| Wednesday,
October 24, 2007 Senator Reid: "California
wildfires were caused by global warming!"
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/a8ae099c-6a23-45fd-a6fe-7b923d3e728b
After a closed door policy meeting with other Senate
Democrats, Majority Leader and utter buffoon Harry Reid of Nevada took to
the microphones just outside the floor of the United States Senate, and
fielded questions.
In response to a question on the energy bill, Reid
said the following: "As you know, one reason that we have the fires burning
in Southern California is global warming. One reason the Colorado Basin is
going dry is because of global warming."
Six questions later, a reporter followed up on Reid's
amazing statement. Question: "Senator, on the California fires, you said
that the reason the fires are burning in California is global warming?"
Reid: "No. Here's what I - I didn't say the reason the fires were burning in
Southern California was global warming..."
Mike
I have heard this, but I am hardly
astonished.
==========
Subject: rhesus in the capital
In light of this terrible occurrence, I have only one
two things to say:
1) Can Rhesus macaques <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhesus_Macaque>
survive in Washington, DC; and
2) What would it take to import about two thousand of
the furry little darlin's?
LawDog"
I can't really think of much to add to that.
Graves
1) Oh, they are tough boogers, they know how to
scavenge and tribe together for support (warmth, etc.).
2) Do-able, but, and the but is a big one: as one who
worked with rhesus macaques, I can assure you that you don't want even one
of those running around. Their vampire-ish teeth are long and sharp, and
let's not get into monkey dental hygene. A grip of their fist could break
your arm single-handed; they are stronger then human bodybuilders, and I
would not believe a man who claimed to have won a wrestling match with a
rhesus that was over three weeks old. (As if Momma Monkey would let you
near.) On top of all that, nearly all rhesus monkeys are carriers of the
Simian Herpes virus, which last time I checked had a fatality rate of ~90%
in Homo Sap. It says a lot about the precautions taken that cases occur in
the handful per decade range in the U.S.
Lock them in the U.N. Building with timed-release
sedative implants, maybe. But don't turn 'em loose on the streets.
Stewart
-- "It's not NASA's job to send a man to Mars. It's
NASA's job to make it possible for the National Geographic Society to send a
man to Mars." -- Rand Simberg
I once had to care for a dozen rhesus
monkeys at the University of Washington Medical School animal lab. I assure
you I want no more contact with them. Still, the notion of a flock of
Capitol Hill monkeys is intriguing. After all, the People are no longer free
to walk into the People's House. Let a flock of rhesus monkeys take our
place.
==========
State Militia -- South Carolina
Dear Jerry,
In your post on the fire (10/23) you mentioned the
state militias in Kentucky and Tennessee when you were a boy and asked if
any state had something similar.
South Carolina has its state guard, which is something
similar. It's all volunteer, but there is a state tax exemption connected
with membership. Their web site is at
http://www.scsg.org/
I don't know of the SC State Guard actually being
mobilized -- I may have missed something over the years -- but there do seem
to be plans to mobilize it when another hurricane hits the state.
I left South Carolina in January to return to Northern
Virginia after a nearly 20 year absence. I'm embarrassed to say that, back
in May, I walked right past Larry Niven and you on the Metro. (Serves me
right for not keeping up with the review!)
While I'm trying to land some permanent employment,
I'm working on turning my thesis ("From the Social Margins to the Center:
Lebanese Families Who Arrived in South Carolina before 1950") into a book
about Lebanese Christians in the Southeastern U.S. Given current and
continuing events, I feel like making a "Remember Sykes-Picot" bumper
sticker.
Elizabeth Whitaker
Alexandria, Virginia
=========
Thought Crime?
Jerry:
Although this story doesn't have a copyright notice on
it, the site has © Copyright 2007 OC Weekly LP so I presume the article is
covered by that.
While I have zero wish to see these guys on the
street, this conviction, which was upheld on appeal, seems based on very
little evidence that a crime was committed.
