Giving Ninjas A Bad Name

The bro emailed me this story, and I felt I had to comment on behalf of all fair-minded ninjas: that's just not right.

PORT ORANGE, Fla. — A 'ninja' helped another 'ninjas' rob a man in his Port Orange driveway, police said.

David Cheezum told police three man dressed as ninjas held him down, covered his mouth and took his wallet, cell phone and cash.

The ninjas were wearing gloves and had guns, police said.

Two problems that I can see. 1) Using guns. That's just not the proper form. Tying the guy up and hanging him from a tree - correct. Pointing guns at him - not correct. 2) Getting caught. Ninjas are not supposed to get arrested by the police, much less "resisting arrest without violence." Now, if that particular ninja was using some illusion jutsu, and confused the police for some amount of time, okay, that's fine, but you still have to get away. Bad ninjas. What is this world coming to?

Ittza Mario In Halo

Nintendo is known for taking its most well-loved characters and putting them in fighting situations, like in the game Kingdom Hearts, where you can have Link from the Zelda series going up against Donkey Kong. But what if we took Mario and put him up against a Spartan in the Halo universe? What would that look like? I'm guessing, not very pretty...

"How's it going, mustache man?"

Logistics

How many motorcycle cops does it take to guide a huge float down to the decoration pavilions?

I counted eight, all lined up on the side of the road, waiting to block traffic for the next huge float to come down Rosemont.

Poop Can Save Lives

2 girls 1 cup not involved. Seriously, this medical procedure was merely a stomach bacteria transplant, after a superbug had killed almost all the other symbiotic microbes in the elderly patient's gut. Also, if you don't know what "2 girls 1 cup" is, you are very lucky.

Saint Louis Has Come to Pasadena

During my ride around the Rose Bowl today, I saw two signs that Saint Louis, Missouri has already landed in Southern California for the Rose Parade. First, was the city's float, right hnyah:

No dead flowers yet.

But the cool thing to see was the second sign: the Budweiser Clydesdale Team. I just saw the horses in their trailer, and I don't know which float they were going to pull, but they seemed pretty calm, especially with little kids and families beginning to gather around their feet.

Their driver said that anyone was welcome to ride the float during their practice. Cool.

T-Mobile Drops Sponsorship

Huge news: Deutsche Telekom AG has dropped its sponsorship of the T-Mobile cycling team. As I wrote earlier when Adidas dropped its sponsorship of T-Mobile, these are dark times for international cycling because the doping scandals offer too much of a liability for any sponsor. Not only would they lose air time from teams having to abandon races if someone gets caught, but they get tainted by implicitly condoning the cheating. As has been written elsewhere, all the governing bodies attacking doping in cycling would never work, since the sponsorship money would still be the big incentive to dope. Now, all the dirty doctors and soigneurs will have to give up their practices as the big money dries up. The governing bodies have only created witch hunts, not caring about their own procedures, and protecting themselves from mistakes, as all bloated bureaucracies end up doing.

This was definitely the case with Iban Mayo, whose B sample tests have come up negative, but the ADA's are lab-shopping to prove a positive. And we saw the mental gymnastics required by the two arbitrators to vote Floyd Landis guilty of doping, when they threw out the results of the first test, but accepted the results of the second test, which would not have been run without a positive in the first case, and had to ignore all the problems with the second test as well.

No, sponsors dropping out is the only way to clean up doping in cycling, and I still have to applaud Tailwind Sports for disbanding when they saw the in-fighting between the governing bodies, the draconian measures the bureaucracies had set up making it almost impossible for athletes to train and ride, and the knee-jerk reactions by race organizers to penalize entire teams (and sponsors) for one person's mistakes.

TV Advertising 2.0 Almost There

As digital video recorders, such as TiVo devices, grow more prevalent, the old model of television commercial breaks becomes less relevant. Which is why, NBC partnering with TiVo to display interactive options during commercials, much like DirecTV used to, when it still used TiVo recorders, during pay-per-view programming commercials, is a major story for falling TV ad revenues. The problem is that people don't watch commercials on recorded programs, so the interactive commercial during live broadcasts is only a half-measure at best. I think the next couple of steps for the next generation of TV commercials is the "sponsored by" banner with the interactive menu option, and, unfortunately, mixing ads in with the menu displays. We tolerate the ads on our internet portals and free email services, so ads on DVR menus is the next logical step.

