Bidding to begin on Madoff Mets jacket

• 1/28/11, "A Mets jacket is displayed during a media preview for an auction that includes personal items belonging to Bernard Madoff. "...

1/28/11, "Shadow of Madoff follows Mets," NY Times, George Vecsey, photo Bloomberg

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Robert Redford, hypocrite

• 'Redford opposes eco-village near his property but is selling $2 million condo lots in the Sundance Preserve.'

• "Wall Street realized there was money to be made in 'going green.'" Robert Redford, April 2009

10/19/09, "Last night I was at Yankee Stadium watching the Yanks exciting extra-inning playoff win. Along with 50,000 other shivering fans we had to endure a scoreboard message from Robert Redford sponsored by the National Resources Defense Council demanding that we lower our standard of living to stop global warming. The volume was turned on so loud that Redford's voice could be heard

• above the howling wind and freezing rain of a mid- October evening in New York City. "...from Powerline Blog

via Climate Depot

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No .299 hitter has ever walked on his last at-bat of the season-'Scorecasting' author

1/26/11, The "Scorecasting " authors were interviewed Wednesday, 1/26, on Leonard Lopate's show on WNYC radio, the Manhattan NPR station about scoring in various sports including baseball. From the transcript draft:

• "In the last at bat of the season. A 299. Hitter has never walked. Never -- once."...

"You looked at something else John, you studied 299 hitters vs 300 hitters in Major League Baseball while we are looking for there. Well -- understand where we look at..."

" We buy 99 cent -- 9909...same sort of bias that same tendency towards the round number. Also applies to hits... Of colleague of Toby that...what we felt that there are many many more batters....hit 300 vs 299 sort of artificial benchmarks applies in sports as well...

" Well basically if it's totally even the number of 299 and 300... until essentially the last game of the season and even really the last at bat of the season what happens is. Is that someone batting in the last game of the seasons and as they get a hit the puts them over 300 invariably taken out of the game. And the ones that haven't got that hit stay in long enough to get it..."

" ...the most amazing stat I think that. I remember coming across is that in the last at bat of the season. A 299. Hitter has never walked. Never -- once. 99 here it is they're just they're hell or high water they're gonna sleep when they're gonna make contact in whatever happens happens but they're not gonna get that block is obvious that doesn't count their average but you come to the conclusion that

• 299 hitters may be more valuable than 300 meters."

" They could be because what we find is that the reason these guys -- for the for the 300 mark is that they're paid for if you see in subsequent contracts they get additional money for. But if you look at what's actually happening there really no different -- 299 -- is really a matter of luck with the -- not.

• And so you could argue that the 299 hitters are bargain price and that's sort --"

"... and surprisingly -- and people have these these benchmarks and mindedness that seems to convey value. Which is -- this is not just a sports issue.""...

• ---------------

"Scorecasting on WNYC: "University of Chicago behavioral economist Tobias Moscowitz and veteran Sports Illustrated writer L. Jon Wertheim reveal the hidden forces that shape how basketball, baseball, football, and hockey games are played, won, and lost. Their book Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won overturns some of the most cherished truisms of sports—from home-field advantage, to the biased umpires exhibit, to the myth of the "hot hand" in sports."

• (Note: The website states that the draft is rough and may not be 100% accurate, but I heard the part about the .299 batter never walking on his last at bat, so that part of the transcript is accurate. ed.)

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Even the UK Guardian warns carbon trading might need to be scrapped, MLB might wish to consider

Millions in carbon credits disappear, are lost or stolen, exchanges are hacked or otherwise shutdown, then there is organized crime with whom carbon trading was destined to make an ideal partner. It was foretold but certain people pocketed the cash anyway. Numerous MLB teams teams are involved in carbon offsets.

• 1/24/11, "The carbon market--Gone in a puff of smoke?" UK Guardian, Sabina Manea

"He wears a fine cloak, sword at his side, clearly a gentleman of standing. Behind him, representatives of the church expectantly peer out of heavy fur-trimmed garb. Once the money is paid (and it is, as always, a substantial sum), the gentleman's transgression, be it on the battlefield or in the local bawdy-house,

• will be forgiven.

This is how indulgences were bought and sold in the 16th century all over Europe. The Catholic church would dispense whatever forgiveness was necessary in return for cold cash,

• saving many tortured souls from eternal damnation.

Carbon trading does a similar job, whereby money thrown at developing countries can somehow

• absolve polluters from their sins against the planet.

In a bid to encourage companies to reduce pollution and fight climate change, they are forced to buy credits to cover their annual emissions. The less pollution they produce, the more unused credits they can sell back in the market. Even better, people like you and me can get involved too. Flying to Barcelona for the weekend?

• Just click the offset carbon emissions button, and wipe away any guilt.

Carbon credits can be traded in the EU's emissions trading scheme (ETS), but unlike other commodity markets, it's not clear that carbon credits are tied to something that will have value tomorrow, or next year. Can the credits be owned, like a piece of property, or can they

• just disappear into thin air?

