#2
...The original coatings on the B-2 turned out to be pretty much useless in real service (in some cases requiring a near complete reapply after every flight), but since they came online the USAF has steadily increased their strength and durability. On the other hand, it's never going to be what they wanted. What I'm hearing from friends at Langley AFB (1 Fighter Wing, three squadrons of -22s) is that there are some issues with the coatings not holding up under wear and tear, but nothing that sounds as bad as this. The bottom line though is that as the article mentions, it's more design than the coatings.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
11/15/2009 5:40 Comments ||
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#3
If you have to re-paint every panel and fastener opened for maintenance I can see why the maintenance hours. And you KNOW the leadership will not allow scruffy looking AC even if the coating does not effect the low observable properties very much.
#1
...I had the honor of meeting COL Millett some years ago - he came to the ROK for a ceremony at Osan Air Base, where then-Captain Millett led the last bayonet charge in US Army history, earning the MOH in the process. I remember thinking how small that hill was...and how big COL Millett must have looked leading that charge. He has entered the clearing at the end of the trail, and he shall find peace there.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
11/15/2009 14:05 Comments ||
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Henry Mayor "Hank" Bourgeois, one of the last surviving aviators from World War II's famed Black Sheep Squadron, died Monday at St. Tammany Parish Hospital in Covington. He was 88.
He joined the Marine Corps in 1940, served during both World War II and the Korean War and retired from the military after 20 years, but the duty for which he was best remembered was as a member of Marine Fighting Squadron 214.
Serving under Lt. Col. Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, the unit became known as the Black Sheep Squadron between August 1943 and January 1944 in the South Pacific.
The squadron shot down 94 Japanese planes during aerial combat over the Northern Solomon Islands and Rabaul.
As a pilot in the squadron, Mr. Bourgeois sometimes flew two missions per day. He retired in 1961 as a lieutenant colonel and pursued a subsequent career in the aerospace industry.
He hosted a reunion of Black Sheep pilots in 2000, and 15 other former members of the squadron traveled to Abita Springs to join him for the event.
Survivors include three sons, Gerard "Gerry" Bourgeois, Thomas Bourgeois and Stephen Bourgeois; and three grandchildren.
The portly fiberglass boy with the cheerful grin, pompadour-style hair and red-checkered overalls is back, and he's hoping his return will yield much more than a momentary trip down memory lane.
Think double-decker burgers and fries, thick shakes and chili spaghetti, and chances are that memories of the once ubiquitous Bob's Big Boy chain will come flooding back -- along with customers yearning for days gone by, company officials hope.
Following a nearly two-decade-long absence from most of Southern California, Bob's is staging a comeback, with one of the newest entries due to make its debut in El Cajon's Westfield Parkway Plaza next month.
Restaurateur Matt Pike, whose family owns the Beach House Restaurant in Cardiff, has an agreement with Michigan-based Big Boy Restaurants International to build 10 San Diego County franchises over the next five years. He already owns three others, including one in Temecula, and is scouting other locations.
"Last weekend we had one of our employees put on a Bob's Big Boy outfit that he wears, and we were out at the mall and a Pop Warner football game, and everyone wanted to take a picture with him. It's almost like a young person going to Disneyland wanting to take a picture with Mickey Mouse."
It's that sort of instant, populist connection with the 73-year-old Big Boy brand that company executives are banking on to propel the expansion of the casual coffee shop chain.
"As each restaurant has opened, they've been very well received by the community and they've been creating their own energy," said Keith Sirois, appointed this year as chief executive of Big Boy Restaurants. "I hear a lot from folks who say, 'I used to go there as a kid.'
"This tendency toward nostalgia has a lot to do with the times we're living in. These are difficult times for folks, and we tend to look back at things that make us happy, which has led to the resurgence of Bob's."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
...The Big Boy franchise in NE Ohio where I grew up was Manners, and man did they have great food with carhops and everything - not to mention breaded mushrooms that were to die for. They tanked years ago, but the Bob's franchise is still very popular up there.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
11/15/2009 5:43 Comments ||
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#2
I'll give em a week to settle in and then do a test drive over at Parkway Plaza (it's a couple miles away). Reporting back before Christmas, your dedicated diner, Frank
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/15/2009 6:07 Comments ||
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#3
The one that used to be in Scottsdale only employed illegal aliens, with a teenage white manager. To say that their cleanliness standards were deficient would be an understatement. I knew one guy who was a manager there for three days, who said that he would never eat there again.
