Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack.
1958 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2008 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.
1958 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.
2008 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.

Jeffrey won’t be still in class, disrupts other students.
1958 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by the Principal. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2008 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.

Billy breaks a window in his neighbor’s car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1958 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.
2008 - Billy’s dad is arrested for child abuse.. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy’s sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy’s mom has affair with psychologist.

Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1958 - Mark shares aspirin with Principal out on the smoking dock.
2008 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

Pedro fails high school English.
1958 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English, goes to college.
2008 - Pedro’s cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action laws suit against state school system and Pedro’s English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.

Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.
1958 - Ants die.
2008 - ATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny’s Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1958 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2008 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.

So what’s the deal with these lethal peanuts? Not to sound old and cranky, but when I was growing up there was never such a thing as a so-called “peanut allergy”. No student was ever punished for bringing a PB&J sandwich to school… and surely no school kid ever got charged a felony for cookie crumbing his classmate’s stuff. Neither was any airline being sued for serving the proverbial “in-flight peanuts”. What the heck is wrong with kids today? Is something wrong with mothers’ breasts that their milk is poisoning their kids’ immune systems? Perhaps the mothers are watching too much Oprah!

Being slightly fed up with hearing about this on the news (and feeling not-so-compassionate) here’s my pictorial ode to this problem:

After further thought I noticed that there are lots of “disorders” and “conditions” - unheard of when I was young - that are lowering today’s kids on the evolutionary totem… like ADD and all kinds of autism. So what gives? Something has changed, for sure. Recently on a discussion board I read a school nurse’s personal observation:

[My] first decade of school nursing involved NO kids with food allergies. In 1998 the first child entered our school with a peanut allergy. Now, 10 years later, we have dozens of children with increasingly complex food allergies.

I agree that there is something very serious going on with the health of our children and instead of looking only at treating kids with allergies, we need to be researching the cause. 1998 is the same year we had our first autistic child, our first (ODD) oppositional defiance disorder, and all degrees of (PDD) pervasive developmental disorders. We invented a whole batch of new diagnostic names that had never existed before during the next couple of years.

There are questions I want answered: Why were these kids so different from our previous children? What happened to the kids who entered school in 1998 that was new to the human experience? What compromised and confused their little immune systems; and why were their bodies confused about healthy foods? If you take time to examine the history, you immediately notice these were the first kids who got Hepatitis B shots as newborn babies in the hospital nursery. [...]

Ya know, that’s a good point. The more people I talk to who have really delved into the “science” behind some of these vaccinations, the more I hear about how much “junk” is in that stuff. Now I’m not trying to stir up a scare… or tell you not to vaccinate your infant. But there’s a lot of coincidences… and if you talk to medical professionals (I live with one) they’ll relate lengthy anecdotal evidence for reasons to be suspicious.

Then again I got ALL my shots… and by ALL I mean the Army jacked me up with everything. EVERYTHING. Not to mention in high school I immersed my entire hand in a beaker of mercury. And look at me… I’m perfect fine still breathing.

Now, that GGW guy Joe Francis is scum for sure… but Dupré is suing him for $10 Million dollars partly for falsely advertising that she performed for their cameras. Except that - wait for it - she DID perform for their cameras. In fact I read that he has TONS of footage she willingly did for GGW (for some cash) back before she was infamous.

Anyways, Dupré’s lawsuit says that Francis “ruined her reputation”. What? Are you serious? Gee… I would have thought that it was taking your clothes off in front of a camera (and a crowd of drunk guys, also with cameras) and dancing around naked groping yourself that would have ruined your reputation. I would have thought that getting busted prostituting yourself out to strangers would have ruined your reputation… but what do I know? I think Francis (the scum) said it best:

It’s hard to imagine how anyone could actually ruin a hooker’s reputation.

This almost reminds me of Monica Lewinsky who after the VERY famous Bill Clinton scandal found refuge from various media questions by saying that comment on it wasn’t “appropriate”. Hmm… I wouldn’t have thought for her propriety was on the table… apparently neither would she, having spent so much time under it.

Now I’ve used some straight-forward language here… and it’s not because I think I’m immune to the pitfalls of this rock. But what I am big on is personal responsibility. My libertarian leanings tell me that we should be free to make choices, and then be responsible for the consequences… whether gain or pain, treasure or pleasure, shame or fame, embarrassment or harassment. [admit it, how many of you just pronounced harassment like the Brits so that it rhymed! ...I love this too much] Well, since I’ve taken so much flak for not being compaaaaassionate lately I’ll add the following disclaimer.

Compassionate Disclaimer: Jesus loves everyone mentioned in this post.

• Educate yourself on nuclear power. Learn to pronounce it (noo-clee-er, not like noo-kyoo-ler) and then learn all about it. The Nuclear Energy Institute has a great educational website filled with facts, truth, and mythbusters. Seed Magazine has a well-produced one-page cribsheet on nuclear energy. And my own website has a small Nuclear Engineering section with some good resources.
• Once educated, take action whenever you hear misinformation about nuclear energy recklessly interjected into popular debate. Dispel the myths, refute the lies, and lay a logical smackdown on the blathering freaks zombified from prolonged exposure to neo-utopian green-ness. Write your politicians about supporting nuclear energy. Write your politicians about equal environmental standards for so-called “developing” pollution mammoths (like China and India).
• Don’t believe the hype. Actively disregard anything being loudly shouted by student environmental activists. They’ll stand outside at protests screaming nonsensical eco-chants, yet they haven’t even done anything useful for the “Earth” yet to begin with… see what they’re like in 20 years trying to hold a job and raise a family. Usually these snot-nosed airbags are just echoing the sentiments of some socialist professor, and carry with it vehement disdain for the environmental policies of the United States. News flash, the US (and most western countries) are meccas of green gold - veritable bastions of crunchy tree-hugging hippies - compared to the rest of the planet. Ignoring environmentalist wackos usually can only benefit the Earth.
• Live reasonably. If you live in the West and you aren’t giving time and/or money to some worthy cause somewhere… then there’s a good chance you are selfish, and selfish people hyper-consume for their own ends. Break the habit by supporting a poor child. Consider setting aside a portion of what you’d normally spend on intra-family gifts to help out the local city mission. Contact your local church and find out if they know of anyone in need of some groceries or yard work. By spending your wealth (and if you’re in the US, you’re wealthy) partially on others, you’ll consume less and be a better steward of the environment.
• Don’t pollute. That includes YOU - fat lady driving in front of me throwing your McDonald’s bag out the car window onto the road! That also includes YOU - smoker who thinks the entire friggin’ planet is an ashtray for your cigarette butts! If I could magically cast two spells… the second one would be that every conscious act of polluting would take a week off the polluter’s life.
• Whatever Al Gore says… the opposite is probably true. Act accordingly.