And disappear they may. The entire EU trading system was shut down last Wednesday, with credits worth €28m missing following a series of highly effective cyber attacks that have plunged the still emerging carbon market into chaos. To make matters worse, the EU's ETS

• is a serial victim; eco-activist hackers shut down the EU carbon exchange website only six months ago.

The European Commission's decision to suspend trading was taken in the wake of break-ins into online accounts in a number of European countries, with the Czech Republic being the latest casualty. The chances of recovering the stolen credits are slim, even more so once the criminals have sold them on. Unlike the money paid for indulgences,

• carbon credits are nothing more than records in an online account.

Where this leaves the man in the fine cloak is unclear. Those who dabble in the carbon market are vulnerable – whether industrial plants governed by the EU trading scheme or financial speculators wanting a piece of the carbon action. They thought they were buying real goods like oil or gas, which don't just exist on a computer screen. Right? Wrong.

Whether the market participants actually own the credits like any other piece of private property, or whether hackers sitting in their bedrooms can just wave their wand and make them disappear,

• is something that the EU ETS is strangely silent on.

This is despite the fact that the carbon market has grown to gargantuan proportions – worth €92bn and accounting for 7bn tonnes in 2010 – and is the fastest-growing commodity market in financial history. But oil and gas are not hot air, and cannot be

• dissolved by a snap of the fingers (or a click of the keyboard).

If the carbon market is to function effectively, its participants need to know what their rights are when they get involved in carbon trading. Simply issuing rights in air which may never be seen again is not good enough, and the commission should start addressing the dangers of a

• Pandora's box that's lying wide open.,

On the other hand, if Europe were genuinely concerned about the environment, why should we cry over a few lost credits? Fewer credits in the market could do wonders for the environment, but would wreak havoc on financial markets, which could come tumbling down. But if millions of stolen credits flood the market, this won't help in the battle against climate change. It may be time to think about scrapping carbon trading altogether. The commission should have thought of these problems when peering out of its fur-trimmed garb

• and pocketing the cash."

via Climate Depot

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Middle relief market-maker Joaquin Benoit reacts about former pen-mate Soriano

1/23/11, Boston Herald, "Last season, reliever Joaquin Benoit joined (Rafael) Soriano at the back of baseball’s best bullpen in Tampa, and he was

• flabbergasted to hear (Yankee GM Brian) Cashman’s comments.

“Wow,” Benoit said Thursday night at the Boston Baseball Writers’ Dinner. “I still don’t know what to say to that. That’s a really weird comment to make about a guy who had the type of year he had. Who wouldn’t want him? I figured he was going to be the closer somewhere, not setting up for the Yankees."...

“If (Cashman) says that, he has the power to say it. Now it’s in Soriano’s hands to make him eat his words.”

All Yankees parties involved insisted in the days after Cashman’s bombshell that there was no rift between front office and ownership, and certainly Cashman is no stranger to having a Steinbrenner second-guess his moves....

When Benoit signed a three-year, $18 million deal with the Tigers to open the offseason, it sent tremors through the game. It also ended up

• setting the market for middle relievers, a point of pride for Benoit.

“It means a lot,” he said. “I got a lot of phone calls from a lot of guys. I got phone calls saying that because I signed so early, it helped everyone else. I got a great deal. It wasn’t what I was expecting. At my age, it’s something I wasn’t even looking for after the (shoulder) surgery. I was just looking for a chance.”" ...

• 1/23/11, "Dissension in Yankees Ranks?" Boston Herald, John Tomase

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Hidden costs for electric cars especially in California

Fossil fuels provide the electricity needed for electric cars. Batteries for electric cars are made with toxic materials.

• 1/23/11, "They may smell a little cleaner, but electric cars are fraught with hidden problems, especially in California.

Because of the unique way in which energy bills are calculated,

Californians may pay more than any other state to charge their electric cars,

• according to the CC Times.

A new study shows that a car like a Nissan Leaf or Chevrolet Volt

• would increase household electrical use
• by sixty percent.

Cheaper alternatives include the Cobalt and Prius, which use gas and hybrid technology to

• reduce the need to plug in.

Of course, there's no such thing as an environmentally-friendly car. Even gas and electric vehicles require electricity generated through un-clean methods, and simply shift the pollution to someplace far away. Cars also require extensive Earth-killing tar and asphalt, which harms the ground and contributes to climate change by trapping heat. The manufacturing process for cars is resource-intensive, and electric batteries

• require particularly toxic materials.

Tens of thousands of Americans are killed in car crashes every year.

Researchers offered several suggestions to reduce the costs. California could reduce energy rates, but that would result in

• increased energy production from dirty facilities that pollute the air and water.

The state might also consider creating special meters that bill cars separately from regular household usage. Some power companies are already investigating such measures.

For now, to avoid the higher fees, customers are advised to charge their cars at night."

