The Lounge

There is no doubt in my mind that Trey Parker and Matt Stone have somehow strangely crossed into my personal life. The latest South Park story included Butters, Vampires, Clamato Juice, and Call of Duty. The simple fact that Stone and Parker actually used Clamato Juice, my secret vodka mixer and Call of Duty, my favorite game on South Park, my favorite show is about as mind numbing as you would ever know. Great Show! Take a watch below.

Untold millions of Americans, including Lisa and I were shocked at the results of the last 30 days of media coverage of the 2008 election. There were so many statements made in the press, on television, and in the blogs that were so blatantly false even casual observer’s should have seen there was a disconnect between the facts and what the media purported to be the facts.

At the same time there are untold millions of good American people who would have still voted for Barry regardless of his past associations, because he really does enrich the fabric of America. These votors don’t care who Diane and Barney are, simply because the Media has never found time to enlighten them. I have a feeling that is soon to change.

From the website HOW OBAMA GOT ELECTED

On Election day twelve Obama voters were interviewed extensively right after they voted to learn how the news media impacted their knowledge of what occurred during the campaign. These voters were chosen for their apparent intelligence/verbal abilities and willingness to express their opinions to a large audience. The rather shocking video below seeks to provide some insight into which information broke through the news media clutter and which did not.

Zogby Poll

512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points

97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates

Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions

57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)

81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)

82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)

88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)

56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).

And yet…..

Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes

Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter

And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her “house,” even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!

Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.

Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we “gave” one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey

The most important issue today in the FCC is the use of the White Space Radio Spectrum. After many discussions, and a nasty FUD campaign by the Major Telco companies, the FCC plans on allowing local, licence-free use of this White Space spectrum, and the possibilities are nearly endless. Most recent findings, those the FCC intend to base decisions on, see this as a Win-Win for consumers.

Imagine free, local android phones calls, or even using your router instead of cables for your television. How about using your cell phone instead of your PC and still have a keyboard and mouse? How about a network of free television channels to broadcast the High School play or football game. How about an integrated Fire, Police, and EMS communication and training network without the outlay of taxpayer money to pay the FCC for those pesky and expensive licence’s. All of these possibilities exist, along with many that have not even been invented. The future is now, and it looks real cool.  

The space between the channels on your television is where the future of communication lives. The potential for this white space is limited only by creativity, ingenuity, and the need for clear rules of the road. Wireless broadband is the most promising way to extend affordable, ubiquitous, high-speed Internet connections to all Americans, create mesh networks for emergency first responders, enable new capabilities that bring safety, convenience, and comfort to consumers in their homes, and empower the creators of tomorrow’s innovations.

One of the most important aspects of this technology is that the white space that surrounds your home or school belongs to you. Your radio waves belong to you, not some multimillion dollar money grubbing left-wing media company. There are so many open frequencies that in a community like North Rockland, there would be an endless supply of channels for everyone to use. All you need is a transmitter and a dream. The time is now that we allow free access to this white space, it in turn will allow developers to come up with new and innovative uses for this spectrum in conjunction with device makers, and it should allow those communities with no broadband penetration a good chance to be connected.

I want to thank the Wireless Innovation Alliance  who’s members have lobbied to make this spectrum available. You can visit them for more information.

There are plenty of warning signs about Mr. Obama we ignore at our peril.

America’s economy got into trouble when people didn’t heed warning signs. Three years ago, Mr. McCain called for stricter oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, warning their risky practices threatened our economy and could cost taxpayers billions. He tried to prevent or at least reduce the breadth of the crisis we’re in now. Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats ignored these signs and opposed reform.

When it comes to direct spending, as opposed to handing out “refund” checks through the tax code, Mr. Obama claims he won’t need more revenue because there will be no more spending. He even claims to be proposing to cut more spending ending up with a “net spending cut.” That was Mr. Obama’s most direct answer to Bob Schieffer, the moderator of the last debate, right after Mr. Schieffer said “The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CFARB) ran the numbers” and found otherwise.

Wanting to raise taxes, anyone’s taxes, in a slowdown is a warning sign of a misguided economic philosophy. Mr. Obama’s proposal to redistribute wealth is a warning of indifference or hostility to enterprise. The Joint Tax Committee reports that the bottom 60% of taxpayers with incomes below $50,000 paid less than 1% of the federal income tax in 2006, while the 3.3% with incomes above $200,000 paid more than 58%. Most of Mr. Obama’s tax rebates go to the bottom 60%. They can’t possibly be financed by shifting an even larger share of the tax burden to the top 3.3%.

