A Jihad on Perspective

I find it a little strange that the Democrats in Congress (George Miller, for example) won't use the term, jihad, to describe the actions of Major Nidal Hasan but they will use it to describe the Republicans in the House over this budget crisis. Methinks that the vitriol has at long last overtaken them (not that the Republicans are necessarily superior, mind you).

The CO2 - Global Warming Theory Deconstructed

a) The present day warming trend started in the late 17th century, well before any human-induced CO2 contribution could have happened.............b) Yes, we experienced a rather pronounced spike in temperatures from 1975 to 1998, but that trend-line wasn't any more pronounced than previous spikes; 1695 to 1735, 1860 to 1880, and 1910 to 1940.............c) Temperatures have not shown a significant increase in 16 years and the warmest year on record (according to the satellites and radiosonde balloons) continues to be El Nino's 1998 - this, despite the fact that man-made CO2 emissions have skyrocketed by some 28%.............d) The ice core data has consistently shown that it is the warming which precedes the increases in CO2 and not the other way around (the warming of course being natural and caused by things such as ocean currents, solar forcings, volcanic inactivity, plate tectonics, cosmic rays, planetary perturbations, etc.).............e) From 1940 to 1975, the planet actually cooled by nearly a half a degree Celsius - this, despite the fact that man-made CO2 emissions skyrocketed in the post war era.............f) It is a scientific FACT that the relationship between CO2 and warming is a logarithmic one and that the biggest jump in temperature happens in the first 20 ppm.............g) It is also a scientific fact that CO2 essentially becomes saturated (with infrared radiation) at 400 ppm and that even if you doubled it to 800 ppm the warming would be minimal.............h) Yes, it is true that CO2 can have an amplifying effect on water vapor but it is also true that this effect can be one of increased cloud cover and therefore a negative feedback.

Isabelle Huppert Through the Years

On French Film Starlet, Isabelle Huppert Recently Cracking 60

Twouldn't hesitate for millisecond, troops.

On Why Global Cooling is Far More Dangerous than Global Warming

This one is so elemental that it's embarrassing. What happens during intense episodes of global cooling (glaciations or ice ages, if you prefer), people? Yeah, that's right, a little something called massive ice sheets covering entire damned continents, food shortages, desertification/long droughts, and, yes, mass extinctions (the worst mass extinction happened 252 million years ago and was more than likely caused by basalt volcanoes that triggered major cooling).......................................................................................Compare this to episodes of global warming in which there has invariably been an explosion of life (the Cambrian explosion of 520 million years ago and even the most recent interglacial in which homo sapiens evolved, for example) and you really do have to wonder about the sanity of these alarmists.......................................................................................P.S. Researchers at Cal Poly have also linked the late Ordovician mass extinction to global cooling and that is hardly surprising, either - http://www.sciguru.com/newsitem/13576/What-Triggers-Mass-Extinction-Caltech-researchers-say-habitat-loss-and-tropical-cooling-were-blame

Note to Sean Hannity 3

You're right. Many laws in this country have been overturned. But they've been overturned via additional legislation, through elections, and via the Supreme Court ruling on them, NOT by some demagogic partisan fool rambling about them for 21 hours................................................................................Look, I don't particularly care for Obamacare, either (not to mention the way that he unilaterally delayed the employer mandate). But it's the law, dude. You're just going to have to accept the thing, at least for a while. There, now go change your damned pampers.

Note to the Republicans, Addendum

I would also suggest that you walk the walk a little bit here and look to the private sector. John Mackey of Whole Foods, in particular, has put forth an outstanding health-care plan that just might be a template for the entire nation. The plan provides to his employees (at no cost to them) a high deductible ($2,500) policy, and then he supplements that with a $1,800 a year stipend deposited directly into a personal health savings account that accrues over time. The plan all but eliminates the middle-man (excepting of course for major illnesses) and it does so in a way that fosters competition and empowers the individual. If I were you folks, I would pick this fellow's brain until I could come up with something tangible for the whole (no pun intended) damned country.............................................................................................P.S. Just for the record here, there were some people who did complain about this new approach, and so Mr. Mackey ended up giving his employees a choice between what I just described above and the previous HMO model. 77% of the people opted to stay with the new approach.