Here's hoping they never have to try this.

NASA officials revealed a new plan on Thursday that might allow a last-ditch effort to save a damaged space shuttle by guiding it back to Earth without astronauts aboard.

The system, which could be used if astronauts were forced to abandon the shuttle and take refuge in the International Space Station, makes use of a 28-foot-long braided cable, weighing about five pounds, that can be attached to various control boxes on the shuttle. It would allow flight controllers on the ground to activate systems that previously had to be switched on by members of the shuttle crew, including power units, landing gear and drag chutes.

I'd love to know the odds of a successful landing in such a situation -- then I'd plunk down a C-note in Vegas, figuring that could retire on the winnings if the shuttle did make it to landing relatively intact.

Posted by: Greg at 06:53 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Q: Why not?
A: NY Times.

Looks to me like Ted Olson has picked the worst time to lobby for the creation of a statute protecting a “reporter’s privilege”.

Journalists reporting on high-profile legal or political controversies cannot function effectively without offering some measure of confidentiality to their sources. Their ability to do so yields substantial benefits to the public in the form of stories that might otherwise never be written about corruption, misfeasance and abuse of power. A person with information about wrongdoing is often vulnerable to retaliation if exposed as an informant.

Yet it has become almost routine for journalists to be slapped with subpoenas seeking the identity of their sources when their reports make it into print or onto the air. From the Valerie Plame imbroglio and the Wen Ho Lee investigation to the use of steroids by professional baseball players, it is now de rigueur to round up the reporters, haul them before a court, and threaten them with heavy fines and jail sentences if they don't cough up names and details concerning their sources.

And so the solution , according to Olson, is to place reporters above the law by permitting them to withhold evidence that any other citizen would be required to divulge. But donÂ’t dare call it that, Olson says.

Reporters do not expect to be above the law. But they should be accorded some protection so that they can perform their public service in ensuring the free flow of information and exposing fraud, dishonesty and improper conduct without being exposed to an unanticipated jail sentence. A free society depends on access to information and on a free and robust press willing to dig out the truth and spread it around. This requires some ability to deal from time to time with sources who, for one reason or another, require the capacity to speak freely but anonymously.

But unfortunately we have seen in the last few months too many cases of the “Paper of Record” decides to put secret information related to the prosecution of the Crusade Against Jihadi Terror on the front page. It then cloaks its provision of aid and comfort to the enemy by wrapping itself in the First Amendment, despite the fact that such treason is clearly not protected by the Amendment. After all, Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally, and Ezra Pound were all acting in a journalistic role when they made their infamous broadcasts – two went to prison and the third to an asylum.

Sorry, Ted, I admire and respect you – but disagree on this point.

And IÂ’m sad to see you shilling for the very entities that serve as intelligence agencies for jihadi sine like those who murdered Barbara.

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That is where the US population should be by fall.

The U.S. population is on target to hit 300 million this fall and it's a good bet the milestone baby — or immigrant — will be Hispanic.

No one will know for sure because the date and time will be just an estimate.

But Latinos — immigrants and those born in this country — are driving the population growth. They accounted for almost half the increase last year, more than any other ethnic or racial group. White non-Hispanics, who make up about two-thirds of the population, accounted for less than one-fifth of the increase.

Of course that has been the biggest percentage of the population increase -- in the last 30 years we have allowed 20-25 million illegal aliens to jump the border. We gave amnesty in 1986, and are promising to do so again. And as I can attest from observing my students and their behavior, they are a population with a high fertility rate and they start having chilren young -- looking at my female former students who are taking summer school this year, there are no less than eight who are either currently pregnant or already mothers out of around 150 girls I've taught over the last two years. Every one of them is Hispanic. And in the last couple of years I have noticed that I am teaching the fourth, fifth, or sixth child of many Hispanic families.

Please note that I am not making comments critical of the Hispanic community (well -- maybe the teen pregnancy comment is a bit critical), but merely noting the trends I am seeing in my school, which hasseen a 20% increase in enrollment in the last six years.

