Senator John McCain has won the nomination in AZ to run for re-election to his Senate seat as was widely expected these past few weeks. This, along with the Meek’s win in Florida, is part of the primary story from yesterday. AZ Governor Jan Brewer also won her primary and will stand for re-election.
Not every incumbent is faring so well. Alaska’s Senator Lisa Murkowski was facing another Tea Party-backed candidate, Joe Miller, and as of this morning it’s looking like Miller might have pulled off an upset. According to the Alaska State Elections results, Miller is leading Murkowski 51.09% to 48.91% with nearly 98% of all precincts reporting. The vote count difference is showing 1,960 votes in Miller’s favor out of 89,858 cast. It’s 4 in the morning there at the time I’m writing this so we might have to wait a few hours for an official ruling.
Meek, after struggling for a period in the primary, widened his lead in the polls in recent weeks as he aggressively went after Greene for making millions by betting against the housing market. A series of news reports highlighting Greene’s personal life, including his friendship with boxer Mike Tyson, didn’t appear to help either.
Though Greene far outspent Meek on attacks ads, casting the four-term congressman as a corrupt incumbent, Meek enjoyed support from President Obama, former President Bill Clinton and Bob Graham, Florida’s respected former senator and governor.
Polls forecast a tight race for November, though Meek does indeed start as the underdog. A recent Rasmussen poll showed Rubio leading Crist by 5 points, with Meek trailing in a hypothetical general election matchup.
This will be bad news for Crist, that’s for certain. His only hope after thumbing his nose at FL Republicans (and keeping their donation funds after doing so, to boot) was in pulling votes from the Dem side of the aisle. That would only happen if the Dems weren’t happy with their nominee and with Meek defeating Greene, that ain’t gonna happen. Should be an interesting race from here.
Interesting name, assuming the actual name is the Persian word for that phrase. I can’t really bust his chops too badly for that, however, given the presence in our inventory of a weapon system called “Reaper.” (I believe it’s safe to consider “ambassador of death” a synonym to “Grim Reaper,” yes?)
The ship looks an awful lot like a AGM-86 ACLM (air-launched cruise missle) with a single jet engine, air intake at the top rear of the fuselage just ahead of the tail. The ACLM is a missile, however, not a bomber. The story goes on to suggest that the Iranian bird is capable of being armed with either a pair of 250-lb bombs or a single 450-lb device. That implies that it will actually fly to the target, drop the payload, and return. I’m not sure I’m seeing the sensor apparatus that would permit such a mission and there are issues with flying remote-presence sorties that have nothing to do with the actual aircraft. As I have said before in posts about the Iranians’ military advances, lately, it seems to be something beyond their abilities. Until, that is, you factor in the rather cozy arrangement they have with the Russians. I would imagine that nuclear fuel isn’t the only thing they’re getting from Moscow.
WTOP is reporting that the design for the proposed Metro stop at Dulles International Airport might be changing. The initial design called for an underground station located under the hourly lot in front of the terminal. Folks who have used the Daily parking deck there already know that there’s an underground walkway from the deck to the terminal that goes underneath that hourly lot.
Well, now they’re talking about making the station an above-ground station (like most of those on the Orange Line out into northern Virginia) which, clearly, they cannot do if they leave it in the middle of the hourly parking lot. The new location is supposed to be in the thin slice of land between Parking Garage #1 and Saarinen Circle, the main traffic path in front of the terminal. If positioned there, the walk to the terminal for any passengers arriving by Metro would be about the same as if they had parked at the garage. It’s not 10 steps, but it’s not a marathon, either. Not a bad idea, I suppose, and it would avoid having to either tunnel beneath the hourly parking lot or tear it up completely to finish the station.
Thoughts, my fellow locals? (And yes, I know some of you are thinking, “Yeah, don’t build the damned thing…” That’s OK, too.)
It’s the middle of August and Obama is headed out for a vacation – again. This is his 6th vacation this year. I know I’ve said that the presidency is a stressful job and I certainly don’t begrudge the First Family hitting the beach for a vacation, but six times in 8 months? Seriously? Never mind the 40 rounds of golf he’s gotten in, he’s averaging a vacation every 45 days?