Happy Earth Day!

My wife, the nurse-type, has taught me to initially give grossly obese humans the benefit of the doubt… because it is conceivably possible, however unlikely, that their condition is from a freak “gland” issue or some other medical condition that they either did or did not bring upon themselves. The aforementioned fellow definitely appeared to be a self-infliction.

But I also believe in freedom. I think everyone is free to eat however they choose to within their means. I say “within their means” because I think there is something fundamentally flawed with being obese AND collecting public assistance. I’ve covered this before including the sometimes non-usefulness of WIC.

For instance, does it make any sense to give food stamps to obese people? Okay, there could be the extreme exception for medical reasons, loss of a provider, natural disaster or other misfortune. But I mean, really… on the whole is someone who is obese really in need of assistance getting food? Aren’t those people’s layers of lipo-love-flesh a testament to the fact that they have a ready supply and are indeed eating very well, thank you?

So if you have your own money then you should be able to use it to buy whatever food you like (healthy or unhealthy) and eat it in whatever quantities you like (dainty or super-sized) however often you like (first breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, and so on). My communist state of New York has already banned trans-fats from restaurant use in some areas - even though this has problems of its own.

And recently we find that misguided (read authoritarian) politicians in Mississippi want to ban fat people from restaurants!? How insane is that? Granted, I’ve seen some of the largest people anywhere at the local Chinese buffet squatting in a booth and scarfing down every fried morsel they can get their greasy, stubby fingers on. But so what? It’s a free country, right? Or at least it WAS.

Here’s the rub… to be a FREE country you have to enforce two very important principles. First, people must have free choice. Second, people must bear the consequences of their choices (both good and bad) . This is tremendously important. Consequences to one’s own actions is a feedback mechanism that must not be tampered with or the delicate balance that allows for free choice will be disrupted.

If people want to eat gluttonously, that this their free choice. Then, if they want to fly somewhere, and their large torso won’t fit into a normal airplane seat, then they can buy two tickets for adjacent seats or choose another form of travel. If their morbid obesity causes severe medical problems, they need to figure out how to pay the upcoming medical bills or go without medical attention. If they are wealthy and can pay medical bills without batting an eyelash, good for them. If they used their free choice to acquire health insurance, good for them. If they used their free choice to blow their money on non-essentials, then they should rely on family and friends to help pay their bills (NOT the government).

If the government stepped in and “cushioned” everyone whose gluttonous lifestyle caused huge medical bills, then that combined with finite resources would create the need to start dictating to people what they can and cannot eat. This is bad, but is necessary in a socialist state where health care is “provided”. The UK is already projecting huge costs to the public over the next few decades due to the terrible obesity “problem”. Who knows what further behavioral restrictions will be put in place there. That is exactly why I’m 100% opposed to ANY form of universal healthcare.

My state, New York, wants to give legal state driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Yep… you heard me correctly. That should be a twisted joke, but it’s a twisted reality. Among the ir-rationale is the standard drivel about “they’re just here to work” and “this will let us keep better records on them”. Better records? Why would we need better records… are we going to be using these “records” to arrest them? Then why not just arrest them when they apply for the license? How is it that the laws requiring known illegal aliens to be detained and deported don’t apply at the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles)? This is lunacy… yet elected cronies taking in high salaries (compliments of the taxpayers) support this madness because it BUYS THEM VOTES.

And of course this issue runs much deeper, but let me say that there is no comparison between a United States citizen from Mexico, and an illegal alien. They are two totally different people. They both may be hard workers, but one is duly and lawfully eligible for all the rights, freedoms, and opportunities of every other American citizen - while the other has not only disrespected our borders, our immigration rules, and broken our laws, but is also stealing health care, welfare, and pretty soon driver’s licenses. Mexico doesn’t tolerate illegal border crossings INTO Mexico (just as no country does, nor should they)… but Mexico gets on us for protecting our border. And why? Follow the money… Western Union money transfers from the US are Mexico’s third highest source of income!

Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize. For what? A documentary? A movie of questionable science? For parading an entourage around the globe in private jets to talk about the dangers to the environment from parading around the globe in private jets? And the rationale why global warming would have ANYTHING to do with peace is that global warming will “eventually start conflicts”? How about the conflict between “An Inconvenient Truth” and the actual truth? How about Al Gore preaching that society needs to start living more simply and efficiently - while Al goes and buys another mansion to visit in his private jet (read mega-petroleum-guzzling sky-beast). The Nobel prize has become a bit of a joke, I guess. I actually think Borat was a much more accurate documentary… we should have given the peace prize to Sacha Cohen.

I’m already done with the Presidential campaigns. They have used up my entire allocation of bicker-absorption. I can’t listen to it any more. Does that make me “disenfranchised”? I think it does. I think in the name of all that is good and right I shouldn’t have to see Hillary’s, Osama/Obama’s, Rudy’s, or McCain’s face for another 12 months. At the very least I want to see the candidates actually work for their air-time… like perhaps in a “Survivor: Washington DC” or “Fear Factor” style reality show where Hillary would have to drink monkey snot while wearing a slinky little bikini in order to earn 5 minutes of sound bites. Obama and McCain would have to wrestle in a tub of broken glass while eating scorpions to see who gets to speak next. Or how about the Price is Right? That would be sweet… watching politicians who haven’t shopped for their own groceries in decades try and guess the price of baking soda or cooking spray. Ha!