So when 300,000,000 comes this fall, of course I expect him or her to be Hispanic. That is where the trends have been headed for years.

Posted by: Greg at 11:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Move over Hardee's ThickBurger -- this is the new heart attack on a bun.

A hundred bucks might buy you more than six dozen burgers from McDonald's, but the swanky Old Homestead Steakhouse will sell you one brawny beef sandwich for the same price.

Boca Raton Mayor Steven Abrams could barely speak between bites as he devoured the 20-ounce, $100 hamburger billed as the "beluga caviar of sandwiches."

"Heaven on a bun," restaurant owner Marc Sherry said.

The burger debuted Tuesday at the restaurant in the Boca Raton Resort and Club, where a membership costs $40,000 and an additional $3,600 a year.

"We've never had a hamburger on our menu here so we really wanted to go to the extreme," Sherry said, calling it "the most decadent burger in the world."

At about 5 1/2 inches across and 2 1/2 inches thick, the mound of meat is comprised of beef from three continents — American prime beef, Japanese Kobe and Argentine cattle.

The bill for one burger, with garnishing that includes organic greens, exotic mushrooms and tomatoes, comes out to $124.50 with tax and an 18 percent tip included. The restaurant will donate $10 from each sale to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

And yes, I realize you can get bigger burgers elsewhere -- I was referring to the price-tag as the source of the cardiac arrest.

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Yeah, it still goes on -- and one ring got a bunch of cows from the ranch of baseball great Nolan Ryan.

Authorities said Tuesday they have cracked a cattle-rustling operation that stretched across eight counties and claimed 289 head, including 17 cows and 30 calves belonging to Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan.

The total value of the stolen livestock was estimated at up to $300,000.

Authorities recovered 83 head this week from the pastures of a Brazoria County cattle rancher who authorities say has confessed to the thefts.

"He comes from a ranching family, knows the business, knows cattle," said Brent Mast, Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association special ranger based in Willis. "He's knowledgeable enough about the business to know how to steal cattle, brand registration, and he knew the proper way to hide stolen cattle, if there's a proper way to hide stolen cattle."

The rancher, who has not been charged, faces 14 counts of cattle theft, a third-degree felony. The investigation remains ongoing, and authorities did not rule out that others could face charges.

Special Texas Ranger Tommy Johnson said police plodded through rain-soaked pastures in Angleton on Monday and expect to recover another 10 to 15 stolen animals at another pasture as soon as the fields dry.

He said the suspect is expected to surrender today.

When you consider how we used to deal with cattle-rustling in texas, it seems to me that this guy is getting off easy. It used to be a hanging offense -- and if the victims didn't wait for a trial before imposing the penalty, it was considered to be a justified homicide.

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I hope this guy goes away for a very long time -- and that there are some charges available for the "parent" who let him back behind the wheel.

A Chatham County man was charged with DWI twice in a span of about 20 minutes early Sunday morning, authorities said.

The incident started when a man was stopped in Siler City for speeding and driving left of center.

A Chatham County deputy found evidence that suggested the driver was intoxicated and the man was arrested.

The man's car, a 1991 Honda Civic, was left at the scene. The 18-year-old driver was released into the custody of his mother.

About 20 minutes later, the deputy went back to check on the Honda and to conduct a follow-up investigation.

When he arrived he saw the same man driving away in the car.

The deputy stopped the man and arrested him and impounded his car.

Alejandro Salas Sanchez, 18, of West 2nd Street, Siler City, was charged with two counts of DWI and one count of driving while license revoked, among other charges.

Sanchez was then jailed under a $1,000 secured bond and is scheduled to appear in Chatham County District Court in Siler City on July 11.

SOme folks simply do not need to be permitted in the same county as an automobile -- and this guy is one of them.

Posted by: Greg at 12:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Was "the perfect shot" really worth it?

