Headlines I love to see:
Actress-singer reveals sweet side for Jolie, and Brad Pitt, at awards
And the giveaway text:
“Well, he’s beautiful. But I’ve got more of a crush on Angelina though than Brad,” Lindsay laughed.
Visions……..
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For the first time in my life, I’m becoming a little envious of Brad Pitt.
If you look REAL close and kind of squint your eyes a little, you can vaguely see the source of the latest controversy brewing on network television. Mischa Barton’s nip slipped out of her negligee during PRIME TIME on The O.C.. Fox claims there were no complaints. And, apparently no one noticed until someone looked REAL close in slow motion. For what it’s worth, I’m not sure I can even see it now. I’ve seen it other places, it’s better looking than Tara Reid’s boob, but not by much. Needless to say, it’s not as clear as Janet Jackson’s boob was during the Super Bowl. But, in both cases, you get about a fraction of a second of actual visuals before it’s tucked back where it belongs.
Meanwhile, on another channel ( just as accessible as Fox in most cases ), we get to see this:
And this,
And, we get to deal with things like:
Who’s complaining about all THAT? I mean, I look at things from the perspective of a kid. All kids have seen nipples. Some more than others. But anyone that’s tried to bathe in the morning with a 2 year old knows that a two year old has seen it all when it comes to body parts. Occasionally you have to explain what the body part is. But, for the most part, it’s no big deal to a 2 year old. I have a harder time dealing with weird behaviors on tv. Lesbian scenes, sex in general, and people using naughty words and phrases cause me more of an issue. Therefore, the boy doesn’t watch Nip/Tuck. I just don’t want to try to explain what’s going on when young girls frolic in mock lesbian sex.
Tonight, at 8pm, while The O.C. is possibly offending the FCC, people could shy away and watch this instead:
I don’t feel like exposing my kid to that. For that matter, I don’t feel like exposing myself to that. Give me Mischa Barton’s nipple any time over crap like CSI. Why is a nipple so disturbing to so many people, but perverse violence is acceptable?
Actually, what I will most likely be watching makes a LOT of wannabe sensors nervous:
Are those nipples all over his body? For that matter, what other animal has perfectly round eyes? And, I can’t wait to see Patrick flying through the air with a Spongebob banner stuck up his butt again. At least I won’t be perverted by Mischa Barton’s nipple.
( Bottom line here, nudity does a LOT less harm to society than violence. Get right FCC, ban violence for a while and allow nudity. OK? I’m sure the kids will turn out just as good as they are now. I mean, would you rather explain that Mischa and Tara have the same body parts as his mom or try to explain to him why someone would kill a young lady, dye her hair, and shove her face in a toilet? )
Yesterday it was almost 70. Today we have this:
If you don’t like the weather here, just wait a few minutes.
I like polls, I wish there were thousands of people coming to my site just to make my polls a lot more relevant. Until there are thousands coming here, I’m going to do them anyway.
This has been one of the coldest winters in the history of my area. Right now we’re teetering around the 10th coldest winter since 1895, and the last few days will only push us higher on that chart.
I read an article the other day about how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration might have a major functional flaw in their assessing global climate. Do note, I did not say assessing global warming, but global climate. Here goes:
Part I: NOAA relies on the NWS to report basic data to them in order that they can assess climate changes. Now, with the advent of computers and the internet, readily accessing current weather data is becoming much easier and the NWS now gets information from hundreds if not thousands of locations. This has not always been true. Up until the 60’s or so, the NWS got it’s weather from airports at locations that had media. Ergo, cities. Small rural towns were approximated to their nearest city.
Part II: Urban Warming has been documented now to be a legitimate phenomenon. The basic jist of urban warming is that the environment changes alone create a warming effect within cities.
Now, ponder this. If urban warming is indeed a common effect within cities, and, if the only data being quantified came from cities, what result do you think you’d get? That’s right, the whole planet is warming.
I live in the country, the temperatures here have been approximately the same as they were in 1895. This summer has been cooler than 1895. It’s been several years since we’ve had a 100 degree day, I used to remember them all the time as a kid. It’s just not warming here. Period. There are global events occurring that indicate warming, but, there are global events occurring indicating a pending ice age as well. Scientists are split into two camps, global warming is here and global warming is not here.
I think we need to do things to make mankind more hospitable to the host he lives with, but I don’t see a need for a manic rush to change what man is doing at the risk of a global economic meltdown that render man’s ability to make the changes obsolete. Especially this summer. I’ve had way too much time to work on this blog during the 70 degree dog days of summer ( it should be 90 ).
I get a lot of my topics from discussions on The Motley Fool. There are a handful of posters that look at the "big picture" as I try to do as well. Kentm is one of those. We have had a lot of discussions on oil supply with a lot of speculative scenarios. He’s more of a fatalist in that regard than I am. However, a truism when discussing the topic of oil, is how long will it last? Hubbert’s Peak, or Peak Oil, is a well calculated scenario of when the world’s oil supply will peak, and therefore become a more scarce commodity. When will it happen? Well, even Hubbert is a little vague. However, this article does explain the concept and scenarious of Peak Oil more clearly than anything I have ever read before. And of course, it comes courtesy of Kent.
