At Least We Now Know Global Warming Doesn’t Cause Earthquakes
The BoobQuake 2010 in on tomorrow April 26th – The national day of cleavage.
If an earthquake is caused…The science is settled. You can watch the live stats on earthquakes here.
Question Of The Day For European Airlines.
The scream: A radar image shows the crater of Eyjafjallajokull in southeast Iceland, which looks like the nightmarish face painted by Edvard Munch
As the cloud thickens, some pilots are asking… Why can’t we just fly beneath it?
We have been scared into believing that to fly would be madness, but part of the rationale that is keeping us grounded is an economic equation rather than simple personal safety.
To fly beneath the cloud until clear of it would mean burning more fuel. But not flying at all is surely burning money more swiftly.
Low-flying to simply avoid the danger of ash being sucked into the jet engines is a temporary solution gaining currency on professional pilot’s forum Pprune. One pilot writing there yesterday pointed out: ‘The chances of it even appearing at puddle jumper altitudes is negligible’.
It isn’t just daredevil pilots who are beginning to question the necessity of the current stalemate. Steve Wood, Chief Pilot at Sussex and Surrey Air Ambulance, yesterday described the measures being taken as ‘a complete overreaction’.
Modern jet aircraft engines are amazingly robust. And indeed they must be so. They have to face not only the hazards of bird strikes, but rain, hail and even salt spray on take-off from coastal airports.
All of which can potentially wreak havoc on engines. Furthermore, sand is a common hazard from dust storms and from desert airfields.
Some aircraft are better equipped than others to deal with high-dust conditions, and consultation with aircraft and engine manufacturers might have enabled more precise restrictions to be imposed, rather than a blanket ban.
But a spokesman for NATS admitted: ‘We don’t really deal with particular manufacturers.’ They were more concerned with ‘applying the international regulations’ rather than working on a specific plane-by-plane, make-by-make basis.
The blanket ban under clear blue skies and glorious sunshine is making some wonder whether this ‘one-size-fits-all’ regulation is appropriate to a situation that the regulations did not foresee.
And there will be many among the 200,000 Britons currently stranded abroad, who would be quite happy to take the risk.
In the final analysis, despite the scares, no one has actually been killed in a volcano incident – something which cannot be said for the much more hazardous drive to the airport.
Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures.
Earth Day
This video was pointed out to me… a earth day classic.
What are you doing for Earth Day?
I thought I’d show my appreciation to our earth.
First, I’m sending my wife on 400km trip, using our SUV, to see her parents in the Okanagon. I’ll make sure she is thankful for the gasoline she burns that funds all of our great social programs.
Then, I’ll turn all my lights on at home, and keep all the TVs on, so none of our criminal element takes advantage of the dark created by those that decide they can make a difference by turning theirs off. (If you have your Christmas lights still up, it might be a good idea to leave them on, so people can see their way around.)
Then I plan to BBQ a nice steak to thank mother nature for the cows she provides us with.
If it’s nice out, it might be a good night to have a campfire – nothing like a hot dog over the fire to make you appreciate mother nature.
She sure has been good to us by providing us with all the energy and food we need… be sure to use it and say thanks.
There’s a group that is taking hold that is also celebrating:
Prominent D.C.- Area Supporters Include: Kennedy Center, Smithsonian Institution, WMATA, Target, and George Washington University Hospital; other Nationally Recognized Institutions With Events Planned During Human Achievement Hour Include Wal-Mart, New York Times, and United States Marine Corps
The new one-hour holiday, unknown prior to this press release, has already received overwhelming support from many of Washington, D.C.’s leading institutions. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, for example, tells CEI that it does not plan to shut down all of the city’s bus and rail lines for the “Earth Hour.” The Kennedy Center, likewise, has scheduled a performance of the long-running play Sheer Madness, a jazz concert, and a dance performance to coincide with the Human Achievement Hour. Washington, D.C.’s Target store, furthermore, will remain open until 10:00pm on the evening of the 28th. The Smithsonian Institution also plans a film showing that will extend into Human Achievement Hour.
“We salute the people who keep the lights on and produce the energy that helps make human achievement possible,” says Myron Ebell, CEI’s Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy.
Other organizations around the world and the nation have planned events in support of the new holiday. For example, The United State Marine Corps will continue its combat and humanitarian operations around the world during Human Achievement Hour. The New York Times confirms that it intends to put out a paper on March 29th, 2009 (preparation and printing for that issue will take place during Human Achievement Hour). At least 30,000 movies will also be screened in celebration of Human Achievement Hour. Hospital emergency and operating rooms, likewise, will remain open in Washington and in the rest of the country. Nearly all of the nation’s Wal-Mart locations will also be open during Human Achievement Hour.
Those wishing to celebrate Earth Hour, however, do not need to take part in Human Achievement Hour. “Earth Hour is a viable alternative to human achievement hour,” says CEI Senior Fellow Eli Lehrer. “Those who wish to celebrate Earth Hour should sit in the dark, turn off the heat, and breathe as little as possible.”
