So, what could be more fun than a girls trip?  Just me and my daughter hopping a plane for a weekend with family and old friends.  Girl friends and their daughters sight seeing, talking, laughing, and telling stories of long ago.  We’ve left the boys at home before and flown together, so we were just going through the motions like it was all old hat: check in, check bag, boarding pass and drivers license, shoes off, jacket off, belt off, stuff in bins, etc.  I didn’t think twice about letting her walk through the metal detector ahead of me.  I finished sliding the bags and bins through the X-Ray scanner and then walked through myself.  And that’s when I saw her standing in a Plexiglas structure.  At the same time I heard ‘bag check’ and I thought “Great, they are wanding and bag checking a pre-teen girl.  They can’t catch known terrorists, but they select a young girl…..”  And then she was done.  There was no wand.  That’s when I realized she had just been body scanned.  I asked, just to make sure, and I was right.  I moved around so I could see the image of the next person in the scanner, but no image was on the screen.  Apparently they are sent to a remote location for viewing.  I didn’t want to upset my daughter who had no idea what had just happened, so we moved on.  I felt like she had been subjected to a strip search.  I felt like I had allowed my child to be molested.  I have no idea where those images went and who viewed them.  At best it is creepy.

So, a word of warning to all parents.  Walk through the scanner first, and let them know right away that you don’t want your child scanned.  Aside from the ‘creepy factor’, there are also health concerns.  TSA of course claims that the images cannot be copied and are immediately deleted.  And, the screening officers are not allowed to take cameras into the viewing room.  Oh, that makes me feel so good about the whole thing, really.  And what about cell phones with cameras, are they banned too?  Apparently it is legal to refuse the scan.  Gee, that is big of them.  I’m still mad about it, and I doubt I’ll be getting over it any time soon.  So save yourself some mental stress, and please don’t let your daughters and sons walk through the metal detector before you do.

Maybe, just maybe, they could concentrate on catching the bad guys and leave the rest of us alone.

Reading Ericks post today, I realized how much nastiness he must put up with on a daily basis.  That is very wearing.  So, to thank him for being willing to step out in front for the good of the country, I’m giving a donation to RedState.  We can’t make the nay sayers shut up, but we can help RedState continue the fight.  How about you join me with a tangible thank you gift?  Or, you could pick your favorite candidate and give a donation in Erick’s honor.  Just an idea.

These articles are well worth reading from the Indiana Manufacturers Association Environment and Energy Forum, June 2010.

Here are some excerpts of interest.  I guess we could call it Bad News/Good News:

Each year, approximately 115 million tons of coal combustion products (CCPs) are produced in the United States. Nearly 70 percent of these materials are disposed of in saturated ash impoundments or ash landfills. Most of the mass of CCPs (99 wt percent) is made up of Si, Al, Fe, Ca, K, Mg, Na, O, P, and Ti; the same elements that make up the composition of natural soil. It is the remaining 1 wt percent of trace elements that have raised debate concerning the environmental risk associated with CCPs.

…

The environmental ramifications concerning the disposal of CCPs have been subject to increasing debate in the United States since Congress enacted the Solid Waste Disposal Act amendments in to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in 1980. In those amendments CCPs were temporarily exempted from Subtitle C regulation (which regulates disposal of material classified as hazardous waste), allowing them to be classified under Subtitle D regulation (subject to regulation only at the state level). However, the amendments did direct the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to produce a report regarding CCPs and to pursue the appropriate regulation of these wastes.

