Reid, Pelosi And The Drive For The Cellar

The Gallup Poll has announced that the Democrat-controlled Congress has reached a new milestone in the eyes of the public! This is a never before reached number! The lowest poll number ever - in history - for Congress. As in "In the toilet" low numbers.

Just 14% of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in Congress. 

This 14% Congressional confidence rating is the all-time low for this measure, which Gallup initiated in 1973.  The previous low point for Congress was 18% at several points in the period of time 1991 to 1994.

Congress is now nestled at the bottom of the list of Gallup's annual Confidence in Institutions rankings, along with HMOs.  Just 15% of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in HMOs.  (By way of contrast, 69% of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the military, which tops the list.  More on this at galluppoll.com on Thursday). 

They have actually managed to make the last Congress look good. That is some kind of feat - in only five months, too. Longtime readers know I am not a big fan of polls in general and tend to take the results with a grain of salt the size of Detroit. But the trends can be instructive. And the trends for Congress have been going steadily down - so much so that Harry "Bozo" Reid might want to watch how he insults the President. After all, Bush is now more than twice as popular as Reid's outfit.

Incidentally, this isn't particularly good news for the Republicans, either. But it is disastrous for those presidential hopefuls who happen to be members of Congress.

Taking On Gorezilla

R. Timothy Patterson, who happens to be professor and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, is calling Al "Gorezilla" Gore and his sycophants out on "global warming". This is not someone with no credentials, this is a bona fide expert (which Gore is not) who has been studying climate for a long time now. And he is slamming the true believers of the First Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of Global Warming™. Hard.

Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators (called "proxies") is not unique. Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings in Russia's Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change.

However, there was a problem. Despite this clear and repeated correlation, the measured variations in incoming solar energy were, on their own, not sufficient to cause the climate changes we have observed in our proxies. In addition, even though the sun is brighter now than at any time in the past 8,000 years, the increase in direct solar input is not calculated to be sufficient to cause the past century's modest warming on its own. There had to be an amplifier of some sort for the sun to be a primary driver of climate change.

Indeed, that is precisely what has been discovered. In a series of groundbreaking scientific papers starting in 2002, Veizer, Shaviv, Carslaw, and most recently Svensmark et al., have collectively demonstrated that as the output of the sun varies, and with it, our star's protective solar wind, varying amounts of galactic cosmic rays from deep space are able to enter our solar system and penetrate the Earth's atmosphere. These cosmic rays enhance cloud formation which, overall, has a cooling effect on the planet. When the sun's energy output is greater, not only does the Earth warm slightly due to direct solar heating, but the stronger solar wind generated during these "high sun" periods blocks many of the cosmic rays from entering our atmosphere. Cloud cover decreases and the Earth warms still more.

The opposite occurs when the sun is less bright. More cosmic rays are able to get through to Earth's atmosphere, more clouds form, and the planet cools more than would otherwise be the case due to direct solar effects alone. This is precisely what happened from the middle of the 17th century into the early 18th century, when the solar energy input to our atmosphere, as indicated by the number of sunspots, was at a minimum and the planet was stuck in the Little Ice Age. These new findings suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. By comparison, CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales.

In some fields the science is indeed "settled." For example, plate tectonics, once highly controversial, is now so well-established that we rarely see papers on the subject at all. But the science of global climate change is still in its infancy, with many thousands of papers published every year. In a 2003 poll conducted by German environmental researchers Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, two-thirds of more than 530 climate scientists from 27 countries surveyed did not believe that "the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases." About half of those polled stated that the science of climate change was not sufficiently settled to pass the issue over to policymakers at all.

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments.

The First Church folks are already having an effect on global policies. They are responsible for enormous fraud in the UN and EU "carbon mitigation" schemes. The are ensuring the deforestation of Malaysia. They are bringing about the eradication of orangutans and humans in order to produce their holy sacramental oil - they call it "biofuel". They are willing to drive food prices into the stratosphere to produce another grotesquely inefficient "biofuel". (And just wait until the mass starvation starts because of that little scam ritual.) And they are so desperate to shut down any voice that disagrees with them that they are attempting to use intimidation by promoting their "global warming deniers database" - one assumes so that they can properly round up we miscreants at a later date - else why else keep such a list? Maybe we should seriously listen to the voices of people who are not buying the "consensus" - people who are not enriching themselves by promoting fear and uncertainty (ahem, Al Gore).

Suicide Turtle Attacks

Not content with letting the deer, the enforcers for the Animal Uprising™, hog all the glory (you should excuse the expression), the turtles have decided to get into the action. That's right suicide turtles are causing automobile accidents.