Happy Earth Day!
Environment Cananda Knocks Out 4500 Websites
Environment Canada now cleaning up the Internet:
The two websites, “enviro-canada.ca” and “ec-gc.ca”, are “directly connected to a hoax which misleads people into believing that the Government of Canada will take certain actions in relation to environmental matters,” wrote Mike Landreville from Environment Canada in an email to the German Internet Service Provider (ISP) Serverloft. “We trust you appreciate the importance of avoiding confusion among the public concerning Canadian governmental affairs and that you will assist us in preventing this hoax from spreading further.”
In a remarkable overstepping of bounds, Landreville also asked the ISP to “make every effort to prevent any further attempts concerning other environment-related domains (enviro, ec-gc, etc.) originating from your servers.”
Website suspended
Serverloft blocked the IP-range for this server because of the content of the client’s website and would only unblock the IP-range if we suspended the website. The website was used in a spoof by The Yes Men.
Serverloft blocked the IP-range without a warrant and without calling us and thus affecting servers hosting 4500 of our customers’ websites until we ourselves discovered the problem, and convinced Serverloft to unblock. Serverloft did send us an email explaining that they would not unblock the IP-range until the websites were taken offline. The email was sent 5 minutes after they cut of the access to the mail server, so we only received the email after the 4500 websites were back online.
Convincing Serverloft that their systems had blocked access on purpose was hard because Serverloft frontline support claimed that all their systems were working fine and they therefore assumed that the problem was a configuration problem on our server. They refused to help troubleshooting the issue.
Serverloft could simply have called us and asked us to deal with the situation. We would then have asked the Canadians for a warrant. If the Canadians had shown us a warrant we would have taken down the site immediately. As others have pointed out the Canadians could probably just have gone through CIRA and have the domain suspended, which would not have affected any of the other 4500 websites.
As we cannot go through every single page that our customers put on their websites we anticipate a similar situation may arise again. We have therefore asked Serverloft to revise their procedures so we at least would get a phone call before they cut our connection. They have so far refused to do so. They have answered:
your net was blocked because of hosting phishing sites. I’ve attached the information, we have, below our signature. I’m sorry, but we cant call every costumer for abuse. In some cases we’ve to respond very fast and have to block the net or server.
While I appreciate Serverloft respond fast, it is no good if the collateral damage is more than 1000 times as big. Had they called I am sure we would have found an arrangement that would satisfy both of us.
Carbon Taxes: BC Has Increased Greenhouse Gases
The BC government’s reason for slapping us with a carbon tax is proving to be dubious at best, and shows you cannot tax people to actually lower C02… but you do lower their standard of living.
B.C. only province with rising greenhouse gases
“This is one of the disturbing contradictions in the Campbell Liberals’ climate-change policy,” he said. “They’ve introduced targets, they’ve introduced a carbon tax — and yet we’re actually going in the wrong direction.”
Next up for us over-taxed BC residents – The HST.
Proving that Gordon Campbell has never met a tax he didn’t like.
A Recent Poll:
If another party other than the BC Liberals wins the next provincial election in 2013-in your opinion will that ‘new government’ have the ‘moral authority’ to rip up the H.S.T. deal with the Conservative federal government on behalf of British Columbians?(questions designed prior to federal Conservative government’s announcement to hold vote)
| Yes | 54.5 % | |
| No | 36.5 % | |
| Undecided | 9.0 % |
Summit Ends Amid Record Global Snowing
Valdez socked in
Valdez got more than four inches per hour at the height of the snowstorm that began there Monday and ran through the week. By the time the citizens of Alaska’s only oil port finally caught a break, the snow was piled 5 feet, 8 inches deep.
Yes, you read right.
Five feet, 8 inches; over the head of your average American woman, up the nose of your average American man. The National Weather Service called it record. Fire hydrants were buried so deep under snow not even Tiger Woods could have hit them.
In other news:
Europe see record snow from England to Poland.
Record cold, snow envelop Japan Sea coast
Storm dumps record snowfall in Carson
St. John’s gets record snowfall
Workers prepare for big snow dump in Metro Vancouver
Record snowfall blankets Ontario
OBAMA SAYS BECAUSE OF WEATHER REASONS WILL RETURN TO WASHINGTON BEFORE A FINAL VOTE AT UN SUMMIT.
Pelosi told CNN that military officials leading her Congressional delegation have urged the 21 lawmakers to leave Copenhagen several hours earlier than scheduled on Saturday.
The Speaker said she has agreed to the new travel plan so that lawmakers can get back to Washington before much of the expected storm wallops the nation’s capital.
He’s running away from Copenhagen now. Just in time before all the Global freezing gets in the way.
The ice returneth… as it does each winter. Couldn’t ask for a better ending
