Captain Calamity And The Breakaway State

A man that the Telegraph calls "Captain Calamity" because of his misadventures while boating has declared the windswept Shetland Island he calls home a "Crown Dependency" and broken away from Britain proper and the European Union. He is the sole inhabitant of the tiny islet he calls home, Forewick Holm, or as he calls it now, Forvik.

Stuart Hill, a 65 year-old grandfather, will announce that 'Forvik', an island officially known as Forewick Holm, has broken away from the United Kingdom, quit the EU and become a crown dependency.

Mr Hill said his declaration of a new state - measuring one hectare (2.5 acres) - is intended to force the government and local council into action over the island's history and constitutional legitimacy.

Mr Hill, originally from Manningtree, Essex, settled on the island after his failed solo attempt in 2001 to circumnavigate Britain in a home-made boat - earning the 'Captain Calamity' name - capsized west of the Shetland islands, the UK's most northerly island group.

The Telegraph helpfully linked to the 2001 story that detailed some of Hill's exploits that earned him the "Captain Calamity" name.

A LONE yachtsman was recovering from hypothermia yesterday after his calamity-strewn attempts to circumnavigate Britain came to a predictable end in 20ft seas.

Stuart Hill, 58, was nicknamed Captain Calamity after a string of maritime disasters.

The latest came on Tuesday when his "self-righting" vessel capsized off Shetland. His rescuers said he was "very lucky to be alive".

He was 52 miles west of Shetland after he was thrown out of his boat, Maximum Exposure, and left clinging to the hull.

He was airlifted to hospital in Lerwick where he ignored all appeals and announced that he would probably try again next year.

There is an outstanding quote in that last link:

"Flares and helicopters are mutually incompatible."

We'll see how Mr. Hill's insurrection plays out shortly, I'm quite sure. Meanwhile, you can contact him directly via his website, should you be so inclined. Don't miss the "Declaration of Dependence" which uses a rather familiar (to Americans, at any rate) document as its starting point.

Upper Mississippi Closed To Barge Traffic

The Corps of Engineers has closed 13 locks on the upper Mississippi River since June 12, stranding more than 100 barges.

WINFIELD, Mo. - The flooding in the Midwest has brought freight traffic on the upper Mississippi to a standstill, stranding more than 100 barges loaded with grain, cement, scrap metal, fertilizer and other products while shippers wait for the water to drop on the Big Muddy.

"We're basically experiencing total shutdown," said Larry Daily, president of Alter Barge Line Inc. of Bettendorf, Iowa.

While the bottleneck is costing him and other barge operators tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue per day, June is a slow shipping period on the river compared with the late-summer harvest, the shutdown is expected to last only a few weeks, and it involves primarily non-perishable goods. So no major damage to the economy is expected.

Note to the AP: the Missouri River is nicknamed "The Big Muddy" not the Mississippi. (There's a good picture that shows why.) When I lived in Illinois, the upper Mississippi was closed several times due to flood conditions, but always for very short periods of time. Usually much earlier in the year than this, as I recall. It seems to me that this is about the time barge operators started complaining about low river levels.

The Damage Done

Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey is estimating that 10% of the state's corn crop and 20% of the soybean crop is destroyed or was never planted due to soggy conditions. If anything, his estimate might be optimistic. Total projected economic damage: $3 billion.

"Right now, we have about 10 percent of our corn that has either been flooded out or not planted and about 20 percent of our (soy)beans," Bill Northey said Friday on "Iowa Press," a public television show.

"We're seeing some beans go back in the ground, and if we were to lose that, if we weren't able to replant, that would be $2.5 billion, $3 billion — a significant amount of damage," he said.

He added that some of the remaining crops would likely have smaller yields.

Flooding in several Midwestern states has killed two dozen people and injured 148, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and 35,000 to 40,000 people in several states have been displaced.

Around my area there are many fields where the corn is less than a foot tall - and it has yellow leaves, not deep green. The yields will be very low from such fields. (There are still large areas under water, too. In many cases, the fields have been submerged so long that algae is growing in the water.) The beans do not look much better. There has been an enormous amount of damage and we won't know how bad it really is until the harvest comes in.

Don't expect food to get cheaper any time soon, however.

Canadian Lunacy

In yet another sign that Canada has completely lost it, a judge has overturned a father's decision to ground his twelve year-old daughter.