In pursuit of this mandate, the U.S.EPA issued a report to Congress in 1988 titled Waste from the Combustion of Coal Electric Utility Power Plants (EPA/5-30-SW-88-002). In this report the EPA concluded that CCPs generally do not exhibit hazardous characteristics and that the regulation of CCPs should remain under state Subtitle D authority. Following this report, litigation was brought against the EPA by the Bull Run Coalition, which claimed the EPA had failed to issue a timely regulatory determination as stated in its 1988 report to Congress. The EPA entered into a consent decree with the Bull Run Coalition, which included a time frame for the EPA to issue a formal recommendation regarding regulation of CCPs. In accordance with this consent decree, the EPA issued a final regulatory determination applicable to fly ash, bottom ash, boiler slag, and flue-gas desulphurization materials. This ruling became effective in September 1993, and stated that regulation of CCPs generated by coal fired electric utilities and independent power producers as hazardous waste was unnecessary and that the materials would remain exempt from Subtitle C regulation. In April 2000 the EPA stated that these additional wastes would continue to be exempted from Subtitle C regulation.

EPA announced on May 4, 2010 that it is proposing to regulate coal combustion residuals and is proposing two alternative regulations for public comment. There will be a 90 day public comment period following publication in the Federal Register, which should appear soon.

Under the first proposal, EPA would reverse its 1993 and 2000 regulatory determinations that CCPs are not hazardous waste and would list CCPs as special wastes subject to Subtitle C regulation. Under the second proposal, EPA would regulate disposal of CCPs under Subtitle D by issuing national minimum criteria.

If regulated under the hazardous waste Subtitle C program, CCPs would be regulated from the point of their generation to the point of their final disposition, including during and after closure of any disposal unit.

And some good news:

With adoption of the Green House Gas (GHG) Tailoring Rule on May 13, 2010, EPA limited the permitting burdens that would have resulted from its recent decision to limit GHG emissions from cars and light trucks. Under the Clean Air Act, once EPA decides to regulate a pollutant, the permitting requirements under the Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) and Title V permit programs kick in for any facility that emits either 100 or 250 tons per year of the regulated pollutant. If those limits had applied to GHG emissions, more than six million sources would have been required to obtain permits, many for the first time.

…

What are GHGs?
GHGs are the six gases that have heat trapping properties. Those gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perflurocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride.

Why are GHGs regulated?
The heat trapping properties of GHGs are believed to contribute to global warming.

What is a CO2e designation?
Because the heat trapping capabilities of the six gases varies, there is an internationally accepted method of converting each GHG into an equivalent CO2 effect which is designated as the CO2e.

And all this as the validity of data ‘proving’ global warming continues to be challenged.

Now a story written in Environment & Climate News, May 2010, by James M. Taylor, describes a recent letter sent by the Institute of Physics, a London-based scientific charity with a membership of over 36,000 devoted to the understanding and application of physics. Taylor’s article declares that “The letter criticizes global warming alarmists at the heart of the Climategate scandal for manipulating data, abusing the scientific method and strong-arming the peer-review publication process.” (The letter is actually a memorandum.)

The Institute further advises the British Parliament that it is concerned that some of the research and emails may prove to be “…forgeries or adaptations [with] worrying implications aris[ing] for the integrity of scientific research in this field…”
Forgeries of data? This is a strong accusation!

It is clear that the Institute of Physics wants to learn the truth about activities of scientists involved with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Institute’s Memorandum sets forth 13 assertions and requests to Parliament. The most important paragraph declares “The emails reveal doubts as to the reliability of some of the reconstructions and raise questions as to the way in which they have been represented; for example, the apparent suppression in graphics widely used by the IPCC of proxy results for recent decades that do not agree with contemporary instrumental temperature measurements.”

In plain English, the scientists are suggesting, as many articles have suggested, that the truth is not being told about global warming issues and the data supporting manmade climate change. (In other words, it is fraud!!!)
…

The second story that caught my attention arose here in Virginia from the Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, who filed a Civil Investigative Demand against the Commonwealth’s flagship University of Virginia (UVa). The Attorney General is demanding UVa produce all its documents in connection with one of its scientists, Dr. Michael Mann, who was implicated in several stories regarding the Climategate scandal. Dr. Mann is one of the major advocates of the “hockey stick graph” which demonstrates that global temperatures have risen suddenly and with an unprecedented upward spike and looks like a hockey stick.
Both the Institute of Physics and the Attorney General of Virginia are seeking facts and truth regarding the alleged Climategate scandal. Of course, the reaction against these efforts has been widespread and full of condemnation.

