Miracle on ice, February 22, 1980
An evening pause: Thirty-one years ago, February 22, 1980, Lake Placid, New York, the winter Olympics: The USA hockey team beats the Soviet Union 4 to 3 to set up their gold medal victory.
Author: Robert Zimmerman
Police arrest 11-year-old over ‘inappropriate’ stick figure drawing
Madness: Police arrest an 11-year-old over an “inappropriate” stick figure drawing.
Death Toll From Quake In New Zealand May Top 200
The death toll from the earthquake yesterday in New Zealand may top 200.
Armed TSA agent gets through TSA airport body scanner
And the TSA exists for what reason again? In a test, a TSA agent with a handgun slipped past TSA security at Dallas-Fort Worth airport, despite being scanned by the enhanced-image body scanner.
The high priests of science and how they bar the door to skeptics
The high priests of science and how they bar the door to skeptics. A paper is published in Nature claiming that Antarctica is warming as predicted by global warming advocates.
The indefatigable Steve McIntyre started to scrutinize [this paper] along with Nicholas Lewis. They found several flaws: Steig et al had used too few data sequences to speak for an entire continent, and had processed the data in a very questionable way. But when they wanted to correct him, in another journal, they quickly ran into an inconvenient truth about global warming: the high priests do not like refutation. To have their critique (initial submission here [pdf], final version here [pdf]) of Steig’s work published, they needed to assuage the many demands of an anonymous ‘Reviewer A’ – whom they later found out to be Steig himself. [emphasis mine]
It is unconscionable for any science journal to have allowed Steig, the author of the paper under attack, to act one of the anonymous reviewers. But hey, what do I know? I’m only a simple science writer.
The Massive February 15, 2011 X Flare on the Sun
An evening pause: On February 15, 2011, the Sun emitted its strongest flare in four years. Though the Sun continues to act relatively wimpy as it ramps up towards solar maximum, this flare was spectacular, mostly because we now have some amazing instruments in space to image and study it. This video does an excellent job explaining what was happening, as it happened. Watch, and enjoy.
And note, as powerful as this flare was, and despite the fact that it was pointed right at the Earth, it represented a relatively minor threat to our technological society, despite what some doomsayers might be claiming. A very active Sun can cause us problems, especially with power systems and electrical grids, but based on past experience during previous solar maximums, most power companies have taken careful steps to protect themselves from this risk. And with the Sun as weakly active as it is, the risks are further reduced. The doomsayers are simply shilling for more government research dollars.
How leftwing journalists lie
Oink! The Washington editor for Bloomberg today demonstrated to all the dishonest way liberal journalists like to cover the budget debates in Congress.
In an opinion piece for Bloomberg, editor Albert Hunt says that the Republican cuts to the budget threaten the American lead in science. According to him, “House Republicans want to cut NIH funding for the current year by more than $1 billion, to $29.5 billion.” Because of this cut would “future advances in areas like brain science are especially threatened.”
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The blunder in Wisconsin
Did Obama and the Democrats blunder in Wisconsin? This man thinks so:
The Wisconsin political blitzkrieg on Gov. Walker was not a spontaneous eruption. It is now clear that it was a highly organized operation planned in Washington, D.C., to unleash a national counterattack on the gains made by Republicans and Tea Party activists. Getting [Organizing for America] and the president to act in close coordination was itself no small feat. The plan included busing in thousands of government employees, arranging for Democratic lawmakers to flee to an adjoining state, flying speakers and political organizers into Madison, organizing thousands to leave their jobs in public safety and in classrooms, and staging rallies inside and outside the statehouse. They even enticed sympathetic doctors to draft bogus doctor excuses for government workers.
It all worked like a charm. Except that it struck all the wrong notes and portrayed all the wrong images. There is nothing more unseemly that to see a president serve as healer in Tucson and a political hack in Madison.
The Worst Generation’s war in Wisconsin
The worst generation’s war in Wisconsin.
In the past 10 years, says the Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds, taxpayers paid more than $8 billion for state workers’ health care coverage, while the workers put in only $398 million. And from 2000 to 2009, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, taxpayers spent about $12.6 billion on public employee pensions while the employees contributed only $8 million. [emphasis in original]
Thousands flee as Philippine volcano erupts
Thousands flee as Philippine volcano erupts.
The consequences of issuing fake doctors’ notes
The consequences for those protesting doctors who issued fake doctors’ notes at the union protests in Wisconsin.