HometownSource Blogs

We’ve seen some interesting scapegoats for the San Diego fires, like Iraq and global warming, but Randi Rhodes recently took the cake on Air America:

You know, nobody is saying Blackwater set the fires, that is nobody that doesn’t want their house burned down.

And Bush is “fanning the flames.” With such reasonable, reality-based opinion, it’s shocking that Air America is losing affiliates.

In his continuing effort to be all things to all people, Governor Pawlenty has announced he and Will Steger will trek to the Arctic to view “climate change” with his own eyes.

I guess going to the Arctic makes more sense than going than Antarctica or Greenland.

For the second year in a row, those blasted hurricanes refuse to cooperate with global climate warming change doomsday scenarios:

Unless a dramatic and perhaps historical flurry of activity occurs in the next 9 weeks, 2007 will rank as a historically inactive TC year for the Northern Hemisphere as a whole. During the past 30 years, only 1977, 1981, and 1983 have had less activity to date (January-TODAY, Accumulated Cyclone Energy).

And, while hurricane season will linger for another month or two, something else appears quite deceased:

The Kyoto Protocol is dead, even if its advocates haven’t realized it yet.

May it rest in peace.

Astronomers around the world are tossing exclamation points right and left these past couple days, thanks to a sudden phenomenon out in space. These are folks who spend countless hours staring into the cosmos and recording data in extreme minutia, so when they start dispensing demonstrative punctuation, it makes sense to take notice.

It all has to do with Comet 17P Holmes, normally just a dim light for big telescopes, that surprisingly turned into a very bright light, visible even to the naked eye, around mid-week.

So now I’ll have to dig out my trusty old star dial, queue up Perseus and get me a look see at all this hubbub. That’ll have to do, because there’s just never a Celestron NexStar 4SE around when you need one. [ via kottke ]

Senator Barbara Boxer and Lt. Gov. John Garamendi are the latest to use the tragedy of wildfires to take political potshots:

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said, “Right now we are down 50 percent in terms of our National Guard equipment because they’re all in Iraq. The equipment — half of the equipment, so we really will need help.” California Lieutenant Gov. John Garamendi (D) said on Harball yesterday, “What we really need are those firefighters, we need the equipment, we need, frankly, we need those troops back from Iraq.”

It’s the Amazing Senator Boxer! Just pull the string and she’ll blame it on Iraq! What is it? It doesn’t matter!

According to the chief of the California National Guard, Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, there are currently 17,000 National Guard troops in state, while only 3,000 are in the Middle East. Read more »

He may not know the meaning of the word “united,” but Harry Reid knows global climate warming change when he sees it:

“One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Tuesday, stressing the need to pass the Democrats’ comprehensive energy package.

Reid’s not one to let a tragedy pass without an attempt to squeak out political gain. One has to wonder if global warming was a factor in fires dating back to the early 1900s (pdf): Read more »

Brian Lambert’s To The Slaughter, over at Rake, matches up the impending launch of MinnPost.com and The Daily Mole.  I think he describes the challenges of both startups quite well. While they don’t necessarily compete against each other, both will be judged on an ability to pull an audience from the operations from which they descend: Joel Kramer, with substantial investment and a stable of well-known journalists, must show that MinnPost.com can go places StarTribune.com cannot or will not go. Steve Perry’s site launches with far less fanfare and funding, and may have a lower bar to clear. But the Daily Mole will likely need to provide content that emerges over CityPages.com, to be judged successful.

MinnPost.com opens to the public on November 8. The Daily Mole is in beta and figures to open its doors soon as well.  Both sites will apparently run under a platform provided by Clockwork, although the beta version of Mole has been utilizing Wordpress.

Daniel Botkin slips the veil on the global warming hysteria and exaggeration that has come to define the issue. He addresses statistics, crude computer models, and responds to the idea that fear is the only way to make people pay attention, also known as the raising awareness! exception. Oh, and he claims not to be one of those dastardly pollution-loving denialist’s either:

…I am a biologist and ecologist who has worked on global warming, and been concerned about its effects, since 1968. I’ve developed the computer model of forest growth that has been used widely to forecast possible effects of global warming on life — I’ve used the model for that purpose myself, and to forecast likely effects on specific endangered species.

