BabbleFest

Massive asteroid could hit Earth in 2182, warn scientists

But since the Mayan Doomsday Prophecy says the world will end in 2012, nobody cares.

Britain’s “green” energy policies, pushing alternatives like wind, are costing citizens billions of dollars in higher energy costs. Wind power subsidies alone, financed by the taxpayers, are already at 1 billion pounds (over $3 billion U.S.) and are about to go up as Britain begins paying wind farms to shut down when the wind is blowing during low demand periods.

The National Grid fears that on breezy summer nights, wind farms could actually cause a surge in the electricity supply which is not met by demand from businesses and households.

The electricity cannot be stored, so one solution – known as the ‘balancing mechanism’ – is to switch off or reduce the power supplied.

The system is already used to reduce supply from coal and gas-fired power stations when there is low demand. But shutting down wind farms is likely to cost the National grid – and ultimately consumers – far more. When wind turbines are turned off, owners are being deprived not only of money for the electricity they would have generated but also lucrative ‘green’ subsidies for that electricity.

Which means plant operators will be reimbursed at the inflated, subsidized cost per kilowatt hour for electricity they do not produce. While coal and nuclear powered plants in effect pay the National Grid for electricity not produced during down times, the subsidized costs of wind power make the electricity orders of magnitude more expensive, which will result in huge net payments to wind farms for not generating electricity.

While wind power does have limited applications in a national power grid, it is an outrageously expensive and unreliable alternative. The generation of electricity by wind can’t be controlled, like it can with hydroelectric or coal fired plants, because the wind can not be controlled. Denmark covered its once beautiful countryside with wind turbines, and has the highest electricity costs in Europe. Why? Denmark is forced to sell its wind-generated electricity to the European grid when the wind blows and and buy electricity from the Eurogrid when it doesn’t. Spain’s massive “green” energy drive is an economic disaster.

The current administration in Washington is hell-bent on forcing the U.S. down the same idiotic road in the name of controlling global warming,  a hoax that would make the Piltdown Man fakers green with envy.

BRITAIN faces years of blackouts and soaring electricity bills because of the drive toward green power, a leading energy expert warned last night.

A study of 2,000 years of Chinese temperature records by a group of Chinese scientists has yielded the conclusion that warming temperatures recorded in the 20th century are within historical ranges, and neither the amount nor the rate of warming is anything exceptional.

But the flaws in the study are obvious: they didn’t have Phil Jones lose all the original data, and they forgot to have Michael Mann make the Medieval Warm Period disappear.

Headline:

US to set up secret ‘Big Brother’ surveillance system to monitor internet for cyber-attacks

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1293344/Perfect-Citizen-US-set-secret-Big-Brother-surveillance-monitor-internet-cyber-attacks.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0tUsFanxC

NASA, formerly involved in space exploration, has been re-directed by President Obama, and its new primary mission is Muslim outreach. In an outstanding example of adapting to circumstances, the agency has already developed several new intiatives in response to the President’s directive.

Blogger Sultan Knish has obtained a copy of a letter sent to President Obama which appears to have been authored by some of the actual scientists and engineers at NASA, as opposed to the political hacks Obama has appointed to gut the agency and turn it into a sensitivity training program for building Muslim self-esteem.

Here are a few choice excerpts.

Dear Sir,

I cannot tell you how much we appreciate your budget cuts, your cancellation of the space shuttle and any replacement launch vehicle for it, forcing us to rely on Russian Soyuz ships and their space program, which can’t even seem to dock with the ISS Space Station. Your wise decision in this regard, as well as your cancellation of any return trip to the moon, has caused us to reevaluate many of our programs, including the search for intelligent life on earth. We understand of course that space exploration must take a backseat to more important matters, such as bailing out the car companies and banks who contributed to your campaign. And of course the White House entertainment budget. Your historic actions since taking office have truly challenged us as an agency. We can only hope to one day be able to return the favor.

After carefully reviewing your new priority for NASA, to reach out to Muslims and make them feel good about “their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering”, which consisted mainly of ripping off Greek and Indian science, and passing it off as their own, we have developed a comprehensive plan for utilizing the talents and abilities of Muslims to further the goals of this nation’s goals space program, which you so articulately described as “That Outer Spacey Thing”.

The agency employees outline five specific programs, including HATE Ignition, Mecca on Mars, and Throw Things Down on the Jews. Probably my favorite, though, is program number four:

Project 4: Space Camel

The ability of camels to survive in a hostile environment is well known. Camels have survived deserts, Moroccan bazaars and owners who put them in beauty contests. Perhaps they can also survive the harsh rigors of space.

Because we no longer have a spacecraft (thanks for that by the way, because why would a space program need one of those anyway) and no way of getting one, we might as well try camels. Why camels? Because they meet both your major priorities, engaging the Muslim world, and using “Clean Energy”. And there’s nothing cleaner than a camel. At least nothing outside a cesspool or rotting sewage.