UPPER TOWNSHIP, N.J. - Why did the turtle cross the road? We'll never know, but it sure caused one heck of an accident. A woman who swerved to avoid hitting the reptile as it crawled across the northbound lanes of the Garden State Parkway Tuesday afternoon lost control of her car, crashed through a guardrail and tumbled down an embankment before the car flipped over onto its roof.

Saranne Goldinger, 65, of Cape May, was wearing a seat belt and was not critically injured, State Police said. Her car, however, was heavily damaged.

The turtle fared even worse. A vehicle that had been driving behind Goldinger flattened the critter.

Amazing reflexes. That turtle must have lunged out from the side of the road like a veritable bolt of lightning! The Animal Uprising™ has racing turtles now! Personally, we here at the Crabitat have a general rule. If the animal is bigger than the car, try to avoid it if you can do so without losing control and hurtling down an embankment (or worse, into oncoming traffic where you'll kill more than just yourself). If it's smaller than the car, well, roadkill happens.

Poland Still Hanging Tough

I wrote a few days ago about the Poles refusing to yield to EU demands and give in to a new treaty that would replace the failed EU constitution. Their concern is that the voting method to enact rule changes is badly skewed toward the big countries, France and Germany. The are still refusing to back down and could well scuttle the treaty outright.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel formally invited her fellow EU leaders to the Brussels summit opening Thursday, with the message that "only together will we succeed in resolving the issues before us."

"The European public now expects us to put the necessary reforms of the union in hand. Following our consultations over the last few months the time has now come to set out the roadmap for the impending reform of the treaties," she added.

However the Polish position remains "unchanged, we have not seen any accommodation," a spokesman for the German EU presidency said in Berlin.

Poland strongly objects to the voting system proposed by Germany which will be discussed at the summit, aimed at working out the broad lines of a new treaty to replace the constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

Warsaw believes "double majority" voting, under which agreement by 55 percent of member states representing 65 percent of the EU population would be required for new rules, would favour big states like Germany.

EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso held an hour-long telephone conversation with Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski Wednesday seeking a compromise.

"The veto remains highly likely," Kaczynski told Polish public television, adding that it would be "suicide" to give in.

Both the prime minister and his identical twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski, have claimed Poland is "willing to die" to defend its corner.

Poland favors using the square root of the population to determine voting weights for each country (which is surprisingly good at leveling the field). While Britain remains formally opposed at this point, there is some indication that Tony Blair might be willing to make a deal (which the British papers are up in arms about, mind you.) But little Poland is hanging tough against Germany. Entertaining, isn't it?

A Man Of Action

Dale Rippy of Wesley Chapel, Florida is a man of action. He was sitting on his porch, minding his own business when a visitor dropped by. Not just any visitor, either. His "guest" was a 25-pound rabid bobcat. Rippy endured the cat's vicious attack long enough to wait for his opening. Then he grabbed the cat's throat and choked it to death.

Rippy, 62, endured the bobcat's slashes and bites until it clawed into a position where he could grab it by the throat.

Then he strangled it.

Rippy said it was clear the crazed bobcat had to be stopped.

"I was bleeding everyplace," the Vietnam veteran said of the May 30 attack. "If that cat had attacked a child, it would've been really bad. It wouldn't have quit."

Rippy's neighbors in this suburb 25 miles northeast of Tampa called for help. Tests showed the dead bobcat was rabid. Rippy was treated for exposure to rabies, and several bites and cuts.

Authorities praised Rippy for clear thinking under pressure.

Heck, yeah, he deserves praise. If the bobcat had attacked children or others not able to handle the situation, it could have been a lot worse. And if he had merely driven the cat away, it is quite likely someone else would have been attacked. A tip of the hat to Mr. Rippy for a job well done.

Cleaning Up

You know, this is just a nice story. From today's Telegraph comes a story of an immigrant from Poland working as a janitor who played a piano when he thought nobody would hear him. Fortunately, he was caught in the act. And now he's doing a different act.

A Polish janitor is on the way to a career as a concert pianist after being heard playing the chapel piano at Glasgow university when he thought no one was listening.

The talent of Aleksander Kudajczyk, who cleans the law department in the early morning, was discovered when the chaplaincy centre secretary, Joan Keenan, logged on to a webcam in the chapel and heard him.

Within minutes she had e-mailed dozens of friends and colleagues to do the same.

The 28-year-old Pole, who arrived in Scotland from Katowice six months ago, has been dubbed "a musical Good Will Hunting", after Matt Damon's film, and is now entertaining crowds at Glasgow's West End Festival.

Yesterday, Aleksander, a graduate of Katowice's Akademia Muzyczna, gave his second public performance in the University Memorial Chapel, playing a selection from Chopin.

He now practices 6-7 hours a day. Kudajczyk has been playing since he was four years old. In Poland he had played piano in restaurants. Now he has a shot at playing concerts.