I’m not a naysayer. I’m a scientist who believes in the scientific method and in what facts tell us.

Facts in a global warming debate? Isn’t that refreshing.

Developers are Crabgrass blogger Eric Zaetsch, who coincidentally has been dropping tidbits of knowledge all over this blog today, has been keeping up with the Ramsey Town Center story for some time. His most recent post noted the coverage by the PiPress and ECM on the consent order handed down on Community National Bank and is worth a read. I note it here due to this paragraph:

The ECM article, by Patrick Tepoorten with assistance from Tammy Sakry, is the more comprehensive report. David Orrick, who did the summer series on the Ramsey Town Center, wrote for Pioneer Press.

Sakry deserves a lot of credit for her depth of knowledge on the larger issue of the Ramsey Town Center debacle. She had been providing me regular updates and background on the story for months and in fact was the one who alerted me to the fact that the OCC had released the order. Interest in North Branch, for obvious reasons, has been limited to CNB’s role in the story. I also have great admiration for what the PiPRess did with the issue, especially over the summer. It was high quality reporting.

On a personal note, it’s always nice to read that someone thinks you did a quality job on a story, especially one of those critical blogger types, and especially on a story as complex as this. Thanks to Eric for the acknowledgment.

European settlers in America have married drinking and smoking for over 300 years I would suspect.

No one cares.

But inject minority status into the issue, and suddenly smoking and drinking becomes a “centuries-old tradition” the ban is “killing.”

JB lets City Pages have it, but good.

I guess it’s the epitome of American culture to pretend we don’t have one.

Wow. This could be very good. The idea alone seems a proper homage to its subject.

What could be so compelling that Tim Blair said of it, “That is the most beautiful thing I’ve read in years?”

Hundreds of loggers and angry residents have surrounded eight Greenpeace members who tried to leave an Amazon town with a scorched tree trunk for an exhibit on global warming, the environmental group said Wednesday.

The activists are holed up in the makeshift headquarters of the federal environmental agency in the town of Castelo dos Sonhos, Greenpeace campaigner Andre Muggiati said. They are being protected by police and army soldiers.

Sometimes, raising awareness! can be a dangerous business. Ironically enough, removing lumber from the area is tightly controlled and doing so without permission is illegal; an anti-deforestation law that Greenpeace - which had federal approval to remove the tree - was no doubt integral in getting passed.

After some unsuccessful Googling I am at least 90 percent sure that this post qualifies as the very first Upsider world exclusive.

One of the things that I like about President Bush is his sincerity with the people who make sacrifices for the greater good. He doesn’t turn meetings with soldiers or their families into political opportunities.

This morning I was covering the story of three Lakes Region EMS employees who received resolutions of appreciation from the state for their outstanding work in the wake of the bridge collapse, which you can read about here. Read more »

Once can be explained; anomalies occur after all. But after noting that I agree wholeheartedly with a Don Heinzman editorial twice, and in a row mind you, I can arrive at only one possible conclusion:

I am simply not working hard enough at being adversarial.

I apologize wholeheartedly to Upsider faithful, and pledge to do better in the future. In the meantime, take this week’s column as a token of my renewed pluck.

UPDATE: Thankfully, the horrible provisions that led to the circumstance discussed below have been pulled, thanks to the Blue Dog Democrats. The Washington Times explains why we should all be greatly relieved.

****

The new FISA rules were unnecessary in the first place since FISA approval was not needed to monitor international calls. Now, the rules call for FISA approval to monitor a cell phone call between two parties in a country in which we are at war. What was simply silly got deadly serious this spring, when hysteria over wiretapping caused something that should never happen:

In the early hours of May 12, seven U.S. soldiers - including Spc. Jimenez - were on lookout near a patrol base in the al Qaeda-controlled area of Iraq called the “Triangle of Death.”

Sometime before dawn, heavily armed al Qaeda gunmen quietly cut through the tangles of concertina wire surrounding the outpost of two Humvees and made a massive and coordinated surprise attack.

Four of the soldiers were killed on the spot and three others were taken hostage. Read more »