Recently the sequel to “Freakonomics” has been published as “Super Freakonomics” once again authored by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. While the original book was a sort of tongue in cheek view to six questions with sharply differing topics, but the authors tied these together by mining data from various sources. This sequel is similar but poses only five questions which are fascinating in and of themselves but with a variety of related answers. While the first book clearly was intended as a sort of semi-serious entertainment, this one is sort of and entertaining response to some semi-serious questions. For example the first question posed is “How is a street prostitute like a department store Santa?” This question does eventually get answered but not before the authors wander off to discuss how women have historically been punished just for being female. They explore wage inequities, the punishing of witches, the limited career opportunities for women, and of course prostitution. Certainly these are all interesting and important questions which eventually lead to the fact that prostitution can be very lucrative for a very small investment in time and that it is essentially seasonal in nature – much like department store Santa’s.
Each of these questions posed by Levitt and Dubner is used as the basis to address various incentives and their impact but to explore other related aspects which frequently reveals some very odd and seemingly unconnected answers. Perhaps the most serious of these questions and answers is “Unbelievable stories about apathy and altruism”. However, the actual question posed is “Why did 38 people watch Kitty Genovese be murdered?” This question is used as a launching pad for a whole series of tangential but related questions like “How the ACLU encourages crime? “What caused the 1960”s crime explosion?’ or one of the most interesting of these “Why don’t real people behave like people in the lab?” This latter question illustrates the Heisenberg Principle of Uncertainty in relation to people or how people react when observed versus unobserved.
Clearly this book is more serious than the first one and while the authors continuously refer to economists this book really has little if anything to do with economics. It is mostly an examination of various topics of general interest and how they impact society and in some cases our economy. Perhaps the two most interesting topics they address along these lines is how the required car safety seats do not add safety to a child and in some cases are actually more dangerous than just using seat belts. Of course the economic tie here is the actual saftey results versus the legal requirement for the car seats and the financial advantage for the manufacturers. But the authors have a real sarcastic romp with Al Gore and Global Warming – errr – Global cooling – errr Climate Change. How the scientific facts do not support Al Gore’s inconvenient truth and some of the crazier ideas associated with counteracting climate change. They scoff at the windmills, the myth of carbon dioxide as the driver, and how volcanoes are more than just interesting landmarks. But then they go on to discuss some actual solutions – given that some corrective action is necessary. Of course some of these solutions while technically possible fall into the category of solutions looking for problems.
All in all this is an entertaining book but not the quality of the first. Still I highly recommend this book just for the section dealing with “What do Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo have in common?” That chapter alone is worth the price of the book.
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Climate Change Hypocrisy
There seems to be some really bad news for those uneducated and over educated alarmists who jumped on Al Gore’s self serving Climate Change Bandwagon. It is amusing watching the political sponsors backpedal and distance themselves from this “important” issue that they were so recently extolling. Both Barrack Obama and John McCain drank the Al Gore Kool-aide on Global Warming but now are suffering from the effects of unintended consequences as their support for ethanol as a fossil fuel replacement is causing alarming rises in food prices and creating worldwide food shortages. Apparently the politicians along with many of the trendy fashion setters on the East and West Coasts fail to understand that corn is not just eaten, it is used in a wide variety of ways – like corn syrup. John McCain has joined other GOP politicians in proposing that the Environmental Protection Age (aka We know what’s best for you agency) in loosening federal mandates on ethanol in the fuel supply. Barrack Obama in his usual breathtaking grasp of problems and solutions stated that “this is just something we are going to have to deal with”. Very decisive and I’m sure he HOPES that someone somewhere will come up with a solution while he is focused on CHANGE.
It is understandable that Al Gore has led the charge to de-industrialize the Western Powers, the US in particular, because after all he has admitted at a March 1st conference that he has a financial stake in various “green” companies that are pushing alternative energy sources. But this must be placed in context with his alarmist warnings “that what is at stake here is our ability to live on planet Earth, to have a future as a civilization.” But it seems that in light of recent developments both McCain and Obama are moving away from Gore and his “inconvenient truth” which was never the whole truth and certainly self-serving. What are these “recent developments?” Well it seems amidst the dire warnings from the Goreacle that the Earth was in imminent danger of becoming the “scorched Earth “ due to global warming, we are now faced with a cooling planet.
What science has learned from that old fashioned scientific standby – observation – and not easily manipulated computer models – is that temperatures on Earth have been cooling since 1998. Arctic sea ice is growing and the Antarctic summer thaw began later because of colder temperatures. Furthermore a report in Nature projects that cooler ocean currents are going to cause at least a decade of colder weather. This projection follows two straight mild hurricane seasons. This last winter was the worst that has been experienced in the US and Canada in some time and the snowfall in Michigan was the worst they have experienced in the last 50 years. And all of this happened in spite of a rise in carbon dioxide emissions.
These are facts which the Goreacle and other alarmists would rather not consider even though reputable climatologists have been sounding the warning that the Earth’s climate is a great deal more complex than a self-serving oracle like Gore realizes and that these dire warnings are very pre-mature. Nevertheless this debate is far from over but the spike in food prices and growing food shortages worldwide show the folly of premature action and a failure to understand the ever changing Earth and the scientists who study the Earth and its climate. Recently there was a great deal of media attention over a large calving glacier but what was not given the same amount of media attention was the explanation offered by a University of Alabama scientist (Roy Spencer) who dismissed all of the concerns by pointing out that this “happens every 150 years”. This is very indicative of the way the whole climate change hysteria has been handled by the media. In the early 19th Century Charles Lyell postulated the “Theory of Uniformitarianism” which essentially says that the geological processes that we see today are the same processes that have always existed. This means that it is very rare – if it occurs at all – for something to happen that has never happened before.
There has been concern over the Great Lakes and their falling water levels. This has been viewed as another example of global warming and environmental destruction brought on by irresponsible human activity. However, the Army Corps of Engineers who monitors these things has reported that Lakes Ontario and Erie are closer to record high water marks than they are to their low water marks and this is after just ONE snowy winter. Perhaps it is time for the environmental alarmists to re-examine their position now that it seems that so many of their concerns seem to be unfounded or at least not demonstrable based on empirical data. Computer models can be manipulated and must be verified based on actual observations. Instead of supporting his “Inconvenient Truth” self-serving hype and the de-industrialization of America based on the Kyoto Protocol, maybe it is time for Al Gore to listen to scientists specializing in the climate rather than psychology, sociology, or other unrelated disciplines.
It is understandable that Al Gore has led the charge to de-industrialize the Western Powers, the US in particular, because after all he has admitted at a March 1st conference that he has a financial stake in various “green” companies that are pushing alternative energy sources. But this must be placed in context with his alarmist warnings “that what is at stake here is our ability to live on planet Earth, to have a future as a civilization.” But it seems that in light of recent developments both McCain and Obama are moving away from Gore and his “inconvenient truth” which was never the whole truth and certainly self-serving. What are these “recent developments?” Well it seems amidst the dire warnings from the Goreacle that the Earth was in imminent danger of becoming the “scorched Earth “ due to global warming, we are now faced with a cooling planet.
What science has learned from that old fashioned scientific standby – observation – and not easily manipulated computer models – is that temperatures on Earth have been cooling since 1998. Arctic sea ice is growing and the Antarctic summer thaw began later because of colder temperatures. Furthermore a report in Nature projects that cooler ocean currents are going to cause at least a decade of colder weather. This projection follows two straight mild hurricane seasons. This last winter was the worst that has been experienced in the US and Canada in some time and the snowfall in Michigan was the worst they have experienced in the last 50 years. And all of this happened in spite of a rise in carbon dioxide emissions.
These are facts which the Goreacle and other alarmists would rather not consider even though reputable climatologists have been sounding the warning that the Earth’s climate is a great deal more complex than a self-serving oracle like Gore realizes and that these dire warnings are very pre-mature. Nevertheless this debate is far from over but the spike in food prices and growing food shortages worldwide show the folly of premature action and a failure to understand the ever changing Earth and the scientists who study the Earth and its climate. Recently there was a great deal of media attention over a large calving glacier but what was not given the same amount of media attention was the explanation offered by a University of Alabama scientist (Roy Spencer) who dismissed all of the concerns by pointing out that this “happens every 150 years”. This is very indicative of the way the whole climate change hysteria has been handled by the media. In the early 19th Century Charles Lyell postulated the “Theory of Uniformitarianism” which essentially says that the geological processes that we see today are the same processes that have always existed. This means that it is very rare – if it occurs at all – for something to happen that has never happened before.
