Hurricane Season Predictions Downgraded

Oh, not by a whole lot, but it appears to be somewhat significant. Private forecaster WSI Corp. has reduced the predictions it made earlier this year. Why? Because water temperatures in the Atlantic are significantly lower than predictions. That started in the spring when temperatures declined sharply.

The season will bring 14 named storms, of which six will become hurricanes and three will become major hurricanes, WSI said in its revised outlook. WSI had previously expected 15 named storms of which eight would become hurricanes and four would become major hurricanes.

"Because the ocean temperatures have not yet rebounded from the significant drop in late spring, we have decided to reduce our forecast numbers slightly," said Todd Crawford, a WSI seasonal forecaster.

The energy and insurance industries are keenly watching the 2007 storm season after the record damage caused by hurricanes two years ago.

Tim Blair calls it global coldening. He also notes the dismay that climate change predictions are not working out - at all - in the way the "scientists" so firmly proclaimed. Which does not deter the dire predictions in the least:

So, although Britain’s present weather seems to have nothing to do with climate change, it still indicates a future climate change deathscape - that won’t be warmer, but colder. Robert Fisk, who misses his snow, will be delighted.

Blair left out the funniest part of George Monbiot's Guardian column, though. He appears to be predicting the complete submergence of all of Britain.

With rising sea levels and more winter rain - and remember that when the trees are dormant and the soils saturated, there are fewer places for the rain to go - all it will take is a freshwater flood to coincide with a high spring tide and we have a formula for full-blown disaster. We have now seen how localised floods can wipe out essential services and overwhelm emergency workers. But this month's events don't even register beside some of the predictions circulating in learned journals.

We'd recommend that every, single home in Britain immediately install a periscope. It seems the prudent thing to do.

Ward Churchill: Unemployed

The Board of Regents for the University of Colorado have sent Ward Churchill packing for academic dishonesty including plagiarism and falsification. About time. Churchill plans to sue. This should be highly amusing.

BOULDER — The University of Colorado's Board of Regents today fired professor Ward Churchill, 2 1/2 years after his comments about the victims of the 9/11 attacks sparked a firestorm.

The regents, in an 8-1 vote, said Churchill committed academic misconduct. The board convened this morning and spent several hours behind closed doors hearing the charges against Churchill.

University president Hank Brown, in a news conference, said "the decision was really pretty basic" based on the board's findings. Churchill was accused of plagiarism, falsification and other infractions.

Said Brown: "The individual did not express regret, did not apologize, did not indicate a willingness to refrain from this type of
falsification in the future."

Immediately after the vote was announced, Churchill said "New game, new game." He has vowed to sue if the regents acted against him.

A handful of protesters were gathered around a drum, beating it and chanting as someone else held an American Indian Movement flag.

It seems a bit odd that the AIM folks are defending a phony Indian. But it may just be Russell Means doing that, not the actual AIM people. Incidentally, that last link includes quite a few details of the fraud charges brought against Churchill in his various hearings. The man is a disgrace to higher education - and these days, that's saying something. Now the best thing: if Churchill is foolish enough to sue, all of the evidence will come out in open court and under oath. That should finally destroy him.

Must Read: Michael J. Totten In Baghdad

This one really is a must read. Michael J. Totten recounts a trip into the Graya’at neighborhood of Northern Baghdad. It is nothing - not a bit - like what the media has inundated us with daily. The soldiers are, frankly, bored.

“We were on base at Camp Taji [north of the city] and commuting to work,” Major Jazdyk told me earlier. “The problem with that was that the only space we dominated was inside our Humvees. So we moved into the neighborhoods and live there now with the locals. We know them and they know us.”

Lieutenant Lawrence Pitts from Fayetteville, North Carolina, elaborated. “We patrol the streets of this neighborhood 24/7,” he said. “We knock on doors, ask people what they need help with. We really do what we can to help them out. We let them know that we’re here to work with them to make their city safe in the hopes that they’ll give us the intel we need on the bad guys. And it worked.”

The area of Baghdad just to the south of us, which the locals think of as downtown Adhamiyah, is surrounded by a wall recently built by the Army. It is not like the wall that divides Israel from the West Bank. Pedestrians can cross it at will. Only the roads are blocked off. Vehicles are routed through two very strict checkpoints. Weapons transporters and car bombers can’t get in or out.

