China’s strongest earthquake in 58 years may cut the nation’s energy demand as damaged power plants and transmission lines force companies to idle generators.
About 5.5 gigawatts, almost 1 percent of the nation’s generation capacity, were idled in the provinces of Shaanxi and Sichuan after yesterday’s 7.9-magnitude earthquake, according to a report by the official Xinhua News Agency, citing data from State Grid Corp. of China. Sichuan, where the quake was focused, lost 4 gigawatts of capacity.

``This earthquake in China may impact demand from power plants being down,’’ Phil Flynn, a senior trader at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago, said in a telephone interview. ``Demand for oil was already down in April.’’ ................

When the city of Centralia dedicates a monument on Tuesday to the 1996 visit of President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and their spouses, it will be less about politics than the historical significance of the event.

The city will officially unveil the monument, which is already in place at the corner of Tower Avenue and Pine Street, at 6 p.m. Tuesday during a ceremony that is free and open to the public.

Everyone involved in the project, from politicians to city staff, say the monument is a commemoration of the fact that the country’s two highest executive officials will rarely, if ever, travel together again in the post-Sept. 11 world. It is not, they say, an endorsement of the Clinton administration.

“There will be some criticism, as this is politics, concerning the individual,” said Polo Enriquez, Centralia’s economic development director. “But it wouldn’t matter what president it was, or who the individual was. This is a very unique instance in time and I’ve made it a point to say we’re not talking about personalities here, we’re talking about circumstances.”

The monument itself stands about 4 feet tall, and is fashioned from black granite shipped in from China. Designed by the Centralia Historical Preservation Commission and commissioned by Sticklin Funeral Chapel in Centralia, it features an engraved presidential seal and a bronze plaque with an inscription that alludes to the significance of the visit.

~ * ~
LaPlaunt, who was in the crowd when the presidential caravan rolled through almost 12 years ago, offered himself as an example of the desired separation of political opinion from historical significance when it came to the monument.

“I had to kind of divorce myself from all of that because I am not necessarily a big fan of the Clintons,” LaPlaunt said. “But that is not what this about.”............................

Prison bosses have been instructed to let pagan inmates keep twigs in their cells...to use as wands. Officers have been told to allow prisoners to collect and decorate the twigs which they need for their rituals.

US researchers say they have developed an effective way to kill unwanted plants and animals that hitch a ride in the ballast waters of cargo vessels.

Tests showed that a continuous microwave system was able to remove all marine life within the water tanks.......................

This is brilliant........ and a huge breakthrough to solving a big problem.
USA!USA!USA!

2 weeks and still going strong

Oh.  my...

Hope + Change = Chope

Do you see anything ‘odd’ in this image on the bottom left hand side? Or is it just me?

LLoyd

As 11-year-old Dalton Hatfield set about selling his earthly possessions, his parents thought he was doing his part to help pay for a family vacation.
Instead, he was doing his part to help his favored presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. And on Friday, the young fellow made news when he presented a stunned Bill Clinton with a check for $440.........

grab a tissue

Soldiers’ Angels founder Patti Patton-Bader was named “America’s Favorite Mom” in a primetime television show Sunday night on NBC. Sponsored by Teleflora and hosted by Donny and Marie Osmond, the show highlighted fifteen outstanding mothers who had distinguished themselves in categories ranging from Working Moms to Military Moms and “Non-Mom” Moms.

Humbled by the honor, Patti is thrilled to be able to use it to continue the Soldiers’ Angels mission of “May No Soldier Go Unloved.” As the grand prize winner, she will receive $250,000, a set of household appliances, and other valuable items.  Patti hopes to apply the winnings to her plans for a small ranch that will allow newly returned soldiers to relax with their families after deployments.
“I really am lucky to know so many heroes in my life,” said Patti, who herself has two sons in the Army, one currently deployed to Iraq. “Whether they are the troops who serve our country or the amazing mothers here on this America’s Favorite Mom program, I am honored to be in the presence of such inspirational people and also am humbled to know that America thinks the same of me.”

Patti is also excited about the opportunities this platform gives her to help people learn more about America’s military heroes and options for supporting them and their families. The attention she has received through the America’s Favorite Mom events has already drawn a number of new volunteers who want to use their talents and connections to help support the troops.

In a nationwide online poll last March, Patti was voted “America’s Most Inspirational Mom” after having been nominated by her eldest son for founding and leading Soldiers’ Angels. On May 5 she appeared on the Today show as one of three selected finalists in the “Favorite Military Mom” category. A nationwide online poll was again conducted, and the results were announced on May 11, with Patti being named winner in both the “Favorite Military Mom” and “America’s Favorite Mom” categories. More information is available at the America’s Favorite Mom website.