A woman lost her footing after stepping over a retaining wall to take a photograph and went over a cliff, falling 500 feet to her death in a canyon, Yellowstone National Park officials said.

The 52-year-old woman was visiting the park with her husband and two children.

Her husband flagged down a passing motorist, who called 911 after the Saturday morning accident at an overlook along the Yellowstone River, park officials said.

A ranger rappelled down the canyon wall to reach the woman, but she was dead at the scene.

Condolences to the family of the deceased and all that -- but was there no consideration given to the idea that the wall was there for a reason?

Posted by: Greg at 10:25 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Based upon our experiences here in Houston, this does not even come as a surprise to me.

Five people ranging in age from 16 to 19 were killed in a street shooting early Saturday, the most violent crime reported in this slowly repopulating city since Hurricane Katrina hit last August.

All were believed to have been gunned down in a volley of bullets on a street in the Central City neighborhood just outside the central business district. Three of the victims were found in a sport utility vehicle rammed against a utility pole and two were found nearby on the street.

Authorities said they were looking for one or more suspects but did not elaborate.

Capt. John Bryson said police think the shootings were either drug-related or some type of retaliation attack. A semiautomatic weapon was used and "multiple, multiple rounds" were fired, he said.

"I think the motivation we're looking at is pretty obvious," he said. "Somebody wanted them dead."

Or crime rate -- especially our murder rate -- spiked following the arrival of the Katrina evacuees. Seems to me that some of the thugs have found their way back east. I hate to say it, but I'm just glad it happened in their town and not ours.

And I'm troubled by the learned helplessness of the residents of New Orleans.

Bryson said the recent spike in murders, which he said was connected to drugs, was not just a "police problem" or a "New Orleans problem."

"It's a Louisiana problem, it's a United States problem," he said. "We're begging the citizens to join with us to coordinate with watch groups."

No, Capt. Bryson -- it seems to be primarily a New Orleans problem. Deal with it yourself, and start by having your residents raise their children with some self-sufficiency, morality, and respect for the law and human life. Don't put it on the rest of us.

But unfortunately, there are those who will beat their breasts and blame the nation as a whole for the shortcomings of the residents 9and former residents) of New Orleans -- folks like the editors of the LA Times, who know where not to put the blame for the misuse of FEMA funds by Katrina evacuees.

But obsessing about the spending habits of refugees comes perilously close to blaming the victim.

I'm sure they will say the same of the criminality of New Orleanians as well.

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Liftoff will be in two weeks, if all goes according to plan.

NASA managers on Saturday picked July 1 to launch the first space shuttle in almost a year for a test-flight mission that will try out inspection methods and repairs that were devised following the Columbia disaster.

The launch of the seven crewmembers aboard Discovery in early July improved the chances that the 12-day mission would be extended by a day to add an important third spacewalk. The launch date was picked after two days of meetings by scores of NASA's top managers and engineers at the Kennedy Space Center.

The most contentious debate at the meeting focused on whether the shuttle's external tank should undergo further changes in 34 areas called ice-frost ramps. About 35 pounds of foam already have been removed from an area of the tank where a 1-pound piece of foam fell off during last July's launch of Discovery. NASA described it as the aerodynamic change ever made to the shuttle's launch system.

Some members of NASA's safety office said at the meeting that the shuttle shouldn't fly until more foam around the ice-frost ramps are removed. Top managers, however, countered that the shuttle should fly with only one major modification to the tank at a time.

"At the end of the day, some people had reservations and they expressed their reservations," said Wayne Hale, NASA's space shuttle program manager.

Flying foam off the external tank struck a wing of Columbia during its launch in 2003, allowing fiery gases to enter the shuttle and kill the seven-member crewmembers during descent.

Living just a few miles from Johnson Space Center, this is local news. I suspect the NASA hands (current and retired) will be buzzing at church tomorrow. I'm sure that the order for the "Good Luck, Discovery!" banners for the fences around JSC will be placed first thing Monday morning. One local church has already called forward one of the astronauts for a special blessing during the SUnday service, and more of those will be coming.

