Because they're better than you...

...and they party harder, too.

DATELINE CANCUN, MEXICO: The opening day of the U.N. climate change conference today laid great emphasis on achieving a package of decisions at the end of the 10-day deliberations. “Cancun can,” quipped Danish Minister for Climate Change Lykke Friis.

Apparently, the "can" that Ms. Friis was speaking of was the group's decision that it "can" do whatever it wants, wherever it wants - especially if it takes place at a destination resort.

Cancun - where the concerned go to party, er, conference...

According to a report from Reuters (on the conference), "For the next couple of weeks, thousands of government officials, NGOs, environmental activists and reporters will gather in Cancun, Mexico, for international climate negotiations, officially known as the Sixteenth Conference of the Parties (COP-16) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It's fitting that the talks are being held in a vacation resort, where people go to escape -- because only by ignoring what's happening in the rest of the world is it possible to take these U.N. negotiations seriously." (Emphasis mine...)

In other words, to keep the rest of the world from being over-indulgent, we have to indulge ourselves...

And as is the case with most UN-driven functions, this one is overbooked. A report at Xinhuanet notes a rather large number of attendees/partiers:"The [Mexican] Foreign Ministry said it is expecting more than 20,000 government officials from around the world to attend the talks on issues like financing, technology transfer and reforestation in the hope of finding a solution via negotiations which run through Dec. 10. There will also be a large number of non-governmental organizations, research institutions and businesses, which could mean another 10,000 participants at the meeting."

Yep. No carbon footprint there.

At the Cancun conference, butterflies are free - it's the mixed drinks that'll cost ya...

So what's going on there (that couldn't go on elsewhere - especially when we live/work in a world where carbon emissions can be curtailed through the use of video conferencing)? From The Telegraph UK, we get some of the following tidbits:

• Briefings with the UK delegation are being carried out in one of the many hotel rooms at the plush Moon Palace. The marble-floored room comes with a jacuzzi, although it is empty of water and has a lid on it. All the journalists couldn't fit in it anyway.

• The Moon Palace, where all the official delegations are staying has already been affectionately re-named the ‘Huhne Palace’ in honour of the UK Secretary of State Chris Huhne. A tabloid newspaper has pointed out that the Liberal Democrat minister, and the rest of the 45 people in the UK delegation, will have access to a Jacuzzi and all-you-can-eat buffet. The £240-a-night Moon Palace Golf and Spa Resort also has ‘swim up’ bars and a golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus.

• The surreal nature of attending a climate change conference on a strip of land that 40 years ago was a mangrove swamp cannot be underestimated. In the 1970s the Mexican Government decided to create a ‘super resort’ with money from the oil industry. They transformed the white beaches and unspoilt rain forests into a series of motorways, concrete monoliths and raked beaches. Add cheap labour and booze and you have a success story. Cancun is now most well known as the destination of choice for American teenagers during Spring Break. It has 27,000 hotel rooms, liquor stores, white beaches and not much else. But it has also destroyed a pristine environment and is pumping out millions of tonnes of carbon and effluent everyday. Mexican environmentalists intend to use the hypocrisy of the situation to highlight some of the problems in their country with regulation of pollution and destruction of the remaining rain forests.

As Instapundit quips: "Party on, dudes. Reduced consumption is for the little people."

Another look at those airport X-rays...

"Unsafe At Any Scan?"

According to a researcher at the University of California, Davis, there could be serious health questions surrounding the use of backscatter radiation scanners (aka: "porno-scanners") now being employed at U.S. airports.

Background: Jason Bell, a molecular biologist and biophysicist working in a research lab at UC Davis, notes that the lab "(as well as many others) has spent the better part of the last decade working on the molecular mechanism of how mutations in the breast cancer susceptibility gene, BRCA2, result in cancer. The result of that work is that we now better understand that people who have a deficient BRCA2 gene are hypersensitive to DNA damage, which can be caused by a number of factors including: UV exposure, oxidative stress, improper chromosomal replication and segregation, and radiation exposure."

