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All three Northwest states are reported to have high rates of homelessness. This has resulted in such stories as “Idaho ranks 6th in homelessness,” but you get a better picture when you get into matters of definition. Idaho’s population is somewhat less than half Oregon’s, which is barely over half of Washington’s. All three states are estimated to have comparable numbers of homeless people. But in Idaho, very few - 6.1% - are living unsheltered, while in Oregon a majority are, and in Washington around 40%. Labels: astrophotography, telescopes Labels: global warming Labels: deinstitutionalization Labels: astrophotography Labels: telescopes Labels: global warming Labels: astrophotography, telescopes
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I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win
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THE MESOPOTAMIAN: TO BRING ONE MORE IRAQI VOICE OF THE SILENT MAJORITY TO THE ATTENTION OF THE WORLD
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J. Norman Heath's Blog--a circus rigger and Second Amendment scholar (really!)
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Handguns Are Completely Illegal In Britain
Hence this piece of news:Guns were used in 4,120 robberies last year - a 10% jump - including a 9% rise to 1,439 in the number of street robberies where guns were used.
Oh, and here's the official spin:
There was also a rapid and unexplained increase in the number of times householders were confronted in their own homes by armed criminals. Residential firearms robberies show a 46% leap, a record 645 cases in England and Wales - up 204 on the previous year and four times the level recorded in 2000-01.
The figures come a day after two men armed with a replica gun robbed a Home Office worker on his way home after sharing a curry with Home Secretary John Reid. The 29-year-old civil servant was making his way home in Beckenham, Kent, shortly before midnight when he was attacked.
A Met Police spokeswoman said the man's wallet and mobile phone were taken and confirmed that two teenage men remain in custody at a south London police station.
The Home Office report shows that handguns are the most commonly used firearm in robberies, reported in 2,888 cases.
Shadow home secretary David Davis said of the figures: "This shows Labour is losing control of gun crime across the board, whether it be on the street or in innocent people's homes.
"Gun crime is mainly fuelled by gang warfare and drug addiction, which is a consequence of Labour's failing drugs policy. It is exacerbated by our porous borders, which allow illegal weapons to flow into the country."Home Office minister Tony McNulty said: "Firearm offences have fallen significantly, by 14% in the year up to September 2006, which amounts to 1,642 fewer incidents.
Firearms offenses have fallen significantly--but firearms robberies have gone up by 10%? Does this mean that strictly gun control offenses are in decline, because the government has made it clear that it will vigorously prosecute those who wish to protect themselves with a gun, but gun crimes with victims have increased?
"While there is a small rise in residential firearm robberies, these account for a tiny proportion of recorded offences overall, although we recognise any firearm incident is traumatic for victims." He added: "We have some of the toughest firearm legislation in Europe."
Idaho Homelessness
I mentioned in a recent posting about unsheltered homeless vs. those who have shelter. An unsheltered homeless person is living in a car, under a bridge, or perhaps just under the open sky. Under the best of weather conditions, this is utter misery. A homeless person with shelter is far better off.
Ridenbaugh Press gives a bit more detail about the recent report showing Idaho with the sixth highest homelessness rate in the country:The new report on homelessness from the National Alliance to End Homelessness has, as a number of regional news stories have indicated, state breakdowns on estimates of the homeless population.
Even being a sheltered homeless person isn't great, especially in those large shelters where everyone shares a single large room. Still, it does suggest that Idaho is at least providing minimal shelter for nearly all its homeless--something that can't be said for Washington and Oregon.
The homeless are not a monolith, certainly no more than any other group in our society, likely less than most. The report segments them in a variety of ways, among those “sheltered” as opposed to “unsheltered” - those living essentially or actually out in the open, sleeping on sidewalks or by river banks. Nationally, the report says that 56% are sheltered, 44% unsheltered. State Sheltered Unsheltd Total % pop Idaho 5,092 332 5,424 0.38% Oregon 7,775 8,446 16,221 0.45% Washington 14,450 9,520 23,970 0.38%
Where Slavery Reparations Take Us
I've mentioned in the past the idea that if slavery reparations survived in the courts, there would be a vast swarm of lawsuits filed for other past wrongs. Classical Values brought to my attention this website which may be of interest, amusement, or amazement. The petition says:We, the undersigned citizens of the world, demand reparations payments of £31,960,000,000,000 from the British Monarchy and government of the United Kingdom. This money will compensate us for the profound injuries we have suffered over the last 500 years from British brutality, negligence, malevolence, crimes against humanity, and other heinous and atrocious forms of misrule. It is far from enough to make us whole, but a necessary first step in the long process of British coming to terms with its historical guilty and reconciling itself with global opinion and international law.
I suppose I should see if the websites www.GermanicTribesReparations.com and www.CroMagnonManWrongedNeanderthals.com are taken.
What I Said At The Boise Planning and Zoning Commission Last Monday
I am absolutely convinced that I have already blogged this, but there's no evidence for it, and none of my readers have seen it, so I must have just dreamed it.
I showed up a bit early for the Boise Planning and Zoning Commission hearing concerning the attempts to shut down the Salvation Army's shelter for homeless families, the Booth Home. This provided an opportunity to talk to some of the members of what calls itself the "Booth Neighbors." My stereotypes of this North End neighborhood were confirmed as I left the elevator; some of those coming to shut down the Booth Home were saying that it was hard to decide whether to go hear Al Gore talk about global warming, or to do this, but obviously, shutting down a homeless shelter took priority.
A little background: the Salvation Army has operated a facility at this location on 24th Street in what is now the fashionable North End of Boise since 1921. This was not a problem, because Boise did not have a zoning law until 1965. In 1969, the Salvation Army obtained a Conditional Use Permit to operate a residence and school for unwed mothers at this location, because this was a non-conforming use within the R1C zone.
Until 1985, the Booth House was used for unwed mothers, many of them teenagers, but in those unenlightened times, even single adult women needed somewhere to go to have their illegitimate child away from the attention of their neighbors.
In 1985, the Salvation Army found that the demand for unwed mother shelter had declined enough that they begin to use it as a homeless shelter, at least on a sporadic basis, along with administrative offices, and as a drop-off point for contributions, and for a food pantry for the hungry.
In 2005, in response to requests from the City of Boise, the Salvation Army established what they call an "intact family homeless shelter" at this facility which occupies an entire block in a very nice, leafy tree suburban neighborhood. To stay at this facility, you need to be one of the following:
1. Mom with kids.
2. Dad with kids.
3. Mom and Dad with kids.
They do not allow Mom and her current boyfriend to stay there. They aren't as strict now as they used to be about being married, but the man has to be the biological father of the kids to stay there.
Additional requirements:
1. Background checks to make sure that you aren't a registered sex offender.
2. No drugs, alcohol, or tobacco are allowed.
3. You must be seeking employment. They have counselors there (such as my daughter) who work on assisting the adults in finding employment, working on budgeting, seeking psychological help if needed, and so on.
4. You can stay a maximum of 90 days while you use your paychecks to build up a nest egg, with which you go find a place of your own--thus freeing up that space for another intact homeless family.