• 1/23/11, "Electric cars have hidden costs," NBCBayArea.com, Matt Baume

• -------------------------

Point of interest: Most US oil and petroleum are not imported from Middle East countries, per Energy Information Administration. Not to say oil is therefore good, but I didn't realize this. Canada is the country we import most from. ed.

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Tampa Bay Rays home and adjacent counties experience large drop in bread and butter transplants from other states

Map shows falling migration to Florida from other states, formerly Florida's bread and butter. Population drops by county are shown on this interactive map. Comparing 2005-07 numbers to 2007-09 numbers. Tampa Bay Rays counties hit hard, among others:

• Pinellas county (St. Petersburg) -17.1
• Hillsborough (Tampa) -23.7
• Pasco -16.3
• Hernando -30.8
• Sarasota -11.2
• Lee county (Ft. Myers) -19.1
• Polk -20.7

1/23/11, "From housing to the region's population mix to the work force, the economic downturn has spared few segments of (Tampa) Bay area society.

"We've suffered more severely than the nation overall primarily because of the housing boom," said David Denslow, an economist with the University of Florida. "We had farther to fall."

How has the recession changed the Bay area? Estimates recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau let us count the ways.

• From the boom years of 2005-07 to the bust years of 2007-09:

•The number of vacant homes exploded in the aftermath of the subprime lending crisis. Pasco County, the region's epicenter of the housing crash, saw its home vacancies grow more than 35 percent, the highest rate in the region.

•The vacancy rate for rental properties grew even faster than the rate for homes, jumping by 50 percent in Hillsborough County. The change may have come from construction workers and low-wage workers abandoning apartments they filled, Denslow said.

•The number of people moving from other states — long the bread and butter of Florida's growth — dropped sharply. Sumter County, home to The Villages retirement community, led the handful of counties still luring more people during the bust than during the boom.

•The number of people on food stamps or other government assistance grew sharply, driven by formerly middle-class people who had never sought help, said Erin Gillespie, spokeswoman for the state Department of Children & Families. Hernando County led the region with a

• 70 percent increase in people getting help.

•The Mexican communities in the region's largest counties shrank, along with the construction and landscaping jobs that once drew people. Despite that,

• Hillsborough County still has the state's
• largest Mexican population:

more than 52,000, down 7 percent from the boom. By comparison, the region's other major Hispanic groups, Puerto Ricans and Cubans, grew in population across the region.

•More than two-thirds of families with small children sent both parents into the work force to make ends meet, up about 10 percent.

•Household sizes crept up, as more people shared housing with friends and relatives to cut costs. As a result, in Hillsborough County alone,

• about 50 percent more grandparents reported living with their grandchildren during the bust.

But the news isn't all gloomy.

Per-capita income remained stable despite job losses at the lower end of the pay spectrum. More people worked from home. And women found new spaces in the work force, often at higher wages than they previously received.

The recession has cost low-skilled men their jobs, but it has created openings for women, Denslow said.

"It used to be that women were the first to lose their jobs in a recession because they were in low-paid service-sector jobs," Denslow said. "We're seeing a big gain in women in the labor force now because more of them have college degrees.""

1/23/11, "Recession's grip on Bay area spelled out in census numbers," Tampa Tribune, TBO.com, Kevin Wiatrowski

photo from TBOonline.com

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KNBR morning team floated to the top with San Francisco Giants playoff and World Series run

• 40,000 are expected at San Francisco Giants fan fest on Feb. 5 with Giants radio KNBR broadcasting live from the event.

1/21/11, from Ben Fong-Torres: "In recent months, (morning team) Murphy and McCaffrey have settled into the upper echelons of the ratings, especially in KNBR's target demo, of men ages 25 to 54. The entire station rose to the top of the overall Arbitron ratings during

• the Giants' playoff and World Series run.

Giants fever resulted in new listeners to the morning show, which is a genial blend of knowledgeable sports talk (the pair regularly call on former athletes such as Ronnie Lott and Trent Dilfer) and a stable of local and national sportswriters) to lighthearted banter about just about anything....

• Murphy, 43, and McCaffrey, 42, are unlikely morning radio hosts, one being a former sportswriter; the other a rock fan with an affinity for the Grateful Dead.

Murphy, a Bay Area native and a UCLA grad, is the former scribe, writing about football, baseball and golf for the San Francisco Examiner and The Chronicle beginning in 1994. Shortly after he made a series of guest appearances on KNBR, he got a call from former station GM Tony Salvadore in the fall of 2004, inviting him to sub for the traveling Tom Tolbert on his afternoon show with Ralph Barbieri.

• One stint led to another, and he wound up joining morning show anchor Tim Liotta. ...

McCaffrey, 42, was born in Queens, moved to San Francisco at age 7 and bounced from coast to coast until he moved back in 1996. He'd done radio at Curry College in Massachusetts. He got a writing job at KNBR's little sister station, then known as KTCT (the Ticket). (It now shares KNBR's call letters, but at 1050 AM.)...When management decided to make a change in the KNBR morning show, moving Murphy into the anchor slot, McCaffrey got the call to join him.