New Simulation Of WTC Collapse

I'm quite sure that this will make no difference to the "truthers" and their particular insanity, but Purdue University has just released a new computer simulation of the effect of a jetliner plowing into the World Trade Center. They concentrated on the effect the impact had on the fireproofing of the structural steel in the buildings.

The two-year Purdue University study, funded in part by the National Science Foundation, was the first to use 3-D animation to provide visual context to the attacks, said Christoph Hoffmann, a professor of computer science and one of the lead researchers on the project.

"One thing it does point out… is the absolute essential nature of fireproofing steel structures," Hoffmann told The Associated Press. "This is something that wasn't done originally in the World Trade Center when it was built. It wasn't code at that time."

Mete Sozen, a professor of structural engineering and a lead investigator on the simulation, said Purdue researchers hope their work leads to better structural design and building codes to prevent similar collapses.

"In the unfortunate development that we shall have to design structures to survive such events, the methods we have developed and will be developing will be of great use to designers," Sozen said.

The animation, intended in part to help engineers design safer buildings, begins with a map of lower Manhattan as it appeared on Sept. 11, 2001. The video then shows a plane slicing through several stories of the World Trade Center's north tower and follows the disintegrating plane through the interior and out the opposite side.

The report concludes that the weight of the aircraft's fuel, when ignited, produced "a flash flood of flaming liquid" that knocked out a number of structural columns within the building and removed the fireproofing insulation from other support structures, Hoffmann said.

Without fireproofing, it does not take long for structural steel to lose as much as 80% of its initial strength. Nothing is designed to take that kind of loss of strength and survive. As I said, though, it won't phase the truthers one whit. They disconnected from reality quite some time ago. For the sane, here's the simulation. It is disturbing to watch. Keep in mind that this is based on the actual physics involved and the mathematical calculations. That factual basis is then coupled with a state-of-the-art computer animation program to yield the video.

Ripping Into Carter

Investor's Business Daily is frankly appalled at the most recent appalling outburst by Jimmy Carter. The editors take Carter to the woodshed.

As the Gaza Strip flamed into Hamas gang warfare and the West Bank slid into another civil war, Carter — cozy in distant Ireland accepting another "human rights" award — found cause Tuesday to blame America first for all the violence.

Amid wine, cheese and good feeling, America's worst ex-president drew a bead on the West. The refusal by the U.S., Israel and the EU to support Hamas, an armed terror group that just launched a coup d'etat and civil war in full view of the world, was nothing but a "criminal" act at the root of the trouble there, Carter asserted.

"The United States and Israel decided to punish all the people in Palestine and did everything they could to deter a compromise between Hamas and Fatah," he said.

The statement was so malevolent and illogical as to border on insane. Carter wasn't honest enough to say he was rooting for terrorists who started a terrifying new war in the region and trashed what little democratic rule the Palestinians had. Instead, he tut-tutted the West for being insufficiently sensitive to the fact that Hamas thugs were democratically elected in 2006 in an "orderly and fair" vote.

When one party has started a civil war, democracy isn't exactly the issue anymore. Just being elected does not justify making warfare on your fellow citizens. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeatedly points out that those who are elected democratically have an obligation to govern democratically or they aren't democrats. Hamas has blown its right to democracy.

Carter also misstated and distorted technical aspects of democratic rule in the Palestinian Authority itself, further calling into question his intentions. Hamas' 42% plurality in the last parliamentary election gave the terror group a right to participate in government, but not absolute power.

Carter neglected to notice that President Mahmoud Abbas, Palestine's head of state, not only had a full democratic right to appoint Hamas members to his Cabinet, but he also had the right to dismiss them as he did Thursday. Carter's selective respect for the power-sharing aspect of Palestine's democracy stands out as significantly skewed toward Hamas.

This really is a new low for Carter. I would dearly love for some reporters to ask the Democratic party candidates their opinions on Carter's anti-American, pro-terrorist screed. Because they should be put on the spot over the remarks of a former president from their party. They really should.

Losing The Media War

John Hughes, a former editor of The Christian Science Monitor who now teaches at Brigham Young University, writes and op-ed for that paper today. He describes how a compliant Western media is helping the West lose the information war in Iraq and the Middle East.

Provo, Utah - In 2005 Al Qaeda's No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, wrote a letter to the then top insurgent leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "[M]ore than half of this battle," he wrote, "is taking place in the battlefield of the media…. [W]e are in a media battle, in a race for the hearts and minds of our umma [people]."

As the struggle in Iraq between the insurgents on the one hand and US military and Iraqi security forces on the other reaches a climactic phase, it is clear that the insurgents, far from being a band of crude guerilla fighters, have taken the Al Qaeda leader's injunction to heart and have coupled the tactics of terror with a sophisticated knowledge and use of modern media.