The area inside the wall is mostly Sunni. The areas outside the wall are mostly Shia. Violence has been drastically reduced on both sides because Sunni militias – including Al Qaeda – are kept in, and Shia militias – including Moqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army, are kept out.

Graya’at is a mixed Sunni-Shia neighborhood immediately to the north of the wall.

We dismounted our Humvees and set up a vehicle checkpoint on the far side of the market area. Curfew was going into effect. Anyone trying to drive into the area would be searched.

Dozens of Iraqi civilians milled about on the streets.

“Salam Aleikum,” said the soldiers and I as we walked past.

“Aleikum as Salam,” said each in return.

They really did seem happy to see us.

I have linked to Totten's writings a number of times. He tells what he sees, warts and all. This is not the Baghdad the American media reports - at all. And it is not the doom and gloom of our defeatists. Are there still bad areas? Sure, Totten reports that Sadr City is very bad still, with nothing like the progress in this area. But please, read it all, it really is important. And if you can, help Totten cover the expenses of this very costly private venture so he can keep bringing us reports like this.

Stratford-Upon-Saturn

Stratford-Upon-Avon, former stomping grounds of William Shakespeare, was the site of much excitement over the weekend. Pub-goers streamed out of the bars to watch a series of unexplained lights in the sky. UFOs over Jolly old England? Well, we can't speculate, but someone got a picture or two.

A crowd of 100 stunned stargazers brought a town centre to a standstill when five mysterious UFOs were spotted hovering in the sky.

Drinkers spilled out of pubs, motorists stopped to gawp and camera phones were aimed upwards as the five orbs, in a seeming formation, hovered above Stratford-Upon-Avon for half an hour.

The unidentified flying objects lit up the otherwise clear night sky above Shakespeare's birthplace in Warwickshire on Saturday.

Although Air Traffic Control reported no unusual activity, some witnesses were convinced they were witnessing an extra-terrestrial spectacle.

More from the Stratford-Upon-Avon Herald newspaper:

The formation—which appeared without any sound—lasted 15 minutes and baffled those watching from the ground before fading away.

Witness Tom Hawkes saw the lights along with 15 other people celebrating his girlfriend’s birthday at the One Elm in Guild Street.

He said: “I just saw this light appear, then three others. Everyone said, ‘What’s that?’ Then a fifth one moved in, quite fast. I have no idea what they could have been. Maybe someone else can offer an explanation. There were so many people around who must have all seen it, most people near us were watching them.”

Now the pictures are somewhat lacking in detail, but our crack(ed) photographic staff at the Magic 8-Ball Photography and Touchless Carwash, Ltd., have applied their patented gelatin with fresh fruit filters to the available images and have deciphered what the formation of lights actually spelled out.

Flipping On Genocide

Jonah Goldberg, writing in the Los Angeles Times, points out the "liberal" flip-flop on stopping genocide. He's noted Barack Obama's recent statement to the media that stopping genocide is not a good reason to stay in Iraq. He points out the 180 they have done on this subject since the 1990s.

Barack obama says preventing genocide isn't a good enough reason to stay in Iraq.

"By that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven't done," he told the Associated Press. "We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven't done. Those of us who care about Darfur don't think it would be a good idea."

It's worth at least pointing out a key difference between the potential genocide in Iraq and the heart-wrenching slaughters in Congo and Sudan: The latter aren't our fault. But if genocide unfolds in Iraq after American troops depart, it would be hard to argue that we weren't at least partly to blame. Yes, the mass murder would have more immediate authors than the United States of America, but we would undeniably be responsible, at least in part, for giving a green light to genocide. Obama offers precisely that green light in his proposed Iraq War De-escalation Act.

Of course, some advocates of withdrawal try to maintain the moral high ground by arguing that there won't be genocidal slaughter — though that usually sounds like self-delusion to me. Most close observers of the situation believe that if the U.S. were to sail out of Iraq, it would be on a river of Iraqi blood.

"The only thing standing between Iraq and a descent into a Lebanon- or Bosnia-like maelstrom," a new report from the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution concludes, "is 135,000 American troops." Rapid withdrawal, the report says, could bring "a humanitarian nightmare" in which we should expect "hundreds of thousands (conceivably even millions) of people to die."