Although both root for the hometown teams, they try not to be "homers," blindly devoted to them. "We're fans, not homers," McCaffrey says. But it was difficult not to become fanatic when the Giants made their run to and through the World Series.

"It was a significant moment in our show's history," Murphy says. "We got more feedback in those five weeks than ever. People felt connected by that experience. We went uninhibited into the experience, and I'm sure some people didn't like it. But a lot of people felt a connection to the fact that we let ourselves experience the ride emotionally."

They even had their own "Fear the Beard" campaign. Murphy explains: "Paulie, being the Deadhead on the show, invented a phrase. He said he felt 'particles of energy' in the Giants' corner. It started as a joke, but it turned into a thing. I was walking down the street three days after the Series and a burly construction worker went, 'Yay, Murphy! Particles!' " And at the celebration parade, they spotted signs reading "Holy Particles!" and "Particles Happen."

They'll be happening again on Feb. 5 at the Giants' 18th Fan Fest at AT&T Park, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., when all the KNBR personalities will be broadcasting live, interviewing the world champs. The free-admission event usually draws about 20,000 fans.

More than 40,000 are expected this year.

That'll be a lot of particles."

==============

"Aim it and name it: Music lovers frustrated with radio stations not identifying songs they've played should know about Shazam. It's a phone app Rob Fox of ABC7 just hipped me to. With Shazam, you aim your phone at music you hear playing, and, within seconds, you'll see the song and artist info on your screen, along with, of course, links to buy the music. It really works, even for obscure artists. If they made commercial recordings, Shazam will pick it up and lay it out. It's free, but only for five song IDs a month. You'll want more, and it's well worth the $6 price tag. {sbox}"

"KNBR's Murph and Mac take Giant Steps," by Ben Fong-Torres, SF Gate, via RadioDailyNews

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Commenter, 'NY Daily News obvious anti-Yankee news source...so sad'

1/16/11

• "Bobby34957 39 minutes ago

"Why is Sliding into Home taking

• the Daily News ,

obvious anti-Yankee news source, word when they don't get a reliable source for what is transpiring within the inner sanctum of the Yankee hierarchy . Bad journalism... sad so sad"

• from Sliding into Home, a Yankee blog

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Radio talker doubles down, imagines choking Rush Limbaugh to death, says Dick Cheney is a mass killer

1/18/11, "Almost immediately after the shooting in Tucson that killed six people and left Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords severely wounded, the media establishment linked the attack with a debate about “civility,” suggesting an association between Jared Loughner’s rampage and the words and phrases used in national political debates."...

• A left wing 'uncivil' talker decided to double down: "Syndicated/ XM-Sirius Satellite-based Mike Malloy, no stranger to Radio Equalizer readers, spent part of last night's show defending his violence fantasies and even revealed a new one: a desire to choke Rush Limbaugh to death....

And in a new twist, even Keith Olbermann is willing to throw Malloy overboard for the sake of the "progressive" movement, leading to Malloy's vocal protestations:

• MIKE MALLOY (31:15): The rhetoric that comes from me is the rhetoric of rage...and, um, have their been violent images? Of course. Rush Limbaugh choking on his throat fat - that you know, to me, is not a threat - I can't - I wish I could, but I can't reach into his throat and jiggle up his throat fat so he suffocates - I can't do it.

Um, as far as Dick Cheney, Dick Cheney is a mass killer - I mean, by definition - it - it doesn't make a difference what he thinks he is or think he isn't - his policies going back to the '60s are those

• of a mass killer."

from Radio Equalizer, 1/18/11, "Libtalker doubles down on hateful speech," via Gateway Pundit

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US DOJ says environmental justice is civil rights issue suggested by Dr. King, 'now thriving movement' in US

1/14/11, "Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday said Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. helped “plant the seeds” of the “environmental justice movement,” which Holder called a “civil rights issue” that is a “top priority” for the Justice Department. At the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Civil Rights, in an Affirmative Employment and Diversity Staff event to honor Dr. King, Holder said: “Unlike [EPA] Administrator Jackson, I am old enough to have witnessed -- it’s sad but true. I am old to enough to have witnessed and experienced the remarkable progress that’s been made since the 1960s when Dr. King, in addition to his many other achievements, helped to plant the seeds for what would become

• our nation’s now-thriving environmental justice movement.”

Holder continued, “Dr. King did not have the chance to witness the impact of the movement that he began. But he left with us the creed that continues to guide our work. His enduring words, which he penned from a Birmingham jail cell, still remind us that, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’”

He also said, “Together we are approaching environmental justice just as what it is: It is a civil rights issue. By examining environmental requirements in conjunction with our civil rights laws, I am confident that we can do a better job of assuring fairness and advancing justice.”