#5
Big Boy provided an overpriced Big Mac with a salad and fries as their standard fair. Americans decided they'd dump the salad for the convenience of quicker service and cheaper prices. I dont think things have changed.
#12
Went into a local Jack in the Box last week and they had a white teenage boy working there. He was mopping the floor. All of the rest of the employees had limited English, of course, but it's a start. I've been there many, many times and never seen anything like it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/15/2009 20:41 Comments ||
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#13
Abu and Ebbulang are SD locals. If you grew up here, Big Boy was a post-high school football-game ritual (Broadway and H in Chula Vista was mine/Hilltop High). I remember a lot of good times, no doubt that's what the new owner is marketing
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/15/2009 20:54 Comments ||
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#1
This is so unfair. Consider this article: Kaziah Mraz, 34, has done everything society expects of a responsible citizen. She works full time, while attending college, raising two children, paying off a mortgage and trying to maintain her credit score.
And yet when she hit a rough spot, societyrepresented by the New Mexico Human Services Departmenttold her it couldnt help. When she broke into tears, society had a security guard escort her away.
I pretty much hit my breaking point, Mraz says. Im not trying to take advantage of the system; I just want some help while I get through this situation. At this point, if I was 30 pounds skinnier, I would go to Albuquerque and strip.
[Mail and Globe] Botswana President Ian Khama on Friday accused Zimbabwe's long-time leader Robert Mugabe of failing to honour a power-sharing deal and called for fresh elections in the troubled nation.
Khama, Africa's most vocal critic of Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party, said in a State of the Nation address that new elections would end the political feuding that has handicapped the unity government in Harare.
"I must here, however, express concern at the continued failure of Zanu-PF to fully honour the spirit of the power-sharing agreement," Khama said.
"In the absence of genuine partnership it would be better for all parties to go back to the people, for they are the ultimate authority to determine who should form the government of Zimbabwe."
"There can be no substitution for free, fair and credible elections, where people in any country should be allowed to elect representatives of their choice," Khama said, in his first state of the nation since winning last month's general elections.
Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai formed a unity government last year, but the power-sharing deal has been hobbled by disputes over key appointments and arrests of members of the premier's party.
The unity government is meant to oversee the drafting of a new Constitution that will guide Zimbabwe toward new polls.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2009 00:00 ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Two persons were killed and one was critically wounded in a gunfight among the armed cadres of Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity (PCJSS) and United People's Democratic Front (UPDF) at Lulongchhari under Jurachhari upazila on Friday.
The law enforcement personnel from Jhokka Bazar and Shilchhari army camp recovered ammunition including 16 rifle bullets, one pistol bullet, 193 empty bullet shells and parts of sub-machine guns after rushing to the spot on information.
However, they could not identify the deceased and the injured person as the feuding group concealed the casualties.
Sources said two armed gangs of PCJSS and UPDF were locked in a gunfight at Lulongchhari jungle around 9:00pm on Friday over securing control of the area.
The law enforcement authority conducted massive hunt to nab the armed activists of both the groups.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2009 00:00 ||
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Keep digging Comrade. You're almost to the six foot mark.
Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya insisted late Saturday that he will not accept any deal to restore him to office if it means he must recognize elections later this month.
In a letter addressed to President Barack Obama, Zelaya also repeated his accusation that Washington reversed its stance on whether the Nov. 29 vote should be considered legitimate if he was not in office.
Posted by: ed ||
11/15/2009 00:10 ||
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#1
heh - I can picture this tool zipping off letters and emails that never get answered
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/15/2009 7:00 Comments ||
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President Hugo Chavez said in a televised speech Friday that "there are lots of fat people" in Venezuela and advised his supporters to exercise and eat healthy to trim their waistlines.
"I'm not saying fat women, because they never get fat," he added. "Women sometimes fill out."