And again… on my recent trip to Chicago… I got to watch airport screeners hassle aged World War 2 vets and little old Asian ladies so that the TSA doesn’t look “insensitive” towards male 18-34 year-old Arabic-speaking non-US-citizens who have legal support agencies ready to sue the city, county, state, and federal government at the drop of a Koran. Another example of how not having the moral courage to be a jerk to non-citizens means having to be a jerk to EVERYONE… which then quickly erodes into usually just being a jerk to people who you know aren’t carrying bombs (e.g. World War 2 vets and little old Asian ladies).

Fatigue.

State of Global Warming

Ha! It’s hard to believe anyone is still taking this seriously, but for those keeping score at home - it now appears that in addition to cows… moose are contributing to global warming more than automobiles?! You can’t make this stuff up. Some braintrust of researchers in Norway are concerned that moose are belching and tooting the environment into potential catastrophe. This instantly conjures scores of pointed questions targeting the validity of the research and the sanity of the researchers, not to mention the dubious scientific conclusions.

One question I might ask is… then why is it also getting warmer on Mars? Are moose belching there, too? And why does your comparison regarding the larger carbon footprint of a moose, compared to a car, lead you to the conclusion that moose are even a BIGGER threat… rather than the conclusion that, “Oh, maybe cars aren’t doing as much as we thought.” And why haven’t we seen the effect from moose before now… because surely with all of man’s atrocious macho-paternalistic pillaging of the world’s natural habitats wouldn’t there logically be FEWER moose today than there used to be? And better yet, how are the PETA crazies going to take this… do we wickedly hunt down and eat these tasty yet evil beasts of voluminous anal gas?… or do we honor their natural existence as it starts to boil the oceans?

See… it’s those Catch-22’s that make it so hard being on the left.

State of Sports

It’s great when the highlights of every major sportscast right now includes footage of Michael Vick. Actually that’s not great. Actually it’s a horrid picture of the journalistic sensationalism that consistently manages to displace actual news with repetitive drivel. And doesn’t it warm your heart to know that organizing dog fights is yet another act society scorns more than the plunging of cold steel into the base of a baby’s skull?

State of the Blog Spam

82,382 spam comments blocked… and counting.

State of the Blog Design

This may not mean much to some… but the new design will be a labor of progressive enhancement. So basically, I’m going to put up a new design that will function adequately and will look different… but will not be in its final state, nor will it have any bells and whistles. After I begin this process I will be tweaking the design over the next few weeks to “tune” it to what I want. This is in contrast to the usual design reboot that most sites do where the entire design is completed in a sandbox environment and deployed immediately in a near-finished state.

State of the Prison System

As much as the geographic snobs here in the Northeast love to snoot their beaks at anyone with a southern twang (which to us is everyone from Pennsylvania down), I can’t help but be reminded that folks down south got themselves a better way of gettin’er done. Take this story about a jail in South Carolina that is making inmates who sexually misbehave wear a pink jumpsuit for three months of their “stay”. I love that idea. I love every part of it. Here you got these inmates who are exposing themselves (and worse) to female prison guards… and the prison has thought up a very clever way of “marking” them as the deviants they are for the rest to see. Shame. Shame - used appropriately - is a great thing.

Of course, there’s a lawsuit against making inmates wear the pink jumpsuit. This lawsuit was filed by a current inmate serving time for assault & battery with intent to kill… and he thinks wearing a pink jumpsuit will unfairly “label” him and cause others to make derisive comments. [cue the violins] Somehow I don’t feel sorry for this felon… and somehow I don’t feel sorry for a criminal being shamed for acting like an animal. In fact, if anything, it blows my mind that inmates can expose themselves and throw semen on female guards without fear of punishment… and even in “progressive” South Carolina. Holy smokes… how in NASCAR’s name do inmates get away with that to begin with?

I mean seriously… let’s say an inmate throws a urine/feces mixture (which is common) on a female prison guard - you would/should whack them with your nightstick. If they do it again (for whatever insanely idiotic reason) you would/should whack them twice… and they do it a third time and you whack’em thrice… and so on and so on… you get the idea. Logically the greater the pain inflicted by strikes with a nightstick the less “attractive” the urine/feces throwing becomes. And again, logically the more severe and numerous the nightstick strikes the greater time will pass between urine/feces throwing events. One could even postulate that there is a critical number of nightstick whacks that would preclude any repeat urine/feces throwing events for the remainder of their sentence.

Now, the above reads a little totalitarian with a dash of sadistic fascism… and a pity it does. But it certainly puts the pink uniform in a better context. And we can only wish for the day when they’ll bring back the stocks.

A rudimentary perusing of the vegans’ literature and “statements of faith” [my term] will shock most sensible people. While the pursuit of humane treatment for animals is noble - and something I greatly agree with - the thought that by simply not eating meat, fish, or dairy (and actually a bazillion other things you’d never think were animal-related) you are avoiding negatively affecting the natural environment and the animal kingdom is laughable… laughable in a riotous hyena-slapping kind of way [and I recommend a little more iron from red meat might stimulate the brain waves into clearer thinking].

You see… as a living creature ourselves, humans consume their surroundings. We breath the surrounding oxygen… we eat the surrounding plants and animals (mmm… tasty animals)… we occupy the surrounding shelter. We actively displace the natural environment - be it plant or animal - that would otherwise occupy our space… and we consume the food and resources that would otherwise sustain that nature we are displacing. We partake in a society that burns fossil fuels. Every day we live pollutes the land. We are the antithesis of environmentally-friendly.

So the very existence of a vegan is a paradox at best… and vegans having children is outright hypocrisy. Each living vegan is negatively impacting the plant and animal kingdom. The only way to really, truly stop adversely affecting the environment is to kill yourself. So any vegan who is spreading their “faith” has obviously not killed themselves, and decided that selfishly living in knowing exploitation of nature is better… and should thus not be taken very seriously.

And besides… if we weren’t meant to eat animals, why are so many made of steak? Those wishing to truly help nature and the animal kingdom should visit Ted Nugent’s hunting website or Easy Wild Game Recipes.

Flying out of Albany International Airport has become a real treat. Newly renovated and clean airport. Fast lines. Not crowded. Efficient even at its busiest. Smaller airports are just that much better post-9/11. However, my iPod nano earned me a wanding and a frisking after I forgot it in my pants going through the detectors (my fault).

