Wednesday, September 12, 2007

ATTENTION FOX VIEWERS: Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Home” is Greener than Most!

Maybe you’ve seen the email. It describes two completely different homes – one a mansion that uses lavish amounts of energy, the other a more modest abode utilizing the latest technology to minimize environmental impact. The supposed punch line is that the first belongs former vice president and renowned environmentalist Al Gore, while the second is George W. Bush’s home in Crawford, Texas.

Needless to say, the sketchy descriptions tell only a small part of the story. Although the 10,000 square foot Gore residence does use considerably more energy than the average Nashville residence , the home is not just a part time residence, like the Crawford ranch. Both Al and Tipper Gore have their offices there, eliminating commuting. If the average person added costs of energy used in commuting plus the energy used while at work, and added both those figures to the residential energy bill, that comparison would be far more accurate.

Here’s another thing that sets Gore’s energy usage apart. He purchases -- and pays a premium for -- green energy which comes from non-carbon dioxide producing sources, such as wind. The result: a carbon neutral lifestyle.

Gore is also installing solar panels at the home, something he could not do until recently because his community had regulations restricting the panels.

The distortions depicting Gore as someone who failed to “walk the walk” were noted by all the conservative outlets, including Faux News, and were largely based on Gore’s testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, when Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), a right-wing nut job who has been called “maybe the dumbest senator of all,” repeatedly asked pointless questions and then failed to give Gore an opportunity to answer.

Of course, the real reason that the right wing is gearing up to go after Gore is most likely the nerve-wracking possibility of him running for the Presidency. After all, he’s already won the popular vote in 2000. Now his popularity is off the charts, “An Inconvenient Truth” was honored with two Academy Awards, and there’s the very real possibility of a Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental work. And as for Mitt, Rudy, Fred and the rest -- well, they’re not nearly as accomplished.
In fact, you might say they’re much more Bush league.

THIS JUST IN: 9/19/2007

The IPCC said yesterday that the effects of global warming are being felt sooner than anticipated with the poorest countries and the poorest people set to suffer the worst of shifts in rainfall patterns, temperature rises and the viability of agriculture across much of the developing world.

In its latest assessment of the progress of climate change, the body said: "If warming is not kept below two degrees centigrade, which will require the strongest mitigation efforts, and currently looks very unlikely to be achieved, the substantial global impacts will occur, such as species extinctions, and millions of people at risk from drought, hunger, flooding."

THIS JUST IN: 10/2/2007

IMPACT OF ARCTIC HEAT WAVE STUNS CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCHERS

Unprecedented warm temperatures in the High Arctic this past summer were so extreme that researchers with a Queen's University-led climate change project have begun revising their forecasts.

"Everything has changed dramatically in the watershed we observed," reports Geography professor Scott Lamoureux, the leader of an International Polar Year project announced yesterday in Nunavut by Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl. "It's something we'd envisioned for the future – but to see it happening now is quite remarkable."

One of 44 Canadian research initiatives to receive a total of $100 million (IPY) research funding from the federal government, Dr. Lamoureux's new four-year project on remote Melville Island in the northwest Arctic brings together scientists and educators from three Canadian universities and the territory of Nunavut. They are studying how the amount of water will vary as climate changes, and how that affects the water quality and ecosystem sustainability of plants and animals that depend on it.

The information will be key to improving models for predicting future climate change in the High Arctic, which is critical to the everyday living conditions of people living there, especially through the lakes and rivers where they obtain their drinking water.

From their camp on Melville Island last July, where they recorded air temperatures over 20ºC (in an area with July temperatures that average 5ºC), the team watched in amazement as water from melting permafrost a meter below ground lubricated the topsoil, causing it to slide down slopes, clearing everything in its path and thrusting up ridges at the valley bottom "that piled up like a rug," says Dr. Lamoureux, an expert in hydro-climatic variability and landscape processes. "The landscape was being torn to pieces, literally before our eyes. A major river was dammed by a slide along a 200-metre length of the channel. River flow will be changed for years, if not decades to come."

Comparing this summer's observations against aerial photos dating back to the 1950s, and the team's monitoring of the area for the past five years, the research leader calls the present conditions "unprecedented" in scope and activity. What's most interesting, he says, is that their findings represent the impact of just one exceptional summer.

"A considerable amount of vegetation has been disturbed and we observed a sharp rise in erosion and a change in sediment load in the river," Dr. Lamoureux notes. "With warmer conditions and greater thaw depth predicted, the cumulative effect of this happening year after year could create huge problems for both the aquatic and land populations. This kind of disturbance also has important consequences for existing and future infrastructure in the region, like roads, pipelines and air strips."

If this were to occur in more inhabited parts of Canada, it would be "catastrophic" in terms of land use and resources, he continues. "It would be like taking an area the size of Kingston and having 15 per cent of it disappear into Lake Ontario."

The Queen's-led project is working with other IPY research groups including: Arctic HYDRA, an international group investigating the impact of climate change on water in the Arctic; Science Pub, a Norwegian group working on broad research from science to public education about the impacts of global warming; and CiCAT, a University of British Columbia-led group of 48 researchers investigating the impacts of climate change on tundra vegetation.

International Polar Year (IPY) is the largest-ever international program of coordinated scientific research focused on the Arctic and Antarctic regions and the first in 50 years.

116 comments:

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

This is gonna' be fun... I'm gonna' be on the road today, but I'll be back in front of my main machines tonite instead of the laptop.

Several FACTS for discussion.

Sore/Loserman LOST the 2000 election. This country has an electoral college vote system. Popular count means nothing. And if I remember right, Bush won the popular vote after it was all said and done anyway. Have to look it up later. Wasn't much, only about 500k votes or so, but the FINAL TOTAL showed Goron losing any way ya' look at it.

Carbon Credits are the newest scam hoisted on the American public. Goron and his millionaire buddies already are raking in millions, if not billions of bucks in their firms which is tantamount to highway robbery. It's an investment scam that will make Enron look like small potatoes.

Winning an Oscar or a Nobel prize does not a winner make. Much like 10k+ books doesn't make one a "Best Seller". Slick Willies' newest book sold 45k+ copies in a week..that's getting close to what is legitimately a best seller.

An Inconvenient LIE is chock full of fake science and scare tactics. The weather forecasters can't even get an accurate 3 day forecast, but the weak minded simpletons who worship Goron believe the 10-100 year models...idiots all. Scientists' by the hoard are disputing the Lies in Al's movie and it has been disproved over and over again when one take a FACTUAL look at the true science.

Now we know why you're such a Bush Basher, and don't want to talk about Clinton....you're a Goron...

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

http://tinyurl.com/yutz8e

Shoes4Industry said...

Eating less meat may slow climate change

By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer
Wed Sep 12, 7:08 PM ET


Eating less meat could help slow global warming by reducing the number of livestock and thereby decreasing the amount of methane flatulence from the animals, scientists said on Thursday.

In a special energy and health series of the medical journal The Lancet, experts said people should eat fewer steaks and hamburgers. Reducing global red meat consumption by 10 percent, they said, would cut the gases emitted by cows, sheep and goats that contribute to global warming.

"We are at a significant tipping point," said Geri Brewster, a nutritionist at Northern Westchester Hospital in New York, who was not connected to the study.

"If people knew that they were threatening the environment by eating more meat, they might think twice before ordering a burger," Brewster said.

Other ways of reducing greenhouse gases from farming practices, like feeding animals higher-quality grains, would only have a limited impact on cutting emissions. Gases from animals destined for dinner plates account for nearly a quarter of all emissions worldwide.

"That leaves reducing demand for meat as the only real option," said Dr. John Powles, a public health expert at Cambridge University, one of the study's authors.

H Nicole Young said...

Too tired to "go there" on global warming as I can't even get you to agree that 2 + 2 = 4 with 9/11 issues, Life. Some things you say are true on this issue, some not, some I'm not sure. It doesn't matter as far as I'm concerned, especially if some of us may not be here by December!

Focus.

I forgot to add tsumani's to the list of possible fun things the regime may like to experiment with -- in case somebody out there still has grand plans for the California coast line...

http://tinyurl.com/ynoj3o

H Nicole Young said...

I like what these senators are up to here, quietly. Qui tam cases and "whistleblowers" are what is finally going to blow the lid off the whole 9/11 scam, as well as the whole war/money-making scam. I like that it was introduced on 9/11, too, quite appropriately...

http://tinyurl.com/2rfk7n

There is similar legislation protecting the media in a similar way, though now I can't find the darn article now.... urrghhh!

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

Ya'll ever hear of a little gal called Mother Nature?

and nic...sometimes you actually sound like you have a brain...and then...

"I forgot to add tsumani's to the list of possible fun things the regime may like to experiment with --"

WHERE do you come up with this crap at? I like to watch Sci-Fi movies, but this is reality.

Lee said...

Here we go again! Still crying about Ozone Al losing the election. Elections are won by electoral votes not popular. It happened before and can happen again.

Bush's Crawford ranch is only used part time of couse,because he is the PRESIDENT and has to live in the White House(and when he does go there he is critized because he is on "vacation"). If Gore would have WON the election and if he WERE the president, then he would only be living in his other residence part-time.

Besides, he should be living in a "green" house. He needs to practice what he preaches.

Shoes4Industry said...

He does.

Lee said...

He is alright. Only a small price to pay so he can make millions on this scam.

H Nicole Young said...

Life, it's a little like praying -- it can't hurt, and in the off chance that there is something to it, it may help a lot. What's the harm? Stretch your brain a little. It won't crack, I promise!

