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Gawd, wait til the glass half-empty, empire-building whiners get hold of this report. They’ll really have us back living in caves. Providing the caves are formed in the correct type of rock.

VIENNA (Reuters) – New studies have found direct evidence of a lung cancer risk from the presence of colorless, odorless radon gas in many homes, a United Nations committee said in a report released Tuesday. Officials on the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) said the finding provided the first quantifiable evidence of the risk in homes from radon, long seen as a potential health risk.

Another day, another scare from the fear-mongering classes.

Anyone who’s had a teenage son in the past few years knows it’s the worst look in the book: crotch to the knees, sagging jeans.
Well, as we all warned, it’s finally got a young fella into trouble. Of the worst kind:

Dionta RaShad Cochran was killed by his own gun after it accidentally discharged in the 19-year-old’s pocket, authorities said Friday. The bullet struck him in the chest while he was getting into an SUV to buy cigarettes.
Tests confirmed that the fatal round was fired from the .32-caliber pistol Cochran kept in the back pocket of his low-hanging pants, and not from an unknown shooter, as originally thought, Charleston County Coroner Rae Wooten said.

Spot on definition found at Free Republic:

There is an annual contest at Texas A&M University calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term.
This year’s term was:
“Political Correctness.”
The winner wrote:
“Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous self-serving higher education system and mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”

Build a house over a disused coal mine. Not the best of ideas.

Stop accusing US VP Joe Biden of making gaffes, urges James Lileks. He’s telling the truth. It just sounds strange.

It takes years of yoga to learn the posture necessary for speaking clearly with all your feet in your mouth. But for some the skill comes naturally, which brings us to Joe Biden.

On this day:
In 1814, Samuel Colt, gun inventor and manufacturer was born.
In 1870 France declared war on Prussia to begin the Franco-Prussian War.
In 1903 Maurice Garin won the first Tour de France cycle race.
And in 1969, Ted Kennedy went swimming.

Ah Tommy, the codgers of the world salute you.

The third round of the British Open is in the books, and somehow, Tom Watson is still on top at the famed Ailsa course at Turnberry. The 59-year-old birdied the 16th and 17th holes for a miniature rally, but miniature’s all he needed to go from “fading” to “leading” as the final round looms.

Those days of the US leadership backing every little tinpot extremist despot in Latin America are over, aren’t they?
Not so, it seems.

For several months a showdown brewed when Zelaya announced he would hold an illegal election. If passed, the fine print would have allowed an unconstitutional extension of his four-year term ending in January 2010. The United States, according to Honduran nationals and U.S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., appeared to unconditionally embrace Zelaya’s plans.

Derek Murdock summarises a global roundup of recent chilliness:

For December 1958, the laboratory reported an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 314.67 parts per million. Flash forward to December 1998, about when global cooling reappeared. CO2 already had increased to 366.87 PPM. By December 2008, CO2 had advanced to 385.54 PPM, a significant 5.088 percent growth in one decade.
This capsizes the carbon-phobic, global-warmist argument. For Earth’s temperatures to sink while CO2 rises contradicts global warming as thoroughly as learning that firefighters can battle blazes by spraying them with gasoline.

The falling temps/rising CO2 conundrum has been put to Rudd and Wong who have been unable to furnish a satisfactory explanation. They’d better come up with something plausible soon if they don’t want to be seen as the loonies in the loony left. Here’s Murdock’s fitting conclusion:

But as so-called “global warming” proves fictional, those who would shackle the economy with taxes and regulations to fight mythology increasingly resemble deinstitutionalized derelicts on an urban street corner, wildly swatting at their own imaginary monsters.

One more reason why the Indian government will be in no hurry to sign up to any ill-conceived global pact that forces up the price of fuel.

MUMBAI (AFP) – The world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano, hit the streets on Friday, as the first customer got the keys to a vehicle that its makers hope will transform travel for millions of Indians.

A former state cabinet minister is jailed for corruption.
Yet, the Sydney Morning Herald can’t manage to tell its readers of which party he belonged.
Incompetence or political bias?
Either wouldn’t surprise.
Tim Blair makes sure SMH honchos know about it.

Again innocents perish for the demands of lunatics.

THERE are grave fears for three Australians missing after the deadly bomb attacks on two Jakarta hotels yesterday.
As anxious families wait for confirmation on whether the Australians had survived the terror attacks, investigators said suicide bombers checked in as guests into two American hotels, smuggling in explosvies.

Top quality coverage assured here.

Rock’n'roll’s biggest bores are following Al Gore on a worldwide “Do as I say” tour.

