Chris Muir

Chris Muir is the cartoonist for the strip Day By Day. It's one of my daily reads. Years ago I liked Garry Trudeau, and I don't even know if Trudeau is drawing any more. Then for a long time I read Bill Waterson (Calvin and Hobbes) and Gary Larson, (The Far Side) but they both quit drawing their cartoons.

I notice, via Instapundit, that Roger Kimball, over at Pajamas Media is a fan. He reviews Muir, noting:

Quite apart from his notable graphic abilities, what sets Muir apart from most of his fellow entertainers is his allergy to the poison of political correctness. He has a clear grasp of the dangers of what Tocqueville called “democratic despotism,” what conservatives today are likely to congregate under the rubric of “big government.” Muir pokes fun at pomposity and excess wherever he finds it, but he is perhaps at his best and most trenchant when exposing the sinister underside of the illiberal liberalism that has come to define the Democratic party of the early twenty-first century.

Be that as it may, it's a great strip and one of my daily reads.

Climate Change Data Dumped

This just gets better and better. The scientists (and I use that word reservedly) at the University of East Anglia say that they threw away their raw data. Really.

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

So, they threw away their data, no other scientists can check their work, and we're just supposed to take their word for it, when we've caught them using terms like "fudge factor" and "hide the decline". So, if they've got no data, they've got no science.

These guys should be cashiered from the academic community.

Tiger Woods Update

I see that Tiger Woods has canceled a third meeting with the California State Police. They'd like to get a statement to complete their investigation.

WINDERMERE, Fla. (AP) - Tiger Woods canceled another meeting with state troopers on Sunday, the third straight time he's done so. He posted a statement on his Web site that said the accident was his fault, but failed to address the lingering questions about the crash that sent him to a hospital.

I'm sure this is frustrating to investigators, but when you're trying to frustrate an investigation, refusing to meet with investigators isn't a bad ploy.

After all, he does have the right to remain silent.

**UPDATE** Commenter Clublights has it right. The accident happened in Florida and the investigators are with the Florida Highway Patrol. However, Woods still has the right to remain silent. Even in Florida.

Sunday Morning Dawg

This week's been all about family, and the dog took part in the festivities. Our youngest grandchild came to visit from Florida and the dog took to him immediately. Here the dog and the boy are relaxing in Milady's easy chair.



Tomorrow starts another work week.

Hide the decline

I don't do code, I'm a very basic computer user. Most HTML code is above my comprehension level.

However, there are lots of folks out there that know code and the blogger at Armed and Dangerous attests that he knows his way around code. He's been looking at the code released by the AGW hackers and he's found some interesting stuff.

From the CRU code file osborn-tree6/briffa_sep98_d.pro , used to prepare a graph purported to be of Northern Hemisphere temperatures and reconstructions.

;
; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
;
yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,- 0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
if n_elements(yrloc) ne n_elements(valadj) then message,’Oooops!’
;
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,timey)

This is how you manipulate data. If you look in the title, you see how to apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction. I might note that they misspelled artificial. Then, several lines down, they use something they call a "fudge factor".

These guys need their academic degrees revoked. This is blatant fraud. If they're using public money, it might even be criminal. Armed and Dangerous says it best:

All you apologists weakly protesting that this is research business as usual and there are plausible explanations for everything in the emails? Sackcloth and ashes time for you. This isn’t just a smoking gun, it’s a siege cannon with the barrel still hot.

This isn't a smoking gun. The fuse is lit and the bomb is armed. This is blowing up all around them. They've stepped off into a minefield. These guys aren't scientists, they're political opportunists with a science backdrop.

Of course, if they'd followed the scientific method to begin with, they wouldn't be stumbling around in the minefield. That's what science is designed to prevent.

As far as I'm concerned, AGW is a dead issue. The science has been tainted and until someone impartial runs the numbers, no one knows what the data might show. Without data, it's all opinion. Uninformed opinion.

And you know what opinions are like.

Tiger Woods

The latest word is that Tiger Woods wife used a golf club on him when she suspected that he had been seeing another woman. Lots of questions here:

Did she use the proper glove? Has Tiger coached her on her swing?

What club does one use on a cheating husband? Is a 2-iron sufficient, or do you take out the Big Bertha?

The hell with this, I'm going to the lease.

Deer Lures

Reader Dan emails me this picture of what deer hunting might be like after the Obama gun ban. (And you know he wants to, he's just unable to politically.)



Ha!

New Zealand Climate Data

Here's one I missed. It seems that since folks have been looking at raw climate data over the past several days, it appears that the climate data from New Zealand was fudged.

Yeah, the warming trend that was shown for the past decade doesn't exist. The data is skewed.

Analysis of data from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) show ‘corrections’ to climate data may have exaggerated temperature increases over the last 10 years.

