(this post also appears today at Right of Middle)

The 2009 Middletown Connecticut Memorial Day parade and ceremonies were dedicated to our World War II veterans, The Greatest Generation.

Marty Reardon Sr., (pictured below) commander of the 7th District of the American Legion, will speak. After 15 years as commander, Reardon is stepping down.

The keynote address was given by U.S. Army Captain Gluth, who heads the recruitment services office in New Haven.

Am enthusiastic crowd lined both sides of Main Street to watch the hour long parade. There were contingents of marching bands, little leaguers, boy and girl scouts, fraternal and service organizations, military formations, farm tractors, and of course, a selection of fire apparatus, old and new, from Middletown and several nearby towns. Our mayor, Sebastian Giuliano, and the Connecticut Secretary of the State, Susan Bysiewicz, and Rep. Rosa Delauro were on hand as well as other local politicians.

The last photo is from the ceremony at the South Green where the wreath laying took place. Pictured are two vets in colorful biker regalia. Mayor Sebastian Giuliano is visible (grey suit) on the platform, between the men.

And finally, a video of some of the parade:

Patrick J. Michaels: Cato Institute

This article appeared in National Review Online’s Planet Gore page (Jan 30, 2009)

Al Gore’s Climate of Extremes [Patrick J. Michaels]

Ho-hum. On January 28, in the midst of a pelting sleet storm, Al Gore told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the end is nigh from global warming.

He told the Senate that “some scientists” predict up to 11 degrees of warming in the next 91 years (while failing to note that the last 12 have seen exactly none), and that this would “bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fiber of life everywhere on earth.” Hey folks, this is serious!

Besides having a remarkable knack for scheduling big speeches on remarkably cold or snowy days (it’s known as the “Gore Effect” in journalistic circles), Gore has been incredibly ineffective in bringing his message home.

According to the New York Times, Gore told the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco last November, “I feel, in a sense, I’ve failed badly. . . . [T]here is not anything anywhere close to an appropriate sense of urgency [about global warming]. This is an existential threat.”

And fail he has. The Pew Foundation recently asked Americans to choose which of 20 prominent issues is of most importance. They included the economy, crime, education, and, of course, global warming, which came in dead last….(read the rest here)

The video above is part 1 of 3 (be sure to watch all three parts) in which scientist Patrick J. Michaels is interviewed by Jon Caldara, president of The Independence Institute, a Colorado think tank. Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling, Jr. are the authors of Climate of Extremes, published by The Cato Institute in Jan 2009. Patrick J. Michaels is Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies at The Cato Institute in Washington D.C. Michaels is a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and visiting scientist with the Marshall Institute in Washington, D.C. He is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and was program chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the American Meteorological Society. Michaels is a contributing author and reviewer of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change….

In the Preface to Climate of Extremes former Virginia State Climatologist Michaels describes how he and other state climatologists were stripped of their titles, and jobs, and told by their governors to “shut up” about the global warming hoax. Something about, in the case of Oregon’s Climatologist, contradictions interfering “with the state’s stated goals to reduce greenhouse gases.’’

Continuing from the Preface:

David Legates, at the University of Delaware, was told by Governor Ruth Ann Minner (D) that he could no longer speakon globalwarming as State Climatologist. His faculty position is a regular tenured line in the geography department. He’s free, as State Climatologist, to say anything about the weather, so long as there’s no political implication…..

Out West, things got even uglier. The Assistant State Climatologist for Washington, Mark Albright, was fired because, despite his boss’s orders, he refused to stop e-mailing—to journalists, to inquiringcitizens, to anyone—the entire snowfall record for the Cascade Mountainsrather than the cherry-picked one. For e-mailing that record,the assistant state climatologist in Washington lost his job.What had started with Oregon’s George Taylor had migratedacross the Columbia River.

