Gibson Guitar company has been raided for the second time over their supposed use of rare (endangered ) wood in making musical instruments.
Gibson is suing the government (Forestry and Wildlife agency) over a half million dollars in materials seized in 2009. This second raid occurred just before the lawsuit trial date.
Indian authorities have certified the exportation of rosewood and ebony finger boards to be sent to Gibson guitars. The U.S. government interprets Indian law differently to state that somehow the fingerboards are not legally obtained by Gibson.
Note…… it’s not just Gibson guitars which utilizes these fingerboards from India. It’s obvious to any guitarist who has shopped for various instruments. Gibson is singled out among the many musical instrument manufacturers for abuse.
Here’s WSJ coverage of Gibson’s woes and the fears that any musicians have over bringing instruments through customs.
The government is attempting to shut down Gibson Guitar Co. Hope and Change! Laser-like focus on JOBS!
The Real Science Blog provided screen shots of North Carolina coastal wind station results from Wunderground, showing no winds higher than 33 miles per hour.
Steven Goddard says this is barely a tropical storm. Take a look for yourself- wind stations ranging from 8.7 to 33 mph. This guy is pretty reasonable but Pharmer decided to add some data to corroborate. Here’s the AP report:
“MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. (AP) — Hurricane Irene opened its assault on the Eastern Seaboard on Saturday by lashing the North Carolina coast with wind as strong as 115 mph and pounding shoreline homes with waves. Farther north, authorities readied a massive shutdown of trains and airports, with 2 million people ordered out of the way. “
At Wunderground they’re not using hallucinogens…. Here’s the Nag’s head forecast for the day:
wunderground forecast nags head hurricane 8-27-11
The Nags head station was down, so Pharmer looked for a close one which is operating. Mind you, the storm is said to be 500 miles wide, and was said to hit the coast at 7:30 am. What’s close by……
Coast of North Carolina
How about Kill Devil Hills! That’s close, and yes the weather station is up and running (implies no power outage).
Wind at Kill Devil Hills, NC at 2:55 pm 8-27-11Wind at Kill Devil Hills, NC at 3:00 pm
The final GEM from Kill Devil Hills NC, is the Wunderground weather station GRAPH of wind activity for the day:
Wind was observed to range from 6mph to 22mph at mid afternoon. Ike was no longer a real hurricane when it reached Indiana, but it was an all day event, producing higher sustained winds than shown at the Kill Devil Hills weather station in NC.
We’re going with the Real Science assessment that reports of the IRENE TROPICAL STORM have been greatly overblown, and much more panic has been induced than was warranted.
By the way, Steven Goddard is stepping up to his own domain… (just like the Pharmer). His blog is migrating to Real-Science.com. He might to need to buy hefty bandwidth with Drudge pointing to him from time to time. The real site crasher is Rush Limbaugh, who tends to bring the visitors all at once.
One wonders at the economic cost of dire and overblown weather conditions. It appears that people are losing faith in NOAA. This might be related to the climate change hoax, which had been espoused by top officials.
Hard to figure out which one is preferable……. 😉 Check out Iman Achhal from Morocco, who escaped a marraige arrangement to the U.S., as a cage fighter (mixed martial arts).
The treatment that Peter D’Attilio received in Franklin, Massachusetts is reminiscent of the Clinton era, when the FBI was running around to all the pro-life groups, questioning them about their activities.
Mass Resistance (link above) has the full scoop on D’Attilio’s arrest and detainment, as well as the pending charges against him, for passing out pro-life flyers at St. Mary’s Catholic church festival. The article also contains contact information.
New Jersey school officials are apologizing for their kinky summer reading list for the high school and middle school students.
Some parents found out what was in the books and protested. Seems that graphic business of the gay orgy (Tweek: Growing up on Methamphetamine) and lesbian sex (Norwegian Wood) was a bit too much for their tastes, even if it was only an effort to entice their kids to read.
It’s the tenth anniversary of the 9-11 attack and Mayor Michael Bloomberg is excluding Clergy from the memorial event.
We should also draw attention to Bloomberg supporting the building of a Mosque there, but preventing St Nicholas Church, the only church destroyed in the attack, from being rebuilt.
In addition……. there’s no new World Trade Center. Bloomberg is not enough of a leader to facilitate such a recovery.
Apple is undergoing a big change as Steve Jobs steps down as CEO. Above is his letter, which is straight and to the point, but lacking in the health details which probably spurred his resignment.
Jobs wants remain as Chairman of the Board and have Tim Cook take over as CEO.
We could be helping kids with Down syndrome, but it’s so hard to get that kind of neuroscience funded… Why? It’s easier to kill those kids and that is done 90 percent of the time now, in the U.S.
Technical and medical advances have mostly been direct responses to human need. When those with needs are killed instead….. no more advancement. That’s the leftie vision for us.
The above linked news page addresses Muslim relations in the U.S., and the issue that some innocent people are paying a social price for the actions of other controversial or terrorist groups.
