Category Archives: PC

Don’t Rust!

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 9, 2009) — Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced the definitive solution to Global Warming today.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday issued a final ruling that, in addition to methane, carbon dioxide also poses a significant danger to human health and to the environment.

E.P.A. administrator Lisa P. Jackson said that the 2007 Supreme Court decision required the agency to regulate CO2 as well as methane. The E.P.A. plans to limit emissions from human sources, all cars and trucks, power plants, refineries, cement plants and other big factories, and large farms. It appears that locomotives, trolley cars, cruise ships, and government aircraft may remain exempt.

Senator Reid says he has a better idea that does not involve pedal cabs.

“We’re going to galvanize everything that doesn’t move,” Senator Reid said. “Not only will it suck all the CO2 out of the atmosphere, it will ensure that nothing made in America ever corrodes again.”

Hot dip galvanizing is a metallurgical process that coats steel or iron with zinc to prevent rusting and other corrosion of the ferrous products. It has been in use for more than 150 years.

Galvanizing protection builds over time by a mechanism where the zinc first oxidizes. Then oxide absorbs water and becomes zinc hydroxide. The zinc hydroxide absorbs CO2 from the air. That forms a dense, impervious coating of zinc carbonate. If it were lime, we would call it “slaking.”

“It pulls carbon dioxide straight out of the air,” Senator Reid said. “What could be better or more useful today?”

I love science. Or I did before it became poli-sci.

Of course, Rust Never Sleeps™ even with galvanized steel; rusting is inevitable, especially in U.S. regions plagued with acid rainfall.

Rufus wants me to point out what sucking the life out of the atmosphere has done to companies in the Rust Belt but that is a subject for another day.

Don’t Fart!

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 7, 2009) — The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday issued a final ruling that methane poses a danger to human health and to the environment.

E.P.A. administrator Lisa P. Jackson announced that the 2007 Supreme Court decision required the agency to regulate methane because it threatens human health and welfare.

The E.P.A. website states that “Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that … is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period and is emitted from a variety of natural and human-influenced sources.” The primary human-influenced source is flatulence, Ms. Jackson said.

There are also high levels of antimony tri-oxide in flatulence (it provides some flame retardance against afterburner ignition) in human-sourced methane.

In her prepared remarks, Ms. Jackson reported on the Methane to Markets Partnership. “It is intended to reduce global methane emissions, with a focus on cost-effective, near-term methane recovery from colorectal sources primarily in the United States,” she said. “A healthy individual releases 3.5 oz. of gas in a single flatulent emission, or more than a pint every single day.”

Beginning in early-2013, the E.P.A. will phase in a program to capture all human-sourced methane at each originator. “Our research shows it is far more effective to issue each citizen with an individual, belt- or shoulder-mounted, man-portable collection and storage tank (MOST).” The program will begin in ten large urban areas including New York City, Los Angeles, and Orlando in the first two years, then fan out across the country.

“My Agency is working with three prime contractors to produce prototypes now,” Ms. Jackson said. Recycling centers will be tasked to retrieve the MOSTs for emptying and return to other users.

Industry groups have criticized the decision, saying that the regulation of the near-ubiquitous methane, will be technically challenging, legally complex, and will impose huge costs on an already challenged economy.

“The fake-leaked British climate research group e-mail messages have stirred doubts among a number of people about the integrity of some climate science,” Ms. Jackson said, “but we have serious research to back up the methane regulations we are announcing today.”

To the Nines

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Tiger Woods has proven yet again that when a man thinks with his little head, he might run into things with his big one. At least that’s what every pundit on network news says.

Mr. Woods made big news last week after driving his Cadillac Escalade into a fire plug. A neighbor called 911 to report that the accident and that he was “laying [unresponsive] on the ground.” Citing privacy and no requirement to do so, Mr. Woods talked neither to state troopers nor the media for three days after the accident.

He broke his silence to apologize for his “transgressions.”

“Apologize”?

“Transgressions”???

His wife, Elin, may very well have tried to beat him to death with a nine-iron, for heaven’s sake.

The billion dollar spokesman for all things manly blew a unique opportunity to stand up for common sense. He should have used his bully pulpit to stand up for men’s health.

The 14 most popular men’s health searches on webmd.com, in the order given, are gout, masturbation, jock itch, sex, vasectomy, chest pain, premature ejaculation, low testosterone, enlarged prostate, testicle pain, penis discharge, psa, ulcers, and colon cancer.

Fully half of the questions have to do with sex. A couple more if you consider that sex is probably what drives most men to have their prostates checked.

