Putting our mark in the weather recordbook

All because of Global Warming. Or so they say.

The Euros aren’t the only ones getting record rainfall this summer

Record-setting rains drenched Western Washington over the weekend, forcing many to swap their tank tops and flip-flops for jackets and umbrellas and keeping many away from summer festivals.

By late Sunday night, 0.44 inch of rain had fallen at the National Weather Service’s Seattle Weather Forecast Office at Sand Point, breaking the record for the date of 0.23 inch set in 1992.

A spokeswoman for the Bite of Seattle estimated attendance at this year’s festival would be around 300,000, compared with 450,000 in a normal year.

“Our attendance is going to be a little down on account of the weather,” spokeswoman Cindy Stohr said.

Hoquiam also set a rainfall record with 0.75 inch falling by late Sunday night. Four recording sites, including Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, set records Saturday.

At Sea-Tac, 0.28 inch of rain had fallen by late Sunday, still shy of the record for the date of 0.33 inch set in 1952.

This is already the 10th-wettest July on record for Sea-Tac.

“Our normal rainfall for all of July is 0.79, and we’ve already surpassed that by more than a half-inch,” said Johnny Burg, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

With more than a week to go in July, Sea-Tac has received 1.41 inch of rain this month, he said.

Now, we were only on the ever-so-dramatic “Floodwatch” stage around these parts and now that it is clearing up we don’t really have to worry about the rivers jumping their banks like those in the UK do, but I’ve heard a few Global Warming Death Cultist blame this record summer rain on their  religion’s “devil”, CO2, on the TV and radio.

Folks from the UK whom I have known have always felt comfortable in Seattle. “Just like home” they say. Right now though, I’m sure that they wish they were back here, because as July comes to a close, the skies are brightening up significantly.

Posted in The Global Warming Death Cult | 1 Comment

Nanny Nanny! Help Me!

I’m stupid!

The King County Clowncil recently decided to follow NYC and other idiotic nanny-cities in banning transfats. They also went a step further and passed a law stating that as of August 1st, 2008, chain restaurants, from McDonalds to a regional steakhouse, will have to post all the ingredients of their culinary offerings on the menu for you.

Despite objections from restaurant owners and food-industry officials, the King County Board of Health on Thursday banned artificial trans fat and required nutrition labeling for menu items in chain restaurants.

With the vote, King County joins a handful of jurisdictions in the country to ban artificial trans fats in restaurant meals and becomes only the second to require nutrition labeling on menus.

While most restaurant owners and their supporters testified against the trans-fat ban — most said they’re already getting rid of trans fats but they simply hate mandates — they saved their harshest words for the nutrition-labeling requirement.

Chris Clifford, a Renton resident who said he’s owned several restaurants in King County, said very few customers need labeling to know that a 16-ounce steak rolled in butter is fattening.

“I have a six-letter word to describe them: It’s ‘stupid!’ ” Clifford told the board. “You can’t help stupid people.” Instead of menu labeling, Clifford suggested a “warning label” on the restaurant door: “Eating here is fattening and could kill you.”

On a more serious level, restaurant owners said the labeling requirement was unworkable and expensive, would possibly drive customers elsewhere — and pleaded for more time to find a less onerous solution.

And that, folks, is their goal. They want you to not eat at restaurants, or if you do, they want you to guilt yourself into eating something they would approve of. Really, I cannot see how anyone could believe that government gives one whit about a citizen’s health.

And I’m not the only person who knows this is true

So King County has decided to ban trans fats from restaurants. On the surface, it sounds great, but the reality is, it will increase the role of government in all our lives. City Councilwoman Sally Clark declared it is costing money to treat people with heart disease, and she doesn’t like that.

Well, what else do we ban? We could start with alcohol. My gosh, maple syrup, and candy, all sweets — why not have a “being overweight” tax? Wow! That would be a bonanza. Ice cream, butter, bacon, cheese.

Let’s see, what else drives up health-care costs for all of us? Unprotected sex, pregnancy, STDs, AIDS. Maybe we should ban having sex, too. Clark should be very concerned about what problems that creates for the health-care system.

Kathi Swarthout

But I love this one even better

When testifying before the King County Board of Health, Margo Wootan must have forgotten to mention that she and her activist group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), were instrumental in forcing restaurants to start cooking with trans fats in the first place.

When concerns were originally raised about possible health effects, CSPI wrote: “All told, the charges against trans fat just don’t stand up.”

But now that restaurants — largely on CSPI’s advice — have been using trans fat to cook for years, Wootan and CSPI just can’t pass up the opportunity to put in their 2 cents. The problem is, their 2 cents will end up costing Seattle restaurants thousands of dollars.

Before she goes around telling us what we can and can’t eat, Wootan ought to own up to her own role in putting trans fats in restaurants to begin with.

