What does it pay to be the Pay Czar?

What is Kenneth Feinberg's annual salary? If anyone can figure it out, please post it on the following Wikipedia Page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Czars

This article says that he will "work for free" in the new position: http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Kenneth_R._Feinberg

I wonder, does the new Pay Czar consider "working for free" a "fair compensation" for his new job?

Does anyone really believe that he is going to work for free?

Why Doesn't Congress Regulate Nitrogen?

Approx. 77% of the atmosphere is composed of Nitrogen gas.

Approx. 20% of the atmosphere is composed of Oxygen gas.

Has anyone studied the relation of Nitrogen or Oxygen to global temperatures?

Logic implies that fluctuations of the most plentiful gases should have more affect on external measures such as global temperature. Why is the government focused on a substance (Carbon Dioxide) that comprises only 0.03% of the atmosphere?

Perhaps the real reason our government is focused on Carbon Dioxide is because Carbon Dioxide is involved in nearly all of the industrial enterprises in the world. Industrial enterprises involve nearly all of the wealth exchange in the world. Add a tap to the largest monetary flow and you can siphon off the largest amount of wealth.

Maybe Nitrogen and Oxygen are in line for regulation after the Carbon Dioxide tax siphon is firmly in place. Cliche: Follow the money.

http://patrioticmind.com/2009/04/taxing-the-very-air-we-breathe/

Cap-and-Trade, State-by-State

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/cap-and-trade-state-by-state.html

Nice chart. However, the premise of the study and the proposed regulation is flawed. Cap and trade has little to do with Science and a lot to do with raising Taxes.

Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant or a contaminate. It is a natural occuring component of the atmosphere. The suits in Washington have no business wasting our time in trying to regulate Nature. This bill is not about "saving the planet". It is about finding new and inventive ways of separating the public from it's money (creating new Taxes).

Now. Here is some Science:

Carbon Dioxide is such a small component of Earth's atmosphere (380 ppmv) that the "slice" it represents in this chart is really only a "line" about 1/2 as thick as the line shown. Compared to former geologic times, Earth's atmosphere is "CO2 impoverished."

In the last 600 million years of Earth's history only the Carboniferous Period and our present age, the Quaternary Period, have witnessed CO2 levels less than 400 ppm, except during periods of glacial expansion during ice ages.

Late Carboniferous to Early Permian time (315 mya -- 270 mya) is the only time period in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today (Quaternary Period).

Temperature after C.R. Scotese http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm CO2 after R.A. Berner, 2001 (GEOCARB III)

There has historically been much more CO2 in our atmosphere than exists today. For example:
During the Jurassic Period (200 mya), average CO2 concentrations were about 1800 ppm or about 4.7 times higher than today.

The highest concentrations of CO2 during all of the Paleozoic Era occurred during the Cambrian Period, nearly 7000 ppm -- about 18 times higher than today.

The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today -- 4400 ppm.

According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence Earth temperatures and global warming.

Global Warming is a Hoax - Get the facts here:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/

http://www.globalwarmingheartland.com/expert.cfm?expertId=349

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY

Awesome images of the universe can be found here.

http://chandra.harvard.edu/

World Best Website Awards

How is it that a site that promotes "World Best Website Awards" looks so offensive? This site does have links to some very nice websites. However, dark blue, puke yellow, gold and grey on black with unrelated and boring text-based ads on both sides just doesn't work for me.
http://www.worldbest.com/

How-To: Build a WiFi biquad dish antenna

http://www.engadget.com/2005/11/15/how-to-build-a-wifi-biquad-dish-antenna/

Liberalism and Conservatism

I was thinking about things this morning and developed a new quote:

Liberalism is taught in school, Conservatism is learned in life. -JNKish

All of my quotes and "things to be reminded of" can be viewed on the following page: http://www.squidoo.com/quotecollection

Boxstr.com is down... I've switched to 4shared

I had stored an audio file on Boxstr for an embed on this blog. I noticed yesterday that the embed wasn't working. I went to Boxstr to see what was happening. The boxstr.com home page was displaying the following message:

"Boxstr.com is currently being updated and will be back online soon."

Boxstr wasn't working again today. So I did a Google search which turned up this post: Is boxstr.com dead or still down? After reading the post, out of frustration (I can't stand it when something doesn't work), I created a 4shared account, uploaded the file and updated the links. No more boxstr for me.

http://www.4shared.com/

The embedded file is located here: http://jnkish.blogspot.com/2009/05/sandi-patty-national-anthem-followed-by.html

Creating Simple CSS Photograph Galleries

Dreamweaver- creating a photo gallery Tutorial:
http://forums.techguy.org/web-design-development/756116-dreamweaver-creating-photo-gallery.html

Infranview Download:
http://www.irfanview.com/

Infranview Plugin Download:
http://www.software.com/irfanview-plugin

Lightbox Download:
http://www.lokeshdhakar.com/projects/lightbox2/#download

I just finished working with Firm Tools Album Creator to create a basic photo gallery, it is very straightforward and easy to use. I recommend it.
Firm Tools Album Creator Download:
http://albumcreator.firmtools.com/

Government Motors Warm and Fuzzy

If you work in the auto industry and your livelyhood depends on the success of the new Government Motors leadership team, then this information will make your day.

