* The GDP has gone up — 1%! You may think that’s not very much, but it’s better than going down 1%. In fact, it’s two percent points better than going down one percent. Math is fun.

At this rate, we’ll climb out of this hole by… Well, I’m not sure we’re beating inflation. Still, the point is, you can’t have a recession with positive growth. So as long as the economy can cling to growth above 0%, Obama can campaign on “Only one huge recession under my watch.”

* A giant hurricane is headed to DC and New York City. They’re not used to that sort of thing, and since I’ve lived through three major hurricanes, I thought I’d give them some tips. First off, whatever you’re doing to incur God’s wrath, just stop it for a little while. Second, don’t make eye contact with the hurricane. Finally, remember that the most important thing about a hurricane is to have fun.

Anyway, here’s some old posts I did on hurricanes. Here’s a Know Thy Enemy post on hurricanes from over eight years ago (hmm, I guess I used to use language like that; what a little scamp I was). And here’s Hurricane preparedness tips from nearly six years ago. Wow; I bet my archives is full of junk like this.

* Someone in the military felt the need to write an editorial about how Rick Perry doesn’t speak for the military. There are a lot of people in the American military, so if your really look around, you’re going to find one or two liberals. I think the biggest tip off this is a knee-jerk liberal screed is this paragraph:

Please explain to me how a fourth-grade science teacher is less patriotic than a drill sergeant in Killeen, Texas. Or how a social worker who helps single mothers in East Los Angeles is less patriotic than a convoy driver in Baghdad. Please explain how a fire fighter in Boston is less qualified for political office only because she has not volunteered for military duty.

I guess to the first question, what does teaching science have to do with patriotism? To second, are we talking an ACORN type social work? To the last, notice how the theoretical Boston fire fighter had to be a she — probably because he didn’t know how to subtly throw in that the fire fighter is a handicapped minority.

Also, there’s this line: “I would like to ask Perry how strength, character and altruism are missing in the day-to-day work of a community organizer in Chicago.” Only a fringe element of the American public could say that sentence with a straight face.

Anyway, they point of the article is to downplay military service as a qualification for a politician. Of course, not very long ago, liberals were calling anyone not in the military on the Republican side a chickenhawk. They were also finding the few liberal military people they could and putting them as prominent as they could. In fact, in 2004, they did a whole campaign based on portraying John Kerry as a war hero (didn’t work out great). But now they have some guy trying to argue that working at the DMV is equivalent to a U.S. Marine risking his life for the country. Seems rather incoherent, which brings me to a point that should often be repeated: The left has no coherent political philosophy. Everything for them is based on “this is our side and that’s the other side we have to defeat”. So they’ll twist themselves in knots making something a virtue one day and a liability the next. Don’t be like them. Don’t give up your principles to argue for one politician and to downplay another because all politicians are idiots and just aren’t worth it.

And I thank Dan Futrell for his service. I don’t thank the science teacher.

* CERN has found out that cosmic rays are the biggest contributor to cloud formation and thus the largest factors in setting climate temperatures. And since the sun modulates cosmic rays, it’s the biggest factor in our climate. So basically, scientists spent years studying tiny particles to figure out that the giant nuclear furnace in the sky is the biggest effect on the earth’s temperature. Great job, scientists!

* Scientists have found a planet that is basically a giant diamond with five times the diameter of earth. How many carats is that? They say it’s about as massive as Jupiter which is 1.8986×10^27 kg, and a carat is 200 mg, so… about 9.8 nonillion carats. Yeah, that’s the name of an actual number. Math is fun.

This is the sort of news we need to get private exploration: There’s gold and diamonds out there! Of course, this planet is 4,000 light-years away, so we to find stuff closer… like on Mars or in the asteroid belt. Eventually we’ll mine all of space; it’s got to be filled with riches. And hopefully we’ll find life on other planets because that might mean those planets have oil. I just have a feeling we’ll be getting to Star Trek times and our warp drives we’ll be running on diesel while we say to ourselves, “Any day now, we’re going to perfect a renewable fuel source. Now let’s play laser tag with our phasers set to stun.”

* New Crowder video! Time to go green with Crazy Pete:

Them curly light bulbs are weird and scary.

* Friend of IMAO author Mike Z. Williamson has a short story available as free download from Baen if you’re looking for some weekend reading material.

* Wisdom of the Day: “Pandas seem kind of tired of fighting this whole extinction thing. We should probably hurry and take more photos.” –Tim Siedell