract pageclicks thus giving them ad revenue.

The judge has already ruled that Craigslist does not hold copyright in the ads on craigslist, which I find bizarre.

I frequently use one such startup that is not being sued, one called "searchtempest". It will search multiple craigslist regions at once, and I find that convenient because I live on the edge of two-different cragslist regions and frequently travel to a few others. I prefer this search format, so I am sympathetic to the argument that such startups expand the craigslist audience. But I am also sympathetic to the Craigslist view that they are profiting from appropriating the work that Craigslist has done in building and maintaining the market.

#6 Douglas2 on 2013-05-13 11:04 (Reply)

"The judge has already ruled that Craigslist does not hold copyright in the ads on craigslist, which I find bizarre."

Not sure why? Craigslist doesn't create the ads. Nor do they cause them to be created for hire. So the copyright, if copyrightable, belongs to the person who created the ad.

#6.1 JKB on 2013-05-13 11:48 (Reply)

Thank goodness for Mead. He's the only one taking the automation of jobs seriously. Others mention it in passing, but this is the big issue.

#7 DrTorch on 2013-05-13 16:15 (Reply)

Huge worldwide distress in youth unemployment. Southern Euro-land hitting 50 and 60%, USA urban not far behind.

The right blames socialism, socialism quite under the radar is gone to work on the problem --the BRIC is now BRICS with the addition of South Africa, and SA has been hosting the BRICS economic conferences for several years now.

The US Dollar is a main topic --and BRICS is busily tying it to youth unemployment, while we're distracted with Benghazis and Bostons and Newtowns, Auroras, et cetera, and the political domestic divide per se.

Our 2 year elections almost guarantee distraction anyway, at least in the degenerate form we now conduct them.

SA is also hosting the World Youth Congress, and the new Jesuit pope is making a swing through the favelas of Sao Paulo soon, promoting the WYC and elevating the laity working with the poor.

The irony is that the Dollar being demonized by the left, is the Dollar being run --by the left.

Planned?

#7.1 buddy larsen on 2013-05-13 18:12 (Reply)

As manufacturing jobs disappear because of automation and globalization, the US economy is switching to a service economy, which offers jobs to people with the right abilities. Many of those jobs require high tech skills. Unfortunately our public schools don't seem to be up to the task of providing children with the critical skills they will need for those jobs. If anything, these days public education is dumbing down what students are taught even as more money is spent on doing that. Ultimately the central problem is not the decline of manufacturing jobs but the failure our public schools to equip the next generation of American workers with the tools they will need to succeed in the new knowledge-based job environment.

#7.2 Agent Cooper on 2013-05-13 21:35 (Reply)

--arguing with Zach about the Iraq war on an old thread, brought back memory of the abrupt, no apologies, no explanations, shift re the war on the part of the press as soon as the word went out re the issue to use in the coming 2004 election.

The history-rewriting machine has no human attributes; it's deterministic and implacable.

For that reason, we need to be careful with that 'I' word being Drudge-attributed to the great Sen Inhofe at this moment.

Even at this point in time, even at the current level of resistance to the depredations of O, already no power on Earth will prevent the coming press frame of "Confirmed, USA racist state, no black man could have ever had a successful presidency".

Nothing else will matter, just as in 2004. We simply have to stand vigil until the last of the watergate press dies off.

Because we "let Bill enjoy a scandal a week, but NOT Obama --and what's the difference? Obama is black".

Notions of frame and context are not in the postmodernist dialectic. We need to heed Orwell, who said that once the words for a habit of mind have been disappeared, there is no way to refer to it anymore, and it leaves the makeup of the mind and memory.

In fact that whole deadfall may explain why Obama in particular was sent on the express train to DC, and then allowed to run Chicago on the whole nation --to squeeze as much destruction out as possible, then martyr the national sense of self as the rule of law finally is forced to either return or disappear.

#8 buddy larsen on 2013-05-13 17:02 (Reply)

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Monday, May 13. 2013

Monday morning links