I thought you of all people would especially be open to the idea that maybe it's not global warming at all. Maybe it's just a bunch of grown-up boys playing with their grown-up toys -- and some of them are having dangerous tantrums right now because Momma Clinton may be coming home soon and will take all their toys away and ruin all their fun.

Shoes4Industry said...

Like Bush and Company aren't making BILLIONS off this phony war?

Better that Gore makes millions improving the environment than the billions Bush is stealing killin' innocent civilians and military personnel.

That's your "Culture of Life" for you.

Wake up and smell the hypocrisy!

Anonymous said...

Gore rocks! He won the popular vote, he would have won the electoral vote if Jeb, Katherine Harris and the Supreme Court hadn't ended the recount, and he's lived as green as he possibly can given the obligations of his work. Millions of people will be disappointed if he doesn't run, because this time it won't even be a contest. Actually, last time it wasn't either, but the vote switching software was fully operational.

http://www.clintcurtis.com/about.htm

Shoes4Industry said...

A perfect analogy...

http://tinyurl.com/ywaout

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately for "lifebeginsat200mph" and some others, Vice President Gore has been proven again and again to have been right on ALL the issues...My guess is that "lifebegins" (and other koolaid drinkers like him) must be getting very nervious at the thought that Al Gore is going to jump into the Race (and when he does, he is going to win the primary and the general election in the greatest landslide since Reagan)...for the rest of us, who do believe in reason, analysis and logic based on actual, peer-reviewed FACTS (I myself happen to have a PhD in Chemical Engineering), it is BEYOND OBVIOUS that global warming is happening, and is getting rapidly worse - just look at what's happened to the artic ice sheets this summer alone)...and as for FAUX News, Rush and the like, I am SO SICK AND TIRED of hearing the LIES and DISTORTED truth they are spreading about Al Gore - it is truly a JOKE (No, Al does NOT own a private plane, and YES, he does always try to fly commercial as much as he can, and YES, he did install a huge solar panel system on the roof of his house (after he was instrumental in changing the local laws which previously had banned them), and YES, he drives a Hybrid, and YES, he is looking into also installing some type of geo-thermal style system on his property, and YES, he retro-fitted a very OLD house, to make it more environmentally friendly, and YES, he purchases carbon offsets, and is 'carbon neutral' (and has been so for quite some time), and I could go on and on...Oh, while I am at it, NO, Al Gore NEVER actually said that he "invented the internet", and nor did he ever state that "I was the one that started it all" (regarding Love Canal) - his ACTUAL words about Love Canal were "THAT was the one that started it all", but by the time the media actually printed a retraction about it (~1 week later, in the back pages of the paper), the damage had already been done - AMERICA, PLEASE WAKE UP, and stop believing all the mis-information (and distorted lies) that you are being fed by the so called "fair and balanced" mainstream media !!!!! Koolaid drinkers aside, everyone else, PLEASE join the Draft Gore movement (which is now growing exponentially !!!)

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

ROTFFLMAO!!!

Yeah, those Gulfstreams are a real carbon offsetting hybrid.

I hope the putz does run. He'll get creamed. He's a crybaby loser who has no honor at all. And any and all recounts regardless of the "way" they were counted showed Bush winning Florida fair and square.

The carbon offset market is a scam that is already beginning to crack. And GWB hasn't put $1 in his pocket from the war...Gorons are laughable dreamers who can't deal with reality.

Shoes4Industry said...

And GWB hasn't put $1 in his pocket from the war...

oh really?
http://tinyurl.com/y47o57

Nice try.

Anonymous said...

THANK YOU, Kimberly!! Beautiful summation for the tiresome trolls.

Quick heads-up, everyone: After Bush's "speech" tonight, John Edwards is buying time on MSNBC for his own speech. If you want to get the taste of hogwash out of your brain, Edwards' speech will be in real English -- as opposed to Bush's pidgin version -- and filled with original thinking and a plan to end the war NOW.

Shoes4Industry said...

More "junk science"...

Humberto wasn't even a tropical storm until Wednesday afternoon, strengthening from a tropical depression with 35 mph winds to a hurricane with 85 mph winds in just 18 hours, senior hurricane specialist James Franklin said at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

"To put this development in perspective - no tropical cyclone in the historical record has ever reached this intensity at a faster rate near landfall.. It would be nice to know, someday, why this happened," Franklin said.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

"Carbon Neutral"...yeah right, Algore is about as carbon neutral as a lump of coal. Purchasing "carbon offsets" is a facade for propaganda eating chumps.

The Carbon Offset marketing scam is just that...a scam. It's bilking innocent people of their hard earned money to go into funding corporations that Algore and his other fellow millionaires have a vested interest in and then they rake in millions off the interest and other financial dog and pony shows. It's a scam of the worst degree. Anybody that "believes" in it, is a sucker.

Shoes4Industry said...

And GWB hasn't put $1 in his pocket from the war...OR from being "The Decider in Chief"...

http://tinyurl.com/29cb3p

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

Industry caught in carbon ‘smokescreen’

By Fiona Harvey and Stephen Fidler in London

Published: April 25 2007 22:07 | Last updated: April 25 2007 22:07

Companies and individuals rushing to go green have been spending millions on “carbon credit” projects that yield few if any environmental benefits.

A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place.

Others are meanwhile making big profits from carbon trading for very small expenditure and in some cases for clean-ups that they would have made anyway.

The growing political salience of environmental politics has sparked a “green gold rush”, which has seen a dramatic expansion in the number of businesses offering both companies and individuals the chance to go “carbon neutral”, offsetting their own energy use by buying carbon credits that cancel out their contribution to global warming.

The burgeoning regulated market for carbon credits is expected to more than double in size to about $68.2bn by 2010, with the unregulated voluntary sector rising to $4bn in the same period.

The FT investigation found:

■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.

■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.

■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.

■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.

■ Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

Francis Sullivan, environment adviser at HSBC, the UK’s biggest bank that went carbon-neutral in 2005, said he found “serious credibility concerns” in the offsetting market after evaluating it for several months.

“The police, the fraud squad and trading standards need to be looking into this. Otherwise people will lose faith in it,” he said.

These concerns led the bank to ignore the market and fund its own carbon reduction projects directly.

Some companies are benefiting by asking “green” consumers to pay them for cleaning up their own pollution. For instance, DuPont, the chemicals company, invites consumers to pay $4 to eliminate a tonne of carbon dioxide from its plant in Kentucky that produces a potent greenhouse gas called HFC-23. But the equipment required to reduce such gases is relatively cheap. DuPont refused to comment and declined to specify its earnings from the project, saying it was at too early a stage to discuss.

The FT has also found examples of companies setting up as carbon offsetters without appearing to have a clear idea of how the markets operate. In response to FT inquiries about its sourcing of carbon credits, one company, carbonvoucher.com, said it had not taken payments for offsets.

Blue Source, a US offsetting company, invites consumers to offset carbon emissions by investing in enhanced oil recovery, which pumps carbon dioxide into depleted oil wells to bring up the remaining oil. However, Blue Source said that because of the high price of oil, this process was often profitable in itself, meaning operators were making extra revenues from selling “carbon credits” for burying the carbon.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

As the controversy over global warming doomsayer Al Gore’s voracious energy-eater mansion rolls on, there’s an angle I think merits deeper investigation than it is currently getting. While much of the focus has been on whether or not Gore is an environmental hypocrite, the story has raised the profile of the role of “carbon offsets” in achieving a “greener,” more environmentally friendly world.

In its original story, The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville reported that Gore buys “carbon offsets” to compensate for his home’s use of energy from carbon-based fuels. What is a “carbon offset,” exactly? Essentially, it’s a payment someone makes to an environmentally friendly entity to compensate for personally using non-green energy.

...

So far, so good. So, where does Gore buy his ‘carbon offsets’? According to The Tennessean newspaper’s report, Gore buys his carbon offsets through Generation Investment Management. a company he co-founded and serves as chairman:

Gore helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets. The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe…

As co-founder and chairman of the firm Gore presumably draws an income or will make money as its investments prosper. In other words, he “buys” his “carbon offsets” from himself, through a transaction designed to boost his own investments and return a profit to himself. To be blunt, Gore doesn’t buy “carbon offsets” through Generation Investment Management - he buys stocks.

...

But do Gore’s “carbon offsets” payments really compensate for his big non-green power usage?

Wikipedia again:

The intended goal of carbon offsets is to combat global warming. The appeal of becoming “carbon neutral” has contributed to the growth of voluntary offsets, which often are a more cost-effective alternative to reducing one’s own fossil-fuel consumption. However, the actual amount of carbon reduction (if any) from an offset project is difficult to measure, largely unregulated, and vulnerable to misrepresentation.

Did you get that? Carbon offsets are an “alternative to reducing one’s own fossil-fuel consumption” and yet “the actual amount of carbon reduction (if any) from an offset project is difficult to measure, largely unregulated, and vulnerable to misrepresentation.”

One way to misrepresent things: Tell a newspaper your stock purchases are really purchases of “carbon offsets.”

Anonymous said...

From David Suzuki, PhD. , award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster. All carbon offsets are not equal, but that doesn't mean there are no standards in the field.

http://tinyurl.com/2sdcxh

There is more detailed information on the pluses and minuses of carbon offsets from Tufts University here:

http://tinyurl.com/2ej8dk

Al Gore would not jeopardize a three decade-long career by using compromised tactics. GET A CLUE and include LINKS to REPUTABLE sources when you post. Opinions are like assholes; everyone's got one.

Shoes4Industry said...

At least Gore, unlike Bush, is not responsible for the deaths and injuries of ten's of thousands of people.

Let him us as much energy as he needs.

Moving on...

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

'nuthin' but opinions and assholes here. Guess we're all equal huh?

oinkoink...