There has been concern over the Great Lakes and their falling water levels. This has been viewed as another example of global warming and environmental destruction brought on by irresponsible human activity. However, the Army Corps of Engineers who monitors these things has reported that Lakes Ontario and Erie are closer to record high water marks than they are to their low water marks and this is after just ONE snowy winter. Perhaps it is time for the environmental alarmists to re-examine their position now that it seems that so many of their concerns seem to be unfounded or at least not demonstrable based on empirical data. Computer models can be manipulated and must be verified based on actual observations. Instead of supporting his “Inconvenient Truth” self-serving hype and the de-industrialization of America based on the Kyoto Protocol, maybe it is time for Al Gore to listen to scientists specializing in the climate rather than psychology, sociology, or other unrelated disciplines.
Friday, September 14, 2007
The Decline and Fall of Science
What has happened to “science”? Does it exist anymore or has the pressure on professors to “publish or perish” become so intense that the long and arduous effort necessary to do effective research is being bypassed in favor of “statistical” studies many of which are simply data mining activities with no scientific basis. Worse we are being bombarded by “studies” that are so ridiculous that one must wonder if they were intended as joke or a satirical comment on other similar studies. One of these ridiculous studies was recently published that purported that the brains of political liberals were more developed and had greater reasoning ability than the brains of political conservatives. That isn’t a joke, so stop laughing – this was a serious study conducted by a --- dare I say it --- professor --- now don’t roll your eyes like that – he really was a professor at NYU.
This was a real “scientific” research project that consisted of showing students a card with a design and then flashing that design on the screen for a tenth of a second and the student had to push a button if the designs matched. This experiment was divided into two phases. In phase one the designs matched every time and in phase two they never matched. The objective of the experiment was to determine the ability of the individual to make snap judgments in limited time. Once the results were tabulated it seems that all of the students got 100% right in the first phase but in phase two those students who professed to be “liberal” only make errors 34% of the time while those students who classified themselves as “conservative” made errors 44% of the time, thus demonstrating that the “liberal” brain is more capable of making quick and accurate decisions than the “conservative” brain. Stop laughing – really now – I did not make that up. Furthermore, this experiment was based on a total of 43 students with half (please stop laughing – I KNOW that 43 is a prime number so there wasn’t an even division) of the students being selected from a West Coast University and the other half (maybe they used two midgets and classed them as one person – you never can tell when it comes to professors) were from Eastern Universities. Where they found conservatives in these bastions of learning and group think is beyond me, but the professor assures us this was a balanced study.
Of course this entire exercise – which you can be assured, was paid for in some way by the taxpayers – is completely laughable. Not only is the total number of students studied miniscule to the point of being statistically irrelevant the selection of students only from East and West Coast universities further compromised whatever this was. Of course the difference of 10% points on such a small sample further compromises any the activity but the most ridiculous point was the conclusion that liberal students are more capable of making considered and reasoned decisions than conservative students who simply react like trained monkeys. This same experiment run with different students across the country and incorporating smaller colleges and universities, including military cadets, would undoubtedly yield a different set of results – most likely showing that there is no difference in the brains of people or how they use them. Although the brains of college professors might actually be smaller and more ossified.
This brings us to the other popular liberal cause and that is global warming, which has replaced the hysteria over global cooling so those giant liberal brains have now connected the two and assure us that global warming is driving global cooling and the warmer it gets the more it will cool – or is that vice versa – the colder it gets the warmer it will become. It really doesn’t matter because none of these liberal cause apparatchiks really research any of this stuff anyway. The thing that amazes me is it is widely believed that much of the Earth was once covered by ice. This was called the “ice age” and there appear to have been several of them. During this period animals grew long hairy coats and in spite of PETA the human let their hair grow and wore fur clothes which they took from these poor defenseless animals. This tendency to grow long hair in times of stress can be observed on most college campuses – especially on the East and west Coasts.
However, the ice ages did occur and glaciers did appear to have covered much of North America. The long haired animals seem to have disappeared along with – are you ready for this astonishing observation -- the ice!! The ice sheets and glaciers are gone and we are left to speculate on where they went. Of course we are left with only two possibilities migration or melting – I choose melting. Now I guess we could assume that all of those cave people built big fires to melt all of that ice but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of that while there is evidence that the entire climate got warmer. Sort of a Paleolithic global warming that occurred seemingly without any human assistance since the earliest of these occurred before humans graced the Planet. In fact, there is evidence that this warming was so great that Antarctica was NOT covered by ice.
Of course these are the inconvenient facts not addressed by the deep thinkers who are determined to indict Western Civilization for all of the ills of the world as they demand The US sign the Kyoto treaty before it is too late. What they aren’t telling you is that the Kyoto Treaty will not reduce CO2 nor will it have any impact on Global Warming at all, it just redistributes who can make the CO2 so the total remains the same. Just remember when you hear these ridiculous claims that they are coming from the same universities who gave us Ward Churchill and the scientific proof that liberals are smarter.
This was a real “scientific” research project that consisted of showing students a card with a design and then flashing that design on the screen for a tenth of a second and the student had to push a button if the designs matched. This experiment was divided into two phases. In phase one the designs matched every time and in phase two they never matched. The objective of the experiment was to determine the ability of the individual to make snap judgments in limited time. Once the results were tabulated it seems that all of the students got 100% right in the first phase but in phase two those students who professed to be “liberal” only make errors 34% of the time while those students who classified themselves as “conservative” made errors 44% of the time, thus demonstrating that the “liberal” brain is more capable of making quick and accurate decisions than the “conservative” brain. Stop laughing – really now – I did not make that up. Furthermore, this experiment was based on a total of 43 students with half (please stop laughing – I KNOW that 43 is a prime number so there wasn’t an even division) of the students being selected from a West Coast University and the other half (maybe they used two midgets and classed them as one person – you never can tell when it comes to professors) were from Eastern Universities. Where they found conservatives in these bastions of learning and group think is beyond me, but the professor assures us this was a balanced study.
Of course this entire exercise – which you can be assured, was paid for in some way by the taxpayers – is completely laughable. Not only is the total number of students studied miniscule to the point of being statistically irrelevant the selection of students only from East and West Coast universities further compromised whatever this was. Of course the difference of 10% points on such a small sample further compromises any the activity but the most ridiculous point was the conclusion that liberal students are more capable of making considered and reasoned decisions than conservative students who simply react like trained monkeys. This same experiment run with different students across the country and incorporating smaller colleges and universities, including military cadets, would undoubtedly yield a different set of results – most likely showing that there is no difference in the brains of people or how they use them. Although the brains of college professors might actually be smaller and more ossified.
This brings us to the other popular liberal cause and that is global warming, which has replaced the hysteria over global cooling so those giant liberal brains have now connected the two and assure us that global warming is driving global cooling and the warmer it gets the more it will cool – or is that vice versa – the colder it gets the warmer it will become. It really doesn’t matter because none of these liberal cause apparatchiks really research any of this stuff anyway. The thing that amazes me is it is widely believed that much of the Earth was once covered by ice. This was called the “ice age” and there appear to have been several of them. During this period animals grew long hairy coats and in spite of PETA the human let their hair grow and wore fur clothes which they took from these poor defenseless animals. This tendency to grow long hair in times of stress can be observed on most college campuses – especially on the East and west Coasts.
However, the ice ages did occur and glaciers did appear to have covered much of North America. The long haired animals seem to have disappeared along with – are you ready for this astonishing observation -- the ice!! The ice sheets and glaciers are gone and we are left to speculate on where they went. Of course we are left with only two possibilities migration or melting – I choose melting. Now I guess we could assume that all of those cave people built big fires to melt all of that ice but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of that while there is evidence that the entire climate got warmer. Sort of a Paleolithic global warming that occurred seemingly without any human assistance since the earliest of these occurred before humans graced the Planet. In fact, there is evidence that this warming was so great that Antarctica was NOT covered by ice.