One thing that really bugs me about the uppity security these days is the incomprehensibly insane use of “randomness” to spot-check travelers with extra measures. Most TSA workers will let travelers who fall into the terrorist-typical demographic just pass by - usually for fear of legal reprisals instigated by Islamic defense foundations… while little old white men in wheel chairs who can barely walk are made to struggle to their feet for a wanding and frisking - all in the name of “not singling anybody out”.

Now, the fact is - not all Muslim men aged 17-33 are terrorists… not even half are… not even 1% percent are (I don’t think). BUT, almost all terrorists have been Muslim men aged 17-33. Doesn’t that tell us something about how we should protect ourselves? I mean… do we really have to jerk around the poor old man in the wheelchair just to feel good about how “fair” and “sensitive” we are?

Okay, so Tami and I walked the National Mall… which to my dismay was not a place to shop. The monuments were handsome and dignified. The memorials were plentiful and truly moving… I especially enjoyed the World War II memorial (always makes me want to watch Band of Brothers again… but that’ll be discussion for another post).

View the full gallery of Washington, DC pictures here.

While at the World War II memorial I could see a few scattered vets recounting battles, scars and lost friends to their families or even to strangers - whoever would listen. I was listening. A quote inscribed onto a granite wall says it best:

OUR DEBT TO THE HEROIC MEN AND VALIANT WOMEN IN THE SERVICE OF OUR COUNTRY CAN NEVER BE REPAID. THEY HAVE EARNED OUR UNDYING GRATITUDE. AMERICA WILL NEVER FORGET THEIR SACRIFICES.

President Harry S. Truman

Yet, an inescapable incongruence gnawed at my gut as I stood at the World War II memorial. You see, we often hear the phrase “Support Our Troops” - mostly justified, but perhaps tossed about too flippantly at times… much like the American Flags purchased on September 12, 2001, that by September 20 were sitting atop their owners’ trash heaps. However, even more curious to me is the phrase “I support the troops, but I don’t support the war.” I don’t question the patriotism of this phrase’s speaker simply because of the phrase… but it seems that many of this phrase’s speakers actively disregard, dismiss and even loathe the military. I personally know a few of the exceptions… but the rule prevails easily. As I stood at these war memorials - and the feeling of national sacrifice and diligence stirred my insides - the inescapable incongruence gnawed at me. How can you “support the troops” while you are holding rallies “against the war” and calling out American soldiers as rapists and murderers? How can you “support the troops” when all your activism is geared towards raising money for partisan political organizations and for “impeaching Bush”?

I would be remiss not to mention the DC rail system - the Metro. I am spoiled with NYC’s subway system that is a flat $2 fee no matter where you go. The DC Metro fee system was nearly incomprehensible. I started laughing when I saw it… each stop has it’s own individual charge!? Check out the picture of the kiosk below to see what I mean.

And alas, while flying out of Albany is a pleasure, flying out of BWI is painful… very painful. The lines at security were retardedly and unnecessarily long. One guy got sick of waiting and started cutting in front of huge groups of people. The TSA checker nearest me saw the man doing this (mostly because a few justifiably angered travelers spoke up) and ordered him to stop and stand fast - but he told her “no” and said if she didn’t like it she could call her supervisor. She did, and her supervisor came over… and did NOTHING!? I could overhear him say that because the guy was really mad about the long line that they’ll just leave it be. Wait a minute - this guy can cut in front of people, swear at the people who object, disobey the lawful orders of a uniformed TSA worker… and TSA security does nothing? Whiskey tango foxtrot?

You know… if you’re gonna’ be stupid, you gotta’ be smart about it.

I love one-liners, and the poetry of this one rang true in my ears as soon as it left my lips. I quickly Googled to see if anyone had ever officially said it yet (like Yogi Berra), and to my delight they had not. So I get to have my very own one-liner… my very own Yogiism. Well done me.

The event that stimulated this burst of reason was this - I was told of a group on the website Facebook (a social networking site similar to MySpace) that was entitled “Henry Mills sucks penis” [the name has been changed]. This group was started and joined by current and former members of a local Christian school… and the object of their wrath, Mr. Mills, is a well-respected official of that same school and church. The group’s Facebook page includes disrespectful and insanely inappropriate and infantile content that I won’t share here.

Now… how nervy do you have to be to create and/or join such a group actually using your primary Facebook account with your name and picture displayed for any school official or parent to identify… and to do this while having not yet graduated from the school?! While you’re at it why don’t you just set your diploma on fire right now?! And needless to say, once the school found out about this Facebook group just a few days ago, it was quickly put out of its misery.

So upon hearing this story I exclaimed, “You know… if you’re gonna’ be stupid, you gotta’ be smart about it!” There is harmony in this statement - it’s found in the mix of bumbling wisdom and denotative paradox. But as I pondered, I discerned some “deeper” force at work here. So I put my thoughts down in the form of a socio-algebraic law:

Mooradian’s Law of Multiplicative Idiocy

As the probability of an individual or entity to engage in an idiotic action increases, the faulty cognitive processes driving this increase also propend the same individual or entity to engage in further related idiotic actions, such that the original idiocy is amplified through a mechanism of synergistic multiplication. This described propensity incites a daisy-chain of idiotic action occurring independent of (and possibly in addition to) the coincidental succession of an individual’s or entity’s natural random idiocy as expressed by a Poisson distribution.

As a previous leader of soldiers, I truly saw this law in action. Anyone who’s been in the military knows soldiers and sailors sometimes have an affinity for mayhem. And certain sailors and soldiers have perfected foolishness down to a black art. Now, it amazed me how my soldiers would sometimes commit egregious acts of idiocy, and follow it up by recording their actions in photographic or audio-visual form - thereby supplying incrimination leading to their own demise!? That’s the law of multiplicative idiocy.