THAT Day Is Soon Upon Us

And what, praytell, is THAT day? The signs are appearing: RV's parked on seemingly random streets, late-year asphalt patching, and this.

Really, even if it's only a few laps around the bowl, wear a helmet.

Yes! It's the dreaded Rose Parade temporary pavilion. Aargh! The big question is, will we see Illinois or Michigan fans?

Eyewitness Accounts Not That Reliable

A new psychological study shows how altering the pictures of events can change our memories of them. This is especially disturbing considering how most people's memories of events are shaped by digital media. But there's a deeper point here too, that personal memories and perceptions are not as solid or reliable as we normally consider them to be. Conspiracy theories run rampant because of the disparate "eyewitness accounts" of historical disasters, and the criminal justice system has always placed a qualifying scale on witnesses' testimony, based on how unshakeable their perceptions are. Some people just make bad witnesses, to crime or history, and we should make note of that.

Possible New Aids Vector - Older Women

Sex tourism in Kenya, usually the province of white men preying on children, is seeing a new wrinkle, as older women are picking up gigolos during "sex vacations." As the Reuters story relates, the sex trade already is a problem with child abuse, and the spread of venereal diseases. Now, the health officials will have to pay attention to the older women coming back to their respective countries, especially after details come to light that they are eschewing condom use. There are also the racist and paternalistic undertones to this practice that have been noticed by academics:

"This is what is sold to tourists by tourism companies -- a kind of return to a colonial past, where white women are served, serviced, and pampered by black minions," said Nottinghan University's [Julia] Davidson.

Definitely an unsavory trend, but not illegal, which just makes it something else for officials, health and police, to monitor.

Hey! Don't Jinx Us!

After what happened to Malibu this weekend, any valley city could be next.

Incidently, this is what a hillside picture of Pasadena looks like today.

Helmety Breakaway

One thing I hate about cycling coverage in America, is that they don't treat the three Grand Tours equally with the daily coverage. The Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España both have insanely long television broadcasts like they do for the Tour de France, and the respective countries go crazy over them too, but in America, we're left with a one or two hour recap on the weekend of the preceding week, if that. Sadly, the best Vuelta coverage I saw this year was in an anime from three years ago. Here's a clip from the movie, about a local boy racing through his hometown village, and even though the Vuelta is a big deal for the small villages it passes through, this village is celebrating a more important occasion, the cyclist's brother's marriage. Just not his day. Watch as he leads out a breakaway, and how well the anime captures the mood of the peleton. I could tell from the fake jerseys that this story was set before 2001, because we see the fictionalized name brands of D-Telekom, Mapei, Kelmei, and Festina, all teams which no longer exist. Deutsche Telekom became T-Mobile, and the Festina team was disbanded in 2001 after the huge doping scandal at the 1998 Tour de France. Look for a version of Lampre, Once, Credit Agricole, Ibanesto, and Saeco in the peleton as well. Also, you see that not every rider is wearing a helmet, which wasn't required except for climbing routes, until about 2 years ago. Yoshi! Let's get to the video.

Babies Like Good Guys

Hmm. Looks like morality, as suggested by the world's deep spritual traditions, may be inherent.

In the first evidence of its kind to date, Yale researchers find that infants prefer individuals who help others to those who either do nothing, or interfere with others’ goals, it is reported today in Nature.

“This supports the view that our ability to evaluate people is a biological adaptation—universal and unlearned,” said the authors of the study.

Let's not tell the deconstructionists and post-modernists, so that they can live in their arbitrary thought environments just a little bit longer. Whoops, the AP asked for a dissenting opinion, and this dude does not like the Yale study's conclusions at all. Of course, why should I believe some guy teaching at a school in Boca Raton over one of the nation's most prestigious universities? Unless, of course, he just happens to be one of the AP's quote machines. So helpful, those quote machines, always ready to support the prevailing narrative.