Here's the fudged data in a graphic.



Here's the actual data. It doesn't show a temperature increase.



More fudged data leading to bullshit conclusions. The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition concludes by saying:

In a statement, the coalition said, “We have discovered that the warming in New Zealand over the past 156 years was indeed man-made, but it had nothing to do with emissions of CO2—it was created by man-made adjustments of the temperature. It’s a disgrace.”

They're right, it is a disgrace.

Conflict of interest

This is interesting, if only as part of the global warming debacle.

It seems that President Obama's Climate Czar (one of the anointed czars, not subject to Senate confirmation) has a serious conflict of interest. Her job in the present administration is to regulate CO2 and insure that emitters buy carbon offset credits.

It turns out that her previous work was as a board member of APX, a leading player in the sale of carbon offsets. If that's not a conflict of interest, I've never heard of one.

They told me if I voted for Bush, we'd see an administration full of cronies and massive conflicts of interest, and they were right.

It's looking more and more like the Global Warming believers are just a bunch of people trying to get rich by scaring the rest of us. They're industrialists with massive conflicts of interest. They hide data, they offer bullshit science and they're getting rich from government mandates.

Did'ja know that Al Gore is one of the founders of Global Investment Management, LLP, who stands to make millions from climate solutions? Big Al is a private businessman now, not employed by government in any way. He's an industrialist and he's poised to make millions of dollars selling carbon offsets. He's doing that by selling the idea that Global Warming is a problem.

His only problem is that no one can now prove that global warming even exists. The data has been fudged and they've lost all credibility. Add the conflicts of interest in the present administration and you've got a scandal that might destroy the credibility of the President.

What little credibility he's got left.

Moving the Goal Posts

I've been watching the debate over the hacked emails from the global warming guys. It's interesting to see the contortions that the AGW guys are having over a piddling little statement like "hiding the decline".

I'm no scientist, but I've taken courses in statistics and my professors hammered certain concepts into my all-too-thick skull. Concepts like data is data and if you fudge your data to arrive at a pre-determined result, then the whole world gets to call bullshit on your entire body of work.

That's what is happening now. Lots of folks are calling bullshit over fudged data. If a scientist does anything to hide data, then the rest of the world gets to argue over the validity of your results.

You may not like the data. The data might lead you to an inconvenient truth, but it's still the data. Polar bears may still be drowning, arctic ice may still be shrinking, but fudged data lets the entire world doubt the results.

Old shells

This morning before going to Momma's for shooting, we were sorting through stocks of shotgun shells and I found this box that Daddy had bought sometime in the past. You can click on the image for a larger view.



The interesting box is the Winchester box on the left. It was purchased at Howard Brother's, a local department store that closed circa mid 1980s. The price tag on the box indicates that they priced it September 1982 (9 82) and the price was $6.47 for a box of high-velocity 16 gauge shotgun shells.

The box on the right was purchased earlier this week. Also high velocity 16 gauge shotgun shells, they cost $13.50 for the same 25 shells.

In 1982, the average income was $21,000 per year, a gallon of gasoline cost 91 cents and first class postage was 20 cents. A box of good shotgun shells cost $6.47.

I'm just saying.

Thanksgiving Afternoon Shooting

It's become a tradition within the family that after the Thanksgiving meal, those so interested repair to the pasture for a little informal shooting. Today I decided to let the nephews try skeet, so I brought a variety of shotguns, shells, targets, and invited all and sundry to try their hand at shotgunning.

Here's a picture of nephew Trey, trying his hand with my father's custom 16 gauge Model 12 Winchester. In this picture, he's calling for a target. The shotgun is the one my father shot everything with. I had always wondered why Dad chose the 16 gauge, and Momma was watching the shooting. She told us today that all of his brothers had 12 gauge shotguns and Dad chose the 16 so that his brothers couldn't shoot his shells. Makes sense to me, and sounds like the old man. I bet he'd be happy that his shotgun still booms over the pasture.



We had plenty of shotguns available, arrayed on a table with the action open and visually safe. The shooter would choose his or her shotgun and step forward of the table. One shell at a time was passed forward. Safety is our byword, and while the shooters were standing in front of shotguns, every eye was on the open actions and one nephew would pass one shell forward at a time.

My daughter-in-law, Melissa decided to try her hand at various gauges. We had everything from .410 bore, up through 20, 16, 12, and one huge 10 bore shotgun available to sample.

This next pic is Melissa trying Dad's 16 gauge. In this picture, she's in recoil. She had her own .410 on the table, but wanted to try the larger gauge. After a couple of shots, the proclaimed it "not bad at all". We'll work on her stance in future sessions.



