Marine Science Field Work

Winnie thought this was pretty lame, but I think it's vaguely funny. It does seem to hit the high points of what I hear the students say about field work at sea.

I'm Screwed

Several months ago investigators from the state corporation commission interviewed me about the "rebate program" that my dealer offered when I bought my last car, three years ago. See, the rebate doesn't come immediately. You have to wait 39 months. I was supposed to get back almost 10% of the original price of the car.

Too bad it's (almost) a scam.

An administrative judge gave Casey a preliminary legal victory last week in a clash between state regulators and the dealer. The three judges of the Virginia State Corporation Commission must still decide if they agree that the program doesn't violate securities laws.

The program has been the subject of an intense investigation by the staff at the SCC since last December. Casey immediately ended the program at its Hampton Roads dealerships, but had already issued 8,532 certificates worth tens of millions of dollars.

The SCC sent subpoenas this year to interview 17 current and former Casey salespeople, and sent out questionnaires to 400 former Casey customers in the program.

Casey says some customers came back to the dealership making threats and demanding money, to no avail. Some dissatisfied customers had not followed the program's rules.

Crap!

The Arctic Icecap

Yes, it's true! The arctic icecap has shrunk!

The European space agency said its images showed the rate of overall ice loss had risen sharply to its highest rate since satellite records began thirty years ago.

That's opened up the historically impassable Northwest passage through the Canadian Arctic, which links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The famous sea-route has, until recently, been completely ice-bound throughout the year. Scientists say global warming is to blame for melting the ice and making the route navigable for the first time since records began in 1978.

OMG! The melting has reached the greatest rate seen in the 30 years of records!! Ice levels have reached their lowest levels in 30 years of records!!! Uh, wouldn't that mean that, on average, the icecap had been greater in the last few years than 30 years ago?

Katie Couric

Those viewer polls are harsh!

NEW YORK (AP) - If some people thought traveling to Iraq and Syria was a ratings stunt for Katie Couric, it didn't work out that way. The "CBS Evening News" tied a record low with just under 5.5 million viewers last week, Nielsen Media Research said Tuesday. Last week and Memorial Day week are the two least-watched CBS evening newscasts since at least 1987, and probably far earlier.

CBS said it wasn't surprising, and argued that last week's
numbers were artificially deflated because of U.S. Open coverage.

This is when you know you are sooo screwed on TV - your viewer figures are "artifically deflated" by a tennis match.

President Winnie

Not content with being just Professor Winnie, she has now moved on to President Winnie.

ACLU Pervert - Update 3

I've written about this creep before. Former president of the Virginia chapter of the ACLU. Kids soccer coach. Railed against porn filtering software on library computers. And now -

A former Arlington County youth sports coach and civil rights lawyer who once headed Virginia's American Civil Liberties Union chapter was sentenced today to seven years in federal prison for buying child pornography that prosecutors labeled sadistic and masochistic.

Charles Rust-Tierney, 51, pleaded guilty in June to downloading hundreds of pornographic images of children as young as 4. Authorities said Rust-Tierney used a computer in his 11-year-old son's bedroom to view the files, which included a six-minute video that depicted sexual torture of children, set to a song by the rock band Nine Inch Nails.

Why?

Rust-Tierney told Ellis that he viewed child porn as a way to escape "despair" in his personal life.

Poor baby.

Compulsory Health Care

Most of the Democrat candidates talk about instituting universal health care. John Edwards is the only one recommending compulsory health care. Not just compulsory that your employer provide it, but compulsory that you go to the doctor.

"It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care," he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK."

He noted, for example, that women would be required to have regular mammograms in an effort to find and treat "the first trace of problem."

Teen Drinking

The Wall Street Journal touches on the practice we always followed in our house.

In societies where children drink with their parents, this typically means giving a kid a small amount of wine or other alcohol, often watered down on special occasions or a family dinner. Many European countries also lower the drinking age for children when they are accompanied by parents. In the United Kingdom, for example, the legal age is 18, but for a family at a restaurant it is 16. In France and Italy, where the legal age is 16, there is no age limit for children drinking with parents.

The Icelandic Phallological Museum

Well, this would be different.

The Icelandic Phallological Museum contains a collection of over one hundred and fifty penises and penile parts belonging to almost all the land and sea mammals that can be found in Iceland. Visitors to the museum will encounter thirty eight specimens belonging to fifteen different kinds of whale, one specimen taken from a rogue polar bear, nineteen specimens belonging to seven different kinds of seal and walrus, and ninety three specimens originating from nineteen different kinds of land mammal: all in all, a total of one hundred fifty one specimen belonging to forty two different kinds of mammal. It should be noted that the museum has also been fortunate enough to receive a legally-certified gift token for a future specimen belonging to Homo Sapiens.

We'uns not goin tuh Collug

Gloucester officials were pleased that more students took the SAT tests this year, and the scores increased slightly. (About 35% of the senior class took the tests this year compared to 30% last year.)

Average scores rose this year by 15 points in the math section to 503; 12 points in the verbal section to 516; and six points in the writing section to 487, Belvin said.

The average U.S. student's scores were 515 in math, 502 in verbal and 494 in writing. The average Virginia student's scores were 511 in math, 511 in verbal and 498 in writing.

So, last year the math score was 488, the verbal 504, and the writing 481. Combined math/verbal scores were 992 last year, and are 1019 this year.

At William and Mary the range of SAT scores that would put you in the middle 50% of incoming freshmen is 1270 to 1430. So, with a score of 1019 you are well down in the bottom 25%.