The £90m U2360 tour also features three 390-tonne stages criss-crossing the globe, along with 200 crew and backstage staff.
The opening night in Barcelona’s Nou Camp last week featured the space station-style stage and satellite link-up with the International Space Station.
Perhaps appropriately, the tour’s carbon footprint can also be measured in space terms, with their colossal emissions of up to 65,000 tonnes of CO2 enough to fly Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr from earth to the planet Mars — and back.

Eventually, there had to be something really useful among the myriad applications that iPhones offer:

Area drivers looking to outwit police speed traps and traffic cameras are using an iPhone application and other global positioning system devices that pinpoint the location of the cameras.

In the six weeks the son and heir has been in the US, the bride has received one phone call and a handful of emails. She is not happy.
And cutting no ice are gentle reminders that a 23-y-o with a recording studio to manage in the company of many attractive young Stateswomen might be a tad distracted from calling home at every opportunity.
Thus, sympathy was scarce for lustre lacking Australian bowler Mitchell Johnson the other night as we watched the Poms despatch his hapless long hops to all points at Lord’s.
As Steven Howard described it in The Sun: . . . strike bowler Mitchell Johnson was so off the radar he was in danger of being reported missing in action.
Or as opined from my armchair: “He’s tossing more pies than Graeme Kennedy did in In Melbourne Tonight.”
“Hmmmph!” was the unsympathetic response from the matriach’s vantage point.
“That’s what he gets for not ringing his mother.”

Rationalists, here’s your opportunity to tilt your head, parade your papier mache creations, chant slogans, generally carry on like undergraduate tools and probably not make the TV news. And it will be cold!
Leon Ashby of the newly-formed Climate Sceptics Party has organised an ”educational protest” in Melbourne early Monday outside the venue where Al Gore will be shovelling down breakfast with 1000 invited guests.
The breakfast starts at 7 am at the Docklands Peninsula (just opposite Docklands stadium) on Harbour esplanade.
Leon writes:
Those wishing to protest that either “Al Gore has got the facts wrong” or
“Carbon trading will destroy our economy for no good reason” or “Gore should publicly debate the evidence of CO2 causing dangerous global warming” can assemble at 6.15 am at Southern Cross station at the southern end up stairs next to where it opens straight onto the Collins Street bridge.
You will see people in tshirts with CRAP – Carbon Really Aint Pollution and that will be us.
Myself, Steve Murphy and Anthony Cox will lead the event.
At 6.20 am I will inform people of a bit of house keeping & our general plan of what we can chant and how we will engage politely with people.
At 6.25 am we will walk to the Peninsula and set up as per our plan.
At 7.05 pm most of Gores invited guest will be in the breakfast and we will have some speeches, songs, poems and media things happening.
Depending on what other options we have, we will have a cuppa from about 8 am
There is a slight chance another 10 minute protest option could arise at 9.30 when Al Gore is actually speaking but it is very slim chance at this stage.
Bring a placard with a fun Gore or global warming comment on it.
For more details see our website www.climatesceptics.com.au or email
Leon Ashby info@climatesceptics.com.au

Dunno about the songs and poems, but I’ll be there.

FEEDBACK:
You have to wonder how pitiful some fools’ lives are. This blog has been getting some foul-mouthed abuse lately which has been despatched deservedly to the refuse bin. One comment today appeared to be agreeing with an offensive message sent earlier under another name. Ditto with a pair of messages a few days ago. I checked the IP numbers and yes, they were identical. A leftwing idiot comes here to talk to himself. Obviously brain damaged from too much of another solitary pursuit.

My street is typical of thoroughfares in our suburb — narrow, with room for only one moving vehicle when cars are parallel parked either side. Any rational person would consider that in the interests of road safety, the last thing a driver needs is another visual distraction.
So what has the local council done at the behest of the feds? They’ve erected a bloody big sign on my nature strip declaring that traffic controls at the next intersection, about 50 metres away, have been installed as part of the Black Spot program.
Stupid officialdom doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Hmmmm, Black Spot for a potentially dangerous location. So black is bad? How did that get past the PC police?

FURTHER
Of course, the City of Rather Mediocre Geelong has got form for stuff-ups when it comes to joining with government to improve traffic flows.
A few years ago they spent $1 million rebuilding a section of the main street through town, only to discover it was a metre too high and if left that way would flood footpaths and shops.
Just recently they opened the final stage of the Geelong Ring Road which among other things saves western-bound drivers from being held up by 29 sets of traffic lights.
So what was unveiled just a few days before the ring road was opened and before experts could quantify new traffic flows? Another set of traffic lights on the old route.
About half a million bucks worth, I believe.