Read the whole thing. He's right here. As he puts it later:

Liberals used to be the ones who argued that sending U.S. troops abroad was a small price to pay to stop genocide; now they argue that genocide is a small price to pay to bring U.S. troops home.

I would only quibble with the label "liberal" because the folks who are pushing for a withdrawal are anything but liberal. This is, like it or not, an American problem. The left imagines, falsely, that the world will blame the Republicans for the bloodbath in Iraq if the US pulls out. That America, regardless of party, will be blamed is already being telegraphed in the world press. This is an American problem and an American moral obligation.

Fine Dining In Canada

On real Canadians. We mentioned that Canadian bears had discovered a new favorite fast food: mountain bike riders. Well, sometimes they actually like a slower paced dining experience. Sleeping campers.

Allie Bourne, who was visiting from Toronto and celebrating her 14th birthday at the site in Chelsea, near Gatineau Park, was in one of the tents the bear visited.

Bourne was sharing the tent with her mother while attending a small weekend music festival.

"At eight o'clock, we wake up and see the tent falling on top of us, and then we hear something hit the side of our tent," she told CBC News Monday. "And then I'm like, 'What the heck is going on?'"

She and her mother scrambled to safety, and in the process, the bear bit her mother in the arm, but not deeply.

Serge De Jong, who owns the property and runs the festival at Ramsay Road, near the junction of Highways 105 and 5, said he thinks the bear was looking for food and never meant to hurt any of the tent occupants.

"It must have smelt fudge because there was some really good maple fudge in the tent," he added.

Now normally, we'd be the first to blame this all on the Animal Uprising™. In this case however, that last sentence makes us suspicious. How did De Jong know that there was "some really good maple fudge" in the tent? Authorities have also been unable to find and trap the bear to transport it to another location. Isn't that interesting? Inquiring minds want to know if De Jong and the bear have ever been seen in the same place at the same time. We'd also be curious as to whether De Jong owns a bear suit. (If not, we'd be happy to sell him one of our old ones.) We just like to cover all the angles.

Exploding Myth, Exploding Taxes

The Opinion Journal takes a look at the extremely high cost of "free" health care as it is being proposed in Wisconsin. Hold on to your socks, Badger State residents. They are certifiable in the Wisconsin Senate.

This exercise is especially instructive, because it reveals where the "single-payer," universal coverage folks end up. Democrats who run the Wisconsin Senate have dropped the Washington pretense of incremental health-care reform and moved directly to passing a plan to insure every resident under the age of 65 in the state. And, wow, is "free" health care expensive. The plan would cost an estimated $15.2 billion, or $3 billion more than the state currently collects in all income, sales and corporate income taxes. It represents an average of $510 a month in higher taxes for every Wisconsin worker.

Employees and businesses would pay for the plan by sharing the cost of a new 14.5% employment tax on wages. Wisconsin businesses would have to compete with out-of-state businesses and foreign rivals while shouldering a 29.8% combined federal-state payroll tax, nearly double the 15.3% payroll tax paid by non-Wisconsin firms for Social Security and Medicare combined.

This employment tax is on top of the $1 billion grab bag of other levies that Democratic Governor Jim Doyle proposed and the tax-happy Senate has also approved, including a $1.25 a pack increase in the cigarette tax, a 10% hike in the corporate tax, and new fees on cars, trucks, hospitals, real estate transactions, oil companies and dry cleaners. In all, the tax burden in the Badger State could rise to 20% of family income, which is slightly more than the average federal tax burden. "At least federal taxes pay for an Army and Navy," quips R.J. Pirlot of the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce business lobby.

As if that's not enough, the health plan includes a tax escalator clause allowing an additional 1.5 percentage point payroll tax to finance higher outlays in the future. This could bring the payroll tax to 16%. One reason to expect costs to soar is that the state may become a mecca for the unemployed, uninsured and sick from all over North America. The legislation doesn't require that you have a job in Wisconsin to qualify, merely that you live in the state for at least 12 months. Cheesehead nation could expect to attract health-care free-riders while losing productive workers who leave for less-taxing climes. (Emphasis added.)

Wisconsin will rapidly - very rapidly - lose jobs if this gets passed. So far the Wisconsin House, in Republican control, has stopped the plan. Consider what you just read in the above. Adding "free" health care will more than double the taxes in Wisconsin. Much more. This is government gone completely crazy.

