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April among coolest months
According to the National Climatic Data Center, April was a full degree Fahrenheit cooler than the 20th Century average. This wouldn’t be a big deal, except that about now, according to Al Gore, we should start to feel the Earth’s fever stating to boil over.
So what’s with the dropping temperature?
Especially when we had not decades but mere years, and perhaps not even that much, to prevent the planet’s death by fever.
This ought to buy us a few more days, right?
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What the shale is going on here?
Estonia is exporting oil shale technology to, of all places, the Middle East. Strange, is it not, that King Abdullah II is more interested in shale than an ethanol plant? Did he miss a memo?
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But the war on terror is making new terrorists
That’s the faulty premise behind one surrender argument. Funny that Ayman al-Zawahiri doesn’t seem to see it that way.
He’s been droning on like this now for years but the best his buddies can do it trick the defenseless into becoming bombers.
The lefties say they believe him, but when push comes to shove, they don’t have their choice among hordes of willing martyrs. They have to trick the developmentally disabled into getting blown up.
Even the retarded are smarter than to get fooled by Uncle Ayman. Which makes them smarter than, well you fill in the rest …
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People should know their place
And Doug Bruce’s is not in the Legislature.
Not that anyone is suggesting that the voters of Colorado Springs got it wrong. They haven’t weighed in on his appointment. Yet.
Bruce, though, should know better. He’s accomplished more as an outsider than as a member of an organization that actually would lower its standards enough to welcome him. Sorry Groucho.
Here’s what happened. Americans can’t quite get their bearings on illegal immigration, but there seems to be a consensus that immigration in general is good.
Legal immigration, it follows, is as good as it gets.
So along come Douglas Bruce to blast it.
Calling the target market “illiterate peasants,” Douglas parses his way to a point— if they were neither illiterate nor peasants, they’d likely not apply.
Most Americans can point to a background of illiterate peasants who somehow reached the United States to prosper in ways they could do nowhere else.
Rep. Kathleen Curry clearly was dazed. She knew she was insulted, but she didn’t know exactly why. So she opted for the reliable “How dare you?”
Geez, honey, he’s Douglas Bruce. You were expecting clearheaded analysis?
Bruce operates from emotion. By that standard, he’s in the wrong party, but that’s another issue.
In the business of legislation, everyone shares everyone else’s bed at some point or another. Bruce is the only member who always sleeps alone and it wasn’t as though that was an unforeseeable outcome.
Really, he needs to remember his place.
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What all the fuss was about
Was this column. It set off this discussion. Feel free to chime in at either location on GJSentinel.com.
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The icy stare
Here’s a view of how the northern hemisphere is looking in these dog days of global warming. Remember that the seas are supposed to be rising, poles melting and deserts expanding in the hothouse atmosphere of the Earth. Seems like the Arctic is getting colder and icier in this look.
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Not so hot, it seems
Scientists, we’re told here, “aren’t quite understanding” what their robots are telling them about ocean temperatures.
That’s a euphemism for the fact that what the robots are saying is diametrically opposite to what they had expected.
In normal circumstances, this would be interesting, possibly of such weight as to warrant a raised eyebrow and a murmured “Fascinating.”
After all, the idea was that the robots would find a bubbling, Vulcan-like undersea world of Julia Child, full of pre-sauteed fish and red lobster in no need of boiling.
But no, the information that came back was “puzzling.”
It’s not puzzling. It’s contradictory and, worse, heresy.
There’s something touching about noting that robots, unfeeling machines that they are, telling us that the Earth isn’t heating according to the anti-gospel of Al Gore.
And that scientists are puzzled.
Maybe they should get out more on the Web. They could find snippets such as this.
It could be that the globe’s climate shifts are related to cyclical changes in the sun, an obvious area of inquiry that “puzzled” scientists can’t be bothered to study.
It could be that Shakespeare had it almost right: The fault, dear Al, lies not in our stars but in our star …”
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Getting colder, colder
No., it’s not the child’s play of leading someone to a hidden object. It is the climate and yes, it’s changing, no doubt as a result of a cooling phase of the sun.
To be sure, the cooling trend is just a blip, but it’s a blip in the opposite direction of that which was expected by the computer modeling on which we have come to rely, not unlike throwing chicken bones to determine the better course of action.
Those chicken bones, er, computer models, say we are in a phase of human-caused global warming.
Same thing with chickens and computers - garbage in, garbage out.