A Canadian court has lifted a 12-year-old girl's grounding, overturning her father's punishment for disobeying his orders to stay off the Internet, his lawyer said Wednesday.

The girl had taken her father to Quebec Superior Court after he refused to allow her to go on a school trip for chatting on websites he tried to block, and then posting "inappropriate" pictures of herself online using a friend's computer.

The father's lawyer Kim Beaudoin said the disciplinary measures were for the girl's "own protection" and is appealing the ruling.

Courts do not belong in the parent-child relationship in this manner. Period. One hopes that sanity will prevail in the appellate court. If not, parents in Canada are in serious trouble.

Traction

Robert Novak notes that Congressional phone lines have been going berserk over a surprise hot-button issue. People are backing Republican calls to "Drill NOW!"

Members of Congress were swamped by telephone calls and e-mail messages Thursday demanding, "Drill now!" in response to a Republican call for increased American oil production to fight runaway gasoline prices.

Lawmakers got little response to previous proposals intended to lower the cost of oil: alternative energy sources, a federal gasoline tax holiday, an excess profits tax on U.S. oil producers and pressure on foreign oil producers. In contrast, the demand to "drill now" (first urged this year by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich) has taken hold.

Our politicians had better pay attention to this one, this could be extremely damaging to Democrats if they continue to stonewall drilling for oil here in this country. This could also be a massive boost for Republicans in November. So far, the "Drill NOW!" support is coming from Republican lawmakers. Democrats ignore this at their own peril.

Washington's stupid energy policies are directly responsible for the promotion of pie-in-the-sky ethanol and the refusal to allow drilling for known reserves of billions of barrels of oil in our own territory. It's time to send a message to Congress. Call your lawmakers and make sure they hear your views. Drill NOW!

Ice, Ice, Baby

NASA scientists believe they have proof of water ice on Mars.

Scientists with the Phoenix Mars mission yesterday declared for certain that there is ice on the Red Planet, putting them an essential step closer to answering the question that has driven three decades of Mars exploration and centuries of Earth-bound speculation: Could there have been life there?

Pictures beamed 170 million miles to Earth from the Phoenix lander atop Mars's northern polar plain erased any doubt about the presence of ice, they said.

But the evidence came in a roundabout way. Last Sunday, several dice-size solids were observed at the bottom of a trench that had been dug by Phoenix's robotic arm. On Thursday, they were gone.

The only reasonable explanation, the scientists said, is that the objects were pieces of ice that evaporated into the dry Martian atmosphere through a process called sublimation. And the presence of ice means that Mars might once have had liquid water, which is essential for life — at least as it is known on Earth.

This seems to be a reasonable interpretation of the photographic evidence, which you can see for yourself on the Phoenix Mission homepage. There are definitely several objects visible in one image that are just gone in the second one. The Phoenix lander is having some unfortunate software and hardware issues at the moment. The scientists and engineers are working on resolving those issues. Hopefully, they can get definitive proof soon. But it certainly looks like they found something that behaves like water ice.

It’s The Courts

I have been saying for a very long time that this election is about the courts. Conservatives and anyone that is right-of-center should be paying attention to this. According to Human Events (an outlet I seldom link to) John McCain would appoint Fred Thompson to help vet judicial appointments.

In a McCain administration, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson would play a dominant role in selecting Supreme Court nominees and other judicial appointments, sources close to the McCain campaign and to Thompson tell us.

That would be a very smart thing to do. Fred Thompson would be a powerful, credible public voice for John McCain in that arena. Thompson doesn't just play a lawyer on television, after all.

Even though I dislike some of McCain's positions, I dislike them considerably less than I dislike the thought of a left-wing packed Supreme Court and Federal Judiciary. Keep that in mind folks.

Storms On Storms

This is either the storm that knocked out power to the Crabitat two nights ago or part of the same system:

And this is the sudden storm that popped up last night. It didn't knock out power, but it delivered yet another gully washer and ruined any chance of taking a swim.

Sigh. This weather pattern is getting very old.

Many Thanks To Rich

My sincere thanks to Rich Horton for posting here at the Crabitat. Between long hours and some really bad luck, it has grown increasingly difficult to get a post up here. Rich is keeping Blue Crab Boulevard alive right now. Thank you, Rich.

About that luck thing. Last night I fully intended to post after fixing my modem problems, but I got home, cooked a fast dinner and the lights went out. We finally got power back a few hours later when it was almost time to go to bed. Tonight I have some plans with my wife, so cross fingers that I will get back posting here tomorrow.

