Giving Liberals a Bad Name

As a card-carrying bleeding-heart liberal , I take great personal offense at things like the comments coming out of the NAACP's Atlanta chapter. In response to Michael Vick's copping a plea of dog-fighting, R.L. White, the chapter President, is quoted in the NY Times as saying, ''At this point, you're not looking at guilt or innocence. You're thinking, 'What I better do is cut my losses and take a plea.' But if he saw this as the best thing to do at this point for his future, then I think he made the correct choice.''  

So why is Mr. White rushing to defend Michael Vick? For the same reason that others in the organization said that everyone was rushing to judgment: Mr. Vick is a high-profile black man. You didn't see the NAACP standing up for Vick's homeboys, did you? Nobody knows who they are, so who cares about them? Vick gets special treatment, though.  

This is exactly the wrong behavior. People in positions of authority need to be held to higher accountability, not lower. Mr. Vick was very successful through hard work (and, just like every successful person, with a bit of luck). and made a small fortune at a very young age. He had a responsibility to his team, his fans, and those who would look up to him, to not betray their trust through stupid actions.   Mr. White and Vick's other supporters are also betraying those who look up to them. This isn't about race or culture; it's about young men behaving irresponsibly and engaging in cruel and despicable acts. Supporting Vick or O.J. Simpson, or Clarence Thomas simply because they are black diminishes everyone.  

Michael Vick will never play another down of football for the Atlanta Falcons. This isn't racism, it's the natural consequence of making bad decisions. It is possible that he may play for another team, but whoever hires him had better anticipate protests, epithets, and signage at every game.

Black Hole in the North

I'm not a climatologist and I don't play one on television, but even I can recognize what the current conditions in the Arctic mean. The area covered by sea ice is at the lowest level in recorded history and it's a month before the normal seasonal low. A look at the satellite image shows that the ice is barely connected to Asia. On the American side, the seas are only fifty to sixty percent covered. An unbelievable amount of open water exists, almost from the Bering Straits to the Pole. This open water is what represents the biggest threat. The same day in 1979  shows the ice to be almost continuous from Severnaya Zemlya to the Bering Straits in Asia and from Newfoundland to Prince Patrick Island in the Canadian North.

All reports indicate that the weather in the Arctic has been unusually cloud-free this summer. Since normal summer ice has an albedo of about 0.45 on average and deep sea water has an albedo of less than 0.1, the ice-free region is soaking up roughly nine times the energy that it has in the past. Even without knowing the hydrology of the Arctic Ocean, it's not hard to guess that the additional heat will result in more stirring of the basin and generally thinner ice this winter. This is a classic feedback loop that doesn't look promising. We may be on the verge of witnessing a climatic change greater than any ever recorded: the annual melting of the Arctic Ocean.

There has been a lot of speculation as to what this might mean for the global climate. I think that the initial fears about the end of the Gulf Stream have proven to be overblown. My guess would be that with warm, open water available, we'll see more and heavier snows early in the winter in the northern latitudes. Winters will be warmer, as the basin serves as a moderator that cuts down on the number of Arctic cold fronts coming down across Canada, the Upper Midwest, and Siberia.

We live in interesting times, my friends. Let's hope that they don't get too much more interesting.

Which Side Is The Corp of Engineers On, Anyway?

Okay, the Army Corp of Engineers comes and dumps a couple of thousand rounds of ammo on your beach and then tells you that you'll have to pay to have it removed. You'd think that after Katrina, they'd be a little more concerned about their public image. Of course, this is the same Corp of Engineers that screwed up in 1993 and almost washed Iowa City, IA off the map, so anything is possible. Here's the scoop. It's an AP wire report, so I'm including it all, since they're harder than heck to find again:

Army Corps Dumps Old Bombs, Charges Town
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 5, 2007

Filed at 10:01 p.m. ET

SURF CITY, N.J. (AP) -- The Army Corps of Engineers, which accidentally dumped sand filled with old military ordnance on Surf City's beach, now wants the town to help pay to remove it.