Later in his remarks, Holder cited a 2005 report based on EPA data which showed that African Americans were almost 80 percent more likely than white Americans to live near hazardous industrial pollution sites. He said issues like this still exist today.

“In 2011, the burden of environmental degradation still falls disproportionately on low-income communities and communities of color, and most often on their youngest residents:

• our children, my children,”

he told the audience at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington....

Holder, the keynote speaker at the event which also featured EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, said

• “environmental justice” is also a “personal calling.”

“I want you to know that – at every level of the Justice Department, just like here at the EPA – this work is a top priority,” he said, adding, “and, for me, it is also a personal calling,” he said."...

• "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Helped ‘Plant the Seeds’ for ‘Environmental Justice Movement,’ Says Attorney General Holder," CNS News, Nicholas Ballasy

Reference: 1/8/11, "How can climate scientists spend so much money?" ClimateQuotes.com

via Tom Nelson

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New electric car takes 4 days to go 400 miles, London to Edinburgh. In California, electricity is too expensive for electric cars to succeed-Purdue

1/15/11, "The growth of railways in the 1840s emptied the roads

• until the motor car arrived after 1900.

Then came the electric car. Said the BBC, there are hopes that the electric car will capture the imagination of British motorists this year. Thus did the BBC's Brian Milligan take up a challenge to drive from London to Edinburgh in an electric car. It might sound easy, we were told, but under the rules,

• he was only allowed
• to charge the car's battery at public points.

In between driving he read a lot of books because charging took 10 hours. In all, from London to Edinburgh, it took four days it took to complete the journey – twice as long as it had taken in the 1830s, with the stage coach. That is progress, greenie-style."

• 1/15/11, "The madness of green," EU Referendum by Richard North
• ========================================

Purdue Study shows electric cars will not be affordable in California except for the rich, in part due to California's 'tiered' electricity pricing. Electric cars require too much electricity.

1/13/11, WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - "California policies aimed at reducing electricity use and curbing greenhouse gas emissions have the unintended consequence of making new plug-in hybrid vehicles

• uneconomical, according to a Purdue University economist.

Wally Tyner, the James and Lois Ackerman Professor of Agricultural Economics, said California's tiered electricity pricing means Californians will pay some of the highest electricity rates in the country to recharge plug-in hybrid vehicles. States with flat electricity rates or those that vary price based on the time of use are more economical, according to Tyner's study.

In tiered systems, consumers pay a higher rate for electricity they use beyond a certain amount. California has three rate tiers. It also has a time-of-use system, which reduces the rate during periods of low demand. In addition, Californians pay some of the highest electricity rates - an average of 14.42 cents per kilowatt hour, which is about

• 35 percent higher than the national average.

"The objective of a tiered pricing system is to discourage consumption. It's meant to get you to think about turning off your lights and conserving electricity. In California, the unintended consequence is that plug-in hybrid cars won't be economical under this system," said Tyner, whose findings were published in the early online version of the journal Energy Policy. "Almost everyone in California reaches the third pricing tier each month. If they add a plug-in hybrid, they are charged the highest rate."

Tyner worked with Purdue researchers Farzad Taheripour, an energy economist in Purdue's Department of Agricultural Economics; Joseph F. Pekny, a professor of chemical engineering; Gintaras V. Reklaitis, the Burton and Kathryn Gedge Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering; and Shisheng Huang and Bri-Mathias S. Hodge, graduate research assistants in chemical engineering, to develop a model that would simulate energy use by Californians. They analyzed U.S. Census data to determine types of appliances each household would use. The model closely aligned with actual energy use in California.

Adding a plug-in hybrid would increase the average use of electricity nearly 60 percent per household, according to the findings. In California, most of that increase would be charged at the highest rate.

Tyner said states such as Indiana, which charges a flat rate of about 8 cents per kilowatt hour, would be more economical. Those that employ time-of-use rates would be the most economical because the lower nightly rates would coincide with when people are most likely to charge their cars.

"If you have time-of-use pricing, you have the opportunity to charge the car at the lowest available price," Tyner said.

Tyner said California could change its rate system or issue extra electricity meters for charging cars on flat rates.

California was chosen to study because, given the fact that it is often at the leading edge of energy conservation policy and practices, plug-in hybrids are expected to be popular there. For the simulations, researchers compared the Chevrolet Volt with the Toyota Prius and Chevy Cobalt to estimate relative economics of the alternatives.

The researchers determined the plug-in hybrid would be less economical than the Toyota Prius, a hybrid that does not charge its battery through a plug, or the Chevrolet Cobalt, which uses only an internal combustion engine. When oil prices are high, the Prius would be the most economical, with the advantage going to the Cobalt when oil prices are low.

Tyner said to make the Volt more economical than either the Prius or the Cobalt, oil prices would have to rise to between $171 and $254 per barrel, depending on which electricity pricing system is being used. That's because the Volt has a higher purchase price and

• will cost more in electricity than gasoline over the life of the vehicle.