Gaius

Zakaria: “You Can’t Fight The Arab Desire To Destroy Israel, So Why Try?”

Or something to that effect:

CNN: Why is the American decision not to work with Hamas such an issue in the Arab world?

Zakaria: The U.S. appears hypocritical to much of the Arab world. The U.S. has been trumpeting the importance of democracy to Arab countries world and has insisted on elections in Gaza. When Hamas, a faction they did not support, won, many Arabs felt the U.S. did not accept the victory and has attempted to strangle what they see as a burgeoning democracy.

CNN: How much of a difference does this make?

Zakaria: By the U.S. isolating Hamas from commerce and contact with the outside world, we are strengthening the forces of fundamentalism and extremism in Gaza. By all accounts, Hamas is stronger now than it was six months ago.

The implication that Hamas is just another political party, like working with Labour or the Tories in the UK, is morally reprehensible but par for the course for the elitists of the day.  The idea that "supporting democracy" means we have to be agnostic or indifferent to the espoused goals of extreme political groups is simply not worth considering.  There is no way to "work with" such groups that does not also legitimize and normalize their vicious aspirations.

This Nails It

I've been saying this for awhile (see here and here), but Michael Gerson has also noticed the fraud that is the notion that Barack Obama is some sort of moderate. Obama: A False Moderate?

It was not quite a Roger Mudd moment, but it was close. Mudd, you might recall, posed a simple question to Ted Kennedy in 1979: "Why do you want to be president?" Kennedy's vague, unprepared answer raised serious questions about his candidacy.

Recently, Jake Tapper of ABC News asked a similarly blunt question of Barack Obama: "Have you ever worked across the aisle in such a way that entailed a political risk for yourself?" Obama's response is worth quoting in full: "Well, look, when I was doing ethics reform legislation, for example, that wasn't popular with Democrats or Republicans. So any time that you actually try to get something done in Washington, it entails some political risks. But I think the basic principle which you pointed out is that I have consistently said, when it comes to solving problems, like nuclear proliferation or reducing the influence of lobbyists in Washington, that I don't approach this from a partisan or ideological perspective."

For a candidate running as a centrist reformer, this is pretty weak tea. Ethics reform and nuclear proliferation are important issues but they have hardly put Obama in the liberal doghouse. When I recently asked two U.S. senators who are personally favorable to Obama to name a legislative issue where Obama has vocally bucked his own party, neither could cite a single instance.

The contrast to John McCain is stark. Contrary to some depictions, McCain is not a moderate. He is a conservative with a habit of massive, eye-stretching heresy. He has supported gun control legislation, the expansion of the AmeriCorps service program, and campaign finance and comprehensive immigration reform — leaving many conservatives in fits of sputtering, red-faced outrage. He joined the moderate Gang of 14 on judicial nominations and supports mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions.

McCain has the scars to show for it. Sen. Mitch McConnell dismissed McCain's campaign finance legislation as "stunningly stupid." Another Republican senator, quoted on background in 2001, vented: "Every time McCain accuses President Bush's budget of favoring the rich or sides with Sen. Ted Kennedy on his patients' bill of rights or Sen. Joe Lieberman on more gun control or all those other Democrats on restricting the First Amendment on campaign finance reform, it's news only because he's a Republican. It's 'man bites dog,' and it hurts us far more than if he were attacking our philosophy and agenda as an independent or a Democrat."

I have not heard of a single Democrat who has a similar beef with Obama. Maybe this is because Obama has so often only managed to muster up the courage to vote "Present" on anything even vaguely controversial, but it certainly isn't because he's so damn moderate.

The New Scientific Method: When You Don’t Have The Data, Fudge It

The headlines are the stuff of biblical plagues: Expect More Droughts, Heavy Downpours, Excessive Heat, And Intense Hurricanes Due To Global Warming, NOAA

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research has released a scientific assessment that provides the first comprehensive analysis of observed and projected changes in weather and climate extremes in North America and U.S. territories. Among the major findings reported in this assessment are that droughts, heavy downpours, excessive heat, and intense hurricanes are likely to become more commonplace as humans continue to increase the atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

I've said it once, I'll say it again; Ohmygod…we are all going to die!

Or not. 