The complaints from the Booth (Bad) Neighbors were basically these:
1. Lots of crime problems in the neighborhood since the intact family shelter opened in 2005. Interestingly enough, when I asked some of the complainers if they had statistics on the amount of crime in the area, especially anything that would demonstrate a statistically significant increase, they had nothing. They claimed that the police department could not provide that sort of information. This startles me, but not too much. In the words of Professor John McCarthy of Stanford, "He who will not do math is doomed to talk nonsense."
2. The Baby Boomers who showed up for this effort talked a lot about the crime problems of people from the shelter or the boyfriends who were passed out in their front yards, in the middle of the street, urinating on their lawns, sleeping in cars around the Booth House--but when one of the members of the Commission asked one of the complainers about calls to the police, her response was quite interesting. First she said, "We called the police" and then immediately launched into a tirade about how when she called the Planning Department's Code Enforcement division to "do something" about the Booth House, they told her that they couldn't do anything. You might almost get the impression that the crime problems in the neighborhood weren't serious enough to call the police--but serious enough to call Code Enforcement? Why do I find myself wondering how honest these people were?
3. I noticed that several of those complaining always discussed the increase in problems immediately after mentioning the 2005 newspaper coverage of the Salvation Army's creation of the intact family homeless shelter. This leads to the interesting question: did coverage of this cause them to start seeing a pattern of problems after they became aware of the shelter? Sometimes that happens; we see scattered events, and once we have an explanation, those events form a pattern. And sometimes those scattered events form a pattern only in our own minds, once we have been made fearful.
4. The Planning Director had previously decided that while the nature of the services that Salvation Army provides at Booth House are not dramatically different than 1969, when the current Conditional Use Permit was issued, he did say that the Salvation Army needed to request a modification to the CUP to cover the changing characteristics of the population there. The Booth (Bad) Neighbors insist that it should be completely prohibited; that what the Salvation Army was doing there was really a hotel, except one where no money changes hands.
Here's my remarks to the Planning and Zoning Commission:It should take a very compelling reason to tell a private property owner that an existing use--one that goes back decades (although in somewhat different form)--is no longer allowed. When that use servers a clear public purpose, such as temporary homeless family shelter--a change should require very compelling reasons.
One of the official presenters of the Booth (Bad) Neighbors showed some statistics that he said came from HUD about homeless people. I don't find the numbers startling, with high rates of mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, and recurrent homelessness. I don't remember exactly what I said, because I hadn't prepared for this, but I did point out (before my time ran out) that there is significant regional variation in homeless populations with respect to mental illness. I mentioned that a survey of unsheltered homeless people in Idaho suggested that about 14% were mentally ill (or at least receiving disability payments for that reason). Things are different on the coasts, when rates of mental illness seem to be higher.
I have lived most of my life in cities with much more serious homeless problems than Boise. You don't want to lose any homeless facilities, because as unsheltered populations increase, city parks, alleys, and any unlocked building lobby take their place as homeless shelters. The quality of life declines dramatically for all.
I have read the complaints about littering, loitering, theft, public urination. I can understand why the neighbors want something done. But without clear evidence of a statistically significant increase in crime because of Booth House's change in services, why should impressions decide this? Crime rates can vary dramatically from year to year at the scale of a neighborhood, and what causes those changes can be hard to determine. If there is a problem, stepped-up police enforcement of existing laws makes more sense than restricting the rights of an owner to continue doing good.
Every obstacle in the way of providing temporary housing for homeless families aggravates city-wide problems associated with homelesssness--not to mention the problems that homeless families suffer.
Had I enough time, I would also have pointed out that the combination of the screening process that Booth House uses, and that this is an intact family facility, probably filters out many of the substance abusers and the most seriously mentally ill.
My impression of the North End as a bunch of spoiled aging hippies, looking out for their interests, has only been reinforced by this experience.
As I mentioned earlier:My daughter tells me that the meeting didn't end until past 1:00 AM. The Commission voted 5-0 to reject the appeal by the Booth Neighbors (who wanted the shelter completely shut down) and voted 3-2 to uphold the Planning Director's decision that the Salvation Army needs to file for a modification to the Conditional Use Permit issued in 1969 to keep operating.
Welding Steel or Aluminum
I have been making my caster assembly goodies sold under the ScopeRoller name out of various plastics, mostly because they are easy for me to machine and assemble at home. I have had a sudden revelation of a way to greatly simplify and speed up manufacturing--if I can weld two pieces of metal together, one a tube (cut at a 30 degree angle) and one a flat. The 30 degree cut end of the tube would be welded to the flat. I must now ask some questions that are embarrassing because my father's third career was...welder.
1. If I were to buy a welding machine, how difficult is it to become proficient at this? I always got the impression that "welder" was a somewhat skilled job, requiring considerable practice to produce both attractive and durable welds.
2. If I were to send out pieces of metal to be welded together, how much might I expect to spend to have two pieces of steel welded together, where the total area being joined is about six inches circumference, and less than an eighth inch across (where the cut tube meets the flat)?
3. My recollection from talks with my father is that welding aluminum requires a different technique, known as "heliarc" because you have to weld aluminum in a helium atmosphere. Would having someone weld aluminum be substantially more expensive than having someone weld steel?
4. Is welding stainless steeel substantially more expensive than welding carbon steel?
GM Worried About Falling Gasoline Prices
Yes, really and truly! This article from the Wall Street Journal reports that GM's chairman is terribly concerned that dropping gasoline prices will take away incentives for buyers to snap up GM's new, more efficient vehicles:If fuel prices are too low, particularly relative to the incomes of new car buyers, there's less economic rationale for paying a premium to own a high-tech, fuel-saving car. GM's North American auto business is fighting to break even as it is. Mr. Wagoner hardly needs to lose more money pushing expensive alternative technology vehicles, such as a production version of the plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt that anchored GM's publicity blitz earlier this month at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
Along with what I consider flash-in-the-pan things like hybrids and electric vehicles, GM is pushing fuel cell technology--and a lot of evolutionary improvements in existing vehicles. For example, GM will be offering a six-speed automatic transmission in the Chevrolet Equinox, Chevrolet Malibu, and Pontiac G6 in 2008. My wife's 2005 Equinox has a five-speed automatic, and that is part of why such a heavy vehicle (3700 pounds) has both substantial guts and still pretty respectable mileage (18 or so around town; 23 to 24 on the highway).
Mr. Wagoner's rivals at Toyota and Honda have an advantage, in that they are profitable and have a lead in engineering and marketing hybrids and smaller, fuel efficient gasoline-powered cars. But that doesn't mean they're not concerned, too. After all, Toyota's next big U.S. vehicle launch is a V-8 powered, large pickup truck. A sustained period of low gasoline prices could blunt demand for subcompacts such as the Honda Fit, and make it harder to sell hybrids.