The simulations accounted for a $7,500 federal rebate to consumers for purchasing plug-in hybrids. Tyner said

• electricity costs would have to decrease to allow the plug-in hybrids to compete.

"People who view the Volt as green will pay $10,000 more over the lifetime of the car because it's green," Tyner said. "Most consumers will look at the numbers and won't pay that."

• Purdue's Center for Research on Energy Systems and Policy funded the research."

"Electricity pricing policies may make or break plug-in hybrid buys," Purdue Newsroom

• via Tom Nelson and SPPI

P.S. Am I considered a murderer for posting something in opposition to the government? ed.

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State owned BBC biased reporting on global warming has consequences

The BBC is government owned, a tool of the state by any definition. UK government is the engine of the global warming industry. It was a key advocate in getting The World Bank to be the 'climate finance bank,' to which indigenous people and others strongly objected. As stated in the tape below, environmentalists always existed but the movement was taken over in recent decades by those

• whose fixed goals have always been:

• anti-economic growth,
• anti-car, and
• anti United States.

In 2007 UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the carbon market was key "to the economic fortunes of the City of London.""...

• .

. The organized crime infested carbon market is icing on the cake.

• "BBC's biased reporting of global warming--the consequences" video

• "Reference: UK Guardian, 1/25/10, "Don't let the carbon market die," by Oliver Tickell

via Tom Nelson, via EU Referendum, photo Climate Justice

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ESPN Sunday Night Baseball schedule for first half of 2011

"ESPN has announced several Sunday Night Baseball telecasts for the first half of the season, whether for ESPN or ESPN2:

• April 3: San Francisco at Los Angeles Dodgers (ESPN2)
• April 10: N.Y. Yankees at Boston
• April 17: Texas at N.Y. Yankees
• April 24: Cincinnati at St. Louis
• May 1: N.Y. Mets at Philadelphia
• May 8: Atlanta at Philadelphia
• May 15: Boston at N.Y. Yankees
• May 22: Chicago Cubs at Boston
• May 29: Cincinnati at Atlanta (ESPN2)
• June 5-July 3: To be determined
• July 10: N.Y. Mets at San Francisco
• July 17: Boston at Tampa Bay"

Philadelphia radio news: "Scott Franzke of the Phillies Radio Network was selected as

• PA Sportscaster of the Year."...

Canada radio news: "FAN 590, as well as co-owned FAN 960 in Calgary...will soon be known as SportsNet Radio Fan 590/960."... from Dave Kohl Major League Programs blog, via RadioDailyNews

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Neal Boortz radio producer Royal Marshall dies suddenly at age 43

1/15/11, "Marshall, 43, collapsed at his home. Paramedics responded to his wife's call to 911, but were unable to revive him.

• He was pronounced dead early Saturday at Grady Hospital.... The cause of death remains unknown."...

1/15/11, "Raymond Royal Marshall was a producer for the Neal Boortz radio talk show, but he was as much a radio personality as Mr. Boortz himself. Mr. Marshall would occasionally rein in the sometimes caustic Mr. Boortz with the breezy observation, “Man, you ain’t right.”

• He freely offered informed opinions on the topic of the day even if they differed from the host’s.

“He had my back all the time,” said Mr. Boortz, whose radio show is broadcast weekdays on AM750 and now 95.5 FM WSB. “Though ... there are many times he should have been kicking me in the butt. The show goes on but, at this point, I don’t know how.”

Mr. Marshall, 43, died early Saturday, but the cause of death was unknown at press time. He told his wife he wasn’t feeling well and walked into a bathroom in their home and collapsed, Mr. Boortz said. He was rushed to Grady Memorial Hospital but could not be revived.

• “I’ve lost my other half,” said Belinda Skelton, executive producer for the Neal Boortz show. “It’s so surreal.”

Mr. Marshall worked with Mr. Boortz for 17 years. He and Ms. Skelton were interviewed for a board operator job at WSB radio at the same time and were both hired for the one position because the station couldn’t choose between them, Ms. Skelton said.

• They later joined the Boortz show.

Mr. Marshall was a father of two girls — 2-year-old Ava and 4-year-old Amira. Friends recalled his devotion to them and his wife, Annette....

Mr. Boortz said everything came in a distant second to his family. Last Christmas, Mr. Boortz and the rest of the staff for the show took a day-trip to New York, but Mr. Marshall declined because he wanted to be with his daughters.

“When they are adults, they will barely have known their father,” Mr. Boortz said. “There’s got to be a way to memorialize Royal.”

Arrangements had not been announced late Saturday.

Condace Pressley, assistant program director for WSB radio, said it was too soon to pinpoint a cause of death....

• Royal Marshall was born in St. Louis, and he graduated from the University of Georgia in 1992.

He also hosted his own radio talk show called “The Royal Treatment” in 1996 and it ran for several years, mostly at night.

“Royal had an unmatched sense of humor and a quick mind that made him a natural for radio, and his dedication to his colleagues and friends was only exceeded by his intense dedication to his family,” Mr. Boortz said.

