Nanny Rips Baby Girl From Jaws of Coyote in California Sandbox A nanny pulled a 2-year-old girl from the jaws of a coyote when the animal attacked the toddler and tried to carry her away in its mouth, officials said. The girl was playing Friday in a sandbox at Alterra Park in Chino Hills in San Bernardino County. Around 10:30 a.m., the caretaker heard screaming and saw a coyote trying to carry the child off in its mouth, officials said. The babysitter grabbed the child and pulled her from the coyote's grasp, the sheriff's department said in a statement. The coyote then ran off into nearby brush. The child suffered wounds to her buttocks and was taken to Chino Valley Medical Center and was later released, director of nursing Anne Marie Robertson said. She was later transported to Loma Linda University Medical Center to receive the rabies vaccine. San Bernardino County Animal Control and the State Department of Fish and Game were searching for the animal, Wiltshire said. Miller said there was another attack in the area in October when a coyote bit a 3-year-old girl playing in a cul-de-sac. The girl needed treatment for puncture wounds to the head and thigh, Miller said.
Does 'climate change' mean 'changing data'? Methodology used by NASA to estimate rates of climate change are resulting in dramatic shifts in previously published historical temperature data, causing figures for estimated global surface temperature prior to 1970 to now be lower and figures since 1970 to now be higher – and appearing to provide evidence for those who say the Earth is warming. John Goetz, writing last month in the science blog Climate Audit, analyzed the way NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies calculates estimated global surface temperatures and showed that the addition of new, contemporary data could "have a ripple effect all the way back to the beginning of a [weather] station's history." Goetz found 32 different versions of published global annual averages going back to Sept. 24, 2005, that showed the published figures – figures used as a baseline to demonstrate change through time – changing hundreds of times. "On average 20% of the historical record was modified 16 times in the last 2 1/2 years," he wrote. "The largest single jump was 0.27 °C. This occurred between the Oct. 13, 2006 and Jan. 15, 2007 records when Aug 2006 changed from an anomoly of +0.43 °C to +0.70 °C, a change of nearly 68 percent." Temperature anomalies – differences between the average measured global air temperature and some long-term mean – are primary data for studies of climate change. The magnitude of the changes in the reworked historical data observed by Goetz – 0.27 °C – is more that a third of the total average increase in global air temperature near the Earth's surface – 0.74 ± 0.18 °C – that has occurred over the last century, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change....
Enviro rules prevent man from going green A man was just trying to go green with his new house construction project in Denver, until he was told by the city he would be penalized $9,000 for doing so. The report comes from William Porter, a writer for the Denver Post, who outlined the situation confronting Kent Oakes. "Oakes and his wife want to build a home on South Birch Street in University Hills. They plan to scrape the existing frame house and replace it with the one in which they'll spend their retirement years," the newspaper reported. "We want to build it as green as possible, and that includes solar panels on the roof," Oakes reported. But when workers from the solar system company arrived, they brought with them some bad news: a large honeylocust tree that towers over the southwest corner would block the sunlight to the system. "It is a good tree and I'd like to keep it, but it just won't let the solar work," Oakes told the newspaper. In getting approval from the city for his plans, he noted that the tree would have to go. All right, responded Douglas Schoch, of the city's forestry division. But that will be a penalty of $9,000, because that's what the city has decided the tree is worth. And there's no appeal process....
Florida Trucks Avoid Castration provision in a highway safety bill that would have banned drivers from attaching replica bull testicles to their rear bumpers was snipped from the legislation. The bill will now go to Governor Crist's desk. Republican Senator Carey Baker had sponsored the amendment that would have allowed police to give drivers a 60 dollar ticket for displaying the dangling decorations. The House did not have the amendment in its version of the bill. Senators had engaged in a somewhat heated debate over the issue two weeks ago.