Finds From The Grind

There were a lot of signs around this place today, warning us that there would be heavy traffic on Saturday. I wonder why...

Quick Reaction to IPCC's SPM

The Nobel Peace Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its Statement for Policy Makers, based on their 4th Assessment Report, late Friday night, making sure the news cycle wouldn't notice some of the items that seem contradictory to the AGW activism narrative.

First, we've injected so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, that even if we stop all industrial and commercial sources right now, as in zero emissions, the earth will keep warming. Second, with this current warming trend, the sea level will rise up to a maximum of 55 inches over the next thousand years. Not one hundred years, but one thousand years. This is assuming we will follow their estimate for increasing carbon dioxide emissions over the next 50 years. Third, they recommend emphasis on the mitigation plans for their predicted climate change: building sea walls, developing drought-resistant crops, and paving dirt roads in all the poorest nations.

Can we now stop with all the carbon-offset scams and carbon-credit trading? But those two schemes were a way for the poor nations to trade their unused carbon-banks (since they have no developed industries anyway), to con the rich countries out of their money to pay, supposedly, for the mitigation projects. Nevermind that those sea-wall projects were usually tied to huge seaside resort proposals. Plus, the anti-GM crop crowd won't like the IPCC's change in tactics either. And paving dirt roads will encourage vehicle use and spur industrial growth, not just keep roads from being washed away in the predicted super-floods, so the emergency response organizations can reach flattened villages. So, will we stop hearing about reducing carbon emissions? I won't be holding my carbon dioxide producing breath.

It's That Day Again...

Happy Birthday, Dudes!

Update: Oh yes, I CAN be this dorky.

"Omedetou" (お目出度う) means "Congratulations."

Helmety Rabbit Hole

I recently came across something that can be classified in the machinima world as "an oldie but a goodie." Before there was Red vs. Blue, heck, before people even discovered how to drop the oddball skull so you could run around without a gun, there was the Halo version of The Matrix. Well, at least the first five minutes of it. How cool would that be, to revisit this idea, with the Halo 3 engine, and all the great video editing software that's out there now? Enjoy!

"No, lieutenant, your men are already dead."

Comcast Class Action Suit Over Filesharing

After the AP proved that Comcast was actively delaying peer to peer file sharing, like using software clients such as BitTorrent, a group of consumers and legal experts asked the FCC to fine the broadband provider almost $200,000 for each subscriber affected. Now we have a class action suit filed today in San Francisco. The news just keeps getting worse for cable ISP's, after it was earlier shown that Comcast has cut off paying customers for being bandwidth hogs, and Cox has sent warning letters to these subscribers. And with regulator seeking to end cable's monopolostic practices in apartment buildings and condos, along with the customer service nightmare stories, this is just more bad news for the industry.

Update: More piling on Comcast - Vuze, an online video content provider, which distributes its media using bittorrent technology, has filed its own complaint with the FCC. The Vuze bittorrent client was formerly known as Azureus, which is a major competitor with BitTorrent and μTorrent. Presumably, BitTorrent will soon seek action or comment from the FCC as well.

"Moral Superiority" Leads To Rationalizing Bad Behavior

I think almost all of the UN's peacekeeping operations in Africa seem to prove the gist of this story. Not to mention any social, economic, or environmental movement which couches their motivations in "moral" terms. No surprises here.