H Nicole Young said...

It's always easy to miss buried in the noise, but I got it, Shoes. Thanks. A re-post just to be sure:

Humberto wasn't even a tropical storm until Wednesday afternoon, strengthening from a tropical depression with 35 mph winds to a hurricane with 85 mph winds in just 18 hours, senior hurricane specialist James Franklin said at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

"To put this development in perspective - no tropical cyclone in the historical record has ever reached this intensity at a faster rate near landfall.. It would be nice to know, someday, why this happened," Franklin said.

Are people attributing this hurricane behavior to global warming? You've got to be kidding? It's almost like they want to get caught at this point and are just sitting back having a field day laughing at all the "stupid people" who don't want to believe the "crazy people." Just look at them all running around in circles! Oh what fun!

Meanwhile "Mother Nature" is having a tantrum and quaking the beegeebees out of poor Indonesia.

Anonymous said...

"An Inconvenient LIE is chock full of fake science and scare tactics."

Even if this WAS true, you saw the images. you can't deny the physical changes that you can ACTUALLY SEE WITH YOUR OWN EYES.

"The weather forecasters can't even get an accurate 3 day forecast, but the weak minded simpletons who worship Goron believe the 10-100 year models..."

Since when has a forecaster ever really gotten it right. you're talking 3 days, which is like 3 drops in a giant tank. 10-100 year models take ACTUAL NUMBERS THAT HAVE BEEN RECORDED THAT YOU CAN READ WITH YOUR OWN EYES. You then can make your own conclusions.

"Scientists' by the hoard are disputing the Lies in Al's movie and it has been disproved over and over again when one take a FACTUAL look at the true science."

SHOW THIS INFORMATION BY LINKING TO ACTUAL REPUTABLE SOURCES.

Until then, I cry conservative pushing some whining liberal buttons.

Anonymous said...

oh, and since only some of us are actual scientists here, I ask you LB, as someone who is clearly NOT a scientist, what is your humble explanation for just how hot every summer has been. I mean, you yourself have said how long you've been alive....do YOU recall such hot summer days, even in your thirties?

Obviously, I have not had the distinction of your years of wisdom and experience, but I can recall the summers of my teen years and twenties being NOTHING like what we've seen this last decade.

Shoes4Industry said...

Thank you, Kimberly!

http://tinyurl.com/3bkgjp

Shoes4Industry said...

We can only guess where all the "hot air" is coming from lately...

MO.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

The Faithful Heretic
A Wisconsin Icon Pursues Tough Questions

Some people are lucky enough to enjoy their work, some are lucky enough to love it, and then there’s Reid Bryson. At age 86, he’s still hard at it every day, delving into the science some say he invented.

Reid A. Bryson holds the 30th PhD in Meteorology granted in the history of American education. Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Meteorology—now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences—in the 1970s he became the first director of what’s now the UW’s Gaylord Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies. He’s a member of the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor—created, the U.N. says, to recognize “outstanding achievements in the protection and improvement of the environment.” He has authored five books and more than 230 other publications and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world.

Long ago in the Army Air Corps, Bryson and a colleague prepared the aviation weather forecast that predicted discovery of the jet stream by a group of B-29s flying to and from Tokyo. Their warning to expect westerly winds at 168 knots earned Bryson and his friend a chewing out from a general—and the general’s apology the next day when he learned they were right. Bryson flew into a couple of typhoons in 1944, three years before the Weather Service officially did such things, and he prepared the forecast for the homeward flight of the Enola Gay. Back in Wisconsin, he built a program at the UW that’s trained some of the nation’s leading climatologists.

How Little We Know

Bryson is a believer in climate change, in that he’s as quick as anyone to acknowledge that Earth’s climate has done nothing but change throughout the planet’s existence. In fact, he took that knowledge a big step further, earlier than probably anyone else. Almost 40 years ago, Bryson stood before the American Association for the Advancement of Science and presented a paper saying human activity could alter climate.

“I was laughed off the platform for saying that,” he told Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News.

In the 1960s, Bryson’s idea was widely considered a radical proposition. But nowadays things have turned almost in the opposite direction: Hardly a day passes without some authority figure claiming that whatever the climate happens to be doing, human activity must be part of the explanation. And once again, Bryson is challenging the conventional wisdom.

“Climate’s always been changing and it’s been changing rapidly at various times, and so something was making it change in the past,” he told us in an interview this past winter. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?”

“All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd,” Bryson continues. “Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air.”

Little Ice Age? That’s what chased the Vikings out of Greenland after they’d farmed there for a few hundred years during the Mediaeval Warm Period, an earlier run of a few centuries when the planet was very likely warmer than it is now, without any help from industrial activity in making it that way. What’s called “proxy evidence”—assorted clues extrapolated from marine sediment cores, pollen specimens, and tree-ring data—helps reconstruct the climate in those times before instrumental temperature records existed.

We ask about that evidence, but Bryson says it’s second-tier stuff. “Don’t talk about proxies,” he says. “We have written evidence, eyeball evidence. When Eric the Red went to Greenland, how did he get there? It’s all written down.”

Bryson describes the navigational instructions provided for Norse mariners making their way from Europe to their settlements in Greenland. The place was named for a reason: The Norse farmed there from the 10th century to the 13th, a somewhat longer period than the United States has existed. But around 1200 the mariners’ instructions changed in a big way. Ice became a major navigational reference. Today, old Viking farmsteads are covered by glaciers.

Bryson mentions the retreat of Alpine glaciers, common grist for current headlines. “What do they find when the ice sheets retreat, in the Alps?”

We recall the two-year-old report saying a mature forest and agricultural water-management structures had been discovered emerging from the ice, seeing sunlight for the first time in thousands of years. Bryson interrupts excitedly.

“A silver mine! The guys had stacked up their tools because they were going to be back the next spring to mine more silver, only the snow never went,” he says. “There used to be less ice than now. It’s just getting back to normal.”

What Leads, What Follows?

What is normal? Maybe continuous change is the only thing that qualifies. There’s been warming over the past 150 years and even though it’s less than one degree, Celsius, something had to cause it. The usual suspect is the “greenhouse effect,” various atmospheric gases trapping solar energy, preventing it being reflected back into space.

We ask Bryson what could be making the key difference:

Q: Could you rank the things that have the most significant impact and where would you put carbon dioxide on the list?

A: Well let me give you one fact first. In the first 30 feet of the atmosphere, on the average, outward radiation from the Earth, which is what CO2 is supposed to affect, how much [of the reflected energy] is absorbed by water vapor? In the first 30 feet, 80 percent, okay?

Q: Eighty percent of the heat radiated back from the surface is absorbed in the first 30 feet by water vapor…

A: And how much is absorbed by carbon dioxide? Eight hundredths of one percent. One one-thousandth as important as water vapor. You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide.

This begs questions about the widely publicized mathematical models researchers run through supercomputers to generate climate scenarios 50 or 100 years in the future. Bryson says the data fed into the computers overemphasizes carbon dioxide and accounts poorly for the effects of clouds—water vapor. Asked to evaluate the models’ long-range predictive ability, he answers with another question: “Do you believe a five-day forecast?”

Bryson says he looks in the opposite direction, at past climate conditions, for clues to future climate behavior. Trying that approach in the weeks following our interview, Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News soon found six separate papers about Antarctic ice core studies, published in peer-reviewed scientific journals between 1999 and 2006. The ice core data allowed researchers to examine multiple climate changes reaching back over the past 650,000 years. All six studies found atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations tracking closely with temperatures, but with CO2 lagging behind changes in temperature, rather than leading them. The time lag between temperatures moving up—or down—and carbon dioxide following ranged from a few hundred to a few thousand years.

Renaissance Man, Marathon Man

When others were laughing at the concept, Reid Bryson was laying the ground floor for scientific investigation of human impacts on climate. We asked UW Professor Ed Hopkins, the assistant state climatologist, about the significance of Bryson’s work in advancing the science he’s now practiced for six decades.

“His contributions are manifold,” Hopkins said. “He wrote Climates of Hunger back in the 1970s looking at how climate changes over the last several thousand years have affected human activity and human cultures.”

This, he suggests, is traceable to Bryson’s high-school interest in archaeology, followed by college degrees in geology, then meteorology, and studies in oceanography, limnology, and other disciplines. “He’s looked at the interconnections of all these things and their impact on human societies,” Hopkins says. “He’s one of those people I would say is a Renaissance person.”

The Renaissance, of course, produced its share of heretics, and 21 years after he supposedly retired, one could ponder whether Bryson’s work today is a tale of continuing heresy, or of conventional wisdom being outpaced by an octogenarian.

Without addressing—or being asked—that question, UW Green Bay Emeritus Professor Joseph Moran agrees that Bryson qualifies as “the father of the science of modern climatology.”

“In his lifetime, in his career, he has shaped the future as well as the present state of climatology,” Moran says, adding, “We’re going to see his legacy with us for many generations to come.”

Holding bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Boston College, Moran became a doctoral candidate under Bryson in the late 1960s and early ’70s. “I came to Wisconsin because he was there,” Moran told us.

With Hopkins, Moran co-authored Wisconsin’s Weather and Climate, a book aimed at teachers, students, outdoor enthusiasts, and workers with a need to understand what the weather does and why. Bryson wrote a preface for the book but Hopkins told us the editors “couldn’t fathom” certain comments, thinking he was being too flippant with the remark that “Wisconsin is not for wimps when it comes to weather.”

Clearly what those editors couldn’t fathom was that Bryson simply enjoys mulling over the reasons weather and climate behave as they do and what might make them—and consequently us—behave differently. This was immediately obvious when we asked him why, at his age, he keeps showing up for work at a job he’s no longer paid to do.