The ulcers question could round it out to an even ten if those ulcers come from grief we men get about sex. Or nine-irons.

Mr. Woods could have done what I’ve waited for politicians and public figures to do for decades: he could have spoken the truth.

Imagine if Tiger Woods had called a news conference. The networks would have sent all their “entertainment” talking heads, all their sports reporters, and even some actual news reporters. The State Police would have shown up. Heck even the Army Times would have been there.

“Is this thing on? I want to thank you all for coming today. I have a short statement and a handout for everyone here. It is in color and uses small words so everyone in the press corps can get it right on the news tonight.

“See this chart?” Mr. Woods could have said. “It is the most important thing I can say to you and to all my fans.”

The Five Things Men Need Most for Good Health

  • Eat tomatoes
  • Wear your seat belt
  • Quit smoking
  • Stop eating so much
  • Avoid cancer

“Orgasms don’t hurt you, either,” Mr. Woods could have said.

“Now, the question you all want to ask is this: ‘Did I have sex with that woman?’ Well, ladies and gentlemen, yes, I did. So what? It’s none of your business. None. If you want a story, print something useful. Otherwise, go home and the real story will be ‘News Media Refused to Publish What Tiger Said about Men’s Health’.

“Thank you all for coming to sunny Florida on this cold and rainy day in your northeastern offices.”

Oh, yeah. And it occurs to me that if I crunched my Escalade against a fire hydrant in North Puffin instead of Windermere, Florida, nobody in the media would care or notice. Even if someone had tried to beat me to death with a nine-iron.

Dick Sizing Contest

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My old friend Lido (“Lee”) Bruhl is a true believer in ObaMathematics-1-. “We never made any claim to fiscal responsibility, as your Republicans keep doing,” he said this morning after he praised the Senate Health Bill. “The Republicans left the largest deficit ever, even allowing for two wars in progress.”

That has so many holes, I just don’t know where to drive my 18-wheeler first.

Fiscal responsibility. “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future.” Must have been a famous Republican president who said that.

“My” Republicans: Heh. I have retracted the Goofy vote. I keep trying to join the Librarian party. Unfortunately, they all want to shush me.

Deficits: Deficits are not a dick-sizing contest.

Warning: the following couple of paragraphs include actual fact and even two definitions about counting on your fingers.

The annual “Deficit” is simply the difference between government receipts and government spending.

The ongoing “National Debt” is the total cash money the federal government (that’s We the People) owes to the people and businesses and countries from whom the federal government has borrowed. The government “sells” Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds and Savings Bonds, and more to our lenders. About 25% of the total national debt was held by foreign governments in 2007. Mainland China holds about $800 billion in addition to the $1.4 trillion cumulative trade imbalance. Each and every one of us We the Peoples owes about $30,400 on the national debt right now. Each. Cash money.

“George Bush left the largest deficit ever,” Lee repeated.

That’s simple obfuscation. There is no deficit “carryover.” The real issue is the national debt.

The United States has been a debtor nation since 1776. We borrowed money to finance the Revolution before we were even really a country. National debt varied through most of the 19th century and began a steady growth about 1910. F.D.R. and Harry Truman had Depression-era social programs plus World War II to pay for. They borrowed to do so. On average, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter grew the debt through 1980 at about the rate of inflation. In actual dollars, the national debt quadrupled under Reagan and George H. W. Bush and about doubled under George W. Bush although his early budget surpluses did decrease the debt from 2000-2002; it began to climb again with post 9-11 spending.

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A more telling piece of data than the billions of debt dollars is how that debt compares to how much we actually make.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures how much all the goods and services we make sell for in a year.

Let’s compare how the national debt rose against how the GDP rose.

By 1940, F.D.R.’s spending programs had raised the debt to more than 50% of GDP. Eisenhower inherited a debt over 90% of GDP but gave a debt of 56% of GDP to J.F.K. The debt hovered in the 30% range through about 1980 as the go-go economy grew. It was back over 50% of GDP by 1990 and 58% when G.W.B took office in 2000. Bush spending made half the new bump but the tanking economy and real GDP contraction made the debt jump from 65% to 70% by 2008. Now, after a year of ObaMathematics and a flat economy, the national debt is about 90% of GDP.

The 2010 ObaMathematics Budget will bump the debt another 10% to about 100% of GDP. It will remain there as long as real GDP growth (after inflation) actually happens. Since the consensus estimates from most analysts show much smaller growth in GDP, the debt will actually soar past 100% as ObaSpending continues. The CBO projects the debt to double again (to $20 trillion) by 2015. Other estimates take it higher.