At his blog, My Helical Tryst, Bell has posted a detailed critique of the research on the safety of airport backscatter radiation scanners. It's "a detailed, lay-friendly explanation of the scientific concerns expressed by the [research] team that believes that they are unsafe for use. His report is, to say the least, troubling:

"[How] the scanner works: Essentially, it appears that an X-ray beam is rastered across the body, which highlights the importance of one of the specific concerns raised by [the researchers]... what happens if the machine fails, or gets stuck, during a raster. How much radiation would a person's eye, hand, testicle, stomach, etc be exposed to during such a failure. What is the failure rate of these machines? What is the failure rate in an operational environment? Who services the machine? What is the decay rate of the filter? What is the decay rate of the shielding material? What is the variability in the power of the X-ray source during the manufacturing process? This last question may seem trivial; however, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory noted significant differences in their test models, which were supposed to be precisely up to spec. Its also interesting to note that the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory criticized other reports from NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology) and a group called Medical and Health Physics Consulting for testing the machine while one of the two X-ray sources was disabled (citations at the bottom of the page).

These questions have not been answered to any satisfaction and the UCSF scientists, all esteemed in their fields and members of the National Academy of Sciences have been dismissed based on a couple of reports seemingly hastily put together by mid-level government lab technicians. The documents that I have reviewed thus far either have NO AUTHOR CREDITS or are NOT authored by anyone with either a Ph.D. or a M.D., raising serious concerns of the extent of the expertise of the individuals and organizations evaluating these machines. Yet, the FDA and TSA continue to dismiss some of the most talented scientists in the country...

Furthermore, when making this comparison, the TSA and FDA are calculating that the dose is absorbed throughout the body. According the simulations performed by NIST, the relative absorption of the radiation is ~20-35-fold higher in the skin, breast, testes and thymus than the brain, or 7-12-fold higher than bone marrow. So a total body dose is misleading, because there is differential absorption in some tissues. Of particular concern is radiation exposure to the testes, which could result in infertility or birth defects, and breasts for women who might carry a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation. Even more alarming is that because the radiation energy is the same for all adults, children or infants, the relative absorbed dose is twice as high for small children and infants because they have a smaller body mass (both total and tissue specific) to distribute the dose. Alarmingly, the radiation dose to an infant's testes and skeleton is 60-fold higher than the absorbed dose to an adult brain!

"What happens to a chromosome of a normal cell when it is exposed to radiation. It most cases, this damage is repaired; however, at high doses or when there is a genetic defect, the cells either die or become cancerous."

(Huge h/t: Boing Boing)

Getting a different picture when it comes to airport X-rays...

"Unsafe At Any Scan?"

According to a researcher at the University of California, Davis, there are serious health questions surrounding the use of backscatter radiation scanners (aka: "porno-scanners") now being employed at U.S. airports.

Background: Jason Bell, a molecular biologist and biophysicist working in a research lab at UC Davis, notes that the lab "(as well as many others) has spent the better part of the last decade working on the molecular mechanism of how mutations in the breast cancer susceptibility gene, BRCA2, result in cancer. The result of that work is that we now better understand that people who have a deficient BRCA2 gene are hypersensitive to DNA damage, which can be caused by a number of factors including: UV exposure, oxidative stress, improper chromosomal replication and segregation, and radiation exposure."

At his blog, My Helical Tryst, Bell has posted a detailed critique of the research on the safety of airport backscatter radiation scanners. It's "a detailed, lay-friendly explanation of the scientific concerns expressed by the [research] team that believes that they are unsafe for use:

"[How] the scanner works: Essentially, it appears that an X-ray beam is rastered across the body, which highlights the importance of one of the specific concerns raised by [the researchers]... what happens if the machine fails, or gets stuck, during a raster. How much radiation would a person's eye, hand, testicle, stomach, etc be exposed to during such a failure. What is the failure rate of these machines? What is the failure rate in an operational environment? Who services the machine? What is the decay rate of the filter? What is the decay rate of the shielding material? What is the variability in the power of the X-ray source during the manufacturing process? This last question may seem trivial; however, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory noted significant differences in their test models, which were supposed to be precisely up to spec. Its also interesting to note that the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory criticized other reports from NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology) and a group called Medical and Health Physics Consulting for testing the machine while one of the two X-ray sources was disabled (citations at the bottom of the page).