“It’s fun!” he said. Ed Hopkins and Joe Moran would undoubtedly agree.

“I think that’s one of the reasons for his longevity,” Moran says. “He’s so interested and inquisitive. I regard him as a pot-stirrer. Sometimes people don’t react well when you challenge their long-held ideas, but that’s how real science takes place.”—Dave Hoopman

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

Man's contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn't change the climate if we tried, he maintained.

"We're all going to survive this. It's all going to be a joke in five years," he said.

A combination of misinterpreted and misguided science, media hype, and political spin had created the current hysteria and it was time to put a stop to it.

"It is time to attack the myth of global warming," he said.

Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained.

"If we didn't have the greenhouse effect the planet would be at minus 18 deg C but because we do have the greenhouse effect it is plus 15 deg C, all the time."

The other greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, and various others including CFCs, contributed only five per cent of the effect, carbon dioxide being by far the greatest contributor at 3.6 per cent.

However, carbon dioxide as a result of man's activities was only 3.2 per cent of that, hence only 0.12 per cent of the greenhouse gases in total. Human-related methane, nitrogen dioxide and CFCs etc made similarly minuscule contributions to the effect: 0.066, 0.047 and 0.046 per cent respectively.

"That ought to be the end of the argument, there and then," he said.

"We couldn't do it (change the climate) even if we wanted to because water vapour dominates."

Yet the Greens continued to use phrases such as "The planet is groaning under the weight of CO2" and Government policies were about to hit industries such as farming, he warned.

"The Greens are really going to go after you because you put out 49 per cent of the countries emissions. Does anybody ask 49 per cent of what? Does anybody know how small that number is?

"It's become a witch-hunt; a Salem witch-hunt," he said.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

Climate stability has never been a feature of planet Earth. The only constant about climate is change; it changes continually and, at times, quite rapidly. Many times in the past, temperatures were far higher than today, and occasionally, temperatures were colder. As recently as 6,000 years ago, it was about 3C warmer than now. Ten thousand years ago, while the world was coming out of the thou-sand-year-long "Younger Dryas" cold episode, temperatures rose as much as 6C in a decade -- 100 times faster than the past century's 0.6C warming that has so upset environmentalists.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

In his new book, The Assault on Reason, Al Gore pleads, "We must stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo-studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth." Gore repeatedly asks that science and reason displace cynical political posturing as the central focus of public discourse.

If Gore really means what he writes, he has an opportunity to make a difference by leading by example on the issue of global warming.

A cooperative and productive discussion of global warming must be open and honest regarding the science. Global warming threats ought to be studied and mitigated, and they should not be deliberately exaggerated as a means of building support for a desired political position.

Many of the assertions Gore makes in his movie, ''An Inconvenient Truth,'' have been refuted by science, both before and after he made them. Gore can show sincerity in his plea for scientific honesty by publicly acknowledging where science has rebutted his claims.

For example, Gore claims that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking and global warming is to blame. Yet the September 2006 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate reported, "Glaciers are growing in the Himalayan Mountains, confounding global warming alarmists who recently claimed the glaciers were shrinking and that global warming was to blame."

Gore claims the snowcap atop Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro is shrinking and that global warming is to blame. Yet according to the November 23, 2003, issue of Nature magazine, "Although it's tempting to blame the ice loss on global warming, researchers think that deforestation of the mountain's foothills is the more likely culprit. Without the forests' humidity, previously moisture-laden winds blew dry. No longer replenished with water, the ice is evaporating in the strong equatorial sunshine."

Gore claims global warming is causing more tornadoes. Yet the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in February that there has been no scientific link established between global warming and tornadoes.

Gore claims global warming is causing more frequent and severe hurricanes. However, hurricane expert Chris Landsea published a study on May 1 documenting that hurricane activity is no higher now than in decades past. Hurricane expert William Gray reported just a few days earlier, on April 27, that the number of major hurricanes making landfall on the U.S. Atlantic coast has declined in the past 40 years. Hurricane scientists reported in the April 18 Geophysical Research Letters that global warming enhances wind shear, which will prevent a significant increase in future hurricane activity.

Gore claims global warming is causing an expansion of African deserts. However, the Sept. 16, 2002, issue of New Scientist reports, "Africa's deserts are in 'spectacular' retreat . . . making farming viable again in what were some of the most arid parts of Africa."

Gore argues Greenland is in rapid meltdown, and that this threatens to raise sea levels by 20 feet. But according to a 2005 study in the Journal of Glaciology, "the Greenland ice sheet is thinning at the margins and growing inland, with a small overall mass gain." In late 2006, researchers at the Danish Meteorological Institute reported that the past two decades were the coldest for Greenland since the 1910s.

Gore claims the Antarctic ice sheet is melting because of global warming. Yet the Jan. 14, 2002, issue of Nature magazine reported Antarctica as a whole has been dramatically cooling for decades. More recently, scientists reported in the September 2006 issue of the British journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Series A: Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences, that satellite measurements of the Antarctic ice sheet showed significant growth between 1992 and 2003. And the U.N. Climate Change panel reported in February 2007 that Antarctica is unlikely to lose any ice mass during the remainder of the century.

Each of these cases provides an opportunity for Gore to lead by example in his call for an end to the distortion of science. Will he rise to the occasion? Only time will tell.

James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

The Man Who Saw Tomorrow
By Shawn Macomber
Published 7/13/2007 12:19:34 AM

In July 1989 columnist Warren Brookes surveyed the nation's Independence Day celebrations and noted that Americans were about to "engage willingly in activities that are thousands of times more dangerous than the 'environmental risks'" President George H.W. Bush and the U.S. Congress were committing hundreds of millions of dollars to stamp out of existence. No, Brookes wasn't arguing for more stringent fireworks regulation. Those taxpayer dollars, he wrote, were "trivial compared with the dangers to our liberties and our sanity from the risk-free agenda of the newest secular religionists, the 'ecotheologians'...who are now busy shouting 'death' on a crowded planet."

Eighteen years later, the nation's Fourth of July holiday was spent immersed in the hype over Al Gore's impending series of Live Earth concerts, where a few days later Jane Goodall would greet the crowd in chimpanzee squeals, then ask, "Up in the North the ice is melting, what will it take to melt the ice in the human heart?"; half-hearted purveyor of indifference anthemsJohn Mayer would liken environmental awareness to a vitamin -- "You go to the bathroom and 99 percent of it is gone but you hope that you retained 1 percent"; and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. would call a disagreement on global warming "treason" and those who air such skepticisms "traitors."

If Brookes hadn't tragically passed away in 1992 at age 62, he would likely be Kennedy's Public Enemy No. 1 today. Few understood the Green Scam quite so well or so early as Brookes did, and no one was more adept at eviscerating its sacred cows with sharpened facts, common sense -- he spent 20 years in business before entering opinion journalism -- and, yes, humor. ("When Columbus set sail for the New World, he was warned he would sail off the edge into an unknown abyss," Brookes once quipped. "I am convinced that one of those at the dock trying to get him to change his mind was Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich's ancestor Pablo.") After his death the Wall Street Journal eulogized, "Few voices stand as Warren Brookes did, shouting facts into the gale of fashion."

Brookes would not have been surprised by Gore's hubristic (and apparently incorrect) guesstimation at Live Earth that "more than 2 billion of us have come together in more than 130 countries on all seven continents" to "demand action." In 1989 Brookes watched Gore's global warming presentation at the National Press Club -- precursor to an Academy Award winning film, in case you haven't heard -- during which the preening Man Who Wouldn't Be King warned near-biblical droughts were imminent.

"Since historically an average of one-sixth of the United States is in some kind of drought each year, and the natural Pacific current cycle now predicts warmer temperatures in 1991 to 1992," Brookes, recognizing the self-serving convenience and lazy ease embodied in such sweeping statements, wrote, "Gore could well mobilize liberals away from Jesse Jackson to Mother Earth." (Whether Gore could today entice them away from Mother Clinton is another issue, of course.)

Brookes had already tapped into the heart of an argument many of today's skeptics still have not been able to get a handle on: The shifting goalposts. The ease with which any anomalous negative event is shoehorned into the doomsday theory du jour, while calm elsewhere is simply ignored; the bullying to shut up, to accept, to face contempt in polite company if you fail to dutifully bow before the latest green orthodoxy. The apocalypse now crowd has told us ad infinitum the debate on global warming is over. For Warren Brookes -- as anyone acquainted with The Economy in Mind or Unconventional Wisdom is well aware -- no debate was ever over.


BROOKES BALKED AT a U.S. Congress "determined to legislatively overturn...rational approach with regulatory absolutism that borders on the occult." He mocked McDonald's ill-advised switch from easily recyclable polystyrene containers to not-so-easily-recycled coated paperboard containers at the behest of a marauding Environmental Defense Fund as "not sound science but ill-informed yuppie-ism." He coolly disassembled the widely accepted, yet "very largely counterproductive" insistence on paper recycling, pointing out paper was a "completely renewable resource whose production has been rising for the last 40 years," commercially valuable, and "superb for the environment (consuming carbon dioxide, enriching -- albeit acidifying -- surface soils and preventing erosion)," and, thus, worthy of constant production. And in the late-eighties Brookes challenged "'global warmers'" who in the early- to mid-seventies "were predicting an ice age because of sharp cooling since 1938, which was not explained by any global warming model," and offered a slew of scientific evidence debunking other tenets of the new climate change faith.

