Thank-you.
UPDATE:
Here’s a screenshot of today’s front page at Live.com:
Korean War Veteran's Memorial on Live.com
The new front page at Live.com features images that include hotspots with links to related content if you hover over them.
UPDATE 2: Also see America’s War Stories In Honor of Veterans Day at Smithsonian Channel.
Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1
Army Times had a story a few weeks ago about the 3rd infantry Division’s 1st BCT upcoming mission:
Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.
It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.
But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.
The Einsteins at Reddit seem to have just noticed it now and are fully supportive:
I pointed out that there’s nothing in the story about patrols, but my comments are sure to be downvoted because instead of playing nice I’m getting all factual and everything.
Does anyone have a favorite social bookmarking-type site with a wide range of submissions that doesn’t seem to be populated mostly by teenage revolutionary wanabes?
UPDATE: Here’s a brilliant comeback to one of my comments:
And maybe they are getting ready for the “october suprise” that a few politicians have warned us about.
And I am just as sick of the anti-alarmist. The ones who have been warning have hit the nail on the head every time, including this current wall street problem, the housing market, wars, false flag operations, media lies, government deceptions and coverups.
geeze, I fear the anti-alarmist more than the alarmist.
If I could make up stuff like that and publish it, I wouldn’t have to work for a living.
I’m a little confused about the “anti-alarmist” tag. Is everyone who doesn’t get alarmed an “anti-alarmist”? Or only people who say that alarmist claims aren’t correct?
UPDATE 2: A couple more posted by the same guy seven minutes apart:
You might think I made a mistake and posted the same one twice. I didn’t. He just apparently isn’t terribly creative other than posting crap headlines.
This sort of thing has to stop.
Really really sucks. Sucks, as in Murdoc will probably be dropping SiteMeter from all his sites at the end of the month if this is for real sucks.
Just my opinion. It’s only after looking at it for a little bit. However, unless my browser has been hijacked and this really isn’t SiteMeter, I probably won’t be changing my opinion.
UPDATE: Murdoc will give them credit. They appear to be in the middle of a total roll-back due to negative feedback and performance issues. Though I believe that their screw-up is of monumental proportions, they wasted no time stepping back. You can’t really ask for a whole lot more.
I was a bit surprised to see that the bad feelings about the new SiteMeter were so widespread. Lex had rounded up a few links, and in the comments section here asked what I might be thinking about trying.
Well, the first traffic meter I ever used (other than the old Blogspot meter) was ExtremeTracker. That served well for quite some time, and I kept it running until just a few months ago when I removed the code from MO during some housecleaning. I also have Google’s Analytics set up and running, though I don’t often look at it. I’m not overly excited to get more involved with Google, and I’m glad that SiteMeter is rolling things back.
UPDATE 2: Even more linkage to suckery at PoliGazette.
All of today’s reading and posting will be done via Google’s new Chrome browser.
At first glance, it appears a bit sluggish (okay, a lot sluggish), but I mostly want to verify that my sites display and function correctly. In the early going, all appears fine.
UPDATE: Hmmm. It appears that each tab you open is actually a separate process with its own discrete resources. Makes each tab its own little island, but memory usage grows quickly that way. Ouch.
UPDATE 2: End of experiment. Performance was a 1 out of 10. Until the first production release is out, I will not try Chrome again other than to check my site design for compatibility.
Wind Energy Bumps Into Power Grid’s Limits
When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing.
That is a symptom of a broad national problem. Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.
The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.
Secret? It’s a secret that the electric power transmission system is at its limit and moving electricity to where it’s needed is a major problem? That’s a secret to exactly who?
This isn’t a problem limited to alternative energy generation either, though you can (sort of) put a coal, gas, or nuclear plant wherever you want while the wind, water, and sun-based generation has to be built in the correct environment.
Heh:
Wind advocates say that just two of the windiest states, North Dakota and South Dakota, could in principle generate half the nation’s electricity from turbines. But the way the national grid is configured, half the country would have to move to the Dakotas in order to use the power.
Meanwhile, Tigerhawk has some thoughts on the issue.
Olympics Opening Ceremony Fireworks ‘Faked’ on TV
The Telegraph picked up a story in the Chinese newspaper the Beijing Times which explained that filming the 29 firework “footprints” from the air would have been impossible. So visual effects artists spent a year creating a computer-graphic simulation — inserted precisely at the same time the real fireworks went off — to bedazzle home viewers as if they were at the actual ceremony. The fireworks themselves were real enough, but if you were watching on TV, what you saw was a CG simulation of that reality, happening in real-time.