I find this curious, as you should, that people are afraid to have documents paid for by taxpayer money made available for others to read.

The Attorney General of Virginia, not being an academic, is concerned about Virginia taxpayer money being used by UVa and Mann to develop data and conclusions which also may be questionable (or fraudulent) as they relate to climate change. Mann has been accused of manipulating climate data to support the idea of manmade global warming.

As a result, the Attorney General has commanded UVa to produce all information and documentary materials that might show possible violations by Mann of the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act.

Among the 10 requests for information from Mann include a request for all of the computer programs that were created or edited by Mann from January 1, 1999 to the present. The Attorney General wants all of Mann’s hard drives, floppy drives, tape drives, optical drives, desktop and laptop – well, you get the idea. The Attorney General wants the truth. (Dr. Mann is no longer at the University of Virginia and now works at Penn State.)

When Republicans are back in control, we need to remember what the EPA has done under Obama and roll it back.  Especially when global warming has been show to be the fraud that it is.  We cannot forget our manufacturers who are already seeing increased regulation, and our citizens who will suffer the consequences of higher energy costs and further loss of manufacturing jobs to developing nations.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad.  And thanks so much for putting down the morning paper and telling me what was going on in the world.  Thanks for listening to NPR as you drove us to school, turning the radio off in disgust, and telling us exactly what you thought.  Thanks for explaining to me why conservative principles work and liberal ones don’t.  Even though I left home over 20 years ago, I can still vividly remember your passion as you taught me the ways of liberals and how to see through them.  And when I ventured away from the nest I was drawn to a man who thought like you and who, as you know, has been a wonderful husband and father, like you.  And then Rush appeared and Fox News and Drudge and RedState, etc….  But when I think about my core values and my world view, I know that you are the one most responsible for teaching me the truth.  For that, and so much more, thanks Dad – and Happy Father’s Day!

The following are excerpts from letters written by Ensign William R. Evans of Torpedo Squadron 8.  I submit these today in memory of the brave men who died in the Battle of Midway, June 4, 1942.

March, 1941:

“When I can taxi off the line at seven in the morning and take off to the east light at growing incandescence, a sensation grows which is as near heaven-born as actual shafts of sunlight pouring earthward.  Then to frolic all morning throughout the hedgerows of cotton clouds, looking for the sorrows of the mist and the rain, finding the joys of the gracious sun – living in a world of ecstatic life bounded only by nothingness and the faraway horizon line where earth and sky take visual vows – there is a life produced by motion in nature, and I know in these two short months that only one mightier force can ever take it away from me.”

December 7, 1941

If the reports I’ve heard today are true, the Japanese have performed the impossible, have carried out the most daring (and successful) raid in all history.  People will not realize, I fear, for some time how serious this danger is.  And that, I fear, is a fatal mistake – today is evidence of that – this war will be more difficult than any war this country has ever fought.  Faith lost – all is lost; let us hope tonight that people… all people throughout this great country have the faith to once again sacrifice for the things we hold essential to life and happiness.  If the world ever goes through this again mankind is doomed.  This time it has to be a better world.

Christmas 1941:

Christmas, but a different Christmas from any I had ever known.  At home Christmases had meant the clatter of joyous clamourings, eager to be about the mystery of Christmas giving. Memories of the evening before still lingered with the lazy comfort of cold – and yet not too cold – blankets, brilliant trees shedding multicolored light, a murmur of well cared for voices encircled by friends and family, an old face peddling holly on a street corner, countless little thoughts passed in the present to become a multitude of conscious reality when remembered. For at the tide we sailed, not as wise men long ago had journeyed with gold and frankincense, bearing gifts to one beneath a star, but booted and spurred to spread the alarm.  We sailed on Christmas day seaward, seaward with winds, seaward to find a star.  Upon the majesty of this day, with all the irony that twenty three years (his age) of mistaken faith can summon to mind, we were sailing for the first time into the mystery of we knew not what, only knowing that this our first cruise would be one never to be forgot.