Recently, on a local blog, I was conversing with an argumentative and illogical fellow. No sooner had I soundly discounted all his faulty lines of reasoning, when a mysterious second fellow appeared on the blog and echoed the first fellow’s identical illogic. Little did “either” of them know that I’m an admin for the blog… and I could see that “both” fellows were posting from the same IP address! Upon greater inspection, a third and fourth troublesome fellow on the blog were also from this same IP address! When pressed for the truth, the original fellow claimed that the other “three” fellows were indeed real people (housemates) whom he shared his home computer with. Of course, he couldn’t then explain why when I tracerouted his IP address it routed back to a single-point external gateway for a local health insurance company (as verified by their IT security staff). That’s the law of multiplicative idiocy.

How about the lady who tried to pay for her Wal-Mart merchandise with a counterfeit bill? She used a bill of such a high denomination ($1 Million) that not only did the store have no choice but to examine the bill with such scrutiny as would certainly discover the fake… but the store wouldn’t have had nearly enough cash to even make change, anyway! That’s the law of multiplicative idiocy.

The robber who empties the convenience store cash register, but then pays for a soda with his credit card before leaving. The student who vandalizes school property, then brags about it to a teacher. The man who shows up to DUI court drunk. That’s the law of multiplicative idiocy.

Like most people today I was incredibly disappointed at the American justice system. Paris Hilton, lawfully sentenced to 23 days in jail, was set free after 73 hours. [story]

I say “free”, because that’s pretty much what it is. Instead of serving the rest of her time in prison (which is supposed to be a bad place), she is allowed to go to her multi-million dollar Sunset Strip home under “house-arrest”. Sounds really heart-breaking, right? That will teach her! Instead of 20 days in a small cell… 40 days in a beach party palace. She went from not having even a cellphone back to her full-blown life, merely limited to the boundaries of her personal resort castle.

Everything about this is fishy. This was supposedly for medical reasons? Then why didn’t she go to the hospital? Sounds like she merely cried her way out of it… greased the palm of some prison official… and got herself a psychiatric get-out-of-jail-free card. And to add insult to judicial injury, her actual 73 hours in jail somehow miraculously counts as 5 days?!

Now, don’t get me wrong… I’m not getting on her because she’s a spoiled brat and I want to see her suffer (although I kinda do). I know that back when Martha Stewart received jail time it became frightening fashionable to bash her and question whether or not she was getting special treatment. I was not one of those people. I don’t think celebrities should be treated any different… and that’s why this Paris thing burns me. All she had to so was cry and they let her have her party life back. There is NO WAY that 20 days in jail equals 40 days of “mansion-arrest”. That doesn’t scan at all. The sheriff should probably be fired.

This reminds me a little bit when I was mobilized to go to Iraq and one of my soldiers decided she didn’t want to go (she only wanted the college money). We went to Fort Drum to get ready for Iraq and all she did was cry and cry and disobey orders and throw fits. And what did the Army do? They let her go home. That sent a terrible message to the rest of my troops who were bustin’ their butts. They weren’t all thrilled with going, but it was their job and part of their lawful agreement with the government. There was a day when honor and keeping one’s word meant something.

Anyways… there does appear to be a glimmer of hope here - the judge, apparently peaved at the spineless Sheriff, wants Hilton back in court. [story] We shall see.

UPDATE:

[story] Ok, I feel better now.

OLD VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.

Barack Obama exclaims in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and he calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary Clinton gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him because he doesn’t maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be very, very careful how you vote!

On the 3-hour flight down to Orlando there was a family with a small girl (probably about 18 months) sitting in front of us. The little girl cried loudly for about two thirds of the flight. That’s two hours! I cannot emphasize how incredibly brain-piercing a little whine machine can be when you have to sit 20 inches away! I found myself checking my watch every few minutes to see how much closer our landing was. Needless to say, the entire back of the plane (where we were) was getting angry at the constant noise.

After pondering at length, I think that some parents are really very inconsiderate when it comes to their children. Not that they are inconsiderate to their children, but they are oblivious to the offensive sounds, smells, etc. emanating from their children that they have either grown numb to (like smokers who no longer realize their clothes stink) or dismiss as expected behavior from youngsters. And then unfortunately, some parents expose others around them (on planes, in restaurants, on buses, in lines) to these offenses without care or consideration… like the world must accept it because kids will be kids.

Now I’m not talking about only a little fussing or crying. There is some level of acceptability here… some level of balance… and I think that’s the whole point. There is a standard of propriety that one must take responsibility for… whether a dog barking endlessly at 2am, or a screaming infant in a quiet restaurant.

In my opinion, if a kid is screaming inordinately loud, I don’t think parents can force others to hear it… any more than I can force someone to have to smell something highly unpleasant and nauseous, or to force feed someone something that tastes highly unpleasant. So if I have to leave my skunk at home, then kids whose screaming is ear-piercing and can’t be controlled should be left at home, too. The parents on my flight should have had to pay for everyone’s plane ticket within a 15-foot radius of their bawling spawn.

I must mention that I know some classy parents who are very cognizant of their child and will not take it to a quiet restaurant when they know it’s being fussy… and if it starts crying at the restaurant they’ll take it out. Bravo! For the rest of you, I challenge you to remember that there are those of us who haven’t gotten “used to” crying and screaming, and who can’t tune it out quite as easily as you have learned to.

For those not keeping score at home HD-DVD and Blu-ray are in a race to become the “new” DVD standard. They both use blue-spectrum laser light to increase the information density on their discs (standard DVDs use red light). Much like many such technology standardization pissing contests races, the two competing technologies will fight to see which group of consumers guessed wrong. Anyone out there ever own a Beta player?

Anyways… over the last few days there’s been a big hubbub about the HD-DVD key being publicly released. Obviously the HD-DVD people aren’t happy… the MPAA isn’t happy… the successful hackers Blu-ray hired to break the encryption (just my opinion) are pleased with themselves… and the Blu-ray folks are smiling.

On the site Digg there was even a bit of a revolt when the admins there sought to delete the article there that was “outing” the key. Granted, they deleted the article by a cease-and-desist order, but their user community revolted (of sorts) and plastered the code everywhere on the site… and the admins ultimately relented to their users. Now we’ll see what happens to Digg.