Brookes was the ultimate bane of environmental extremists -- a skeptic who could put threats in context. "The risk of an airplane falling on this hotel and killing you is about three in a million," the columnist told one California crowd, before adding that such a freak accident was three times more likely to kill anyone in the room than the chemicals environmental groups were trying to ban via state referendum at the time. (The referendum, once polling two-to-one in favor, failed.) Government risk assessments, Brookes also revealed, were "not based on a rational appraisal of normal human exposure but of the 'maximum exposed individual' (MEI), who is assumed to be living directly at the point of highest pollutant exposure, outdoors, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, throughout a 70-year lifetime."

As early as 1982, Brookes was elucidating the statist impulses of the environmental movement, using Charlie Brown's Great Killer Watermelon as a stand-in for the modern anti-capitalist environmentalist -- "dark green on the outside, red on the inside." In The Economy in Mind, Brookes's classic defense of free-markets, wrote of two editorials appearing in a liberal newspaper:

The first was a defense of more government regulation of the economy and of business. In summary it said: Our economy has now become so complex and so sophisticated, it is simply impossible to allow it to run by itself without a substantial degree of government regulation. Just six inches below was a fervent plea for environmental integrity, whose gist was: Our magnificent natural environment is simply far too complex and too delicate in its balance for mere mortals to go on interfering in "its naturally accommodative process." Such human interference, no matter how well meaning, invariably produces chaos and distortion. So, on the one hand, our economy is so complex that it must be regulated, and on the other, our ecology is so complex that we shouldn't attempt to interfere with it.


Indeed, Brookes believed, as he argued in a paper on the eve of his passing, "regulatory overkill is very likely to give us a worse environment, as well as a worse economy, because the effect of that regulatory overkill will be to slow this nation's advance along the technological learning curve, a curve that I maintain is bright green." In an earlier column, Brookes warned of Americans "being led in part by a dangerously shallow media to engage in the reckless regulatory pursuit of zero risk, and a flat-earth assault on science and technology" and a nation "more willing than ever to give up big benefits to control either imaginary or infinitesimal risks."

"Just as the toddler on a tether is safer than the child running free," Brookes continued, "a risk-free society is one on a very tight leash."

These days, the nation seems to be half-heartedly dodging a collar two sizes too small which nanny staters in green aprons seem all too intent on cramming over our collective head. Then again, without The Economy in Mind and Brookes's prodigious columns, perhaps we'd already be wearing it. It's impossible to tell. One thing is certain, however: We are in desperate need of another indefatigable visionary like Warren Brookes today.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

Fractions of gases in air by volume : N2 =0.7808 ;
O2=0.2095; argon= 0.0093;
CO2 =0.0003 !!! ( ie , not a lot folks ) .

That would be 3 Ten Thousandths!! of 1 PERCENT that CO2 is in the "Air"..

GLOBAL WARMING IS BULLSHIT!!

CLIMATE CHANGE is inevitable and always changing.

And, yes, shirley, at my advanced age I can remember clear as a bell the first Christmas that there was no snow on the ground...1967 to be exact.

As I used to tell both my ex-wives...Never argue with the Master...you'll lose every time.

And I have LOTS more I can post when anybody here is ready for more facts...WOOF!!

Shoes4Industry said...

Nope, I think this...

"As I used to tell both my ex-wives...Never argue with the Master...you'll lose every time.

tells us all we really need to know from you. Thanks anyway.

Anonymous said...

As I recall, we said "reputable" sources. An energy industry trade magazine isn't exactly an unbiased source. (See CAPS below)

"Who The Heck Is Reid Bryson?

For a short time during the 1970s, a number of climatologists theorized that the Earth was heading towards an ice-age. Leading this group was Reid Bryson, whose work was the primary inspiration for a number of CIA reports and the book The Weather Conspiracy. At one point, Mr. Bryson wrote that:

'There is very important climatic change going on right now, and it’s not merely something of academic interest.' Bryson warned, 'It is something that, if it continues, will affect the whole human occupation of the earth – like a billion people starving. The effects are already showing up in a rather drastic way.'

"However, this theory was soon abandoned. Bryson recanted his earlier warnings and eventually retired (in 1986, by my calculations). Meanwhile, the above quote became fodder for a million GW Denier websites, evidence that scientists "can’t decide whether we face an ice age or warming".

"And then, just last week, Reid Bryson pops up in the "Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News," THE MAGAZINE OF THE WISCONSIN ENERGY COOPERATIVE, AN ASSOCIATION OF WISCONSIN ENERGY PRODUCER.

In "The Faithful Heretic," he spends several pages trash-talking the science behind anthropogenic Global Warming, employing most of the standard skeptical talking points.

And suddenly, the guy once ridiculed for being wrong about Global Cooling has become a prophet for GW Deniers everywhere! Oh how the worm turns!

http://tinyurl.com/2znava

Shoes4Industry said...

James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute.

The Institute was a member organization of the Cooler Heads Coalition which questioned the impact of global warming and felt that climate control policies hurt consumers. The Board of Directors for the Heartland Institute includes Thomas Walton, an executive of General Motors Corporation.
According to Exxon Secrets.org , The Heartland Institute has received annual donations from Exxon-Mobil in amounts ranging from $100,000 to $200,000.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

yawn...facts are facts, except when you're a Goron, and then it's whatever someone who is "smarter" spoon feeds you.

click...

H Nicole Young said...

This is a great string tonight. Learning a lot from all sides for sure.

One scientist I worked with always frothed at the mouth whenever you mentioned either global warming or the 9/11 Truth Movement because he thought both were fraudulent. I had an open mind on both issues, as I always do whenever I don't have the time to look into the validity of "facts" myself, though I tended to side with this guy simply because he was so passionate and seemed to have investigated things thoroughly.

Not!

Once I investigated 9/11 on my own and recognized major problems with the official story on many levels, this guy's scientific opinion was in the toilet with me, and I actually began to favor global warming simply through "guilt by association" with him.

The same is true with Life and his stance on global warming where I think to myself: Life obviously has a giant emotional mental block with regard to 9/11, so what's not to say it's the same with global warming?

However, I must say that Life seems to have presented a lot of good arguments tonight that warrant looking into on global warming. Good job, Life. Will do.

As a disclaimer, I tend to court the idea that all politicians (yes, even Al Gore -- eek! don't yell at me anybody) can't resist over-using scare tactics to achieve their ends. I therefore already have a bias going into these arguments that says: "terrorists are out to getcha" and "CO2 is out to getcha" are sort of one in the same, just from two different extremes.

After reviewing the facts, there is no doubt in my mind that the "terrorists are out to getcha" statement is a scam.

Before reviewing the facts, there is some doubt, but nevertheless strong leanings tonight, that the "CO2 is out to getcha" statement may very well also be scam. We'll see...

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

Once again nic, you show signs of actually having a brain and some freedom of thought as opposed to the hard core Gorons on here...just don't start on GWB generated tsunamis and earthquakes...let alone frothing, DEWs and DrJudy...

I'll give you the answer to the question about Climate Change. Do your research, study, spend years!! reading all you can about it and it will slap you in the face like a wet noodle....


it's called......The SUN!!!

See how simple the answer is...

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

http://tinyurl.com/8lce6

http://tinyurl.com/357lb

http://tinyurl.com/3vqhj

http://tinyurl.com/234q5m

http://tinyurl.com/yhxogm

http://tinyurl.com/37drzq

Never Argue With The Master...

WOOF!!!

Anonymous said...

First the article says:
"Almost 40 years ago, Bryson stood before the American Association for the Advancement of Science and presented a paper saying human activity could alter climate."

Which, correct me if I'm wrong is what Gore and his scientists are saying now.

Then the article says:
"In the 1960s, Bryson’s idea was widely considered a RADICAL PROPOSITION. But nowadays things have turned almost in the opposite direction: Hardly a day passes without some authority figure claiming that whatever the climate happens to be doing, human activity must be part of the explanation. And once again, Bryson is challenging the conventional wisdom."

So Bryson has now changed his mind? If he has, that's fine, but your article example kind of cancels itself out.

At least your article shows that people can change their minds about "RADICAL PROPOSITIONS."

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

It's the resources and the credibility of the reporter/writer...stupid...

Shoes4Industry said...

"It's the Methane, stupid."

Methane is more than 20 times as strong a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.

http://tinyurl.com/2sljqu

H Nicole Young said...

My quantum mechanics professor at UC, Irvine, was Prof. Sherwood Rowland, the guy who eventually (after this) won the Nobel Prize for his work on how CFC's effect the ozone layer -- good solid work despite the subsequent arguments over what it all means.

"Sherry" had a famous lecture at the time (by student word of mouth -- and we're talking over twenty years ago now) about the cows and various methods of trying to measure their methane production. Pretty fun stuff, but it seems scientists knew all about this methane problem a long time ago (BTW, ant hills are also notorious producers of methane).

Did they find a better, more accurate method of measuring and found that the numbers are significantly higher? I'm pretty sure the crux of the problem was that methane itself is significantly more harmful to the ozone than CFC's so it takes a lot less to do the same amount of damage. Just curious why the cows are being brought to the forefront lately. Worth looking into...

Lee said...

I remember my mother (who would have been 82) telling me when I was younger that the summers weren't nearly as hot as they were then than when she was a kid.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

They called it the Dust Bowl...my old man was in it when he was a kid.

H Nicole Young said...

Good article on the methane burps from the arctic, Shoes!

H Nicole Young said...

I misstated earlier that methane was somehow more harmful to the ozone than CFC's. It may very well be in an indirect way, but it appears methane does its damage mostly by being a strong IR absorber.

I obviously was too distracted in Sherry's lecture with the gory details of how cow farts were measured to pay close attention to the chemical mechanisms!