At the University of Virginia the average composite score is 1325.

At Christopher Newport University the average is lower; around 1152 two years ago.

So what is presumably our top 35% of students gets scores that on average put them in the bottom 20% of kids going to college at the better local schools. They might fare better at CNU.

That's not to say some of the kids didn't get great scores, but then what does that say about the others?

My school? Mines? The middle 50% currently ranges from 1170 to 1340. That's kind of embarrassing.

The price of (heating) oil - 2007 edition

Last year I was worried about the pre-buy contract I was being offered for heating oil by my supplier. I can get it at a fixed price if I pay in advance on whatever amount I want to buy.

This year the price was $2.599 per gallon. I bought 750 gallons, the same as last year, figuring the price had to go up to $3 a gallon later on.

Today I bought gas at $2.589, the lowest price I've seen in many months. I'm starting to wonder "did I guess right, or do I lose this year?"

This year, amazingly enough, the price is the same. They say I used 766 gallons last year, so I'm tempted to bet low and go with 750 gallons for the third year in a row ($1950). (There's no thought in my mind saying "what if the prices drop?")

However, you get a 5 cent discount if you order 800 gallons or more. If I went for that, I'd pay $2040. $90 more for an additional 50 gallons. Hmmm, I'd use it up eventually.

What happens if you don't pre-buy? Well, you can still sign up for their "even payment program", where they estimate the price, and your usage, for you and send you monthly bills where they try to smooth it out. You pay the current market price, but with a cap of $2.85. That could add hundreds to my bill. I think not.

Wind Power Article "Translation"

Der Speigel has an on-line article about problems with wind turbines. I thought the funny bit was this. I'm sure the original German article doesn't use quite this, um, colloquialism.

Indeed, with thousands of mishaps, breakdowns and accidents having been reported in recent years, the difficulties seem to be mounting. Gearboxes hiding inside the casings perched on top of the towering masts have short shelf lives, often crapping out before even five years is up.

I don't think I've ever seen that used in a news report before. Certainly not outside of a quote.

Another beautiful day

Yes, the sun is shining and the birds are singing. Umm, singing silently. Oh, wait...they're panting. It's 93 degrees out right now, with a heat index of 105. My lawn needs mowed so bad, but no way am I going out there to do it.

The Constitution - For Sale

Do you suppose these guys get a lot of business this way? Selling an MS-Word document of the Constitution.

[The full Constitution, in both hypertext and word-processor formats, can be purchased and downloaded for individual local use from the LII. For details click here.]

If so, please give me about 15 minutes, and I'll sell you a copy for half the price.

The Power of GIS

I read Lou Minatti's blog every day, and he posted a photo over there that I've seen before. It appears to be a newspaper photo from the Roanoke Times of a smoking woman standing in her front yard pondering what the sound of jackhammers will do to her unborn child. (Get it? Smoking. Pregnant. Sound of jackhammers is worse.) I agree with Lou that the caption could have been Photoshopped.

I don't think it's a faked photo though. In fact using the truly awsome power of GIS here at the Virginia DOT, I've even tracked down the exact location the photo was taken. Take a look at Lou's original blog entry. Compare that to my photo. (Click to make the photo bigger.) The hydrant. The house of the left side of the street. The Hardees down the block.

The woman was standing right behind the stone wall of the house on the corner on the right. Corner of Bullitt Ave & 8th St E, Roanoke, VA. Latitude 37.267867N, Longitude 79.93010W.

Google Earth - Turned 180 degrees

I've enjoyed scanning areas around the planet on Google Earth. The new version (4.2.0180.1134 (beta)) gives you something more.

When you select "View Sky" it lets you do the same sort of zoom and pan on astronomical images, mostly from the Hubble telescope. (Click on the photo shown here.)

There is also a feature that puts the planets in motion, allowing you to watch how they will move over the next three months.

I've only started exploring, and I'm in severe danger of wasting many, many hours on this.

Spider Season

This is the time of year that you find yourself blundering through huge orb spider webs strung up in the darnedest places. Between trees. From my car to the carport. Wherever.

Actually, it's kind of creepy. When I remember, I try to stick one hand out in front when wandering "between" things when I can't see too well. Like when going to the compost pile after sundown.

Each year though, these guys take up residence in our vegetable garden. Argiope aurantia. They're kind of hard to miss, being bright yellow and three inches long. The webs are usually a couple of feet across.

Global Warming - A Small Correction

We keep hearing about how every recent year is the warmest ever. NASA has just released revised temperature figures. The warmest year on record is no longer 1988 (it's #2). The warmest year is 1935. The "dust bowl", remember? The #3 year is 1921. #4 is 2006!! But #5 is 1931.

Now, this graph, for the U.S. alone, may not mean much. Or it may. How do you decide? The trend is "up", but with all of 125 years of data how useful is that?

More Heat

At 8 am the temperature was 85.6 degress with a dew point of 77.6 degrees. That makes it a heat index of 97 degrees. This doesn't look like a good day.

More Copper Theft

This time at William and Mary. -

A few weeks after $7,500 in copper gutters were swiped from buildings at the College and William and Mary, thieves have struck again.

Two more copper thefts have been reported on the campus - with $2,000 in copper downspouts missing from the Dillard complex on Ironbound Road on July 28, and $250 in copper stolen from the machine shop in Small Hall on July 30, college spokeswoman Suzanne Seurattan said.

On Thursday, four 8-foot-long downspouts were taken off of Seasons restaurant near the intersection of Jamestown Road and Route 199, James City County police spokesman Mike Spearman said.