The 55-year-old leader said he himself has lost nearly 20 pounds (9 kilograms) by exercising and eating well. But Chavez, who still appears heavier than when he first took office in 1999, acknowledged that he could lose a few more pounds (kilograms).
"Doing sit ups," he said. "Eating well. One has to learn how to eat."
Chavez suggested rice pasta instead of spaghetti made from wheat, and recommended drinking soy milk, saying soy products help fight aging.
Chavez said his diet and exercise have made him feel stronger and "ready to continue commanding the Bolivarian Revolution" -- the name he has given his socialist-inspired political movement.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
You first, Oogo.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/15/2009 0:11 Comments ||
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#2
Keep on collectivizing the farms, Hugo. They'll get skinny.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/15/2009 20:43 Comments ||
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#3
Chavez needs to lose a few pounds, I'll admit. Especially from the neck up. Taking 10-12 pounds off there would do wonders for Venezuela.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/15/2009 21:42 Comments ||
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EXCITEMENT was building in Shanghai today ahead of President Barack Obama's first visit to China, which many expect will raise the US-China relationship to new heights.
Office worker Zhang Yan brought her seven-year-old to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in downtown Shanghai so he could meet the president "face to face''.
"I told him briefly Obama's story,'' the 32-year-old said. "I want to encourage my son to learn from him and his fighting spirit to reach his goal. Obama is probably the most eloquent leader we have ever known.''
Despite a range of trade disputes, the first visit by the American president was "expected to push Sino-US relations to new heights'', said Tao Wenzho, a researcher at Beijing's Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
"The Obama administration has made clear that the common interests between the two countries outweigh their differences,'' Tao wrote in the China Daily.
Mr Obama was to begin his maiden visit to China in Shanghai late on Sunday. On Monday, he was to meet with city leaders before meeting Chinese youth in the afternoon, an event due to be broadcast live, the Shanghai Daily reported.
Afterwards he was to fly to Beijing to meet Chinese leaders until Wednesday.
Mr Obama is especially well-liked among young people in the world's most populous nation, who see him as a symbol of the American dream.
Posted by: chris ||
11/15/2009 11:29 Comments ||
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#3
If Obama kowtows or otherwise indicates submissiveness to Hu Jintao, the Chinese will go nuts and view it as a historic moment when the USA finally started treating China as teacher. This will lead to their old, bad attitudes towards foreigners and probably help to start a war. Contempt goes a long way.
#6
I did an old joke over and it goes like this: Obama, Hillary, and Pelosi are flying out of Washington DC from K street to M street by way of the Statue of liberty for a photo op side trip in a four prop plane. Well in mid flight an engine shutters and stops and the pilot states over the com ,we have lost an engine but its ok we have three others but it will delay our flight one hour. Another shutters and stops the pilot then again announces, we have lost another engine but we are ok but we will be delayed another hour. At this point pelosi states in a huff if we lose the other engines we'll be up hear all night!.
#7
A priest, a college student, and Nancy Pelosi are flying to California on a small plane. Over the Rockies they run out of fuel. The pilot announces they are going to crash says that there are only three parachutes for the four of them. He grabs one and leaps out of the plane.
Nancy Pelosi stands up announces "I'm the smartest most powerful women in the world. Therefore I deserve one of the parachutes". She grabs it and leaps out of the plane.
The priest says to the college student, "I'm old and have lived a good life. God will take care of me in the afterlife. You take the last parachute".
The student says "Don't worry Father we both have parachutes. The smartest most powerful women in the world just jumped out of the plane with my backpack".
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is seeking more details of the shooting of two suspected asylum seekers whose boat was intercepted by the Indonesian coast guard.
One of the asylum seekers was shot in the foot and the other in the hand after ignoring warning shots from police after they tried to escape, Indonesian police said late yesterday. The boat, carrying 61 Afghans, was heading for Australia on Thursday when it was intercepted off the eastern coast of Indonesia.
Mr Rudd, who met with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Singapore, said he had no further details.
"I've seen those reports this morning. I don't have any further information than the reports," Mr Rudd said in Singapore. "This lies within the purview of Indonesian national police and we will be seeking to get details of what has occurred." Sri Lanka asylum seekers sent home
Hey Barack, the Master has spoken.