For a further account of these shenanigans see NBC & Global Warming Jihad

Patrick J. Michaels and Jon Caldara

For some comic relief listen to Paul Shanklin as Algore singing “Ball of Fire” (courtesy Rush Limbaugh show:

Science has now proven the following very important points:

• CO2 is definitely not a pollutant. It is a friendly trace gas necessary for all life.
• Human-produced CO2 is a miniscule fraction of a percentage of greenhouse gases.
• 96.5% of all greenhouse gases emit from the oceans, naturally.
• Without CO2, vegetation dies, herbivores die, you die.
• CO2 levels used to be much higher many times in the past.
• Higher temperatures from the sun result in CO2 levels rising long afterwards.
• Rising CO2 is an effect of global warming, not a cause.
• Global warming and cooling is a natural phenomenon.
• The higher the CO2 levels in the atmosphere, the greener our planet becomes.
• Forests and plant life growth has increased by approx 40% over the last 50 years, thanks to CO2.
• Increasing CO2 yields larger food crops. This is beneficial to a growing population.
• The Earth is not currently warming, it is in fact cooling.
• Temperatures in the past have often been much warmer than today.
• Even if it were to happen, a warmer Earth is far better than a colder one, for all life.
• Many scientists believe we are on the brink of another ice age.
• When the planet warms and cools it is purely due to the sun. Not your car.
• Polar ice is now at record levels and still growing.
• Climate changes happen all the time, and have occurred much faster than anything in modern times.
• There has been no increase in extreme weather. In fact, records show the exact opposite.

Read the whole article at I Love Carbon Dioxide

Also see Michell Malkin, June 2008: In Praise of Carbon Dioxide
Here is a You Tube interview with Ann McElhinney, producer and director of “Not Evil Just Wrong”, a feature length documentary now in release:

After the various Tax Day Connecticut Tea Parties you might want to check out this free Earth Day  presentation at Wesleyan:

More information about film maker Shalini Kantayya

From Kantayya’s blog (4/11)

To mark World Water Day, I am launching the a DROP of LIFE Campus Tour, to bring attention to the world water crisis. Designated in 1992 by a United Nations General Assembly resolution, World Water Day is an international observance and call to action to bring attention to the problem of insufficient access to clean, safe drinking water. Using my film a DROP of LIFE as a spark to inspire discussions about the world water crisis, the tour celebrates World Water Day, Earth Day, Women’s History Month, and Asian American History Month.

Shalini Kantayya

Seen lately around the city:

(mouse over for titles, click for full size and description)

(Caution: this story contains graphic and disturbing details of chimpanzee attacks)

Charla Nash was nearly eaten alive by a pet chimpanzee named Travis owned by Sandra Herold of Stamford CT. She was so close to death and so terribly mangled that first responders could not tell the sex of the victim lying face down on the ground. Medical personnel and police officers needed post-traumatic  counseling to help ease their experience with the tragedy. We learn now that Ms. Nash has been transferred to The Cleveland Clinic face transplant department providing some hope that, in their skilled hands (they performed the first U.S. face transplant) she may be returned to some semblance of normalcy.

In a remarkably similar event four years ago St/.James Davis, a California man,  was attacked by a chimp at a wildlife sanctuary. Davis  has never fully recovered from the attack, and most likely never will. Some 60 surgeries were needed for his massive injuries described in the NY Daily News:

….his nose and mouth were ripped off, an eye was gouged out, his left foot was mangled and most of his fingers and buttocks were devoured….He was in a medically induced coma for months….

Almost four years later, Davis said the news of Nash’s attack last week hit him hard.

The Connecticut woman was visiting friend Sandra Herold in Stamford on Monday when Herold’s pet chimp, Travis, suddenly went wild. Nash was badly mauled before cops shot and killed Travis. Nash has been transferred to an Ohio hospital for extensive reconstruction.

“It’s so much like my story,” Davis said.

“I hoped it would never happen again,” he said, sitting on an electric wheelchair with a prosthetic nose hanging lopsided over two thin red cavities where his own nose used to be. “She probably can’t talk. I couldn’t even grunt. But she needs to hear voices she knows.”

h/t Pat Dollard

St. James Davis

She fed him filet mignon and lobster tails. They shared cozy glasses of wine. They bathed and slept together. He tenderly brushed her hair. She gave him gifts and sweet kisses. He drew her pictures…But this was no ordinary affair of the heart. Sandra Herold was engaging in these loving acts with a 200-pound pet ape.Her human friends said they were always leery of the interspecies intimacy.

We wrote a few days ago about the horrific chimp attack in Stamford CT in which a woman was nearly killed by an enraged pet chimpanzee. The story has gone viral; the NY Post has been running with it all week. This Sean Delonas NY Post cartoon yesterday brought publicity hound Al Sharpton and New York governor David Patterson into the fray:

NY Post, Sean Delonas

Sharpton is quoted in Newsday saying the cartoon is “troubling at best” while Patterson meanwhile, having been briefed with a verbal description of the cartoon, said “Images of black people portrayed as primates do feed a kind of negative and stereotypical way that some people think.”