Of course these are the inconvenient facts not addressed by the deep thinkers who are determined to indict Western Civilization for all of the ills of the world as they demand The US sign the Kyoto treaty before it is too late. What they aren’t telling you is that the Kyoto Treaty will not reduce CO2 nor will it have any impact on Global Warming at all, it just redistributes who can make the CO2 so the total remains the same. Just remember when you hear these ridiculous claims that they are coming from the same universities who gave us Ward Churchill and the scientific proof that liberals are smarter.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Critical Thinking - Death of
At one time critical thinking was one of the primary lessons learned as an undergraduate. This was taught in a variety of ways but was always viewed as a fundamental learning technique. The rationale was that in order to learn one must think and thinking must be disciplined because undisciplined thinking led to poor learning while a disciplined and structured approach led to better thinking and thus better learning. Good teachers cultivate critical thinking and encourage it in their classrooms frequently using the Socratic Method of questioning and some common questions are:
a) What did the text say or what was meant?
b) What is the source of your information?
c) How did you arrive at that conclusion?
d) What assumptions have you made or what assumptions were made by the author?
e) Are there alternate interpretations?
f) So why is this relevant?
This form of thinking lies at the heart of the “Scientific Method” which rests on these basic facts. These are “Observation” – the phenomena or topic of inquiry must be observed. The second is “Description” so that data presented to describe the phenomena must be repeatable and pertinent. “Prediction” is third so that the data must be consistent through time and the phenomena predictable. The fourth is “Control” meaning that the data sample must be across all possible occurrences and not dependent on selected or opportunistic data. The purpose of this step is to prevent falsification – intentional or unintentional – of data in support of the original postulation. This means that a “theory” must remain a “theory” until there is a sufficient body of evidence that demonstrates the postulation and allows for a predictable result in every case.
Alas this seems to be where the educational system has gone astray because increasingly the classroom has become a bastion of “belief” rather than a center of skepticism. This begins with what is perhaps the most egregious example of “belief” rather than “science” and this is “Evolution”.
This debate began with Charles Darwin’s “Theory of Evolution” as described in his seminal work “The Origin of the Species”. The first problem of course is that Darwin’s book did not address or describe the origin of species, it simply described how existing species “adapted” to their environment. At the time of it’s publication critical thinking was alive and well in the universities and there was widespread skepticism at the time about his conclusions. Darwin himself established criteria that must be met in order for his theory to be proven. To date none of those requirements have been met. Yet “Evolution” is taught in the classroom as a fact and any questioning or critical analysis of this is not permitted. This is a vivid example of how critical thinking is rapidly approaching extinction in our universities.
Most recently there is the issue of “Global Warming”. While the reality of global warming is really not questioned, the debate on causation –as allowed in the classroom – is restricted to human activity. Data from climatologists is dismissed as irrelevant and popular opinions, none of which meet the test of scientific investigation as outlined above. Another example of how critical thinking is being abandoned by our educators in favor of “belief”. However, while these are two of the most obvious examples they are not the only ones.
Perhaps the one that has most impacted our society is that of “side smoke” or “environmental tobacco smoke”. It is widely reported that anywhere from thousands to millions of people die each year from the effects of “side smoke” yet there is not a shred of empirical evidence to support this belief. The entire foundation for this conclusion rests on “statistics” but even these statistics – such as they are – are highly suspect because their source is not disclosed and not disclosed for a very good reason. No death certificate has ever read – cause of death – side smoke. These statistics are almost always couched in terms of “smoking related” but then the statistics almost by definition are suspect because everybody dies of something and virtually everyone on the planet has been exposed to side smoke in some form. Therefore, every death on the planet can be ascribed to “smoking related”. However, does anyone challenge these figures? No - -because students are taught to believe what they are told and not to think for themselves.
But then we get into the metaphysical realm, where challenge is certainly not encouraged. In spite of numerous examples and scientific studies, life after death is not accepted nor discussed, even though it meets enough of the scientific method to at least qualify as a theory. It must be remembered that all reasoning has a purpose and all too frequently the reasoning in our classrooms is aimed at conversion or indoctrination to a belief rather than leading to an independent conclusion. Educated people, schooled in critical thinking cannot be stampeded or swayed by demagogues or those given to flawed and fallacious thinking, so it is no surprise that critical thinking is dying in our bastions of learning where the objective no longer seems to be education but the espousal of belief.
a) What did the text say or what was meant?
b) What is the source of your information?
c) How did you arrive at that conclusion?
d) What assumptions have you made or what assumptions were made by the author?
e) Are there alternate interpretations?
f) So why is this relevant?
This form of thinking lies at the heart of the “Scientific Method” which rests on these basic facts. These are “Observation” – the phenomena or topic of inquiry must be observed. The second is “Description” so that data presented to describe the phenomena must be repeatable and pertinent. “Prediction” is third so that the data must be consistent through time and the phenomena predictable. The fourth is “Control” meaning that the data sample must be across all possible occurrences and not dependent on selected or opportunistic data. The purpose of this step is to prevent falsification – intentional or unintentional – of data in support of the original postulation. This means that a “theory” must remain a “theory” until there is a sufficient body of evidence that demonstrates the postulation and allows for a predictable result in every case.
Alas this seems to be where the educational system has gone astray because increasingly the classroom has become a bastion of “belief” rather than a center of skepticism. This begins with what is perhaps the most egregious example of “belief” rather than “science” and this is “Evolution”.
This debate began with Charles Darwin’s “Theory of Evolution” as described in his seminal work “The Origin of the Species”. The first problem of course is that Darwin’s book did not address or describe the origin of species, it simply described how existing species “adapted” to their environment. At the time of it’s publication critical thinking was alive and well in the universities and there was widespread skepticism at the time about his conclusions. Darwin himself established criteria that must be met in order for his theory to be proven. To date none of those requirements have been met. Yet “Evolution” is taught in the classroom as a fact and any questioning or critical analysis of this is not permitted. This is a vivid example of how critical thinking is rapidly approaching extinction in our universities.
Most recently there is the issue of “Global Warming”. While the reality of global warming is really not questioned, the debate on causation –as allowed in the classroom – is restricted to human activity. Data from climatologists is dismissed as irrelevant and popular opinions, none of which meet the test of scientific investigation as outlined above. Another example of how critical thinking is being abandoned by our educators in favor of “belief”. However, while these are two of the most obvious examples they are not the only ones.
Perhaps the one that has most impacted our society is that of “side smoke” or “environmental tobacco smoke”. It is widely reported that anywhere from thousands to millions of people die each year from the effects of “side smoke” yet there is not a shred of empirical evidence to support this belief. The entire foundation for this conclusion rests on “statistics” but even these statistics – such as they are – are highly suspect because their source is not disclosed and not disclosed for a very good reason. No death certificate has ever read – cause of death – side smoke. These statistics are almost always couched in terms of “smoking related” but then the statistics almost by definition are suspect because everybody dies of something and virtually everyone on the planet has been exposed to side smoke in some form. Therefore, every death on the planet can be ascribed to “smoking related”. However, does anyone challenge these figures? No - -because students are taught to believe what they are told and not to think for themselves.
But then we get into the metaphysical realm, where challenge is certainly not encouraged. In spite of numerous examples and scientific studies, life after death is not accepted nor discussed, even though it meets enough of the scientific method to at least qualify as a theory. It must be remembered that all reasoning has a purpose and all too frequently the reasoning in our classrooms is aimed at conversion or indoctrination to a belief rather than leading to an independent conclusion. Educated people, schooled in critical thinking cannot be stampeded or swayed by demagogues or those given to flawed and fallacious thinking, so it is no surprise that critical thinking is dying in our bastions of learning where the objective no longer seems to be education but the espousal of belief.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Are Liberals Unfair and Unbalanced?
Recently we were treated to a Liberal Spectacle that caused me to seriously question whether the Liberal Elite was capable of thinking or did they simply react to a stimulus much like Pavlov’s dogs. It seems the University of Illinois Dental School discovered the 46 of their students were caught cheating. In an incredible display of liberal logic the Dean of the Dental School excused the students conduct with this statement “What can you expect from students when the President of the United States lies about WMD’s?” This came from the DEAN of the dental school – a person one would think who was educated and capable of even an elementary level of reason, but alas – apparently not. Presumably he remains Dean and life goes on as his liberal colleagues nod their heads in agreement like little bobble heads. Does anyone in the Liberal Community THINK? Can these people REASON or do they simply react to trigger words like Rove, Coulter, Bush, Cheney? Once any one of these words is put into a sentence the Liberal is rendered unconscious and incapable of assimilating or understanding what was said. Hence the Liberal Community is convinced that President George Bush knew about the 9/11 attack but failed to prevent it so his oil buddies could gain control of the Iraqi oil fields. These people do not seem to have even the reasoning ability of a cockroach.