Here’s a little more of the story from Gizmodo:

The power of Web 2.0 is in full effect over at Digg, where users are revolting over Digg’s decision to pull a story (that netted over 15,000 diggs) and reportedly boot a user for posting the HD-DVD AACS Processing Key number, which would allow someone to crack the copy protection on an HD-DVD. The front page (along with two and three) of Digg consists entirely of stories flaunting the number or criticizing Digg for its actions.

While it might not have proven to be the best course of action in hindsight, we seriously doubt that Kevin Rose’s decision to pull the story revealing the HD-DVD key was selling out or intentionally betraying the community. A number of people have pointed out that HD-DVD is a Digg sponsor, and have used that fact to level such charges at Kevin.

We have sponsors too, but that doesn’t ever mean we’d sell out our readers or alter our content because of those sponsors. Kevin has equally shown nothing but commitment to the Digg’s users, community, and site’s integrity. People should hear out his explanation for this move before wholesale trashing Digg’s founder.

That said, tonight’s been a watermark in social media, even just looking at the ingenious (and often hilarious) variations users have come up with to cram the key into headlines, comments and users invites. Personal favorite so far: “Digg deleted my hard drive for posting the HD-DVD KEY! Now my hard drive refuses to write in binary. I get Error Code: 09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0 . Oh noz.”

The Madman has maintained www.madmanonline.com for a little while now. Granted, it has remained dormant for a long time… but recently the madness returned one last time.

It’s been over a year since I saw fit to bring enlightenment to the masses. I promised myself that I’d never write another one of these again, but I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I may have one last rave left in me.

Looking back, I think fondly of the day that I invented the "blog" and started my first little website, which had a shelf life of one month before my service provider removed me due to complaints. Since that time, I’ve seen my creation grow to great lengths. Seems like everybody’s got a blog these days. The unimportant, unintelligent, and clearly illiterate all see fit to post the stupid details of their worthless lives for all the world to read. I’ve seen them, I’ve read them. It’s sad. It’s a brutal self delusion to post the accounts of one’s personal life believing that anybody cares. Nobody cares.

It was because of this blatant disregard for all that is worth reading that I retired from all web design and commentary for so long. I sat back and read Time magazine declare "YOU" the man of the year, with all the MySpaces, Friendsters, Facebooks, etc. We, as a society, have decided that the meaningless and unimportant is key, and have forsaken all rational thought.

Example: Anna Nicole Smith. Just in case you missed the twenty-four hour news coverage, let me fill you in on something. She’s dead. As of this moment, the cause of death has yet to be determined. I’m willing to put $100 right now on drug use. Doesn’t really matter, to be honest. The world is a better place without her. It’s true. She wasn’t a star. The only reason she was famous is because she married a decrepit old man hoping he’d die and she could get all his money. Now she’s dead. Justice is served, the gene pool is a little deeper, and I tilted back a cold one in celebration. But, when this empty life finally ended, it’s all the news could talk about. I’ve seen hour-long shows talking about her "career." She won’t be missed. Mother freaking Theresa got less coverage. We’ve lost sight of the big picture.

Still not convinced? Well, if there was one thing that could keep our eyes off Anna Nicole’s hottie-to-fatty-to-hottie career, it’s Britney Spears. What happened there?! Let’s review. Somewhere around 1997 or 1998, and to be honest, it’s not really important when. She started as jail bait. That’s what she was. She was 16 years old and dancing around in a catholic schoolgirl outfit. She was a hit with the girlies, but an even bigger hit with men age 18-34. She played that card for a while, then it seems like overnight she went from teen queen to trailer trash. She married a no-talent wigger going by K.Fed. Eh… I can’t even type it without dry-heaving. Well, I was perfectly content ignoring her exploits and focusing on the rest of pop culture. The fact that she’s bred has me quite disturbed on a level deep down in places I don’t like to think about. But lately… I just can’t imagine what her kids are going to be like in school when some guy can present a picture of mommy’s snatch that can be found all over the internet. Oh, but it gets better. I see the front page of the New York Post and there’s Britney… bald-headed. I will repeat that. I see the front page of the New York Post and there’s Britney… bald-headed. Apparently she was in rehab for less than twenty-four hours, went bat-shit crazy, and shaved her head. This is front page news, people. We may very well be on the cusp of electing our first female president or our first black president. Anna Nicole Smith is still dead, and Britney is getting this kind of ink. Sad world. My only hope is that drug use can take her out too. Maybe a plane crash. We haven’t had a good plane crash since Aaliyah.

So, what’s the point I’m getting at? The fact is, that everybody has their own thing. People are making their own "shows" and posting them. Fifteen minutes of fame are being handed out to every shmoe with a webcam. The internet is impure, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. It’s on its way to hell in a hand-basket, and quite frankly, the only thing I can do is let the cycle ride itself out. After everyone gets tired of their own voice, perhaps there will be a demand once again for intelligent introspect. Until such a time as that, I’ll leave this ship before it sinks. Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of good left on the internet. Tubedaze.com, for example. Check it out. Somebody’s braving the storm.

So, after over 10 years of raving on the internet, I close this book. Under my belt are literally hundreds of complaints, four servers removing my site, and more than just a little justification. Let’s just take a brief look back.

I was there to point out the shortcomings of Tara Lapinski. You remember her, right? Yeah, me neither. Figure skating… some sport.

Let’s not forget Ashlee Simpson, the less talented half of Joe Simpson’s gravy train. I can’t possibly forget her SNL appearance back in October ‘04. Ashlee, seriously, you made my year… and I like your sister’s boobs.

There were South Carolina drivers, crazy comic store girls with mattresses in closets… and let’s not forget the list. Chances are, you were on it.

Well, that was enough of a romp down memory lane. "The Madman" was a fun character to play. Before I go, I leave you one last word of enlightenment: If someone asks if you are a god, you say yes.

Good luck, and get a helmet. We have nowhere to go but down.

~Madman

It’s the politics. Rather than a day dedicated to the otherwise noble pursuit of conscientious living, Earth Day is an event laden in politics and alarmism. Under the guise of appropriate global stewardship schools and institutions push left-tainted propaganda that has more to do with their agendas than with genuine science and conservation. Don’t believe the hype, it’s a sequel.