Their command of the Internet, their use of television, their release and timing of material calculated to be picked up and used by Arab and Western TV outlets and news agencies, indicates a high degree of planning and professionalism.

He goes on to describe how the media turned a significant victory on the ground in the Fallujah area into a defeat simply by reporting enemy propaganda as straight news. And it is not a slight distortion. Instead of the factual minor injury of one policeman and one civilian, the media reported 28 dead civilians and 50 wounded. A marine officer who was there says, "We are getting demolished by nefarious enemy media outlets … 'reporters' or 'sources' for Arab and other news agencies either on insurgent payrolls or who have known sympathies with insurgent operations, and by collective Western media that are often being manipulated by enemy elements."

I would charge that it is not just Iraq. All over the region, Western media is quick to report any unsubstantiated allegation that reflects badly on the West or America and Israel in particular. They don't even appear to bother with routine fact checking. They simply report whatever they are given. It is that uncritical Western media response that led to Reuters publishing blatantly falsified photographs. And the media refuses to challenge outrageous assaults of freedom of speech. They simply report, without challenge or comment, Muslim "rage" over whatever rage-de-jour item the information warriors of the jihadis have pumped up.

The Drunks Of Patna

Patna, India is being overrun with drunks. Sure, police know who the miscreants are, but appear to be unable to do anything to stop the drunken behavior and the rowdy partying. It's particularly bad when the boozers hit the streets and nibble people's toes. People understandably get cranky when rats attack their feet.

PATNA, India (Reuters) - Rats are gnawing at beer cans and making holes in caps of whisky bottles stored in police storehouses in eastern India and apparently getting drunk, authorities said on Wednesday.

The rodents' love for liquor has the police department in Bihar state stumped as it tries to store hundreds of bottles seized from illegal sellers from across the state in Patna, the state capital, said Kundan Krishnan, a senior officer.

"We are fed up with these drunk rats and cannot explain why they have suddenly turned to consumption of alcohol," he said.

It would appear the rats in Patna are celebrating the year of the rat a bit early. Police are going to have to do something about this before the crime escalates. It's time to start a 12-step program for the inebriated rodents and to get them on the wagon. Otherwise, the gutters will be full of passed-out rats - after they're done with the evening's barroom brawl, of course.

No Innovation Tax

Red Hat and Ubuntu have flat rejected any compromise with Microsoft. Red Hat called Microsoft's attempts to strong arm "agreements" an "innovation tax". Even though several smaller Linux providers have inked deals with Microsoft, analysts are questioning exactly what that company is up to. The speculation is that it is all about market share.

The drama started last November, when Microsoft inked a deal with Novell to foster interoperability and technical collaboration between the open- and closed-source operating systems. Novell also got protection from possible patent suits as part of the agreement.

Soon after, Microsoft came out with allegations that the open-source camp is infringing on 235 of its patents, and the software giant began making moves to form alliances with other Linux providers. The company was successful in negotiating partnerships with Xandros and Linspire, but has hit a wall with Ubuntu and Red Hat.

Microsoft Deal 'Unthinkable'

Microsoft made its intentions clear on Friday: It wants to work out a cross-licensing deal with the largest Linux vendor on the market that would look much the same as its recent agreements with Xandros and Linspire.

Red Hat quickly dashed all hopes, standing on its previous statements from last November, issued in the wake of the controversial Novell deal. Red Hat left no room for misinterpretation when it said the company would not compromise on its open-source roots.

"An innovation tax is unthinkable," the company said in a statement. "Free and open-source software provide the necessary environment for true innovation. Innovation without fear or threat. Activities that isolate communities or limit upstream adoption will inevitably stifle innovation."

What's really interesting here is that Microsoft is trying to get these agreements at the same time it has agreed to alter its Vista operating system to avoid anti-trust actions.

SEATTLE - Bowing to pressure from Google Inc. and antitrust regulators, Microsoft Corp. will make it easier for Windows Vista users to pick a non-Microsoft program to search their hard drives.

Microsoft will let PC users and manufacturers like Dell Inc. set a different program such as Google Desktop as the default instead of Vista's "Instant Search," according to a U.S. Justice Department report released late Tuesday. Microsoft will also add a link to that alternate program in the Windows Start menu.

Currently, when Vista users browse through their documents, access the control panel, or do other system-related tasks, a Vista search box appears in the upper-right corner of the window. That box will remain, and it will continue to use the Microsoft search engine, but Microsoft will also add a link to the default desktop search program.

Tuesday's regularly scheduled status report on Microsoft's post-antitrust business practices comes after Google filed a 49-page document with the Justice Department in April, claiming that Vista's desktop search tool slowed down competing programs, including Google's own free offering. Google also said it's too difficult for users to figure out how to turn off the Microsoft program.

Taken together, the two stories do not say anything good about what Microsoft is attempting to do.