Things that can’t go on forever, won’t. Debt that can’t be repaid, won’t be. Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be. – Glenn Harlan Reynolds/Instapundit
CBS news takes on John Murtha. Why do Pennsylvanians (sp?) keep electing this guy? The corruption that comes from pork truly corrupts the system. We really need a “new guard” in Congress, but it always seems like a “meet the new boss, same as the oldboss” story.
Here’s a prime example of corruption…
According to an estimate by Taxpayers for Common Sense, he’s steered more than $600 million in earmarks to his Pennsylvania district in the past four years and $2 billion since 1992. But what’s been good for Murtha and his district is not always good for taxpayers.
“Every private entity that received an earmark from Rep. Murtha gave him a contribution. A campaign contribution,” Ryan Alexander for Taxpayers for Common Sense told CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.
That’s a pretty good return on investment, wouldn’t you say?
Listening to Randy Pausch makes me want to re-post this You-Tube video. I truly get the feeling he “loves his job” and if climbing towers had been on his “list of things to do”, he would be the star of this video.
“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
–Randy Pausch
For those of you who don’t know, Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch has been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. He gave his now famous “Last Lecture” on Sept 18, 2007. The lecture made it onto You Tube and thanks to the miracle of the internet, it has propagated throughout the world and touched many people’s lives, including mine.
From an interview on the Amazon.com page for his book:
regarding his current health…
Pausch: The tumors are not yet large enough to affect my health, so all the problems are related to the chemotherapy. I have neuropathy (numbness in fingers and toes), and varying degrees of GI discomfort, mild nausea, and fatigue. Occasionally I have an unusually bad reaction to a chemo infusion (last week, I spiked a 103 fever), but all of this is a small price to pay for walkin‘ around.
What kind of person do you want to be?
Amazon.com: You talk about the importance–and the possibility!–of following your childhood dreams, and of keeping that childlike sense of wonder. But are there things you didn’t learn until you were a grownup that helped you do that?
Pausch: That’s a great question. I think the most important thing I learned as I grew older was that you can’t get anywhere without help. That means people have to want to help you, and that begs the question: What kind of person do other people seem to want to help? That strikes me as a pretty good operational answer to the existential question: “What kind of person should you try to be?”
I’d like to touch on the childlike sense of wonder. I don’t believe I’ve met anyone in person that exhibits it, but I do know a few people who are close. However, I have read about one person who kept his childlike sense of wonder, curiosity and mischievousness. That would be noble price winning physicist, Richard Feynman.
Is 5 miles per hour a reasonable bicycle speed limit on campus? I’m not sure, but I suspect the University of Colorado will make a lot of money off the $50 tickets. To help rake in the fines….
CU police Cmdr. Brad Wiesley said the department is looking into purchasing modern laser radar guns to clock bike speeds, because its technology is outdated.
I suspect the old radar guns aren’t accurate at such a slow speed?
I’m going to file this under “Boulder is stoopid”, although I’m not sure if it’s stupid or not. I’ve had bikes startle me and it can be fairly unsettling.
I’m sure this is old news to anyone who visits this blog. The Daily Camera ran the AP press release which you’ve probably seen. The interesting point is that the Camera web site allows comments. Here’s comment #1…
Do you think he was holding a gun when he died, and if he was did they pry it from his cold dead hands?
Former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan endorsed John McCain this Sunday. Alan, lets trade a stock market bubble for a real estate bubble, Greenspan is NOT someone I would want an endorsement from.
Highly opinionated hedge fund manager Bill Fleckenstein recently wrote a not particularly flattering book on the former Federal Reserve chief.
Two gentlemen (one a Chinese national and another a naturalized US citizen) were stopped by Federal agents trying to smuggle sensitive infrared cameras to China.
Ten of the cameras, which measure about 2 inches square and cost about $5,000 each, were found in the men’s checked luggage, Weir said. Salcido said it appeared they split the shipment up between them.