I guess what I am trying to say is that these are our people, members of our community. And as such, we down here around take a special pride in what is going to happen on July 1 and in the days that follow -- and that we will be holding our breath just a little bit deeper and praying a little bit harder than most of the rest of the world.

Not because we are better people or because we believe the astronauts are extraordinary people -- but because they and their families move among us every day, and we therefore know them to be ordinary men and women doing extraordinary things.

Posted by: Greg at 11:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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We had a horrible incident here in Houston this week -- a little girl run down and killed just days before her birthday by a trio of carjackers stealing the family vehicle.

Well, the perps have been caught -- but will not face murder charges.

Harris County prosecutors decided to file aggravated robbery charges in a deadly carjacking because the evidence did not show the attackers intended to kill a girl, a key element for a murder charge, officials said.

"It doesn't sound like a serious enough charge — maybe that is what people's perception is," said Di Glaeser, chief of the major offender and special crimes unit of the Harris County District Attorney's Office. "I think, that if these people are guilty, they should receive the most serious punishment and that would be aggravated robbery."

I would have been really upset by this, except that i remembered something from my time on the jury for a capital murder case (which was pled down to aggravated robbery after a mistrial). And fortunately, the Chronicle points out exactly what i recalled.

Aggravated robbery, like murder, is a first-degree felony. They carry the same punishment.

And before you ask, the penalty is 25-to-life (except when the state seeks the death penalty in a murder case). These boys won't be getting out any time soon.

Posted by: Greg at 09:03 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The number is astounding -- $1.4 billion in fraud related to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The government doled out as much as $1.4 billion in bogus assistance to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and was hoodwinked to pay for season football tickets, a tropical vacation and even a divorce lawyer, congressional investigators have found.

Prison inmates, a supposed victim who used a New Orleans cemetery for a home address, and a person who spent 70 days at a Hawaiian hotel were able to wrongly get taxpayer help, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Agents from the investigative arm of Congress went undercover to expose the ease of receiving disaster expense checks from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The GAO concluded that as much as 16 percent of the billions of dollars in FEMA aid to individuals after the two hurricanes was unwarranted.

The findings are detailed in testimony that is scheduled to be delivered at a hearing today by the House Homeland Security subcommittee on investigations.

To dramatize the problem, the GAO provided lawmakers with a copy of a $2,358 U.S. Treasury check for rental assistance that an undercover agent got using a bogus address. The money was paid even after FEMA learned from its inspector that the undercover applicant did not live at the address.

"This is an assault on the American taxpayer," said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), chairman of the subcommittee that will conduct the hearing. "Prosecutors from the federal level down should be looking at prosecuting these crimes and putting the criminals who committed them in jail for a long time."

It also pisses me off. Many folks impacted by the hurricanes who were insured and/or who applied for FEMA money following the hurricanes were denied compensation for damages that were considered to be not serious enough to meet the requirements for assistance, even if those expenses were in the $2000-3000 range. In the mean time, government debit cards for those amounts were being issued so that folks could go to strip clubs or buy designer clothes. It seems to me that such disaster programs need to be fixed.

Posted by: Greg at 10:57 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'm disgusted that this suit has not been thrown out of court. After all, criminals don't deserve mercy at the hands of their intended victims.

A man who was beaten by employees of a store he was trying to rob is now suing.

Police say Dana Buckman entered the AutoZone in Rochester, New York, last July, brandished a semi-automatic pistol and demanded cash.

That's when employees Eli Crespo and Jerry Vega beat him with a pipe and held Buckman at bay with his own gun.

Buckman escaped when they retreated into the store to call 911, but he was arrested a week later. He pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery and was sentenced to 18 years in prison as a repeat violent felon.

Now Buckman is suing the auto parts store and the two employees who beat him, claiming they committed assault and battery and intentionally inflicted emotional distress.

