HuckChuck Facts

This is my favorite political ad ever:

It's nice to see a politician who can have some fun and not take himself too seriously all the time.

Aldrete Davila Arrested

Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, whose testimony sent two U.S. Border Patrol agents (Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean) to prison, was finally arrested and indicted on drug smuggling charges yesterday, just over 2 years after using a "border pass" from the Department of Homeland Security to smuggle drugs across the Mexican border.

The El Paso Times has two stories about the arrest:

• Man shot by Border Patrol agents arrested at bridge
• Smuggler shot in '05 taken to court today

U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, who prosecuted Ramos & Compean, released a statement about the arrest, closing with the following:

Just as Aldrete’s alleged illegal conduct did not excuse the crimes committed by Compean and Ramos, likewise, their crimes will not excuse his. Compean and Ramos had their day in court and received justice in accordance with well established laws. Now, Aldrete will have his day in court and my office will work tirelessly to ensure that justice is done.

Are you kidding me Mr. Sutton? You were responsible for building the case on the testimony of an illegal alien drug smuggler, and giving him immunity, and yet you have the gall to say that Compean's and Ramos's "crimes will not excuse his"? Of course not, you excused his. If not for Aldrete's continued drug smuggling and illegal entry into this country, he would still be a free man today.

This whole case continues to make my blood boil. What the heck is going on? Not to beat a dead horse, but why would the U.S. government take the word of an illegal alien drug smuggler over up to nine U.S. Border Patrol agents? Why would the reports of the September/October 2005 drug loads led by Aldrete not be admissible evidence?

My Only NASCAR Post Ever

From the Onion:

FORT WORTH—Hendrick Motorsports driver Jimmie Johnson, who took the points lead in the NEXTEL Cup championship with his win in the Dickies 500 after dicing with Matt Kenseth for several laps, was visibly excited by his victory Sunday while hollering at reporters for over 40 minutes in his post-race Victory Lane press conference. "Yeeeeeeeee," exclaimed Johnson, while repeatedly firing the twin pistols awarded to him for his win into the air, "Haaaaaaaaw!" When told that his victory relegated his teammate Jeff Gordon to second place in championship points, Johnson displayed admirable humility by removing his black ten-gallon cowboy hat and muttering a respectful "Awwww."

"The Greatest Scam In History"

From John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, found in part here and in whole here.

COMMENTS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

By John Coleman

jcoleman@kusi.com

it is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM.

Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data back in the late 1990's to create an allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental wacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the "research" to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.

Environmental extremist, notable politicians among them then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild "scientific" scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda.

Now their ridicules manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minutes documentary segment.

I do not oppose environmentalism. I do not oppose the political positions of either party.

However, Global Warming, i.e. Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you "believe in." It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a nonevent, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won't believe me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it.

I suspect you might like to say to me, "John, look the research that supports the case for global warming was done by research scientists; people with PH D's in Meteorology. They are employed by major universities and important research institutions. Their work has been reviewed by other scientists with PH D's. They have to know a lot more about it than you do. Come on, John, get with it. The experts say our pollution has created an strong and increasing greenhouse effect and a rapid, out of control global warming is underway that will sky rocket temperatures, destroy agriculture, melt the ice caps, flood the coastlines and end life as we know it. How can you dissent from this crisis? You must be a bit nutty.

Allow me, please, to explain how I think this all came about. Our universities have become somewhat isolated from the rest of us. There is a culture and attitudes and values and pressures on campus that are very different. I know this group well. My father and my older brother were both PHD-University types. I was raised in the university culture. Any person who spends a decade at a university obtaining a PHD in Meteorology and become a research scientist, more likely than not, becomes a part of that single minded culture. They all look askance at the rest of us, certain of their superiority. They respect government and disrespect business, particularly big business. They are environmentalists above all else.

And, there is something else. These scientists know that if they do research and results are in no way alarming, their research will gather dust on the shelf and their research careers will languish. But if they do research that sounds alarms, they will become well known and respected and receive scholarly awards and, very importantly, more research dollars will come flooding their way.

So when these researchers did climate change studies in the late 90's they were eager to produce findings that would be important and be widely noticed and trigger more research funding. It was easy for them to manipulate the data to come up with the results they wanted to make headlines and at the same time drive their environmental agendas. Then their like minded PHD colleagues reviewed their work and hastened to endorse it without question.

There were a few who didn't fit the mold. They did ask questions and raised objections. They did research with contradictory results. The environmental elitists berated them brushed their studies aside.