How can a guy who just schedules himself time off with that frequency really relate to the rest of us? He can’t, and he doesn’t. He talks about it all the time – most notably during the multistate fundraising tour he just took (and doesn’t that sort of present a problem that we’re all paying for this state-hopping travel so he can raise money for Democrats?) – but it’s clear he just doesn’t get it. There an awful lot of us out here who can’t afford to take half of the vacations he’s already taken just in terms of time off, let alone to the places he’s going. There’s an awful lot of us who aren’t employed to be able to take vacations at all, in spite of the massive debt he’s dropped on our shoulders, assuring us that unemployment wouldn’t get anywhere near where it is today.
After the beating he’s taken in the public opinion lately – a beating he’s got to be aware of – he still just decides to take time off with so many of our nation’s issues still pending. Did I mention the utter lack of an attempt by Democrats to pass a budget this year? Obama should have been screaming about that. Instead, he’s off to Martha’s Vineyard. The only way that happens is if he’s completely clueless about what he’s doing or – take your pick – he’s fully aware of it and figures you owe him.
Short answer: no. By applying a bayesian backcast method (well understood and widely used in this kind of analysis) they determined that the data does not produce the sharp spike of temperature now well-known as the “hockey stick.” Check out the graphs side-by-side at Mr. Watts’ site at that 1st link I’ve provided.
The paper itself is scheduled to be published in the next issue of the Annals of Applied Statistics but you can view the submitted paper here. (Download it here, too.)
In short, the authors found that the proxies used by Mann and analyzed with their backcast don’t predict the temperatures any better that a randomly-generated series of numbers. Furthermore, they don’t predict the steep incline Mann’s hockey stick shows. In their conclusion, they state, “[c]limate scientists have greatly underestimates the uncertainty of proxy based reconstructions ahd hence have been overconfident in their models.”
Watts reports that certain AGW proponents are actively deleting any comments entered on their blogs and forums that so much as mention this paper which, as he says, “tells you it has squarely hit the target.”
A question of significance in this matter is whether Mann and his team knew about these flaws – or became aware of them amid the questioning of their findings – and simply decided not to reveal that knowledge. If so, then they have deliberately misrepresented the situation even while making greater demands for both public funding of their continued “research” and for policy changes affecting us all. This is the question being pursued by Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli who is seeking access to files used by Dr. Mann at the University of Virginia. Mann received tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds to pursue his work and the question of whether he committed fraud by misrepresenting the truth in his applications for those funds needs to be answered. UVA is attempting to block Cuccinelli’s access to those records. Their attempt to have his request summarily dismissed failed and a judge heard arguments on the matter on Friday. He is scheduled to rule on the matter in the next 10 days.
Whether AGW is correct or not remains an open question, although given that historical records indicate temperatures at or exceeding today’s levels were seen prior to any industrial activity on man’s part it’s not looking good for the AGW team. What we can do about it – and whether we should do anything about it – is a question that can only be answered by real and accurate information about the situation. History is rife with examples of human interference in local environments that began with a woefully incorrect understanding of the situation as it was. Politics needs to be removed from this debate and the matter decided upon not with an eye toward bringing about a desired social state or curtailing practices some of us find offensive but with a goal of understanding the situation as it is. With that understanding, actions can be decided upon in as great a confidence as our limited abilities can provide.
Apparently a survey was taken asking a sample of Americans what religion Obama belongs to and 18% said he was a Muslim. Apparently those people don’t recall Obama’s membership in Rev. Jerimiah Wright’s Trinity United Church up in Chicago, a church of a most certainly Christian bend. (Although given what I’ve seen of Rev. Wright’s sermons, the term “bent” can also certainly be applied.)
Of course, I’d also like to address this bit of news with a big, “So what?” Somewhere between 6% and 28% of Americans surveyed (depending on the surveyor) believe the moon landings never happened. Some significant chunk of my fellow citizens also believes that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by our own government. That 18% of those surveyed for this one believes something incorrect is hardly a major event.
I can certainly understand the larger group of this survey – 43% – who said they didn’t know. After all, Obama has hardly made any efforts to display any kind of spiritual belief, he doesn’t attend church regularly (has he at all since his inauguration?), and he avoids mentioning God’s name like the plaque. Given his repeated support of Muslim positions on all manner of issues it’s hardly surprising that people would come the conclusion he considers himself one of them. That is, if you’ve not been paying close attention to his history, a common enough situation among our electorate.
So telling people they can’t co-opt someone’s funeral to spew vile hatred and twist a virtual knife in the open wounds of grieving families is an infringement of free speech but arresting someone for praying the rosary outside an abortion clinic is perfectly fine?
“God Hates Fags” is protected speech but it’s an arrestable offense to utter “Our Father Who art in Heaven”?
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