And it has nothing to do with Iraq, Afghanistan, war, or any other “headline” news item for political use.

Where’s the public outrage? Where’re the politicians grandstanding for CNN? Why are THIRTEEN THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTY deaths in a single year not important enough to make the evening news?

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Drunken driving fatalities increased in 22 states in 2006 and fell in 28 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, federal transportation officials said Monday.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released data showing there were 13,470 deaths in 2006 involving drivers and motorcycle operators with blood alcohol levels of .08 or higher, which is the legal limit for adults throughout the country. The number was down slightly from 2005, when 13,582 people died in crashes involving legally drunk drivers.

The overall number of deaths involving drivers and motorcycle operators with any amount of alcohol in their blood was 17,602 last year. That was up from 17,590 in 2005, according to spokeswoman Heather Ann Hopkins.

I wish people would keep these numbers in perspective. The 3,000+ that have died while working to kick terrorist ass and improve the lives of millions of Iraqis, Afghanis, and frankly the entire Mid-East are a horrible loss by any measure. But to ignore the thousands killed every year by idiots on our own road is downright dishonest of those who flout that number daily.

Drive drunk? Do the rest of us a favor and put a bullet in your own brain — faster, more efficient, and safer for the rest of the world.

LGF

And the dreaded “hockey stick” diagram is as stupid as it sounds? Wow…

Red faces at NASA over climate-change blunder

In the United States, the calendar year 1998 ranked as the hottest of them all – until someone checked the math.

After a Toronto skeptic tipped NASA this month to one flaw in its climate calculations, the U.S. agency ordered a full data review.

Days later, it put out a revised list of all-time hottest years. The Dust Bowl year of 1934 now ranks as hottest ever in the U.S. – not 1998.

More significantly, the agency reduced the mean U.S. “temperature anomalies” for the years 2000 to 2006 by 0.15 degrees Celsius.

It was hotter 73 years ago than it is now… shall we go look at sunspot records for that time frame now? Or should we play it safe and see if there was an excess of cow flatulance that year?

Puzzled by a bizarre “jump” in the U.S. anomalies from 1999 to 2000, McIntyre discovered the data after 1999 wasn’t being fractionally adjusted to allow for the times of day that readings were taken or the locations of the monitoring stations.

McIntyre emailed his finding to NASA’s Goddard Institute, triggering the data review.

“They moved pretty fast on this,” McIntyre said. “There must have been some long faces.”

I expect Al Gore’s face won’t get any longer. He’ll either ignore the corrections, or excuse them somehow.

This one’s for you, Jack (ass) Murtha.

It’s called war. People in and around the enemy during war are likely to get hurt or killed. It’s terrible. It’s horrific. It’s not criminal (unless you’re the one hiding among the civilians). It’s war.

Charges dropped against 2 Marines in Haditha case

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine general dropped all charges on Thursday against two Marines in the shooting deaths of 24 civilians in Haditha, scene of what Iraqi witnesses said was a massacre by American troops.

The dismissal of charges means neither Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt nor Capt. Randy Stone will face a court-martial in connection with the events at Haditha, which have brought international condemnation of U.S. troops.

Five Marines still face charges in the November 19, 2005, shooting of two dozen unarmed men, women and children in Haditha, which prosecutors say came in retaliation for the death of a beloved comrade, Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, who was cut in half by a roadside bomb.

Sharratt, 22, had been charged with three counts of premeditated murder and Stone, 35, with dereliction of duty for failing to properly report the civilian deaths.

Defense attorneys conceded civilians were killed at Haditha but said they died during chaotic fighting with insurgents after the roadside blast.

In dismissing the charges against Sharratt and Stone after what he said was an exhaustive review, Lt. Gen. James Mattis cited the difficult battle conditions and a “shadowy enemy” whose forces hid among civilians.

“With the dismissal of these charges Lance Cpl. Sharratt may conclude that he did his best to live up to the standards, followed by U.S. fighting men throughout our many wars, in the face of life or death decisions made in a matter of seconds in combat,” Mattis said.

“As he has always remained cloaked in the presumption of innocence, with this dismissal of charges, he remains in the eyes of the law — and in my eyes, innocent.”

Mattis said that while Stone may have made mistakes, they did not “rise to the level of criminal behavior.”

Thanks, LGF.

Do they hire morons off the street to work at the IRS? Sure looks like it…

IRS bureaucrats duped into exposing passwords

According to a report released Friday (PDF) by the Treasury Department’s inspector general, 60 percent of a sampling of 102 Internal Revenue Service employees, when contacted by government auditors posing as help-desk employees, were perfectly willing to reveal their usernames and change their passwords to ones suggested by the callers.

The auditors said they were particularly alarmed by this year’s findings against the backdrop of a similar test in 2004, when only 35 percent fell for the trick. In 2001, 71 percent succumbed to the requests, which led the IRS to take “corrective actions” designed to raise awareness about social-engineering attempts and password protection requirements.

Saw it on SANS Newsbytes first.