Malala Yousafzai

This. This, not some thirty year old woman at Georgetown University trying to change the Catholic faith. This fourteen-year-old girl in Pakistan shot by the Taliban. This girl who wrote about and fought atrocities. This girl for whom Pakistan created an award, the National Peace Award, and gave it to her last year. This girl who was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize. This girl whose school bus was stopped by two men with pistols who came on board and asked which one of the girls was Malala Yousafzai and then shot her in the head. This is the front line of the "War on Women."

Yemen, Reuters Photo

Reuters:  Protesters break the windows of the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen September 13, 2012.

Lauren Mitchell Band at the Palladium July 20, 2012 - I'll Sing the Blue...

Video produced by Sevens member Mike Roberts down in Florida.

Gigapixel Camera

DARPA (The Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency), has developed a gigapixel camera. That means one shot of the camera can capture far more data than your eyes do.  Most of our current digital cameras are 10 to 12 megapixel cameras... even now, at 10-12 megapixels, I find I can just take a picture of an area and later zoom in and crop the picture to an area I'm interested in, rather than zooming and framing the picture... with a gigapixel camera each shot could contain hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of fine smaller images.  You could take a picture of the crowd at Times Square and later zoom in on each person's face.

A revolution in media is needed now, to hold all the data.

1988 vs. 2012 Fort Wayne Temps

Date Temp 1988/2012

--------------------------

05-24-1988 82.9 / 89.1
05-25-1988 75.0 / 91.9
05-26-1988 77.0 / 93.0
05-27-1988 82.9 / 96.1
05-28-1988 87.1 / 96.1
05-29-1988 90.0 / 95.0
05-30-1988 91.0 / 87.1
05-31-1988 93.0 / 79.0
06-01-1988 93.9 / 57.0
06-02-1988 93.9 / 73.9
06-03-1988 72.0 / 81.0
06-04-1988 75.9 / 81.0
06-05-1988 86.0 / 81.0
06-06-1988 91.9 / 79.0
06-07-1988 93.0 / 84.0
06-08-1988 93.0 / 86.0
06-09-1988 69.1 / 89.1
06-10-1988 73.9 / 93.0
06-11-1988 82.9 / 93.0
06-12-1988 90.0 / 86.0
06-13-1988 95.0 / 81.0
06-14-1988 96.1 / 86.0
06-15-1988 97.0 / 91.0
06-16-1988 96.1 / 95.0
06-17-1988 84.9 / 88.0
06-18-1988 91.0 / 95.0
06-19-1988 93.9 / 95.0
06-20-1988 93.9 / 94.0
06-21-1988 100.9 / 94.0

06-22-1988 102.0 / 85.0
06-23-1988 99.0 / 88.0
06-24-1988 91.9 / 93.0
06-25-1988 106.0 / 81.0
06-26-1988 82.0 / 82.0
06-27-1988 84.0 / 91.0

06-28-1988 87.1 / 106.0

06-29-1988 88.0 / 94.0 91 mph derecho winds knocks power out

06-30-1988 82.9 / 90.0 (no power)
07-01-1988 82.9 / 94.0 (no power)
07-02-1988 84.9 / 93.0 (no power)
07-03-1988 91.0 / 99.0 (no power)
07-04-1988 97.0 / 100.9 (power restored)
07-05-1988 98.1 / 101.0
07-06-1988 99.0 / 101.0
07-07-1988 100.9 / 103.0
07-08-1988 102.0 / 90.0
07-09-1988 100.9 / 91.0
07-10-1988 100.0 / 90.0
07-11-1988 91.0 / 92.0
07-12-1988 88.0 / 93.9
07-13-1988 89.1 / 92.0
07-14-1988 93.9 / 90.0
07-15-1988 99.0 / 92.0
07-16-1988 100.0 / 98.0
07-17.1988 98.1 / 99.0
07-18-1988 88.0 / 95.0
07-19-1988 86.0 / 84.0
07-20-1988 87.1 / 81.0
07-21-1988 82.9 / 85.0
07-22-1988 84.0 / 91.0
07-23-1988 84.9 / 92.0
07-24-1988 86.0 / 83.0
07-25-1988 86.0 / 92.0
07-26-1988 82.9 / 85.0
07-27-1988 86.0 / 86.0
07-28-1988 93.0 / 84.0
07-29-1988 93.0 / 84.0
07-30-1988 91.0 / 88.0
07-31-1988 89.1 / 85.0
08-01-1988 95.0
08-02-1988 95.0
08-03-1988 93.9
08-04-1988 93.9
08-05-1988 91.0
08-06-1988 91.0
08-07-1988 90.0
08-08-1988 90.0
08-09-1988 90.0
08-10-1988 91.0
08-11-1988 89.1
08-12-1988 91.9
08-13-1988 91.9
08-14-1988 91.0
08-15-1988 91.9
08-16-1988 95.0
08-17-1988 98.1
08-18-1998 98.1
08-19-1988 75.9
08-20-1988 82.0
08-21-1988 82.9
08-22-1988 80.1
08-23-1988 79.0
08-24-1988 80.1
08-25-1988 82.0
08-26-1988 82.9
08-27-1988 77.0
08-28-1988 73.0
08-29-1988 73.0
08-30-1988 75.9
08-31-1988 78.1
09-01-1988 79.0
09-02-1988 82.0
09-03-1988 82.9