The visceral anger aimed at President Bush has reached a point of such psychological disorder that serious therapy is needed to bring these people back to even a minimum level of rational conduct. If you doubt this consider some of the statements made by these pea brains. Harry Belafonte – a noted singer but not intellectually gifted – called President Bush “the greatest tyrant in the world”. A tyrant is an absolute ruler – a despot – who rules brutally, so Mr Belafonte considers President Bush to be equivalent if not worse than Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, and any number of African Leaders who merrily go about slaughtering their citizens. Is this a fair assessment of the President? Is he a cruel depot who has absolute power or is Mr. Belafonte unbalanced
However, this irrationality of the Liberal mind isn’t limited to the President, it focuses on almost any person, cause, or entity which they perceive to deviate from their ideology, and one of these is Fox News. Mention Fox News to any Liberal and they immediately get the vapors and lose their grip on reality. One would think that Fox News is not just the evil empire but an active threat to the country, whose sole objective is to destroy Liberalism and to install a fascist state. The Liberal establishment controls ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, PBS, NPR, Time Magazine, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and in fact the Liberals have a virtual monopoly on the information being meted out to the American Public. Of course the operative word here is “virtual” because that wee small voice of Fox News dares to deviate from the revealed truth of the Liberal Elite.
The irony here is that out of 300 million people only about 2 million watch Fox News on any given night – that is less than 1% and that number doesn’t seem to include any of the Liberals, because if you ask one if they watch Fox, they are dumbstruck. “Of Course not” is the reply. They know that Fox News is evil incarnate because all of their fellow liberals tell them so, so it isn’t necessary to actually watch it. They know that Fox is run by Roger Ailes who used to work for Ronald Reagan so there is no need to go any further – it is a conservative propaganda machine – case closed. The real irony is that if they were to actually watch Fox they would find a lot of liberal voices on Fox and many of these are extreme. Frequently you will see Susan Estrich, Juan Williams, Lanny Davis, and other liberals and even Michael Moore -- that leading light of liberal lunacy has been seen on Fox. However, the liberal network monopoly would never provide a platform for the likes of Ann Coulter, Michele Malkin, or Rush Limbaugh – that would betray their dedication to the truth – or least as the revealed truth of liberalism.
The one thing about Fox that drives the liberal establishment into orbit is the Fox slogan of “Fair and Balanced”. Mention this slogan to the average liberal and they begin to froth at the mouth and yell how it isn’t FAIR and it certainly isn’t BALANCED, because they present BOTH sides of an issue. Of course the operative word here is “fair” because it isn’t fair for anyone to present a counter argument or an alternative view to any liberal belief. And “belief” is the right word because Liberalism is at its core a faith based belief system where empirical data isn’t required.
A recent and excellent example of “faith based” liberalism is “Global Warming”, That intellectual beacon Al Gore, has sounded the alarm (and founded his own business on this belief) that the planet is warming and we are all in imminent danger of being incinerated, unless we immediately rape American Industry, pour billions of dollars into Africa (to line the pockets of dictators no doubt), sign the Kyoto Treaty, and stop driving SUV’s. To support this claim a whole gaggle of liberal scientists have lined up to acknowledge the reality as described by Gore. These scientists run the gamut from Astronomers to Zoologists but alas – endorsements from Climatologists seem to be sadly lacking. It seems that Climatologists acknowledge that the planet is going through a warming cycle but they don’t know why and they certainly aren’t ready to attribute it to human activity. However, liberals don’t need any proof that global warming is being driven by American’s; they believe it is and THAT is all of the proof they need. Yet this group has the temerity to view themselves as “intellectuals” when Goofy displays more sense than they do, and he is a talking dog.
And this brings me to San Francisco – the only city in the United States with a foreign policy but no defense budget. This city prides itself on being “tolerant” but then I guess so were the Nazi’s and Saddam Hussein as long as you agreed with them. San Francisco is actually one of the most intolerant cities in the country. This is a city that has banned military recruiters from the high schools without even considering that might be a violation of “Freedom of Speech”. To the average liberal San Franciscan “Freedom of Speech” cannot be applied to any situation in which they don’t believe and they certainly don’t believe in the military. To carry this insanity even further they had a city wide referendum on the war in Iraq. The “withdraw the troops immediately” won hands down – establishing their own foreign policy. In case of attack I suppose they would greet the invading Islamofascists with flowers, placards, and gay pride advocates dressed in sequined Tutu’s. Certainly they wouldn’t want to call on the American Military for help – after all they have been banned from the city by the anti-war liberals.
It seems to me that the term American Liberal is actually an oxymoron because you cannot be American and a liberal at the same time. Liberals do not believe in America, they think that we are a fascist power led by the “greatest tyrant in the world” and are bent on world domination. These people are neither fair nor balanced and one wonders if they are even capable of thought much less critical thinking.
The visceral anger aimed at President Bush has reached a point of such psychological disorder that serious therapy is needed to bring these people back to even a minimum level of rational conduct. If you doubt this consider some of the statements made by these pea brains. Harry Belafonte – a noted singer but not intellectually gifted – called President Bush “the greatest tyrant in the world”. A tyrant is an absolute ruler – a despot – who rules brutally, so Mr Belafonte considers President Bush to be equivalent if not worse than Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, and any number of African Leaders who merrily go about slaughtering their citizens. Is this a fair assessment of the President? Is he a cruel depot who has absolute power or is Mr. Belafonte unbalanced
However, this irrationality of the Liberal mind isn’t limited to the President, it focuses on almost any person, cause, or entity which they perceive to deviate from their ideology, and one of these is Fox News. Mention Fox News to any Liberal and they immediately get the vapors and lose their grip on reality. One would think that Fox News is not just the evil empire but an active threat to the country, whose sole objective is to destroy Liberalism and to install a fascist state. The Liberal establishment controls ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, PBS, NPR, Time Magazine, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and in fact the Liberals have a virtual monopoly on the information being meted out to the American Public. Of course the operative word here is “virtual” because that wee small voice of Fox News dares to deviate from the revealed truth of the Liberal Elite.
The irony here is that out of 300 million people only about 2 million watch Fox News on any given night – that is less than 1% and that number doesn’t seem to include any of the Liberals, because if you ask one if they watch Fox, they are dumbstruck. “Of Course not” is the reply. They know that Fox News is evil incarnate because all of their fellow liberals tell them so, so it isn’t necessary to actually watch it. They know that Fox is run by Roger Ailes who used to work for Ronald Reagan so there is no need to go any further – it is a conservative propaganda machine – case closed. The real irony is that if they were to actually watch Fox they would find a lot of liberal voices on Fox and many of these are extreme. Frequently you will see Susan Estrich, Juan Williams, Lanny Davis, and other liberals and even Michael Moore -- that leading light of liberal lunacy has been seen on Fox. However, the liberal network monopoly would never provide a platform for the likes of Ann Coulter, Michele Malkin, or Rush Limbaugh – that would betray their dedication to the truth – or least as the revealed truth of liberalism.
The one thing about Fox that drives the liberal establishment into orbit is the Fox slogan of “Fair and Balanced”. Mention this slogan to the average liberal and they begin to froth at the mouth and yell how it isn’t FAIR and it certainly isn’t BALANCED, because they present BOTH sides of an issue. Of course the operative word here is “fair” because it isn’t fair for anyone to present a counter argument or an alternative view to any liberal belief. And “belief” is the right word because Liberalism is at its core a faith based belief system where empirical data isn’t required.
A recent and excellent example of “faith based” liberalism is “Global Warming”, That intellectual beacon Al Gore, has sounded the alarm (and founded his own business on this belief) that the planet is warming and we are all in imminent danger of being incinerated, unless we immediately rape American Industry, pour billions of dollars into Africa (to line the pockets of dictators no doubt), sign the Kyoto Treaty, and stop driving SUV’s. To support this claim a whole gaggle of liberal scientists have lined up to acknowledge the reality as described by Gore. These scientists run the gamut from Astronomers to Zoologists but alas – endorsements from Climatologists seem to be sadly lacking. It seems that Climatologists acknowledge that the planet is going through a warming cycle but they don’t know why and they certainly aren’t ready to attribute it to human activity. However, liberals don’t need any proof that global warming is being driven by American’s; they believe it is and THAT is all of the proof they need. Yet this group has the temerity to view themselves as “intellectuals” when Goofy displays more sense than they do, and he is a talking dog.