Local officials are angered by the suggestion that they should help foot the bill for a federal goof that already has cost the town an unknown amount of tourism business.

''If they're talking about getting any money out of Surf City to pay for their mistakes, they can forget about it,'' Mayor Leonard T. Connors told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Army Corps spokesman Khaalid Walls said local governments are routinely asked to help pay for projects.

''That's protocol. All our projects are cost-shared,'' Walls said.

The town had to close its beach in March after World War I-era ordnance, including fuses and other military hardware, started surfacing in sand pumped ashore during a $71 million beach replenishment project.

According to Walls, the Army Corps unwittingly took sand from an offshore site where the military had dumped explosives decades ago.

More than 1,100 explosives, each about 4 inches in diameter and 8 inches long, were removed from Surf City's beach.

Surf City reopened its beach over Memorial Day weekend with new rules: Don't use metal detectors, don't dig more than a foot into the sand, and report anything suspicious to lifeguards.

Even so, visitors since then have found about a dozen more munitions, the Army Corps says. The Army has an ordnance specialist at the beach full time to take charge of discovered explosives.

It's unlikely that one of the explosives would ever detonate, but it would be extremely dangerous if it did, said Keith Watson, the Army Corps' project manager.

The Army Corps, along with state and local officials, are considering a possible closure of the beach during the winter to clear out more ordnance.

The Army Corps might sieve the entire beach with machinery, or it might bring back the ground-penetrating metal-detection equipment used in the spring.

The federal government has gotten completely out of control. It was bad enough when they didn't care about us, but now they've actively turned to evil. I mean really, now. How can you accidently dump thousands of rounds of ammunition onto a beach? Getting the sand out of the dredge barge and onto the beach had to involve some kind of crane or bucket. And I'd be awfully surprised if they didn't run a bulldozer back and forth leveling it all out.

Freaking incredible.

What It Means to Be a Christian - Part I

Rule 1: Being a Christian does not mean throwing your arms around every moron who professes Christianity while behaving badly.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is holding its 49th annual convention. Their president, Charles Steele, announced that as part of the celebrations for their fiftieth year, the organization would find some way to honor and recognize Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons. This is the same Michael Vick who is facing federal charges for running a dog fighting ring. It's the same Michael Vick who settled a lawsuit with a woman to whom he is alleged to have given herpes. Steele's comments? "We will work with anyone who opens their heart and arms to us," said Steele. How can you not love an organization like this?

What Steele and SCLC could have done, since simply keeping their mouths shut was probably not possible at a convention located in Atlanta, was to say. "We condemn the heinous crime of dog fighting. It is our sincere wish that these charges prove to be unfounded and that Michael Vick can return to his normal life." Clean and simple. You offer a measure of support, confirm that dog fighting is vile, and make no commitments that might haunt you later.

I'm Back

Okay, I'm back.

I realize that no one particularly missed this blog, which has a readership best described as singular, but I'm going to dump content here anyway. Why? Two reasons:

1. My coworkers, including my maanger, have urged me to write a blog. Of course, I'll never direct anyone to this, as my opinions are probably not in line with those of our corporate vision.
2. I need to get back in the habit of writing something daily. It exercises the mind and it exorcises demons.

Please note that neither of these reasons has anything to do with any claimed value of the content. Don't expect to find any wisdom here.

Ad Rates for Blogs

BlogAds, the company that puts ads onto blogs, shows the number of weekly ad impressions for each "hive". The statistics are interesting, if not educational:

The Gossip blogs hive, with 93 blogs, has the most with 66,377,180 impressions. In fact, the top three hives are all gossip/entertainment-related with Hollywood blogs (108) at 52,668,824 and TV blogs (30) at 29,774,435 (a million impressions per week per blog is not shaby).