Mr. Obama’s health-care plan is a warning that government will have more, not less, to say about your health care if he has his way. The core of Mr. Obama’s reform is a new government insurance program, open to nearly everyone, including the young and even the affluent. His goal is to have everyone insured by 2012. According to the Lewin Group, independent health-care consultants, the number of Americans with private coverage would drop by nearly 22 million from 157 million starting the first year, as people shifted toward the public option. People with coverage either through Mr. Obama’s plan, Medicaid or the federal-state children’s program (Schip) would increase by about 48 million. Mr. Obama estimates the cost between $50 billion and $65 billion a year when fully phased in, though others say it would be far more. To fund it, he would impose a “pay or play” tax on employers. This would require all but the smallest employers either to provide insurance for their workers, or pay a tax on some portion of their payroll. Mr. Obama hasn’t said what the tax rate would be. If it’s high, government costs would be lower and more employers might offer coverage, paying for it out of wages. If it’s low, many employers would dump their coverage and pay the tax instead, transferring workers to the public option. Mr. Obama has also not elaborated on how the government would reimburse providers under his plan. The rates could be used to undercut private insurers. According to Lewin estimates, these undefined variables could boost the exodus to government to more than 60 million

Mr. Obama’s dismissal of offshore drilling and opposition to nuclear power are warning signs for an economy whose growth depends on affordable energy. Mr. Obama’s commitment to withdraw our troops from Iraq without regard to conditions on the ground is a warning sign that Mr. Obama is dangerously wrong-headed and ideological on national security. The absence of a single significant instance in which Mr. Obama cooperated in a bipartisan manner in the Senate is a warning sign. So is his failure to dirty his hands by working hard on any major legislative challenge since entering Congress. 

For many, a vote for Obama is a Hail Mary. The question is, catch we it?

A small lesson from our Banking Department

Please use ‘Fullscreen’ mode for fullscreen view.↑

Use controls to advance or pause slides

A very thought-provoking series of statements on the Global Warming Hoax that I believe is being perpetrated to destroy our economy.

CO2  Temperature

MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.

FACT: Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8C over the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas (”heat islands”), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas (”land use effects”).

There has been no catastrophic warming recorded.

MYTH 2: The “hockey stick” graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature decrease for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.

FACT: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the “average global temperature” has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.

The “hockey stick”, a poster boy of both the UN’s IPCC and Canada’s Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one at that.

MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.

FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased. The RATE of growth during this period has also increased from about 0.2% per year to the present rate of about 0.4% per year,which growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years. However, there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth’s oceans expel more CO2 as a result.

MYTH 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.

FACT: Greenhouse gases form about 3 % of the atmosphere by volume. They consist of varying amounts, (about 97%) of water vapour and clouds, with the remainder being gases like CO2, CH4, Ozone and N2O, of which carbon dioxide is the largest amount. Hence, CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. While the minor gases are more effective as “greenhouse agents” than water vapour and clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer volume and – in the end – are thought to be responsible for 60% of the “Greenhouse effect”.

Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.

MYTH 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.

FACT: The computer models assume that CO2 is the primary climate driver, and that the Sun has an insignificant effect on climate. You cannot use the output of a model to verify or prove its initial assumption - that is circular reasoning and is illogical. Computer models can be made to roughly match the 20th century temperature rise by adjusting many input parameters and using strong positive feedbacks. They do not “prove” anything. Also, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of properly including the effects of the sun, cosmic rays and the clouds. The sun is a major cause of temperature variation on the earth surface as its received radiation changes all the time, This happens largely in cyclical fashion. The number and the lengths in time of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which are CO2. Solar radiation interferes with the cosmic ray flux, thus influencing the amount ionized nuclei which control cloud cover.

MYTH 6: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.

FACT: In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are:
1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”

To the present day there is still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global warming.

MYTH 7: CO2 is a pollutant.

FACT: This is absolutely not true. Nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere. We could not live in 100% nitrogen either. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is. CO2 is essential to life on earth. It is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake as a result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many trees and other plants to grow more vigorously. Unfortunately, the Canadian Government has included CO2 with a number of truly toxic and noxious substances listed by the Environmental Protection Act, only as their means to politically control it.

MYTH 8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.

FACT: There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims on a global scale. Regional variations may occur. Growing insurance and infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal areas, are sometimes claimed to be the result of increasing frequency and severity of storms, whereas in reality they are a function of increasing population density, escalating development value, and ever more media reporting.

MYTH 9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.

FACT: Glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for hundreds of years. Recent glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s normal. Besides, glacier’s health is dependent as much on precipitation as on temperature.

MYTH 10: The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.

FACT: The earth is variable. The western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, due to unrelated cyclic events in the Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer, while the main Antarctic continent is actually cooling. Ice thicknesses are increasing both on Greenland and in Antarctica.

Sea level monitoring in the Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans (Maldives) has shown no sign of any sea level rise.

There is a little covered report out today that shows that Sunspots, for the first time in 100 years, have failed to materialize this past month. The real story is, the lack of sunspots can be directly related to ‘Climate Change’ here on earth.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts, who runs a climate data auditing site, says the sunspot numbers are another indication the “sun’s dynamo” is idling. According to Watts, the effect of sunspots on TSI (total solar irradiance) is negligible, but the reduction in the solar magnetosphere affects cloud formation here on Earth, which in turn modulates climate.