I have learned since the Ice Age is coming scare in the 1970's to always be a skeptic about research. In the case of global warming, I didn't accept media accounts. Instead I read dozens of the scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct when I assure you there is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. It is all a scam, the result of bad science.

I am not alone in this assessment. There are hundreds of other meteorologists, many of them PH D's, who are as certain as I am that this global warming frenzy is based on bad science and is not valid.

I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming.

In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped.

The sky is not falling. And, natural cycles and drifts in climate are as much if not more responsible for any climate changes underway.

I strongly believe that the next twenty years are equally as likely to see a cooling trend as they are to see a warming trend.

Here are a couple more good sites related to the scam of global warming:

• John Coleman's weather blog (filled with links to various resources)
• FAQs and Myths about global warming

Cool Music Site

Just found out about a cool music site - Pandora.com. Go there, enter an artist or song, and it will create a radio station for you based on what you entered. Here's how they explain what they do:

When was the last time you fell in love with a new artist or song?

At Pandora, we have a single mission: To play music you'll love - and nothing else.

To understand just how we do this, and why we think we do it really, really well, you need to know about the Music Genome Project©.

Since we started back in 2000, we have been hard at work on the Music Genome Project. It's the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Together our team of fifty musician-analysts has been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song. It takes 20-30 minutes per song to capture all of the little details that give each recording its magical sound - melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics ... and more - close to 400 attributes! We continue this work every day to keep up with the incredible flow of great new music coming from studios, stadiums and garages around the country.

With Pandora you can explore this vast trove of music to your heart's content. Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs or artists into Pandora and let the Genome Project go. It will quickly scan its entire world of analyzed music, almost a century of popular recordings - new and old, well known and completely obscure - to find songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice. Then sit back and enjoy as it creates a listening experience full of current and soon-to-be favorite songs for you.

You can create as many "stations" as you want. And you can even refine them. If it's not quite right you can tell it so and it will get better for you.

The Music Genome Project was founded by musicians and music-lovers. We believe in the value of music and have a profound respect for those who create it. We like all kinds of music, from the most obtuse bebop, to the most tripped-out drum n bass, to the simplest catchy pop tune. Our mission is to help you connect with the music YOU like.

We hope you enjoy the experience!

(HT: Vitamin Z)

UPDATE: I may have just created the best radio station ever - featuring this song:

Yep, that's Eddie Murphy singing "Party All The Time," written and produced by Rick James.

How Lame

This has got to be 3 of the dumbest minutes in the history of broadcast television:


Yeah, green! Let's conserve energy by lighting some candles, while we show on our huge plasma TV that Matt Lauer is lighting up the Arctic Circle in order to tell us how they're sending people all over the planet to report as part of their "Green is Universal" initiative. But I'm sure those lights in the Arctic Circle are powered by solar powered batteries. And I bet those three (Lauer, Al Roker, and Ann Curry) all rode their bikes to their destinations. Could they be any more disingenuous? If you want to be friendly to the environment, that's great. I'm all for conserving natural resources and taking care of the planet. But at least be consistent and sincere about it. This reeks of ratings and $$. I hope NBC bought some carbon credits to reduce their footprint during this initiative. (Yeah, no joke - want to help the environment? Instead of conserving natural resources yourself, just pay someone else to do it!)

Mark Driscoll on Joel Osteen

Are Blue Hens Racist?

Check out these statements from the Diversity Facilitation Training at the University of Delaware (the Fightin' Blue Hens):

RACISM: Racism is race prejudice plus power. (Definition, by People's Institute. I use "white supremacy" as a synonym for racism.)

...

REVERSE RACISM: A term created and used by white people to deny their white privilege. Those in denial use the term reverse racism to refer to hostile behavior by people of color toward whites, and to affirmative action policies, which allegedly give 'preferential treatment' to people of color over whites. In the U.S., there is no such thing as "reverse racism."

A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities or acts of discrimination. (This does not deny the existence of such prejudices, hostilities, acts of rage or discrimination.)

About the only thing I agree with there is that "there is no such thing as reverse racism." Ah, to be able to define terms the way we want. I'd like to define a couple of terms:

LOVE: to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest

INTELLIGENT: lacking good judgment; stupid; dull-witted.

And using those definitions, I'd like to state the following: I love when people make intelligent arguments.

Maybe I'll just stick with a dictionary, like the American Heritage Dictionary, to define "racism:"

The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.

Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

Based on those definitions, I feel it's safe to say that there are probably white people who are racist, black people who are racist, and Blue Hens that are racist. I think painting an entire "race" as racist is actually a racist thing to do. I would say it's a little like the pot calling the kettle black, but I'm not sure if that's politically correct.