Mr. Marshall was a deacon at the Ray of Hope Christian Church in Decatur and chair of the national advisory board at Forever Family, a nonprofit organization that helps children who have incarcerated parents.

• Mr. Marshall also dabbled in stand-up comedy at The Punchline for a few years.

“He had an easy way with people and was very comfortable with the mic,” said Jamie Bendall, who owns The Punchline comedy club. “I thought he was a natural.”

• Mr. Boortz and Ms. Skelton were still emotional, finding it hard to speak of their friend even hours after his death.

“My heart is just completely broken,” Mr. Boortz, weeping, said when he called in to speak on a special radio show Saturday afternoon to memorialize Mr. Marshall."...

• via RedState.com

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MLB concern that 3 levels of post season play will affect Giants pitcher stamina in 2011 regular season

MLB expresses concern that Giants' pitchers have had to work an extra month in the post season. However, teams have been in this situation since 1995

• when 3 levels of post season play became standard.

1/14/11, "Adding a month to their 2010 season while winning the World Series also added

• concerns for the Giants about the state of their pitching.

Skeptics suggest that the Giants' talented hurlers, particularly the starters, could be doubly affected by the residual effects of their extra workload. Not only might the starters' career-

• high accumulation of innings erode their arm strength,

but the shortened break inevitably could reduce their recovery time and disrupt their usual offseason routines.

Asked if such worries were legitimate, right-hander Matt Cain delivered a response that was as honest as it was brief.

• "I don't know," Cain said Friday with a chuckle.

Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti acknowledged that the club won't truly learn whether its staff has avoided postseason-related physical problems

• until the end of the year.

"I think you really notice it as the season progresses," Righetti said. "... I'm going to watch it closely. But there's not much you can do about it. It's like being Rookie of the Year -- 'Hey, you're going to go through the sophomore jinx.' 'What is that?' 'Well, we'll let you know.' It's going to come up. Everybody's arm is going to handle it a little bit different.

• I can't imagine five guys' arms handling it the same."...

Including the three postseason rounds, the Giants' postseason starting quartet of Cain, Tim Lincecum, Jonathan Sanchez and Madison Bumgarner exceeded its previous season-high innings totals by an average of 43 innings apiece, including Bumgarner's whopping 72 2/3. Bumgarner, who turned 21 last Aug. 1, drew attention in a recent column by Sports Illustrated writer Tom Verducci, who has stated that pitchers younger than 25 should not increase their workloads by more than 30 innings due to the risk of injury.

But the Giants tried to ease the stress on their starters' arms toward the end of last season. Cain said that, beginning in September, he and his fellow starters threw less between outings. Often they'd shorten their bullpen sessions by two or three minutes; occasionally they'd skip playing catch.

As a result, Cain said, "Everybody was feeling good. I think they did a great job of

• giving everybody enough rest,

getting us out of there when we needed to get out of there. Something like that definitely helps to keep your body feeling good toward the end of the year."

Cain admitted that similar measures could be necessary in 2011 "because of all the innings we all logged last year."

The consistency of the starters' appearances down the stretch and in the postseason also helped them. Lincecum and Cain never worked on less than their usual four days' rest. Sanchez's lone start on three days' rest -- which happened to consist of six shutout innings at Colorado on Aug. 3 -- followed a relief appearance and didn't tax his arm. Bumgarner pitched two shutout innings of relief on two days' rest, when he'd typically throw between starts, in the clinching Game 6 victory of the National League Championship Series at Philadelphia.

Righetti indicated that he'll pay close attention to Bumgarner, due to his age, and to Sanchez, following his dull finish (six runs in 6 2/3 innings spanning Game 6 of the NLCS and Game 3 of the World Series).

But Righetti added that the way the Giants pitched could prove more telling than how much they pitched.

• After leading the Major Leagues with a 3.36 regular-season ERA, the Giants actually improved that figure in the postseason to 2.47.

"I think most of those guys pitched within their stuff and didn't try to overthrow," Righetti said. "We threw a lot of strikes and it didn't seem like they worried too much about what the [velocity] gun was reading. I liked what I saw from that standpoint. Because that's how you get hurt, when you feel a little bit tired and you say, 'I'm going to throw as hard as I can.' I didn't see a lot of that."

Resilience could favor the Giants. At 28, Sanchez is the oldest among the postseason starters.

• Only four pitchers on San Francisco's projected Opening Day staff are 30 or older: Guillermo Mota (37), Javier Lopez (33), Barry Zito (32) and Jeremy Affeldt (31)....

Sheer motivation to sustain their World Series success should prompt Giants pitchers to cope with the

• truncated offseason and find an acceptable training regimen."...

1/14/11, MLB.com, "Giants' pitchers arming themselves against short offseason," by Chris Haft

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Ground Zero mosque doubles down, adds new Imam with more to come, Rauf and Daisy Khan out

• New York City Imam Abdullah Adhami named new Ground Zero mosque imam.
• "Other Imams still to be announced will also be joining the board in the near future"...

