Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Not So Fast Cut-and-Run KOOKS!

Good news from Iraq...Bad news for Democrats.

Monday, July 30, 2007

COLLEGE FOOTBALL NEWS AND NOTES



Arkansas DT Marcus Harrison likely will miss at least the team’s season opener against Troy. The 6-3, 310-pound Harrison, a second-tier prospect for the upcoming draft, hurt his left knee at a practice in March when he suffered torn cartilage and a bone bruise.....

Texas sophomore LB Sergio Kindle, one of the best young players in college football at the position, was arrested over the weekend and charged with driving while intoxicated.....

North Carolina State TE Anthony Hill, who had been considered an emerging prospect for the 2008 draft, will miss the upcoming season after undergoing reconstructive knee surgery earlier this week. Team doctors reportedly discovered Hill had a damaged ACL that required surgery.....

LSU RB Alley Broussard, who had once been considered a top draft prospect, has announced that he is quitting football. Broussard though will remain in school and expects to graduate later this year. Broussard finished his career with over 1,500 career yards rushing and 18 TDs, but it could have been so much more. Broussard, in fact, started ahead of former Tiger Joseph Addai, Indianapolis’ #1 pick in 2006 who helped the Colts win the Super Bowl, but hurt a knee in 2005 and has barely played since.

Former 49ers Coach Bill Walsh Dead at 75

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Pork Farm

Food shortages in Africa, fuel inefficiency, illegal immigration — farm subsidies are partially to blame.

Sunday talk show tip sheet

Saturday, July 28, 2007

NFL NEWS AND NOTES



Giants defensive end Michael Strahan did not show up for the start of training camp Friday and is contemplating retirement, Jerry Reese, the team’s general manager, said.....

The Kansas City Star reports that Chiefs RB Larry Johnson did not report to training camp. Johnson is demanding a new contract and says he won't show up to camp until a deal is done. Moreover, Johnson's agent claims the Chiefs haven't made Johnson an offer since June 1. "The money I'm seeking for Larry is not out of line with other deals that have been signed in the last few months," agent Alvin Keels said. "People around the league would look at what we're asking as being very fair. We haven't been presented with anything we believe is fair. We're prepared to sit out until the right deal is presented to us.".....

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the Rams and QB Marc Bulger have agreed to a six-year deal with $26 million guaranteed. Rumors were that Bulger would hold out of camp without a deal, but he showed up on time, and a deal was reached soon thereafter.....

HoustonTexans.com reports that the Texans and veteran WR Keenan McCardell have agreed to a one-year contract. McCardell, a native Houstonian, is expected to compete for the No. 2 WR job but could just as easily end up as the No. 3/slot option.....

Friday, July 20, 2007

Pentagon Rebukes Sen. Clinton on Iraq

The Pentagon told Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton that her questions about how the U.S. plans to eventually withdraw from Iraq boosts enemy propaganda.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Monday, July 16, 2007

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Monday, July 09, 2007

NFL NEWS AND NOTES


Maryland sophomore OT Jared Gaither had a solid pro-day style workout prior to Thursday’s supplemental draft this morning. With representatives from all 32 NFL teams in attendance, Gaither measured in at just a tad under 6-9 and weighed 324 pounds. Gaither also reportedly ran well for a big man posting a 40-time in the 5.00 to 5.15 second range; he also did the short shuttle in around 4.50 second and the 3-cone drill in the area of 7.20 seconds. For the record, Gaither’s time in the 3-cone drill was considerably faster than any OT at this year’s combine, while his short shuttle time would have been third fastest. His 40-time would have been somewhere between 4th and 8th fastest. The only down note for Gaither was the fact that he was only able to do 15 reps pressing 225 pounds, ostensibly because he has a slightly strained shoulder.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

SCIENCE Magazine Waffles on Warming

The American scientific establishment is starting to take baby steps away from taking sides in the politics of global warming. It's sad to have to read science articles for political spin, like some announcement by the Kremlin. But climate change has now become so politicized that SCIENCE magazine reflects at least as much politics as honest science. You have to read it for spin.


