Thursday, May 17, 2007

Mommy, Ron Paul Isn't Playing Fair

Kids can be so whiny, crying for their mommies when things aren’t going their way, and so can Republicans, evidently.

Ron Paul’s message, articulated in the recent debates, seems to have the Republicans all in a dither and attempting to have him barred from future GOP debates.  The most recent Republican to crybaby about Ron Paul is the State of Michigan’s GOP chairman, Saul Anuzis.

Michigan party chairman Saul Anuzis said he will circulate a petition among Republican National Committee members to ban Paul from more debates.

I guess the Republicans don’t really want to debate, but simply continue the status quo.

Michigan GOP leader wants Paul barred from future debates

Posted by John Venlet on 05/17 at 11:46 AM
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"Modern Indulgences"

I do the majority of my yard work by hand, eschewing gas powered tools like leaf blowers, edging tools, snow blowers, and such, not because I’m overly wrought by fears of global warming, but because I dislike the noise.  I wonder if I can market my non-mechanized yard work, which is environmentally friendly, as carbon offsets to maybe Al Gore’s indulgence trading company Generation Investment Management? My prices are relatively reasonable.

Victor Davis Hansen applies his pen to the subject of carbon offset indulgences, I mean trading, in a piece titled The New Penance doesn’t Offset Much. From Hansen’s piece.

In other words, “offsets” is merely a euphemism for words like cynicism and hypocrisy. So by all means help save the planet, worry about the poor, establish charities. Just spare us the medieval idea that such penance ever excuses your own excess.

Posted by John Venlet on 05/17 at 05:22 AM
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"I'm Melting, I'm Melting"

So said the wicked witch of the East, in L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, and this also is being said about an area in Antarctica.  Take a look at the alarmist headlines which proclaim “vast regions,” “huge snow melt,” “California-sized area of Antarctica,” etcetera, etcetera.

Upon reading the articles, you’ll find that some areas of snow DID indeed melt in Antarctica in the year 2005, but, you’ll also find that the areas mentioned, re-froze, as reported in the NYT.

Balmy air, with a temperature of up to 41 degrees in some places, persisted across three broad swathes of West Antarctica long enough to leave a distinctive signature of melting, a layer of ice in the snow that cloaks the vast ice sheets of the frozen continent. The layer formed the same way a crust of ice can form in a yard in winter when a warm day and then a freezing night follow a snowfall, the scientists said.

Additionally, note the use of the word “melting,” and consider that most individuals, upon reading the word “melting,” interpret its meaning as “to disappear as if by dissolving,” like the wicked witch of the East, as Merriam-Webster defines the word (see 2.b), rather than understanding that the “melting,” as happened in Antarctica in 2005 and so breathlessly reported by the media, was simply an alteration of the snow (see the primary definition (1.) of melting in the Merriam-Webster link).

And last but not least, note the comment buried at the end of almost every news article I read regarding this “melting” of Antarctica.

It is too soon to know whether the warm spell was a fluke or a portent, Dr. Nghiem said.

A “fluke or a portent?” For the global warming alarmist faithful, the Antarctica story is a portent, and Dr. Nghiem is the prophet.

Quote above taken from the New York Times story titled Analysis Finds Large Antarctic Area Has Melted.

Posted by John Venlet on 05/17 at 04:19 AM
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