If You Haven't Already Seen This Example of Al Gore's Concern for Global Warming

He wins an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth, so Instapundit calls this, "An Inconvenient Electric Bill":

Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

The hypocrisy of Al Gore never ceases to amaze me. I rather doubt that Gore believes much of any of what he says on this. As this article points out, there are some embarrassing pictures of Al Gore with the Rev. Fred Phelps (the "God Hates Fags" crazy) from 1988, when Gore wanted to be President--and would curry favor anywhere and everywhere to get there. Gore probably figures that global warming is a good way to get himself elected; clearly, he doesn't live as though he thinks this is the case.

Oh yeah, my electric bill last month was $40--about 800 kWh.

Cool Animation Showing How A Semiauto Pistol Works

This is specifically a Glock 17, but the basic principles are the same for most of the Browning-inspired pistol designs, showing how the slide retracts, unlocks and cants the barrel, ejects a shell, resets the hammer, and so on. Make sure you click the transparency controls for various sections of the gun.

Is Anyone Really So Stupid?

This report from the NBC affiliate in Los Angeles shows what happened when they put hidden cameras in cars, then paid Jiffy Lube shops around Los Angeles to change fuel filters, flush transmission fluid--and they didn't do it in 5 out of 9 stores.

Now, Jiffy Lube isn't the cheapest place to get this stuff done. You pay a premium for the convenience of not waiting around for your car. And still this isn't enough money?

"Minimum Wage is Good" is to Economics as "Evolution is Unproven" is to Biology

This is an intentionally provocative statement to provoke thought--but there are some very interesting similarities. Economists overwhelmingly believe that raising the minimum wage is destructive to low-wage jobs: 77%, according to a survey of economists cited in this news release. Among biologists and chemists, the percentage who agree that evolution is more than a theory, but a fact, is probably higher. Still, just like the small minority of economists (650, according to this leftist think tank) who think raising the minimum wage is a good idea, there are scientists who think that evolution has some room to go to be proved. This list of over 600 PhDs subscribes to the statement:

We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.

Now, some of these scientists may be operating out of their area of specialization. I see some astrophysics professors in there, and a fair number of computer science professors--although there is an argument based on information theory that argues against the random selection mechanism, so perhaps this isn't as far off as it appears. Still, there are a lot of PhDs in Genetics, Biology, Bacteriology, Entomology, and related fields on that list--people that are clearly knowledgeable about the subject.

Now, professional opinion in the field of economics is clearly on the side that minimum wage laws are destructive nonsense--something that you tell ignorant and foolish people (i.e., the majority of the population) to make yourself popular. Doesn't that sound awfully similar to how the High Priests of Darwinism portray those who are skeptical of evolution as proven fact?

Anyway, to my point: imagine if a school district or a state legislature passed a measure requiring that economics teachers discuss the minority idea that minimum wage laws are a good thing. Do you suppose that the ACLU would file suit to have such a law declared unconstitutional?

Installed the Moonlite CF2 On Big Bertha

It was only a minor chore: drill new screw holes in the tube; enlarge the hole for the drawtube; cross-thread a nut on one of the stainless steel screws, and then break the screw trying to remove it; discover that Lowe's doesn't have 10-32 stainless steel screws, but they do have 10-24.



The "coarse" focus is quite a bit finer than the old focuser, and the "fine" focus barely feels like it is moving: 0.0725" per revolution of the knob. High clouds came in after I finished recollimating it, so this will have to wait for better weather.

Books Trickling In; My Relative Absence From Blogging

Yesterday, one of the three expected boxes of my new book arrived. Today, another box arrived. Since all three were mailed the same day, I'm utterly mystified why they are arriving day by day. But they are arriving!

I have not been blogging much because I am busily trying to make ScopeRoller products. There has been an unexpected rush of orders the last few days. In the interests of efficiency, instead of making one at a time, I'm trying to make several sets alike in one operation, both to save time moving tooling around, and because it produces a more consistent set of results. But the net result is that I get very little free time in the evenings to blog.

Also, the Moonlite Telescope dual rate focuser arrived--and considering that it ended up costing $330, I would say that I more than got my money's worth. The finish, the smoothness of the focuser, and the general appearance--wow! It makes the rest of Big Bertha look like it was assembled by cavemen--and gives me reason to replace Big Bertha's tube with something a bit less savage. The good news is that 20" inside diameter Sonotube (an excellent lightweight choice for this) will cost me about $35! Once I get done using some epoxy to make it into pseudo-fiberglass, it will look dramatically sharper, and weigh perhaps 60 pounds less than the current Sonotube and wooden construction.

This is a Horrifying Story of Political Correctness

This from the London Evening Standard. I get the impression it is a bit of a tabloid, but the story should give pause to anyone who insists that there is no overlap between pedophiles and homosexuality:

Liam Lucas was just one of the children abused by predatory paedophiles who took advantage of far-Left Islington Council's childcare policies in the Eighties and Nineties, when it pro-actively recruited gay social workers.

Paedophiles exploited its well-intentioned commitment to equal opportunities and soon most of Islington's 12 children's homes had child molesters on the staff who cynically pretended to be ordinary homosexuals. Numerous children and other staff made allegations of abuse, but were branded homophobes and ignored.

Liam - now 29, in a permanent relationship and the proud father of year-old Isabella - was even falsely classified as gay by Islington social services, which decided he should be fostered only by single men.

...