Soon after:

Probably never again will the excitement of that first ‘anchor aweigh’ be duplicated, to be sailing aboard an American man of war with the same traditions of service built by years for and by the immortal names of the past, to search ourselves for a heritage of our own to pass along down the years, to become a tradition to those generations of free men who would rather follow in our footsteps, those things and more proved ever present realizations.

March, 1942:

With 2,000 men and officers standing in the hot Pacific sun beneath a sky of unbelievably light blue, we have just experienced our first funeral at sea.  While smallish clouds of dirty cotton hung motionless in the sky overhead, all hands stood quietly with a rigidity that is not discipline but respect, as ceremonies on the hanger deck tokened the conclusion to a life spent in the service of this country, given while on duty at sea.  Words speak poorly in trying to catch the mood of the last far journey across the horizon; even in our thoughts we cannot bridge the chasm which separates the mystery of life from the mystery to which we go.  It is fitting that men and officers stand quitely as the smallest of boxes returns the unexplainable to the unexplainable.

April 1942 (to a college professor):

“Many of my friends are now dead. To a man, each died with a nonchalance that each would have denied as courage. They simply called it lack of fear. If anything great or good is born of this war, it should not be valued in the colonies we may win nor in the pages historians will attempt to write, but rather in the youth of our country, who never trained for war; rather almost never believed in war, but who have, from some hidden source, brought forth a gallantry which is homespun, it is so real.  I say these things because I know that you liked and understood boys, because I wanted you to know that they have not let you down.   If the country takes these sacrifices with indifference, it will be the cruelest ingratitude the world has ever known.  When you hear others saying harsh things about American youth, do all in your power to help others keep faith with those who gave so much.  Tell them that out here, between a spaceless sea and sky, American youth has found itself and given itself so that, at home the spark may catch, burst into flame and burn high.  There is much I cannot say, which should be said before it is too late.  It is my fear that national inertia will cancel the gains made won at such a price. My luck can’t last much longer, but the flame goes on and on.”

These words are excerpets from an article written by Elbert Watson in the World War II Times.

To all heros of the Battle of Midway, we have not forgotten.  To all those serving here and abroad today, we will never forget that our freedom rests in your capable hands, thank you.

My dad does business in China.  He is seeing a 10% cost increase in everything coming out of China for next year.  He says this is due to price increases within China, currency changes, and increased shipping costs.  He told me this about a month ago, and I thought about passing it along here, but didn’t have anything other than his word to cite.  However, I found this all over the Internet today, so thought I would pass his insight along as well.

Wholesale prices climbed 6.8 percent in April from a year earlier, a 0.9 percent increase over March’s rise. That can lead to a rise in consumer prices down the line as retailers pass on higher costs.

Does this necessarily mean that the prices for everything we consumers purchase from China will rise 10% (and that is a huge percentage of what we buy)?  Maybe, but at least in our experience, retailers have been benefiting from low wholesale prices from China and have not passed that savings along to consumers in all cases.  So, theoretically, they could eat some of the price increase.  We will just have to wait and see.

This is worth watching. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t found the coverage of the oil spill all that informative.  Now, maybe I haven’t been looking in the right places, or watching the right news programs (I’ve been busy lately, and in the middle of a good book……), but anyway I was searching around tonight and found this informative video.  Short but full of good info, and from this morning.  I thought you all might like it as well.