Vice Presidents

What, in the history of the vice presidency of the United States, would lead a successful senator or a governor to accept that position? I think it has become a dead-end position, a place where politicians at the end of their careers can go to be the back up in case of disaster.

Ben Smith on Norwell Sports

Ben Smith, in his article, Rich Farmland in Ossian yields athletic success, writes a very nice article on how well the boys and girls baseball, football and basketball teams programs have done and  the great athletes that come out of Norwell, including Miss Basketball Jessica Rupright, Colts quarterback Chandler Harnish, and Oakland A's picture Jarrod Parker.

We don't elect Restaurateurs

A culture that redefines food choices as moral issues will demonize the people who don't share the tastes of the priest class. A culture that elevates eating to some holistic act of ethical self-definition - localvore, low-carbon-impact food, fair trade, artisanal cheese - will find the casual carefree choices of the less-enlightened as an affront to their belief system

James Lileks on Michael Bloomberg's decision to try to limit the size of drinks in NYC.  Read the whole thing.

Hidden Carbon Tax

seven such states with RPS mandates saw their rates soar by an average of 54.2 percent between 2001 and 2010, 

more than twice the average increase experienced by seven other coal-dependent states without mandates

Robert Bryce's Manhattan Institute article "The High Cost of Renewable-Electricity Mandates" is a good read.  More than half the states have seen their cost of electricity increase (skyrocket, in fact) as they pass laws forcing their power companies to provide higher and higher percentages of power from renewable sources.  At the same time, many states are providing tax breaks to renewable energy companies and renewable energy efforts by normal companies, so the taxpayers have to 1) pay more for energy and 2) make up tax shortfalls from companies that avoid millions in taxes through renewable energy loopholes and subsidies.

In 2011, California passed a mandate that 33% of their energy would come from renewable sources by 2020... they did no cost benefit analysis.  As these mandates continue to be passed, even during this long recession, more and more of the poor are tapping state and federal programs to help them pay their power bills, so not only do power companies pass all these costs on to customers, get greater and greater profits from renewable energy subsidies, but the less than half of America who pay taxes, have to pay more.

Additionally, as the EPA forces older coal plants out of business, many of the Midwest states without mandates, like Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, etc, will be seeing their rates pushed up as the costs are passed along; not to mention that the end-users are also being forced to pay for smart meters being added to their homes to the tune of several dollars every month for years.

All in all it is just a state and national energy policy mess costing the taxpayers increasingly billions of dollars.

Freedom in Decline

"when the leader of the third-biggest party in one of the oldest democratic legislatures on earth has to live under constant threat of murder and be forced to live in "safe houses" for almost a decade, something is badly wrong in "the most tolerant country in Europe""

Read Mark Steyn on The Spirit of Geert Wilders... 

Hogwarts at Sunset

Last Chance Iran?

A report in the Haaretz (Israel) newspaper is out saying Secretary of State Clinton has asked her counterparts in Russia to warn Iran that military strikes are months away unless they negotiate away from their nuclear ambitions.  This isn't to say that the strikes would come from the United States... but if it comes to that, it will add yet more fuel to the volatile summer election campaigning.