The Last Ephor

This one at Miriam's Ideas is flat out home run . Go read it.

Damn You Global Warming

Read the sunspots the hold the answer. At least that's what the article contends. Could it be that the scaremongers of the 70's were right when they were scaremongering about a new ice age. Frankly, I've always believed that global cooling was more dangerous than global warming. Global warming gives us more arable land. Global cooling does not. The great irony of global cooling would be that in extremis, population centers would move to many of what are now third world nations.

Japanese pitcher gettin' tricky . So awesome.

Climate Books Cooked? asks American Digest. The one example cited is certainly a damning case even if it's only one example. I've always failed to understand why the weather babe always tells me what the wather was at the airport. If there's one place that's going to give a skewed temperature reading, it's the airport. Consider also, the temperature difference between large cities and the more suburban or even rural areas. If you take the mean temperature for a region based on temperature readings in the city, you're going to get significantly different results than you wold if you took them on a farm 20 miles outside the city. Additionally, as Dennis Miller noted "Excuse me if I don't trust temperature readings from 150 years ago."

Fruit-picking robots closer to reality making an end run around the illegal labor market in California. Add to that improvements in the robot mowers and the trend continues. In all seriousness, automation of cheap labor has been the norm for centuries and will only continue apace. Update: Reader Alan Coffey asks: "Did they imply that the fruit picking robots would actually have an impact on the illegal situation anytime soon? The other major areas of illegal employment are janatorial, agriculture (livestock), landscaping and construction. See any automation posibilities there?" No there was no implication that the robots would have any sort of impact on illegal labor markets. Given that they won't be ready for deployment for another 10 years or so, we can similarly assume the cost will be (initially) high which narrows the market further. However, like everything else the cost will eventually come down and be available on a mass scale. Any effect on labor markets

Who sang “(What if God Was) One of Us”? asks Kevin Smith. It's an interesting exchange that illustrates the simultaneous laziness of journalists with their tenacity to cling to their story when it's clearly demonstrably wrong. It's evident that the writer did not do even the slightest research for the article in question. Even if Alanis did do a version of the song, that would be a cover, not the original. Sort of like referring to Crazy Train as a Pat Boone song rather than Ozzy Osbourne. ( Yes, Pat did cover the song .) Laziness + stubbornness = journalism

Dick Cheney is telling the National Archives that his office is not part of the Executive Branch. I'm curious to know which branch he believes his Office belongs to. This is compounded by the absolutely stunning news that the DOJ has done exactly nothing despite a letter from Senator John Waters Henry Waxman. h/t: Delaware Liberal

Girl enraged after getting Lexus from parents These people are seriously derelict in their jobs as parents. I would never be in their position as I'd never give my kid a Lexus. Not only can I not afford to do so but giving a 15 year old kid a car like that irresponsible. However, if I were magically inserted into the role of Dad as this scene was unraveling, she'd get exactly what she asks for at the end of the clip. Nada. No car, no party, nothing. She'd also be off to Outward Bound or something. Working for Habitat for Humanity or JVC for the next year might be in order.

I get a: Delaware Liberal gets a Paul Smith Jr. garners a Colossus of Rhodey gets a Interesting. Shame on you Paul! Clean up your act!

Morgan Freeman to star as Mandela . Sounds like perfect casting to me. What do I know, I'd listen to that guy read the phone book. Shatner pissed that he's not getting a cameo in Star Trek XI . Didn't they kill Kirk off a few movies ago? They'd have to write three checks, one for him, one for his ego and one for that dreadful hairpiece.

Who will they blame? PDD grew out of the Delaware for Howard Dean Meetup. Once Howard Dean was defeated by Karl Rove, (Strange. I had no idea Karl Rove was ran as a Democrat in 2004.) On the left, it's currently fashionable to blame all things that go wrong on either George Bush or Karl Rove. The former gets blamed for the error in judgment and mistakes variety while the latter gets blamed for the "evil genius" variety. Reported increase in terrorist attacks? That's W. Democrat loses election or is polling poorly? That's Rove. By my math, both of these guys are going to be out of the game come January of 2009. Who will take their respective places. Reader(s) are invited to speculate