The thing is, wasn't Anthropogenic Global Warming (TM) supposed to be an ongoing process were are now caught in the middle of, and not some theoretical possibility in a far off future?  If that is true we should have seen some evidence of these increases in extreme weather.  Well, what is the evidence in the report for that?  Turns out there isn't any, as Roger Pielke has helpfully outlined:

The report contains several remarkable conclusions, that somehow did not seem to make it into the official press release.

1. Over the long-term U.S. hurricane landfalls have been declining.

2. Nationwide there have been no long-term increases in drought.

3. Despite increases in some measures of precipitation (pp. 46-50, pp. 130-131), there have not been corresponding increases in peak streamflows (high flows above 90th percentile).

4. There have been no observed changes in the occurrence of tornadoes or thunderstorms

5. There have been no long-term increases in strong East Coast winter storms (ECWS), called Nor’easters.

6. There are no long-term trends in either heat waves or cold spells, though there are trends within shorter time periods in the overall record.

(Pielke has extended commentary on each of these findings, and you should head over to Prometheus to read it all.)

So what scientific evidence do we have that Global Warming is leading to extreme weather events?  Well, we don't have any, not in the sense of actual observed weather events.  Shouldn't that give someone pause?  Normal people probably would taken aback by the lack of evidence.  But we are not dealing with normal people. 

"Well the things is," we are told, "we scientists have these absolutely fabulous computer models which predict future extreme weather events." 

How do you know they are accurate?  Have you used them to replicate the known incidences of extreme weather of the past? 

"Well, no, we haven't been able to do that exactly.  But we are totally confident we can predict the future." 

Why is that? 

"Because theses are computer models. You can't argue with computers!  They are, like, totally high-tech."

The amazing thing is, the press is largely swayed by this argument.  The complete lack of evidence doesn't bother them in the least.  We generally have names for things people believe despite the absence of supporting evidence.  "Science" isn't one of the names.

Obama: Its McCain’s Fault I’m A Liar

The funny thing about Obama is that, for a politician, he's not a very good liar. You pretty much know what is "a whopper" the moment it issues from his mouth. Granted, the MSM does its best and tries to pretend they are credulous, but no one on earth seriously believed Obama was interested in sticking to his pledge to accept public financing for his campaign.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Thursday he'll bypass the federal public financing system in the general election, abandoning an earlier commitment to take the money if his Republican rival did as well.

Obama, who set records raising money in the primary election, will forgo more than $84 million that would have been available to him in the general election. He would be the first candidate to do so since Congress passed 1970s post-Watergate campaign finance laws. Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee in waiting, has taken steps to accept the public funds in the general election.

Obama officials said they decided to take that route because McCain is already spending privately raised funds toward the general election campaign. Obama has vastly outraised McCain, however, and would likely retain that advantage if McCain accepts the public money.

The public finance system is paid for with the $3 contributions that taxpayers can make to the presidential fund in their tax returns.

"It's not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections," Obama told supporters in a video message Thursday. "But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who've become masters at gaming this broken system."

Obama's spin is so weak its laughable. It's the sort of bumbling play you expect from someone running for mayor of a small town, not for the Presidency. (Not that his disciples will care. They think his incompetence is adorable.)

Let's us see how the Republicans are "gaming" the system:

Obama has shattered president campaign fundraising records, raking in more than $265 million as of the end of April. Of that, nearly $10 million was for the general election. McCain, on the other hand had raised nearly $115 million by the end of May.

$150 million dollar advantage for the Democrats. Yeah, the Dems are really behind the eight ball here.

Don't get the wrong idea here. I'm not saying that the MSM isn't above adopting the Obama spin for its stories. They haven't jumped off the Obama bandwagon yet.

But Obama's clear financial advantage over McCain is offset in part by the resources of the Republican National Committee, which has far more money in the bank than the Democratic National Committee. Both national parties can spend money on behalf of the presidential candidates.

As to what those numbers actually are the press will leave you blissfully ignorant. Hmmm…I wonder why?

The party ended April with only $4.4 million in the bank, which amounted to only a tenth of the $40.6 million the Republican National Committee has raised. The RNC and presumed GOP nominee John McCain of Arizona have been raising money together since April through their own joint committee, the McCain Victory 2008 fund.

So, the Republicans have a $36.2 million advantage over the DNC, largely because the Republican nomination process ended early enough to concentrate their fundraising efforts (as Obama and Co. are now doing as well.) Yeah, way to "game" the system.

