That's the title of my latest HND piece. I use the so-called epidemic of type 2 diabetes as a springboard to describe how a community-based organization—operating on shoestring—does plenty of good.
Also discussed is the Promotores model, employed by this organization and others—often with wonderful results.
Read the complete article.
This one is from Robert Felix.
25 Aug 11 — "Sea Levels Dropped in 2010." That's what the headline should have read. Instead, NASA tried to hide this startling information under the nondescript headline "NASA Satellites Detect Pothole On Road to Higher Seas."
Refer to this link.
The story begins as yet another global warming horror story, explaining how "ocean waters expand as they warm. This, along with melting glaciers and ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, drives sea levels higher over the long term."
Red line shows increase in global sea level since the early 1990s. Sea level has risen by a little more than an inch each decade, or about 3 mm per year. The recent drop of nearly one quarter inch (½ cm), is attributable to the switch from El Niño to La Niña. (Credit: S. Nerem, University of Colorado)
While the rise of the global ocean has been remarkably steady for most of the last 18 years, the article continues, (undoubtedly due to global warming caused by us nasty humans, of course) "every once in a while, sea level rise hits a speed bump. This past year, it's been more like a pothole: between last summer and this one, global sea level actually fell by about a quarter of an inch, or half a centimeter."
They kind of sneaked that in there, didn't they? Sea levels actually fell!
So what does it mean? "You can blame it on the cycle of El Niño and La Niña in the Pacific," explains climate scientist Josh Willis of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California.
One of the strongest La Niñas in recent memory "changed rainfall patterns all across the globe, bringing massive floods to places like Australia and the Amazon basin, and drought to the southern United States." This extra rain piled onto the continents in the early parts of 2011.
Uh huh. Rising sea levels are caused by humans. But falling sea levels are caused by natural forces.
Where did that extra water come from? "You guessed it—the ocean. Each year, huge amounts of water are evaporated from the ocean. While most of it falls right back into the ocean as rain, some of it falls over land."
"This year, the continents got an extra dose of rain, so much so that global sea levels actually fell over most =of the last year," says Carmen Boening, a JPL oceanographer and climate scientist. But for those who might argue that these data show us entering a long-term period of decline in global sea level, Willis cautions that sea level drops such as this one cannot last, and over the long-run, the trend remains solidly up. Water flows downhill, and the extra rain will eventually find its way back to the sea. When it does, global sea level will rise again."
Maybe. But what if that precipitation remains locked up on land as ice? Look at the record snowfall throughout the Western United States this past winter. That's how ice ages begin. If that sort of snowfall persists, sea levels will continue falling and won't rise again until the end of the next ice age.
"We're heating up the planet, and in the end that means more sea level rise," says Willis. "But El Niño and La Niña always take us on a rainfall roller coaster, and in years like this they give us sea-level whiplash."
As far as I'm concerned this article is totally biased toward global warming, not something one likes to see coming from NASA. It is a disgrace when NASA, NOAA, and other government agencies deliberately deceive the public for whom they work.
Robert Felix is the author of Not by Fire but by Ice.
That's the title of my latest HND offering.
We take a look at how "deals" from online pharmacies might not be as great as they first seem, and discover the source of product for one of them. (A nurse who was ripping off her hospital's pharmacy)
Then, there are always charity frauds, bogus work-at-home-schemes, and wrongful "cures."
Also some good news from fraud expert Joshua McAfee (nephew of famed computer virus fighter John McAfee), and VP of SecureFraud.
Read the complete article.
This one is from Paul Driessen
Their “research” would be hilarious if it didn’t cost taxpayers and consumers so dearly
Put these guys on Comedy Central. Put 'em in an asylum ... a mandatory restitution program ... jail perhaps ... or a witness protection program, if they turn state's evidence on other perpetrators. But keep them away from our money—and our energy, economic, health care and education policies.