The auto industry, and particularly the Detroit Three of GM, Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group, is at a critical moment. As lawmakers at the federal and state level scramble to do something in the face of public concern about melting ice caps and weird, violent weather, the auto industry presents a tempting target. Just as in the 1970s, the easiest thing may be to demand that auto makers actually build the high mileage concept cars they hype at auto shows. That's what happened in the early 1990s after GM touted its electric vehicle technology. California regulators concluded electric vehicles were feasible, and demanded they be offered for sale. The result was an expensive drive down what was then a technological dead end.
The more forward gears you have, the more you can take advantage of the optimum efficiency of the engine. That's part of why big trucks have 10 or 15 forward gears--a diesel engine has a maximum efficiency in a fairly narrow RPM band, and with a big truck, you need all the help you can get. The benefit will small vehicles (especially gasoline engines) isn't as dramatic, but there's still a gain from this--and GM is not the only maker that has developed multiple forward gear ever. Lexus, for example, has introduced an eight-speed automatic, and Mercedes uses a seven-speed automatic on some cars.
More Moon Shots
This is a picture that I took at prime focus last night with the 8" f/7 reflector, so you get the quarter Moon.
"Draw The Graph, Then Plot the Points"
When I took biology from Mr. Campman at Santa Monica High, this was a joke. Apparently it isn't a joke, but a policy at the IPCC (the group that is supposed to be telling us whether anthropogenic global warming is a problem). The blogger Climate Audit points to an amazing statement in the IPCC's procedures for final revision of their report on page 4):Changes (other than grammatical or minor editorial changes) made after acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policymakers or the Overview Chapter.
What this means is that if there's a discrepancy between what the scientists have found, and what the "Summary for Policymakers" says--we change the scientific reports to match the summary. What if a scientist finds clear evidence that global warming is 100% caused by solar changes? It appears that he is supposed to "correct" his paper to match the conclusions.
I've commented before about how AGW has become a religion, with threats of excommunication for heretics, and proposals for Nuremberg-style trials for AGW deniers. Now, we have a direct statement that the "Summary for Policymakers" takes precedence over the science--adjusting the data points to fit the graph. Environmentalism is a religion, with all the worst dangers of a religion--and none of its saving graces.
Rent-A-Mob
Ann Althouse points to this amazing BBC story about political demonstrators for rent:They refuse to rally for neo-Nazis, but as long as the price is right a new type of German mercenary will take to the streets and protest for you.
Young, good-looking, and available for around 150 euros (£100), more than 300 would-be protesters are marketing themselves on a German rental website.
They feature next to cars, DVDs, office furniture and holiday homes.
For some, these protesters show how soulless life has become. For others, they breathe new life into old causes.
Crimes That No Gun Control Law Can Fix
This has been a gruesome week in the Boise area--crimes that no gun control law has any hope of fixing. The first case involves two murder victims who were tortured with an ax. The accused, from the police reports, sounds like he is mentally ill:Brent Eugene High, 26, apparently the stepbrother of one of the victims, was found wandering naked near the home Wednesday morning, and comments by High led police to the scene, where officers found two bodies and a bloody ax, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by the Statesman. High is charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
The other story doesn't identify the weapon, but the description pretty clearly excludes a gun:
The affidavit by Nampa police Officer Cameron Cowdery included gruesome details from the investigation and rambling statements made by High, including "I know Jesus can resurrect. I believe what I did is right."
...
Officers responding to a report of a naked man found High several blocks from the home around 9 a.m. When officers interviewed High, he continually made comments about the Bible, religion, God and Jesus Christ, they said in the affidavit. When an emergency room doctor asked High why he was outside naked, the doctor said he replied that, "He took it like a metaphor literally and that he was following his faith."
When the doctor asked High whether he might have hurt someone Wednesday, High replied, "Yeah, I think so."
"I felt bad. So I put my hand on him to heal him, but I could not because I don't have the authority," High said, according to the affidavit.A 16-year-old boy is charged with killing his mother while she slept in their modest South Bench home early Thursday — Boise's first homicide of 2007.
Ethan Windom was booked into the Ada County Jail late Thursday afternoon and charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of his mother, 42-year-old Judy E. Windom.
Judy Windom, a special education teacher at Eagle High School, was found dead in her bedroom just before 6 a.m. by Boise police. She and Ethan lived alone in the house on the 3700 block of Normandie Drive. Windom had another son, an 18-year-old who no longer lived at home.
Police say Judy Windom was killed sometime during the night, then Ethan walked several miles across town to his father's home on Camas Lane. Ethan told his father something was wrong with his mother, so the father called police at 5:40 a.m. to check on Judy Windom.
...
Ada County Coroner Erwin Sonnenberg said the condition of the body made definitive identification difficult. However, Sonnenberg said, "We believe the decedent is Judy E. Windom," and it should be confirmed in an autopsy scheduled for this morning."It makes you want to stay out of trouble and straighten your life out," Johnson said.
M-O-O-N: That Spells Moon
If you read Stephen King's The Stand, you know what I'm talking about! The rest of you just need to read it!
I took these with my Pentax K10D, and an 18mm Orthoscopic eyepiece projection setup, used the HP Photosmart Premiere program to do some very basic adjustments for sharpness, sometimes for brightness and contrast, and then cut them down to a size that wouldn't take forever to download. I still haven't quite reached the sharpness that I want, but better than last night, when the quivering atmosphere made focus for more hundredths of a second darn near impossible. Click on each link to see the picture.
1/45th second, ASA 1600
1/60th, ASA 1600
1/90th, ASA 1600
1/90th, ASA 400
1/45th, ASA 400
1/20th, ASA 400
1/10th, ASA 400
1/10th, ASA 100
1/6th, ASA 100
1/3 sec., ASA 100
Odd That I Haven't Seen Much Media Attention To This
Nor have I seen any mention on the various law blogs about this major criminal case indicting one of America's biggest law firms.
I've never held a high opinion of William Lerach, one of the participants in this scandal, whose specialty has been suing corporations after their stock goes down, claiming that they officers had withheld information to mislead investors. I'm not saying that there aren't such situations, but my impression was always that Lerach was suing everytime a company's stock fell--and this article from Fortune makes it clear that Lerach and the other principals involved in these suits, were engaged in highly dishonest practices to file these suits:(Fortune Magazine) -- For decades, few things have inspired as much fear and loathing in the executive suites of corporate America as the law firm of Milberg Weiss and the two outsized personalities who ruled the place, Mel Weiss and Bill Lerach. Through creativity and ruthlessness, they transformed the humble securities class-action lawsuit into a deadly weapon.
It is a very long article, well worth reading, just because the personalities involved are a rogue's gallery of what I have long suspected many plaintiff's attorneys to be: greedy; dishonest; immoral; and stupid. Oh yeah, and big contributors to the Democratic Party. The case started with a domestic violence call, which soon led to a stolen Picasso and Monet--which were not really stolen, so that an opthamologist to the stars could claim the insurance money:
Always, Milberg Weiss cast itself as the champion of the little guy. In media interviews Lerach has spoken evocatively about fighting for the honest, struggling blue-collar worker who, through no fault of his own, had lost his hard-earned savings to corporate perfidy. The firm boasts of having collected $45 billion for cheated investors since its founding in 1965.