Ultra-low interest rates in the United States are fuelling speculation in overseas asset markets and threatening the global economic recovery, a senior Chinese official said on Sunday.
In unusually blunt criticism of U.S. monetary policy on the day that President Barack Obama arrives in China for a visit, Chinese banking regulator Liu Mingkang said the Federal Reserve's pledge to hold down borrowing costs and the weak dollar had emerged as a "new systemic risk."
"This situation has already encouraged a huge dollar carry trade and had a massive impact on global asset prices," he said in a speech at a financial forum in Beijing.
"It is boosting speculative investment in stock and property markets and will pose new, insurmountable risks to the global recovery and, particularly, to the recovery in emerging markets," Liu, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said.
Earlier this month the Fed restated its commitment to keep borrowing costs near zero for "an extended period." With rates so low and funds readily available, "carry trade" investors have borrowed huge sums of money in dollars to buy higher-yielding assets overseas.
Liu made no specific mention of Chinese markets in his address, but Beijing has its own additional reasons to be worried about low U.S. rates.
The yuan is heavily anchored to the dollar, making it very difficult for China to raise interest rates before the United States without attracting more speculative cash than is already streaming toward its stock and property markets.
And a slumping dollar weighs on the value of China's $2.27 trillion of foreign exchange reserves, of which about two-thirds are estimated to be invested in dollar-denominated assets.
Liu also said the global economic recovery gave little grounds for optimism, as it was driven largely by governments' stimulus spending rather than real corporate activity.
Posted by: ed ||
11/15/2009 00:21 ||
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The average tax rate assessed to corporations worldwide has fallen 10 years in a row, but the U.S. isn't driving the trend. Policymakers in the most advanced economy continue to punish their constituents.
Washington refuses to cut the corporate tax rate. It has languished for more than a decade at roughly 40%, when state and local corporate taxes are figured in, KPMG reports in its 2009 Corporate and Indirect Tax Rate Survey. Republican administrations with GOP majorities in Congress, Democratic White Houses with Democrats in control of the Capitol, split governments -- it doesn't matter. The U.S. corporate rate has acquired a stubborn staying power while globally, until this year at least, "corporate taxes have been driven steadily down," says KPMG.
A nation's corporate tax rate is important. Its effect on a country's competitiveness and its ability to draw or repel investment has a direct impact on economic health.
"High tax rates deprive companies of both the means and the incentive to take advantage of new market opportunities or technological changes that can improve productivity," wrote Terry Miller, director of the Heritage Foundation international economics center, and policy analyst Anthony Kim, in a memo the center published last year.
"In a business environment where capital flows are extremely mobile, lower tax rates do matter in attracting more business investment," they added.
They certainly mattered in Ireland. Once a laggard, it became the economic jewel of Europe in the last decade by attracting business through cuts in its corporate tax rate. Slashing the rate -- now 12.5% -- pulled the nation out of the mire in the 1990s and trimming it again would turn around its current economic difficulties.
While the U.S. has not moved its corporate tax rate, there has been an effective tax increase in this country as other nations have lowered theirs. On these pages two years ago, J.T. Young, a frequent IBD contributor who has served both at Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget, wrote that the competitive advantage the U.S. once enjoyed has narrowed over the last two decades as other nations cut their corporate tax rates.
A few years previous to Young's observation, researchers Young Lee and Roger H. Gordon noted "that increases in corporate tax rates lead to lower future growth rates within countries."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2009 00:00 ||
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The European Union has battled long and hard for this moment: the imminent choice of its first president.
To get there, the EU strong-armed Irish voters, brushed aside hostile French and Dutch ballots, and pressured the Czech president into agreeing to a single leader to give Europe a strong voice on the world stage.
Yet after all that, EU leaders meeting Thursday may end up picking someone from a small country with little international power instead of a charismatic heavyweight to head this continental bloc of 27 nations, half a billion people and huge economic heft.
To pick a boss they can all live with, they must strike the right balance between big countries and small, east and west, socialists and conservatives, perhaps male and female. They must maneuver between proponents of a strong Europe and those who fear it eurocentrics and euroskeptics, in the local parlance.