This should really be called Hypocrisy Day. Big-name politicians and Hollywood elites parade their small armies around in private jets giving high-brow lectures at ritzy, exclusive donation dinners… or at quasi-socialist college activist groups. These aerial jaunts are the least “green” action anyone could legally perform… yet nobody in the green-camp questions these shysters… because they are all on the “same side” - wink wink nudge nudge.

And in today’s information age video is actively streamed to all corners of the globe. At no other time in history has there been less of a need to parade around in jets to promote anything… with the internet that’s no longer necessary - and I dare say for promoting “global warming awareness” it’s a bit contradictory. While we’re at it, let’s employ a fleet of C-130s to carpet-bomb every major city of the world with leaflets warning of deforestation due to wasteful uses of paper.

For my Earth Day I wanted to increase my carbon footprint. I read an article that said various global-warming loony-tunes believe bovine omissions (yes… their anal gases) are causing more greenhouse effects than most any other source… due to mankind’s “insatiable” desire for beef. Well, if God didn’t want us to eat cows He wouldn’t have made them out of steak. So I just spent the last 24 hours eating around 60 ounces of steak.

It’s the end of the world as we know it… I feel fine.

HEADLINES FROM THE YEAR 2029

Ozone created by electric cars now killing millions in Mexifornia, the seventh largest country in the world.

White minorities still trying to have English recognized as Mexifornia’s third language.

Couple petitions court to reinstate heterosexual marriage.

Iran still closed off - physicists estimate it will take at least 58 more years before radioactivity decreases to safe levels.

France pleads for global help after being taken over by Jamaica.

Castro finally dies at age 112; Cuban cigars can now be imported legally, but President Chelsea Clinton has banned all smoking.

85-year $75.8 billion study concludes: Diet and Exercise is key to weight loss.

Average weight of Americans plunges to 217 lbs.

Japanese scientists have created a camera with such a fast shutter speed, they now can photograph a woman with her mouth shut.

Massachusetts executes last remaining Evangelical.

Supreme Court rules punishment of criminals, violates their civil rights.

New federal law requires that all nail clippers, screwdrivers, fly swatters and rolled-up newspapers must be registered by January 2036.

IRS sets lowest tax rate at 75 percent.

The blessing of the bar isn’t a pagan ritual, nor is the bar (called The Taproom) unholy in some inherent way. In fact, since Terra Nova Church meets right next door it is a great spot for us Terra Nova types to gather. Some of us even meet there once a month for Theology at the Taproom. The folks at The Taproom are our neighbors and Ed Marcelle would readily call it an honor to call God’s rich blessing down upon a great gathering place with great ales. There are many principles at work here, but I think chief among them is the calling to affect our culture. This is a clear Biblical command and articulated most clearly in Mark Driscoll’s outstanding book The Radical Reformission.

Inevitably, there’ll always be the chorus of legalists, isolationists, and curmudgeonly saints who invoke one of many false dogmas to not-so-nicely disparage this “blessing of the bar”. To these confused folk either the ale is evil, or the bar is evil, or the people in the bar are evil… blah blah blah. Whatever. I can’t help but want to suggest they read a Bible in their own language for a change of pace (yes, that was a subtle KJV dig).

Anyways, without further blabber, here is the video from the St. Patty’s Day 2007 blessing of the bar by Ed Marcelle. I wouldn’t have missed this anti-legalistic pilgrimage for anything… I was there on the second floor and you can hear me in the video yell “MARCELLE!” when he is introduced.

Again, this post could have also been called: Al Gore Finally Won Something

And even before you read any further you should think about checking out Planet Gore.

Last night at the Democratic National Conven- err… I mean at the Academy Awards, Al Gore’s well-made yet scientifically shady documentary called An Inconvenient Truth won for best documentary (or something like that). I have trouble believing a guy who parades around the world on private jets to persuade people to “use less fuel”. While I’m at it why doesn’t Rosanne Barr invite me to Old Country Buffet to pitch me a low calorie diet.

Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’? — $30,000 utility bill
ABC News

Back home in Tennessee, safely ensconced in his suburban Nashville home, Vice President Al Gore is no doubt basking in the Oscar awarded to “An Inconvenient Truth,” the documentary he inspired and in which he starred. But a local free-market think tank is trying to make that very home emblematic of what it deems Gore’s environmental hypocrisy.

Armed with Gore’s utility bills for the last two years, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research charged Monday that the gas and electric bills for the former vice president’s 20-room home and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours.

[...]

Gore is not the only environmentalist associated with “An Inconvenient Truth” who has come under fire for personal habits — and not all the criticism has come from the Right.

Writing in The Atlantic Monthly in 2004, liberal writer Eric Alterman criticized producer Laurie David for her use of private Gulfstream jets. David, he wrote “reviles the owners of SUVs as terrorist enablers, yet gives herself a pass when it comes to chartering one of the most wasteful uses of fossil-based fuels imaginable.” New Republic writer Gregg Easterbrook followed up, computing that “one cross-country flight in a Gulfstream is the same, in terms of Persian-Gulf dependence and greenhouse-gas emissions, as if she drove a Hummer for an entire year.” [...]

So why is it that über-wealthy jabber-jaws can get away with such insane hypocrisy? Why can Rosie O’Donnell say that no “normal” citizen has any reason to own a gun, yet she hires personal bodyguards who carry concealed firearms to protect her? Why can the president of Virgin Airways be stroked alongside Al Gore at environmental symposiums when his industry is “supposedly” the problem? It’s because none of this is about truth… it’s about image and agenda. Surprise, surprise.

Governments in rich nations are spending billions of dollars to buy a clearer conscience over climate change. Are they getting their money’s worth?

Enlightened individuals, those who stay awake at nights wondering what they can do to prevent the polar caps from melting, at least have a growing menu of choices.

Sydney-based Easy Being Green says it will mitigate your cat’s flatulent contribution to global warming for $8. The same company could also make your granny “carbon-neutral” at $10 a year, according to a report in the Australian newspaper last weekend. [...]