A lengthy investigation by The Mail on Sunday's sister paper, the London Evening Standard, resulted in government-ordered inquiries, but at least 26 members of Islington social services staff, despite being accused of grave offences, were simply allowed to resign, often with glowing references.

Mr and Mrs Cairns and their foster son Liam were so concerned by the 'rigidity' of the current debate about adoption and equal opportunities for gays, and the invisibility of children's needs, that they have decided to go public.

The Church of England's own adoption agency already allows gay adoptions, and it is thought the Archbishop's support for the Catholic Church's exemption plea mainly reflects the importance he places on freedom of conscience and thought.

Mrs Cairns is herself a leading socialwork academic, author and trainer. "I am not anti gay, any more than is Rowan Williams,' she said.

"I have a close relative who is gay, and I am emphatically not opposed to gay adoption. I am, however, deeply concerned by the bullying, intolerant nature of the present attacks on people with religious or other concerns about it.

"It feels horribly familiar and I fear that rigid thinking about equal opportunities may again blind people to paedophiles who claim to be gay, when all they really want is access to vulnerable children.

"On radio and TV this week I have repeatedly heard politicians insist that every adoption agency, whatever its religious beliefs about the best home for children, must offer gay people "equality of access to all goods and services".

...

Liam himself said: "There's a lot about my childhood I can't remember. There's a lot I can remember and wish I couldn't. The best I can say about it is that it's over, and that I learned a lot, that will probably make me a better person in the end."

He was in and out of Islington's care from the age of two, and witnessed his birth mother suffer domestic violence and descend into drug addiction. When he was nine she died of a heroin overdose.

The distraught, vulnerable boy was initially fostered by a motherly woman who asked to keep him. But the council instead sent him, from age five to 11, to a 'therapeutic' boarding school, New Barns in Gloucestershire. This was later closed following a child abuse and pornography scandal.

During school holidays he was fostered by a man later imprisoned for abusing another child in his care. When Liam was nine, Islington placed him in its children's home in Grosvenor Avenue, run by two single males. Both were eventually accused of abuse but escaped investigation by moving to Thailand.

Last year, Thai police charged the deputy head, Nick Rabet, 57, with serious sexual offences against 30 Thai boys, the youngest six years old. He escaped trial by killing himself.

Liam initially liked Rabet, a 'big kid' who pretended he was a sheriff and even wore a sheriff's badge. The unqualified social worker owned a Sussex manor house, which he had turned into a children's activity centre, with quad bikes, pinball machines and horses. He took Liam there at weekends.

Liam was abused by a friend of Rabet's, a senior social services colleague. It is believed he backed the council's decision to find the boy a gay foster father.

Mr and Mrs Cairns spotted Islington's advertisement in 1990 in a fostering magazine.

Mrs Cairns was haunted by the then 13-year-old boy's photo, and the council's claim that he was 'suitable for a single man'.

She said: "I instinctively felt that the ad was aimed at paedophiles."

Mrs Cairns and her husband, also a senior figure in social services, already had three children but immediately applied to foster Liam.

"Islington insisted Liam wouldn't settle in a family because they had decided he was gay,' she said. "I said, "So what? Don't gay people have families?" Besides, he was still a child - how could they be sure?'

Mrs Cairns believes children in care who genuinely identify as gay can particularly benefit from gay carers, but she mistrusts adults deciding children's sexuality for them. Former Islington senior social worker Liz Davies, who blew the whistle on the abuse scandal, said: "Other Islington children were also falsely classed as gay at a very young age."

A rebel Islington social worker defied his bosses and supported Mr and Mrs Cairns' fostering bid after Liam begged him: "I just want a family, I just want to be normal."

Mrs Cairns said: "He arrived and looked around and said, "Please, please don't send me back."'

...

Eventually, he disclosed abuse at both the home and at boarding school. But his sympathetic social worker, and Liam's files, simply vanished and nothing was done.

Mrs Cairns found the vice-chairman of the school governors, Peter Righton, former Director of Education at the National Institute for Social Work, had for years openly advocated sex with boys in care.

"Righton and I had sat together on the body which regulated social work training. I researched everything he had published and I felt sick. I was devastated by the betrayal of trust, and social work's naivety.

"He got away with this, and influenced social workers to this day, because they feared seeming "homophobic" by challenging him."

It prompted Mrs Cairns to begin confiding secretly with Scotland Yard.

The impasse ended in 1991, when police discovered Rabet's Sussex children's centre was partly financed by convicted child pornographers and that he was part of a ring of wealthy, well-connected paedophiles.

Police also discovered that Righton was a founder member of the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange, which campaigned for the age of consent to be reduced to four.

In 1992, Righton was convicted of importing child pornography from Holland. Later, two teachers at New Barns were convicted of sexual abuse, five others tried, and the school was abruptly closed.

Islington admitted 32 'gross errors' in its treatment of Liam, and paid him £5,000 compensation.

His principal abuser quit Britain for a Third World country and is believed to have adopted a boy there.

Liam had a breakdown in 1994 after the ordeal of giving evidence at the trial of New Barns staff.

He became angry, took to drugs and drink, was violent and smashed things. "My descent into crime was sudden and violent and frightened me as much as everybody else,' he admitted.

Liam tried to hang himself and even attempted to strangle Mrs Cairns. She said: "He was wild-eyed and kept saying, "What do you mean, you love me? What does that mean?"

"He couldn't trust anyone, he was a child broken by grief and betrayal. It broke my heart but I had to report him to the police for our own safety."