NY Post Editor Col Allan’s response: “The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit, the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington’s efforts to revive the economy,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs declined comment on the controversy saying he, like Gov Patterson, had not seen the cartoon but used the opportunity to diss the NY Post as unnewsworthy. Predictably, protests began (photo gallery); below New York state senator Eric Adams protests at the NY Post headquarters:

State Senator Eric Adams, Newsday Photo

The chimpanzee attack and public response has revived the old stereotype of white folks thinking of black folks in simian terms. While there can be a racist aspect to such characterizations, it depends after all, on the context as is the case with the NY Post cartoon. The American Bush hating Left had no hesitation in depicting Geroge W. Bush as a chimp when they pleased: (the following appeared at Steady Habits, 5/19/08)

Bush Chimp vs Obama Chimp….

How come this is OK…..

…But this isn’t….

A bunch of people in Marietta, Georgia were protesting this one; it is a tee shirt sold by a bar owner who says he has no racist intent, merely thinks the resemblance between Obama and Curious George is humorous. I agree, the big ears, the big smile, uncanny! Look what “W” had to put up with going on 8 years. What do you think?

Video here, “how African-Americans have been deplicted“
Funny video here where TV interviewer tries to get seller to admit he’s racist. It doesn’t work!

More about this at:

Wizbang, Doctor Bullldog & Ronin

Sandra Herold & Travis: A Happier time

Travis, the 200 lb celebrity chimpanzee was toilet trained, dressed himself, took his own bath, ate at the table and drank wine from a stemmed glass. Totally bizarre situation in Stamford CT, 15 year old pet chimp attacks female visitor!

Updates added Tuesday 2/17: Gruesome details at Gateway Pundit and Threats Against Pet Owner WCBS-TV

Stamford CT February 16, 2009: (Hartford Courant)

Officers were called to a house on Rockrimmon Road after the owner lost control of the 175-pound primate, which was shot and killed by a responding officer when it tried to get into his cruiser, police said….. the owner called 911 and tried to stop the attack by stabbing the chimpanzee with a butcher knife…As emergency crews arrived to treat the victim, the chimpanzee… revived and opened the door of one of the police cruisers. The officer inside fired several shots, killing the chimp…The 15-year-old chimpanzee was well-known around Stamford because he rode around in trucks belonging to the towing company operated by his owners. Police have dealt with him in the past, including an incident in 2003 when he escaped from his owners’ vehicle in downtown Stamford for two hours.

What is going on with these pet owners? There is no shortage of incidents involving persons harboring large exotic pets. Here, at least, the public and the police knew of this hazard and allowed it to continue. Photo below shows Travis opening the police car door.

Valentine’s Day 2009 was also a birthday celebration at the Willimantic Food Co-Op in Willimantic (CT). This is their 29th year and the organization appears healthy and active. The February 14 shindig featured food displays and sampling, music and dancing, and 29 special cakes. We were able only to catch the first hour or so of the party but had fun photographing the crowd and making the following video:

Below is an earlier video with most of the same personnel:

Let Them Eat Cake....

A new book, Sun Cycle 24, just out by Australian scientist David Archibald

“….details how the Sun, not carbon dioxide, controls climate and predicts a significant cooling for the next two decades. At the same time, the heating effect of carbon dioxide will be minuscule. Combined with its positive effect on plant growth, increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is shown to be wholly beneficial….

Source: John Ray-Stop the ACLU

In a 2008 paper,Warming or Cooling?, Archibald writes:

“If carbon dioxide didn’t cause the warming of the 20th century, what did? Well, a good place to start is the sun. In the 20th century, the sun was more active than at any time inthe previous 8,000 years…..The way that Solar Cycle 23 is declining, combined with the very weak ramp-up of
Solar Cycle 24 sunspot activity, suggests that the month of solar cycle minimum will be July 2009. If that transpires, the cooling will amount to over 2 degrees….

That last time that something like this happened was a period called the Dalton Minimum from 1796 to 1820.”

Ken Tapping, a Canadian scientist writes in Popular Mechanics:

“If the sun remains this quiet for another a year or two, it may indicate the star has entered a downturn that, if history is any precedent, could trigger a planetary cold spell that could bring massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere..”

David Archibald and Prof, David Bellamy