The story also doesn't cover exactly what the parents
or guardians of the 12-year-old boy were thinking when they let a paroled
pedophile take their son various places.
--Jim
<http://www.ocweekly.com/news/news/the-mind-of-a-pedophile/27906/>
The Mind of a Pedophile
Two convicted child molesters get another
stiff sentence for a crime they thought about committing
By R. SCOTT MOXLEY
Thursday, October 18, 2007 - 3:00 pm
Nobody can predict when and where they'll
find love. For Ken Casey and Dale Rumsey, love struck inside Mule Creek
State Prison in February 1996.
Other California inmates might have used
homosexuality for convenience, but Casey and Rumsey declared themselves
"life partners." The men shared a passion for films, participated in the
Boy Scouts and agreed to launch an Oakland video-rental business once
they'd left prison. Their relationship might have been domestic gay
bliss if it hadn't been for, well, an inherent incompatibility issue.
Rumsey, 37, and Casey, 39, are brazen,
convicted serial pedophiles. They're also now ugly footnotes in the
annals of Orange County criminal history. This month, a state court of
appeal based in Santa Ana upheld their convictions related to the
production of child pornography and committing lewd acts with children.
So far, so ordinary, right? But there's a
twist: Everyone agrees that Rumsey and Casey didn't create kiddie porn
or use a child for sex. Police claim the men engaged in mental sex
crimes when they chatted about the idea of enticing a 12-year-old
Ontario boy, Rumsey's nephew, to strip for a camcorder at a San Diego
County nudist beach.<snip>
I am not familiar with this case, but the
article, assuming it is correct in details, is disturbing. I had thought
that conspiracy to commit a crime required that somewhere alone the line a
crime be committed; or at least there be an overt act in furtherance of the
crime; and that the act conspired is in fact criminal.
========
And on the other hand:
"They were saying that we had to be prepared to talk
about sexuality with 11-year-olds, which I don't think is appropriate
anyway, but not only that, to be prepared to explain how gay people date."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/
news/news.html?in_article_id=489285&in_page_id=1770
- Roland Dobbins
========
Surprise! Internet actually a boon for books
LONDON (Reuters Life!) - So much for longstanding
predictions that the Internet would crush the book publishing industry with
digital readers and online sales of used books.
Penguin publishers said this week that the explosion
in online and second-hand retailing has not caused the damage they were
expecting and that the Internet has in many ways been a boon for booksellers
as a tool for marketing, experimentation and reaching out to the next
generation of readers.
http://in.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idINL1875026620071019
Bill Shields
==========
Turkey as a Regional Power.
http://blogs.stratfor.com/friedman/
2007/10/23/turkey-as-regional-power/
-- Roland Dobbins
========
Data-free Empirics
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/10/data-free-empiricism.html
"In short, here is what appears to have
happened:
1. Gabaix and Landier make a modelling
assumption for purposes of analytic convenience. 2. I describe their
model and its implications on this blog. 3. Wessel quotes part of that
description in the Journal. 4. Reich reads the Journal and cites me as
an authority using the partial quotation. 5. As a result, a modelling
assumption morphs into an established fact.
You might call that data-free empirics."
I wonder how often this sort of thing happens, and
nobody finds out?
Graves
Many times, I would guess. I recall well
known social scientists quoting the behavior of the soldiers in Close
Encounters of the Third Kind as evidence of how "the military" thinks. The
Voodoo Sciences are used to this sort of thing.
=========
Subj: Finding the winners among the losers
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htatrit/articles/20071024.aspx
>>[I]n addition to training everyone on how
to survive convoy duty in hostile territory, the current war has also
spurred more research on what it takes to be an exceptional soldier.
Interestingly enough, this line of research is very popular in the
business and academic world. Colleges have increasingly been looking for
tools, besides SAT scores, to determine who would benefit most from a
college education. It’s long been known that some college students start
off tagged as poor prospects, but then go on to do great work. Same
thing in business, where employers are seeking better tools to find the
hidden hot shots. ...<<
Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com
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