So the moral of this story is don't stop beating a felon until he is dead -- that way he cannot sue you for taking all appropriate steps to stop his crime.

Posted by: Greg at 06:16 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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IÂ’m glad to see that this guy has been indicted. What a piece of work!

Following a three-year investigation, the former president of Houston's largest Teamsters local was arrested Friday on charges of rigging a union election and accepting a $20,000 kickback from a union vendor.

Chuck Crawley, 56, who lost control of Local 988 in 2003 after an investigation into corruption allegations by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, was released on a $100,000 bond after posting a $5,000 cash bail.

Crawley gained national attention that year when it was learned he used nonunion labor to build the local's $1.7 million union hall, causing international President James P. Hoffa to cancel his appearance at the opening.

An indictment unsealed Friday accuses Crawley of using the mail to cast 362 phony ballots in the name of union members he thought would not be voting in a 2002 union election.

He also is accused of rigging the vote to get himself re-elected, using the union's computer system to generate fraudulent ballots, of accepting a $20,000 kickback from the company that installed the union's telephone system, and making false entries in union records about the telephone installation.

If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years on one count of wire fraud, five years on each of two counts of embezzlement, and fines of $250,000 on each of the three counts.

This guy also used union money to sue two union members who went to the FBI to report his corruption.

It is cases like this that make me glad that I live in a right-to-work state, where I cannot be forced to give money to corrupt union bosses like Chuck Crawley. I hope he goes away for a long time – and that the members of his union realize that he is just the tip of the iceberg of corruption the historically corrupt Teamsters union.

Posted by: Greg at 04:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Some stories are just too weird to make up!

A woman angry that her new puppy had died pushed her way into a dog breeder's home and repeatedly hit her on the head with the dead Chihuahua, authorities said.

The 33-year-old woman told police she had taken the puppy to a veterinarian, who said it was only 4 weeks old and needed to be returned to its mother. But before she could return the puppy, it died.

Early Wednesday, the woman went to the breeder's home, pushed her way inside and began fighting with the breeder as she tried to make her way to the basement to get another puppy, police said.

The breeder wrestled the woman out of her house to the front porch, where the woman then hit the breeder over the head numerous times with the dead puppy, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, citing police.

We could have teh basis of a new saying here -- "I'm gonna beat you with a dead Chihuahua." What do you think?

Posted by: Greg at 10:51 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Looks like my rocket-scientist friends will have some work to do over the next few years. And since JSC is only 10 minutes from this computer (depending on the traffic lights), I bet I know several of the leading figures in this new quest to return to the moon.

NASA handed out assignments for President Bush's lunar human exploration program on Monday, with much of the development work headed as expected for the Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.

All 10 of the space agency's installations in eight states will be involved in meeting the $104 billion Constellation program's goal of returning American explorers to the moon as early as 2018.

Johnson's responsibilities for directing the development of a new moon ship, called the Crew Exploration Vehicle, as well as for managing much of the work actually carried out at other agency installations, emerged in September as NASA unveiled the blueprint for its lunar transportation system.

The economy of this part of Harris County is driven by NASA and related corporate entities. Some of the older generation at my church still talk about the original Mercury astronauts on a first name basis. There is a couple that talks about some of the astronaut kids hiding out at their home to get away from the news crews in their front yards. One dear lady laments that the custom of NASA wives preparing meals for the families of those in space has fallen by the wayside since the end of the Apollo program.

This area is a company town -- and i'm glad it may stay that way for a little bit longer.

Posted by: Greg at 11:39 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Could you imagine the outrage if this were a report that a state-run health-care system were insisting that it would cover only radical mastectomies for all women, even if the less destructive lumpectomy were a better course of action for a woman with only a small, contained tumor who would be better served by a lumpectomy?

Well, that is comparable to what is hapening in England right now, where the NHS has decreed that it will not cover a less-invasive treatment for men with early-stage prostate cancer which radically cuts the likelihood of impotence.