These questions have not been answered to any satisfaction and the UCSF scientists, all esteemed in their fields and members of the National Academy of Sciences have been dismissed based on a couple of reports seemingly hastily put together by mid-level government lab technicians. The documents that I have reviewed thus far either have NO AUTHOR CREDITS or are NOT authored by anyone with either a Ph.D. or a M.D., raising serious concerns of the extent of the expertise of the individuals and organizations evaluating these machines. Yet, the FDA and TSA continue to dismiss some of the most talented scientists in the country...

Furthermore, when making this comparison, the TSA and FDA are calculating that the dose is absorbed throughout the body. According the simulations performed by NIST, the relative absorption of the radiation is ~20-35-fold higher in the skin, breast, testes and thymus than the brain, or 7-12-fold higher than bone marrow. So a total body dose is misleading, because there is differential absorption in some tissues. Of particular concern is radiation exposure to the testes, which could result in infertility or birth defects, and breasts for women who might carry a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation. Even more alarming is that because the radiation energy is the same for all adults, children or infants, the relative absorbed dose is twice as high for small children and infants because they have a smaller body mass (both total and tissue specific) to distribute the dose. Alarmingly, the radiation dose to an infant's testes and skeleton is 60-fold higher than the absorbed dose to an adult brain!

"What happens to a chromosome of a normal cell when it is exposed to radiation. It most cases, this damage is repaired; however, at high doses or when there is a genetic defect, the cells either die or become cancerous."

Elbowed-out of the picture...

News item No. 1: On November 23, 2010, North Korean artillery bombards the small South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, which lies in the Yellow Sea, just south of the maritime border between the two Koreas. Two South Korean soldiers are killed, two civilian islanders die and dozens are wounded. South Korea and its allies, including the more than 30,000 U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula, go on high alert. The perennially weak United Nations issues one of it's trademark stern finger-waggings; the United States - which had scheduled naval exercises headed by the U.S.S. George Washington carrier task force - warns the North Koreans; China gets its hackles up over increased activity in its region; and South Korea wrings its hands and tells its northern brethren that it will not tolerate another 150 such offenses. In short, the insanity that is North Korea has once again brought the area to the brink of war.

News item No. 2: President Barack Obama, knee-deep in meetings focused on handling/diffusing the current crisis on the Korean Peninsula, was injured yesterday during a pick-up basketball game. Obama received 12 stitches in his lower lip after being elbowed during a basketball game with friends and family members. [There has been no confirmation concerning the Nobel Peace Prize Committee meeting today to discuss awarding the president another Nobel for his efforts to stem confrontations - "at great, personal price" on basketball courts everywhere."]

(h/t: Taking Exception-"Hope & Change" original art...)

Giving thanks...

...and getting an aggressive pat-down?

In preparation for Thanksgiving Day, many around the nation will be making their way to loved ones' homes, via - yes - "trains, planes and automobiles." And much like the hapless characters from the movie of the same name, starring Steve Martin and the late John Candy, holiday travelers will be facing all sorts of challenges.

Especially if they choose to fly.

By now, we've heard countless stories of invasive pat-downs, "porno scans" and other assaults on the dignity of the American flying public...all in an effort to quash terrorism!

Now, along with having to deal with TSA's play on the administration mantra, "Grope and Change," fliers - frequent and otherwise - now have to contend with a list of "no-nos." The list (supplied by The Folks Who Feel You Up), doesn't cover sharp objects, items that can be used to club people with, or anything remotely construed as a possible weapon.

Here's the TSA's list of "Foods That Don't Fly." (Man, I am so glad Uncle Al Qaeda won't be bringing his lousy cranberry sauce again this year!)

Traveling with Food or Gifts

How to Pack Food and Gift Items

When it comes to bringing items through checkpoints, we've seen just about everything. Traveling with food or gifts is an even bigger challenge. Everyone has favorite foods from home that they want to bring to holiday dinners, or items from their destination that they want to bring back home.
Not sure about what you can and can't bring through the checkpoint? Here's a list of liquid, aerosol and gel items that you should put in your checked bag, ship ahead, or leave at home.

• Cranberry sauce

• Cologne

• Creamy dips and spreads

• (cheeses, peanut butter, etc.)