Anyway, this won't take a "lifetime of studying," Life. I predict I'll have a pretty good handle on global warming by next week. Science is great that way. Once you have the basic high school or freshman level knowledge in math, physics, chemistry, and biology, you can jump into just about any area and get up to speed pretty quickly just by reviewing the recent literature to see where things stand and what all the recent arguments are.

As a first glance-over and having nothing to do with my knowledge of basic science, I can predict about 75% of the science in this area is probably BS from both sides by the simple fact that most of the "gurus" on both sides appear to be men.

In general, men aren't very good at "complex" scientific questions that go beyond equations and go beyond simple yes or no, black or white, answers. It is why women are infinitely better suited than men for the "science of the 21st century" -- biology.

Sadly enough, people will be dying of cancer younger than need be and a lot longer than need be simply because the current hierachial system of studying science (i.e., academic institutions and granting schemes) is set up to favor aggressive, yet relatively clueless men, and not the quitely smart and talented women who can do much more damage in this complex area of study with probably about 1/10th the money.

But I digress...

Anonymous said...

"Never argue with the Master ... you'll lose every time"???

That's got to be one of the most immature statements on record.

Even IF there was not overwhelming consensus among experts that global warming is THE major issue we face, what's the problem with conserving energy? Why squander finite resources? Why not drive a small car that gets 40 mpg, unless you need a gas-sucking, white trash, phallic substitute for some other reason? (Maybe the two exes could help us out here?)

Anonymous said...

Well said, h nic! You are familiar with The Molecules of Emotion, by the inimitable Candace Pert, no doubt.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

Thanks for pulling my finger Money...I had a big bowl of chili last night...I needed that.

And, yet again, you show your own arrogance and stupidity as to your having "lived on a farm"....pffttt. Farmers and country people know a hell of a lot more about conserving that you coasties ever will.

Just so happens my 'vette gets 25-29 MPH, will run 160+ all day long and will hold it's value a lot longer than one of those disposable hazardous waste "Hybrid" POS that you tofu eating greenies seem to think will save the world. And the Gold Wing gets over 40MPG.

Moooo....

H Nicole Young said...

Gawd I love this site. No. Never heard of Candace Pert nor her book until now, except in what I call my "peripheral hearing." Thanks, Stay. I'm on it...

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

...ooh...and all we need to do is get Master of Master/Blaster in Bartertown to turn Methane into Energy. Just ask Aunty who runs Bartertown.

Thunderdome...Two men enter...only I come out.

H Nicole Young said...

Geez, Life. That comment about loving this site was for Stay's comment, not yours. I get your points, Life, I just don't support the method of choice for conveying the information. Then again, maybe it is simply the "crude language of the average man from the heartland" for all I know. I sure wish we'd get some other "average man from the heartland" to chime in here to help us out on this.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

your post wasn't up when I did mine...it's all a matter of timing...you're a woman, you should know that...

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

I can wax poet with the best of them. Elucidating has never been a problem. Having written numerous technical manuals, assembly instructions, published articles in technical journals, about 1,000 letters to the editor, eulogies, radio and TV advertising script, educational videos, and about a jillion more words, at my age, I just prefer to cut through the bullshit.

You think I talk crude and boorish, ya' otta' hear what the other 3 guys sitting here with me drinking a beer are saying. Your knickers would be so knotted, you'd faint.

BowWow...

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

oops...poetic...on beer 2 didn't proofread it.

Anonymous said...

I think you'll enjoy her take on being a woman in the scientific world, h nic. She was royally screwed (figuratively) by the men she worked with, including a couple whose booties she saved from major embarrassment. But aside from that, her work is groundbreaking, fascinating and thoroughly documented. Unlike some of the posts here.

Anonymous said...

Ooops, forgot to mention -- MoneyHoney, you're too much. White trash, phallic substitute, indeed. Back later, my tofu is getting cold!

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

(click)...mission accomplished...

too bad ya' all ain't here...small country town county seat celebrating their 170+ yearly founding. 65 degrees, sunshine, cotton candy, and small children laughing and squealing while riding the carnival attractions.

And real ice cream...not of that seafood squid soybean crap.


WOOF!!

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

From GOC...another real man...

Uh Oh! This isn't good news for Pope Algore and his AGW scam. Thanks to Dick for the link.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new analysis of peer-reviewed literature reveals that more than 500 scientists have published evidence refuting at least one element of current man-made global warming scares.

500 scientists? I thought the debate was over. I thought there was a consensus.

More than 300 of the scientists found evidence that 1) a natural moderate 1,500-year climate cycle has produced more than a dozen global warmings similar to ours since the last Ice Age

Which I have been maintaining for over a year.

and/or that 2) our Modern Warming is linked strongly to variations in the sun's irradiance.

Which I have also been maintaining for over a year. It's that big burning mass of hydrogen up in the sky. It has cycles. The icecaps on Mars are melting and the only SUVs on Mars are the Mars Rovers and I don't think they're spewing out too much CO2.

"This data and the list of scientists make a mockery of recent claims that a scientific consensus blames humans as the primary cause of global temperature increases since 1850," said Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Dennis Avery.

Anything else?

Other researchers found evidence that 3) sea levels are failing to rise importantly;

But what about Pope Algore's PowerPoint presentation movie, An Inconvenient LieTruth? He showed the seas covering most of Florida. If the Pope is to be believed, we shouldn't be shoveling money into Nawlins, 'cause we won't be alble to build the levees high enough to protect it.

4) that our storms and droughts are becoming fewer and milder with this warming as they did during previous global warmings;

Huh! WTF? That's not what the Pope of AGW has been telling us. And what about the LSM? We were told there were gonna be 17 major storms this hurricane season. Where are they? We also just found out recently that NASA's temperature numbers were wrong and 1998 was not the hottest year on record. In fact, five out of the ten hottest years on record occurred before WW2.

5) that human deaths will be reduced with warming because cold kills twice as many people as heat;

So global warming might not be so bad after all? We're not all gonna die?

and 6) that corals, trees, birds, mammals, and butterflies are adapting well to the routine reality of changing climate.

As they have for millions of years. It's called evolution and survival of the fittest. It's the way nature works.

Despite being published in such journals such as Science, Nature and Geophysical Review Letters, these scientists have gotten little media attention.

No! Could there be some bias in the media? "No. Nothing to see here. Move along. AGW is real. The debate is over. We have a consensus." So saith Pope Algore and his acolytes in the LSM and the Church of AGW.

"Not all of these researchers would describe themselves as global warming skeptics," said Avery, "but the evidence in their studies is there for all to see."

No. They have faith in Pope Algore. He told them the debate is over and there was a consensus.

The names were compiled by Avery and climate physicist S. Fred Singer, the co-authors of the new book Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, mainly from the peer-reviewed studies cited in their book. The researchers' specialties include tree rings, sea levels, stalagmites, lichens, pollen, plankton, insects, public health, Chinese history and astrophysics.

"We've had a Greenhouse Theory with no evidence to support it-except a
moderate warming turned into a scare by computer models whose results have
never been verified with real-world events," said co-author Singer. "On the
other hand, we have compelling evidence of a real-world climate cycle
averaging 1470 years (plus or minus 500) running through the last million
years of history. The climate cycle has above all been moderate, and the
trees, bears, birds, and humans have quietly adapted."

As I said earlier, that's the way nature works. Adapt or die. It's been this way for millions and millions of years. It's hubris to think that mankind can cause this and change this.

"Two thousand years of published human histories say that the warm periods were good for people," says Avery. "It was the harsh, unstable Dark Ages and Little Ice Age that brought bigger storms, untimely frost, widespread famine and plagues of disease." "There may have been a consensus of guesses among climate model-builders," says Singer. "However, the models only reflect the warming, not its cause." He noted that about 70 percent of the earth's post-1850 warming came before 1940, and thus was probably not caused by human-emitted greenhouse gases. The net post-1940 warming totals only a tiny 0.2 degrees C.

So we're not all gonna die?

The historic evidence of the natural cycle includes the 5000-year record of Nile floods, 1st-century Roman wine production in Britain

Yep! Wine productiion in Britain. BTW, French wineries are purchasing land in Britain to grow grapes.

and thousands of museum paintings that portrayed sunnier skies during the Medieval Warming and more cloudiness during the Little Ice Age.

As I wrote in an earlier post, this was what doomed the inhabitants of Greenland. When the Little Ice Age hit, they were no longer able to grow forage for their animals. We are not as warm now as it was during the time of the Roman Empire. Yannow, when they were growing grapes in England.

The physical evidence comes from oxygen isotopes, beryllium ions, tiny sea and pollen fossils, and ancient tree rings. The evidence recovered from ice cores, sea and lake sediments, cave stalagmites and glaciers has been analyzed by electron microscopes, satellites, and computers. Temperatures during the Medieval Warming Period on California's Whitewing Mountain must have been 3.2 degrees warmer than today, says Constance Millar of the U.S. Forest Service, based on her study of seven species of relict trees that grew above today's tree line.

Take that Pope Algore!

Singer emphasized, "Humans have known since the invention of the telescope that the earth's climate variations were linked to the sunspot cycle, but we had not understood how. Recent experiments have demonstrated that more or fewer cosmic rays hitting the earth create more or fewer of the low, cooling clouds that deflect solar heat back into space-amplifying small variations in the intensity of the sun.

It's the sun that's doing it. The sun drives climate, not mankind.

How do you like them apples Prosper? Bring on the Wikipedia cites.

H Nicole Young said...

Has anybody seen Cheney today? There have been promises all week that he would show his face today, but nada, as far as I can see.

H Nicole Young said...
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H Nicole Young said...

Sixty five comments, and most are on topic for global warming. Good post, Shoes!