Thanks SO MUCH to everyone who voted and linked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thanks to LLoyd

A South Carolina grandmother has become a sensation among stressed-out U.S. military men and women around the globe by sending the most incongruous of gifts: pliable, google-eye dolls.

Not that soldiers, Marines and airmen are doing much cuddling with her hand-stitched, foot-tall playthings. Carol Davis’ “Dang-it-Dolls“ are built to take punishment from homesick, frustrated troops and her work is getting rave reviews.

“The legs are shaped so you can grasp onto them,” Air Force Staff Sgt. Rachel Staub wrote in a recent e-mail recalling her homesick days based in the United Arab Emirates. “It returned with me to the States with an eyeball missing and the stitching around the legs loose with some of the stuffing coming out.”
The little doll “was used mostly for laughs and to keep my mind off being homesick,” said Staub, of Melbourne, Fla. “It brought a smile to all our faces!"

I would hate to have to explain to God why it was that out of all the people in the Middle East, the Jews were the ones I felt most compelled to criticize and hinder.
--- SteveH

Obama never said he would meet personally with Iran without precondition.............

BARACK OBAMA has emerged as a classic example of charismatic leadership — a figure upon whom others project their own hopes and desires. The resulting emotional intensity adds greatly to the more conventional strengths of the well-organized Obama campaign, and it has certainly sufficed to overcome the formidable initial advantages of Senator Hillary Clinton.

One danger of such charisma, however, is that it can evoke unrealistic hopes of what a candidate could actually accomplish in office regardless of his own personal abilities. Case in point is the oft-made claim that an Obama presidency would be welcomed by the Muslim world.

~ * ~
Because no government is likely to allow the prosecution of a President Obama — not even those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, the only two countries where Islamic religious courts dominate over secular law — another provision of Muslim law is perhaps more relevant: it prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing.

At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.

That an Obama presidency would cause such complications in our dealings with the Islamic world is not likely to be a major factor with American voters, and the implication is not that it should be. But of all the well-meaning desires projected on Senator Obama, the hope that he would decisively improve relations with the world’s Muslims is the least realistic.

Part 6 in the series of We’re all gonna dieeeeeeee!... but not from this.

By the time of the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR), the politics and hysteria about climate change had risen to a level that demanded clear evidence of a human signal.  An entire industry had developed round massive funding from government.  A large number of academic, political, and bureaucratic careers had evolved and depended on expansion of the evidence. Environmentalists were increasing pressure on the public and thereby politicians. In addition, the bar of proof was raised by claiming the 20th century and especially the last decade had 9 of the 10 warmest years in history; warming beyond anything previous and therefore unnatural.  These claims were to become their downfall because, as some climate experts knew, there were much warmer periods in the historic record.

There were hundreds of research papers from a wide variety of sources confirming the existence of a period warmer than today just a thousand years ago known as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). Its existence is well documented in the work of Soon and Baliunas. This period was clearly warmer than present temperatures and warmer than some computer model predictions for the future. Its existence was a serious problem because it negated the claims that the 20th century temperatures were unprecedented. What to do?

The answer is provided by Professor Deming in the following letter to Science . “With the publication of the article in Science [in 1995], I gained significant credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them, someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. So one of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”

It was Asia’s answer to Hurricane Katrina. Packing winds upwards of 120 mph, Cyclone Nargis became one of Asia’s deadliest storms by hitting land at one of the lowest points in Myanmar and setting off a storm surge that reached 25 miles inland.

“When we saw the (storm) track, I said, ‘Uh oh, this is not going to be good,” said Mark Lander, a meteorology professor at the University of Guam. “It would create a big storm surge. It was like Katrina going into New Orleans."

Villagers display a sign saying ‘Help Us’ on a road near Kundangon May 11, 2008.
Even if they manage to find food and shelter, the 1.5 million destitute survivors of Myanmar’s Cyclone Nargis still face a major risk from infected wounds, chronic diarrhoea and malaria or dengue.

GO! Steve! GO!

The Human Shield Movement to Iran today claimed its 10,000th pledge volunteer and warned President Bush that any attempt at military intervention against Iran would be met by a massive mobilization of human shields.

The human shield movement to Iran has been mobilizing for over three years now using online mechanisms such as Pledge Bank to secure volunteers willing to travel to Iran to position themselves around civilian infrastructure sites in order to try and prevent what they believe would be a catastrophic and unjustified attack. Whilst it is expected that most missiles will be directed at military installations the human shields are concerned that sites in the Iranian capital will also be targeted. Today Steven Morris from Birmingham was the 10,000th person to pledge himself as human shield volunteer. Volunteers from 22 countries have already pledged themselves to the mission and are currently in the latter stages of preparation in order to be ready to travel to Iran “at very short notice”.