Also: Olympic opening uses girl’s voice, not face
A 7-year-old Chinese girl was not good-looking enough for the Olympics opening ceremony, so another little girl with a pixie smile lip-synched “Ode to the Motherland,” a ceremony official said–the latest example of the lengths Beijing took for a perfect start to the Summer Games.
A member of China’s Politburo asked for the last-minute change to match one girl’s face with another’s voice, the ceremony’s chief music director, Chen Qigang, said in an interview with Beijing Radio.
At this point, assume everything was faked.
UPDATE: Oh, and don’t forget the landlocked aircraft carrier, either.
All aboard! Amtrak ridership in GR way up
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The high cost of gas is pushing many travelers between Michigan and Chicago to passenger trains.
The Detroit News reports that the numbers of riders on several Amtrak train routes had risen between October and July.
Amtrak officials tell the newspaper that the number of people riding Pontiac-Detroit-Ann Arbor-Jackson-Chicago lines was up 5.9 percent over that period. The Port Huron-East Lansing-Chicago line has seen a 6.5 percent jump in riders, while the Grand Rapids-St. Joseph-Chicago line was up 7.2 percent.
Now, if Murdoc is running a few minutes late for work in the morning, he sees the Grand Rapids-St. Joe-Chicago train. As he runs late at least once a week (slacker) he often waI’ve been watching to see it the passenger load is up.
It might be up 7.2 percent like the article says, but it’s probably something like up to 32 passengers per day from 30. Seriously. The train usually has three cars (and often a second engine) and each car usually appears to be nearly totally empty. Now, Murdoc could be wrong and the actual numbers may be closer to up to 64 passengers per day from 60, but I’d be surprised.
Another thing to consider is that it’s likely more people get on the train for Chicago at St. Joseph than get off at St. Joseph from Grand Rapids, so maybe the number of passengers riding into the Windy City is 100 or more. Again, I’m completely guessing based off of what I see where the tracks cross my road to work, so maybe I’m way off base.
Are Amtrak ridership numbers publicly available?
The GR to Chicago ride is $47 and takes 3:55. By road, this is a 177 mile trip and Google Maps says it should take 2:55. At $4 a gallon, that works out to about $23 in gas, but there’s no way you make that trip in three hours on the highway, at least not at that time of day.
Regardless, I’d be shocked if the amount of energy it takes to move an engine and three cars (plus quite often a second engine) to Chicago is in any way good for anyone.
UPDATE: Missed this bit:
The increases would have been greater if tickets, especially for weekend trips, were not selling out.
Again, I’m sure that all three cars look to be 90% empty during the week. Something isn’t making sense.
Not a lot of time, but there’s a good post up at Instapundit on Obama’s call for 1,000,000 plug-in hybrid vehicles by 2015.
FWIW, I support the plug-in hybrid car in theory. I’d buy one for my commute car today if they were ready for prime time and I could afford it. I think a lot of people would.
I’ll keep my gasoline-powered minivan for my family vehicle, though.
As for the electrical energy required to make plug-ins worth it, go nuclear, baby.
One thing the Instapundit post touches on that is usually ignored is the transmission of electrical power rather than the generation. Though many systems are pushed too close to the limit, it’s usually the actual transport system for energy that is at fault for major problems. Not to mention the amount lost over long distances.
More smaller plants would help this, but then you lose some of the power of scale.
Where’s Mr. Fusion when you need him?
I JUST SIGNED UP FOR MLB.COM’S PREMIUM INTERNET TV SERVICE. It took me about two minutes to decide to cancel.
Even though I checked the ZIP codes of home and work and both showed ‘okay,’ it tells me I’m blacked out for all home Tigers games. What someone is calling the “official MLB blackout map’ indicates that all of Michigan is blacked out for Tigers home games. I’m not sure that it’s an accurate map or that MLB.TV uses the same map, but if that’s the case MLB.TV’s ZIP Code checker needs to be fixed.
I also tried entering an Arizona zip code into my account to see if that would make a difference. Predictably, it doesn’t.
I called customer service and waited on hold for a while, then was told I’d be called back “probably within half an hour.” We’ll see. I’ve already sent an email directing them to cancel my service.
I tried to check out another game just to see what the quality was, but I’m getting error pages for all games now. Whether or not this has to do with my pending cancellation (or my zip code trickery) I don’t know.
According to the map I linked to, the entire state of Iowa is blacked out for home games for the Chicago Cubs, the Chicago White Sox, the Kansas City Royals, the Milwaukee Brewers, the Minnesota Twins, and the St. Louis Cardinals. Blacked out for six teams despite not having a single one in the entire state.
Honestly, this isn’t 1981 any more. Major League Baseball is going to have to rework the way blackouts work if they want to enter the world of 21st century media.
I’m sure they’ll get right on that.
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