It seems to me that Nancy Pelosi is saying to the reluctant Dems in the House (as she twists their arms and bribes them) that they must pass the Senate Health Care bill to ‘save’ President Obama’s failing presidency.  In other words, he must be bailed out because he is ‘too big to fail’.  He has too much invested in this bill for it not to pass.

But if saving Obama’s presidency is really the goal, then House Democrats must vote against this bill.  They must save him from himself.  If they succeed in passing this unpopular bill, then they will damage President Obama in the eyes of the majority of voters permanently, losses will be big in November for the Dems, and he will never recover.

To save Obama’s historic presidency House Democrats have only one option – they must KILL THE BILL!  Obama may actually go down in history as a decent president, and who knows, some of them may keep their seats in November after all.

It’s funny how important everything in politics seems, until someone you love is diagnosed with cancer.  Then all of a sudden, the world changes.  Everything is filtered through the lens of CANCER.  And then, because of Obamacare, thoughts turn back to politics.

How thankful I am that we live in this great country, with the best medical care in the world available. This cancer may or may not be cured, but at least we will know we gave it our best fight.  And at least we don’t have to cross borders to do it.  Yes, we may have to leave our city, or state to find the right expert.  But there is no one telling us what to do, where to go, etc.  It is up to us.  This in and of itself is a burden as well as a gift.  We make the decisions with the information available.  And yes, we have great insurance, thankfully.  But I am mostly thankful that Obamacare is only being talked about, and is not in effect yet and therefore will not hinder us from getting the best care possible.

It does make me worry about what the younger members of our family will face.  Will the best care be available for them?  If they study hard, work hard, achieve, and are able to afford good insurance, will they be able to get the best care, or will they have to wait in line behind those who haven’t worked hard?  Will the achievers in this country have to take a number and get what they are given just like the dependant class?  Or worse, will the independant small business achiever have to take second fiddle to the SEIU member?  Is that what our future holds?  I certainly hope not.  For, when someone you love has cancer, only the best will do.  I hope you never have to talk about cancer.  But chances are you will.  And when you do, I hope the talk is not about what treatment the gov’t is allowing you to get, but how happy you are to have found the best doctor or clinic for XYZ treatment.

I used to be against Obamacare, but now, the thought sends shivers down my spine.  Because it would be hell to have made all the right decisions (worked hard, bought great insurance), and not be able to get the best care available.  In the liberal’s desire to give the achiever/responsible person and non-achiever/irresponsible person equal medical care, we don’t have to guess who will suffer.  And actually, all will suffer.  Because, when the desire and finances of the achievers are not pushing the envelope for new drugs, discoveries, and treatments the poor can’t benefit from them as well.  Charity treatment in the U.S. has to be far better than gov’t provided treatment in Cuba.  I don’t know the stats, but it is just intuitive.

I hope you never have to talk about cancer.  And I hope and pray our children never have to talk about cancer, or any other life threatening disease, and be at the mercy of a government run health care system.

The Drudge Report linked to this article about U.N. Climate Chief Yvo de Boer’s resignation, CNN has this article, CBSnews has this article,  MSNBC has the AP article linked to on Drudge, ABC news has this article, NBC has nothing, and even FOX has nothing but this AP article .  Nowhere in any of these articles was Climategate mentioned.  There is no mention of the leaked emails.  There is no mention that the prediction of Himalayan glaciers melting was baseless.  There is no mention of Phil Jones admission that the globe has not warmed in the last 15 years.  There is no mention of the fact that the globe was warmer during the Middle Ages.  There was no speculation that he might be resigning because the basis for action to curb man made greenhouse gas emissions has been proven to be false!!!!  This is an AP story.  Why are they ignoring the revelations of the last several months?  In what alternative universe do they live?  Once again, the MSM are way behind the curve in covering REAL news.  Now, I’m wondering if Congress will cut all government funding for ‘Global Warming’ research before the MSM will actually report it.  If it can happen with ACORN it could possibly happen with Global Warming, right?  Am I the only one just crazy enough to think it is possible?