But somewhere along the way, the work made its ruling partners a little like the CEOs they sued. In an especially profitable year, both Weiss and Lerach personally made more than $16 million. Weiss, 71, is a high roller at casinos who collects Picassos, owns a five-acre waterfront estate on Oyster Bay, Long Island, and has a vacation condo in Boca Raton.
The Brillo-haired Lerach, 60, who bitterly split with Weiss in 2004, taking Milberg's San Diego-based West Coast operation along with him in a new firm, owns a home in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., and vacation properties in Steamboat Springs, Colo., and Hawaii. Lerach travels the country in a chartered jet, says his exercise is drinking Scotch, and will be married this month for the fourth time, to a partner at his firm.
Weiss and Lerach have also found themselves in the cross hairs of federal prosecutors. In the most extraordinary federal case now afoot in the land, Milberg Weiss has been indicted for allegedly paying three plaintiffs $11.4 million in illegal kickbacks in about 180 cases spanning 25 years - and then repeatedly lying about it to the courts.
The government says Milberg kept paying kickbacks into 2005, long after the firm knew it was under investigation. Name partners David Bershad, 66, and Steven Schulman, 55, have also been charged. (Both have pleaded not guilty, as has the firm.) The criminal probe has triggered an exodus of lawyers and clients. Once a veritable lawsuit factory - the firm averaged more than one new case a week during 2005 - Milberg has filed just a handful of suits in the five months since the bombshell landed.By July 12,1992, when Dr. Cooperman first reported the theft of the Monet and Picasso from his Brentwood home, he had already served as lead plaintiff in dozens of Milberg Weiss lawsuits. "Lead plaintiff" status made Cooperman the official representative of a class of investors in a company, and required him to convince a judge that his claims of stock market losses were "typical" of the group.
The whole story is fascinating, and we learn that Lerach and fellow ambulance-chasers are extortionists in suits (which surprises me not in the least). This really captures the sort of lawyer that Lerach is:
But Cooperman didn't exactly personify the humble defrauded investor evoked by Bill Lerach. He owned multimillion-dollar homes in Los Angeles and Connecticut, vacationed in the South of France, drove a Lotus, and collected Impressionist art. His claims of being innocently defrauded, time and again, were also hardly "typical" - or, for that matter, plausible.
In 1993, when Cooperman acknowledged in court papers that he had already served as plaintiff in 38 securities class actions, Dallas federal judge Joe Kendall wryly described him as "one of the unluckiest and most victimized investors in the history of the securities business."
Cooperman had time to spend on Milberg's lawsuits because he no longer worked. He had built a thriving eye-surgery practice in Beverly Hills, drumming up business by airing TV spots featuring Red Skelton and sending limos to pick up patients. In 1987 alone he earned nearly $2.4 million. But then the California medical board accused him of surgical malpractice: forging the signature of a patient on a consent form, and persuading a legally blind woman to sign forms she didn't understand.
When the board moved to revoke his license, Cooperman, then 48 and citing heart problems, settled the case in 1990 by agreeing to quit practicing medicine - and smoothly transitioned into a lucrative new career. He began claiming the proceeds of 18 separate disability-insurance policies, providing more than $600,000 a year in tax-free income. And he had begun serving as a serial plaintiff for Milberg Weiss. Plaintiffs firms are paid on contingency, as much as 30% of whatever they win, and Weiss - unlike most plaintiffs lawyers, who settled fast and cheap - was willing to go into debt to press a case for years in search of a bigger payoff.
And the personal morals of the creeps involved are just horrifying:
Lerach signed on in 1976, opening Milberg's California office in San Diego. He was ferocious and creative, and worked like a madman, building "Milberg West" into an operation that competed with the New York office for influence and profits. His special target was Silicon Valley companies, whose volatile stocks made them juicy prey; he transformed Milberg into a lucrative volume business that churned out scores of class actions a year. This business model allowed him to settle cases when he wanted; if defense lawyers didn't buckle, he'd simply cash in on another lawsuit and continue to torment their clients.
A favorite Lerach tactic was to scream at CEOs, telling one: "I'm going to take away your f***ing condo in Maui! I'm going to take away every penny you own!" Milberg sued several companies repeatedly - 3Com (Charts) nine times. T.J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor (Charts), called him "lower than pond scum."
Nine out of ten cases did settle. Companies reasoned that paying up was safer and cheaper than going to trial, since insurance companies paid most of the settlement bill. On average, investors recovered only about 15 cents of every lost dollar, while Milberg Weiss routinely pocketed millions. Weiss and Lerach saw their personal takes soar from $3.4 million apiece in 1990 to $16 million in 1995. During the 1990s, both men earned more than $100 million. Bitter executives came to view it all as an extortion racket - they called it getting "Lerached."
But these lawsuits were only that profitable if Milberg Weiss ended up in charge of the case. By gaining the coveted role of lead counsel, the firm commanded the biggest fees and controlled the litigation. Until 1995 that job usually went to whoever filed first, winning the "race to the courthouse." That put a premium on having plaintiffs who lost money on the company's stock available at a moment's notice.
In practice, the plaintiffs were figureheads - the lawyers ran the case. So Milberg Weiss built a stable of plaintiffs with tiny holdings in dozens of companies, ready to lose money and bring suit within hours of a big stock drop. And that's where the likes of Steve Cooperman came in. Weiss, who'd viewed the issue as a bargaining chip with prosecutors, vowed he wouldn't make them go. After the meeting, still clinging to hope of avoiding the firm's indictment, some partners began collecting petition signatures to forcibly remove Bershad and Schulman under a never-used provision of the partnership agreement that allowed two-thirds of those holding an equity stake to oust a partner. But before the rebellious partners got the necessary signatures, Bershad announced he was taking a leave of absence on May 16. Schulman would soon follow.
As I said, well worth reading in full. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Democratically-controlled Congress pass a law making most of these crimes lawful.
Not everyone was happy to see Bershad go. Despite the government's allegations, he was widely respected as a skilled deal closer and a man who kept his word. Far fewer tears were shed for the gifted but volatile Schulman. Former colleagues recount horror stories of his volcanic temper - on one occasion, he sprayed a mouthful of scrambled eggs while berating one of his partners. As one lawyer who counts himself as a Schulman friend says, "He has the world's worst people skills."
That reputation had been cemented a few years ago, when a woman showed up in the lobby of Milberg's New York offices near Penn Station and began handing out fliers. The woman was a former exotic dancer and the mother of Schulman's infant daughter; the fliers displayed a snapshot of Schulman in a bathrobe, and complained about the big-shot partner at Milberg Weiss who wouldn't support his child. After causing a stir in the lobby, the woman was persuaded to leave. (Schulman's spokesmen say he later reached a generous settlement with her.)
The Results of the Boise Planning and Zoning Commission Hearing
I could have sworn that I posted what happened when I went to the hearing Monday night--but it seems to have vanished from my blog, and I don't know why.
My daughter tells me that the meeting didn't end until past 1:00 AM. The Commission voted 5-0 to reject the appeal by the Booth Neighbors (who wanted the shelter completely shut down) and voted 3-2 to uphold the Planning Director's decision that the Salvation Army needs to file for a modification to the Conditional Use Permit issued in 1969 to keep operating.