It might have helped had the computers known that the Earth is still in an Ice Age from which we have seen a small respite.
For now, until the next solar twitch, we, and Al Gore, are getting colder, colder yet…
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A bit closer to home …
Today’s column:
Newcomers, flatlanders and legislators often have difficulty distinguishing between the various parts of Colorado.
It’s actually easier than they might think.
On one side of the state, the big educational issue is how a district can stretch its limited number of employees over more than one school to meet as many needs as possible under a Spartan budget. On the other side of the state, the big fight is over whether schools should freely hand out condoms to students.
Leaving aside the issue of exactly what happens during study hall in the latter district, the big question is: Where do these districts sit in relation to one another?
Too easy? Or too hard?
Well then, here’s another question to ponder: Which district is slammed, battling growth problems related to one of the state’s biggest industries? Said industry, by the way, pumps millions of dollars into the Colorado economy.
Got the answers yet?
Well, the district that is battling with the staffing issues is the one in the heart of the energy boom, Garfield County Re-2.
Denver Public Schools is the one that’s fixated on sex.
Garfield County Re-2, the one on the west side of the Continental Divide, is doing what it can, given the mandates of a budget dictated from afar, more than 100 miles from the state Capitol.
The Garfield budget is dictated from afar because afar is where the votes are.
And those votes are cast by a band of legislators who like having their rich uncle working in Colorado, but would never admit to being related to the old geezer just because he has something of a cauliflower nose and emits the occasional whiff of B.O.
Oh, but the money. They really want the money.
So there really are two Colorados: one that pumps money into the state coffers to the point that local needs are neglected, and it sees nothing coming back; and then there’s the other side, the one that simply can’t get over the idea that being green means getting more of it.
Unless it’s thirsty, but that’s a different, though not unrelated, question.
At any rate, the Garfield district will split six positions among two schools, including the librarian, PE teacher, counselor, a health clerk and a few other positions.
Denver Public Schools is looking to dispense condoms from well-appointed health centers in its high schools.
Silly taxpayers might have thought that a district in energy country — where U.S. senators are fighting over how to dispense tens of millions of dollars from drawing natural gas out from beneath federal lands — would be the one rolling in money.
And isn’t this the same state that passed Referendum C to pump billions in new cash into state coffers for, among other things, schools?
Denver Public Schools isn’t to be entirely faulted. The district has agreed to experiment with two schools that will be more free than others in their hiring, staffing and scheduling practices.
Some day, that experiment might pay off on the west side of the Continental Divide.
For now though, while Garfield economizes, DPS is getting ready to condomize.
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Viva la revolucion!
Cubans, especially the young ones, seem to think that there might be more to the world than the Castro-controlled cocoon allows into their little island world.
Could it be that they’ll be a bit miffed when the veil finally is lifted?
Will they be a little resentful over the thousands, perhaps hundreds of lives wasted over more than half a century by El Jefe?
How much longer can idiotic explanations for the lack of travel — not enough airspace for all those planes — stand?
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What Che (and Castro) wrought
Here’s an intimate little look at the workers’ paradise south of Miami. Of course, the Cubans with whom he spoke were happy, but ignorance, it’s been frequently remarked, is bliss. One wonder what will happen when these people find they’ve been played for suckers.
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Kiss the heat good-bye
Talk about your winters of discontent.
Turns out that the winter that has less than a month yet to run is a defiant one, not willing to bow down to the conventional wisdom of global warming and perfectly happy to keep mankind shivering away and hoping for a spring that just won’t come home.
Weather ain’t climate, say the acolytes of the High Church of the Overheated Globe, so pay no attention to the fact that in Colorado’s banana belt — the Grand Valley — the bananas are growing fur, the better to fend off the snow and cold.
Now this isn’t the first time Colorado has been subjected to cold.
It was just last year that Denver residents were moaning, as only Denver residents can, about 61 straight days of snow cover.
Warming acolytes argue that it wasn’t a record — the record is 63 days of snow cover — and that weather isn’t climate. So, go pound snow.
Of course, weather was climate when Frenchmen were complaining that their ski slopes were shrinking. Powderhorn’s future as a ski resort was said to be as bleak as the chances of a Maori bobsled team.
Powderhorn somehow is still in business, though. Granted, no immediate word on the prospects of Rockies-bound bobsledders from the Indian Ocean.
Other reports, however, are trickling in from around the globe.
