I'm reading all the reports about record cold and snow in the US, and not one single report mentions Phoenix. Hey media, when we're cold, do we not shiver? Last February, we had the coldest temperatures I'd ever seen in my decades long residence, and now we're having the longest cold spell I've ever experienced. It's FREEZING! Sure it's only that way for a few hours, and it's supposed to be 70 degrees on New Year's Day, but it was only 55 today - for a HIGH for Christ's sake! I mean what if Bethlehem had been like that? You couldn't give birth in a manger in Phoenix today, Child Protective Services would take the kid right away. If I'd wanted 55 for a high in December, I'd have moved to Tulsa... or maybe Iraq, which is somewhat more sophisticated. I'm used to putting blankets on the bed, but this year, I have to wear multiple layers besides. Last night, I even put socks on my hands, and I'm still FREEZING! although I was able to trick my wife into believing that a mink was talking to her, so maybe it was worth it. Somebody please make the global warming go away, it's so bad that I'm thinking of turning on the heat at night... although It's probably safe to turn the refrigerator off so as not to increase my carbon footprint... or cut down on my pencil use...
Except for violence, have Muslims contributed anything else of note? OK, I'll concede hummus, but I think the Jews had a hand in that? A billion and a half Muslims, and what do they offer the world? Dress codes?
I don't even know if she was a good guy. What does it matter? She was killed because the cream of the Muslim scum couldn't tolerate her and democracy, and western values, i.e. peace, prosperity and progress. That's probably because there's no "P" in Muslim, and the debate rages as to whether there's farce in Farsi..
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto shows how long this war on terror is going to be and how we'd better keep our will. That means no Democrats need apply to lead, but they will just the same.
Can you imagine going another eight rounds with the Clintons in a world like this? Although our next President would likely have been Al Gore if he'd run, so that alone is a reason to be thankful for "global warming."
Apparently Bhutto's attacker is going to burn in hell, so he'll probably get ugly virgins.
I read your profile, and I wondered if you aren't really Greg Gutfeld? But please don't come out here if you are. I want something to be just between us.
I wondered because as I was reading, Greg was doing his Gregalogue, and the two were virtually indistinguishable if not in content then in tone and style... though he's not Catholic and if he poisoned his cat, it wouldn't be accidental.
Anyway, as I read, I found myself convulsed with laughter (only the second time in my life I was laughing while vomiting), but I was also sad, and not just because I don't have a connection to the Holocaust like you do. No, it was because I've misled these good people by being straighter than I'd realized and straighter than I'd ever thought I could be.
I mentioned Hen in an earlier comment to you and the private correspondence I had with him. He had said that he enjoys having discussions with people who think differently, and I responded by telling him that I don't want be discussing things with anybody. Then I elaborated along the lines you detailed in your profile, but I was decidedly less funny.
And that's the problem. I'd lost sight of the goal - I mean I knew inside, for example, that I wasn't interested in anything the warmalarmists had to say, but I've been far too civil to them, oftentimes even treating them as if they were people. That ends today or yesterday depending on the time you read this and whether or not it's Friday. And under just the right circumstances, it could even be tomorrow, as my motivation has been less and less of late. The doctor tells me it's all about declining testosterone levels, but he's not motivated to test for it, which leads me to believe he knows what he's talking about..
Luckily the new year is upon us so I have a perfect opportunity to change, and I have you to thank for re-liberating me. You, a German... and a punk... who'd have thought.
But my son. while I know it's poetic license, you told a fib when you said we instantly disliked each other. It wouldn't be a white lie if you didn't know it, but I have no doubt you did know that I immediately saw you as someone special, and not in the "special ed" sense, but in the sense that you were someone I could really relate to because the things you were saying were things no one else could possibly understand, and as you also know better than I do myself, people frequently accuse me of that.
And lastly, you gave the impression that you had stolen into America (for one brief, shining moment yesterday I had feared you were in Pakistan when I heard that the guy shot Bhutto and then blew himself up), and if that is the case, I will go anywhere within a ten mile radius of the intersection of I-10 and Chandler Blvd. to meet you, twelve if you'll buy the drinks?
I realize that I'm addressing a very small number when I ask, do you semi-intelligent liberals ever tire of being lumped together with morons? And by "morons," I'm referring to the sort of people who have strayed off the reservation and wandered in here of late.
I keep telling liberal, don't even try here. This isn't like anyplace else you've been. First, you have to make sense. And by "sense," I'm not talking about the irrelevant "facts," the logical disconnects, and the outright falsehoods that merit accolades in Liberaland.