For those who read my remarks there (assuming that I didn't just imagine that I blogged them here), and wondered why I focused on the negative consequences to the city--rather than the negative consequences to the families that currently or will in the future live there--it's really quite simple. If you want people to do something, you can either appeal to their concern for others, or to their self-interest. Which do you think is a more reliable motivator?
Trip Plans
DATE: February 12, 2007
TIME: 3:30pm
PLACE: Moot Courtroom
School of Law
Hamline University
1536 Hewitt Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55104
Click here for map.
DESCRIPTION: Clayton Cramer Author of the new book Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie will discuss his work on the development of America's gun culture.
DATE: February 13, 2007
TIME: 6:00 PM
LOCATION: See here.
DESCRIPTION: Lessons (and some amusing stories) from American history concerning both possession and carrying of guns, with an emphasis on Maryland history.
DATE: February 14, 2007
TIME: 7:00 PM
Monocacy Pistol Club
LOCATION: See here.
DESCRIPTION: Lessons from American history concerning both possession and carrying of guns, with an emphasis on Maryland history.
DATE: February 15, 2007
TIME: 10:00 PM to 11:00 PM
LOCATION: The Jim Bohannon Show, on WTWP 1500 AM in Washington, DC; click here to see what station will be carrying the show where you live.
DATE: February 16, 2007
TIME: 10:45 AM to 11:30 PM
LOCATION: G. Gordon Liddy's show. I can't find out which station carries it in the DC area, but go here and you can get details about which satellite radio stations carry it.
DATE: February 16, 2007
TIME: 5:00 PM
LOCATION: Books-A-Million, 11 Dupont Circle NW, Washington DC
CLick here for a map.
DESCRIPTION: Short lecture in the cafe, followed by a chance for you to buy my book and get it autographed by the author signing. Please don't leave me standing there alone, looking silly! Or perhaps I should be optimistic: please, let's all take public transportation there so that we don't cause gridlock!
There will be a second trip to New Jersey/New York City probably a couple of weeks later to do some more media and some more events.
Should I Be Happy They Are Saying The Pledge?
Or upset about what language they are saying it in?NAMPA - "If I had a 'Patriot for Vasquez' award I would give it to her," said former Canyon County Commissioner Robert Vasquez of Chandra Carlson. Carlson is a Centennial Elementary 5th grader who decided not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance with the rest of her classmates in Spanish and German.
This is here in Idaho--not California, or one of the other places where multiculturalism is today's fad.
"We said the Pledge of Allegiance in English and then he started saying it in Spanish so I sat down," Carlson told CBS 2 News on Sunday.
Commissioner Vasquez crusaded during his time with Canyon County to adopt an English-only rule for all official documents in the county, which passed in 2005. He says he's even written the president about the issue and wants the nation to adopt English as its official language.
"That is the fabric that holds this country together," said Vasquez, "When we lose that fabric we've lost this country, that to me is a major issue."
Nigerian Scammers
For a very long time, the Nigerian scammers pretended to be African bank officials, government bureaucrats, or widows and orphans of recently ousted dictators. Lately, they have been pretending to be British bank officials or government bureaucrats--where the British English that they can almost write sounds half plausible.
In the last year or so, the Nigerian scammers are pretending to be American soldiers who have come into a windfall, and need our help smuggling the money back to the U.S. Of course, even the most polished of these letters are still obviously written not by Americans, but by people who learned British English. Here's an example that I received this morning:Good Day
I'm not going to pick out all the signs of having learned British English, not American English, but it is obvious that this guy is a fraud. And yet there Americans who get taken in by these frauds all the time!
How are you and your family? Hope all is well.
My name is Staff Sgt. Shelby Cross; I am an American soldier, serving inthe military with the army’s 3rd infantry division. With a very desperateneed for assistance, I have summed up courage to contact you.
I found your contact particulars in an address journal. I am seeking yourkind assistance to move the sum of US$8m (eight million United States dollars)to you in United States; as far as I can be assured that my share will be safein your care until I complete my service here.
Source of money:
Some money in US dollars were discovered in dog kennels at a farm house andguest houses in an estate near one of Saddam’s old palaces in Baghdad, Iraqduring an operation, and it was agreed by Staff Sgt. Kenneth Buff, Sgt. 1stClass Daniel Van Ess and I that some part of this money be shared amongst us before informing anybody about it.
Since both of them saw the money first, they did the informing, while I played the outsider to protect our interest.This was quite an illegal thing to do, but I tell you what? No compensationcan make up for the risk we have taken with our lives in this hell hole, in which my brother in-law was killed by a road side bomb last time.
You will find the story of this money on the web addresses below;
Http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/a35080-2003apr24
http://www.right-thoughts.us/index.php/weblog/comments/the_first_thing_you_know_ol_saddams_a_millionaire/
http://www.jonathanforeman.com/military/nyp_iraq/04192003_chest.html
The above figure was given to me as my share, and to conceal this kind of money became a problem for me, even after the initial probe of all soldiers of our command which I was cleared from; so with the help of a British contact working here and his office enjoy some immunity, I was able to get the package out to a safe location entirely out of trouble spot. He does not know the real contents of the package,
and believes that it belongs to a British/American medical doctor who died in a raid here in Iraq, and before giving up, trusted me to hand over the package to his family in United States. I have now founda much secured way of getting the package out of Iraq to your country for you to pick up, and I will discuss this with you
when I am sure that you are willing to assist me, and I believe that my money will be well secured in your hand because you have the fear of God.
I want you to tell me how much you will take from this money for the assistance you will give to me. One passionate appeal I will make to you is not to discuss this matter with anybody, should you have reasons to reject this offer, please and please destroy this message as any leakage of this information will be too bad for us soldier’s here in Iraq and tarnish the reputation of other services men. I do not know how long we will remain here, and I have been shot, wounded and survived two
suicide bomb attacks by the special grace of God, this and other reasons I will mention later has prompted me to reach out for help, I honestly want this matter to be resolved immediately, please contact me as soon as possible with my private e-mail address ssgshelby147@yahoo.ca which is for now my only way of communication until I specify otherwise.
God bless you and your family.
Ssg. Shelby Cross
Big Bertha's Optical Problems
I mentioned a day or two ago that part of the problem that Big Bertha has for astrophotography is also a problem visually: the focuser that came on it is coarse. In addition, I can't get the focuser to rack in quite far enough for prime focus photography, so I am thinking of buying Moonlite Telescope's CR2 dual rate Crayford focuser. The racked in height of my current focuser is 4.5"; for the CR2, it is 1.45". The extra 3.05" will let me get the focal point well inside the camera body. The downside is that I will need the longest drawtube (the 2.75" one) to get back to where I am now with eyepieces--which means that I will probably need to use an extension tube in the focuser to get most eyepieces to focus visually. I have one, but it is a little clumsy.