And this brings me to San Francisco – the only city in the United States with a foreign policy but no defense budget. This city prides itself on being “tolerant” but then I guess so were the Nazi’s and Saddam Hussein as long as you agreed with them. San Francisco is actually one of the most intolerant cities in the country. This is a city that has banned military recruiters from the high schools without even considering that might be a violation of “Freedom of Speech”. To the average liberal San Franciscan “Freedom of Speech” cannot be applied to any situation in which they don’t believe and they certainly don’t believe in the military. To carry this insanity even further they had a city wide referendum on the war in Iraq. The “withdraw the troops immediately” won hands down – establishing their own foreign policy. In case of attack I suppose they would greet the invading Islamofascists with flowers, placards, and gay pride advocates dressed in sequined Tutu’s. Certainly they wouldn’t want to call on the American Military for help – after all they have been banned from the city by the anti-war liberals.
It seems to me that the term American Liberal is actually an oxymoron because you cannot be American and a liberal at the same time. Liberals do not believe in America, they think that we are a fascist power led by the “greatest tyrant in the world” and are bent on world domination. These people are neither fair nor balanced and one wonders if they are even capable of thought much less critical thinking.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Chicken Little and Global Warming
We are being bombarded today by such eminent intellects as Al Gore, the Media, and a gaggle of “Scientists” who maintain that Global Warming is not only a fact, but that if we don’t do something to reverse this trend we are doomed because the planet is doomed. The underlying premise is that the industrialization of society has changed the planetary climate dynamics forever and that as a result Earth will become uninhabitable. Of course this is precisely the position taken by Chicken Little who was convinced the Sky was falling because something fell on his head. Critical analysis was never part of Chicken Little’s world just as it isn’t part of the current gaggle of alarmists who are convinced that civilized nations are essentially evil and are greedily destroying the planet at the expense of those poor people in Africa and other places not under the sway of industrialization.
The reality is that there is absolutely no proof whatsoever that supports the current positions regarding global warming. While it is generally acknowledged that the Earth is warming there is virtually no evidence that mankind is responsible or even that any actions by man can even affect the climate. Most recently it has been determined that the Martian polar caps are melting and the surface temperature of other planets e.g. Pluto is also increasing. How industrialization has had this impact in our solar system is unexplained but I’m confident these gifted scientists and intellects will ultimately find a connection to American Industry. In fact, these anti-industrialists have been sounding the global warming – or is that cooling -- alarm for some time Beginning in the 1970”s and into the early 1980’s the media supported by a group of “scientists” with no specified credentials in Climatology became concerned almost to the point of panic that the climate of the Earth was changing and we needed to do something drastic and immediate. The public was aroused to near panic and the congress was pushed to take action, to sign the Kyoto Treaty, to demand that the Auto Industry (Ford, GM, and Chrysler – never a foreign manufacturer) take immediate action to reduce carbon emissions before we entered a new Ice Age. That’s right – those same scientists supported by the same media were citing examples of glacier advances, lowering temperatures, and the imminent disaster facing us as arable land was lost to frost and snow. The world was about to starve because of carbon emissions and it was all due to Western Democracies (read America) polluting the atmosphere with capitalist driven industrial carbon pollutants coming from our factories and automobiles.
Today nothing has changed except the failure of the Ice Age to appear as predicted. In fact the same evidence is presented by the same people using the same media to predict the Earth is warming, the ice caps are melting, and we (America) is destroying the planet through greed and rampant industrialization. Proof of this is warming trend is cited as the habitat of the Polar Bear shrinks the bears are immediate danger of becoming extinct. The census conducted by rhe Canadian government notes that the actual population of Polar Bears has increased is glossed over -- apparently because the factual data does not support the faith based science regarding man's destruction of the planet. Unfortunately the geologic record shows that the Earth has gone through climatic cycles since the beginning of time. At one time Antarctica was tropical and at one time Europe and large portions of North America were covered in Ice and all of this occurred before Man was even a gleam in God’s (or is it Darwin’s) eye. In fact there is solid geologic evidence that there have been mass extinctions of life throughout geologic history brought on by a variety of causes but none (sadly) tied to Mankind or America. The scientific reality – supported by empirical evidence – is that a single volcanic eruption can do more to affect the climate of the Earth than everything ever done by Mankind since God (or some enterprising ape) created man.
Scientists do not totally support the alarmists about global cooling or global warming because they fully realize that Earth’s climate is cyclical and has always been so. The Earth’s temperature demonstrated a cooling trend from 1940 to about 1965, why this happened is unknown but then that trend began to reverse and today it is acknowledged that the temperature of the Earth is increasing but why is not known. Of course at the height of the global cooling scare Fortune Magazine stated:
[F]or nearly half of the current century mankind was apparently blessed with the most benign climate pf any period in at least a thousand years. During this kindly era the human population more than doubled....[It]began with a pronounced warming trend after about 1880. Mean temperatures peaked in 1945 and have been dropping ever since.
This statement is fascinating for a number of reasons, first because the thousand years indicates that climate change cycles are far longer than the alarmists are using to justify their attack on the industrialized nations. The second interesting point is that virtually none of the things which the global warming / cooling alarmists point to as the cause even existed for much of this thousand year period. The industrial revolution didn’t even start until the 19th Century and the automobile, which is cited as the primary cause of climate change didn’t come into widespread use until well into the 20th Century. During this period around 1970 virtually all of the media and “scientists” agreed that “we have been living in warmer than normal times – and we may have to face an increasingly cold future (Popular Science). Then we have Newsweek which stated
“The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions (which is to say global warming) the Earth’s climate seems to be cooling down."
At this point it seems clear that no one knows why the Earth goes through climate change and any data – even data going back a hundred years is of no value. To use data collected only in the last hundred years to predict catastrophic climate change is laughable and certainly not scientific. In fact the “scientists” who are in the forefront of the global warming /cooling school of thought generally do not have any credentials in Climatology and are attempting to use these scare tactics to get approval of the Kyoto Treaty which would dramatically impact American Industry, which appears to be their hidden agenda.
The reality is that there is absolutely no proof whatsoever that supports the current positions regarding global warming. While it is generally acknowledged that the Earth is warming there is virtually no evidence that mankind is responsible or even that any actions by man can even affect the climate. Most recently it has been determined that the Martian polar caps are melting and the surface temperature of other planets e.g. Pluto is also increasing. How industrialization has had this impact in our solar system is unexplained but I’m confident these gifted scientists and intellects will ultimately find a connection to American Industry. In fact, these anti-industrialists have been sounding the global warming – or is that cooling -- alarm for some time Beginning in the 1970”s and into the early 1980’s the media supported by a group of “scientists” with no specified credentials in Climatology became concerned almost to the point of panic that the climate of the Earth was changing and we needed to do something drastic and immediate. The public was aroused to near panic and the congress was pushed to take action, to sign the Kyoto Treaty, to demand that the Auto Industry (Ford, GM, and Chrysler – never a foreign manufacturer) take immediate action to reduce carbon emissions before we entered a new Ice Age. That’s right – those same scientists supported by the same media were citing examples of glacier advances, lowering temperatures, and the imminent disaster facing us as arable land was lost to frost and snow. The world was about to starve because of carbon emissions and it was all due to Western Democracies (read America) polluting the atmosphere with capitalist driven industrial carbon pollutants coming from our factories and automobiles.
Today nothing has changed except the failure of the Ice Age to appear as predicted. In fact the same evidence is presented by the same people using the same media to predict the Earth is warming, the ice caps are melting, and we (America) is destroying the planet through greed and rampant industrialization. Proof of this is warming trend is cited as the habitat of the Polar Bear shrinks the bears are immediate danger of becoming extinct. The census conducted by rhe Canadian government notes that the actual population of Polar Bears has increased is glossed over -- apparently because the factual data does not support the faith based science regarding man's destruction of the planet. Unfortunately the geologic record shows that the Earth has gone through climatic cycles since the beginning of time. At one time Antarctica was tropical and at one time Europe and large portions of North America were covered in Ice and all of this occurred before Man was even a gleam in God’s (or is it Darwin’s) eye. In fact there is solid geologic evidence that there have been mass extinctions of life throughout geologic history brought on by a variety of causes but none (sadly) tied to Mankind or America. The scientific reality – supported by empirical evidence – is that a single volcanic eruption can do more to affect the climate of the Earth than everything ever done by Mankind since God (or some enterprising ape) created man.