Believe me, I understand your problem... you're used to not being challenged, and you think your opinions are valid because so many of your ilk share them. Unfortunately, all opinions aren't created equal, and virtually all of you are in no position to know the difference.
So I tell people flat out that if they choose to post something here, it has to make sense (unless it's a joke, but none of you can really do that). If you state something, it has to be backed by real evidence. And by "real evidence," I don't mean extraneous details or misconstrued observations.
And if you do post, and I don't find it to have merit (99.9% chance), I'm not going to debate you or attempt to state another viewpoint. If you fail in your first attempt - your best attempt - I can't expect you to do better under cross examination. Thus the insults and mocking commence.
Now let me say this on the other hand, I am the most open-minded person you're ever going to disagree with. That means that if you ever do blindside me with a good point, you'll get full credit and humility from me,, the fact that I have never found myself in that position vis-a-vis a liberal notwithstanding.
So if you fail here, and you almost certainly will, instead of being angry with me, take a moment to reassess your thoughts, your positions, your beliefs... and your friends, because none of them have done you a service by agreeing with you all along, even if, or shall I say especially because, they haven't prepared you to face people who actually think on a more or less daily basis - which is an entirely different process from merely stringing thoughts together as (so far) all of you are wont to do.
So if you leave here like Jeff and Lenny thinking you've made your point and that I'm an idiot for not having seen it, you're simply wrong. Let me put it this way... if you leave with me not in agreement, you've failed utterly and you can only safely "argue" with your clan, which of course is no argument at all.
"But Ted, other conservatives are far more decent to me than you," you say? And did they get you to change your position, I ask? Because if they didn't, they've wasted their time, and they may find that fulfilling in ways I can't understand, but what's fun for me is tough love. You either see the light or you don't, and if you don't, at least I'll get some fun out of it, if not by insulting you, then at your "Well I never" attitude, and believe me, your going away thinking I'm the one who's the idiot is very amusing to me since you didn't graduate in the top five percent of even your public school class.
Now I know that despite what I say, someone will think he has a new old point to make, and that he'll get all upset when I'm so "rude" to him, but if my wife can take it, so can you, and she'd be the first to tell you that she's better off because I've caused her to engage in more rigorous thinking, even if it's still against her will.
So over Christmas and New Year's, I hope you take a break from your fellow loons and maybe talk to those conservatives who will entertain your nonsense, but do so with an interest in learning. Look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that you're going to really try not to be the dope you've been all your life.
And the next time you feel the urge to post here. STOP. Organize your thoughts, write them down, refine them over and over, and when you think you've got your comment right, get someone to "peer review" it (OK, not an actual peer... you're probably better off going up to someone at random on the street), And when he signs off and you're all set to post, delete it and go anywhere else. If you won't do it for yourself, do it for me. I mean you're a liberal, for God's (oops) sake... and you'll probably always be one... until someone who owns a gun kills you.
It just occurred to me that if all the liberals who are constantly hyperventilating would inhale some CO2, that alone would cure global warming.
If you're like me, each year at this time you wait with baited breath for Time to announce it's Person of the Year, and this year, I was particularly giddy with anticipation at the prospect that my guy, Dave Petraeus would get the nod. All he did was turn a war around in eight months, true, and he had some help, while J.K Rowling wrote all that Potter crap all by herself and it's made billions, so I mean, maybe I was a tad over-optimistic? If you haven't heard, General Petraeus came in fifth behind communism, filth, fantasy, and, well, more communism. Time felt that Vlad the Derailer was the man of the moment apparently because he's been artfully thuggish, at least that's what Time's explanation said to me. Al Gore was second. I can see that, since it's been a long time since a fat fool has been able to scam the entire world and transform educated people into absolute idiots.. And of course Ms. Rowling deserves third place since she was able to take so many minds off the global warming idiocy if only for the moment. Then there's the Chinese leader in fourth. I don't know his name, should I? And I also don't know what he did besides executing the guy who produced tainted drugs, who spread Bird Flu, or who sold us toys that can substitute as x-ray shields, but I'm sure he was more important than Petraeus too. Here's how Time puts it: "TIME's Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is not an endorsement. It is not a popularity contest. At its best, it is a clear-eyed recognition of the world as it is and of the most powerful individuals and forces shaping that world for better or for worse." Uh-huh. But