Monday looks better after a good nights sleep

But some of this stuff is still freakin' nuts.

The Telegraph looks at the facts of climate cooling showing up in many places; here's the end:
Three factors are vital to crops: the light and warmth of the sun, adequate rainfall and the carbon dioxide they need for photosynthesis. As we are constantly reminded, we still have plenty of that nasty, polluting CO2, which the politicians are so keen to get rid of. But there is not much they can do about the sunshine or the rainfall.

It is now more than 200 years since the great astronomer William Herschel observed a correlation between wheat prices and sunspots. When the latter were few in number, he noted, the climate turned colder and drier, crop yields fell and wheat prices rose. In the past two years, sunspot activity has dropped to its lowest point for a century. One of our biggest worries is that our politicians are so fixated on the idea that CO2 is causing global warming that most of them haven't noticed that the problem may be that the world is not warming but cooling, with all the implications that has for whether we get enough to eat.

It is appropriate that another contributory factor to the world's food shortage should be the millions of acres of farmland now being switched from food crops to biofuels, to stop the world warming, Last year even the experts of the European Commission admitted that, to meet the EU's biofuel targets, we will eventually need almost all the food-growing land in Europe. But that didn't persuade them to change their policy. They would rather we starved than did that. And the EU, we must always remember, is now our government – the one most of us didn't vote for last week.
Which is why so many of the globular warmering nuts have switched over to being "Man is causing Climate Change!" nuts; hard to tell someone in Montana or Ontario or Australia that Globular Warmering is going to cook you when it's snowing in June. Or, in the case of the Aussies, colder and/or snowier than usual. And you've GOT to keep people from paying attention to those sunspots disappearing and the history of what happens when they do.

Which brings us to the evil Frankenfoods crops that have been genetically-modified in a non-PC manner. As in, in a lab instead of over ten or twenty years in fields. Y'know, like Golden Rice that can help prevent blindness in kids that's not supposed to be used because-Gasp! Horror!- it's been genetically modified to produce a needed vitamin? In this case, a wheat disease that could cause literally catastrophic damage to wheat crops needs to be fought; and the article includes this:
After several years of feverish work, scientists have identified a mere half-dozen genes that are immediately useful for protecting wheat from Ug99. Incorporating them into crops using conventional breeding techniques is a nine- to 12-year process that has only just begun. And that process will have to be repeated for each of the thousands of wheat varieties that is specially adapted to a particular region and climate.

"All the seed needs to change in the next few years," said Ronnie Coffman, a plant breeder who heads the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project. "It's really an enormous undertaking."
Yes, it is. And not a mention of modifying those genes in a lab; oh, no, we've got to ignore that and hope the 'nine- to 12-year process' can work in time.

People, every single crop out there is the product of genetic manipulation. Corn, beans, wheat, turnips, tomatoes, everything. All of it, to some extent over time, by selective breeding; some by further manipulation in labs. I don't now if some of the "No Frankenfoods!" protesters don't realize it, or don't care, but it's fact. I have a problem with some mods(producing seeds that can't be planted, things like that); especially since some of them can spread to other fields. But if there's no lab looking at ways to change/add those genes it'll surprise hell out of me; problem is, they find a way to do it the EUnuchs & Co. will scream and call names and insist those nasty seeds not be used. And they'll pay the price. Or, the people who starve because of it will pay the price(I'm sure the EUnuchs will still get plenty to eat). As a guy says at Insty, “The great irony is that America’s greater acceptance of genetically engineered food will leave it the least vulnerable to this stuff. The EU may be stuck with genetically modified wheat, if it wants to grow any wheat at all.”


Ann Althouse is often interesting, but occasionally I wonder what the hell is going on in her head. She has this post on the Letterman idiocy, and is bent out of shape about the Palin response:
"The Palins have no intention of providing a ratings boost for David Letterman by appearing on his show. Plus, it would be wise to keep Willow away from David Letterman," PalinPAC spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said Wednesday.
She says this about that:
Sullivan seems to miss that Stapleton just made a child-rape joke. It's a joke! Well, it's a joke is not an apt excuse — is it? — when the joke is supposed to work based on a shared belief about the butt of it.

