Images of the coastline

OK, the real reason for this post was to practice uploading photos onto the blog. But as you make your plans for the Fourth of July weekend, you might want to make your way to Newport, Ore., where my wife and I took these pictures recently. The famous aquarium is one of many attractions in that beautiful coastline city.

Inhofe: "No way" cap-and-trade passes Senate

U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who has often called global warming "the greatest single hoax perpetrated on the American people," virtually guarantees that the cap-and-trade bill will not pass the Senate.

Speaking on Roger Hedgecock's radio program last night, Inhofe said the bill has 34 firm votes and needs 60.

He said he's confident because the Senate has had five votes on similar climate change-related bills, and each time his side has gained more support.

Hey, I thought President Obama didn't like to meddle

Apparently when it comes to Honduras, he does.

Maybe he was inspired by the gift he received from Hugo Chavez.

New online adventure is about to begin.

Two weeks from today we will be wrapping up training on the new software we will be using to build, update and maintain the Capital Press website. So look for some major changes coming to our news home page soon.

We don't yet have an official launch date, but I would guestimate we will be ready to go live by Aug. 1, and perhaps as soon as mid-July.

It's getting pretty exciting. New, shiny things are always fun. Although, I am also anxious about all the unforeseen headaches the relaunch might include, like broken links and other unintended consequences. However, hopefully we will be able to offer even more features for readers/visitors and more opportunities for interaction.

Change can be a bit scary. But it can also be a very good thing sometimes too.

No alien power lines allowed

The TANC transmission line project in Northern California has made another enemy. And this one's a classic.

Headline in my former paper:

Scientists say TANC could foil Hat Creek search for ETs

Yup.

The search for the slightest signal of intelligent life at the far end of the galaxy from a north state radio observatory could be jammed by the buzz of proposed power lines.

With more than $50 million invested in the Allen Telescope Array, scientists at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory don't want the proposed power lines of the Transmission Agency of Northern California to interfere with their sensitive equipment.

"We have a lot of reasons why we wouldn't like the power lines to be in our backyard," said Donald Backer, director of the array and the Radio Astronomy Lab at University of California at Berkeley. [ ... ]

Backer has joined the scores of north state residents filing comments about the power lines' proposed path. Running from Lassen County to the San Francisco Bay area, the 500-kilovolt line would travel over land in or near Cassel, Burney, Round Mountain, Oak Run, Millville, Happy Valley, Cottonwood and Red Bluff.

No telling whether he got any little green men to sign any petitions.

Did the EPA suppress internal global warming research?

The Competitive Enterprise Institute asserts that it did.

Washington, D.C., June 24, 2009—The Competitive Enterprise Institute today charged that a senior official of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency actively suppressed a scientific analysis of climate change because of political pressure to support the Administration’s policy agenda of regulating carbon dioxide.

As part of a just-ended public comment period, CEI submitted a set of four EPA emails, dated March 12-17, 2009, which indicate that a significant internal critique of the agency’s global warming position was put under wraps and concealed.

The study the emails refer to, which ran counter to the administration’s views on carbon dioxide and climate change, was kept from circulating within the agency, was never disclosed to the public, and was not added to the body of materials relevant to EPA’s current “endangerment” proceeding. The emails further show that the study was treated in this manner not because of any problem with its quality, but for political reasons.

“This suppression of valid science for political reasons is beyond belief,” said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman. “EPA’s conduct is even more outlandish because it flies in the face of the President’s widely-touted claim that ‘the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over.’”

CEI’s filing requests that EPA make the suppressed study public, place it into the endangerment docket, and extend the comment period to allow public response to the new information. CEI is also requesting that EPA publicly declare that it will engage in no reprisals against the study’s author, a senior analyst who has worked at EPA for over 35 years.