Scientists do not totally support the alarmists about global cooling or global warming because they fully realize that Earth’s climate is cyclical and has always been so. The Earth’s temperature demonstrated a cooling trend from 1940 to about 1965, why this happened is unknown but then that trend began to reverse and today it is acknowledged that the temperature of the Earth is increasing but why is not known. Of course at the height of the global cooling scare Fortune Magazine stated:
[F]or nearly half of the current century mankind was apparently blessed with the most benign climate pf any period in at least a thousand years. During this kindly era the human population more than doubled....[It]began with a pronounced warming trend after about 1880. Mean temperatures peaked in 1945 and have been dropping ever since.
This statement is fascinating for a number of reasons, first because the thousand years indicates that climate change cycles are far longer than the alarmists are using to justify their attack on the industrialized nations. The second interesting point is that virtually none of the things which the global warming / cooling alarmists point to as the cause even existed for much of this thousand year period. The industrial revolution didn’t even start until the 19th Century and the automobile, which is cited as the primary cause of climate change didn’t come into widespread use until well into the 20th Century. During this period around 1970 virtually all of the media and “scientists” agreed that “we have been living in warmer than normal times – and we may have to face an increasingly cold future (Popular Science). Then we have Newsweek which stated
“The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions (which is to say global warming) the Earth’s climate seems to be cooling down."
At this point it seems clear that no one knows why the Earth goes through climate change and any data – even data going back a hundred years is of no value. To use data collected only in the last hundred years to predict catastrophic climate change is laughable and certainly not scientific. In fact the “scientists” who are in the forefront of the global warming /cooling school of thought generally do not have any credentials in Climatology and are attempting to use these scare tactics to get approval of the Kyoto Treaty which would dramatically impact American Industry, which appears to be their hidden agenda.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Live Search: global warming, rebuttal
The battle over Global Warming rages on but with little input from any scientist and certainly no scientist who disputes the entire concept. The reality is that much like the Rachel Carson "Silent Spring" hoax Global Warming is shaping up to be another. The famed "hockey stick" graph that purports to show the rapid grow in warming over the last century seems to be "a misinterpretation" of the data. Using the data used in creating the "hockey stick" graph other scientists were unable to get the same result. It is clear that during the Mesozoic the average temperature was 6 degrees warmer than today. The same is true during the middle ages when the average temperature was warmer than today.
The reality seems to be that Al Gore, the extreme left, and the usual gaggle of "environmentalists" are dtermined to implement the Kyoto Treaty without going through the process of getting approval. Instead they intend to panic the media and the uneducated (if hat isn't a redundancy) into demanding draconian action against the industrialized world and America in particular. They wish to reduce carbon emissions and Gore (the man who invented the internet) and that tower of intellectual strength HRH Prince Charles, are on a crusade to reduce the "carbon footprint" of mankind.
It probably comes as a shock to Gore and the Prince but virtually every living thing on the planet is carbon based. The atmosphere is composed primarily of Oxygen, Nitrogen, and several other gases including CO2. Of course carbon dioxide is actually carbon and oxygen twso of the most plentiful elements on Earth. The Encyclopedia Brintannica states that Earth's Atmoshere includes .03% of CO2. Of this small amount 57% comes from evaporation from the oceans, 38% comes from animals and rotting vegetation, and the remaining 5% comes from mankind. So of the .03% of the CO2 in the atmosphere .0015% comes from mankind.
Of course the argument then becomes that it isn't about the AMOUNT but about the LAYER of CO2 that traps the heat on the Earth. But then the reflective nature of this layer is ignored just as all other evidence to the contrary of the popular (but unscientific) view of Global Warming.
Live Search: global warming, rebuttal
The reality seems to be that Al Gore, the extreme left, and the usual gaggle of "environmentalists" are dtermined to implement the Kyoto Treaty without going through the process of getting approval. Instead they intend to panic the media and the uneducated (if hat isn't a redundancy) into demanding draconian action against the industrialized world and America in particular. They wish to reduce carbon emissions and Gore (the man who invented the internet) and that tower of intellectual strength HRH Prince Charles, are on a crusade to reduce the "carbon footprint" of mankind.
It probably comes as a shock to Gore and the Prince but virtually every living thing on the planet is carbon based. The atmosphere is composed primarily of Oxygen, Nitrogen, and several other gases including CO2. Of course carbon dioxide is actually carbon and oxygen twso of the most plentiful elements on Earth. The Encyclopedia Brintannica states that Earth's Atmoshere includes .03% of CO2. Of this small amount 57% comes from evaporation from the oceans, 38% comes from animals and rotting vegetation, and the remaining 5% comes from mankind. So of the .03% of the CO2 in the atmosphere .0015% comes from mankind.
Of course the argument then becomes that it isn't about the AMOUNT but about the LAYER of CO2 that traps the heat on the Earth. But then the reflective nature of this layer is ignored just as all other evidence to the contrary of the popular (but unscientific) view of Global Warming.
Live Search: global warming, rebuttal
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Educational Television
Television is indeed a wonderful medium, it teaches so much and then it sometimes shows you others in the learning process. But you are never quite sure who is learning -- the viewer, the writer, or those talking heads who the viewer is assured are really intelligent. I have learned so much from television that I feel I wasted years in reading and listening to all of those lectures. For instance I have learned the Bermuda Triangle should be avoided, I know that diet and exercise in association with virtually anything – like Chocolate Pudding for example – will cause you to lose weight. I have learned that smoking causes hang nails, weight gain, sexual dysfunction, and dental decay, plus reducing your mental competence to the point to where you vote Republican. I now know that Americans – all Americans are obese primarily from eating super-sized hamburgers and drinking Cokes. Television is truly an amazing medium and I learn constantly from it.
Television has assured me that in spite of all of the evidence to the contrary Evolution is a fact and not a theory and that we have actually descended from apes. Nevertheless I believe in freedom of religion so I continue to support Evolution as a belief system. I am totally aware that at any minute a huge meteor will strike the Earth and wipe out all of mankind. Television has taught me that Al Gore and Global Warming are real and we are in imminent danger of being roasted alive – or is it freeze to death due to the coming ice age that is the result of global warming? It is all so confusing. . I have learned that if your career has tanked the solution is to immediately announce that you have a drug or alcohol problem and you are bound for rehab. Of course what is to be rehabilitated is the career not the habit, but then who notices. But these are the global issues that everyone has learned from Television, but there are many other lessons lurking in the background – if you only watch. For example in television land – men are essentially stupid, women make the best rocket scientists, that weepy men are attractive to real babe’s, and women are truly the master race.
Alas, while I don’t totally agree with all of the wonderful feminists who assure me that as a male I am doomed to the life of serfdom and ignorance I see on television, I do find some (slim) facts that indicate they might be right. I think this understanding of the male role begins with marriage and that you need only to examine recently married men, you know the men who think that marriage really didn’t change anything other than the laundry service. Of course all of those men who have been married for longer than the average age of a fruit fly know that once you have uttered those fateful words “I DO” nothing is ever the same. Life as you know it has ended and your lifetime of adjusting to the weird world of women has begun. This adjustment requires a lifetime and the reality is most men never reach any true level of understanding the female mind, they simply adapt to the conditions. Women are simply different and this difference is much greater than the simple physical differences. The very foundation of these differences begins with what is important and what is not. For example for women there are approximately ten to the 27th power of things that are important but for the average male there are simply ten and after food and sex (in that order) he must be reminded of the other eight.
Almost immediately after that fateful day that is enshrined in the female mind as “the Anniversary”, the male comes to understand that all of those things that he enjoyed are “tacky” and that his wardrobe falls somewhere between pathetic and embarrassing. But this isn’t really where the learning and adjustment begins. Believe it or not it begins with women’s sizes and underwear --- errrr – ah yes – lingerie (pronounced “lawn – jer –ray’ – NOT “ling-grrr -eee). Most men don’t put a great deal of thought into their own clothes and even less into women’s other than ease of removal. Clothes for men come in small, medium, or large and extra-large and men generally fall into one of these categories unless of course we are talking about jock straps and in that case everyone wears a large (extra-large is pure ego and generally would not be believed). Now I have been married for many years and I still have not grasped women’s sizes. They come in petite, juniors (but no seniors) plus sizes (which no one seems to actually wear so why stores stock them I have no idea), and a whole bunch of other sizes, which all seem purely arbitrary. The numerical sizes do not follow any logical system because a size 6 and a size 7 are only sold to anorexics and seem to bear no relationship to each other.
