pamibe

How Israel Screens for Terrorists:

Ethnic profiling and “a second later, he’s dead” sound good to me – now why can’t we implement these deterrents? When is security going to trump the cult of political correctness?

Only 10% of Americans think Congress is doing a good job.

Voter unhappiness with Congress has reached the highest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports as 71% now say the legislature is doing a poor job.

That’s up ten points from the previous high of 61% reached a month ago.

Only 10% of voters say Congress is doing a good or excellent job.

Nearly half of Democratic voters (48%) now give Congress a poor rating, up 17 points since January. The vast majority of Republicans and voters not affiliated with either party also give Congress poor ratings.

Seventy percent (70%) of voters say Congress has not passed any legislation that would significantly improve life for Americans, up 10 points over the past month and the highest level of dissatisfaction measured in regular tracking in over three years. Only 15% say Congress has passed such legislation.

Forty percent (40%) of voters nationwide now say it is at least somewhat likely Congress will seriously address the most important issues facing the nation. That’s down from 59% last March. Only 9% say it is Very Likely Congress will address these issues.

HotAirPundit:

Debra Medina still claims that the 9/11 Commission report reveals ‘unanswered questions’ but when Rick Sanchez asks what those might be, she says that she has not read the report!

“I have not studied that report and am not going to speculate about the content, or the conclusions that they drew,” she said.” I know that there are questions, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

Well, that’s bloody convenient. Hasn’t read the report, but just knows there are questions. That’s about as helpful as teats on a bull.

Medina also states that “this shouldn’t be about what Debra Medina believes or what other candidates personally believe.”

Anyone with enough money can run for public office. Who cares what they personally believe, as long as they do their jobs, right?

Sort of like Scott Brown running and winning as a conservative yet assuming the will of his constituents is a vote with Obama on the jobs bill?
Or John Kerry during his last grab for the Oval office, claiming that he personally is anti-abortion, pro-life but that his job requires him to champion a pro abortion agenda?
(I really miss my archives right now!)

I know it’s politics as usual, but for some reason politics as usual is making me sick to my stomach.

Shakey Pete’s lovely wife Linda Lou fell and broke her leg. The ensuing surgery was successful, but as is often the case after something of this nature, Linda Lou is feeling low and needs to be lifted up to our Lord in prayer – not just for the offended limb, but her spirits as well.

TIA!

It was one year ago today that hubby, Bree and I drove to Orlando and picked up this spicy enchilada… and our lives haven’t been the same since.

Grabbed my camera when Bree and I went for a walk around the hood today, but didn’t get very far because of the rain. These were taken across the road.

The wind’s blowing very hard today and the flowers are having a bad time of it; their little petals whipped maniacally back and forth. Naturally I thought every one of the five shots would be throwaways, but these are just… interesting for some reason.

Many thanks to my muse.

With a slight sneer at apocalyptic, ‘dying earth’ movies: Scientists withdrew a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes in the provided data.

Maggie’s Notebook:

In June 2008, a foolish and egomaniacal soon-to-be president, Barack Obama, said “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow….”
Well, no. Climate scientists have now withdrawn their claims that sea levels are rising, were rising and will ever rise. Bottomline: There is no proof that climate change and/or global warming is causing sea levels to rise.

Maggie has the rest of the sordid story…

Guess we don’t have to evacuate Florida any time soon, eh…?

UTA researchers have invented a better, cheaper way of turning coal into oil.

Researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington say they’ve found a practical way to make synthetic crude from inexpensive coal that’s common in Texas.

People have been turning coal into oil for 100 years or more, but researchers at UTA say they’ve invented a better way to do it.

It is so much better that they expect to sign a deal with an oil company within weeks.

“This is East Texas lignite coal. We go from that to this really nice liquid,” said Professor Brian Dennis of a light synthetic crude, easily refined into gasoline.

Professor Dennis and a team of scientists have been working on the process for about a year-and-a-half.

They only showed News 8 an early model reactor which doesn’t look like much. The current reactor design is secret, extremely efficient, and emits no pollution, the UTA scientists said.

“We’re improving the cost every day. We started off sometime ago at an uneconomical $17,000 a barrel. Today, we’re at a cost of $28.84 a barrel,” said engineering dean Rick Billo.

That’s $28 a barrel versus $75 we pay now for imported crude.

Texas lignite coal is dirt cheap – less than $18 a ton. A ton of coal will produce up to 1.5 barrels of oil.

UTA researchers expect micro-refineries to be built within a year, turning coal into cheap oil and producing new jobs.

It’s still fossil fuel, but scientists say it could bridge the gap until greener technologies catch up.

Go, Texas!

Now if we could start drilling off the coast…

Would have been 77 today.

Via Quality Weenie:

Toyota has known about their technical issues for at least 10 years, but instead of simply fixing the problems they hired former NHTSA regulators as staffers to quash at least 4 government investigations.

Regulators Hired by Toyota Helped Halt Investigations

Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) — Former regulators hired by Toyota Motor Corp. helped end at least four U.S. investigations of unintended acceleration by company vehicles in the last decade, warding off possible recalls, court and government records show.

Christopher Tinto, vice president of regulatory affairs in Toyota’s Washington office, and Christopher Santucci, who works for Tinto, helped persuade the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to end probes including those of 2002-2003 Toyota Camrys and Solaras, court documents show. Both men joined Toyota directly from NHTSA, Tinto in 1994 and Santucci in 2003.

While all automakers have employees who handle NHTSA issues, Toyota may be alone among the major companies in employing former agency staffers to do so. Spokesmen for General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Group LLC and Honda Motor Co. all say their companies have no ex-NHTSA people who deal with the agency on defects.

Possible links between Toyota and NHTSA may fuel mounting criticism of their handling of defects in Toyota and Lexus models tied to 19 deaths between 2004 and 2009. Three congressional committees have scheduled hearings on the recalls.

“Toyota bamboozled NHTSA or NHTSA was bamboozled by itself,” said Joan Claybrook, an auto safety advocate and former NHTSA administrator in the Jimmy Carter administration. “I think there is going to be a lot of heat on NHTSA over this.”
……

Read the rest of the article.