This next picture is of her father, Brian, shooting his 10 gauge H&R single-shot. This hand cannon shoots 3.5 inch shells and all he brought with him were magnum Black Cloud ammo. This thing is a boomer and when you hit a target at 20 yards, all you get is a cloud of dust. This thing vaporizes skeet targets. I tried to get the picture of the cloud of target dust, but couldn't get the timing right.



Still, you can click on the pictures for larger images. We had a great time, bonded as a family, and did a lot of shooting in the pasture. Add the wonderful meal and a Thursday afternoon doesn't get much better than that.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Meat Pies

JPG asks in comments for Milady's meat pie recipe. Meat pies are a staple in Natchitoches, LA and are a tasty treat that have long been enjoyed in those environs. Many variation on the recipe abound, but they're basically a pie crust cut into rounds and stuffed with a meat filling. However, my lady has the recipe nailed and she has graciously shared it with many others over the years.

Meat Pies

Meat Filling:

1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork sausage
1 c. green onion, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
3 pcs garlic, minced
1 bell pepper, chopped
Salt, pepper, red pepper to taste (or Tony’s Creole Seasoning)
2 Tbs flour

Crust

1 qt plain flour
2 tsp (teaspoon) salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
¾ cup shortening
1 cup milk.

Brown meat and add seasonings. which have been chopped into small pieces. When meat is done, but not dry, remove from heat and add two tablespoons flour. Mix thoroughly and set aside.

Make crust. Sift dry ingredients together, cut in shortening. Beat egg and add to milk, add mixture slowly to flour until proper rolling consistency. Roll very thin. Cut into rounds about the size of a coffee saucer (6”).

Add one large tablespoon of meat filling to the center of the crust. Fold over and seal. A trick to sealing the crust is to wet your finger with water, wet the edge of the crust, almost like wetting an envelope. Stick the edges together. Then dip a common dinner fork in flour and press the edge.

These can be frozen for later or cooked immediately. If you want to freeze them, place the single pies on a cookie sheet and slide into the freezer. After a couple of hours, put in zipper bags. A gallon bag will hold eight or nine pies. To cook, heat oil to 360 or thereabouts and cook until golden brown. Or bake at 350 until golden brown.

One recipe will make 8 or nine pies, depending on how big you cut the crust and how much filling you put into the pie. They're good stuff and they're traditionally deep-fried, but baking them is good too, and probably more heart-healthy.

There are plenty of variations to this basic recipe. You can use venison instead of beef, or seafood, or just about anything that will fit into the crust. You can make 3" circles instead of 6", add a teaspoon of filling and make mini-pies. Your imagination is the key, but this basic recipe has made countless thousands of pies and has proven itself time and again.

Bon apetit, and happy Thansgiving.

Wednesday Prepping

Several years ago we started a tradition. My Momma lives several miles from us and she has the entire family over for Thanksgiving. Tomorrow, she'll feed certainly more than 40 people. Mybe 50 folks. So, on Wednesday night, we have the clan over for the evening meal. We figured it would take some of the load off of Momma, who literally has a lot on her plate.

Our Wednesday night menu is non-traditional. We cook crab cakes, crawfish etoufee, rice, yeast rolls, and normally some meat dish for those who don't eat seafood. Tonight the meat dish is Natchitoches Meat Pies. Home-made meat pies.

My recipe for crab cakes is simple.

One small can of white crab meat, drained. Don't squeeze all the juice out, just let the majority of it roll off. You need some of the flavor that the juice provides.
One roll of Ritz crackers, crushed
One egg.
One good sprinkle of cajun seasoning.
One handful of seasoning vegetables (onion, bell pepper, celery)

Crush your crackers, add crabmeat, egg, seasoning, and veggies. Roll into small cakes. Place crab cakes on a platter, separating layers with waxed paper. Refrigerate several hours. An hour before meal time, deep-fry at about 360 degrees until golden brown. One recipe makes about six crab cakes. I've got eight recipes in the 'fridge right now.

An hour, you ask? Yeah, I'll start heating the oil about an hour before meal time. I've got 48 crab cakes to cook and 45 meat pies. The meat pies will go in the oil first and the crab cakes afterward. It'll take just about an hour to cook all that on one outdoor burner with my frying pot. If I had two burners cranked up, with two big pots, I could fry all that in about 20 minutes, but clean-up would take twice as long. I'll go with the single burner.

The way I like to eat crab cakes is to put a big dollop of rice on a plate, drop a crab cake on top of the rice, then a ladle of crawfish etoufee. A big glass of iced tea and I'm a happy camper.

If you don't like seafood, there are some meat pies on the sideboard.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

Playin' with the Boy

The kids got in on Saturday afternoon and we've been playing with the youngest grandchild since then. I had forgotten how much energy a toddler brings into a household.