It's a diplomatic minefield.
Posted by: ed ||
11/15/2009 00:18 ||
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#1
The EUroweenies will pick a weenie. And he will look and act like a Weenie. Say Quack.
#4
Vaira-Vike Freiberga, the lady of Latvia? Trailing daughter #1 once wrote a tale in which she played a trifling but definitive part for a school assignment. She'd do well for the EU, Mizzou Mafia.
You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. -- Rahm Emanuel
In the wake of last summer's deadly Metro crash in Washington, D.C., the Obama administration reportedly plans to propose that subway and light-rail systems across the country fall under federal oversight.
The pitch comes as the administration moves to increase regulation over the financial, auto, health care and industrial sectors.
The Washington Post reported Sunday that the administration will present its plan to Congress, which would have to approve it, in the coming weeks for the U.S. Department of Transportation to regulate those systems. The regulation would cover every system from New York City to Washington, D.C. to Boston and beyond.
The shift is an attempt to reverse a long-standing prohibition against federal regulation on subways -- the prohibition dates back to a time when only a handful of cities had subway systems.
But Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told the Post that federal officials felt hamstrung in the wake of the Metro crash in June. "After the train crash, we were all sitting around here scratching our heads, saying, 'Hey, we've got to do something about this'," LaHood said. "And we discovered that there's not much we could do, because the law wouldn't allow us to do it."
#1
With over forty-three thousand automobile deaths in 2008, why shouldn't they seek federal control over licensing and enforcement of motor vehicle laws as well. [Yep, don't give them ideas]. Rationale is the same.
#5
well in GA they already take your license for everything from spitting in the wind too overdue library books.
Posted by: chris ||
11/15/2009 16:50 Comments ||
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#6
Let's be fair here. The Washington Metro did everything it could to stymie its safety board; it refused to provide information, refused to allow inspections, and refused to act on any recommendations or even respond to them. I don't think the Federal Government should oversee New York or Chicago or even LA subway systems, but I can see them overseeing Washington's.
It's not as if the city of Washington DC has a responsible government anyhow.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
11/15/2009 17:21 Comments ||
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#7
The feds aren't going to take over the systems; they are going to regulate safety. Thus, for example, the CTA in Chicago will have to meet a federal test for providing inspections of stations, rail, training programs for operators, maintenance yards, rolling stock, etc.
Among the problems here is that these regulations will take a long time to write (and rewrite) and Congress will be able to pre-empt them in part or in whole.
It would require the feds hiring about another two dozen regulators in DC and several dozen inspectors around the country. It would also probably require transit operators to add to their O&M budgets and that would require raising fares or increasing taxes (probably both).
Since transit has a pretty good safety record now, it would likely produce almost no benefits (maybe some disbenefits as it might eliminate some very cost effective safety protocols that systems now use).
And the only good it would do would be to make Ray LaHood and a few others feel warm and fuzzy about themselves.
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/15/2009 17:29 Comments ||
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#8
Mass transit is heavily subsidized by the federal government. There isn't a city in the country of any size (or maybe at all) where transit pays for itself with fares or even with fares plus local levies. At the same time transit authorities are almost entirely unregulated except for some regulations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act.
There's more than one transit authority that's rather corrupt in its contracting practices, but all of them are burdened with straightjacket union rules. Metro is a particular mess because its board is drawn from DC, MD and VA. That makes it hard for them to get budgets for maintenance etc. when special needs arise.
#10
I support this. The Chicago system has a long history of lax safety standards and blame-passing when something goes wrong. And lotp is right, the CTA gets tens of millions of dollars from the Feds for capital improvements and even more in operating subsidies.
When you take the Fed's money, you accept their oversight for the spending of it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/15/2009 19:32 Comments ||
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#11
Most city systems, like San Diego's, are cutting back on service because ridership and revenues are down, not that they ever paid for themselves before.
A-Pee article. Rest at link.