Computers Make Researchers Lazy

When computers were huge and expensive, stupid research ideas could be dismissed out of hand, not for being stupid, but for being too expensive and time intensive. Nowadays, statistical anomalies are being trotted out as "proof" that something is going on. Nevermind that correlation looks like causation only on first glance. Almost all "good health by doing X" stories follow this pattern, especially concerning food and drink we like so much. Now we have a story that says there's a correlation between the initial of your first name and success. Baseball players with "K" in their names struck out more, and people with "C" or "D" in their names got those grades more often, according to the numbers crunched. The actual experiment to pay attention to, was the anagram test the researchers used, which linked subjects' initials to arbitrary negative outcomes. In a lab setting, the test subjects might easily make the connection between the experimental procedures, and something connected to their identity. But in real world situations, where performance markers, like in baseball or grades, are established way before a person comes in contact with them, it's harder to establish a causative link. And what about other cultures and languages whose alphabets and numbering systems have different relationships to names? A cross-linguistic study needed to be done to make this study more relevent, otherwise it just seems to be a game of weird database queries. Now, if your parents had actually named you Dummy McLoserpants, there might be some correlation between self-worth and performance.

Carbon Dioxide Removal Outpaced By Emissions

A new report that tries to place a real number on CO2 cycle in North America, estimates that carbon sinks, such as forests, and other sources (though what those others are, the AP neglects to add), only absorb about a third of total emissions. Of course, that's a downer, but more bad news needs to be added to that: the new forests from regrowth suck in carbon dioxide faster than old growth, so even the current absorption rate will decline. You know what that means? We're not doing enough of logging! We gotta cut down those big trees and plant little ones to... SAVE THE PLANET! No, no, what am I saying? Obviously we have to reduce our economic output by two-thirds and trigger global poverty. Geez, what was I thinking?

Serbia Wants Chinese Cars

I guess that after being used to small, cheap, unsafe cars like the Yugo, it only makes sense for Serbians to ask for what they're used to. Recall that China's entry into the Russian market garnered only a 1.7 out of 16 according to the European safety standards. AvtoRevu, a Russian car magazine which was present at the testing, reported that, "the test dummy became so entwined with the wreckage of the car that it had to be removed piece by piece." This is not a good move for Serbian consumers.

Sponsorship Fallout Following Doping Scandals

After Tailwind Sports disbanded, the team that was sponsored by US Postal Service and Discovery Channel, which won an unprecedented 8 Tours de France, no one could believe their stated reasons that sponsoring an international cycling team was a bad investment, and they didn't want to cheat a company out of a dozen million dollars. As usual, Tailwind was way ahead of the game, as we now have news that Adidas is pulling its sponsorship of T-Mobile. Adidas cites all the doping scandals rocking the German team, and no longer wants to be associated with the negative press coverage. A question for the Tailwind execs: did you pull the plug before doping scandals rocked your own team? Not one rider during the American team's successful run through Europe has ever been convicted of doping while on the team. Several have been convicted or confessed to doping while riding for their new team, after they left Tailwind, such as Roberto Heras, Tyle Hamilton, and Floyd Landis, who is still appealing his conviction. Ivan Basso is a special case, where he confessed that he attempted to dope while he was on CSC, but before he joined Discovery Channel.

So, was it getting harder for Tailwind Sports to get around the doping controls, or did they really feel the anti-doping climate was making even the insinuation of doping difficult for a team to race? The insinuations of doping have definitely shelved Jan Ullrich's career, and he has never tested positive for a performance enhancing drug. He had to sit out for a few months because of ecstasy, but that had nothing to do with gaining an unfair advantage over the peloton. My feeling is that even if Tailwind instituted a much more intrusive doping control protocol, much like Slipstream does, an individual rider can still find a way to circumvent those controls, and end up hurting the entire team when he's caught during one of the big road races. That certainly happened with Cofodis and Astana, when one guy got caught cheating, and the entire team had to abandon the Tour de France. The liability is just too high, and I guess that opinion is bearing out with an action like Adidas abandoning T-Mobile.

A Musical Whose Time Has Come

Will there be a fat human riding a flying photocopier?

With the writers' strike, anything's possible...

Maturity In The Blogosphere

What's the common response to being called immature online? Oh, something on the order of this:

I was reminded of the vitriol that can occur between commenters when I saw some of the responses to who won or lost in the 2007 Weblog Awards. Reeaaargh! Retract the claws, please. It also reminds me of the little oasis of an online community where I help out on admin duties. Grown-ups who prefer to be silly, but still are polite and respectful when opinions differ. MOAR plsthnx.

