San Franciscans prepare for The Rapture

People from around the San Francisco Bay Area gathered at the headquarters of Family Radio International, home to evangelist Harold Camping who had predicted that today would be The Rapture, the day when the souls of the faithful would rise up to heaven. On this day of spirituality, one man saw the opportunity for profit:

"Can I have your stuff tomorrow?"

Concerned that not all the worthy would rise to heaven on their own, some provided help using the laws of physics. Here is Sponge Bob Square Pants experiencing the joy-of-rapture via a helium-assist.
Santa Claus arrived and passed out the favored drink of true-believers, Kool-Aid. Some people couldn't get enough:
Also there in force were members of the Calvary Bible Church of Milpitas, CA. Some thumped bibles, some preached, and some just went about the prosaic mission of poaching from the soon to be disappointed members of Rev. Camping's flock to expand their own:
The message of the Calvary Church seemed to be that the judgment day was coming soon, just not today.

Others took a different approach to finding the truth:
The sign in the center above is "Science: we won't make a fool of you." On the left, the sign reads "The Bill is Nye." Apparently, Bill Nye, the Science Guy, has a fan. Showing the diversity present at this gathering, the woman on the right places her faith in British science fiction.

Not everyone appreciated the fun. This reporter, Lisa Amin Gulezian from ABC News, Channel 7, could not help but look down her nose at the gathering:
While the Family Radio International offices were closed today (why work when The Rapture is nigh?), some of Rev. Camping's followers were present, including this man with the "repent now" sign:
Anticipating that there would be a tomorrow, he told those assembled that Rev. Camping's numbers were merely approximate and that, while Rapture may not be today, it will be sometime soon. (That interpretation is not in keeping with the Church's website which, as of this writing, still reads "Judgment Day, May 21, 2011, the Bible guarantees it!")

Why didn't God call the faithful to heaven today? One group was their to proclaim it was because of Gay Pride:

All in all, a good time was had.

The Islamic Bomb

If this trailer is any indication, "Iranium" will be a compelling movie:

The movie will be released free online February 8. To watch it then or to obtain a DVD of it, click here

An expensive hoax

The state of California is on the brink of bankruptcy. If you wonder why, have a look at the California State Association of Counties' web page listing resources for the state's counties. The resources under the heading of "Climate Change" are ten (10) agencies:

1. NACo County Climate Protection Program
2. Institute for Local Government - Climate Change program
3. US Communities Go Green
4. California Climate Change Portal
5. California Energy Commission
6. CIWMB Green Buildings
7. California Air Resources Board
8. United Nations Environmental Program

9. ICLEI - Local Government for Sustainability

10. Local Strategies and Resources -- Institute for Local Government

That is a lot of agencies devoted to dealing with something that has been exposed as a hoax.

PREVIOUSLY on the global warming scandal:
•Climategate: laws were broken
•The collapse of the UN IPCC's credibility
•Yet another UN IPCC Glacier-gate scandal
•UN IPCC claims of melting Himalayan glaciers exposed as fraud
•UN IPCC responds to Climategate with wild accusations
•Surprise: EU's carbon trading riddled with fraud
•Ma'am Sen. Boxer for and against climate whistleblowers.
•Climate alarmist Phil Jones to step down pending review
•Why Penn State's investigation of its global warmist will go nowhere
•Former boss calls James Hansen call an embarrassment to NASA
•NASA's global warming scientists caught hyping false data

Alternative energy meets reality in NYC

Like many dreamy-eyed liberals, New York's mayor Bloomberg went to a conference on "clean energy" and talked about the glorious future of windmills: he proposed putting them on NYC buildings and bridges. By the time he returned to NYC, as the AP reports, everyone, including the environmentalists, had already objected:

NEW YORK (AP) - Mayor Michael Bloomberg is backing off his suggestion to put windmills on city bridges and rooftops after newspapers mocked the idea with photo illustrations of turbines on the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building.

"There are aesthetic considerations," Bloomberg said. "No. 2, I have absolutely no idea whether that makes any sense from a scientific, from a practical point of view."

Bloomberg sought to dial back his windmill proposal while speaking to reporters on Wednesday after returning from Las Vegas, where he gave a speech at the National Clean Energy Summit imagining, among other things, harnessing wind power with turbines on bridges and skyscrapers. ....

David Carr, of the Alternative Energy Institute, in Canyon, Texas, said mounting turbines high above the city is "not very feasible."

"I don't think this was very well thought out," he said.

Among the complications are turbulence and vibrations the buildings would have to endure, plus the relatively small amount of wind the turbines would be able to harness in a city where other buildings and trees stand in the way, Carr said. Also, skyscrapers typically are not built to withstand the load of turbines.

"If you want it for art and decoration, that's fine, but for achieving any kind of power that's useful, it's not a very good idea, and I don't know of anywhere that's done it very successfully," Carr said.

It is also difficult to imagine residents would welcome spinning turbines outside their windows in a city where a proposal to install a cell phone tower on a building on Manhattan's Upper West Side generates protests and interference from local elected officials.

Earlier this year, Sen. Ted Kennedy, the lion of liberalism, worked on blocking windmills in Massachusetts.