Snow fell in Baghdad and Jerusalem this winter. Draw your own conclusions about whether certain people are being advised to chill out.
Snow fell as well in Buenos Aires, as well as Johannesburg, South Africa.
Not even the Chinese were spared the cold. Some cities went weeks without power because power lines toppled and the weather made it too cold to repair them.
More recently, the U.S. National Climatic Data Center reported the average temperature in January was one-third of a degree Fahrenheit cooler than the 20th century average.
In fact, four major global-temperature tracking outfits, including that of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, all noted a precipitous drop in global temperatures.
Baby, it’s cold outside, and all the more so because the alarmists were telling us we were out of time. Humanity was going to be buried; we were going to be roasted in a planetary super sauna.
Humans like heat. What’s called the Medieval Climate Optimum coincided with a rapid increase in the human population and is connected to a flowering of accomplishment in the arts and sciences.
Earth’s chill is not the result of Al Gore staying home, polishing his Oscar.
The fact is the sun is entering a cooler phase, and as the only source of heat for the solar system, when the sun cools, everybody cools.
By some reckonings, the sun at the end of our 20th century was at its most active, and hottest, over the previous 8,000 years.
Some researchers have gone so far as to predict the return of the Ice Age.
Still, there’s nothing like a cold slap in the face to recognize the kind of demagoguery that’s so far characterized the so-called science of global warming.
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Gore uncorked
Oh where to begin?
The former future president of the U.S. told vintners in Spain that the wine industry “must respond” to the global-warming crisis.
Evidently, however, not by growing more grapes, as one would normally expect people in the wine business to do once conditions turn in their favor.
No, the proper response for winemakers is to buy carbon offsets. And who sells carbon offsets?
OK, too easy.
But wait!
Remember, Gore was talking to vintners in Spain. But he wasn’t talking to Spanish vintners. Most of the attendees of the conference — 95 percent — were from somewhere other than Spain.
Sounds as though it the conferees needed a dash of spring, perhaps a “classic Mediterranean climate” or something “temperate.”
Strangely, no information as to whether the attendees flew commercial.
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China syndrome?
This kind of thing isn’t supposed to be happening, what with all the pollution especially. Hey, maybe they could use more nukes!
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Global warming buries town in white
Think how bad the winter would be without global warming!
Well, at least, you think, central planning has the answer to all phases of global warming. But you would be wrong!
A Nauvoo approach to politics
These folks suggest that the white guy in the race is at a disadvantage. They might be right. Few know that the nation has a high-ranking Mormon in the person of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. One wonders whether how long he’d last if that fact were better known. Or if he’ll countenance the subtle, and not-so-subtle attacks on Romney’s religion, and his.
He’s no Bill Clinton
But maybe he could be a running mate!
Hollywood comes to Hillary’s rescue
If this doesn’t drive voters toward Hillary Clinton, what will?
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Kennedy bridge building
Marcia Pappas, meet Mary Jo Kopechne —You would have thought the NOW gals would have seen this one coming. It’s not as though there isn’t a track record here.
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Post-purchase sticker shock for that Prius?
It seems that the cost of hybrids is more than just the premium purchase price. Could it be that fossil fuels actually do less environmental damage than feel-good biofuels?
Water, water everywhere
Somehow, this just sounds a lot like, well, western Colorado. It’s a bit comforting, on one hand, to know that other places fight over water. By the same token, it look as though Florida is doing no better than Colorado in deciding who gets to drink.
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Latest comments
I guess you need to grasp anything that gives you comfort. The recent US winter temperatures are above average for the last century, but to Gary this is a “cooling trend.” Whatever.
Meanwhile, globally this last winter was the 16th warmest
... read the full comment by Ed | Comment on Getting colder, colder Read Getting colder, colder
Nice blog entry…however, Maoris are from New Zealand which is in the Pacific Ocean, not the Indian Ocean
... read the full comment by Tom | Comment on Kiss the heat good-bye Read Kiss the heat good-bye
Kinda frustrating when people don’t understand the difference between “weather” and “climate.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23130256/
... read the full comment by Jason | Comment on Global warming buries town in white Read Global warming buries town in white
Some people like to confuse “weather”, i.e.- snow, rain, wind, etc. with “climate”, or weather conditions prevailing over a longer period of time. Maybe there is a problem with the “warming” part as that seems to really
... read the full comment by Jason | Comment on Global warming buries town in white Read Global warming buries town in white