HUNDREDS of men are being denied an alternative to radical surgery for prostate cancer because the National Health Service is refusing to pay for it, writes Sarah-Kate Templeton.

Hard-up primary care trusts across England have stopped funding brachytherapy, a new form of radiotherapy, although it has been approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice).

Doctors and patient groups have accused the NHS of discriminating against men. John Neate, chief executive of the Prostate Cancer Charity, said: “Nobody should have to battle bureaucracy when they need all their energy to come to terms with a diagnosis.”

Brachytherapy has fewer side effects than removing the prostate or giving radiotherapy for five days a week over seven weeks. Only 10%- 15% of men are left impotent after brachytherapy, compared with about 50% of men who undergo surgery.

The £9,000 treatment takes just one day. The patient has radioactive pellets implanted into the prostate gland. These target and kill the cancer.

Brachytherapy is not suitable for all prostate cancer sufferers but doctors believe that it is the best treatment for patients who have small tumours which have been caught at an early stage.

The number of men who die of prostate cancer each year in Great Britain (and, I believe, in the United States and worldwide) is similar to the number of women who die of breast cancer. Funding for the latter, however, is significantly higher -- as is the politicization of the disease.

Posted by: Greg at 01:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Project Gutenberg will be giving away e-books for a month this summer -- some of the great classics of world literature.

For much of the past decade, the publishing world has been trying to figure out how to make money selling books in electronic form. Now a private project wants to give e-books away for free.

Project Gutenberg, a 35-year-old nonprofit based in Urbana, Ill., announced yesterday it is putting as many as 300,000 books online, where they will be available for free download. Called the World eBook Fair (worldbookfair.com), the program will last a month -- July 4 to Aug. 4 -- and will be repeated annually.

The catalog of available works will include fiction, nonfiction, and reference books, mostly those that are no longer protected by copyright. ``It will include the oldest books in the world, including every author you have heard of in your life, other than current ones," said Michael Hart, Project Gutenberg's founder. The fair also will offer classical music files, both scores and recordings, as well as films.

About 95 percent of the books are in the public domain and not subject to copyright law, Hart said. The copyright holders of the remaining 5 percent have given permission for use of their works. Copyright law generally protects a work for 70 years beyond the death of its creator.

Roughly 20,000 of the books have been scanned by thousands of Gutenberg volunteers -- and are already available at gutenberg.org -- but the majority will be loaned to Gutenberg for the month by more than 100 e-book libraries, including the World eBook Library, which normally charges a fee for temporary access. As many as 100,000 of the 300,000 books will remain available permanently. Gutenberg plans to offer 500,000 books in next year's fair, 750,000 in 2008, and 1 million in 2009. Still, even these numbers are a fraction of the tens of millions of books that have been published throughout history.

``Our stuff is all free," Hart said. ``We want people to take these books and use them, to keep them in their PDAs. Our mission is to help break down the walls of ignorance and illiteracy."

A bibliophile's dream, and a scholar's fantasy!

Posted by: Greg at 04:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, it looks like the report I saw the other day was bogus.

A free fuel plan for hurricane evacuees that was
unveiled to the public by a state official this week was incorrect
and not approved by top emergency leaders, officials said
Wednesday.

The plan was outlined Tuesday for about 500 people -- mostly
Harris County residents -- at the Houston/Galveston Hurricane
Workshop. But state officials said a day later that they were
unfamiliar with the free fuel system described during the public
presentation by Jenniffier Hawes, a regional liaison officer with
the Texas Department of Public Safety.

"The information she presented was incorrect," said Rachael
Novier, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry. "The situation is being
dealt with within the division of emergency management."

* * *

The revelation of a non-existent free fuel plan surprised -- and
scared -- many state agencies and industry officials who would be
directly involved in such a situation.

