North Carolina Threatens to Arrest the Atlantic Ocean

That's not quite true, of course. But the idiots in the North Carolina legislature are trying to outlaw the use of climate data to estimate the rise of the level of the sea over the next 90 years. Because they don't agree with the current scientific consensus about climate change and the effects that it will have on sea levels.

So if scientists are projecting a rise in sea level of one meter, or 39 inches, by 2100, North Carolina will, by law, only consider and plan for maybe a rise of eight inches.

Because politicians are better able to make sense of scientific data than scientists.[1] The last time this sort of drama played out, the tobacco industry obfuscated the scientific data on the effects of smoking, the "conservatives" bought into that and public health efforts were set back by decades.

This time, the stakes are higher. Substitute the coal and petroleum industries for the tobacco industry and the same dynamic is at play.

Legend has it that a thousand years ago, King Canute demonstrated that the sea paid no heed to royal commands. If only the legislators in North Carolina were that intelligent.
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[1] Especially when those politicians are taking "campaign contributions" from the coal industry and from the Koch brothers.

Mitt Romney's Favorite Airline is "Untied"

In case you've not paid attention to the Intertubes over the last day, Mittens' campaign released an iPhone app that misspelled the word "America", rendering it as "Amercia".[1]

I can just see it now: President Romney unleashes a massive bombing strike against Uzbekistan because he got confused by all of the -stans in that part of the world. Next he'll be offering to put food on our families.

I sort of feel bad about poking fun at ol' Willard over this. This is too easy, it's like shooting a large watermelon at five feet with a 12-gauge. Then again, this is the Internet. It's what we do.
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[1] By now, the batshit-loyal Republicans will be claiming that the true name of the cartographer in the 16th Century was Amercio Vespucci.

A Serial Bomber in Arizona

Stratfor sent out an analysis that began with news of a serial bomber operating in the Phoenix, AZ area and then discussed past American serial bombers. I searched news stories, this one has minimal coverage.

When people in that area realize that it is a bad idea to pick up an abandoned flashlight and turn it on, it would not be a surprise if this asswipe moves on to building bombs inside other objects (or making them more powerful). Let's hope that he screws up and blows off his own body parts.

Might not make a difference. Many years ago, some clown, who had earlier blown both of his hands off with a homemade grenade, threw down on the cops with a bolt-action rifle. He wounded a cop and was shot and killed in return.

Fun At Work; Naval Air Edition

An EA-6B flies a low-level training route.



Which is why if your sectional chart shows that you'll be crossing a VR- or IR- route, it's good to ask whether or not the route is active.

(H/T)

Soviet Chicago: Why the Hell Would Anyone Want to Live There?

During the NATO Summit, the Chicago cops were crashing into people's apartments, terrorizing the residents and searching them. Without probable cause. Without warrants.

It seems that since the cops were there to search the apartment of some political activists[1], they cops took it upon themselves to go search the neighbors' apartments. For no goddamned reason whatsoever.

The Chicago police department has a long and bloody record of acting as though they were transplanted, en masse, from a police state. They often don't seem to care about fuzzy hippie concepts such as "civil rights" and "the Constitution".

One hopes that the city of Chicago is now going to have to cough up a few million dollars to settle the inevitable lawsuits.

(H/T)
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[1] These days, "political activism" has become a synonym for "terrorism" in the eyes of the cops.

Caturday

Jake: "You humans have a warped idea of what a 'mouse' is."

Jake seems to keep his eyes half-shut almost all of the time, as though he is just so bored.

Memorial Day

This should not be Memorial Day, as I've written about a few times.

This day is not supposed to be the unofficial start of Summer.

This day is not supposed to be an occasion for sales events at retail stores.

This day is supposed to be about one thing: Honoring the memories of those veterans who are no longer with us.

As you go about your day today, whether you're at the beach, the lake, or having a cookout with friends and family, please take a minute to remember the men and women whose lives were taken from them so that our freedom and our nation would continue to survive.

Fire and Continuing Education

I sat through a very, very, very long continuing education class yesterday. (The three hours of driving didn't help matters.) Most of the sessions were surprisingly good. I say "surprisingly" because I've endured continuing ed classes in the past that made dental surgery seem attractive.

Of course, there was the inevitable moron who just read aloud the PowerPoint slides, but fortunately, only one of those was presenting a class. Seems to be a fact of life.

I wrote here about the fire on the USS Miami.

Google's New Motto: "Being Evil is Fun!"

When Google started business in the 1990s, they loudly proclaimed their motto was; "Don't Be Evil."

how times have changed.

Goggle's "Street View" cars, which take photographs for that function of Google Earth, are not just shooting photographs. No, it seems that the Street View cars are engaged in mobile wiretapping, snapping up every bit of wireless information that they can find. When regulators, both in this country and in Europe, have pressed Goggle to answer the simple question of"what the frak are you guys doing", Google refuses to answer.

When Google first tried to explain their snooping away, they airily proclaimed that the snooping was a bug, an error in their programming. Turns out that was a hell of a lie, for Google knew what was going on and they were just fine with it. Until that is, they were caught..

Because, well, they're Google. Google doesn't answer to mere governments. Because evil organizations just don't.

And if Google is sharing that information with the NSA, who would be the wiser?

Space X to the ISS!

They got it on the second attempt.



The earlier attempt didn't fly when the engines shut down due to a bad check valve on one of the nine engines.

47 years ago, Gemini 6 also had a launchpad shutdown after the engines fired and were shut down by the onboard computer.

Anyway, when Space X can get their capsule man-rated, they can start flying crews to the ISS and compete with the Russians.