The ranking non-entertainment hive is Gay blogs (62), at 21,851,743 (a nice demographic to target).

Next comes Liberal blogs (117) at 20,588,252. It's another three places to Conservative blogs (162) at 7,373,020. Are liberals really three times more likely to read blogs, are they merely more likely to advertise using BlogAds, or is this just another attempt by the liberal media to smear conservatives by painting them as illiterate knuckle-draggers who get their opinions shouted at them by the neolithic cretins on Fox News?

Heading further down the list, we find Economics blogs (14) at 405,459 impressions. Looking at some of the blogs in this hive, I suspect that most of the impressions are in one or two blogs. I'm going to add The Oil Drum (http://www.theoildrum.com/) to my daily reading list for a while.

Gun blogs (11) at 290,671 beat out Oregon Progressives at (13) at 228,990. These, perhaps to the surprise of no one, beat out Evangelical blogs (17) at 169,396 and Christian Moms (17) at 165,797. The Libertarians (7) come in at only 80,201.

What's even more surprising is the cost per impression:

Gay blogs are a steal at $0.17 per thousand impressions. This is a highly favorable demographic, being on average wealthier and better educated than the typical breeder. I suspect that the rates are so cheap because of companies afraid to be associated with the gay market, but if I were selling something, I know where I'd be putting my money.

The gossip and entertainment blogs follow the gays in close order on cost per impression. In this case, I tend to agree with the pricing, as the audience for these blogs are probably not as affluent.

Liberals are still on the cheap side at $1.11 per thousand. Strangely enough, Law blogs are at $1.25. I guess that lawyers don't click on ads unless they're able to bill for the time.

The conservatives just slip in above the median at $1.78 per thousand, followed by evangelicals at $2.15 and Science blogs at $2.40. Jewish blogs are $5.14, which would make for the beginnings of a great joke, if not for the fact that Christian blogs are the third most expensive at $7.42. I suspect that what makes these blogs so valuable is the fact that the readers will believe anything that they read.

And the two most expensive hives? Wine blogs at $8.53 and our friends, the Oregon Progressives at a whopping $45.10 per thousand impressions. In the interest of science, I did some more homework and found out that the Or-Pro's price is artificially inflated by a single web page that wants $9,999 for someone to become the sole sponsor.

All-in-all, very curious. As you'll note, BS remains blissfully ad-free.

06-06-06 A Beastly Tuesday

According to the SF Chronicle, you can bet for or against Armageddon at BetUS.com -- "which gives Earth a better than sporting chance. At 100,000-to-1 odds, if you bet the maximum $500 that the world will survive and it does, you win half a penny."

And if the world doesn't survive, you'll never collect! What a deal!

100,000 to one? We have survived the year 666 and 6/6/1006. I'm pretty sure I could get Lloyd's to insure me against apocalypse on that day on much better terms. As long as you are going to pull odds out of the lower reaches of your digestive tract, one moreover, that you will NEVER have to make good on, why not a billion to one? Then you can get a lot of free publicity and help separate fools from their money.

OTOH, You may want to keep the odds high, but low enough to encourage larger bets. For instance, 10M:1 may get people to place larger bets than 1B:1. Depends on the psychology of greed. Still, 100k:1 seems too low to maximize profit.

Can We Have a Little Welfare for Our Friends At Boeing and Lockheed, Please

I had started to write an entry entitled "Michael Griffin is a Two-Faced Rat Bastard" when the NASA adminstrator announced that he was going to gut the agencies science budget in order to keep funding that piece of decrepit shit known as the space shuttle. Unfortunately, I was unable to do so, because my monitor kept getting covered with spittle every time I sat at the keyboard to compose it.

Now that I've had a few days in which to cool off, I'd like to request that all of our readers (don't laugh, someone might be reading this) head on over to the Planetary Society and sign their petition against this budget. Then, use the links to send letters to your Congresscritters and the White House telling them what you think.

Maybe that lying sack of shit will get the message.