However: what effect does the shorter focuser have on the rest of the optical path? I use Dale Keller's newtwin program (a Newtonian optical layout program for Windows) for this sort of thing--and I notice that it tells me that the current diagonal mirror is far larger than it needs to be for the current antique focuser. The diagonal mirror's minor axis is 4.25"; 3.5" is sufficient. The extra aperture both impairs resolution, and light gathering capacity, because it is blocking incoming light from hitting the primary.
With the lower profile CR2 focuser, I could reduce the diagonal to 2.8" minor axis, probably improving both the brightness of images a bit, and improving resolution. I suspect also that the diagonal contained in Big Bertha was whatever the people who made it found available for the lowest price, and a well-made diagonal might improve image quality slightly as well.
One thing at a time: first the focuser (which is the expensive part); then the diagonal (and sell the old one to someone who is building a 20" or 25" reflector). If there are continuing improvements in performance, it might justify replacing Big Bertha's overweight and overly large tube with something a bit more reasonably sized.
How Many Times Does Someone Have to Say, "I'm Going to Kill You" Before You Take Them Seriously?
Here's the completely unveiled threat:Israel and the United States will soon be destroyed, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday during a meeting with Syria's foreign minister, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) website said in a report.
Here's the mechanism:
"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… assured that the United States and the Zionist regime of Israel will soon come to the end of their lives," the Iranian president was quoted as saying.
"Sparking discord among Muslims, especially between the Shiites and Sunnis, is a plot hatched by the Zionists and the US for dominating regional nations and looting their resources," Ahmadinejad added, according to the report.North Korea is helping Iran to prepare an underground nuclear test similar to the one Pyongyang carried out last year.
Does Iran have the capacity to destroy the U.S.? Not now, and probably not ever. But it is likely that within five years, they will have the capacity to kill millions of Americans, cause trillions of dollars in damages, and (unless Dennis Kucinich is in power) force the U.S. to engage in massive nuclear retaliation.
Under the terms of a new understanding between the two countries, the North Koreans have agreed to share all the data and information they received from their successful test last October with Teheran's nuclear scientists.
...
A senior European defence official told The Daily Telegraph that North Korea had invited a team of Iranian nuclear scientists to study the results of last October's underground test to assist Teheran's preparations to conduct its own — possibly by the end of this year.
There were unconfirmed reports at the time of the Korean firing that an Iranian team was present. Iranian military advisers regularly visit North Korea to participate in missile tests.
Now the long-standing military co-operation between the countries has been extended to nuclear issues.
As a result, senior western military officials are deeply concerned that the North Koreans' technical superiority will allow the Iranians to accelerate development of their own nuclear weapon.
"The Iranians are working closely with the North Koreans to study the results of last year's North Korean nuclear bomb test," said the European defence official.
"We have identified increased activity at all of Iran's nuclear facilities since the turn of the year," he said.
"All the indications are that the Iranians are working hard to prepare for their own underground nuclear test."
If you want to know why I consider the Democrats so dangerous, it isn't because most Democrats in Congress would tolerate a nuclear Iran. It is because the Democratic Party needs to keep making the multimillionaire leftist wing of the Party happy--and so they spend a lot of time coddling people like Michael Moore. This unintentionally sending the message to Iran that much of America lacks the resolve to act when push comes to shove.
The perception that America was too soft to defend itself after the Blackhawk Down incident in Somalia is part of why Osama bin Laden pursued the course that he did. The unwillingness of France and Britain to push back when Germany remilitarized the Ruhrland in 1936 encouraged Hitler to believe that neither country was willing to go to war, and ditto when both countries acquiesced to the Austrian Anschluss and the carving up of Czechoslovakia. Iran is reading Democratic Party willingness to make Michael Moore and the rest of the multimillionaires happy as more signs that America has lost its resolve.
By The Way, Since Readers Are Asking Me To Do This
You can order my new book online at Barnes and Noble or from Books-A-Million. Apparently, a fair number of bookstores actually have it on the shelf.
What Constitutes A Legitimate Basis For Discrimination?
This news story reports on a newly graduated Muslim female police officer in Britain who apparently can't touch men, because it violates her religious beliefs:A Muslim woman police officer has sparked a new debate by refusing to shake hands with Britain's most senior police chief for religious reasons.
Gee, you think? "Sir, you will have to handcuff yourself--my religious beliefs prevent me from touching you." I believe, from reading Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, a memoir of teaching literature while wearing a veil, that Muslim women are only allowed to touch father, brother, and husband. It sounds like this police officer is going to have a rather limited set of potential offenders that she can handcuff!
The incident happened at a passing-out parade where Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair was inspecting a line-up of 200 recruits.
In addition to refusing a traditional congratulatory handshake from Sir Ian, the WPC - who wore a traditional Muslim hijab headscarf - also declined to be photographed with him as she did not want the picture used for 'propaganda purposes'.
The woman had earlier insisted that it was contrary to her religious teaching for her to touch a man.
Now The Mail on Sunday has learned that her gesture has sparked top-level discussions at Scotland Yard.
Some officers argue that her attitude towards men might impede her ability to detain offenders.
It's All Pfizer's Fault!
My wife finds the Viagra ads on television a bit offensive. I think they are reasonably tasteful--although I find myself wondering if such ads really need to be on television. Still, I find this latest complaint shows enormous chutzpah:WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A major U.S. AIDS treatment group plans to file a lawsuit on Monday that accuses drug giant Pfizer Inc. of illegally promoting recreational use of its blockbuster impotence pill Viagra.
What interest, you ask, does an AIDS group have in discouraging Viagra? This article copied from the New York Times discusses the fairly common problem of gay men mixing meth and Viagra:
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) told Reuters it wants Pfizer to be barred from marketing Viagra as a lifestyle or sexual enhancement drug. The nonprofit organization said Pfizer's actions had led to risky behavior by men and an increase in HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
"Pfizer has created and contributed to the perception of Viagra as a safe, sexy, lifestyle, recreational drug, to be frequently used regardless of the degree, or even existence of" erectile dysfunction, the group said in draft legal documents.
Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, said it was committed to appropriate Viagra use and urged men to see a doctor for a proper diagnosis. The drug is sold by prescription.
AHF, in its legal arguments, pointed to several Viagra promotions from recent years, including a 2005 newspaper ad that featured a smiling man asking, "What are you doing on New Year's Eve?"
Another ad that ran near the 2006 Super Bowl urged men to "Be this Sunday's MVP" and ask their doctors about Viagra.At a meeting on preventing sexually transmitted diseases, Dr. Samuel J. Mitchell of the San Francisco Health Department said a study had found that 17.4 percent of 1,263 gay men who had gone to the city's sexually transmitted disease clinic had used crystal in the four weeks before their visit. Crystal users were more than twice as likely as nonusers to be infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, 4.9 times as likely to receive a diagnosis of syphilis and 1.7 times as likely to test positive for gonorrhea.
Dr. William Wong of the San Francisco Health Department said that another study found that gay men who used both crystal and Viagra together were 6.1 times as likely to receive a diagnosis of syphilis as those who did not use either drug.
