Blatant Reality

Alright, as of yet I haven’t heard anyone trying to link Hurricane Gustav or Tropical Storm Hanna with Anthropological Global Warming, but I fear this won’t be the case once they hit. Therefore, I have two questions: Which network will mention a link between these storms and Global Warming first and how long will it take for them to mention it?

Normally I just leave polls up for a couple weeks but this one has been up since the beginning of July. I figured that since it was one of those polls that don’t really get old, I could leave it up there to try to get a bigger sample size. Anyways, here are the results of the poll and it looks like people are pretty much in agreement that crop based ethanol is a bad idea:

How do you feel about crop based Ethanol?
Selection		Votes
A) I support it	8%	3
B) It’s a necessary step in the right direction	8%	3
C) It’s an environmentally bad idea	26%	10
D) It’s an economically bad idea	33%	13
E) It’s pointless; drill more oil	26%	10
39 votes total

Gosh, I just couldn’t help it anymore so I finally got a twitter account. Since “Jonathan Williams” and any variation of that has been taken long ago, I had to go with the username “BlatantReality”. The twitter update bar is on the right hand side under the Google ads banner. Now you all will be privy to every little thought that pops up in my mind. Hope you enjoy.

Internet Service Provider Comcast looks to place a cap on how much bandwidth subscribers can use a month. The magic number comes out to be 250 gigabytes a month. Take a look what that means in realistic terms:

According to Comcast, a customer would have to download 62,500 songs or 125 standard-definition movies a month to exceed the caps. But high-definition video and video gaming require a higher amount of bandwidth. S. Derek Turner, the research director for the nonpartisan media policy group Free Press, said broadband caps could create a disincentive to view online video.

 

“As media companies put content online, consumers can bypass the cable companies and get their content directly from the Internet,” Mr. Turner said. “A 250 gigabyte cap may seem very high — and it is for today’s Internet use. But it’s essentially the equivalent of four hours of HD television a day.”

 

Critics have charged that Internet providers are trying to protect their cable TV and telephone businesses by stifling Internet access. Comcast says Fancast, its online video Web site, will count against the 250 gigabyte limit, but its digital voice service will not.

Interesting to say the least.

So this article comes up in my Google RSS feed for “Global Warming” titled “Nine polar bears at risk of drowning in global warming meltdown” and included this picture:

You know what my first reaction to this picture was? That poor polar bear is going to drown. Why is it going to drown? Because the helicopter that was carrying the photographer is causing such a disturbance in the water the poor bear is going to barely be able to swim. See the waves around the polar bear and how its squinting? Yea, that’s caused by a helicopter that is in hover. Compare it with this picture (upper left corner)

It’s not global warming that’s going to kill this bear, it’s the media.

Oh, wait, don’t cry. Please don’t cry, media. You really shouldn’t worry to much about that because the good news is the polar bear population on a whole has doubled in the past four decades.

See? One polar bear, and even nine polar bears, are nothing really to worry about. Just consider this an example of Darwin’s ’survival of the fittest’ theory.

This was very disheartening news to hear. It seems that the GOP is considering adding a ‘global warming is real’ section to our party’s platform.

The National Republican Party for the first time is expected to acknowledge global warming in its 2008 GOP Platform, according to a draft of the document.

 

“Increased atmospheric carbon has a warming effect on the earth,” the document said. “While the scope and long term consequences of this warming effect are the subject of ongoing research, we believe the United States should take measured and reasonable steps today.”

 

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, is a strong proponent of tackling global warming and has co-authored legislation to address the issue.

 

In the GOP’s 2004 platform, the term “global warming” was completely absent.

Luckily, the party platform will have to be voted on at the RNC but even if this section doesn’t pass, McCain will still be the ‘maverick’ he is and push some crazy ‘cap and trade’ scheme on his own. Luckily, we conservatives have Palin to hinge all our hopes of sanity prevailing in the White House. All I can say is that  I sure hope she will be up for the task.

On a side note, the author of the article I quote above is none other than Jackie Kucinich, the daughter of Dennis Kucinich. Now I don’t know if she is as far out there (aka crazy) as her father but if she is, we might be able to right this storyoff as some wishful thinking.

Now, how you view the following numbers all depends on whether you’re a long-term thinker or more of an instant solution kind of person. It seems that people are people are predicting that it may take 10 to 15 years before the public sees any biofuels from algae.

But that won’t necessarily translate into rapid development of algae-based fuels, Rabins said. Entire infrastructures, from specialized growing facilities to processing plants, will have to be created, and that will come only after potential producers see the value and make the investment. He speculated that it could take 10 to 25 years before algae-based biofuel is readily available to the public, though specialty uses could appear sooner.

 

“The most optimistic assessment that I’ve heard is that it could be six to eight years before there’s something that’s useable, but the tools and techniques to make it possible are being created right now,” he said.

I swear I saw this but I’m not entirely sure. When I tried to get a screen capture of it, I could only get the “alternative shot” from CNN live. Here is the shot I got:

Anybody else see this / get a better angle or was I just plain seeing things?

UPDATE: Thanks to commenter J. Casey, we will all be able to enjoy a video of this kiss.

Well its 9:00 and I’m watching the DNC, again. Its boring but I feel obligated to watch it because I’m a political science major.

Is it just me, or are they Democrats really underplaying the whole Global Warming issue and instead focus on the energy independence aspect of green energy? I wonder if they are getting a little scared that global warming might just be a big hoax.

UPDATE (9:30):

This is way to boring… Who’s up for Super Sonic Tuesday? Anyone?

I don’t know if you noticed this but it seems that Barack Obama always travels with a religious based choir. Fellow liberals have criticized him incessantly for this, claiming he wants to establish some sort of theocracy if he gets into the White House. Wait a minute…no they haven’t. In fact, I haven’t heard anything from the Left about Obama’s blatant use of religion in his campaign.

Man how I hate double standards. You know that if Republicans had a choir perform at the RNC people would be all up in arms saying how the ‘religious right’ was in control of the GOP and plotting on how we would convert the nation back to puritanism.

UPDATE (8:36):

Question: Doesn’t the podium for the DNC look like a Jack in the Box?

(Check out the “Barack in the Box” a little way down the page)

I can’t wait to see Barack Obama behind it on Thursday.