Things You Learn The Hard Way

(Warning, this is a geeky computer-related post. But I have had a number of emails about my travails with computers, so I thought there would be a few people interested. I've put the bulk of the post in a "read more" link.) 

First, let me say right off that I was lucky and caught this in time. But all my computer woes of the past week or two led to the discovery of a problem that could have been serious. Like I said, I was lucky.

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Suicide Attacks Disrupt Gasoline Supply

Terrorist tools of the Animal Uprising™ succeeded in disrupting the gasoline supply for California, causing a sharp jump in prices. The pair of attackers, a raccoon and an opossum, unleashed their attacks on the power supplies that feed the oil refineries that serve the West Coast.

The separate incidents resulted in a 7 cent (nearly 4 pence) increase in the cost of a gallon of petrol in the west when news of the interruption to supplies broke.

On Sunday evening, an opossum managed to get into a substation operated by the power company Southern California Edison in Torrance, 20 miles south of Los Angeles, and trip the supply. It went offline around 9pm. The opossum's carcass was later found by workers at the substation.

Power was subsequently cut to Exxon Mobil Corp's nearby Torrance oil refinery, which processes around 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day, triggering a two hour delay in operations.

Just over an hour later, a raccoon upset supplies at a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power substation in Wilmington, south of Torrance, cutting power to a Shell Oil refinery for about 10 seconds, said Kim Hughes, a spokeswoman.

A dead raccoon was found in the substation, she added.

Shell began flaring - burning off excess materials it could not pump back into processing units.

Note that we here at Blue Crab Boulevard had to get this important news from a British news source. American authorities, worried about the progress the animal overlords are making, are suppressing the news here in the US. Well, either that or the wire services haven't bothered picking it up yet.

Denouncing Religious Zealots

Richard Lindzen, MIT professor and much-maligned denouncer of the religion of global warming has an interesting column in the Daily Mail. In it, he exposes the flaws in the theories and the flaws in the thinking of the zealots who have embraced the new religion.

Throughout the 550 pages of his document, Stern continually strikes a confident note, as if there were no dispute about the issues.

Completely divorced from scientific reality

Yet this self-assured stance is completely divorced from scientific reality. It is an inconvenient truth for Stern and his political allies that there is, in fact, precious little hard evidence to back up his sweeping claims.

In a revealing recent comment, Stern admitted that when he was appointed by the Government, he 'had an idea what the greenhouse effect was but wasn't really sure'.

This lack of understanding of science shines through every chapter of his report.

He is guilty of misreading the data, of distorting the evidence to suit his political masters' dogma, of throwing numbers about with reckless abandon, of promoting alarmism in place of rational discussion, and of reinventing climate history.

There are fundamental misconceptions throughout the document. He seems to think that climate prediction is a mature science stretching back to the early 19th century, hence the confident tone science stretching back to the early century, hence the confident tone of his pronouncements.

But in reality climate prediction is a relatively modern science, which has emerged only in recent decades thanks partly to the emergence of computers.

So there are no easy certainties about the past — or the future.

Stern states boldly that the scale of global warming has been unprecedented for at least the past 1,000 years, but he cannot possibly be sure on this point because data from previous centuries is unreliable.

At most, we have a 50-year span of accurate measurements. The only genuine global records of temperature come from weather balloons, since 1958, and from microwave sounding units, since 1978.

What they indicate is a very gently warming trend, nothing approaching the apocalyptic vision of Sir Nicholas.

There is a lot more, I'd recommend reading the entire thing. He also points out something I have noted in the past. The bureaucrats and politicians who are embracing these theories are doing so because it increases their control. They gain more control of the economy, the behavior of citizens and expand their rule over everyday life. Its about power for them, alright. Not energy production though, it is political power. Look at the gargantuan consumption of electricity by Saint Al, or as he is known around here, Gorezilla. He urges controls over puny humans but exempts himself by purchasing green indulgences for himself - from himself, mind you. Those indulgences will only be available to the rich and powerful. Not the average person. (The true believers don't see that folks like Gorezilla won't even look at them if they gain control. The true believers will be cast down with the rest of the puny.)

(Posts about the First Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of Global Warming® always elicit comments. But as a warning, I have a comment policy, it is enforced and there is no appeal. Spam filter blacklisting is forever.)

Pegleg Panda Pandering Program

The Chinese, who already have a penchant for pandering to pandas by procuring people to feed to the animals, have reached a new low. They are now soliciting a prosthetic leg for a panda. So the panda can have sex, mind you.

One seriously injured panda, a two- or three-year-old female that rescuers named "Niu Niu" (girl), was taken to an animal rescue center and saved, but lost two-thirds of its front left leg.