But the real difference between the sexes lies in their underwear. For guys underwear is really pretty simple. You have briefs for guys who like comfort, or boxers for guys who like the wedgie feel, or for those guys who can’t decide whether to be cool or comfortable you have the boxer brief, and that’s it!!. For women there are entire stores devoted exclusively to their underwear and none seem oriented toward comfort – the merchandise not the store. The sizes are as mysterious as the Periodic Table of Elements. Bra’s seem to range in size from skimpy little band-aid type things to cupful, handful, and up to “Big Bertha”. The panties range in size from little pieces of lace that require a bikini wax to the “Thigh Master” and there the name says it all.
But it isn’t just the clothes that distinguish the sexes, we also have differences that the typical male can never seem to comprehend. For instance take the toilet paper, which as any man knows can be found on the toilet paper holder. How it gets there is largely unknown and it is generally believed by most men that there is some sort of a toilet paper fairy – who based on television is apparently known as “Charmin”. Charmin is both squeezable and efficient and replaces the toilet paper as required – I think. But this is actually an example of how truly simple men are because the female of the species has distinct preferences regarding the placement of the toilet paper on the holder. Once married the male quickly discovers that toilet paper must feed either over the top or from under the role. There really isn’t any correct way but every woman has a preference and if the husband intends to continue his conjugal relationship he should master this art of toilet paper replacement.
But the toilet paper adjustment is only the tip of the iceberg in marital adjustment. Most men never really realized how primitively they were living prior to marriage or learned how to deal with the problems that they never realized were problems. One of these is the “noise”. At some time shortly after marriage there will be a noise in the night. This noise was initially heard by Eve in the garden while poor Adam slept. She went to investigate and as we say the rest is history. However, since that time, women do not go to investigate mysterious noises – that is the man’s job. This noise always occurs shortly after the husband has dropped off to sleep. Of course the husband after a long day of toil could sleep through the San Francisco Earthquake, but women’s hearing is genetically different. A woman can hear cotton rubbing on silk from a distance of approximately a quarter mile and immediately conclude that this noise is due to a drug crazed burglar intent on stealing the --- well it really doesn’t matter what they were planning on stealing because it is the husband’s duty to frighten him away before that event occurs.
Now any man who has been through this knows that pretending to be asleep is fruitless because the dear wife will continue punching him in the back until he gets up and searches high and low for the source of the “noise”. The newly married man will commonly pretend to be asleep but this simply demonstrates his naiveté because it won’t work. The woman will continue beating on his back until blunt force trauma becomes a real possibility. The next male strategy employed by the newly married is to explain the noise as “nothing”, but this won’t work either. Women KNOW that something dangerous has occurred and the noise must be identified or there will be no sleep. Sleep can only be achieved by the husband getting out of bed, prowling throughout the house in his underwear, and then returning to bed and announcing – it’s nothing – go to sleep. Now the man who has been married long enough to have been through this drill a few times, simply gets up goes the refrigerator, gets something to munch on, opens the door, closes it, turns on a couple of lights, and then returns to the dear wife and announces it was nothing. The wife is now free to go to sleep knowing that the home has been protected, the noise identified (it was nothing), and she is secure in knowing that her man has once again saved the day. But I digress – let’s return to the topic of Television as a medium.
Television is certainly a source of entertainment as well as education. Not only do we learn about men and women, we also learn about medicine, nutrition, and exercise. From television I have learned that if you join the Bow Flex generation you will look like a superhero in just a few short weeks. Clearly Bow Flex sweat has regenerative powers because they all look so young and healthy. But that’s when I discovered that if you only eat Oatmeal your cholesterol will drop to astonishing levels. This has been demonstrated clinically using horses and not one had high cholesterol, although some people who have eaten oatmeal for extended periods did come to resemble a Quaker. I think it was the hat.
Television has assured me that in spite of all of the evidence to the contrary Evolution is a fact and not a theory and that we have actually descended from apes. Nevertheless I believe in freedom of religion so I continue to support Evolution as a belief system. I am totally aware that at any minute a huge meteor will strike the Earth and wipe out all of mankind. Television has taught me that Al Gore and Global Warming are real and we are in imminent danger of being roasted alive – or is it freeze to death due to the coming ice age that is the result of global warming? It is all so confusing. . I have learned that if your career has tanked the solution is to immediately announce that you have a drug or alcohol problem and you are bound for rehab. Of course what is to be rehabilitated is the career not the habit, but then who notices. But these are the global issues that everyone has learned from Television, but there are many other lessons lurking in the background – if you only watch. For example in television land – men are essentially stupid, women make the best rocket scientists, that weepy men are attractive to real babe’s, and women are truly the master race.
Alas, while I don’t totally agree with all of the wonderful feminists who assure me that as a male I am doomed to the life of serfdom and ignorance I see on television, I do find some (slim) facts that indicate they might be right. I think this understanding of the male role begins with marriage and that you need only to examine recently married men, you know the men who think that marriage really didn’t change anything other than the laundry service. Of course all of those men who have been married for longer than the average age of a fruit fly know that once you have uttered those fateful words “I DO” nothing is ever the same. Life as you know it has ended and your lifetime of adjusting to the weird world of women has begun. This adjustment requires a lifetime and the reality is most men never reach any true level of understanding the female mind, they simply adapt to the conditions. Women are simply different and this difference is much greater than the simple physical differences. The very foundation of these differences begins with what is important and what is not. For example for women there are approximately ten to the 27th power of things that are important but for the average male there are simply ten and after food and sex (in that order) he must be reminded of the other eight.
Almost immediately after that fateful day that is enshrined in the female mind as “the Anniversary”, the male comes to understand that all of those things that he enjoyed are “tacky” and that his wardrobe falls somewhere between pathetic and embarrassing. But this isn’t really where the learning and adjustment begins. Believe it or not it begins with women’s sizes and underwear --- errrr – ah yes – lingerie (pronounced “lawn – jer –ray’ – NOT “ling-grrr -eee). Most men don’t put a great deal of thought into their own clothes and even less into women’s other than ease of removal. Clothes for men come in small, medium, or large and extra-large and men generally fall into one of these categories unless of course we are talking about jock straps and in that case everyone wears a large (extra-large is pure ego and generally would not be believed). Now I have been married for many years and I still have not grasped women’s sizes. They come in petite, juniors (but no seniors) plus sizes (which no one seems to actually wear so why stores stock them I have no idea), and a whole bunch of other sizes, which all seem purely arbitrary. The numerical sizes do not follow any logical system because a size 6 and a size 7 are only sold to anorexics and seem to bear no relationship to each other.
But the real difference between the sexes lies in their underwear. For guys underwear is really pretty simple. You have briefs for guys who like comfort, or boxers for guys who like the wedgie feel, or for those guys who can’t decide whether to be cool or comfortable you have the boxer brief, and that’s it!!. For women there are entire stores devoted exclusively to their underwear and none seem oriented toward comfort – the merchandise not the store. The sizes are as mysterious as the Periodic Table of Elements. Bra’s seem to range in size from skimpy little band-aid type things to cupful, handful, and up to “Big Bertha”. The panties range in size from little pieces of lace that require a bikini wax to the “Thigh Master” and there the name says it all.
But it isn’t just the clothes that distinguish the sexes, we also have differences that the typical male can never seem to comprehend. For instance take the toilet paper, which as any man knows can be found on the toilet paper holder. How it gets there is largely unknown and it is generally believed by most men that there is some sort of a toilet paper fairy – who based on television is apparently known as “Charmin”. Charmin is both squeezable and efficient and replaces the toilet paper as required – I think. But this is actually an example of how truly simple men are because the female of the species has distinct preferences regarding the placement of the toilet paper on the holder. Once married the male quickly discovers that toilet paper must feed either over the top or from under the role. There really isn’t any correct way but every woman has a preference and if the husband intends to continue his conjugal relationship he should master this art of toilet paper replacement.
But the toilet paper adjustment is only the tip of the iceberg in marital adjustment. Most men never really realized how primitively they were living prior to marriage or learned how to deal with the problems that they never realized were problems. One of these is the “noise”. At some time shortly after marriage there will be a noise in the night. This noise was initially heard by Eve in the garden while poor Adam slept. She went to investigate and as we say the rest is history. However, since that time, women do not go to investigate mysterious noises – that is the man’s job. This noise always occurs shortly after the husband has dropped off to sleep. Of course the husband after a long day of toil could sleep through the San Francisco Earthquake, but women’s hearing is genetically different. A woman can hear cotton rubbing on silk from a distance of approximately a quarter mile and immediately conclude that this noise is due to a drug crazed burglar intent on stealing the --- well it really doesn’t matter what they were planning on stealing because it is the husband’s duty to frighten him away before that event occurs.