Emergency Landing

An airplane made an emergency landing on US Highway 41 near the Fond du Lac county airport on Sunday. The pilot and passenger escaped unharmed. The landing was caught on video taken by a police car camera system. The Oshkosh Northwestern newspaper has a story on this.

Two people escaped injuries when their 1951 T-6 Texan airplane made an emergency landing on Highway 41 Sunday by Fond du Lac.

The Fond du Lac County Sheriff's Department said the plane was piloted by the aircraft's owner, William Leff, and his son, Gregory Leff, was a passenger. The plane was en route to the Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture 2007 that starts today at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh.

The Leffs had just attended an air show in Peoria, Ill. and were flying to Oshkosh.
Authorities did not have information on where the Leffs reside.

The plane landed safely on the northbound lane of Highway 41 just north of Military Road. The pilot landed the aircraft between two squad cars, bounced the aircraft off the ground over the second squad and a motorhome and then came to rest on Highway 41 in front of the Fond du Lac County Airport.

Authorities said they received a call at 7:43 p.m. of a plane that had lost its power and was going to make an emergency landing at the airport. Officials from the Sheriff’s Department, Wisconsin State Patrol and the Fond du Lac Fire Department responded to the scene.

“A person called and said that there was smoke as the plane came down,” said Andy Dothone, a Wisconsin State Patrol dispatcher in the Fond du Lac office.

Wisconsin State Patrol officers happened to be in the area and responded immediately, Dothone said.

The pilot did an amazing job getting this airplane down safely. The newspaper also has a large photo album of the event.

Hi Yo Silver, Getaway!

Virginia is not just for lovers anymore. It is also the hot spot for drunken horseback getaway attempts! A Culpeper, Virginia couple have been arrested for attempting to escape the police, drunk and on horseback. For the second time this year.

They were caught when one was knocked off his horse after riding into a utility wire and the other fell off her horse, police said.

On Saturday night, witnesses asked a man to stop urinating on the side of a convenience store because children were nearby, said Culpeper police Sgt. Scott Jenkins.

The man cursed those who complained, and after exiting the store, charged the group on his horse, witnesses said. One onlooker retreated behind a propane tank, Jenkins said.

When Officer Jeff Dodson arrived at the scene, witnesses told him the man and a woman had left on horseback, Jenkins said. Dodson caught up to them on a nearby street, but the riders fled through a backyard, he said. That was when they both fell off their horses.

They were charged with riding a horse on a highway after dark without proper reflective material, being drunk in public and obstruction of justice. The man also was charged with attempted unlawful wounding.

The pair had been fined earlier this year for a very similar incident. Were are no dealing with rocket surgeons, apparently. Beware of strong drink, my Friends. It can make you fall off your horse at the most inopportune times.

FDA Issues Urgent Warning

I posted a few days ago about a recall of products due to botulism contamination. The FDA and the company involved have greatly expanded the recall. The FDA is calling this urgent and is pleading with consumers to find and destroy these potentially contaminated products.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A recall of canned meat products and dog food made at a Georgia plant due to botulism fears could involve tens of millions of cans that pose an urgent public health threat, U.S. officials said on Monday.

U.S. food regulators appealed to consumers and retailers to find and dispose of the cans.

Two people in Texas and two others in Indiana remain seriously ill and hospitalized with botulism poisoning associated with eating Castleberry's Hot Dog Chili Sauce, officials said.

"This is a very big recall," David Elder of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's office of regulatory affairs told reporters, deeming it an "urgent public health matter."

"These products can hurt people. And they have to be off the store shelves. And consumers have to discard any that they have at home," Elder added.

U.S. officials said an outbreak of botulism due to a commercially canned food is extremely rare and has not occurred in the United States in more than three decades.

Castleberry's Food Co. said on Saturday it had voluntarily expanded a recall of hot dog chili sauce and canned meat products originally announced on July 18 due to a risk of botulinum toxin, a bacterium that can cause botulism.

I can't recall seeing this kind of wording coming out of the FDA before. They are seriously worried about this. Here is the website with a list of all the products that have been identified for recall. There may be tens of millions of cans involved, folks. The recall is for all cans bearing these labels, regardless of production codes "or best by" dates.

The Price Is Wrong

Well, Rosie O'Donnell is still out of work. Despite her public lobbying - and a sort-of endorsement from retired host Bob Barker - the new host of The Price is Right will be comedian Drew Carey. Gee, no place for a conpiracy nut on daytime television these days.