This theory was originally proposed by physicist Henrik Svensmark, who has published a number of scientific papers on the subject. Last year Svensmark’s “SKY” experiment claimed to have proven that galactic cosmic rays — which the sun’s magnetic field partially shields the Earth from — increase the formation of molecular clusters that promote cloud growth. Svensmark, who recently published a book on the theory, says the relationship is a larger factor in climate change than greenhouse gases.

The one thing I know for sure, all those Left-Wing, no good socialists like Gore and Hansen have this country over a barrel with this issue and the sooner they learn their lesson, the better for all of us.

A day after two men attacked a military police unit in the country’s far northwest, killing 16 and wounding 16 others, the Chinese authorities sought to portray the ambush as an act of terrorism and said the men were members of an outlawed organization they contend has links to Al Qaeda.

The terrorists are Muslims belonging to China’s ethnic Uighur minority. Two men were arrested. The authorities said the two arrested men had spent a month planning the attack as part of an effort by homegrown Islamic terrorists to disrupt the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing.

The real disturbing thing about this report is the knee-jerk response a so-called American expert was reported as saying after the attacks.

“Dru C. Gladney, a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California, who is an expert in China’s Muslim population, said the attack did not resemble the kind of well-organized terrorist plot that characterizes other groups in South Asia. He said that if the group had been interested in disrupting the Olympics, it would have been better served by targeting a larger city or even an Olympics venue. “There is no clear connection to the Olympics,” he said.

Methinks Dr. Gladney just gave the terrorists a great idea, lets hope I’m wrong.

You better watch out, Comcast and Time Warner have announced they plan to charge you big bucks to use the Internet. These no good, money grubbing cable TV shysters who operate in a largely uncompetitive market, offer tiered ‘pay for everything’ TV plans that force consumers to pay for a bunch of crap stations that no one watches. As an afterthought, the cable companies had piggybacked phone and internet services onto your cable, using the same ‘one price fits all’ scheme to get millions of people off Telco based services like DSL and onto their networks. Now that they have baited millions of unsuspecting subscribers, they intend to switch and to begin charging customers for the amount of data they use. And the charges are going to be big.

Cable Companies, who become internet service provider’s simply because at the time they could bring a faster service to the users than DSL could, have argued that all of the Internet Based entertainment services like HULU, ROKU, SKYPE, XBox 360, PS3, and NETFLIX use much too much bandwidth and there is not enough to go around. They feel that if we continue to watch these programs on our computers, the Internet is going to run out. So, to keep all the Bandwidth Hogs from using up the Internet, they are going to charge by the Byte. The truth is, the Exaflood just isn’t happening.

In reality, Pay per Byte is just another trick they are using to keep you, the customer, from downloading content in direct competition to them, the cable companies. The scare tactic, the potential for a $200 bill from Comcast, will make many families vow never to download a movie, watch a TV show, or play an online game again for fear of going broke. The Cable Companies are hoping and praying they can kill the fledgling ‘on demand’ business by making it too expensive for the average family.

And to make matters even more obtuse, there is no way you will have any idea how much you consume since reliable bandwidth meters just don’t work. It looks that for now, your choices are limited. But there’s fiber at the end of the tunnel. 

Verizon, a hard core telco with ‘fiber to the house’ or FTTH, is in fact building a brand new network. In direct competition with the Cable Companies, Verizon has no plans on charging ‘by the byte’. The service, reliability, and cost of fiber optics when deployed make cable look like the Dial-Up of old. 

Telecommunication is Verizon’s core business and they are willing to give unlimited data to all users regardless of ‘how much’ they need. For $100 a month, you can even run a server from your home. It doesn’t sound like Verizon is going to ‘run out’ of Internet like the Cable Companies anytime soon, and although they are now providing TV as well as Internet, they have every intention of welcoming power users with reasonable charges that don’t scare the average Family of Four away from the Internet. Lets just hope they hurry up.

Take-Two Interactive Software, who had been asked by a Federal Court to show why it is not in compliance with a subpoena demand by regulators involved in the EA deal, have told the Feds to ‘forgetaboutit’. Saying rather loudly that that the court’s request is unnecessarily broad and would entail unacceptable additional expense, the company has decided to ignore this latest request. Take Two, who is being run by a group of meth addicted Bioshock groupies, have hired the conservative law firm of Goldberg, Ligner & Shyster as council. Senior Partner Tom Goldberg , who until today was thought to be assassinated by Niko, was refreshed and is included in the newest Online update. Take Two, who have never heard of the Southern District of New York or White Plains, figures if they ignores the Feds long enough, McCain will call off the witch hunt when he gets elected, thanks to Tom.

Meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto remains the No. 1 video game on earth, selling 871,300 units in May, over $500 Million in less than 2 months.