should Person of the Year be cumulative or should it be about someone who was singularly significant in this particular year? Put another way, is Time's pretzel logic... make that, "expanded, concept" merely a way of avoiding giving General David Petraeus the honor he deserves? Time goes on... "It is ultimately about leadership bold, earth-changing leadership. Putin is not a boy scout. He is not a democrat in any way that the West would define it. He is not a paragon of free speech. He stands, above all, for stability stability before freedom, stability before choice, stability in a country that has hardly seen it for a hundred years." Got it?!? Just remember that line the next time some dope like Lenny rails against Bush for trashing the constitution. Time: "Whether (Putin)... proves to be a reformer or an autocrat who takes Russia back to an era of repression this we will know only over the next decade. At significant cost to the principles and ideas that free nations prize, he has performed an extraordinary feat of leadership in imposing stability on a nation that has rarely known it and brought Russia back to the table of world power. For that reason, Vladimir Putin is TIME's 2007 Person of the Year." Except that, following that bit of reasoning, Putin could already be named Person of the Year for 2008 right now. General Petraeus did what he did in far less than a year, and it was THE single most important achievement of 2007, not just for America, but for the world, in 2007. And for that, coming in fifth is not recognition of "the most powerful individuals and forces shaping that world for better or for worse," it's telling the world that to the American Media, a flimflam man and a fantasy writer are more powerful than someone who must manage life and death daily while attempting to stabilize a region where a good many other "powerful individuals and forces" don't want stability - and he's doing it in real-time. in other words, Time could not have avoided recognizing David Petraeus. It would have provoked the Outcry of the Year. But putting him in last place tells us that Time would have left him off if they could have, and unfortunately, it will minimize the criticism this rotten from the toes up organization deserves. So may God continue to bless you General Petraeus. And may God damn Time to the hell it deserves. And Merry Christmas to all! Well, to all non-liberals, anyway.
It appears that Ann Coulter likes Duncan Hunter as much as I do. That, of course, means that Hunter is the best qualified, so why is he a virtual unknown? Needless to say, that says much more about Ann Coulter's ability to influence people than it does about mine.
Alan Greenspan, the guy who, almost single-handedly ruined the stock market in 2000 and subsequently ruined interest on your savings accounts, now feels a bailout of fools who bought into variable rate mortgages is in order. This raises a bit of nostalgia: remember those days when people retired from their careers in Washington and just died?
Joe Lieberman has endorsed John McCain. Interestingly, both men approximate their entire constituencies in their respective parties. I lost friends defending John McCain back when, and I'm not particularly thrilled that I'd have gained a friend in Lieberman had I remained a McCainiac.
I recently bragged that I'd finally mastered Windows 98. Then I bought a new Dell computer. I'm returning it. Dell's technical support staff, aka, India, has been very courteous and helpful on those (rough guess) several hundred occasions I've contacted them since the computer arrived last week. It''s Vista that is not ready for prime time, and unfortunately, it and the computer are inseparable. Turns out, hate and marriage don't go together like a horse and carriage.
Here's my characterization of each legitimate candidate and what I'd do if he were nominated:
(in alphabetical order
Rudy Giuliani - hands down the best candidate for defending against terrorism, but I worry about many of his other positions, especially illegal immigration. I'd vote for him, but only if he's running against a Democrat.
Mike Huckabee - An ideological turncoat who can't be trusted, unless you consider that he was "compassionate when he was fat, but came to his senses once he could focus on other matters. I'd never vote for him.
Duncan Hunter - absolutely the best choice - which is why he has no chance. He literally supports just about everything conservatives stand for, but his low key demeanor and low profile dooms him. Let's hope he's picked for vice president, but being in California, he's more likely to be picking grapes. I'd register in multiple states to vote for him.
John McCain - I'd love him if he wasn't on the wrong side of everything that's important except the war on terror. I'd vote for him if there was a nuclear war and he was the only candidate left.
Ron Paul - A nut, but so was Perot, and I still think he'd have been a good president. So why wouldn't Paul? Because he's much nuttier. In that respect, he'd make a better candy bar than a president. I wouldn't ever consider voting for him.
Mitt Romney - Might be OK, but he's too glib and pretty, qualities he has to overcome while stressing positions and his resolve in attaining and holding them. I worry he won't be tough enough on illegal immigration, but I'd vote for him because somebody has to be president.
Tom Tancredo - Could be a great president, but he's pigeonholed himself, so I'd love to vote for him, but the only way he'll be the nominee is if illegal immigrants kill all the other candidates.