Climate prostitutes, parasites and charlatans have been devouring billions in US taxpayer dollars, year after year, plus billions more in corporate shareholder cash, activist foundation funds and state government grants. The laws, mandates, subsidies and regulations they advance have cost taxpayers and consumers still more billions for "alternative" energy and other schemes that send prices skyrocketing, kill jobs, and reduce health and living standards.
It's time to end this destructive saga and, while we're at it, pink-slip the politicians and bureaucrats who pour billions of hard-earned tax dollars into perpetual climate "research," "education" and "environmental" programs. They're actively complicit or have completely failed to perform proper due diligence.
Global cooling has morphed into global warming, climate change, global climate disruption, climate "weirding" and extreme weather events—always manmade, always imminently catastrophic, always requiring eternal research and wrenching societal transformation, to "save the planet."
The endless absurdity oozing out of the climate change cesspool would be hilarious if it weren't so costly.
"Global warming: Is weight loss a solution?" the "peer-reviewed" International Journal of Obesity breathlessly wondered a few weeks ago. Most definitely. Fat people breathe more and thus emit more carbon dioxide. If the world's 1.5 billion obese and overweight adults all lost 22 pounds apiece and kept if off for a year, the reduction in CO2 would equal 0.2% of global emissions from burning fossil fuels and manufacturing cement. (Translation: "health professionals" deserve more climate research loot.)
If you need more proof that "obesity and climate change are linked," simply consider how awful life is now in Mexico, the same authors argued in an article for their Climate and Health Council. One in four Mexicans is now obese. "The planet is getting hotter, its people are getting fatter, and the use of fossil fuel energy is the cause of both. Large increases in motor vehicle traffic have decimated levels of physical activity. This, combined with increased availability of energy-dense food, has propelled the body mass index in the entire [Mexican] population upward."
"Moving to a low-carbon economy could be the next great public health advance," the CHC "experts" suggested. But even eating less meat won't be enough, nor reducing dependence on dairy products, nor even vegetarianism, pal reviewers intoned. "We have to be vegans," get rid of cars—and reduce human populations, perhaps with "China's one-child policy (entailing elements of compulsion)" as the model.
Didn't we try that low-carb, low-carbon stuff for most of human history? Aren't they still trying it in Sub-Saharan Africa? Do we want dictatorial one-child policies in an era of "choice" and aging pensioners?
Some aren't sure this meatless diet craze is crazy. They claim the link between climate change and raising animals for meat is borne out by Earth history. According to a Texas paleontologist, dung and flatulence from herds of hadrosaurs, the Cretaceous equivalent to modern cattle, could have contributed to Arctic warming 70 million years ago. Other scientists say the hypothesis is a load of coprolite.
Nearly 2,000 animal species "are fleeing global warming by heading north much faster than they were less than a decade ago," asserts new "research" just published in the once-credible journal Science. The opportunistic species are moving at the breakneck speed of "about a mile a year," intrepid climate-chaos promoter Seth Borenstein anxiously noted in his AP wire story.
The situation could quickly reverse if reduced solar activity and the past two years' frigid Northern Hemisphere winters become the new norm. But neither Science nor the AP mentioned that or explained how the current migrations differ from what's been happening since the last Pleistocene glaciers retreated and the Little Ice Age ended.
Instead, we've been repeatedly treated to amusingly convoluted back-peddling from earlier pronouncements that ski resorts will be a thing of the past and "children just aren't going to remember what snow is." Now we're told that global warming can worsen winters and increase snowfalls. In fact, as one Greenpeace activist explained, "Global warming can mean colder. It can mean wetter. It can mean drier. That's what we're talking about."
Actually, what we're talking about is Earth's constantly changing weather and climate caused—not by hydrocarbon use—but by complex, chaotic, unpredictable atmospheric, oceanic, solar, planetary and other forces whose interactions and effects scientists are only beginning to understand. To respond adequately to them, we need building, heating, air conditioning and other technology to adapt to, cope with, and protect our lives and property against those forces—and the prosperity to afford that technology.