For three years, the federal agency in charge of preventing Medicare fraud repeatedly ignored internal watchdog warnings about swindlers stealing millions of dollars by scamming several programs, documents show. Look into the bank accounts of the decision makers. Check into their lifestyles and major purchases and posessions. Look into who they answered to and were friends with. Until they are dead.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services received roughly 30 warnings from inspectors over three years mostly under the Bush administration but didn't respond to half of them, even after repeated letters, according to records provided to The Associated Press by U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley's office. Mostly under the W administration. And I suppose proportionally about an eighth of them under the Obama administration. I guess it could be argued that they are technically correct. But what is the purpose of this statement? I'm sure this didn't start yesterday, but over the last year Medicare fraud has bloomed about threefold, if that means anything more than that most of the reports came from the W administration timeframe.
A July 2008 warning said organized crime had infiltrated the system and was costing more than $1 million dollars for each phony Medicare provider license the crooks obtained. The letter got no response, Grassley said. Guido! Get our technician to fix that CT scanner over at the General Hospital pronto! We're losing $12,000 an hour here!
He and other critics said lack of oversight in the federally administered program is part of an estimated $60 billion a year in Medicare fraud.
"There's no good answer for why the bureaucracy turned a blind eye, and it's a breach of the public trust," said Grassley, an Iowa Republican and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee. Oh, I'm sure there's an answer though, even if it's not good. Find it.
Fighting the fraud is key for the Obama administration, which hopes to pay for a large chunk of its proposed national health care overhaul by cracking down on those who cheat Medicare. There are better ways to fight fraud than to set up a system that will be used to generate other types of fraudulent waste and privacy invasions. Get to work on the individual issues, not the whole thing.
#2
No need to, friend troll. It's what happens again and again when a large unwieldly bureacracy is given sole control of a major swath of our lives.
It doesn't matter who's in the White House ... this sort of mess is inherent in centralized bureaucracies. Which is why so many of us do not want more of it.
But given that Obama's pushing a LOT more of it, well ...
we can certainly both blame and resist him going forward.
#5
Fraud in Medicare has been an issue since 1965. This article could as well have been written in the last year of the Clinton administration, with slightly different numbers. News about it only surfaces when there is some agenda being pushed. I wonder what the agenda is, this time around?
#6
A July 2008 warning said organized crime had infiltrated the system and was costing more than $1 million dollars for each phony Medicare provider license the crooks obtained.
Health care and the mob? So the Public Option is to provide Medicare-type health care to all, including illegal aliens? It isn't Dick Cheney I envision with blood dripping from his fangs. Wish someone could prove this impeachable offense!
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer are expected to sign an agreement of cooperation between Californian authorities and Israeli companies in the field of renewable energy, Army Radio reported Sunday morning.
In the framework of the agreement, Israeli renewable energy companies will cooperate with industrial and municipal facilities in California.
Apparently there is no evidence that glaciers in the Himalaya Mountains are retreating. According to the article linked here:
The rumors may have originated in the Asia chapter of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC's) 2007 Working Group II report, which claims that Himalayan glaciers are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate.
A study by Vijay Kumar Raina of several different groups of glaciers shows no significant retreat and some growth in portions of the range. Additionally, Canadian glaciologist Kenneth Hewitt says he observed five advancing glaciers and only a single one in retreat at K2, one of the highest peaks in the world.
#1
The Global Warming zealots always pick their data sets to advance the narrative. Lying beats studying. Green is just the latest camouflage for the totalitarians, protective coloration after the Reds collapsed.
#3
perhaps AlGore and environmental chicken littles should pay financial and academic credential penalties for the societal/economic damage their grant-whoring costs us?
/ know..dream on
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/15/2009 20:50 Comments ||
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#4
It doesn't matter if these glaciers are not retreating. Somewhere, there are glaciers that are retreating. That's the important thing!
/agw zealot
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/15/2009 20:53 Comments ||
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#5
2 facts about Himalayan glaciers,
1. Their advance retreat is determined by monsoon precipitation. Monsoon precipitation is determined by how hot Central Asia gets. Thus global warming (were it too happen) would cause Himalayan glaciers to advance.
2. The rivers the glaciers feed, flood in late summer with the monsoon (some miles wide). Any changes due to glacier melt would be like taking an egg cup full of water out of an olympic swimming pool and measuring the decrease in height.
The ignorance about Himalayan glaciers is absymally low even by the already low standards of the AGW crowd.