Our plan is simple. We’re going to take a bunch of camels. Get very drunk. Stick the camels in a catapult, and scribble some arabic numerals in a notebook. Do some algebra, and invite Muslims to participate in this new wonderful race to space. Then we’re going to let the camels fly.

Honestly we don’t know where the camels will land. They might land in deserted areas. They might land on houses or people. They might land on the White House. They might land on the moon. We just don’t know! That’s because due to your budget cuts, we can no longer afford calculators. Instead we’re going to have our Muslim colleagues do the math for us on an abacus. Their advanced knowledge of science will surely see us through.

And frankly if you’re going to engage children with the wonders of space, nothing will do it half as well as a shrieking camel flying through the sky.

Although they are still working out the details, NASA is also working on Project 5, a Time Machine. Here’s a brief excerpt:

So far our best idea is a time machine. We don’t have all the details nailed down. But our calculations have shown us that we only need to go back to November 3rd, 2008. And we don’t need to send back a human being. Only a 1 oz CD containing the economic indicators for the last year, and every major news story in America that didn’t involve Reality TV stars or the media kissing your ass. We have prepared a Post It note that we will attach to that CD.

The note reads: “We’re from the future. Don’t vote for that jackass.”

Honestly, the quoted material does not do justice to the original, and we suggest you go and read the entire original post here.

Heck, forget all that stupid space exploration nonsense, and don’t waste time developing something to replace the space shuttle, after all, we can always buy tickets on Russian spaceships.  Return to the Moon? Go to Mars? Complete waste of time! Obama has some important things for NASA to do:

In the video below, Charles Bolden, head of NASA, tells Al Jazeera that the “foremost” task President Obama has given him is “to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.” Thus, NASA’s primary mission is no longer to enhance American science and engineering or to explore space, but to boost the self-esteem of “predominantly Muslim nations.”

Exploring space didn’t even make the top three things Obama wants Bolden to accomplish. The other two are “re-inspire children to want to get into science and math” and “expand our international relationships,”

Read the article and watch the video at Powerline.

In what amounts to a nice promotional press release on behalf of a company called “Solar City”, titled “Solar Energy Done Cheap”,  CNN-Money paints a rosy picture:

SolarCity is the type of company President Obama and other supporters of the new “green economy” love to highlight.

It’s creating good jobs for construction workers hard-hit by the real estate bust. Solar City pays its installers $15 to $30 and hour, plus full benefits.

It’s growing. Last year the company had 300 employees. Now it’s up to 560, and plans to have 800 by the end of 2010. It operates in five states, and is eyeing expansion plans in at least three others.

The article describes a business model where Solar City installs a solar array at homeowner cost, which is then leased by the homeowner for a monthly fee plus all tax credits. We then get profiles of a couple of happy customers, a government worker with a salt-water pool that requires constant filtration and a documentary film maker who used $50 a month in electricity BEFORE she had the solar panels installed.

It is not until paragraph 25 of the 30 paragraph article that we get to the REAL bottom line:

Thanks to a mix of federal, state and local incentives, some 50% of the costs of solar power are subsidized.

And that is the problem with most alternative energy. It becomes feasible only with huge taxpayer subsidies. Denmark covered their country with wind turbines. They have the highest elicticity costs in Europe. Spain’s “green revolution” is an economic disaster. And we are being forced down that same road by the current administration and their energy fantasies.

If it were possible to provide solar or wind power at a profit, private companies would do it and vast subsidies would be unnecessary.

And quite frankly, I don’t appreciate paying taxes to subsidize a solar array so some documentary filmmaker in California can feel good about herself and a government employee can save money filtering his salt-water pool.

The full article is here:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/28/news/economy/solar_city/index.htm

With its license to operate in China up for renewal, Google has agreed to stop redirecting Chinese searches to an uncensored Honk Kong search engine.

Google will no longer automatically direct its mainland Chinese users to its non-censored Hong Kong search engine, the company said late Monday.

Google has been using the automatic redirect to protest censorship of results on its mainland Chinese search engine, Google.cn.

The new search results page will contain a link to the Hong Kong search engine.

Other than public posturing, Google’s dispute with the Chinese government did not result from an objection to search result censorship by the Chinese. Google went along with Chinese censorship without objection for years. It was when the Chinese government hacked Google’s site for information about dissidents that Google complained, and then only after the story went public.

Any bets on how often that link to the uncensored search engine will be “unavailable”?

Complete article is here.

For years Apple cultivated the image that its products were more secure than Microsoft, not susceptible to the many viruses and security issues that have plagued Internet Explorer and Windows.

The truth was always that Apple simply didn’t have enough devices in use to make it worth the effort.

Welcome to the real world, where users are not limited to gen x-ers who think Apple is “cool” and public school students using free systems.

When Apple released its Safari browser with the catchy slogan “Secure From Day 1″ it took only a few hours for major security holes to be exposed by hackers. (Note to Steve Jobs: Don’t challenge those guys. They WILL take you up on it!) Within days, the iPhone’s security had been unraveled and “unlocked” phones became available. And Apple publishes a manual on how to reduce security threats to their operating system. It is 270 pages long. It’s not that Apple is per se inferior to Microsoft, it’s just that it also isn’t per se superior. Just more obscure.

