Let’s scroll that sucker down. Images via the high fructose corn syrup of the internets.
Before It Starts (Alternate Working Title- Rudy Giuliani Holds a Firefighter FundRaiser)
No. We are not related:
A Wayne Township volunteer firefighter is scheduled to appear Thursday in Mason Municipal Court on drunken driving and other charges after he was found wearing a woman’s blond wig and bikini in a public park.
Steven S. Cole, 46, Waynesville, was arrested about 5 p.m. Tuesday at Heritage Oak Park off U.S. 42 after Mason police received a report of an intoxicated man. Cole was charged with drunken driving, having an open container, public indecency and disorderly conduct.
Steven S. Cole is shown in a police photograph as he appeared when he was arrested in a public park.
Although I will say that I, too, have had some embarassing nights. But nothing quite like THAT.
*** Update ***
If this picture had a soundtrack, what song would it be?
Another Dumb Argument From The Climate Skeptics
Oliver Morton, chief news and features editor for the news section of the journal Nature, takes on climate skeptics’ solar cycles dodge.
The sceptical ‘argument’ — using the word loosely — in question is that global warming on Earth should be seen as a natural, as opposed to anthropogenic, phenomenon because other planets and moons in the Solar System are getting warmer, too (which, indeed, they are). Since what the planets have in common is the Sun, they say, it must thus be the Sun that is driving the warming.
[…] Before we take a quick spin around the Solar System looking at these ideas, it is worth noting that the said system contains, in all, ten bodies with atmospheres thick enough to provide something we might call a climate. If these ten climates are all subject to a little natural variation, as the climate on Earth is, then finding that half of them are showing some warming at any given time is hardly surprising.
It is also worth noting that the Sun’s radiance is measured from Earth orbit, and these records do not show it increasing over the past few decades, except with the regular rise and fall of the solar cycle. This second fact, you might think, should be enough to scupper the theory about system-wide solar warming on its own; strangely it is notably absent from accounts of the matter.
Moving on to the particulars, in the cases of Pluto and Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, the observed warming is due to their current orientation to and distance from the Sun — technically known as summer.
Pluto was closest to the Sun in 1989 and is now moving away, but it is still relatively close. It’s not that surprising for the greatest warmth to come a little after the closest approach, any more than it is for afternoons to be warmer than noons. And Triton’s orbit is giving its southern hemisphere a particularly hot summer, boiling off frozen material from the southern pole and thickening the atmosphere, keeping in even more heat.
On Jupiter, things are a little different. The patterns of circulation seem to be changing, such that heat at the equator is stuck there, and higher latitudes are getting a little cooler.
On Mars, the warming seems to be down to dust blowing around and uncovering big patches of black basaltic rock that heat up in the day (see ‘Mars hots up’). No change in sunshine required.
To take this disparate hodge-podge of phenomena and try to construct a theory of solar influence from it is the sort of foolishness people get driven to when desperate to support a failed theory, or just for a chance to muddy the waters.
Heh. Indeed.
Another Dumb Argument From The Climate SkepticsPost + Comments (59)
Can A Republican Win If The Religious Right Stays Home, Curls Into A Fetal Ball And Cries Itself To Sleep?
I guess we will find out.
When asked directly Wednesday if he still supported the use of public funding for abortions, Giuliani said “Yes.”
“If it would deprive someone of a constitutional right,” he explained, “If that’s the status of the law, yes.”
All of the reasonable caveats in the world (click the link for the rest) won’t nuance Rudy’s gaffe. For me, I don’t care that much about abortion as an issue. Mostly I figure that any politician who supports my primary issues* won’t screw up the abortion issue either. So far it has worked out pretty well. No doubt some liberals care more about abortion than anything, but I don’t know how many there are and it’s not like Edwards, Obama or Clinton will give them a compelling reason not to vote Democratic. I don’t see how much Rudy gains in return for jamming his thumb down hard on the most hardwired rightwing hot-button issue for most cultural conservatives.
Like all Pavlovian responses, abortion isn’t something that Rudy can reason away with these guys. Once they hear the magic words blockquoted here no speeches at Falwell’s wingnut university will bring them back.
(*) Was the environment, now it’s the US effing Constitution.
***
Amazingly, the rest of the bench looks even worse. The base detests John McCain. Why shouldn’t they? He tried to switch parties twice. Mitt Romney’s flip-flops make John Kerry look like John Adams. Brownback has no traction, Huckabee has no money and nobody else has declared yet. Honestly, it’s no wonder that Republican donors sat on their hands this year. If the only thing you get for your money is a few feathers on the guy about to be tossed in the volcano, why bother?
***Update***
I have been informed that Joe Biden and Tom Tancredo are also running for president. Huh.
The Other Side of the Surge
Via the Instapundit, this ABC piece by Terry McCarthy, showing pockets of improvement and rays of hope in Iraq. While maintaining that Baghdad is an extremely dangerous place, it is fair to note that there certainly has been a slight improvement in some place, although that is most likely temporary.
And that is what is so insane about McCain’s remarks, and what Michael Ware essentially said (although there are still apparently some who want Ware fired because someone giggled during a press conference). McCain could have maintained a deal of credibility and still pushed the positive aspects of the surge by simply stating ‘things are getting better.” But he didn’t and, well, you know the rest.
Regardless, Baghdad still is not safe, and I have no faith that the surge, which will end soon (as it will have to- a surge, by definition, can not be sustained forever, particularly with the military at the breaking point), will change anything in the longterm, if indeed it has really even changed anything in the short term. The violence has just moved, the targets and methods of murder just slightly different. And I do not see that changing anytime soon.
And About Those Safe Markets, Mr. McCain
Pretty horrifying:
A newborn baby was one of at least 14 children and adults killed when a suicide bomber detonated a lorry laden with explosives close to a primary school in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk yesterday.
The latest massacre of Iraqi children came as 21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital. The victims came from the Baghdad market visited the previous day by John McCain, the US presidential candidate, who said that an American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress.
***More than 600 Iraqis have been killed in the past week despite a US-Iraqi security plan to quell violence in the capital. Most of the killings have been the result of truck bombs outside Baghdad.
Mr McCain said that the situation was showing signs of improvement and blamed waning support in the United States for the war on the media, which were portraying an overly negative image of the crisis.
Not everyone has three Apache helicopters, 100 soldiers, a couple armored vehicles, and the flak jacket required to stroll through “safe” Baghdad marketplaces.
I blame the liberal media for spreading a negative image. There were thousands of Iraqi market workers who were not bound and shot execution style last week.
And About Those Safe Markets, Mr. McCainPost + Comments (79)
Maybe It Only Works By Line Of Sight
Now we know why they had to interview together for the 9/11 Commission.
Image via NYT. Caption at will.