The guy in charge of saving the car industry is a 31 year old political science major and Yale law student (Brian Deese).

He is on leave from law school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Deese

Also of note: The new GM chairman (former AT&T CEO Edward Whitacre) was recently quoted as saying:
“I don't know anything about cars,”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Whitacre,_Jr.

Let's pray that one of them stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Google tests 'revolutionary' cloud-based database

This is my first post in a new series entitled: "Google is quietly taking over the world".

Google tests 'revolutionary' cloud-based database Data Management - InfoWorld

Posted using ShareThis

Check out these key quotes from the article:

"So now we have an n-cube, a four-dimensional space, and in that space we can now do new kinds of queries which create new kinds of products and new market opportunities,"

"If you're IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle, your worst nightmare is now visible. Google is going to automatically construct data spaces and implement new types of queries," he said. "Those guys are going to be blindsided."

More on Google Fusion Tables:
http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2009/06/google-fusion-tables.html

Tour and Start Using Google Fusion Tables:
http://tables.googlelabs.com/public/tour/tour1.html

456789

This was passed to me in an email today:
FW: An Interesting Fact
At five minutes and six seconds after 4 a.m. on Wednesday the 8th of July this year, the time and date will be: 04:05:06 07/08/09
This will never happen again. (in our lifetimes - unless someone finally figures out the whole Cryonics thing)

iPod 5Rs Troubleshooting Assistant

All of a sudden today my iPod 5th Generation 30gb Video stopped connecting to my PC.

iTunes wouldn't recognize it as a device and my computer wouldn't recognize it as a drive. No messages were displayed. It was like I hadn't even connected it to the computer, although the iPod backlight would come on when I disconnected it from the PC.
The device wouldn't even charge through the USB cable.

First I tried restarting the computer. No luck.

Then I tried a different USB cable. No luck.

Then I tried a different USB port (located on my monitor). No luck.

Then I uninstalled iTunes, ran Ccleaner and installed the newest version of iTunes. No luck.

Finally, I stumbled across the following link on Google:

http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/five_rs/

Apple's 5 R's: Reset, Retry, Restart, Reinstall, Restore

The second R fixed my issue. After resetting my Ipod, I retried connecting using a different USB port (on my PC - not on my monitor). The iPod magically connected and synced to iTunes and is now charging as I am typing. At last, all is well again.

Weathergraphics.com AIR FRANCE 447 ANALYSIS

http://www.weathergraphics.com/

AIR FRANCE 447 ANALYSIS

Tim Vasquez's webpage

Worlds Tallest Vehicular Bridge: Millau Viaduct

Would you feel a little nervous about driving across this bridge?

There's something just not right about driving above the clouds...

The Millau Viaduct is part of the new E11 expressway connecting Paris and Barcelona and features the highest bridge piers ever constructed. The tallest is 240 metres (787 feet) high and the overall height is an impressive 336 metres (1102 feet), making this the highest bridge in the world. It's taller than the Eiffel Tower ...

Interestingly, the Millau Viaduct is not straight. Why?

It's because a straight road could induce a floating sensation as you drive across it. (wheee). So, a slight curve remedies that feeling. The curve is 20km in range. Moreover, the road has a slight incline of 3% to improve the visibility & reassure the driver.

Click the photo below to view a large vista of this amazing engineering feat!:

The information above is circulating about as an email.
More details, photos and comments are available here:

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millau_Viaduct

http://www.funonthenet.in/content/view/190/31/

http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/9220A23A-AF25-4896-92AC-C1EC8DEA8760/

http://bridgepros.com/projects/Millau_Viaduct/

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/archive/index.php/t-23523.html

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/millau-viaduct.html

http://hubpages.com/hub/Millau_Viaduct__Worlds_Tallest_Bridge

Note: According to the last link above, the road bed of Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado is a few meters higher than that of the Millau Viaduct which allows it to continue to hold title of highest bridge in the world based upon height of roadbed.

Obama's Love of Czars

UPDATE 6/15/09: I have just created the following page on Wikipedia in order to properly list each and every Czar in US History: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Czars

Perhaps with the help of the Wikipedia Community we can actually fill in the answers to some of the questions below.

Is anyone else bothered by our government's recent trend in creating all of the new "czar" positions? Car Czar, Tech Czar, Energy Czar, etc. etc. How have we survived as a nation since 1776 without these czars? Why are they necessary now?

First: Let's look at the word "czar."