Last spring, a major security hole in Safari was exposed which allowed a remote user to completely take over a Safari user’s machine simply by accessing ports which the browser didn’t bother to close off:

Goatse released an explanation of how the bug works on its website: To protect against hacks, Internet browsers typically restrict websites’ access to computers through communications channels known as “ports.” But Apple’s Safari browser failed to block off some illegitimate ports with unusually high numbers. A hacker could use those unguarded channels, in combination with Safari features that automatically execute software requests, to wreak havoc.

To most users, exploiting “illegitimate ports” sounds pretty complicated, something only the most sophisticated and determined hackers would think of, or know how to do. In fact, it’s a fairly basic security issue, and robots prowl the web day and night searching for unsecured ports.

A security patch was issued in March. But the patch was for the desktop version of the software. The mobile version, which is used on iPad, still has the security flaw uncorrected:

“Basically, there is a hole in the iPad Safari version that allows someone to ‘own’ your machine,” said Hemanshu Nigam, founder of SSP Blue, a cybersecurity consulting firm. “Once they break in, hackers can make your iPad do anything they want and take anything they want from it. It’s no different than saying, ‘Here you go, it’s all yours.’”

This revelation comes in the wake of an incident in which the hackers who originally exposed the Safari security hole gained access to the ATT-Apple website and obtained the email addresses used for activation by over 100,000 iPad users, together with the iPads’ SIM card ID numbers.

The hackers, a group called Goatse Security, had harsh words for Apple and ATT, accusing them of failing to take security seriously in failing to patch the known bug in the iPad browser, and claiming that obtaining the supposedly “private” email and SIM card information took just over one hour.

Read the full article here:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/14/technology/att_ipad_hack/index.htm

Quite frankly, the likelihood that I would have anything important on an iPad, which is incapable of multitasking (I have eight different things running on my PC right now) and can’t see 90% of the video on the web (because Jobs “hates flash” – probably because Apple can’t figure out a way to charge for it) is even smaller than the likelihood that I would ever buy a device with such limited capabilities. I’m too old now to buy stuff because it’s “cool”. I buy stuff because it works. And the cheaper I can buy it, the better.

But if I HAD bought an iPad, I’d want to know why the people who sold me such a “cool” toy sold it to me knowing that they were exposing me to a known and publicized security hole that put me at risk of having my cool toy hijacked by third parties, who would then have access to any and all information I had stored on it, and could then run it as if it were their own cool toy.

Then again, maybe Jobs and company figure it’s not such a big risk, since the iPad can only do one thing at a time, is incompatible with half of the software existing in the world, and is most likely owned by somebody who already has all their personal information posted on “Facebook”, anyway.

I’m speechless.

President’s panel on cancer warns that environmentally caused cancers, like from chemicals, have been grossly underestimated and are REALLY REALLY HUGE threat to human life…

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/health/research/07cancer.html

And you can trust them on this, because they are sure that if they had actually done the research –which they did NOT do – the research that they did not do would support the conclusions that they have already concluded!

“This is an evenhanded approach, and an evenhanded report,” Dr. Leffall said. “We didn’t make statements that should not be made.” “He acknowledged that it was impossible to specify just how many cancers were environmentally caused, because not enough research had been done, but he said he was confident that when the research was done, it would confirm the panel’s assertion that the problem had been grossly underestimated.”

Lemme tell you, there is DEFINITELY a link between “global warming” and “mental illness” … but NOT in the way these clowns are talking about:

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64827

Global warming causes cancer and mental illness … right. Please note, though, the real purpose of this utterly speculative piece of non-scientific buffoonery is to convince the government to spend money to investigate the claim. Wonder who would be lining up to scarf up those “research” dollars?

So, if you’re a global warming enthusiast, how do you make sure the temperature gets warmer? Simple … just quit including the temperature readings from colder stations!

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Scientists+using+selective+temperature+data+skeptics/2468634/story.html

Velociraptor, the smart, pack-hunting man-eating dinosaur made famous in the film “Jurassic Park” may actually have been covered with feathers.

A close study of a velociraptor forearm found in Mongolia shows the presence of quill knobs, bumps on the bone where the feathers anchor, researchers report in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.

The feathers may have helped regulate body temperature, attract mates or intimidate adversaries, but the bone structure of the animal makes flight out of the question.

“Jurassic Park” just wouldn’t have been the same with the humans being hunted by a toothy version of Big Bird, but it gets even worse:

The velociraptor the researchers studied was about three feet tall and weighed about 30 pounds. The size of these animals was exaggerated in the movie.

Imagine “Jurassic Park” with the humans being hunted by a trio of ferocious meat-eating chickens the size of kindergarten students. Somehow it just doesn’t have “blockbuster” written all over it.