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So, media is trotting out the next thing to scare you to death enhance ratings: Bird Flu is back! Yeah, that's the ticket! And even better, it's a mutant strain! This is right up there with SARS. And Alar.
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
-Thomas Jefferson
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Image via Wikipedia
The National Weather Service (NWS) was founded in 1870. Originally, the NWS was not a public information agency. It was a national security agency and placed under the Department of War. The Service’s national security function has long since disappeared, but as agencies often do, however, it stuck around and managed to increase its budget.
We don't need it, and it provides no public benefit. Today, we have The Weather Channel, along with a myriad of apps that run on our computers and our phones. These private operations fulfill every function of the NWS, and they do so without siphoning off taxpayer dollars.
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Now, if you happen to be skeptical of Man-Made Global Warming, which is a matter near and dear to AlGore's wallet, you're just this generation's racist.
One day climate change skeptics will be seen in the same negative light as racists, or so says former Vice President Al Gore.
You know he's getting desperate when he whips out the race card, which has been so over-played that people today just roll their eyes when it's brought out. Why, it seems like only yesterday that the hypocrisy of the 45th vice-president was discussed. Oh, wait - it was just yesterday. Golly, wouldn't he have made a fine president?
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The media were just plain irksome with their "continuing coverage" of the impending disaster, but hey - that's what they depend on to pay the bills. The Weather Channel coverage was especially amusing:
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Seeking to encourage use of gray-water, The Oregon Environmental Quality Commission Thursday approved rules governing permits for graywater.
The regulations require homeowners, schools, businesses, apartment complexes and others to apply for permits costing at least $50 a year.
This is how bureaucrats "encourage" people: you can go to Home Depot and drop a hundred or so bucks on pipe, then you can spend time re-plumbing so that your bath/shower/washing machine water gets dumped out onto your lawn or garden, rather than into the sewer system. To do so, you must pay the state at least $50 per year. Oh - and don't expect to see any decline in your water/sewer bill.
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An amusing display of the hypocrisy demonstrated by the 45th Vice President of the USA.
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Over at Ten Mile Island, there's an interesting post about the continuing targeting of Gibson instruments by the feds (there's a reason why the blog's listed in the sidebar, here).
But the story doesn't stop there. Based on personal experience, something didn't pass the smell test. Back in the days of the coffeehouse circuits, I used to play Martin 12-strings. Hell, I even had a sideline going, in which I repaired damaged Martins and other instruments. I know what woods they used.
So I did some poking around.
Know what? Martin has never been raided by the feds.
One of Gibson’s leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Company. The C.E.O., Chris Martin IV, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the DNC over the past couple of elections (though, to be fair, he did donate a whopping $750 to Republican Congressmen in the 90s.) According to C.F. Martin’s catalog, several of their guitars contain “East Indian Rosewood.”
In case you were wondering, that is the exact same wood in at least ten of Gibson’s guitars.
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Image via Wikipedia
Hurricane Irene is all over the news, so it must really be something.
Actually, not so much. It's just that the media's based mostly on the east coast, so anything that happens there is automatically "news".
Sort of like the recent earthquake there:
Dishes tinkled in china cabinets, a picture fell from the wall in a house beside a country lane in Northern Virginia, the earth moved in Bethesda (thrilling a new bride) and somewhere in Georgetown, a garbage bin tipped over, spilling out three tin cans, a handful of coffee grounds and a dented pizza box. This was serious stuff, as serious stuff is measured by the minions of press and tube.
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Boring folks, like residents of Sandy and elsewhere, have had about enough of Tri-Met, and they're getting ready to pull the plug from the trough. Businesses there pay the same rate as businesses in downtown Portland, but receive about one quarter of one percent of the level of service. They're being bled to pay for Portland's rail infatuation, and they're looking to get out.
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This thing's freaking fast, and a great replacement for Microsoft Office. Fully compatible with the MS bloatware, it's also free. It beats the OpenOffice freeware suite, as well.
SoftMaker Office for Windows: http://www.softmaker.de/lh-download-en.htm
Just sayin'.
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