Dogfight!

I've been slowly going through the Macross episodes in chronological order. Not chronological broadcast order, but the timeline according to the story. Mind you, there have been about 12 different incarnations of Macross (or Robotech) over the last 25 years, and unfortunately, the last produced set of episodes (2003-2004) are the ones happening right before the first one in 1982. Why is that unfortunate? Think of what cartoons were like 25 years ago, and consider animation, after all the technological innovations. It's very much like watching Star Wars in chronological order. Jumping from Episode III to the production values of 1977 is jarring, as was mine in Macross episodes. All I can say is, I'm glad was only 9 or 10 when I watched Robotech on television. Back then I didn't mind the stilted dialog, odd pacing, poor plot choices. Man, I remember Captain Grover (not Global as in the poor translations) as doing his best even though he was beset by almost impossible circumstances. Seeing him now, he acts like an overpromoted suit. Oh well, I'm sure I would find the Smurfs just as annoying. Somehow, The Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain have aged very well. Whatever. Look at this cool fight scene as Roy Fokker goes up against his old flight instructor!

Yellowstone Is Going To Blow!

A lot of the environmental movement's lunacy comes from the motivation for preservation. The Earth is pretty, and we must keep things exactly as they are! If some landscape is changing, and the Earth becomes unpretty, either we're at fault, or we need to do something, anything, to stop it! Well, the Earth has always been changing, and it's the same arrogance we have to manipulate the environment to make huge cities, that makes us want to manipulate the environment to change it back. Otherwise, why would we ever seriously consider endeavors which bury carbon dioxide under the sea, or spur huge algae blooms with pipes or iron dumping to gobble up that weak greenhouse gas.

It's also this arrogance that fueled the huge fires in Yellowstone in 1988. Bad fire management policies left way too much fuel to burn, instead of letting natural fires from lightning strikes run their course. Now, we have evidence that the ancient supervolcano underneath Yellowstone, which is the geothermal source of all the pretty geysers, is moving the crust upward at about three inches a year. There's no danger of eruption, yet, but when people are going crazy about the sea level going up three inches in a century, I can only wonder what the response would be. Of course, we aren't responsible for the environmental change, but what do you think will happen if the land rise continues, and alters all the pretty landscape? Will there be all this nonsensical talk of diverting the magma with huge pipes? The environmentalists' history of histrionics don't rule it out.

And will there be any histrionics about another land rise? The glacier on Mont Blanc, which has featured prominently as one of the disappearing glaciers due to evil man and his bad breath, has been growing since 2003, and climate weirdos are trying to pin the growth on global warming. The claim is that the icepack is growing because of the higher temperatures causing more winds to keep the icepack in place. So is this good news, bad news, or just head scratching? As a scientifically inquisitive kind of a guy, I always vote for head scratching, because that means new science, which means weak theories get shoved off those glacier growing peaks. Perhaps global models do poor jobs at reconstructing local climate changes, not due to lack of specific variables, but because local climate feedbacks are actually forcings, not the other way around.

Good News on Malware Front

The Russian Business Network, deemed responsible for hosting child porn and being the origin of several malicious software exploits, has suddenly gone offline. Even though this is probably a temporary situation, the internet is at least a little safer. Decentralizing malware sources makes fighting them harder, but it also makes propagation harder for the criminals. Hopefully more foreign governments can change their policies and laws to make it less profitable for their ISP's do business with malware developers.

Smarty Pants Readers

Apparently, my prose requires post-graduate reading levels.

via Dr. Helen

Ironic Prince Lawsuit

Lawyers for Prince's record label have served copyright notices to three of his fansites to take down Prince-related images. For someone who just released his latest album for free as a newspaper insert, this seems a little odd. A company working for the lawyers in tracking down the copyrighted images on the web makes it clear they are not working for Prince, but the public relations damage is already done. Fans believe Prince is suing them for even tattooing his androgynous symbol, and posting pictures of the tattoos on the websites' forums. Even if it's only the record label protecting its intellectual property, which already looks bad for going after what amounts to free advertising of its product, The Artist (heh) has been painted with the same ugly brush. The only positive interpretation I can think of for the cease and desist letters, is that one or two images or logos were used in some inappropriate manner, but the letters were drafted in overbroad language. Prince has not commented on this matter in print, so I don't know what he's thinking about all this.