1. also tsar or tzar (zär, tsär) A male monarch or emperor, especially one of the emperors who ruled Russia until the revolution of 1917.
2. A person having great power; an autocrat: “the square-jawed, ruddy complacency of Jack Farrell, the czar of the Fifteenth Street police station” (Ernest Hemingway).
3. Informal. An appointed official having special powers to regulate or supervise an activity: a racetrack czar; an energy czar.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com 02 Jun. 2009. http://www.answers.com/topic/czar

According to a statement in the following article, Obama has "more czars than the Romanovs," who ruled Russia for three centuries. http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE54S5U120090529

Several questions come to mind when I begin to think about all of these Czars:

Can anyone name all of Obama's Czars? How much does it pay to be a Czar? Can a Czar make more money than the President? What is the total combined annual Czar salary? What are the responsibilities of a czar in this government? What is the term limit for a Czar? Is a Czar considered a contractor? How are czar's held accountable for either good performance or bad performance? What happens to all of these Czars after Obama leaves office?

Here is my running list of Obama's Czars:

1. Bank bailout (TARP) czar: Herb Allison
2. Energy czar: Carol Browner
3. Car czar: Steve Rattner (Other notables in the General Motors takeover and restructuring: Brian Deese and Lawrence Summers) COMPENSATION: Obama's Car Czar's 'pay-to-play' scheme
4. Drug czar (position originally created under Nixon, renamed in 1988 to The Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy): Gil Kerlikowske
5. Assistant Drug czar: Thomas McLellan
6. U.S. border czar: Alan Bersin
7. Urban czar: Adolfo Carrion, Jr.
8. Regulatory czar: Cass Sunstein
9. Iran czar: XXX
10. Middle East czar: Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell
11. Stimulus accountability czar: Earl Devaney
12. Afghanistan/Pakistan (AfPak) czar: Richard Holbrooke
13. Cyber-security czar: XXX
14. Infotech czar: Vivek Kundra
15. Faith-based czar: Joshua DuBois
16. Health reform czar: Nancy-Ann DeParle
17. Non-proliferation czar: Gary Samore
18. Terrorism czar: John Brennan
19. Regulatory czar: Cass Sunstein
20. Drug czar: Gil Kerlikowske
21. Guantanamo closure czar: Daniel Fried
22. Persian Gulf/Southeast Asia czar: Dennis Ross
23. Sudan czar: Sudan special envoy J. Scott Gration
24. Climate czar: Todd Stern
25. Intellegence czar: Dennis Blair
26. Economic czar: Paul Volcker
27. AIDs czar: XXX
28. Green jobs czar: XXX
29. Science/Weather czar: John Holdren

How many czars has America employed before the Obama administration?

Who was the first American czar? When did the media begin to use the term czar to describe high level positions in the American government?

Without a doubt, the Obama administration has fully achieved the democrat stereotype for Big Government. The only one that they have backwards is Tax and Spend. They are doing it in reverse: Spend and Tax.

I don't know about you, but I prefer to live in America. Let's drop this "czar" terminology.

Additional resources:
Presidency of Barack Obama
President Obama's People (photography: Nadav_Kander)

List of Sources:
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE54S5U120090529
http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/16/its_official_obama_creates_more_czars_than_the_romanovs
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123138051682263203.html
Wikipedia
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/581/ondcp_thomas_mclellan_nominated_deputy_drug_czar

Here's some more czar stuff:
Glenn Beck Reviews the 18 Czars that Obama has Appointed (May 31, 2009)
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=58231006

CSS Display Troubleshooting

Use the following web site to troubleshoot CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) web sites.

Jigsaw W3C CSS Validator
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

http://jigsaw.w3.org/

I have a web site that I maintain with Adobe Dreamweaver. It uses CSS. Today, after upgrading to Internet Explorer 8, it no longer displayed correctly. I double checked the site using Mozilla Firefox and noticed similar issues. First, I tried Dreamweaver's error checker, it returned no errors. Then, I ran the site through the css-validator, also with this tool, there were no errors displayed. However, the css-validator listed 5 warnings. It turns out that 2 of the 5 warnings were creating the display issues. After correcting the warnings, all is well now.

Below is a listing of the current site output. The remaining warnings are not an issue because I am only using them with image elements which have an intrinsic width. The two warnings that were creating the issues were used on floated elements that did not have an intrinsic width. I don't know how I would have found and fixed the problems without the css-validator. Eventually, I will get around to fixing the remaining 3 warnings so they won't have a chance to create issues in the future.

Congratulations! No Error Found.
This document validates as CSS level 2.1 !

Warnings (3)

182
.float_left
In (x)HTML+CSS, floated elements need to have a width declared. Only elements with an intrinsic width (html, img, input, textarea, select, or object) are not affected
185
.float_right
In (x)HTML+CSS, floated elements need to have a width declared. Only elements with an intrinsic width (html, img, input, textarea, select, or object) are not affected
188
.float_R_PadL-R
In (x)HTML+CSS, floated elements need to have a width declared. Only elements with an intrinsic width (html, img, input, textarea, select, or object) are not affected