Palin Displays Party Ingorance Mocking Olive Growers in California
Posted 9:02 AM

In a line of speech probably engineered by Republican party writers, Sarah Palin said "You’ve heard about some of these pet projects, they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not."

While the audience was snickering, the 11 million dollar plus California Olive Industry was not laughing.

According to researchers, the pests must be comparatively studied in their native environment in order to find natural predators and other solutions that Mediterranean olive growers have to managing pests. The program, based out of the European Biological Control Laboratory, has uncovered a parasitic wasp that can control damaging fruit flies - in one trial reducing post losses by up to 96%. A $750K price tag to protect 11 million isn't too expensive, and the Department of Agriculture's international ties were probably necessary to broker this deal - in which European resources are used to help out competing U.S. growers.

I'm not blaming Palin here, I'm blaming the Republican speech writers that misinformed her as to the importance of this not-very expensive research to California economy. Republicans generally have a low opinion of real research science, preferring grandiose popular wastes of money like "Moon bases" and "Men on Mars" (wheras a realistic scheme to bioengineer mars for human habitation with robots has been sacked).
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Durham, NC Punishes Residents for Conserving Water
Posted 7:58 AM

In response to the drought, Durham residents have cut water use by a record 30%. In response to this community effort, Durham's water utility company raised residential rates by 30%. That's a good idea.... instead of offering a higher tiered rate for residents who use more water than average, offset revenue losses by punishing the very people who worked hard to lower water usage.

Another example of our incredibly backward government system "in action".

Labels: politics

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Stop Blaming Electronic Voting, Stop It, it Makes me Sick
Posted 10:44 PM

It's absolutely trivial to make electronic voting machines 100% secure. It's also cheap and can be designed by a small team in a matter of a few months. What's more, it can be *proven* to be secure in such a way that satisfies not only the experts, but also the electorate. (Most of the code's already been written and is open source.)

In fact, the only way to truly secure an election is with open source electronic voting. Cryptographic methods can be used to sign votes, verify votes and guarantee with a certainty approaching 100% that all votes are counted.

Again, the problem is not electronic voting. The problem is that the a series of corrupt companies, lobbyists, and election officials are collectively making the decision to buy junk systems. Salesmanship, politics, and connections sell voting machines - not technology or correctness.

The hodge-podge of Visual Basic code, perl scripts, virus scanners, and back door admin hooks installed on the non-purpose-built machines that run the nations voting systems is embarrassing and illustrative of how our political system really works. (Paper and optical scanners included here.)

Politicians have been forging paper votes before the word "computer" was coined. Going to "paper" doesn't help a damn.... it just makes people feel cozy and gives lawyers and granola people something to kumbaya about.
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Obama Yard Signs Stolen
Posted 2:01 PM

All the Obama yard signs in our neighborhood (over 40 yard signs) were stolen last night. I've always been *tempted* to steal McCain yard signs, but I've never done it. It just shows you how the opposition is more *gumption* than we do. Willing to *break the rules* if necessary.

Hooray for them.
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Miranda Instead of Trillian
Posted 11:27 AM

If you like to log in to Google Talk, IRC, AIM, and some other chat services at the same time, a long time ago I was turned on to Trillian - one client that can chat on them all. On freenode someone told me Trillian was "bloated" and recommended Miranda. They were right. It's, as advertised, smaller, faster, easier ... and does everything I need. Bookmark it.
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Weather Underground Documentary
Posted 3:42 AM

Anyone who hasn't seen this documentary and thinks they know something about Ayers and the meaning of his association with Obama should watch it.

Click here to see a preview ... then ... Click here to watch the whole film.

This movie is fun to watch regardless of your political leanings. It was made long before the Ayers/Obama thing, and is worth watching if only to understand a bit of history.
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Pizza & Nutella
Posted 10:15 AM

I just smeared Nutella all over a slice of pizza and ate it. Maybe I'm pregnant or something, but man, I couldn't resist.
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Drill Baby Drill!
Posted 7:48 AM

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released a detailed study of the likely outcome of offshore drilling for their Annual Energy Outlook 2007, titled "Impacts of Increased Access to Oil and Natural Gas Resources in the Lower 48 Federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS)."

This isn't some "liberal spin" organization. It's the DOE. The same DOE that liberals like to say is "in the pocket" of oil companies:

The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.

And what about after 2030? How much more oil would we get?

...annual crude oil production in 2030 is projected to be 7 percent higher...any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant...

Only seven percent increase after 20 years. And even in 2030, there is not significant impact on prices? Basically that's ZERO increases EVER as far as I'm concerned. Forget environmental concerns, that's just a waste of time, effort and money.

So why does McCain like to talk about it?

Because he knows that it pushes the buttons of his opponents and wins him votes so he can take your hard earned money and line the pockets of his buddies. The oil industry doesn't give a crap about offshore drilling. They know there's nothing out there. They just want a campaign issue to fight on that appeals to Americans.

And they got it. 60% of Americans, who have been tricked and duped by the McCain spin doctors think that the "offshore drilling issue" is a "significant reason" to support McCain.

You can't blame the American people. We are being LIED TO. McCain's camp has convinced us that offshore drilling is going to make a difference... while they laugh behind their backs at our ignorance. Please email the DOE link to as many people you know that think drilling is important.

Here's the DOE link again:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html

This issue is a *red herring*. And if you think it matters, you're a sucker. And your tax dollars will go to people who are laughing at you.

Labels: politics

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