1/14/11, "The organization planning to build an Islamic community center near the World Trade Center says the imam who has been the public face of the project

• will be playing a reduced role.

The nonprofit group Park51 announced Friday that it had named a new imam to lead religious programing. It says co-founder Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf will focus on other initiatives.

• Rauf announced late this fall that he is starting a global movement that would fight extremism and promote better relations between people of different faiths.

He is starting a national speaking tour Saturday in Detroit.

"Due to the fact that Imam Feisal is focusing most of his energies and passion on launching this new and separate initiative, it is important that the needs of Park51, the Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, take precedence," the group said, according to NewsCore.

Park51 said Rauf would remain on the Islamic center's board. It says the group needed someone who could be more focused on local matters.

The group named New York City imam Abdullah Adhami as its new senior adviser."

'With NewsCore'

• 1/14, "New imam named for Ground Zero Islamic Center," AP, Caruso

Daisy Khan, wife of Rauf, is also no longer involved promoting the Ground Zero mosque

• solo photo of imam Adhami from Bill Warner
• group photo with Adhami, 8/27/10, from MSNBC

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2011 Grapefruit and Cactus spring training schedules

Grapefruit League Spring training schedule 2011

• Cactus League Spring training schedule 2011

• Yankee spring training schedule

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ESPN Sunday Night Baseball 2011 TV booth, Dan Shulman, Bobby Valentine, Orel Hershiser

1/12/11, Neil Best: "ESPN announced its early slate for "Sunday Night Baseball" Wednesday, and four of the first seven games feature the Yankees or Mets.

The Yankees visit the Red Sox

• April 10 and

• host them May 15;

they also host the Rangers April 17 in a 2010 ALCS rematch.

• The Mets visit the Phillies May 1.
• They also visit the Giants on July 10.

ESPN will use a new announcing team this season of Dan Shulman, Bobby Valentine and Orel Hershiser."

• from Neil Best Watchdog, "Yankees are early ESPN stars"

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Journolister Michael Tomasky- "I'm just jelly, lord!"- Is back spewing hate. America would be just fine but the angry media can't stand that idea.

This way they can spread hate and feel important. Real terrorists all over are laughing at how they've fooled their highly emotional pals in the media.

• Everything in Michael Tomasky's paragraph is hatefully and dangerously wrong except that the initial target was a Democrat legislator. She happened to hold meetings 5 minutes from his house. He had made death threats against many people. Unfortunately, he was not arrested, institutionalized, or given any of the care that would have prevented murder. As everyone knows, the shooter was apolitical, mentally ill, a user of dangerous substances, and targeted the congresswoman over 3 years ago when he was 18 or 19, at which time the only rhetoric going on was violent anti-George Bush and anti-war:

Tomasky: "In sum, he had political ideas, "(No, he did not, multiple witnesses, ed.) "which not everyone does. Many of them (not all, but most)

• were right wing.

He went to considerable expense and trouble " (5 minutes from his house, ed.) "to shoot a high-profile Democrat, at point-blank range right through the brain. What else does one need to know?

• For anyone to attempt to insist

that the violent rhetoric so regularly heard in this country had no likely effect on this young man is to enshroud oneself

• in dishonesty and denial."...

Farther down the page Tomasky mentions mental illness, but says there are degrees of that and races to get back to his hatred of people he knows nothing about. If I were any of the people he named, I would sue him.

• 1/12/11, Ottawa Citizen: "While it did not quite rise to a blood libel, the headline in Monday's Guardian (U. K.) did not fail for want of trying: "Gabrielle Giffords shooting reignites row over right-wing rhetoric in U.S."

Elsewhere in the Guardian, the distance was bridged. Consider this heading (over a piece by Michael Tomasky): "In the U.S., where hate rules at the ballot box, this tragedy has been coming for a long time: The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords may lead to the temporary hibernation of right-wing rage, but it is encoded in conservative DNA."...

The advantage of insinuations over hard arguments is that

• they bypass critical thought.

No one can respond precisely to a charge that is utterly vague or to accusers who will envelope any reply in a poisonous fog of further insinuations. The best that can be said is that the accusations in question here were fatuous. Yet they were also

• entirely predictable,

given the extraordinarily low standards in contemporary political debate."...

• 1/12, "Bloody words and deeds," Ottawa Citizen, David Warren

"Obama Wins! And Journolisters rejoice": "MICHAEL TOMASKY, THE GUARDIAN:

• I’m just jelly. Lord!"

Reference, 1/9/11, "In the US, where hate rules at the ballot box, this tragedy has been coming for a long time," UK Guardian, Michael Tomasky

• "Civility is a political, not moral concept, in the minds of many on the left. "Civility" means to them
• peaceful submission to liberalism
• and "incivility" means annoyingly
• effective opposition to liberalism."...

via Lucianne.com

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