NEW YORK - Genial comic Drew Carey was tapped Monday to replace silver-haired legend Bob Barker on the CBS daytime game show "The Price is Right." The deal was set Monday afternoon shortly before a taping of CBS' "Late Show" with David Letterman, where he confirmed it.

"I realize what a big responsibility this is," he said. "It's only a game show, but it's the longest-running game show in American television and I plan to keep it that way."

The selection attracted more attention than usual for a daytime show because of the prospect of replacing Barker, 83. Barker retired after 35 years in the job last month following taping of his 6,586th episode.

The opening attracted widespread interest, including from comic Rosie O'Donnell after she left "The View."

We're trying to confirm the rumor that one of Rosie's staff is currently drawing mustaches on pictures of Carey.

Freedom

The six people jailed in Libya for the past 8-1/2 years, falsely accused of spreading AIDS to children, have been released from prison. After flying the five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor to Bulgaria, the president of that country immediately granted them a full pardon. They are finally free.

SOFIA, Bulgaria - Six medics who were sentenced to life in prison in Libya for allegedly infecting children with HIV arrived in Sofia on Tuesday, and immediately received a presidential pardon allowing them to walk free after 8 1/2 years behind bars.

The five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were flown from Tripoli to Sofia on board a plane with French first lady Cecilia Sarkozy and the EU's commissioner for foreign affairs, Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

Last week, Tripoli had agreed to a Bulgarian request to allow the six to serve the rest of their sentence at home.

"Led by the firm conviction in the innocence of the Bulgarian citizens sentenced in Libya and fulfilling his constitutional rights, the president signed a decree for pardon and releases them of their sentences," Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin said.

The six came down the steps from the airplane and were welcomed on the tarmac by family members who hugged them, one lifting the Palestinian doctor off the ground.

"I waited so long for this moment," nurse Snezhana Dimitrova said before falling in the arms of her loved ones.

From the airport, the medics were whisked to a government residence in the capital, where they will spend the next few days with their relatives and away from the intense media coverage of their release.

Libya had accused the six of deliberately infecting more than 400 Libyan children with HIV. Fifty of the children died. The medics, jailed since 1999, deny infecting the children and say their confessions were extracted under torture.

The EU denies paying a ransom for the six prisoners, but there appear to be a whole lot of quid pro quos happening as a result of this. Numerous European governments are suddenly going to improve relations with Libya.

Counterfeit Picketers

The Washington Post has an article describing the newest in union tactics: hiring homeless people to populate picket lines. Actually, it really isn't new, it has been going on for a while now. But this is the most coverage in the major media I have ever seen.

The picketers marching in a circle in front of a downtown Washington office building chanting about low wages do not seem fully focused on their message.

Many have arrived with large suitcases or bags holding their belongings, which they keep in sight. Several are smoking cigarettes. One works a crossword puzzle. Another bangs a tambourine, while several drum on large white buckets. Some of the men walking the line call out to passing women, "Hey, baby." A few picketers gyrate and dance while chanting: "What do we want? Fair wages. When do we want them? Now."

Although their placards identify the picketers as being with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters, they are not union members.

They're hired feet, or, as the union calls them, temporary workers, paid $8 an hour to picket. Many were recruited from homeless shelters or transitional houses. Several have recently been released from prison. Others are between jobs.

"It's about the cash," said Tina Shaw, 44, who lives in a House of Ruth women's shelter and has walked the line at various sites. "We're against low wages, but I'm here for the cash."

Carpenters locals across the country are outsourcing their picket lines, hiring the homeless, students, retirees and day laborers to get their message across. Larry Hujo, a spokesman for the Indiana-Kentucky Regional Council of Carpenters, calls it a "shift in the paradigm" of picketing.

It is also a tactic increasingly used by other political pressure groups. Collecting signatures on petitions, etc. At least one union official sees this as a really, really bad idea, though:

"If I was a member of the general public, and I asked someone picketing why they were there, and they said they don't work for the union and they were just hired to stand there, that wouldn't create a very positive impression on me, nor would it create a very sympathetic position," said Wayne Ranick, spokesman for the United Steelworkers of America.

I actually never really thought picketing was all that effective, but they've actually figured out a way to make it completely useless. Amazing.