The cameras have both commercial and military uses but they are “very expensive, highly sensitive,” Weir said. “They’re not something you could buy off the shelf.”
When purchasing the camera’s….
“He repeatedly said he wouldn’t export,” she said.
So says Daily Camera reporter Laura Snider and the University of Colorado Law School. And to think I’d just concluded that despite numerous controversies, eveyone agreed there hadn’t been any global warming since 1998.
All-American Candace Parker was cleared Thursday by Tennessee team doctors to play against LSU in the Final Four, two days after dislocating her shoulder.
Sawtooth Ake is produced by micro-brewery Left Hand brewery in Longmont, CO. Amazingly enough, I can find Sawtooth and other Left Hand brewery products at Total Wine in Naples, FL. Makes Spring Break all that more enjoyable!
Another similar article on cooling temperatures in 2008. The one thing everyone seems to agree on is that global temperatures haven’t risen since 1998. Everything else is up for debate.
Mr Scaife told the BBC: “What’s happened now is that La Nina has come along and depressed temperatures slightly but these changes are very small compared to the long-term climate change signal, and in a few years time we are confident that the current record temperature of 1998 will be beaten when the La Nina has ended.”
Thanks to Catherine from KTM for the publicity. Although I’ve had the blog “hidden” for some time, I guess it’s “out of the closet” now. By looking through the history you can see that posting has been sporadic so I’ll try and be more consistent in the future.
Although neither of them are headed for jail, after reading about Air America host Randi Rhodes suspension from the airwaves, I find the thought of her and Michael Savage sharing the same jail cell somewhat amusing.
According to writer James Lewis at American Thinker Magazine.
“Human-caused global warming” has now officially been re-named “climate change” to explain the inconvenient truth that the winter of 2007-8 was the coldest in a century, in spite of all those tons of “greenhouse gas” being spewed into the air from all the new factories in China and India. Worldwide temps dropped 0.6 of a degree C in one year. That may not sound like a lot, but it’s more than all the ballyhooed warming in the preceding century.
Last week, virtually unreported in Britain, the extraordinary winter weather of 2008 elsewhere in the world continued. In the USA, there were blizzards as far south as Texas and Arkansas, while in northern states and Canada what they are calling “the winter from hell” has continued to break records going back in some cases to 1873. Meanwhile in Asia more details emerged of the catastrophe caused by the northern hemisphere’s greatest snow cover since 1966.
In Afghanistan, where they have lost 300,000 cattle, the human death toll has risen above 1,500. In China, the havoc created by what its media call “the Winter Snow Disaster” has continued, not least in Tibet, where six months of snow and record low temperatures have killed 500,000 animals, leaving 3 million people on the edge of starvation.
and from the final paragraph….
The fact is that, for all their caveats that this drop in temperatures can be explainedby the cooling effect of La Niña, the official orthodoxy that “more CO2 means more warming” is facing its most serious challenge yet.
I recently heard a surprising story: A female CEO was briefed on a stellar candidate for a top job at her company. “Sounds ideal,” she said to the group in the room. “Male or female?” Male was the answer. “Damn” was her audible response. The guy wasn’t even interviewed. Why Are Men Silent
“This has been the coldest season with the most ice since we started Arctic Watch in 2000. Almost no whales. The NWPassage is still blocked with ice. Some of the bays still have not melted!”
Richard weber, owner/operater Arctic Watch
Generation Screwed
And rather than follow the conventional path of indebting yourself for 13-years so that you can attend university for four, and then fork over the bulk of your pay to the government, instead focus on learning tangible, valuable skills overseas.
Government Cheese
FIRM
Boulder County Fairness in Road Maintenance (FIRM)
On November 5, 2013, residents and property owners of subdivisions in unincorporated Boulder County will go to the polls to vote on 5C. A group of your fellow citizens has banded together to provide you, our neighbors, with facts and information about why you should vote NO on this tax increase. To learn more, click on the button below.
