Global Warming

Ray Suarez on the Newshour did a long piece on a "new" study of global warming. A U of Maryland professor talked, and talked about dreadful consequences. In a good five minute talk he did not mention a single number. Things were going to get bad, but he did not offer any numbers to tell us how bad, how soon, or how certain.
William Thompson, Lord Kelvin once said " When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; "

Ray asked his guest how his team had come to their fairly predictable conclusions. Answer: We reviewed the published literature. That's a real confidence builder. The published literature is vast and supports every conceivable viewpoint. Most likely this team included articles that agreed with their preconceptions and ignored articles that they disagreed with.

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull

Just got back from seeing same. Good flick. As good as the original three, after a 20 year lapse. Harrison Ford looks a bit older, but still handles the daring do. The rest of the cast is good too. Lots of good action scenes, lots of good sight gags. It's pulling a good crowd, theater was full on the third night in a small town.
Disregard the negative reviews that have been circulating on the web. This movie does exactly what an Indiana Jones movie ought to do, and does it just the way the first ones did. Much better than the add on Star Wars movies did.
Indiana Jones is his old self. He picks up a teenage side kick who gets good lines, and acts them well. There is an evil villian, played by Cate Blanchett with style and dash. It's a corny role, but she handles it properly. The special effects and stunts are lavish and good.

Border Patrol Checkpoint in I93

Driving down I93 I encounter a big flashing sign "Be Prepared to Stop". The south bound lane is blocked, Blue cop car lights are flashing. So as a good law abiding citizen I slow down and take my place in line. A Border Patrol officer asks if I am a US citizen, I reply "Yes Sir" and he waves me right thru. I must have looked respectable, driving a decent looking sedan with in state plates, and speaking with an American accent.
Wonder what happens to scruffy teenagers in beatup vans? With accents? Is a US driver's license good enough to keep them out of trouble? What happens to passengers without driver's licenses.
This roadblock was a hour's drive south of the Canadian border.

Windows Repair breaks a few panes

Interesting Microsoft knowledge base article about how windows repair works (or fails to work) Symptom of failure is that Windows Update fails to update. According to the Microsoft article the "repair" function merely overwrites all the Windows files on your hard disk with ones from the CD. The files from the CD are old, and have a bug that breaks Windows update.
It also rewrites the registry from scratch, which likely means all your installed programs, Office in particular, stop working.
The knowledge base article has instructions to download updates from Microsoft by hand and get Windows Update (autopatch) to work.
From this description, looks like Windows Repair is as damaging as doing a full windows re install.

How to reduce gasoline prices

Gasoline (and all fuel prices) are outrageous. This is caused by too many consumers of fuel and too little production. China and India, both enormous countries with huge populations, are becoming wealthy enough to purchase automobiles, central heating, hot water heaters, electric lighting, radio and TV, and kitchen appliances for their people. These places now have the money to purchase the good things of life and that doubles or triples the demand for fuel. And yet I saw a US congressman live on C-Span yesterday deny that demand was rising. What world is he living in?
Demand management is distasteful (we call it rationing). But supply management (increasing supply) is possible. America could start drilling for oil in the Arctic and off our coasts. Except, Congress has forbidden it. America could start tapping its vast oil shale reserves, except Congress has forbidden it. America could build more oil refineries, except the NIMBY's prohibit it. America could build more nuclear power plants, except the NIMBY's and the greenies prohibit it.
Until America, the biggest economy and biggest consumer, increases supply, we will face higher fuel prices, rationing by price.

Boston Globe discovers that boys and girls ARE different

Larry Summers please come home. All is forgiven. As you may or may not remember, Larry Summers was driven out of Harvard's presidency a few years ago for thought crime. Summers speculated that the domination of science and technology fields by men might stem from some innate difference between boys and girls, or men and women.
Now the Boston Globe runs an article supporting Larry Summer's speculation. Wow. Conceptual breakthrough. The Globe finally figures out something that any parent knows. Boys like different things than girls do. Boys like gadgets, tools, engines, noise makers, cars, balls and ball games, athletics and sports, running around and general purpose hell raising. Girls like clothes, babies, boys, dancing and nest building. Girls disapprove of fighting, whereas boys enjoy it.
Any parent knows all this. It's obvious to me that boys take to science and engineering as just a grownup extension of their childhood passions. Girls by and large find science and engineering boring. Now this profound wisdom has penetrated the deeper recesses of the Globe newsroom.

Work Force Housing

Coming home tonight from a Republican meeting in Plymouth, I listened to a long discussion of a newly passed "Work Force Housing" law on New Hampshire Public Radio. The discussion would have been a whole lot better if the contributors had described the contents of the law. Apparently "workforce housing" is the new name for "affordable housing", which used to mean housing cheap enough for black families to buy. The law is supposed to, somehow, restrict local planning boards from keeping "work force" housing out of town. Nobody on the panel discussion talked about just how the law would do that.
The usual planning board/zoning board tactic for keeping undesirables out of town is zone out apartments, 'cause renters are untrustworthy, and zone out cheap houses by requiring huge expensive lots. Another good one is to zone out multifamily houses (triple deckers) requiring nothing but single family homes, and, of course, don't forget to zone out those unsightly trailer parks. There are probably some other tricks of the trade as well.