Only one American President, Andrew Jackson, ever dropped the national debt to zero. That was on January 8, 1835. Every other president of every political persuasion has increased it.

“I guess you would rather have McCain who would have been amazing on international affairs, but even he admitted he had no ideas or platform for domestic recovery?” Lee said.

Under the circumstances, when the economic “recovery” programs created with ObaMathematics have created somewhere just south of zero new jobs and will run up the debt service We the People must pay to $700 billion per year (seven hundred billion dollars), “no ideas” for domestic recovery sounds like a pretty good idea. Or at least a cheaper one.

We should always choose a President who does nothing over one who does everything wrong.

-1-ObaMathematics is a combined arithmetic system in which “2 + 2 = 47,208” for very large values of 2 and after borrowing from the “4.”

If We Get Diversity, Can We Get Rid of Ugly Teachers?

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The good looking teachers are sorely under represented.

I really really loved my fourth grade teacher, mostly because she was a hot babe.

A well organized group of Burlington, Vermont, parents hammered the school board there last month. See, the Burlington School District (BSD) has a serious problem. It has nothing to do with test scores. As far as I know, there is no more bullying on campuses there than at any other school in the nation. Costs have risen exponentially but that’s nothing new.

Test scores continue to wane but many Vermonters do not believe in testing. Can’t be the 3 Rs.

Hazing still happens but Vermont parents know a holistic approach that considers the target, the bully, and the bystanders creates a dialog that stops unwanted behaviors and that the state does have a model Bullying Prevention Plan. Can’t be bullying.

The Burlington School Board is proud their district spends “$2000 less per equalized pupil than the statewide average.” Can’t be money, either.

It turns out that nearly a quarter of the students in Burlington schools are children of color and that figure far, far outnumbers the faculty and staff. Fewer than three percent of the teachers and staff belong to a minority.

Parents say the school must hire more minorities to give students a more balanced perspective.

“Diversity improves the vibrancy and quality and excellence of our schools. Diversity in many areas: geographically, linguistically, politically, in terms of gender, in terms of religious orientation. All of that diversity enhances the pool of ideas and the creativity and vibrancy of any institution,” Burlington parent Stephanie Seguino told WCAX-TV News.

The BSD reports it “has dedicated significant resources toward diversity awareness over the past eleven years, beginning with the creation of a full time director. [In 2008] the Board of Commissioners appointed Dr. Dan Balon … to be the new Director [of diversity and multiculturalism], bringing over 17 years experience in education management, non-profit agencies, and diversity education on a national scale to the position.”

Apparently, an equalized pupil is not a measure of diversity but rather a simple accounting term.

By all appearances, Ms Seguino and the other parents believe Burlington still needs an affirmative action program for faculty hiring.

Hello?

Oh. Wait. That’s correct. We do need teachers to bring a cultural understanding to the multiplication tables/

From Wikipedia , “The term affirmative action refers to policies that take race, ethnicity, or sex into consideration in an attempt to promote equal opportunity or increase ethnic or other forms of diversity. The focus of such policies ranges from employment and education to public contracting and health programs. The impetus towards affirmative action is twofold: to maximize diversity in all levels of society, along with its presumed benefits, and to redress perceived disadvantages due to overt, institutional, or involuntary discrimination. Opponents argue that it promotes reverse discrimination.”

BSD children will grow up to invent green energy products and teach other children.

The New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) tests reading, writing, math and science in elementary and secondary schools. The annual achievement tests were developed to meet the Federal No Child Gets Ahead Act. The program is one of the primary yardsticks to measure school performance in New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.

NECAP Scores: 15 (0.2%) BHS students qualified for the National Merit Scholarship Program last year and eight students (0.1%) won awards in New England’s Technology Student Association competition. On the other hand, 43% of Burlington students are “partially proficient” or “substantially below proficient” in math. 46% of Burlington students are “partially proficient” or “substantially below proficient” in science. A whopping 52% (that’s more than half for those in Burlington schools) of Burlington students are “partially proficient” or “substantially below proficient” in writing.

These children will elect representatives and pass laws.

By all appearances, Ms Seguino and the other parents believe Burlington will improve the 3Rs with an affirmative action program for faculty hiring where about 7 of every 16 Burlington students is “partially proficient” or “substantially below proficient” in math.

These children will pay off the deficit?

I may have jumped to an incorrect conclusion, though. Do you suppose President Barack Obama uses different arithmetic because he is black?