• Gift baskets with food items

• (salsa, jams and salad dressings)

• Gravy

• Jams

• Jellies

• Lotions

• Maple syrup
• Oils and vinegars
• Perfume
• Salad dressing
• Salsa
• Sauces
• Snowglobes
• Soups
• Wine, liquor and beer

Note: You can bring pies and cakes through the security checkpoint, but please be advised that they are subject to additional screening.

Remember! – do not wrap gifts you're taking on the plane. Security officers may have to unwrap gifts if they need to take a closer look. Please ship wrapped gifts ahead of time or wait until your destination to wrap them.

Richard Epstein on Barack Obama - his former Chicago Law colleague - and more...

Great mind, great perspectives...

I am proud that I used to be a colleague of this man -often referred to as"one of the most influential legal thinkers of modern times," and arguably without equal when it comes to the field of Law & Economics...

From Reason's website (source of this video): "Epstein splits faculty appointments at the University of Chicago and New York University; he's also a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and a contributor to Reason. In books such as Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws (1992) to Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995), and Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (2003), Epstein pushes his ideas and preconceptions to their limits and takes his readers along for the ride. A die-hard libertarian who believes the state should be limited and individual freedom expanded, he is nonetheless the consummate intellectual who first and foremost demands he offer up ironclad proofs for his characteristically counterintuitive insights into law and social theory. Indeed, Epstein's enduring value may not be any particular legal or policy prescription he's offered over the years but rather his methodology. He believes in robust and unfettered argument and debate as a way of gaining knowledge. If you don't put your ideas out in the arena, you can't be doing your best work, he argues. 'The problem when you keep to yourself is you don't get to hear strong ideas articulated by people who disagree with you,' he says."

In this video, [Epstein discusses] legal challenges to ObamaCare, the effects of stimulus spending and TARP bailouts, and a former University of Chicago adjunct faculty member by the name of Barack Obama, with whom Epstein regularly interacted in the 1990s and early 2000s. 'He passed through Chicago without absorbing much of the internal culture,' says Epstein of the president. 'He's amazingly good at playing intellectual poker. But that's a disadvantage, because if you don't put your ideas out there to be shot down, you're never gonna figure out what kind of revision you want.'"

Watch/listen and learn. (Approximately 12.30 minutes.)

Former University of Chicago Law School colleagues...

Gloria Allred On TSA Pat-Downs:

"I Liked It"

The last time Gloria Allred actually shut up...

Gloria Allred, the infamous ambulance-chasing, attention-whoring attorney - who most recently gained notice for her efforts to undermine Meg Whitman's campaign for governor of California - explains why she thinks invasive TSA searches are OK...

Here's the exchange (from Nov. 19):

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: "Did they touch your body parts?"

GLORIA ALLRED: "Yeah, they did and it was a first time anybody touched them in a long time and frankly, I liked it."

Allred, the self- (and TSA-) satisfied watchdog...

NannyGate/Meg Whitman housekeeper Nicky Diaz (left) and Allred: Because Gloria cares...

Note: To see the entire segment from the Hannity show (7:13 in length), go here...

Hillary - on the fly...

More TSA patter:

Earlier today, CBS' "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer asked Sec. of State Hillary Clinton if she would submit to a TSA pat-down.

HRC: "Not if I could avoid it. No. I mean who would?"

Exactly - who would?

(h/t: Mediaite)

"We know you don't have a choice when you fly..."

On the money

Pitch perfect...

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)...

Saturday Night Live skewers the incoming and outgoing Speakers of the House (John Boehner R-OH and Nancy Pelosi D-CA), disgraced Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.

SNL, which has a reputation for hits-and-misses, nails each and every personality, quirk and frailty...

More TSA fun...

Lonely during the holiday season?

Find a companion with a TSA pat-down at airport security...

(h/t: SNL)

"44 Ways to Say TSA"

What do the initials "TSA" really stand for?

(from the folks at Reason.TV)

The mocking continues...

An ode to TSA pat-down procedures:

"Comply With Me"

(h/t: Iowahawk)

What the sharp-dressed groper is wearing...pt. 2

Another day, another round of mocking...

Here's the latest entry in the TSA/GropeFest parade: a t-shirt from KOA-AM in Denver.