#6
The IPCC put together some alarming sounds statements that didn't mean anything. But which got endlessly repeated as dogma by the ignorant.
Now that particular chicken is coming home to roost, because they can't now turn around and say (the truth as happens) that advancing Himalayan glaciers are a sign of global warming.
The United States' first marijuana cafe opened on Friday, posing an early test of the Obama administration's move to relax policing of medical use of the drug.
The Cannabis Cafe in Portland, Oregon, is the first to give certified medical marijuana users a place to get hold of the drug and smoke it -- as long as they are out of public view -- despite a federal ban.
"This club represents personal freedom, finally, for our members," said Madeline Martinez, Oregon's executive director of NORML, a group pushing for marijuana legalization.
"Our plans go beyond serving food and marijuana," said Martinez. "We hope to have classes, seminars, even a Cannabis Community College, based here to help people learn about growing and other uses for cannabis."
The cafe -- in a two-story building which formerly housed a speak-easy and adult erotic club Rumpspankers -- is technically a private club, but is open to any Oregon residents who are NORML members and hold an official medical marijuana card.
Members pay $25 per month to use the 100-person capacity cafe. They don't buy marijuana, but get it free over the counter from "budtenders". Open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., it serves food but has no liquor license.
There are about 21,000 patients registered to use marijuana for medical purposes in Oregon. Doctors have prescribed marijuana for a host of illnesses, including Alzheimer's, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and Tourette's syndrome.
On opening day, reporters invited to the cafe could smell, but were not allowed to see, people smoking marijuana.
"I still run a coffee shop and events venue, just like I did before we converted it to the Cannabis Cafe, but now it will be cannabis-themed," said Eric Solomon, the owner of the cafe, who is looking forward to holding marijuana-themed weddings, film festivals and dances in the second-floor ballroom.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/15/2009 00:00 ||
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Where is it? I want to open a convenience store right across from this place!
This one has been making the rounds and for good reason: the evil capitalist company is the New York Times. But it's not greedy when they do it, only when others do it.
The New York Times News Service will lay off at least 25 editorial employees next year and will move the editing of the service to a Florida newspaper owned by The New York Times Company, the newspaper and the Newspaper Guild said Thursday.
A spokeswoman for The Times, Diane McNulty, said 25 of 30 news service jobs would be eliminated at the main office in New York, with five employees retaining their positions. The guild put the number of jobs to be cut at 28. Some of the layoffs were scheduled for February and the rest for May.
Too bad, fellas, I'm sure you can find jobs at the other New York newspapers ...
The layoffs do not count toward the planned elimination of 100 jobs in The New York Times newsroom. That 8 percent reduction is to take effect by the end of the year.
Also on Thursday, the Times Company told nonunion employees that it would stop making contributions to their pensions at the end of this year and would instead take the less expensive step of contributing 3 percent of their salaries each year to their 401(k) plans.
Shave a buck here and there, adds up over time ...
The Times did not say how much it would save with the changes in the retirement programs or the news service.
Enough for Pinchy to pay his dues at the club ...
The plan for the news service calls for The Gainesville Sun, whose newsroom is not unionized and has lower salaries, to take over editing and page design. Ms. McNulty said new jobs would be created at The Sun to handle the work.
The news service uses completed New York Times articles and re-edits them for wire distribution, using Associated Press style rules. They are trimmed to varying lengths for use by news organizations that subscribe to the service. It also produces products like weekly inserts for newspapers around the world with articles from The Times translated into other languages.
Well at least they didn't out-source the work to The Hindustan Times!
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/15/2009 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The portly fiberglass boy with the cheerful grin, pompadour-style hair and red-checkered overalls is back, and he's hoping his return will yield much more than a momentary trip down memory lane. 
[Bangla Daily Star] Two persons were killed and one was critically wounded in a gunfight among the armed cadres of Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity (PCJSS) and United People's Democratic Front (UPDF) at Lulongchhari under Jurachhari upazila on Friday.
Call it the Bolivarian battle of the bulge.
The United States' first marijuana cafe opened on Friday, posing an early test of the Obama administration's move to relax policing of medical use of the drug.