Do Not Want

I can has cheezburger?

No, you can't.

Lawyer Tim Houston apparently has seen the error of his ways. Houston filed a lawsuit on July 18 in Monongalia County (Morgantown — home of WVU) seeking $10 million from McDonald’s on behalf of Jeromy Jackson, who said he had a severe allergic reaction after biting into a Quarter Pounder with cheese.

Jackson contended that he asked several times about his food to make sure there was no cheese on his sandwiches.

Apparently, Jackson never thought to lift the bun before eating and look inside to see if a possibly fatal dose of cheese was on his burger.

On Oct. 24, Houston quietly filed a motion asking to be removed as counsel, stating he is leaving his law practice.

Maybe those ethics courses law students have to take are finally kicking in, especially after the negative news coverage of the judge who lost his 54 million dollar pants, and then lost his job because he, apparently, did not have the proper "temperament" to preside over cases.

Coffee Gets a Bad Rap

Coffee is included in a list of five foods that have bad reputations, but are actually good for us. Those foods are peanut butter, eggs, avocados, mushrooms, and coffee. The CNN-hosted story lists a few of the beneficial studies that have come out during the last year, mainly crediting coffee's antioxidants. I'm not convinced yet that antioxidants do all that much for us, but it sure keeps the homeopathic and herbal medicine markets happy.

Jamaica Stops Scrap Metal Exports

Metal thievery in Jamaica is so bad, the government has temporarily halted exports pending new legislation. In an economy on the decline, it will inevitably begin to cannibalize itself. Editorials have hailed the decision, citing anecdotes of even new cars being stolen only for the recyclable metal. That the metal in a new car is worth more than even a black or gray market in Jamaica can support, is a disturbing sign of Jamaican economic health.

Cute Germs

Apparently, there's a writer strike going on. Does this affect me at all? Not one bit. I'm one of those guys who gets the majority of his video and entertainment via the internet, where I can leech off another culture's media and laugh at the misfortune of little skater punks landing on their crotches. I can also watch educational shows, like this new anime called Moyashimon (Tales of Agriculture), which is all about sake brewing. Moyashimon literally means "bean sprout problem," but since soy beans and rice are pretty much synonymous with Japanese farming, that makes sense culturally. Of course, since the show is Japanese, you need to have cute critters and people with strange powers. So, why not someone who can see and communicate with microbes, and, oh, let's make those little yeasts and molds super cute. That's not too far of a stretch, is it?

Crazy Blog Money

Some milestones for this week around my little corner of the blogosphere: I hit 15,000 unique visits, and I made my first dollar in ad clicks. Thanks for nothing, you non-click-happy readers. A whole dollar off 10 clicks. Just 99 dollars to go before Google will even cut me a check. Pfft.

Update: Thanks to Sven's clickage, I now have a total of $3.18. I can afford a cup of coffee at a fine retail concern. Yippee... Seriously, though, dear readers, thank you for visiting.

If Only This Were True!

Spanish researchers have found beer to be better for you than water after exercise. I know for a fact that I get drunk quicker after a 50 mile ride, but that might have more to do with the empty stomach and increased heart rate.

Helmety Robotech

Back in the mid-1980's, an anime made it across the Pacific Ocean, and captured the imaginations of American kids already going crazy over Transformers and their lesser cousins, Gobots. In Japan, it was called Macross. We knew it as Robotech. It was Robotech that got us used to the idea of regular people piloting transformable machines, so that by the time Voltron came around, and then Power Rangers, kids, and toy stores, were ready for the glut.