Fred Thompson - He appears disinterested to me, but I do believe he may be the best overall candidate. I'd vote for him, but I worry that his disinterest will lead to taking the path of least resistance and instead of press conferences, he'll be arguing his cases on Law and Order.
On the Democrat side:
Don't make me laugh...
Just kidding, it's no laughing matter.
Did you ever start writing something not knowing where exactly you were going. That's how this started. I knew what I wanted to say all right, I just didn't know what tone I wanted to take and I didn't know what examples I wanted to cite (they are limitless) that show global warming to be a scam.
It's not that all believers are participating in the fraud, some (or most) might just be very stupid as evidenced by the positions and comments of many people here. And while I'm extraordinarily good at identifying such people, it's sad when I see other, seemingly more reasonable, people willing to entertain the ramblings of idiots.
One such fellow wants to debate them, and he worries that I might be coming off as too harsh - that I am turning people off. I wish I really could do that.
Another fellow is willing to pay upfront to avoid some imagined catastrophe. Do you think he understands that those are also limitless, and that the only reason he's willing to pay for this one is because everyone who thinks like him has jumped on the bandwagon?
Picture this: If we found intelligent life on another planet, how long would it be before elation gave way to fear and people -demanded- we pay for "insurance" against such an invasion while not having the slightest clue as to what form such an invasion might take?
You see, with "global warming," it's not the heat, it's the stupidity.
On the same day Al Gore was receiving his prize for his personal contribution to global warming, Neil Cavuto had an "expert" on to talk about the weather, and Mr. Cavuto naturally brought up several examples that might seem to contradict the idea that the Earth was getting hotter such as the current cold snaps and the expanding antarctic ice (bear in mind that this is the same sort of observational evidence warmalarmists use to make their case).
The guest, some climatologist or meteorologist or Gore apologist assured the host that it's all part of the warming scenario - the "erratic" weather. So Cavuto, looking perplexed, came back with, "then everything leads to warming?"
If it's too hot, or too cold, or there's a storm, or there are no storms, if ice melts or expands, it's all because of "global warming."
That's the mentality. You see here on Vox where people are incapable of discerning the difference between observation and evidence, between logical argument and non sequitur, between expert and flim-flam man.
You see it here when someone claims to be tangentially involved in science yet (s)he can only provide far off "examples" to support warming claims, and even those are anecdotal. Yet they are convinced... and you want to debate them?
Dismiss them, laugh at them, mock them, scorn them, ignore them... then you'd be reacting appropriately. Debating only allows them not only to believe they know something you don't (and they don't), but it elevates them and allows them to feel superior - a permission you gave them by countenancing their insane beliefs and positions.
I've alluded to the fact that I've been both blessed with and cursed by the ability I've had all my life to cut through the haze and see people and things for what they are. It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it - because they can't themselves, and they wouldn't even if they could because they'd never own up to what they are.
But don't get the idea that I think I'm smarter than everybody else. I'm not. There are many fools who are smarter than I, depending on how you define smartness, just as there are many people who are smarter than, say, Rush Limbaugh, and I'm sure he'd admit that too.
But when it comes to clarity, I've seen very few who are my equal, Rush being one, as well as Ann Coulter, Mark Steyn, and possibly James Taranto to name... well... almost all of them. I'd include Michael Savage but only before his chronic rabies inevitably kicks in.
You know in your hearts that the IPCC is, at best, a sham, and that scientists can hardly be blamed for wanting to be cool. I mean, they see movie nerds get "the girl," and they know that real life rarely mimics that, so "warming" provides both an opportunity and a freeway for these people - but you're giving them the carpool lane all to themselves.
But some other scientists aren't, and they may succeed where Limbaugh and Coulter et al can't quite yet. See, up to now, when you hear about scientists vis-a-vis "global warming," you're led to believe they all stand on the side - "man-made." In other words, they're smart and they say we're causing the planet to warm.
Except the cavalry has made it to Bali, and they don't agree that global warming is even an issue. Here's what the good scientists have to say...
Lord Christopher Monckton, a UK climate researcher: "Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non problem is to have the courage to do nothing... The UN conference is a complete waste of our time and your money and we should no longer pay the slightest attention to the IPCC."
And regarding the reception they've gotten from warmalarmists and why...
"UN organizers refused my credentials and appeared desperate that I should not come to this conference. They have also made several attempts to interfere with our public meetings," Monckton explained.