Unfortunately, policies, laws and regulations driven by climate "research" and horror stories are making it increasingly difficult to address those needs. Rather than developing our nation's own vast natural resource and human resources, America is wasting billions on politically correct technologies and companies, like Evergreen Solar, which got $486 million in taxpayer subsidies before going belly-up this month. As Al Gore likes to say, that is unsustainable.
Meanwhile, a steady stream of headline-grabbing "studies" continues to power the climate scare and renewable energy gravy train. Retired professor John Brignell's website presents hundreds of absurd research claims, from the Alps melting and Amazon being destroyed, to "Italy robbed of pasta," to the "world going up in flames" over resource scarcity and zebra mussels taking over the Thames River—all because of global warming. The website is not up-to-date, but here's one recent gem he could add.
A new taxpayer-funded NASA/Penn State "scientific" study warns that "ecosystem-valuing universalist" (really "green") aliens might realize that we have been altering "the chemical composition of Earth's atmosphere," conclude that we have "ecological destructive tendencies," and "wipe humanity out in order to preserve the Earth system as a whole." (And you thought James Hansen and Michael Mann were the only loons collecting big bucks at these institutions of "vital research" and "higher education.")
This interminable pessimism undoubtedly prompted climate activist Danny Bloom to marry his longtime companion and love of his life: Mother Earth—in a charming ceremony officiated by an online justice of the peace. Perhaps he can consummate his marriage, using one of "the first-ever eco-friendly luxury condoms," which were developed by two French aristocrats and introduced in the USA just in time for Valentine's Day 2011. Unlike other condom manufacturers, the Original Condom Company is "extremely eco aware and makes every effort to cover their carbon footprint."
These attention-getting stunts may not save the planet. But responsible citizens may be able to save the republic, by helping Congress, the White House and their "debt committee" to find a few places where tens of billions are being wasted on excess bureaucrats, bogus research, useless reports and destructive policies.
President Reagan once observed that, if politics is the second oldest profession, it bears a striking resemblance to the first. A corollary might be that, even if the perpetrators are wearing eco-friendly luxury condoms, most citizens don't like getting screwed by elected officials and unelected bureaucrats.
With Congress home for more fact-finding meetings with constituents, citizens have a perfect opportunity to send a powerful message. Let's make the most of it.
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.
I'm referring to tainted and corrosive drywall imported from China, popularly called "Chinese drywall," even though not all Chinese product is tainted and corrosive.
While most of the attention has been focused on Florida, experts now think the problem is Texas will eventually surpass what is happening in Florida. Current estimates project more than 100,000 homes in the Lone Star state to have some degree of tainted drywall in them.
Our friends at Foreman and Associates have teamed up with Real Estate Training systems to offer a comprehensive seminar—intended for home inspectors and other interested parties—answering such real world questions as these:
Seminar attendees will be eligible for 16 hours of TREC (Texas Real Estate Commission) certified Continuing Education Credits.
Check it out.As I point out in my latest HND piece, the US lags far behind much of the civilized world in fire safety. While this trend is thankfully improving, there is still much ground to be gained.
The conventional wisdom says that smoke detectors save lives, but the truth is far different. Yes, a drop in fire deaths did coincide with the promulgation of these devices, but many others factors came into play at the same time, including more rigorous building codes, better design of electrical appliances, and enhanced fire resistance of many household items.
The other problem is that the popular ionization smoke detectors are more effective at producing false alarms based on cooking vapors than actually responding to most typical residential fire scenarios. Veteran fire protection engineer Richard Patton and many other experts are pulling the lid off this scandal, and Patton names names on his website.
We also discuss residential fire sprinklers, now required in many jurisdictions. They're surprisingly affordable, and definitely do save lives—to say nothing of putting out the fire.
Read the complete article.