~ China, India Smile as West Overpays for Climate, by Andy Mukherjee

You can’t make this stuff up. In lieu of the “findings” that a huge portion of global-warming comes from bovine flatulence, the normal pet owner can now buy credits to offset their pet’s flatulent contribution to greenhouse gases. This is more like a sick dystopic sci-fi novel than reality… but inconvenient truth is stranger than inconvenient fiction, I guess. However, I did find an article that I think deserves serious attention - The Onion reports that the temperature of coffee is expected to rise nine degrees by the end of the 21st century!

Anyways, I’ll leave you with a little inconvenient truth about Al Gore’s personal conservation efforts:

POWER: GORE MANSION USES 20X AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD; CONSUMPTION INCREASE AFTER ‘TRUTH’
Mon Feb 26 2007 17:16:14 ET
www.drudgereport.com

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization committed to achieving a freer, more prosperous Tennessee through free market policy solutions, issued a press release late Monday:

Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.

Gore’s mansion, [20-room, eight-bathroom] located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk to walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.

In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.

For Further Information, Contact:
Nicole Williams, (615) 383-6431
editor@tennesseepolicy.org

I am utterly tired of hearing about so-called man-made global warming. Why? Not because I’m in the middle of a snowstorm. Not because of any weather pattern I’ve seen in my own lifetime. More than anything… I am sick of hearing about it because I firmly believe it is exaggerated to the extreme… and when I research into the politics and money-trail of it the smell intensifies.

The hoax of the doctrine of man-made global warming that is being foisted upon the world by decree, and the junk science that is manipulated to support it, represents a creeping fascism whose agenda to stifle open debate betrays the fact that climate change hysteria is a farce intended to crush freedoms and further centralize global power.
~ Paul Joseph Watson from a post at PropagandaMatrix.com

You see, there are mountains of evidence showing our climate to be driven by very, VERY large forces outside our control as a society. The sun’s complex cycles control our climate more than anything else combined times several orders of magnitude. The research exists… but it is boring, you see, because the reality of not having control of the climate renders politicians, militant environmentalists, and grant-hungry researchers powerless and cashless. Like anything else, simply follow the money.

There is something quite horrible about the complete failure of America’s journalists to even acknowledge there might be something terribly wrong about the theory of Global Warming. So far the published science that purports to support the theory has been severely challenged and even disproved to the point of having deliberately falsified data.
~ Alan Caruba from an article in the Canada Free Press

Now I know that climatologists can reasonably discern that over the short-term temperatures give indications of a slight increase in overall global temperatures… but they also know that temperatures follow many complex cycles that include “mini”-ice-ages and “mini”-meltdowns and such. We also know that the ice caps regulate some of this activity much the same way a buffer moderates a chemical solution. And while it is evident that people have an effect on the environment it is rather alarmist to assert that the current warming trend (which appears to be solar-related) is man-made.

Yet alarmism seems to rule the day, and hysteria drives big lies. The big problem with hysteria is that it is lucrative. Lobby groups and politicians use it to gain political capital. Environmentalist wackos use it to push a social agenda. Researchers use it to scare up big grants. The mainstream media uses it to drive big advertising revenue. Plainly… hysteria sells. In fact, it sells so well that anybody daring to disagree is immediately attacked by hysteria’s cunning benefactors. I’ve too often heard the term “denier” thrown about lately with regard to man-made global warming. I hold a viewpoint highly suspect whose supporters so venomously and irrationally attack the dissenting opinions.

All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes.
~ Adolf Hitler as written in Mein Kampf

A great rule of thumb to follow is to not immediately believe anything you read or hear from people who benefit from your belief in what they are printing or saying. Did you get that, because that was a biggie. Ok, I’ll repeat it louder. A great rule of thumb to follow is to not immediately believe anything you read or hear from people who benefit from your belief in what they are printing or saying. Do your homework and use extra common sense, especially when something is being touted as “potentially catastrophic”… after all, how many pieces of mail do you receive that say “extremely urgent - open immediately” only to find out that it’s junk mail? Man-made global warming… yeah, that’s probably junk mail, too.

Two New Books Confirm Global Warming is Natural; Not Caused By Human Activity
Tue Jan 30 2007 10:02:32 ET

Two powerful new books say today’s global warming is due not to human activity but primarily to a long, moderate solar-linked cycle. Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years, by physicist Fred Singer and economist Dennis Avery was released just before Christmas. The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change, by Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark and former BBC science writer Nigel Calder (Icon Books), is due out in March.

Singer and Avery note that most of the earth’s recent warming occurred before 1940, and thus before much human-emitted CO2. Moreover, physical evidence shows 600 moderate warmings in the earth’s last million years. The evidence ranges from ancient Nile flood records, Chinese court documents and Roman wine grapes to modern spectral analysis of polar ice cores, deep seabed sediments, and layered cave stalagmites.

Unstoppable Global Warming shows the earth’s temperatures following variations in solar intensity through centuries of sunspot records, and finds cycles of sun-linked isotopes in ice and tree rings. The book cites the work of Svensmark, who says cosmic rays vary the earth’s temperatures by creating more or fewer of the low, wet clouds that cool the earth. It notes that global climate models can’t accurately register cloud effects.

The Chilling Stars relates how Svensmark’s team mimicked the chemistry of earth’s atmosphere, by putting realistic mixtures of atmospheric gases into a large reaction chamber, with ultraviolet light as a stand-in for the sun. When they turned on the UV, microscopic droplets—cloud seeds—started floating through the chamber.

“We were amazed by the speed and efficiency with which the electrons [generated by cosmic rays] do their work of creating the building blocks for the cloud condensation nuclei,” says Svensmark.

The Chilling Stars documents how cosmic rays amplify small changes in the sun’s irradiance fourfold, creating 1-2 degree C cycles in earth’s temperatures: Cosmic rays continually slam into the earth’s atmosphere from outer space, creating ion clusters that become seeds for small droplets of water and sulfuric acid. The droplets then form the low, wet clouds that reflect solar energy back into space. When the sun is more active, it shields the earth from some of the rays, clouds wane, and the planet warms.

Unstoppable Global Warming documents the reality of a moderate, natural, 1500-year climate cycle on the earth. The Chilling Stars explains the why and how.

~ Matt Drudge