Dr. David Evans, a mathematician who did carbon accounting for the Australian government: "We now have quite a lot of evidence that carbon emissions definitely don't cause global warming. We have the missing [human] signature [in the atmosphere], we have the IPCC models being wrong and we have the lack of a temperature going up the last 5 years."
Yes, that's right, for some reason (I wonder what) Evens felt he had to prove a negative, and, according to the Inhofe blog, "touted a new peer-reviewed study by a team of scientists appearing in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society which found "Warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence."
Evans again: "Most of the people here have jobs that are very well paid and they depend on the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. They are not going to be very receptive to the idea that well actually the science has gone off in a different direction."
See, even if they are proven wrong, like other liberals who are fully invested in failure in Iraq, the warmalarmists aren't simply going to admit their error and go away.
Dr. Vincent Gray: "There is no evidence that carbon dioxide increases are having any effect whatsoever on the climate. "All the science of the IPCC is unsound... If you examine every single proposition of the IPCC thoroughly, you find that the science somewhere fails... It fails not only from the data, but it fails in the statistics, and the mathematics."
Evans again: "We have a split here. Official science driven by politics, money and power, goes in one direction. Unofficial science, which is more determined by what is actually happening with the [climate] data, has now started to move off in a different direction... This is always a dangerous time for science and a dangerous time for politics. Historically science always wins these battles but there can be a lot of causalities and a lot of time in between."
Bryan Leland of the International Climate Science Coalition: "I am an energy engineer and I know something about electricity trading and I know enough about carbon trading and the inaccuracies of carbon trading to know that carbon trading is more about fraud than it is about anything else... We should probably ask why we have 10,000 people here [in Bali] in a futile attempt to ‘solve' a [climate] problem that probably does not exist."
Owen McShane, head of coalition: "I don't think this conference can actually achieve anything because... having the same set of rules apply to everybody will blow some economies apart totally while others will be unscathed and I wouldn't be surprised if the ones who remain unscathed are the ones who write the rules."
Professor Dr. William Alexander: "My message is specifically for the poor people of Africa... The government and people of Africa will have their attention drawn to reducing climate change instead of reducing poverty."
So you see, one of the groups is composed of morons, and as history has shown time and again, that won't be proven by size of membership.
There's one thing the warmists and I agree on - that "global warming" is a settled issue. They have utterly failed to make their case, and we should now get back to doing what humans do best - adapt to changing factors and turn them to our advantage. And now you have both reason and permission to shut them off if they won't.
Up until six months ago, I was content to make jokes about "global warming" and mock those who believed in it, but that was before I realized how aggressive they'd become and how many inroads they'd made into disrupting our lives forever.
So while the believers have always been exactly like those in any other religion, the difference is, except for Islam, religious believers merely try to convert you through argument and example. The warmalarmists want to control you - all of you - by law - and forever. The newest moron to head the UN has even said that "global warming" is his number one priority. And you, not the atmosphere, are his target.
And like Islamic fanatics, there's no arguing with warming believers, and they are at least as dangerous. Now if we can just figure a way to convince the Islamists that warmists are their true enemy...!?!
So I still joke when I can, because there's more material than ever, But at the same time, these people need to be confronted in the same way that PETA confronts fur wearers - because they're even dumber - than both PETA and the furbabies.
And you need to wise up and realize what's in store if you sit idly by and let them have their way, because it's not warming that's accelerating, it's the warmists power grab, and they believe victory is in sight. And it's already been demonstrated that there is nothing too small for them to regulate, and when they do, it will be... forever.
Imagine this: once a regulation is in place, no matter whether "warming" gets better or worse, any existing controls will always be necessary, they'll argue, and you only need look at the DDT fiasco to see the future. Literally millions of people have died since the elimination of DDT, and the claims about the chemical itself are baseless, yet there is no lifting of the ban in sight, and even if they were right, it's fine with them that millions die so some birds may live?
So it's your job to stall them until nature proves them wrong. One well-meaning fellow says he doesn't mind paying a little "insurance money" now, but that plays right into their hands. What we need is zero tolerance of warming believers. I mean, if Germany can consider banning Scientologists, why can't we ban warmalarmists - or do you think they'll claim separation of church and state?
Remember, all the smart people are on our side.
Did you see the headline today...? WWF: Global warming to destroy 60% of Amazon by 2030 I don't get it. I mean, this might be of passing interest to investment planners, but I couldn't care less because: A) I've never shopped there 2) With any luck, I'll be dead. I just wish the report broke it down by year though, don't you? And when did wrestlers become scientists, anyway?