In a study of 388 gay men, Dr. Gordon Mansergh reported that his team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the San Francisco Health Department found that 16 percent had used crystal methamphetamine the last time they had anal sex. Crystal users in the study were twice as likely as nonusers to have engaged in unprotected receptive anal intercourse. In the men's last anal sex encounter, 6 percent had used Viagra. The Viagra users were 6.5 times more likely to report having had unprotected insertive anal sex during that encounter. Viagra was not linked to receptive anal risk behavior.
For three consecutive years through 2003, syphilis rates among women have fallen by 50 percent but have increased by 65 percent among men. Among women in 2003, there were 1,229 syphilis cases reported, down from 2,445 in 2000. Among men in 2003, there were 5,844 cases, up from 3,532 in 2000. Gay men accounted for more than 60 percent of all syphilis cases in 2003, compared with 5 percent in 1999.
Why? Well, meth (like pseudoephedrine HCl, from which meth is made) causes an increase in blood pressure--causing impotence problems. So if you like to do meth, because it gives you energy, and makes you feel powerful--well, if you want to go to parties and have sex with complete strangers for hours on end--you need to take Viagra.
I haven't seen any evidence that Pfizer is advertising Viagra in a way that is particularly dangerous. What is dangerous is the party boy subculture that thinks that meth is a fun drug to do, and therefore needs Viagra to make up for the nasty side effects of meth.
In the early 1980s, the whining was that the government wasn't doing enough to stop AIDS. Then, by the mid-1980s, the complaint was that San Francisco, by shutting down the gay bathhouses, was denying gays the right to have a good time. Now the complaint is that Pfizer is inappropriately advertising Viagra--even though the 96-97% of the male population that is straight is unlikely to be at increased risk of AIDS from using Viagra.
Here Is a Politically Very Incorrect Piece of Data
I'll discuss the possible explanations for this afterwards, but Power and Control points to this Department of Justice report on characteristics of rape victims and rapists, broken down by race of victim and offender. This comes not from the Uniform Crime Reports, which suffer the problems associated with police departments perhaps not reporting all crimes, but the Crime Victimization surveys, where they sample a very large number of people, and ask them to report crimes that they have suffered in the last six months.
This particular table involves single offender cases--one rapist, one victim. For white victims, 44.5% of rapists are white, 33.6% of rapists are black, 19.6% are "other" and 2.3% are "unknown" or the data is not available (presumably because the surveyor failed to mark the rapist's race). I'm not too surprised at the disproportionate percentage of blacks among the rapists, when you consider the disproportionate numbers of murders and robberies committed by blacks.
For black victims, the numbers are startling: for black rape victims, 100% of the rapists are black. There is a footnote in the other columns that says, "Estimate is based on about 10 or fewer sample cases."
I don't know exactly how large the sample was that they were using, and it doesn't jump out at me in the main report. In the past, these surveys have been large--typically 31,000 or so people, because you need a large sample to get data on what are, after all, relatively infrequent crimes. If they can't get a statistically significant number of black rape victims reporting non-black rapists--oh boy, that's quite an indictment of the state of black men, isn't it?
Now, if this data came from crimes reported to police, you might suspect that black women aren't reporting rapes by whites and "others" out of a belief that they would not be believed. But the data comes from victim surveys--where one would presume that this isn't an issue. I can't imagine that black rape victims are going out of their way to avoid making white rapists look bad.
A traditional problem with the victimization surveys is that when researchers have compared police reports of crimes involving survey participants to what participants in these surveys have reported, they find a tendency for less important crimes (small thefts, for example) to be unreported--apparently because victims forget them. This problem seems to be especially severe among poor people. But rape is hardly a minor crime, and it is hard to believe that black rape victims would forget rapes by whites, but not rapes by blacks.
The alternative explanation is that there is very, very little rape of black women by white men. If you have any suggestions on why this is, let me know.
Book Sales
I ran into one of the managers of the local Borders the other night. He told me that he thought two of the five copies of my book had sold in the first week. Oh, goodie!
I'll play environmentalist. "Let's see, 2/5 of their shipment sold out. That means 2/5 of everyone's shipment sold out throughout the U.S. If this rate of growth continues at exponential rates, I can retire in five weeks, buy out Microsoft in eighteen weeks, and subsequent printings of my book will consume the entire known mass of the universe by 2028."
Global Warming Again
A rare snowstorm in Arizona:PHOENIX (AP) -- More than a foot of snow fell on parts of northern Arizona, and several more inches were possible Monday, while children as far south as Tucson got a rare chance to play in the snow.
Okay, that's just weather. But this article from the Houston Chronicle points out that it isn't just anthropogenic global warming (AGW) skeptics who are concerned, but even those who think AGW is probably at least partly real:
Sunday's storm, one of the strongest of the winter, came amid a wave of storms that have brought snow, ice and strong winds to the Plains region, and also to the Southwest, including Arizona, Texas and New Mexico.
...
Although the heaviest snowfall in Arizona on Sunday was in the north, snow also fell in downtown Phoenix and Tucson, which received up to 1 1/2 inches, according to the National Weather Service.
Danita D'Water said there were huge snowflakes in her neighborhood in far northeast Phoenix.
"The children are running up and down the street, riding their scooters in the snow," she said. "The kids are pretty excited but the adults were out taking pictures."
More than a foot fell in Forest Lakes, Pinetop and at the Sunrise Ski Resort, among other places in northern Arizona. Between one and three inches fell in Flagstaff, said Robert Bohlin, meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
A winter storm warning remained in effect until noon Monday for parts of northern and northeastern Arizona, with the National Weather Service forecasting up to an additional three inches of snow. Scientists long have issued the warnings: The modern world's appetite for cars, air conditioning and cheap, fossil-fuel energy spews billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, unnaturally warming the world.
Even though the rest of the article fails to acknowledge that there are well-respected scientists who have good reasons to suspect that this is primarily the result of solar changes, it does recognize that there's some good reason to suspect that the uncertainties are being "lost" by scientists who are banging the AGW drum.
Yet, it took the dramatic images of a hurricane overtaking New Orleans and searing heat last summer to finally trigger widespread public concern on the issue of global warming.
Climate scientists might be expected to bask in the spotlight after their decades of toil. The general public now cares about greenhouse gases, and with a new Democratic-led Congress, federal action on climate change may be at hand.
Problem is, global warming may not have caused Hurricane Katrina, and last summer's heat waves were equaled and, in many cases, surpassed by heat in the 1930s.
In their efforts to capture the public's attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It's probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far.
"Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster," says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado.
Vranes, who is not considered a global warming skeptic by his peers, came to this conclusion after attending an American Geophysical Union meeting last month. Vranes says he detected "tension" among scientists, notably because projections of the future climate carry uncertainties — a point that hasn't been fully communicated to the public.
The science of climate change often is expressed publicly in unambiguous terms.
For example, last summer, Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, told the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce: "I think we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer. ... In fact, it is fair to say that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific topic in human history."
Vranes says, "When I hear things like that, I go crazy."
Nearly all climate scientists believe the Earth is warming and that human activity, by increasing the level of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, has contributed significantly to the warming.