Besides, even if you add the RNC money in, Team Obama still has a $114 million dollar advantage.  Yeah, that's really "offset" there.

So who exactly is doing the "gaming" here?

Update:

Team Obama is being widely derided for this performace, even by folks who have been more "forgiving" of the chosen one:

"In the past couple of weeks, our campaign counsels met and it was immediately clear that McCain's campaign had no interest in the possibility of an agreement," Burton said. "When asked about the RNC's months of raising and spending for the general election, McCain's campaign could only offer its expectation that the Obama campaign would probably, sooner or later, catch up. And shortly thereafter, Senator McCain signaled to the 527s that they were free to run wild, without objection."

Burton said that while Obama had essentially shut down fundraising for Progressive Media USA, which aspired to be a major anti-McCain media voice, McCain had sent no such clear signal to GOP 527s.

At the same time, no well-funded GOP 527 has yet emerged to attack Obama.

From Donklephant:

Hmmm, that’s pretty weak. I mean, sure, Obama stopped one of these groups, but is he going to stop all of them? I have serious doubts.

It seems Obama couldn't even stick to his first version of the spin on this when he claimed he never said he's accept public financing (in itself a lie), but that all he had said is he would talk to the McCain campaign about the subject.  Turns out he couldn't even manage to top that self lowered bar:

"I met with Bob Bauer on a different subject (a joint panel we had yesterday in Rhode Island sponsored by the National Assoc. of Attys General) about 10 days ago. During that meeting, he asked what Sen. McCain’s position was on public general election funding, and I said we were for it, and hoped Sen. Obama would participate as well. There was absolutely NO discussion of 'negotiations' about participating—the word was never mentioned.  What was odd is that Bob Bauer then made the argument to me that neither candidate needed public funding—that Sen. McCain could raise as much for the general election as Sen. Obama 'within $5 or 10 million.' I responded that Sen. McCain believed in the  general election public funding system, and thought it was good for the country.

“So—no discussion of' 'negotiations' and no rejection of negotiations—only a clear statement by me that Sen. McCain hoped both candidates would participate in the system. If they wanted to 'negotiate,'  they NEVER mentioned it to me…”

Heh.

Internet Grief

Sorry about the silence, folks. I have been unable to get on the internet at home for several days. Last night I fought my way through the tech support jungle and finally got the modem working again. But it promptly began acting squirrelly again shortly thereafter when my son started playing a game, so I may be back out of touch if the modem itself is failing.

The EU Gets Its Irish Up

As predicted, the EU oligarchy is miffed at those Irish making like good little democrats instead of obedient serfs:

From the minute it became clear that the Irish people had said ‘No’ to the Lisbon Treaty, Irish politicians and commentators lined up to spew bile at the electorate.

Uneducated, racist, ungrateful, parochial, dysfunctional: those are just some of the insults hurled at the 53 per cent of voters who rejected Lisbon. Swearing is not normally allowed in Ireland’s quality papers, but an exception was made after Thursday’s referendum. The Irish Times quoted one Brussels official as saying: ‘Ungrateful bastards. After all the money you got.’

Leo Varadkar, a leading member of the Irish party Fine Gael, accused the ‘No’ campaign of exploiting the xenophobia of the voters. The Irish Times wheeled out Professor Richard Sinnott of University College Dublin, an ‘expert’ on the Irish voter, who explained that the Irish people were somehow incapable of understanding what was at stake in the referendum. Apparently this is a result of Irish people’s low level of education and their lack of confidence in their own ability to grasp ‘complex issues’.

The breathtakingly elitist view that the ‘No’ camp was basically too stupid to understand the Treaty and its implications was expressed everywhere in the media coverage of the result.

As you can notice, it goes without saying that the pro-Lisbon Treaty forces are viewed as being politically and morally legitimate, while any opposition is viewed as being inherently corrupt, ignorant, and quite possibly evil.  What is scary to see is that the European press has largely abdicated its role to question the designs of the EU oligarchy.  For the most part they are acting as agents of the EU establishment, and not as representatives of the people.  This isn't a great surprise, as the influence of government over the press is more accepted in Europe than it is in the United States.  But you can even see once independent newspapers in places like the UK being co-opted by this process. 

Why have the bureaucrats been unable to sell the "new" EU to the people who are actually going to be ruled by it?  The answer given by the EU is, "because more than half the people of Europe are ignorant, racist bastards."  Does the press really find nohing about that answer they could possibly question?