(h/t: Steffan Tubbs)

What the sharp-dressed groper is wearing...

Charlie Rangel - guilty as charged...

It's sad news, but it's about time...

Rep. Charles Bernard "Charlie" Rangel (NY-15)...

Charlie Rangel, the 20-term Congressman from New York, was found guilty on a host of ethics violations today. Rangel, long-known to be a "dirty" pol, will now go down in the books for his misdeeds in office.

And that's a shame.

First, every member of Congress has the distinct opportunity to help his/her constituents in ways that almost no one else can. Holding office as a Representative is an honor and a privilege. Turning one's back on that in order to self-enrich/empower is criminal...and worse.

Second - and here's the really sad news - Rangel was a hero in the Korean War.

How Charles Rangel could have been remembered: as the Korean War hero...

"During the Korean War, he was a member of the all-black 503rd Field Artillery Battalion in the 2nd Infantry Division. In late November 1950, this unit was caught up in heavy fighting in North Korea as part of the U.N. forces retreat from the Yalu River. In the Battle of Kunu-ri, Rangel was part of a vehicle column that was trapped and attacked by the Chinese Army. In the subzero cold, Rangel was injured by shrapnel from a Chinese shell. Some U.S. soldiers were being taken prisoner, but others looked to Rangel, who though only a private first class had a reputation for leadership in the unit. Rangel led some 40 men from his unit, during three days of freezing weather, out of the Chinese encirclement; nearly half of the battalion was killed in the overall battle. Rangel was awarded a Purple Heart for his wounds and the Bronze Star with Valor for his actions in the face of death. His Army unit was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation, and three battle stars." (h/t: Wikipedia)

Today's obvious findings will be an unfitting conclusion to a political career that could have been great...as well as to a legacy of military leadership and heroism that was...

How he will be remembered: In this now-infamous photo from the NY Post, "Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel dozes on the beach at the Punta Cana Resort, where he owns and rents out a villa. He was squeezing in some vacation time before attending the Democratic convention." The photo, which was part of the public outcry about the Congressman's properties (and the taxes he avoided), hastened his undoing...

A report from the Wall Street Journal's News Hub, hosted by my radio colleague, Simon Constable...

Late add: Rangel's response...

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

Who in the land is fairest of all?

Read more: American Narcissus...

Big green lies...

So much for all those "green" jobs that were going to save California...

Last month, my colleagues on the John Batchelor Show and I discussed how China - through subsidies and economic espionage - has destroyed the solar panel market for much of the rest of the world...especially here in California.

U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) meets workers at Solyndra's Fremont-based facilities. Boxer touted her support of green jobs, like the ones being lost at Solyndra, as key to fixing what ails California...

Like most fantasies, this one is coming to a conclusion. It can now be said that we are seeing the beginning of the industry's end here in the Golden State. The worst part is that the federal government, including Sen. Barbara Boxer (CA-D) - who ran on this very issue as a key pillar in her recent campaign - did know/should have known this was happening.

China's now-burgeoning solar panel manufacturing industry benefits from years of economic espionage, illegal subsidies and no environmental regulations to speak of...

"Despite a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government, Solyndra, a maker of solar panels in the southeast San Francisco Bay Area city of Fremont, will close one of its manufacturing plants, lay off 40 permanent and 150 contract workers, delay expansion plans of a new plant largely financed with the government-guaranteed loan and scale back production capacity more than 50 percent. Despite the hype and tax money, Solyndra seems unable to compete with Chinese manufacturers, whose prices are lower. This is the latest bad news for the company touted by Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama as one of the green industry’s supposed shining lights." – Editorial, The Orange County Register, November 11, 2010.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (center) helps break ground for the now endangered Solyndra solar panel manufacturing facility... (photo: Solyndra)

Not only is this news a hit on the industry and the over-hyped notion that green jobs would pull California out of the economic tailspin that it's now it, but it also was a hit on the president's much-touted Stimulus program.

President Barack Obama at Solyndra's Bay Area facility...

"...The US Government's $535 million deal is is the first loan of its type using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and also the first of its type from the US Department of Energy (DOE) since 1980," according to a report at Treehugger.com.

Just great! Not one but two taxpayer-financed fantasies gone bust...