If motorists showed up to stations expecting free gas during an
evacuation, "we could end up with riots in our driveways," said
Scott Fisher, spokesman for the Texas Petroleum Marketers and
Convenience Store Association.

* * *

According to the state's new evacuation plan, officials will
work closely with gas companies to ensure that stations along
evacuation routes are adequately filled before an evacuation is
called. Officials have said that they will assess the gas supply
and send out tankers 120 hours before tropical storm force winds
make landfall.

On the heels of the erroneous plan going public, Texas
Department of Transportation spokesman Mike Cox said Wednesday that
if stalled drivers are spotted by courtesy patrol trucks, they'll
be given enough gas to get to the nearest station.

"But there will be no free fill-ups," he said.

Well, i hope this works. I'm just curious how they will deal with the traffic gridlock that we saw last September, and how those "courtesy patrol trucks" will get to vehicles that have run out of gass when the roads are moving at under 5 miles per hour.

(H/T Unite Later)

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You know, the last time I checked, this was well before the existence of homo sapiens sapiens, or any of our early ape-man/man-ape ancestors. Could it be that global warming is a transitory, natural phenomenon – followed by equally natural global cooling back to the norm?

The new analysis confirms that the Arctic Ocean warmed remarkably 55 million years ago, which is when many scientists say the extraordinary planetwide warm-up called the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum must have been caused by an enormous outburst of heat-trapping, or greenhouse, gases like methane and carbon dioxide. But no one has found a clear cause for the gas discharge. Almost all climate experts agree that the present-day gas buildup is predominantly a result of emissions from smokestacks, tailpipes and burning forests.

Which means, of course, that their position is “global warming is a natural phenomenon – but this time is different,” despite the fact that they lack any evidence to differentiate between the two.

Dafydd at Big Lizards notes the problems this discovery creates for global warming alarmists, and offers the following suggestion.

We need a twenty-year moratorium on "doing" anything about climate Instead, let's commit vast treasure and human resources to improving our basic scientific understanding of climatology and all that's related. It would make little difference in the projected rise of MGT; we would better be able to decide whether the current rise was natural or anthropogenic; and even if we did decide to "do something," those twenty years would allow us to craft a much more intelligent and effective "thing" to do than striking out blindly today.

There is no significant downside to sentencing globaloney to a "timeout".

I agree wholeheartedly – we need to truly understand the “problem” – and the mechanisms at work – before implementing a “solution” that may or may not be necessary.

Posted by: Greg at 05:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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You know, the last time I checked, this was well before the existence of homo sapiens sapiens, or any of our early ape-man/man-ape ancestors. Could it be that global warming is a transitory, natural phenomenon – followed by equally natural global cooling back to the norm?

The new analysis confirms that the Arctic Ocean warmed remarkably 55 million years ago, which is when many scientists say the extraordinary planetwide warm-up called the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum must have been caused by an enormous outburst of heat-trapping, or greenhouse, gases like methane and carbon dioxide. But no one has found a clear cause for the gas discharge. Almost all climate experts agree that the present-day gas buildup is predominantly a result of emissions from smokestacks, tailpipes and burning forests.

Which means, of course, that their position is “global warming is a natural phenomenon – but this time is different,” despite the fact that they lack any evidence to differentiate between the two.

Dafydd at Big Lizards notes the problems this discovery creates for global warming alarmists, and offers the following suggestion.

We need a twenty-year moratorium on "doing" anything about climate Instead, let's commit vast treasure and human resources to improving our basic scientific understanding of climatology and all that's related. It would make little difference in the projected rise of MGT; we would better be able to decide whether the current rise was natural or anthropogenic; and even if we did decide to "do something," those twenty years would allow us to craft a much more intelligent and effective "thing" to do than striking out blindly today.

There is no significant downside to sentencing globaloney to a "timeout".

I agree wholeheartedly – we need to truly understand the “problem” – and the mechanisms at work – before implementing a “solution” that may or may not be necessary.

Posted by: Greg at 05:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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