Global warming is now my number three priority after 9/11 and after exposing pro-war congresspeople (and yes, believe it or not, there are Democrats on the list, though I expect them to become extinct very quickly this week) on their potential financial links to the war.

Interestingly enough, in order to label a congressperson "pro-war" you have to know what their stance is, and very few Republican congresspeople seem to be coming right out and strongly stating that they back the Bush proposals, at least on their web sites.

On troop withdrawal, Bush was originally touting, "30,000 by next July."

However, Robert Gates (the unofficial voice of Bush) changed that number today and said, "100,000 troops by the end of 2008."

http://tinyurl.com/3dwmh7

This is therefore the absolute minimum troop withdrawal number I would expect supported by any Republican congressperson who wants to "play it safe" with the administration on this issue.

As for an agreement in the Senate this week, I would expect a troop withdrawal number much higher than this, since a vast majority of the Senate is not (or at least should not be) "in line" with Bush on the issue, and at least 22 Republican senators are trying to save their asses in the 2008 election. Good luck to them! I somehow doubt a 100% withdrawal by the end of THIS year will save some of them at this point.

Anonymous said...

I love how georgie is taking credit for troops who are scheduled to come home anyway (at least, if they live that long) because their 15-month deployment is up. He's not reducing the numbers. He's lying, as per usual.

H Nicole Young said...

It just dawned on me that we never got your opinion, Life, on the war and on troop withdrawals. Was it in your poll a while back?

Most conservatives I know are the same way -- they are either openly against the war and want it to end immediately or they say nothing. Makes me wonder where the conservative congresspeople who are supporting the war are getting their support, other than shady financial deals with defense contractors, I mean.

H Nicole Young said...

Yes, I love this new kind of democracy that MoveOn.org is creating, where they say, "Hey, here is the message we want to send to Bush and the American people in a TV ad next week. If you agree and like the ad, please contribute to paying for the air time...

http://tinyurl.com/35rj7y

H Nicole Young said...

Is it just me or is this just plain embarassing for me as an American...

Speaking to thousands of worshippers during the first Friday prayer of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Bush will be called to account for the U.S.-led invasion.

"A day will come that the current U.S. president and officials will be tried in an international supreme court for the catastrophes they caused in Iraq," he said.

"Americans will have to answer for why they don't end occupation of Iraq and why waves of terrorism and insurgency have overwhelmed the country," he added. "It will not be like this forever and some day they will be stopped as happened to Hitler, Saddam and certain other European leaders."

http://tinyurl.com/2uf9v7

Anonymous said...

It's not just you, h nic -- it's very embarrassing to be an American right now. In most countries, we're either despised or laughed at.

I've read in a number of places (too late to get links right now) that in Europe they are wondering why Americans are letting Bush get away with all this. In Europe, the elected officials are afraid of citizens and demonstrations. Of course, in this country, very few people are into demonstrating. Too bad. There's so much to raise hell over!

H Nicole Young said...

Let's see what tomorrow brings. It's the big anti-war march in DC...

H Nicole Young said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
H Nicole Young said...

BTW, I know it seems like an American institution -- to hit the streets for peace -- but I think it's just a bogus idea handed down for generations beginning with our foreFATHERS (because gawd knows our foreMOTHERS would not have put up with this crap for one second, if they had a say).

Why do we think that this is just the way it has to be? If you want peace, you have to fight for it? How dumb is that? Peace should be the expected norm, not the other way around. People should have to hit the streets for war, if they want it so badly.

Anonymous said...

Nicole: "You wonder were conserative congress people get their war support." Maybe it comes from those conseratives who say nothing. What's to squawk about when you agree? "Other than shady financial deals with defense contractors." Always a suspicious mind?

You are embarassed to be an American because of what some Muslum Iranian leader thinks? How pitiful. I'm embarassed because there are Americans like you.

MS: Would you like to explain why thousands of people from all over this world come here if we are so hated, despised, and laughed at? Not many trying to get out of the USA - only in. Yes, let's worry about what Europe thinks of us as they continue to be overrun with Muslums. Too bad you and the rest are so overcome with a severe inferiority complex.

Nicole: Yes, peace should be expected. But so should zero-crime, harmony, zero-discrimination, etc. Sadly though it is not the real world we live in. Just like all the other ugly things that happen, war is just another ugly fact of life.

H Nicole Young said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
H Nicole Young said...

So here is somebody in favor of continuing the occupation. What about you, Life?

I still suspect there is not as much support for this occupation as the media and the Congresspeople making money on it claim. That is my point. I just hope to get reliable statistics on it one way or another, that's all.

I don't mind the congresspeople who vote on continuing the occupation if this is according to the will of their constituents (yes, even the quiet ones) and the will of their state legislators, but if the will of the people is somehow being suppressed because of some congressperson's own self-interest, that's not good.

Yes, it happens all the time in politics, but I think the pendulum has swung way too far to the side of ignoring the people.

As for my embarrassment, I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Bush/Cheney are directly responsible for 9/11, probably more Cheney than Bush, but still.

On that premise, I don't see how we can pretend to be a world leader and pretend to have some moral authority on telling other countries how to "behave." Also on this premise, you can't blame Iran for wanting to build nuclear arms ASAP. Wouldn't you?

Obviously, some don't believe Bush/Cheney were directly responsible for 9/11 or even more frightening, some in this country (probably mostly religious extremists) have a pretty darn good idea of what really happened on 9/11 and actually approve of the "grand vision" behind it.

I just hope you are in the first category, Lee.

H Nicole Young said...

BTW -- bin Laden is, of course, probably in on the whole 9/11 scam, as well as most leaders of the Middle East. It's not like I'm siding with them, Lee! It's more of an us (people of the world) versus them (leaders of the world), than it is an us (Judeo-Christian Americans) vs them (Islamic Middle-Easterners).

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

Sadly, you "Progressives" just don't get it. No soldier wants war any more than any citizen. What you, and many of your generation (and mines) don't understand, is that when war is necessary, there is only one way to wage it. And that is swift and decisive victory. Ask your grandfathers and great grandfathers about it. It's called history. And history is doomed to repeat itself unless things are done differently with experience from the past.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait, GHWB should have taken Baghdad like Grant took Vicksburg. Instead, we(The US), had to play "nice" and worry about what the world thought of us. That did nothing but encourage the bastards to push even further.

When the WTC was first bombed under WJC's watch in '93, we should have carpet bombed Tehran, Baghdad, and about a half dozen other major cities in countries that were state sponsors of terrorism. We didn't and that's what led to 9/11.

GWB should have unleashed the full fury of the US Military on about another half dozen countries till they begged for mercy. Instead, again, we're being "nice". You cannot win in war by being nice.

...oh...MS, if you're embarrassed to be an American because of what "The rest of the world" thinks of us. Feel free to join them...and leave America to those of us who love this country and will do anything to protect and defend her. You don't see a lot of people wanting to leave this country. Instead everyone wants to come here...maybe you can be a trend setter after all. And feel free to take all the tofu you can carry with ya'.

MOOOO.....

Anonymous said...

"...leave America to those of us who will do anything to protect and defend her." Wow, how brave of you to sit at a keyboard "defending" your country! Hope you've got your Kevlar on, just in case Al Kayda (that's the MO spelling - phonetic, needless to say) comes calling.

Since you're so keen on saving America, why aren't you in NOLA, helping Habitat for Humanity or some other group rebuild the city? It's still part of America, last time I checked.

And, lee, better update your stats -- we're experiencing reverse migration. Something like 30,000 Americans a month are moving to Canada and another 30,000 a month are moving to just one area of Mexico - Guadalajara. And then there's the thousands heading for Costa Rica, Panama, and other Central American countries, not to mention Europe.

Buh-bye!

H Nicole Young said...

The problem is there is no money in quick wars.

Shoes4Industry said...

"is that when war is necessary,'

and when was war ever "necessary" with Iraq? When they were going to invade the US?

"When the WTC was first bombed under WJC's watch in '93, we should have carpet bombed Tehran, Baghdad, and about a half dozen other major cities in countries that were state sponsors of terrorism. We didn't and that's what led to 9/11."

So what did either Tehran or Baghdad have to do with WTC '93 or 9/11, we thought the majority of terrorists (including Bin Laden) were Saudis?

You better get your facts straight before you pontificate LB, since you insist that others do the same.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

Canada? And have you started packing your bags yet?

..and...sigh...you still can't get a grasp on history can ya' SFI?

Dead people scare better.

Shoes4Industry said...

So what has the war in Iraq accomplished other than the greatest transfer of wealth from taxpayers to private, special interest groups, in the history of the world?

Sounds like someone's been watching too much of the Neanderthal Channel.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

War is good for business. Why do you think we came out of WWII so strong? How old are you shoes? About 12?

Of course that would require a straight answer...something you are incapable of.

Anonymous said...

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS GRAPHIC LANGUAGE THAT SOME OF YOU MIGHT WANT TO IGNORE. THEY ARE INTENDED FOR ONE PARTICULAR TROLL ONLY AND MY APOLOGIES TO EVERYONE ELSE, INCLUDING YOU, SHOES:

OMG, LB, you are one sick f*ck, (although I'm sure you consider that a compliment). "War is good for business"?????? I cannot believe anyone -- even someone as abysmally dense and insensitive as you -- would say such a heinous thing.

Do you have a single fracking clue what war is like? Meaning, have you ever been to war or known anyone who was involved in one, either as a soldier or a victim? NO! Clearly not, or you would not be touting it as a way of bolstering the economy.

