Creekside Chatter

Today, in 1944, German Commander von Luttwitz asked the Americans, surrounded in Bastogne, to surrender. American Commander, General Anthony McAuliffe, acting commander of the 101st Airborne Division replied, “Nuts!”

The capability will be standard on select SYNC-equipped vehicles (so this isn’t a dealer-installed add-on) and you can use it with your existing broadband USB modem. That’s an idea we can get behind, because it doesn’t couple the car to any specific broadband provider. Depending on where you live or who is in the car with you, not being tied to any specific provider is pretty cool.

Check out this video of the system in action:

As for security, Ford says that the default security is set to WPA2. Additionally, the driver has to specifically allow a device to connect the first time it is recognized by the SYNC. That should potentially cut down on any war-driving for SYNC cars tomfoolery.

Hmmm. Virgin Mobile has a USB modem with a pay-as-you-go plan. This could make a long trip much more interesting.

Connolley took control of all things climate in the most used information source the world has ever known — Wikipedia. Starting in February 2003, just when opposition to the claims of the band members were beginning to gel, Connolley set to work on the Wikipedia site. He rewrote Wikipedia’s articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug.11, the Medieval Warm Period. In October, he turned his attention to the hockey stick graph. He rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who were skeptical of the band. Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer, two of the world’s most distinguished climate scientists, were among his early targets, followed by others that the band especially hated, such as Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, authorities on the Medieval Warm Period.

All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.

Hot on the heels of the launch of their Dragon Dictation app (and a short-lived and mostly overblown privacy scandal), Nuance has just launched a second iPhone application: Dragon Search.

Heralded by Nuance as the “fast, accurate, and smart way to search online content on your iPhone”, Dragon Search allows iPhone users to search across Google, Yahoo!, Bing, iTunes, Twitter, Wiki, or YouTube by speaking their search terms.

Dragon Search is powered by the Dragon NaturallySpeaking engine, just as with Nuance’s other offering. If you’re having good luck with Dragon Dictation, you should see similar results here.

GOOD NEWS: Scientists crack ‘entire genetic code’ of cancer. “Scientists have unlocked the entire genetic code of two of the most common cancers – skin and lung – a move they say could revolutionise cancer care. Not only will the cancer maps pave the way for blood tests to spot tumours far earlier, they will also yield new drug targets, says the Wellcome Trust team.” Faster, please.

The long and the short of it is best summarized by the Telegraph’s James Dellingpole: “What the Russians are suggesting here, in other words, is that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a crock.”

That is, we have yet further evidence that the data is being cooked to make the long-running claim of an increase in global temperatures, and now to diminish the apparent cooling of said temps. As the gang at EU referendum tout, “it is in Soviet Union that the CRU, NOAA, NASA show the greatest warming.”

Around the world temperature stations have been widely decommissioned in rural and higher elevations, and we see an over-emphasis on increasingly urbanized (and therefore warmer) stations in the curious selection process as to what temperatures should count, and how much. The latter point references the fact that the data is then adjusted, and we are also seeing an increase in adjusting urbanized (that is, artificially warm) temperature records not down, but upward.

Excerpted in pertinent part, Joe Writes:

On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.

The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. …The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations. …

IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.

The reason this cherry-picking is relevant — as is the apparent similar gamesmanship being played with other countries examined in recent days including China and New Zealand — because our NOAA compiles the global dataset and the rest work from it. So when CRU claimed that it “lost” its raw data, what they’re saying is the claim to have lost which stations they chose from NOAA’s compilation, making it impossible for those who wish to check it to discern how they got the answer they did.

If it is what it appears to be, and my dozen years working with these people and the past few weeks peeking further inside thanks to ClimateGate tell me that it is, then this is root-cause corruption.

Meanwhile, they are scrambling madly to stitch up an agreement in Copenhagen politically committing the U.S. to the long-desired wealth-transfer. The question is which moves faster, the collapse of the increasingly likely scientific fraud, or the global governance set.

Barack Obama campaigned on a promise to give middle-class Americans a tax cut as soon as he got into office.  Early this year, he enacted a cut that promised a $400 reduction in taxes through the hilariously named Making Work Pay tax credit program, and adjusted withholding tables to reduce the weekly tax bite by $13 to put the money in our pockets immediately.  Now the 2009 tax tables have been published, and the tax cut looks like half of what was promised.

Through Wreaths Across America, veteran memorials and grave sites, including Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., are currently being adorned with remembrance wreaths from Maine's Worcester Wreath Co. The tributes honor many of the 25 million men and women who served in the U.S. armed forces and guarded and preserved America's freedom throughout history. More than 400 wreath-laying ceremonies are expected in all 50 states and 25 cemeteries and memorials abroad in 2009. Wreaths Across America is a monumental initiative, with partners such as Civil Air Patrol, numerous veterans' groups, and private citizens participating. For more information, visit the Wreaths Across America website.

According to most recent reports thousands of veteran students are still feeling the economic impact from delayed Post-9/11 GI Bill payments. The delayed benefit payments are affecting veteran's ability to pay their rent and buy food, books, and other essentials. In addition, the delayed benefit means that the colleges and universities are also not being paid. Many colleges and universities are doing what they can to help veterans on a case-by-case basis by setting up loan programs or deferring tuition charges. In addition, some schools have made it a standing policy to defer tuition charges for up to six months for all veterans using their GI Bill benefits. One such school, the University of Phoenix, has had this policy in place since August of 2009. Although this does not help with the impact on personal finances, this deferment does help veterans avoid the added stress of unpaid tuition bills.

Holiday special! Marked down to $1.99 through December.