MOVING!

Switched to WordPress a few days back and consolidated this blog with Cognitive Dissonance. Can be found now at http://ergonom3.wordpress.com/, the combined blog being called Cognitive Dissonance.

EXCELLENT NEWS, OR SOMETHING

The Czech news site iDNES reports that France is considering the repeal of the 1946 ban on prostitution. According to a recent study, 70% of French men and 49% of French women are in favor of legalizing prostitution and reopening the so-called maisons closes. Parliamentarian Chantal Brunel has constituted a parliamentary commission to study the issue. Mme Brunel has stated that legalized prostitution would protect thousands of women from the depredations of pimps and gangs, and give them better protection on the streets.

Another benefit of legalized prostitution is that taxes paid by prostitutes - ahem, erotic fulfillment delivery personnel - would swell the state's coffers. Perhaps, in these days of economic turmoil, the Obama government should take notice.

IN MEMORIAM, FOR A GREAT AND BRAVE SOUL

Dr. Jerri Nielsen Fitzgerald, who had diagnosed, operated on, and treated her own breast cancer while at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica, died on June 23rd at the age of 57. Her cancer had returned in 2005.

The Globe and Mail quoted her husband as saying:“She fought bravely, she was able to make the best of what life and circumstance gave her, and she had the most resilience I have ever seen in anyone. She fought hard and she fought valiantly.”

I wish to offer my condolences to this brave woman's family.

WHAT???

I cannot believe it's been almost two weeks...

I guess I've been so weirded out by the Obamite non-response to Iran, and previously by the Obamite vigorous response to non-events perpetrated by "them Jews," that I've been struck dumb.

EL SUPREMO VERSUS COKE ZERO

The Czech online daily iDNES reports that Official Obama Pal and Soulmate (OOPS) Hugo Chavez decided to ban Coke Zero in Venezuela, claiming that it damages the health of his people.

Just how Coke Zero damages Venezuelans' health was not specified, but in a socialist regime, that is not necessary. All you need is El Supremo's ukase to that effect, and becomes Truth.

Kinda like Stalin's declaration that the sonata is the most perfect form of music (per my long-time friend, Prof. Dr. Herbert Thomas Mandl).

Given the chaotic economic developments in this country under the Obamites, one wonders how many OOPSes (of the same ilk as Chavez) beyond the current brace of White House czars and other shadowy apparatchiki are in charge of decisions about our economy. Let me see, a telephone type in charge of a car company...

It makes my head spin just to think about it.

THE INESTIMABLE VALUE OF DISSENT

For years, the politico-scientific party line for global warming has been that the science is in, human-made global warming is the culprit, we will soon reach (or have now reached, or have long ago reached) the tipping point, and we are now sliding toward catastrophe. Those who remained skeptical were mercilessly skewered, persecuted, denied tenure and research funding, and called every name under the sun (joke!) by the true believers.

But the agnostics persisted, stubbornly digging out data that cast doubt on the standard anthropomorphic global warming (AGW) model, the computer models that presumably supported it, the research methodologies and even the data sets. In other words, instead of being true believers, they were true scientists. And, by degrees, as the facts became available, some of the faithful ones began to waver and, most important, lose their FEAR OF PERSECUTION.

Now AGW orthodoxy gets yet another black eye. NASA, for so long a temple of the AGW faith, has allowed itself to publish a study (see a report in Daily Tech) which states that solar activity, horribile dictu, has an impact on climate change. This is a conclusion that the AGW faithful had resisted ever since their new faith had been birthed.

This is yet another major victory for science and democracy. I hope it has come in time to influence Congress in its struggle with the Waxman-Markey "great big tax" whose only real purpose is to ensure that the self-appointed elect can have more money for their super-expensive toys and chimeric fantasies.

RUSSIAN THOUGHTS ON STRATEGY

Here’s an interesting insight about Russia and the recent antiballistic "missile crisis” by Karel Schwarzenberg, the Czech ex-Foreign Minister, from a May 22, 2009 article called Russia still thinks that it can tell us what we can and can’t do.

Schwarzenberg thinks that, from the military perspective, the Russians really don’t care about the radar that was to have been installed in the Czech Republic (until Obama put it on ice, thinking that the concession would help “reset” U.S.-Russian relations). According to Schwarzenberg, the Russians know perfectly well that the radar in the Czech Republic and the antiballistic missiles in Poland are not aimed at them. Russia is primarily interested in staking out its territory. The former Warsaw pact countries are, in Moscow’s eyes, still imperial territories where the Russians can exert their veto. “A dachshund never changes its opinion about a sausage,” Schwarzenberg quipped.