"Niu Niu's spirits have lifted, the wound has healed and her appetite has basically recovered. But without her left paw, her loss of balance has directly affected her love life," the paper said.

"The rescue centre's staff suddenly had a bold idea. If they could give Niu Niu an artificial limb, not only would that solve her walking and foraging for food, it would also enable her to mate."

Staff were appealing to the world's experts for suggestions and hoped to receive a plan for a "meticulously scientific" fake limb as soon as possible, the paper said.

We aren't sure whether this program classes as pegleg panda pandering or pegleg panda pimping. Either involves violation of international alliteration control standards, however. People providing panda procurement programs are a problem. Positively.

The End Of The Fantasy

Robert Novak points out the end of the entire Plamegate snuff porn fantasy of the left has ended in a whimper, not the bang they sought. It seems the much discussed hope that the Libby conviction would lead to bigger fish is over. Fitzgerald is closing up shop and heading back to his real job.

The Libby trial uncovered no plot hatched in the White House. The worst news Tuesday for firebrand Democrats was that Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was going back to his "day job" (as U.S. attorney in Chicago). With no underlying crime even claimed, the only question was whether Libby had consciously and purposefully lied to FBI agents and the grand jury about how he learned of Mrs. Wilson's identity.

While my column on Wilson's mission triggered Libby's misery, I played but a minor role in his trial. Subpoenaed by his defense team, I testified that I had phoned him in reporting the Wilson column and that he had said nothing about Wilson's wife. Other journalists said the same thing under oath, but we apparently made no impression on the jury.

The trial provided no information whatsoever about Valerie Plame's status at the CIA at the time I revealed her role in her husband's mission. No hard evidence was produced that Libby was ever told she was undercover. Fitzgerald had argued that whether or not she was covert was not material to this trial, and U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton had so ruled. Yet in his closing argument, Fitzgerald referred to Mrs. Wilson's secret status, and in answer to a reporter's question after the verdict, he said she was "classified."

The appeals will drag on for a while. But at least one juror has already called for a pardon, indicating that the jury deliberations were flawed. The implication that higher-ups must have been involved colored the decision the jury reached. Fitzgerald's leaving indicates that he knows darn well that there was no real underlying crime. So all the villagers with torches and pitchforks have managed to do is convict a staffer. So much for fantasies.

A Blow To Iran

The apparent defection and subsequent interrogation by Western intelligence agencies of a former commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards is causing a bad case of nerves in Iran. They are almost frantic, diplomatically-speaking, to get the man back. But US officials says that Ali Rez Asgari is cooperating willingly with Western agencies. That the man was instrumental in the design and building of the Hezbollah organization is part of the reason Tehran is going frantic. Asgari is not believed to have any knowledge of the Iranian nuclear program, unfortunately. But he knows an awful lot about the terror web Iran has constructed.

Asgari served in the Iranian government until early 2005 under then-President Mohammad Khatami. Asgari's background suggests that he would have deep knowledge of Iran's national security infrastructure, conventional weapons arsenal and ties to Hezbollah in south Lebanon. Iranian officials said he was not involved in the country's nuclear program, and the senior U.S. official said Asgari is not being questioned about it. Former officers with Israel's Mossad spy agency said yesterday that Asgari had been instrumental in the founding of Hezbollah in the 1980s, around the time of the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.

Iran's official news agency, IRNA, quoted the country's top police chief, Brig. Gen. Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam, as saying that Asgari was probably kidnapped by agents working for Western intelligence agencies. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Asgari was in the United States. Another U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, denied that report and suggested that Asgari's disappearance was voluntary and orchestrated by the Israelis. A spokesman for President Bush's National Security Council did not return a call for comment……..

…….An Iranian official, who agreed to discuss Asgari on the condition of anonymity, said that Iranian intelligence is unsure of Asgari's whereabouts but that he may have been offered money, probably by Israel, to leave the country. The Iranian official said Asgari was thought to be in Europe. "He has been out of the loop for four or five years now," the official said.

Israeli and Turkish newspapers reported yesterday that Asgari disappeared in Istanbul shortly after he arrived there on Feb. 7. Iran sent a delegation to Turkey to investigate his disappearance and requested help from Interpol in locating him.

Note the two-pronged response. One official attempts to downplay the significance of the man, his motives for defecting or of what he knows. But the Iranian attempts to get Interpol to intervene belie those words. (Did Russia ever complain to Interpol when the West scored a big defector? I never heard of any incident like that.)

The US is still quietly ratcheting up the pressure on Iran in a number of small but significant ways, it would seem. Good. Maybe this man's information will also make it harder for the Europeans to continue to ignore the 800 pound gorilla of Iran and its goals in the Middle East.