But within the broad consensus are myriad questions about the details. How much of the recent warming has been caused by humans? Is the upswing in Atlantic hurricane activity due to global warming or natural variability? Are Antarctica's ice sheets at risk for melting in the near future?
To the public and policymakers, these details matter. It's one thing to worry about summer temperatures becoming a few degrees warmer.
It's quite another if ice melting from Greenland and Antarctica raises the sea level by 3 feet in the next century, enough to cover much of Galveston Island at high tide.
Unfortunately, part of the difficulty is that there is a religious aspect to much of the AGW alarmism--hence the recent proposal to have the American Meteorological Society decertify members who engage in heresy, and the proposal for Nuremberg-style war crimes trials for AGW skeptics. These aren't the signs of a bunch that is confident that it has truth on its side.
Moon Shots
I shoveled the snow off the back driveway this evening to take advantage of a relatively clear night, and rolled out Big Bertha. Not being a motorized (or even motorizable) mount, taking astrophotographs with it is a bit optimistic, but I thought, maybe I can take some decent pictures of the Moon--it's bright, and Big Bertha has lots of aperture.
1. I couldn't do prime focus photography (where you use the telescope as the lens). The focal point of the mirror is too close to the end of the eyepiece focuser, and I can't get the focal point inside the bare camera body. This may be an argument for a lower profile focuser.
2. If I put a 3X Barlow lens in the focuser, it moves the focal point far enough out to get in focus--but just barely, and at the least inward travel of the focuser, it is too stiff to get an even slightly acceptable focus.
3. With eyepiece projection (telescope plus eyepiece combined to form a lens), I was able to get in focus--but the roughness of the focuser still means that the images I captured weren't very sharp.
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Some of the grain you see is the combination of setting the "speed" to ISO 1600, and getting a little too aggressive with the sharpening filter in my computer.
I have not been completely happy with the focuser that came on Big Bertha because of an inability to get a sharp focus. If I had sufficient inward travel to do prime focus astrophotography, I would buy one of the helical fine focus inserts for it instead. But perhaps getting a lower profile focuser (which would almost certainly a smoother and finer focus as well) would be worth considering.
More About The Efforts to Shut Down The Salvation Army's Homeless Family Shelter
There's a meeting of the Boise Planning & Zoning Commission Monday, January 22, 2007 starting at 6:00 PM, to hear appeals from both sides of this dispute. The Salvation Army seems to be claiming that their existing Conditional Use Permit (CUP) issued in 1969 for a home for unwed mothers is not fundamentally different from the current use as a family homeless shelter.
The Booth Neighbors are also appealing the Planning Director's decision--which was that the Salvation Army needs to get approval for a modification to the existing CUP to continue operating the family homeless shelter.
I went over there today to take a look at the neighborhood. Unlike some North End neighborhoods (some only a few blocks away), the immediate vicinity of the Salvation Army facility is extraordinarily uniform in how nice everything is. Some surrounding neighborhoods are obviously still in the process of gentrification; the several blocks surrounding the Salvation Army are already full there.
The Salvation Army facility occupies an entire block. I am hard pressed to see how complaints about noise or parking could be applicable to this situation, unless the situation there is far more out of control than I can imagine the Army allowing. 
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
We drove through the surrounding neighborhoods, looking for evidence of the boyfriends sleeping in their cars. Admittedly, it was early afternoon, but the density of parked heaps seemed to be about the same for a number of blocks in all directions. I wonder how big this problem was, and whether it might have been adequately handled already.
Anyway, I am going to attempt to make it to the Planning & Zoning Commission meeting tomorrow night. There needs to be an extraordinarily strong reason to violate the rights of a property owner when they are performing a necessary social service, such as operating a family homeless shelter. I've lived in cities that were not even close to having adequate assistance for the homeless. I don't want Boise to take even one step down in the level of shelter that it provides. As the billboards for the Boise Rescue Mission around town point out, "No child should be tucked into a car at night."
The meeting is at Boise City Hall, 150 N. Capitol Blvd., in the City Council chambers. I hope to see you there.
Boise's North End Is Very Liberal...
You know, concerned about people in need...as long as they don't intrude on their little oasis of wealth and privilege. The Salvation Army operates a shelter for temporarily homeless families in the North End. They do not house single homeless people there. They do a background check for registered sex offenders, and do not allow them there. They do not allow current substance abusers, and they screen out homeless families with domestic violence problems. Within the context of providing temporary housing for homeless families, this would seem like a pretty significant set of limitations.
The Salvation Army has been using this particular facility for unwed mothers since 1921, and has operated under a conditional use permit since 1969 for that purpose. As the need for unwed mother housing declined, they changed it into a temporary housing for homeless families shelter in 1985. Even though the conditional use permit approved in 1969 was for unwed mothers, the Salvation Army's view is that because this is a shelter for families, in terms of the amount of traffic and the number of people staying there, this is pretty much the same use.
The complaint of the group that calls itself the Booth Neighbors is that: boyfriends and fathers of non-married women at the facility loitering in the neighborhood in attempts to visit the women and their children. These individuals allegedly sleep in their vehicles, litter, urinate in public and create other impacts associated with vagrancy and loitering.
Now, if this is an accurate description of the situation, I can understand the complaints of the neighbors. But it would also appear that the solution to this is vigorous enforcement of existing laws against urinating in public and littering. The North End (as much as the neighbors might like to think otherwise), is not a private club. You can't just tell people, "We don't want your kind in our nice little neighborhood."
What happens if the Booth Neighbors get their way, and force the Salvation Army to shut this facility? As I have mentioned before, Boise has several facilities for the homeless right now, but one of them, Boise Rescue Mission, is limited to men, primarily because of safety concerns about mixing women and children in a facility with single (sometimes mentally ill) men--and even this is under assault by liberals, complaining that the Boise Rescue Mission has a voluntary prayer meeting. So what happens to intact families that are currently staying at Booth House? Boise Rescue Mission can take the men, and there is another facility that can take the women and children--but the net effect will be to break up families.
There are enough difficulties providing temporary housing to homeless families without this attempt at using the government to violate property rights. I'm sure that if the Booth Neighbors get their way, a year or two later the left will be whining about the lack of assistance for the homeless in Boise--and blaming it all on a lack of government funding, rather than blaming it on meddling like this.
UPDATE: I notice some of the complaints two years ago about Booth House:•Resident screening guidelines (regarding sex-offenders,drug/alcohol,mental health,etc.)
My daughter is interning at Booth House, and tells me that they have such screening in place.•Briefing for new residents regarding expected behavior in the neighborhood
What in the heck does this mean? Proper use of tofu? Protecting Mother Earth?•Periodic reporting of the number of clients staying at Booth
Why? Considering the hippie past (and present) of a lot of the North End, I am reminded of the anticommune ordinances that a lot of California cities passed in the 1960s and 1970s.•Maximum allowable enrollment for Marion Pritchett School
Hmmm. It's a public school. Attendance is dependent on residency. If you want a private school that doesn't let homeless people in, start a private school.•Policy for care of ill school-age children so they need not attend school when ill.
This, of course, never happens with kids who aren't coming from a homeless shelter, oh no!