Now any man who has been through this knows that pretending to be asleep is fruitless because the dear wife will continue punching him in the back until he gets up and searches high and low for the source of the “noise”. The newly married man will commonly pretend to be asleep but this simply demonstrates his naiveté because it won’t work. The woman will continue beating on his back until blunt force trauma becomes a real possibility. The next male strategy employed by the newly married is to explain the noise as “nothing”, but this won’t work either. Women KNOW that something dangerous has occurred and the noise must be identified or there will be no sleep. Sleep can only be achieved by the husband getting out of bed, prowling throughout the house in his underwear, and then returning to bed and announcing – it’s nothing – go to sleep. Now the man who has been married long enough to have been through this drill a few times, simply gets up goes the refrigerator, gets something to munch on, opens the door, closes it, turns on a couple of lights, and then returns to the dear wife and announces it was nothing. The wife is now free to go to sleep knowing that the home has been protected, the noise identified (it was nothing), and she is secure in knowing that her man has once again saved the day. But I digress – let’s return to the topic of Television as a medium.
Television is certainly a source of entertainment as well as education. Not only do we learn about men and women, we also learn about medicine, nutrition, and exercise. From television I have learned that if you join the Bow Flex generation you will look like a superhero in just a few short weeks. Clearly Bow Flex sweat has regenerative powers because they all look so young and healthy. But that’s when I discovered that if you only eat Oatmeal your cholesterol will drop to astonishing levels. This has been demonstrated clinically using horses and not one had high cholesterol, although some people who have eaten oatmeal for extended periods did come to resemble a Quaker. I think it was the hat.
Friday, February 04, 2005
Facts and Beliefs
There is a very large group of people in this country who are labeled as “Liberals” who are actually a collection of pseudo-intellectuals that are convinced they are much smarter than the average bear and thus are the self-appointed nannies that we all obviously need. These are the people who have substituted their beliefs for empirical data and are determined to act on their beliefs regardless of the cost to the rest of us because those who disagree with them are too stupid to understand and the stupidity of this mass of ignoramuses is demonstrated by the election of that moron – George Bush. So those whom we view as “Liberals” are in fact wine-sipping, latte drinking, self-appointed nannies who feel rather than think and who are determined to take of us and to this end I submit the following:
Global Warming
The glaciers are shrinking, the temperature is rising, the world as we know it is ending and it is all because of the Industrialized Nations, especially the United States. The only solution is to sign the Kyoto Treaty and allow all of those third world nations to rape the United States and to destroy the techno-terrorism practiced by the Neo-imperialistic United States. This is the belief – Global Warming exists – when there is actually no empirical proof and dozens of reputable scientists say it is hogwash. Furthermore, the global climate has shifted and changed, waxed and waned throughout geological time.
Evolution
When I was in college (studying Earth Science) evolution was viewed as a “Theory” that grew out of the Theory of Uniformitarianism as stated by Charles Lyell. While it is a plausible theory it really hasn’t been demonstrated. The examples offered are always the same but these are actually illustrations of adaptation rather than evolution. So the belief is that Evolution is real and thus the belief is now taught in schools as fact when in fact it isn’t proven. There has never been an example of one species becoming another. Apes are apes and cannot mate with dogs and men are men and cannot mate with apes. While the Nannies would like for us to believe we have evolved from apes they cannot demonstrate that with any empirical evidence whatsoever and to point to a bone fragment and state that this is an early ancestor of man is a belief and not a fact.
Man is Slime Derived
There is no God and humans evolved from some primordial slime. – that is the belief and this is what is being taught in schools even though there is no proof. The fact is everything in the universe is made up of protons, electrons, and neutrons. Each and every one of these is identical to every other one and everything in the universe is made up of some combination of these – from microbes to man -- so if this is true then why does some combination of these universal particles think and move and some don’t? The fact is that what causes life is unknown so the schools are teaching a belief rather than a fact.
Gender is Irrelevant
The belief of the Nannies is that little girls can grow up to be fierce warriors and boys can grow up to be sensitive nurturing stay-at-home dads. Armed with this belief the Nannies are now determined to confuse everyone by insisting that the schools show boys as weak and ineffectual and girls as strong and capable. The facts here aren’t quite that clear. Anyone who has ever had children knows that from the outset boys and girls are different. Anyone who observes nature knows that gender roles are specific and inbred. Females nurture and males protect – this is the way it is. Females in nature will always select the strongest, biggest, and fiercest male as their mate, ignoring the weaker ones. The feminist movement can try to reverse this and they can insist their belief in gender neutrality is taught in school but when women decide to choose a husband they do not select the weak, weeping, limp-wristed, males – they look for men who are strong, capable, intelligent, and able to protect them and their children. That is the fact.
And of course the list goes on and on and includes foods, smoking, cholesterol, poverty, crime, and virtually anything else that the Nannies feel they need to do to protect the ignorant from making bad choices. Everyone is a victim and no one is responsible – feelings are more important than facts. We can no longer keep score for fear some one will lose and in losing they will lose their self-esteem. The fact that self-esteem is created by winning totally escapes the Nannies, they focus on the feelings of the losers.
So as a society we think we are seeing political liberals but what we are actually seeing is a bunch of self-anointed Nannies determined to take care of us.
Global Warming
The glaciers are shrinking, the temperature is rising, the world as we know it is ending and it is all because of the Industrialized Nations, especially the United States. The only solution is to sign the Kyoto Treaty and allow all of those third world nations to rape the United States and to destroy the techno-terrorism practiced by the Neo-imperialistic United States. This is the belief – Global Warming exists – when there is actually no empirical proof and dozens of reputable scientists say it is hogwash. Furthermore, the global climate has shifted and changed, waxed and waned throughout geological time.
Evolution
When I was in college (studying Earth Science) evolution was viewed as a “Theory” that grew out of the Theory of Uniformitarianism as stated by Charles Lyell. While it is a plausible theory it really hasn’t been demonstrated. The examples offered are always the same but these are actually illustrations of adaptation rather than evolution. So the belief is that Evolution is real and thus the belief is now taught in schools as fact when in fact it isn’t proven. There has never been an example of one species becoming another. Apes are apes and cannot mate with dogs and men are men and cannot mate with apes. While the Nannies would like for us to believe we have evolved from apes they cannot demonstrate that with any empirical evidence whatsoever and to point to a bone fragment and state that this is an early ancestor of man is a belief and not a fact.
Man is Slime Derived
There is no God and humans evolved from some primordial slime. – that is the belief and this is what is being taught in schools even though there is no proof. The fact is everything in the universe is made up of protons, electrons, and neutrons. Each and every one of these is identical to every other one and everything in the universe is made up of some combination of these – from microbes to man -- so if this is true then why does some combination of these universal particles think and move and some don’t? The fact is that what causes life is unknown so the schools are teaching a belief rather than a fact.
Gender is Irrelevant
The belief of the Nannies is that little girls can grow up to be fierce warriors and boys can grow up to be sensitive nurturing stay-at-home dads. Armed with this belief the Nannies are now determined to confuse everyone by insisting that the schools show boys as weak and ineffectual and girls as strong and capable. The facts here aren’t quite that clear. Anyone who has ever had children knows that from the outset boys and girls are different. Anyone who observes nature knows that gender roles are specific and inbred. Females nurture and males protect – this is the way it is. Females in nature will always select the strongest, biggest, and fiercest male as their mate, ignoring the weaker ones. The feminist movement can try to reverse this and they can insist their belief in gender neutrality is taught in school but when women decide to choose a husband they do not select the weak, weeping, limp-wristed, males – they look for men who are strong, capable, intelligent, and able to protect them and their children. That is the fact.
And of course the list goes on and on and includes foods, smoking, cholesterol, poverty, crime, and virtually anything else that the Nannies feel they need to do to protect the ignorant from making bad choices. Everyone is a victim and no one is responsible – feelings are more important than facts. We can no longer keep score for fear some one will lose and in losing they will lose their self-esteem. The fact that self-esteem is created by winning totally escapes the Nannies, they focus on the feelings of the losers.
So as a society we think we are seeing political liberals but what we are actually seeing is a bunch of self-anointed Nannies determined to take care of us.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)