According to this model, the Peak will occur somewhere between 2026 ( my reitrement year ) and 2047. Although 20 something years sounds like a fairly long time, when it comes to weening the planet off it’s addiction to petroleum products, that’s not nearly enough time. Now, the problem Hubbert’s model gives you is that once supply peaks, it drops off FAST. AS demand increases while supply decreases, the proportion eats itself up rather quickly. A fraction of a fraction is much smaller than multiplying by fractions. In other words, once it peaks, it’s over pretty quick.
That raised yet another question from Kent, Hubbert’s Peak very simply graphs supply vs demand and makes it dirt simple to understand. However, there are intangibles to it. If the US aggressively pursues alternative energy resources and makes them standard energy supplies accross the country, the Peak Oil will be pushed back. The question, therefore, is "what is the political risk premium on supply" and could you graph it?
1. In order to plot something like that, you’d have to have two coordinating points, what would those be?
2. Would the primary concern be domestic or foreign ( or both )? In order to do what’s right for the US public, hard foreign policies would have to be addressed.
There is some precedent to the risk premium that could be quantified. The recent debate over drilling in ANWR I would think would be an oil supply political risk indicator:
Sixty percent of the 1,000 likely voters polled said drilling for oil in ANWR will do little or nothing to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. In contrast, 30 percent said opening ANWR to oil drilling is a key part of national energy strategy that will reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.
When they took it to a broader speculation of "Americans’, it came to this:
A Zogby International survey, conducted for The Wilderness Society, found that 51 percent of Americans oppose the idea of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, while 36 percent said Congress should open the ANWR to oil drilling.
In that case, I would put the risk premium at negative 64, a horribly politcally risky move. So, if you graphed the US public over a period of time on domestic supply, it wouldn’t look very good, but you’d have your graph.
If you addressed it as a political risk, I would look at the same issue based on congressional voting records:
Last year, a bill to open the coastal plain of the refuge passed the House but not the Senate, where eight Republicans voted with the Democrats against drilling.
The risk factor politically is apparently a negative number right now as well as both Alaska and California were tossed around and failed.
In order to graph it, I would look at domestic drilling votes over a period of time and plot the negative votes using 50 as a base in the Senate, and 217 being the baseline for the House.
Then, of course, you’d have the foreign risk factor to consider. I don’t really consider the opinions of foreign people or dignitaries the issue, but moreso, how the US public would perceive the relations with other countries if the President had to make hard decisions in regards to supply ( see lhaselden’s NUMEROUS posts ). I can’t think of any consistent poll that would reflect that, or any set of numbers that would consider that either.
The bottom line is that I don’t really think there is a rock solid base to work from. There’s too much data to make it a pretty graph. Consider, if President Bush did ramrod the ANWR issue down the country’s throat, against huge opposition ( 64%? ), BUT, Iraq suddenly kicked production up to levels never seen before and the price of gas suddenly dropped to $1.00, my bet is the public and political opposition to the ANWR drilling would evaporate overnight, even though the ANWR drilling would have had nothing to do with the sudden surge in supply.
A second example is even though supply increased earlier this year ( a perceived good thing ), the fact the feds were replinishing their stockpile and therefore temporarily increasing demand, along with other factors, suddenly caused the speculators to go nuts and run the price up anyway. Ergo, negativ political risk even though the supply increased.
It’s just too vague IMO. You could graph parts of the equation, but more parts are based on perception and I don’t think you can make a worthwhile chart based on perception. It is a valid concept tho. As we get closer to Hubbert’s Peak, that political risk factor will wane as the price of gas soars. A president, in order to be most effective, needs to know exactly when ANWR and the coasts are politically doable and act fast. This perceived graph would be just the tool to do it. I’m just apparently not the man to get it done. Maybe y’all can help Kent and me:
Charley Downgraded; Death Toll Rises to 15
There’s the damage. Quite extensive. People died, properties all across Florida destroyed, utilties down for millions, and Florida facing a $15-$20 Billion estimate in claims and property damage.
It could have been worse. But then again, it could have been not as bad. What I am wondering, and I do mean wondering, is what went wrong with the predicted path? The National Hurricane Center issues warnings of the path of a hurricane. In this case, they were so sure it was going to hit the St Petersburg / Tampa Bay area they issued a mass evacuation order. Hundreds of thousands of people fled Tampa Bay. Nobody fled Port Charlotte, 100 miles to the south. Problem is, that’s where Charley hit. Charley took a path through Orlando, up to Daytona, and upwards to Jacksonville. Now it’s wreaking havoc around North Carolina as a tropical storm, hopefully dying out as it heads towards New England. Why wasn’t Port Charlotte ( Punta Gorda to be exact ) evacuated as well? It seems to me to be a double whammy on the nerves of Port Charlotte area residents since they probably didn’t take it as seriously as they now know they should have since it was supposed to go 100 miles north of them.
It seems to me that if predicting the paths of hurricanes is still that inexact a science that they can miss by 100 miles in less than one day, they need to expand their most severe warnings by a much broader area. All I heard for two days was Charley was going to hit Tampa Bay. It never did. I never heard the name Port Charlotte mentioned, and it did get hit. I’m just very glad I don’t live anywhere on the Gulf Coast right now. Every single hurricane warning would make me a nervous wreck.