Sojka's Call

There is another excellent post over at Al Fin on human caused global warming.  The mounting evidence that, we, the gullible public, have been completely duped on this subject has become overwhelming for me.  I have changed my opinion 180 degrees and now believe the evidence for AGW is scant to non-existent. The interesting thing to me is the rabid reaction of friends who still believe.  It is almost like you are trying to kill their first-born or accusing their mother of a crime. The emotions of belief in AGW are strong and people treat me different when I now say that the evidence is not there to support this position.  AGW is the new religion and people don't want their God/Savior messed with.

A video from the TED series by Ken Robinson who talks about how many schools are killing creativity.  He talks about education goals and that they may be misplaced at most universities. If you have a problem with English accents then put the subtitles on.

This video is from a Yale teaching session by Professor Barry Nalebuf.   He gives many examples of how to think creatively easily. The techniques are deliberately simple to show that technical expertise is not required for many great ideas.

Just got home. The major news orgs are missing a great story in Mount Shasta of a mini-disaster. The power has been out for 3 days, trees are down on houses and power lines, the grocery store and schools have been closed for 3 days and people are leaving their houses because of trees getting ready to go down. My yard has a couple doze ... n trees down. We have had 6' of snow in about 4 days. Police chief declared a state of emergency.

Good blog on cost of energy by fuel source.....  http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2010/01/costs-of-various-energy-sources.html

Is it possible that the terrorist who tried to blow up the Amsterdam to Detroit flight was deliberately allowed to board with his explosives?  This article and a Richard Wolf MSNBC report seem to lend credence to such a scenario. Three possible explanations were floated:  First, a turf war inside the intelligence community.  The second explanation was that the attack meant to embarrass Obama and his administration.   The third explanation of the plot was a rogue network inside the US government desired to unleash a new wave of Islamophobic hysteria to rehabilitate the discredited "global war on terror. Entire article can be read here.

Now, we get to specific ideas for 2010.  I am long gold and feel very nervous about it since so many other people are too.  Currency trades have screwed me every time I make them.  What are you going to do?

Wish I had listened to this guy in March 2009. 

The first video was a mailbag review.  Are people pissed enough to elect someone or some group of people to really do something about the bank giveaways?   Should the bank giveaways be stopped?  Does Bernanke and Geithner need to go? My opinion is the the US electorate is still asleep at the wheel and too dumbed down or anesthetized to do anything.  Hope I am wrong. Then Yes, Yes, and Yes.

This is an amazing picture of Northern California mountains with The Milky Way as a backdrop.  The picture can be purchased at http://astrophoto.com/LassenShastaPano.htm 

This music is real....... http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=21928063 Check it!

What are you doing to keep your brain young? It may be as easy as saying yes. More and more it seems that people I know in their 40's, 50's and beyond get into habitual living and activity ruts. They blame it on their bodies (stiff, sore, too hard, etc) or they say it is not fun, or it is too scary - they might get hurt. It used to really drive me nuts and now I'm getting better at living and let live. But, it got me to thinking why the impulse to try new activities is always there for me and I get restless with the same old, same old. Maybe my brain just wants the exercise and is prodding me on to do new things. New activities stimulate our brain and help it continue to develop even into middle age and later. As it happens, yes. While it’s tempting to focus on the flaws in older brains, that inducement overlooks how capable they’ve become. Over the past several years, scientists have looked deeper into how brains age and confirmed that they continue to develop t...