At the heart of the story is that humanity came together to drive back an alien invasion. My memories of the original series are a little hazy, but many prequels and sequels have been made to fill in the Macross backstory. Before the invasion, the world was in civil war, with the UN fighting against an anti-UN alliance, and losing. Not surprisingly, the anti-UN alliance was able to develop military technology much faster, and were already employing a plane that could transform into a robot. Remarkably, this beginning was set in 2008, so it shows you what the end of the Cold War did to our military innovations. By 2009, the aliens had invaded, and Robotech was relying exclusively on the UN designed fighters. In the first prequel, we see the very first flight of Roy Fokker's Skull & Crossbones fighter. By the start of Robotech, in 1982, we meet Roy as a grizzled veteran, and his craft as a first generation vehicle, that had only survived due to its pilot's nigh magical flying gifts. Only someone who grew up watching the Robotech cartoons can appreciate the nostalgia, the awe, and the glee, at watching Roy Fokker's VF-0 take out its first kill. I didn't know this word 25 years ago, but it definitely applies to both machine and man: Badass.

Lancelot?

Or is that Lovalot? Seriously, I don't want to even consider this rumor, that Lance Armstrong was making out with Ashley Olsen, is true, but I will just add that Lance is used to riding bony frames for hours on end... ick.

Who Pays For The Carbon Offsets?

The AP reports that the California wildfires spewed as much carbon dioxide in a week as all of California's power stations and vehicles during the same timeframe. There's a couple of things I want to point out in this story besides the proper doubt the story brings up. Who pays for the carbon credits in an arson fire? And which agency's numbers do you accept?

I've always felt that man's contribution to greenhouse gases is dwarfed by all the natural sources, and last week's fires definitely highlight that fact. The AP writer also points to the doubted efficacy of carbon offsets and trading when natural disasters strike:

It [a new study] raises questions about how useful it is to plant trees to offset rising carbon dioxide emissions and soothe environmental consciences.

California basically doubled it's carbon dioxide output for one week. How about another scenario? There are all these Pacific islands clamoring for future damages payments set aside by the Kyoto Protocol because predicted rising sea levels might destroy them. These payments are predicated on a member nation's carbon output. What if one of these islands' volcano erupts, gushing forth more carbon than the entire country of Australia in a decade? Are they held responsible for setting back the carbon trading scheme? Likewise for our arson fires, do the convicted arsonists also have to pay reparations to California, or the United States if we ever do join a carbon market, so that they can purchase credits to offset the extra damage?

Right now, there is no mechanism for these kinds of scenarios, because the Kyoto Protocol really doesn't care about reducing overall carbon levels to stop theoretical global warming. If it were, we would know exactly how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere, and how much of it industry actually put in there. But we don't, which brings me to the second thing I want to point out in the article.

Even the carbon dioxide levels we think are being injected into the atmosphere, be it natural or man-made, are theories also. The AP story is basically about a Colorado team about to publish a theoretical paper, and they just decided to apply their new computer program to the wildfires to calculate carbon output. They come up with 8.7 million tons. California's governmental body comes up with 6 million tons. What's the real number? Nobody knows, because those numbers are spit out by computer simulations, whose assumptions about fuel, burn rates, and chemical byproducts, are all theoretical. It's a wildfire model. So when the time comes to offset the carbon contribution of the volcano or wildfire, whose numbers do you go with?

This is why coming up with policy based on models that haven't been proven yet is sheer stupidity. It's taken twenty years to design the proper instruments and satellites to test the greenhouse theory, but they still won't be launched for another five years. When it will take 1000 years for sea levels to rise 23 feet, if the predictions are correct, I think we can wait until the data come in to support the theoretical model outputs. Honestly, what's the hurry? Unless the activists' plan is to get their policies in place before they are proven wrong, so that when the cooling cycle begins again, they can say their world-saving plans are working. But that's pretty cynical. Only someone who doesn't really care about the environment, but is more concerned with the prosperity gap between developed nations and poor nations, and wants to eliminate that gap by slowing working economies down, would come up with motivation like that. But you'd have to buy into economy stopping disaster scenarios like the population bomb, or peak oil. I mean, come on, those wacky ideas are over 40 years old. Nobody still believes them, do they?