I have a great deal of experience with people who suffered from the aftermath of war, and that includes WWII, the Holocaust and Vietnam. War is a horrible, barbaric practice that should be completely abolished. There is no upside. There are no winners. There are only survivors whose lives are changed forever in ways a dick like you can't even comprehend.

As for the economy, there are far better ways of stimulating it than having a bunch of kids who aren't even 30 years old yet get killed, along with more than a million Iraqis (the latest CONFIRMED figure). And now a veterans' affairs expert is reporting that the number of American troops who survived the war and are suffering from PTSD and TBI is well above 200,000. Gonna be a real drag on the economy, taking care of all those people and their families. Oh, wait, I forgot, Repugs don't give a shit about the troops after they're out of the service.

Meanwhile, check something other than the DJ and you'll see that the economy (housing, jobs, energy prices) is going down the toilet faster than Bush's ratings.

DO NOT BOTHER TO REPLY TO THIS WITH ANY OF YOUR FEED STORE "FACTS" BECAUSE THE COMMENT YOU MADE ABOVE SHOWS YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A LOW LIFE, SCUM-SUCKING IGNORAMUS. IF I WERE SHOES I WOULD BAN YOUR ASS FROM THIS SITE. YESTERDAY. THE ONLY REASON HE KEEPS YOU AROUND IS FOR A GOOD LAUGH, ANYWAY. HAPPY CORNHOLING!

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

hmmm..sounds like someone dug through too much trash looking for a story and must have inhaled some toxic fumes.

If there's anybody on here not worth bothering to respond to it would be you MS. But you're obviously the one with the complex. That's why you're so much fun to play with.

Can't wait till the sh*tkickers come over next time and show them your latest...ROTFLMAO!!

OinkOink...

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

http://www.realchange.org/gore.htm

sounds like an honorable man to me..

H Nicole Young said...

A clarification on my previous post:

The problem is there is no money (for congresspeople) in quick wars.

Anonymous said...

Don't mind old LoserBoy2000, moneyHoney -- he's just proof that living in an old funeral home is none too smart. Mmmmm, formaldehyde, the embalmer's friend -- and your brain's enemy!!

gotta go finish a couple thing. Later, babe!

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

LMAO!! Actually there hasn't been any embalming done in this place for over 35+ years now. You people just crack me up.

And I live in 6,000 sq ft and an acre for $75k...My living room is bigger than about half the houses in town...what do you live in? Mommy's basement?

Anonymous said...

nice to see you're staying relevant and on topic.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

I didn't start it...but I can finish it...

http://tinyurl.com/2uxo6w

I find the comments most profound.

Anonymous said...

Hey, stayhungry, you just reminded me of something. From his last comments, it seems LoserBoy (good one!!)doesn't have a clue who Shoes is. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

I could care less who Shoes is...and you'd be surprised at what I know about who. Comes from hanging out at the feed store...putz...

Lee said...

MS: Must be that those 30,000 people that are going to Canada for the great health plan they have.

And Americans are leaving here in droves for MEXICO? Where did you get that stat. from the Mexican government?

People flock to the land of opportunity. And to the ones that are leaving - Buh-bye to them all.

PS: Ozone Al now has an Emmy to go along with his Oscar. But he is STILL not the president. Bet he'd trade them both to sit where BUSH does!

Shoes4Industry said...

You sound so sure, we'll see Lee.

Anonymous said...

Uh-oh, looks like Petraeus is going to get a medal of freedoms!

http://tinyurl.com/yo2b4k

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

I hope Algoron does come out and run. It'll be a thumpin'. His cry baby attitude burned him with his base and the general public after his DEFEAT in 2000 when he LOST the election.

Anonymous said...

http://tinyurl.com/27jjfw

http://tinyurl.com/zfvor

Okay, LoserBoy and WeeLee, which one of the sorry old white guys (i.e., repugnicans) are you voting for? And do tell us why -- your insights are always so half assed, I find they them amusing, in a pathetic sort of way.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

Ideally Thompson/Gingrich. Why? Just to hear liberal old nags like you whine. You're pretty good at dishing it out and I can take anything you or anybody else throws....how 'bout you?

You've made fun of me and my home state, farmers, my forefathers generation, my house, and about anything else that has to do with "sorry old white guys" at the "feed store" who drive a vehicle with a V-8. Do you even think for a minute you are more than a gnats ass worth of irritation to me or my friends who read this blog? You're fodder for the laugh mill for 99% of the people I know.

And where I live I'm in a very small minority of "Repugnicans" surrounded by Dimohypocrats. 'cept where I live The Dems actually have some common sense and take pride in their country and what it stands for. They fly their flags from their truck and tractor antennas and think Algore and Clinton are scum. You walk into the cafe where I eat and start spouting your California crap and you'd leave in tears from all the "sorry old white guys" who know BS when they smell it.

You're a whiny, California, elite snob, who can't stand that anyone has the mere audacity to disagree with your holistic high minded holier than thou attitude.

If it wasn't for the "sorry old white guys" who have fought to defend this country from all the threats it has faced since it's founding, you'd be wearing a rag from your head to your toes, picking up cow pies for a fire to cook your masters' meals.

And I'm being polite...wouldn't want you to think I wasn't "Progressive"...

Oink Oink...

Lee said...

"Sorry old white guys"? Does that mean you're voting for the young black guy or the old white woman? Talk about pathetic.

Who am I voting for? Not quite sure yet but you'll be the last to know.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

WOOF!!

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I just deleted a post that really would have allowed me to sink to levels that would be only too pleasing to some on this blog.

LB, please don't call me stupid. I know you think I'm a meddling, Liberal "fudgepacker" (your words) that has no business with an opinion being that I'm from Canada.

Lee, don't for one second think that calling me arrogant hurts me in any way.

I'd rather be arrogant than ignorant.

If you and others like you are happy being George Bush's BITCHES, then go right ahead.

Lee, You can mouth off your swill about how more and more people are coming to America. I can guess that with estimates being what they are, there's not enough immigrants coming to America to fill those jobs that are being abandoned. Take a moment if you can, to think about what the economic impact is of that.

I'd rather be arrogant than clueless.

Life, you want to be called a hero along with your local yokels because you till the land? Fine, but know what? Tofu's not so bad.

Don't think for a second that those big city elitist snobs aren't saving your butt, too. Imagine if what you said was actually true? Why, you'd be eating tofu right along with the rest of us.

I'd rather be arrogant than oblivious.

I'd rather be a meddling, Liberal Canadian fudgepacker than you, any day.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

I was responding to MS and her BS, not you Shirl....but, if you'd rather be a Canuck fudgepacker than me...just shows how pathetic your life really is and how stupid you really are.

Anonymous said...

"Than you" meant any republican bitch, not specifically you.
....but, if you'd rather be a BITCH and continue to use insults instead of making an actual point...just shows how much of a lonely little man you really are.

Anonymous said...

I couldn't agree with you more, Shirley. Ignorant, arrogant and clueless sums up those two nicely.

I could go on, but I can't stop laughing over the idea of a Thompson/Gingrich ticket!

Lee said...

Wasn't trying to hurt you, Shirley- Lord you're not that sensitive, are you? But I guess your feelings were crushed since you call me a Bush Bitch and ignorant. So much for your level sinking.

What about the economic impact of ILLEGAL immigrants, Shirley? Because most people don't have a problem with immigrants, it's the ILLEGAL one's that pose may problems. Just why does everyone also leave out the ILLEGAL when referring to immigrants? Please don't lump them altogether.

And is it true that many Canadians leave your cointry to come to USA because it takes forever to get decent treatment there?

Anonymous said...

Lee:
You didn't hurt me. Your words mean nothing compared with what I've actually dealt with in my life. That's no slight. Just trying to put some perspective out there.


As for the illegal immigrants, it wasn't my intention to "leave them out." I was including them. People might have a problem with illegals, but some of them are doing work that you wouldn't wish on your enemies.

I'm not fully informed on these particulars, but wasn't GWB talking about "guest workers" and stuff like that? Wouldn't that impact those "illegals" and legitimize them? Believe it or not, I'm actually asking, I'm not trying to be snarky.

As for Canadians going to the US, Lee, I'm not going to lie to you. Some Canadians do go to the US for medical treatment. There is a multitude of reasons, and not wanting to wait IS one of them. The folks who don't want to wait are entitled to travel anywhere in the world to seek treatment. But it's treatment they have to pay dearly for.

Yes, Canada has socialized health care. Yet, it's still always an election issue. Why? Wait times.

Michael Moore may have talked about the Canadian system, but one has to look at ours as a comparison to a country that has nothing.

If I'm not mistaken, France is at the top of the list in terms of Health Care. Canada is somewhere in the 30's. That's a big difference, but still legions ahead of the USA.

Well look at that....no arrogance, and not a single insult.

See, y'all....it CAN be done.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and as for my "level sinking"....you shoulda SEEN what I had originally posted!!!

That would've parted your hair!

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

one thing you have to remember is, in the big wide world, everyone has something in common shirl, her name is "Madge"! I was THE Material Boy when you were about 8. Beatles, Todd, and HER make me LIVE for music....

I'm not such a bad guy after all ya'know....

last 15 hrs rebuilding a system..thanks to the real world criminal...Bill Frkn Gates...and 300 miles to go...b4 I sleep

I'll elucidate more asap, I know you're all waiting with baited breath...

moooo....mommy can i go home now?

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

Yeah...The IPCC...now there's a reliable source...pfftttt

Shoes4Industry said...

"one thing you have to remember is, in the big wide world, everyone has something in common shirl, her name is "Madge"! I was THE Material Boy when you were about 8. Beatles, Todd, and HER make me LIVE for music...."

..that's nice.

LifeBeginsAt200MPH said...

glad you approve...now I can sleep nights.