This morning Joey and I sneaked off to the range where we spent an hour or so shooting handguns. Both revolvers and semis. We worked our way through several cylinders of .38 special wadcutters, several cylinders of heavy cast bullet .357, and several magazines of .45 ACP. While we were reposting targets, my several-years-old stapler gave up the ghost. I bought that stapler about fifteen years ago, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. It stapled up several thousand targets over the years and finally blew out the magazine spring. I dropped it in the garbage can and I'll pick up another one soon.

On the way home, we stopped off at Philly's Pizza, a local Tioga eatery. They make a pretty good cheese-steak and I picked up enough sandwiches to feed everyone lunch. Then, it was nap time.

The kids have driven across town to see other family and I've got a couple of hours to sort brass and clean out the range box.

Reid's Health Care bill

The Senate voted yesterday to debate the Senate version of the health-care bill. Here's all you really need to know.

Under Leader Reid’s amendment, in the year 2019 about 16 million U.S. citizens would be uninsured and be forced to pay a penalty tax of almost $800 per year. About eight million illegal aliens would be uninsured and would owe no penalty tax. Both groups would get their health care through a combination of out-of-pocket spending and use of uncompensated care in emergency rooms and free health clinics.

This seems unfair.

It is unfair.

I don't think that the government has any business toying in the health-care industry; indeed I think that the entire proposal is unconstitutional. But, we can't begin to fix the problems in health-care, or some other problems we face until we address the undocumented Democrat illegal alien problem. I'm a firm believer in immigration. I believe that immigrants can strengthen the US, chase the American Dream, and help continue to make this country a shining beacon of freedom. However, they've got to get jobs, pay taxes, get educations. Those immigrants that I know are willing to do those things, but there are a lot of undocumented immigrants out there who form a shadow economy that is a drag on the measurable economy. We've got to fix the immigration problem, which is one thing that Congress was created to address.

The fact that they haven't is simply another reason to run the bums out of office at the next opportunity.

Sunday Morning Dawg

The dog freaks out when Milady comes home in the evening. He's a blur, jumping against the door, trying to welcome her home. Here, he's bounced off the door.



He cracks me up.

Rain

It's rained all day and I've stayed in for the most part. We're awaiting family from out of town who should be arriving within the hour. Our holiday has begun.

Glow-ball warming

The internet exploded this morning with the report that someone had hacked the servers at a major UK global warming research center. Hundreds of emails and lots of inconvenient data have been compromised.

Hot Air is on the story, as is the Smallest Minority, along with the Australian Herald-Sun. Everybody is wondering if the emails show a concerted effort to publish bad data and hide inconvenient data. It's looking more and more like global warming is a total fraud, both from the scientific and political aspects of the issue. If the data isn't good and the scientists have been hiding things, then the entire issue of the validity of global warming is at doubt.

Not that I haven't had doubts for years. Sometime about 1990 I was on a camping trip with the Scouts and one of the dads was a highly lettered scientist who taught at the local teacher college. He and I were talking about world-wide catastrophes and he said that the biggest threat to mankind was glaciation. He told me that most of the periods of time when life flourishes on this planet are warm times and that those are punctuated with periods of extreme glaciation. Like a 2 mile thick glacier over half the United States. His thesis was that the entire history of mankind was marked in a warm period and that if we intended to be around longer than the dinosaurs, we better figure out what we need to do about glaciers.

I don't believe a word that Al Gore says. The man has figured out how to get rich selling snake-oil. He would have made a great Hadacol salesman.

Improvised Weapons

I don't fly much, because I hate the TSA and .... I hate the TSA.

Anyplace that won't let a gentleman have a pocketknife is one place that gentlemen need not go. I was raised to believe that every man worth his salt carries a pocketknife. Don't even get me started on guns.

However, if you've been paying attention at all, you know that the only weapon you truly carry with your everywhere is your brain. Everything else is a tool. And, it turns out, the TSA retards are just now figuring out that everything is a weapon.

Serving several years as a corrections officer taught me that the human capacity for weapons manufacture is unlimited. If someone goes jihad on a plane, stick a plain Bic pen in his sternum. If you can hold him down and hammer it in with a paperback book, it'll be cleanup on aisle four. For an easier task, get behind him and put it in a kidney. That'll change his focus real quick.

Don't want to get that close and personal? From your carry-on, take out a bottle of shampoo, or a bar of soap. Drop it in the toe of your pantyhose (or your socks) and use that as a bludgeon. If you can get a good lick upside his head, he'll be drooling on himself in federal custody.

Another example; you know that little air hose the stewardess uses during the safety briefing? When you've got the clown down, use that on his neck. When he goes limp, use some pantyhose (the one with the soap in it will do fine) and hog-tie him.

Your brain is the weapon. Use it.

Thanks to Say Uncle and the Munchkin Wrangler for the heads-up.