Stapleton's joke depends on seeing Letterman as someone who's enthused about the rape of children — or at least the children of politicians we don't like. By the same token, Letterman's joke worked to the extent that the audience shares the belief that Palin's daughter is a big slut.
What the hell? How she gets this from Stapleton's words, I don't know. It's anything but a 'child-rape joke'; it's "We have no intention of exposing the kids to this creepy, insulting bastard." But, further along, she says this in response to a comment:
Christy said... "I interpreted "wise to keep Willow away from David Letterman" not as a child rape joke but as a joke that Willow would tear Letterman a new one."

So, in your scenario, the child is now the rapist -- the violent anal rapist? That sure solves everything.
I repeat, what the hell? I think she's been reading Sullivan too much, it's affecting her thought processes.


Israel's PM made a speech the other day on the 'two state' solution, and it includes this:
This policy must take into account the international situation that has recently developed. We must recognise this reality and at the same time stand firmly on those principles essential for Israel. I have already stressed the first principle – recognition. Palestinians must clearly and unambiguously recognise Israel as the state of the Jewish people. The second principle is: demilitarisation. The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarised with ironclad security provisions for Israel. Without these two conditions, there is a real danger that an armed Palestinian state would emerge that would become another terrorist base against the Jewish state, such as the one in Gaza. We don't want Kassam rockets on Petach Tikva, Grad rockets on Tel Aviv, or missiles on Ben-Gurion airport. We want peace.

In order to achieve peace, we must ensure that Palestinians will not be able to import missiles into their territory, to field an army, to close their airspace to us, or to make pacts with the likes of Hizbollah and Iran. On this point as well, there is wide consensus within Israel.

It is impossible to expect us to agree in advance to the principle of a Palestinian state without assurances that this state will be demilitarised.
As Ace says, it basically tells Obama "You can say all the pretty words you want, if we don't have real assurances, like troops on the ground or something, that a Palestinian state won't be used to attack Israel, it ain't gonna happen. So what do you say?" The Palestinians want Israel destroyed and all the Jews dead(preferably everywhere), and they want to be handed a state with no conditions, so they're screaming and blaming the perfidious Jews for ruining things by demanding to survive; SSDD*. Makes me wonder if Obama thinks he can just keep throwing words and things will happen, or thinks that as long as he's speaking his will people will forget that nothing's happening. Or something.


Another addition to Brigid's handloading post(hey, somebody's got to overly-complicate things; she sure didn't): for straight-wall handgun cases, like .45acp and .38 Special and so forth, there's actually two kinds of dies that don't need lube: carbide(that she spoke of) and titanium nitride. I think it's primarily Hornady that uses the TiN in their dies, but in any case works like carbide. Good stuff.


What, Gov. Palin actually accomplished something? And clowns who had nothing to do with it are trying to claim some credit? Wow.


What? Corruption and law-breaking from a Chicago politician?

Inspectors General are part of every federal department. They are given the responsibility of independently investigating allegations of waste, fraud, and corruption in the government, without fear of interference by political appointees or the White House. Last year Congress passed the Inspectors General Reform Act, which added new protections for IGs, including a measure requiring the president to give Congress 30 days prior notice before dismissing an IG. The president must also give Congress an explanation of why the action is needed. Then-Sen. Barack Obama was one of the co-sponsors of the Act.

So what? This:

...on Wednesday night the AmeriCorps inspector general, Gerald Walpin, received a call from the White House counsel’s office telling him that he had one hour to either resign or be fired. The White House did not cite a reason.
[RTWT - includes Walpin’s email response to the fone call]

And lots of other stuff. Whole LOTS of other stuff at the linked article.


Canada's chief censor tried to get Ezra Levant thrown off a show. Backfire, in a major way.


I've been reading stuff about the post-election mess in Iran. Was there fraud? I don't doubt it. Anything we can do? Very little; it would involve Obama actually giving support to those yelling about the problems, and he seems far too busy trying to kiss up to Ahmadogcrap to actually, y'know, care about the problem. Other than saying something along the lines of "We are concerned."


Dog food and birdseed to buy, I'm off.