SCIENCE magazine is the flagship journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which is the professional advocacy group for scientists in the United States. SCIENCE is both the profession's political journal (telling readers how to get government grants, for example), and it also has original findings. So it has an openly political side, as well as a real science side.


The last issue of SCIENCE is waffling like mad on the global warming fad, warning its readers that it may not be so settled a question. Under the headline "Another Global Warming Icon Comes Under Attack," SCIENCE writer Richard Kerr writes:
"...a group of mainstream atmospheric scientists is disputing a rising icon of global warming, and researchers are giving some ground." ...

"Robert Charlson of the University of Washington, Seattle, (is) one of three authors of a commentary published online last week in Nature Reports: Climate Change. ... he and his co-authors argue that the simulation by 14 different climate models of the warming in the 20th century is not the reassuring success IPCC claims it to be."
(IPCC is the supposed international scientific consensus document on global warming - JL).
"... In the run-up to the IPCC climate science report released last February ... 14 groups ran their models under 20th-century conditions of rising greenhouse gases. ... But the group of three atmospheric scientists ... says the close match between models and the actual warming is deceptive. The match "conveys a lot more confidence [in the models] than can be supported in actuality," says Schwartz. [....]

"Greenhouse gas changes are well known, they note, but not so the counteracting cooling of pollutant hazes, called aerosols. Aerosols cool the planet by reflecting away sunlight and increasing the reflectivity of clouds. Somehow, the three researchers say, modelers failed to draw on all the uncertainty inherent in aerosols so that the 20th-century simulations look more certain than they should." [Italics added]
What? "Somehow" they missed the biggest unknown factor in climate prediction?

Highly qualified climate scientists have long warned that warming estimates have at least one giant question mark: Water vapor and other tiny particles in the atmosphere. By failing to include reliable estimates of such "hazes" (not necessarily pollutants, as the article says), global warming models are likely to err wildly on the side of warming. It's the unseen elephant in the living room.

The SCIENCE article therefore finally admits what scientific critics have been saying for years.


Interested readers should also take a good look at the graph in the SCIENCE article, which superficially seems to support the global warming story. But notice the vertical bars at the right side of the graph, which show the "90 percent confidence interval" --- the chances that the graph line is actually where it is shown to be. Turns out that the orange confidence interval includes all the points on the graph between 1930 and 2000... meaning that we can't tell that any of those points are different from each other with even 90 percent certainty. And that's not even including the big Black Hole of water vapor.


Now "90 percent confidence" might sound like a lot. But in standard scientific publications a 95 percent confidence level is the minimum acceptable level. The reason is that one can just run a study 10 times, and achieve a 90 percent confidence level purely by chance. So we normally demand a higher standard of proof --- at least 95 percent confidence. The data in the SCIENCE graph therefore does not meet routine scientific standards.

Many scientists will read this item as a red flag, cautioning that all is not well in the global warming game.

Happy Earth Day - and never forget that telling the truth is the first, indispensible step toward wise management of our resources.

Friday, July 06, 2007

NFL NEWS AND NOTES


The Chicago Bears signed first-round draft pick Greg Olsen to a five-year contract on Tuesday, making the tight end from Miami the first player taken in the first two rounds to agree on a deal. The 31st overall pick, Olsen was the first tight end taken in the opening round by the Bears since they chose Mike Ditka from Pittsburgh in 1961. Olsen had 87 receptions for 1,215 yards with six touchdowns in three seasons with Miami, leaving after his junior season.....

The Chiefs have re-signed TE Mike Pinkard to a two-year deal. He originally signed with the Chiefs in 2004 but bounced around the league over the last two years....

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that the Saints have signed LB Dhani Jones to a one-year deal. Jones will compete for a spot in the starting lineup and should come away with a gig. "They have Scott Fujita, Mark Simoneau, Scott Shanle and a host of linebackers that are coming in," Jones said. "I will provide the depth, but also will push those linebackers so that we can compete going into next season."....

Wednesday, July 04, 2007