Trice Whitefield, Center for Consumer Freedom, Washington, D.C.

Oops! We were wrong! Don’t eat that. Just like the eco-socialists, the food authortarians get so high up on their high horse that they can’t see the truth.

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons | 2 Comments

There are a couple of phrases

For what NM Governor Bill Richardson did last night at the debate.

In polite society it is called putting your foot in your mouth.

RNS is not quite a corner of polite society, so I will call it as I saw it: He stepped on his dick.

Uncle has the video.

It is a bad sign for Democrats when their candidate with the highest rating from the NRA can’t step over the part line.

 

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | 1 Comment

The Ecosocialists were never so torn

Between their love for the new Compact Flourescent Light bulbs and their rabid hatred of Wal-Mart

For people who care about the environment, few products are more important than energy-saving, compact fluorescent light bulbs. But there is one flaw; each bulb contains a tiny amount of toxic mercury that shouldn’t be disposed of in most landfills.

Last Saturday, Wal-Mart stores, Supercenters and Sam’s Clubs in Rhode Island and four other states took part in a pilot program to address that flaw by accepting and recycling old CFL bulbs. Steven P. Hamburg, the Brown University environmental studies professor who first advised Wal-Mart to make a big commitment to CFLs, called it a good first step.

Saturday’s effort also was praised by W. Michael Sullivan, director of the state Department of Environmental Management, who said it would help complete the life cycle of the bulbs by enabling consumers to return them for recycling.

For eight hours Saturday, Wal-Mart accepted old compact fluorescent bulbs and fluorescent tubes at special kiosks outside their stores in Rhode Island, California, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Oklahoma — the states were selected for their geographic diversity.

I understand that each Wal-Mart location had an historically high count of VW micro-buses in their parking lots that weekend. It was also reported that some of the on-board Nav programs in the Prius’ refused to locate a Wal-Mart and first redirected their occupants to nearby Whole Foods stores.

Posted in Rampant Eco Socialism | 1 Comment

Another Socialized Medicine Debacle

Government loves people. To death.

A high-flying television producer died from a suspected epileptic fit while waiting for vital brain scans on the NHS.

Laura Price, 30, who worked on shows such as Big Brother and Strictly Come Dancing, was found dead in her home just hours after she had been discharged from casualty.

The evening before she died, Miss Price, from Notting Hill, west London, had begged a junior A&E doctor for anti-seizure drugs but had been told they could only be prescribed by a neurologist.

Two days earlier she had visited a specialist at Charing Cross hospital and was told she would have to wait six weeks for a brain scan. She had felt “concerned and afraid” at having to wait that length of time for a test before being treated for a recurrence of childhood epilepsy, Westminster coroner’s court heard.

She had not had a seizure for more than 10 years, but after a series of “strange episodes”, including a numb face and flashing lights in her vision, she had visited her GP and was referred to the specialist.

A specialist who put her on a waiting list, just like every other citizen in the NHS. The waiting list that killed her.

Alot of noise was made about Edith Rodriguez, who died in a Los Angeles ER waiting room because someone didn’t take her problem serious enough.

Laura Price’s death was caused not by a person, but by a medical system that kills those whose problems cost too much.

Rodriguez’s family will be suing the hospital and most likely the staff on duty.

Price’s family will have to settle for a “Sorry” from the government and she is one more statisitic to add to the 462,000 dead by silk covered iron hand of the UK NHS.

And the Charing Cross medical staff was probably just filling a quota that some bureaucrat handed down.

British docs can get enough dead bodies

When Austin Hymas got his first chance to dissect a full human body, he had to share it with five fellow trainee doctors.

The 19-year-old first-year medical student says he was fascinated by what he was able to do and see, but worries he will never get enough time to dissect properly and learn the intricacies of a full human cadaver.

“Dissection in medical schools has been cut dramatically,” Hymas told Reuters in an interview. “We have only done four weeks of dissection in the whole year, whereas only 10 years ago, they probably would have done a whole term on each limb.”

Many medical schools in Britain now use pro-sections — prepared body part samples which have been pre-dissected by a tutor and which the students are allowed to examine. Increasingly few get hands-on experience of proper dissection.

The problem, in part, is that there simply aren’t enough bodies to go around.

According to medical authorities, Britain needs around 1,000 bodies a year for use in training medical students and conducting scientific research.

Making supply meet the demand, you see.

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Off the Reservation

And nearly off the payroll

Just when you thought partisan idiocy in Washington couldn’t get any worse, the House voted last night to cut off the salary of Andrew Biggs, the new Deputy Commissioner of Social Security. No one doubts Biggs’ qualifications for this position. But his sin is having supported proposals to allow younger workers to privately invest a portion of their Social Security taxes through individual accounts. Apparently holding a position that Democrats disagree with is now so abhorrent that it disqualifies you from public office.