The Human Shield Movement gained global prominence in the 2003 when several hundreds Western civilians of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities descended on Iraq in an attempt to prevent the invasion. The movement came out of hibernation in President Bush’s State of the Union in February 2005 and have been collecting pledges of people willing to go to Iran should an invasion look imminent.
Organizers hope that by organizing early they will be able to mount a sizeable group of volunteers willing to try and stop a future destructive folly in the Middle East. The Human Shield Mission to Iraq only had a matter of weeks to organize before the start of ‘Operation Shock and Awe’ and as a result the number of human shields in Baghdad was not great enough to provide an effective deterrent.

If you would like to pledge yourself as a human shield contact humanshieldsiran@hotmail.co.uk

Death by 1000 Papercuts via FreeRepublic

Kim Jong Il looks at me like I have no dick at all.
*ppppppppppppp*

A heavily armed member of the Secret Service Emergency Response Team watches as a mother duck and her ducklings cross the driveway at the White House

Don’t forget to tune in to The Really Big Shoe tonight at 6PM Pacific.....and get in on the live porch chat too!

A sneaky spider has been named in honor of rock musician Neil Young.

Jason Bond, a biologist at East Carolina University, named a newly discovered arachnid, Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi. It is also known as a trapdoor spider.

“There are rather strict rules about how you name new species,” Bond said. “As long as these rules are followed you can give a new species just about any name you please.”

He added, “With regards to Neil Young, I really enjoy his music and have had a great appreciation of him as an activist for peace and justice."

Strict. 

welcome to our world

A television ad in which the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and a former speaker, Newt Gingrich, warn about the dangers of climate change may violate federal election law, according to two campaign finance lawyers.
~ * ~
Mr. Gore’s group and Ms. Pelosi may soon find themselves adopting arguments conservatives have long made against the federal rules.
The only defense has got to be that it’s unconstitutional.........

Pat Riotic

Barack Obama has dumped one of his advisers for meeting with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, according to published reports.

I think that the notion that this administration has—that not talking to our enemies is effective punishment—is wrong. It flies in the face of our experiences during the Cold War. Ronald Reagan understood that it may be an evil empire, but it’s worthwhile for us to periodically meet to see are there areas of common interest. And most importantly, those conversations allow the possibility that our ideas and our values gain greater exposure in these countries......

A woman required 20 stitches to her face after a pelican crashed into her in the sea off Florida, apparently diving for fish.

The bird, which died in Thursday’s collision, ripped a gash in Debbie Shoemaker’s face as she bathed near the city of St Petersburg.

We watched Soylent Green again last night.
I hadn’t seen it in YEARS. We laughed a bit at the drama and how profound it was.
I also got creeped out, way. Rush mentioned something last week about how if gas prices go fucking insane, there goes oranges for me and crab legs for you because there’s no way for them to be affordable with transportation costs. Freaked me out. Hey, Costco hasn’t had bananas in weeks because their source isn’t able to provide them in the quantity they need at an affordable price.
After putting it off, JR signed us up for our farm share first thing this am (BONUS!!!! Support our friends after them floods) and *I* was a bit more relieved when I bemembered why I go through the trouble of hauling these huge potted Mandarin orange, kumquat, lemon, lime and grapefruit trees in and out of my little greenhouse depending on the weather............and why I panicked after not hearing from my friend who raises our beef and pork for us. (We’re on for the beef, but the pork this year is iffy..... *sobs*)

I’d forgotten about “the scoopers” ......

Close the book.

The left can bash on McCain all they want and not too many people are going to disagree with them.
.... when he beats Obama it’s going to be pretty humiliating to get beat by a guy his own party dislikes.....
And if by chance Obama wins, it’s not going to say much for the Obamassiah.

Aw shit. We’re screwed aren’t we.

A tagger caught scribbling on a hotel wall was grabbed and covered in green ink in front of cheering patrons.

Quentin McKelvey, 21, an orchard worker of Hastings, was caught at Havelock North’s Turks Bar last month, The Dominion Post reports.

When manager Dion Cooper tried to get McKelvey to clean up the scribble he said the tagger started swearing at him.

So he grabbed McKelvey and his thick green paint pen and started drawing on his face.

“I asked him, ‘How do you like that, mate? How do you like being drawn on?’ I put a bit on his clothes, said, ‘Oh sorry, mate, I’ve just wrecked your clothes, like you wrecked my wall, how did you like it?“‘

He then tossed McKelvey into the garden bar, and threw the pen at him.

“There were about 80 to 100 people cheering."

Tah-daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

FARK