It is all their money, you see. They don’t want someone telling folks they should do these things themselves.

Found at Right Thinking

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Myths that cannot survive

America is not the only country where the myth “The poor are fat because they cannot afford to eat well and the rich are skinny because they can.” It also breeds in Britain.

Thankfully, someone over there had the balls to study this myth, and in doing so they murdered it.

The Food Standards Agency found that contrary to popular belief, nutrition, access to food and cooking skills are not much different in poorer families.

However, the agency pointed out that the whole population was not eating as healthily as it should be. Public health experts said the results were surprising but showed everyone needed to eat a better diet.

There had been concern that diets among those on the lowest incomes were extremely poor and they faced more barriers to healthy eating. Poor diets can lead to chronic disease, such as heart disease and cancer, and contribute to obesity.

But a survey of 3,500 people on low incomes found that the food they were eating, although not particularly healthy, was similar to the general population. Also 80% said they shopped mainly at a large supermarket and most had good cooking and food storage facilities at home. Around 91% of women and 64% of men in the study claimed to be able to “cook from basic ingredients”.

And that is the proof in the pudding, folks.

The poor are fat because they’re lazy and demand instant foods rewards, just like the people in every other income group else who doesn’t cook at home but instead eats alot of takeaway and fast food.

Posted in The Left is Never Right | Leave a comment

In Bizarro World

Where the unions do what the Washington State Republicans will not.

Back in February, I participated in a couple of conference calls with the Washington State Republican Legislators and their Communications Director, John Rothlin. One of the topics that was hot at the time was the State’s refusal to accpet that they needed to build more prisons and the Secretary of the Dept. of Corrections ineptitude in keeping those under his charge (aka: every single prisoner in the state) where they belong (aka: In Prison).

Basically, there are policies in place where the state is releasing prisoners very early due to lack of space to keep them because the state officials refuse to build any new prison space. We’re not just talking non-violent misdemeanors here. King County released 83 violent felons and child molesters a few months back due to lack of space, all of which was approved by the DOC offices.

In one of these conference calls I proposed that the Republicans put on a very short hold their proposed legislation called “Families Before Felons”, and demand answers from the DOC officials via the Governor, and pending the usual stonewalling that they’d been getting directly from the DOC pukes, stand and have an actual No Confidence vote on the DOC Secretary.

Needless to say, I wasn’t listened to, the Republican legislation went down in flames, and nothing has changed.

Until now.

The state correctional officer’s union is fed up with the overcrowding and the lack of thought being put into holding prisoners as prisoners instead of treating the corrections system like a daycare and is thinking of holding a vote of No Confidence on DOC Secretary, Harold Clarke.

I wish them all the success I had hoped the Repubs would have gotten.

Posted in Color me confused | 3 Comments

They work hard for the money

Those prostitutes in the Democratic controlled US Congress

The new Democratic Congress has finally found a government agency whose budget It wants to cut: an obscure Labor Department office that monitors the compliance of unions with federal law.

In the past six years, the Office of Labor Management Standards, or OLMS, has helped secure the convictions of 775 corrupt union officials and court-ordered restitution to union members of over $70 million in dues. The House is set to vote Thursday on a proposal to chop 20% from the OLMS budget. Every other Labor Department enforcement agency is due for a budget increase, and overall the Congress has added $935 million to the Bush administration’s budget request for Labor. The only office the Democrats want to cut back is the one engaged in union oversight.

Although Congress has long insisted on copious reporting by corporations, including the burdens of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, lawmakers have been relatively nonchalant about union reporting. Unlike the quarterly filings of corporations, unions must only file once a year with the Labor Department using a free software program. They don’t have to get an independent certified audit, are only rarely audited by the government, and don’t have to follow standard accounting methods.

OLMS, the Labor office that watches over union disclosure forms, says that last year 93% of unions met its reporting requirements. But the other 7% deserve scrutiny. Union members deserve to know how their dues are spent. They might want to know that in 2005, the National Education Association gave more than $65 million to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and dozens of other liberal advocacy groups that have nothing to do with the interests of teachers. In 2006, 49 individuals employed at the national AFL-CIO headquarters were paid more than $130,000. “Union members are also discovering the extent to which their dues money is funding lavish trips for union officials to luxury resorts and other expensive perks unrelated to collective bargaining,” says Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.

With this turd of an idea and the “Forced Unionization Bill” being written and introduced, at least the Dems are giving the union’s their moneys worth by faking the orgasm convincingly

Posted in Useful Idiots | 1 Comment

RNS Quote of the Day: 07/23/07

I’d like to start the week off with a funny one.

Q: Why wasn’t Moral Majority founder the Reverend Jerry Falwell an environmentalist?

A: He found environmentalists too preachy and judgmental.

Les Jones

Its funny cause its true. No other religion can compare in the arena of self-righteousness to the Gaia-Worshippers.

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