perfidy

Democratic governor James E. McGreevey of New Jersey has resigned, announcing that he had an extramarital affair with another man. That man, an Israeli poet, worked for the governor as a homeland security advisor despite having no security experience. Rumor is that the man, Golan Cipel, also threatened a sexual harrassment lawsuit unless he was paid millions of dollars.

Wow, he could be mayor of my home town. If he added smoking crack and blowing millions of dollars on cheap whores.

I know that many people seem to dislike our Vice President. Me, I kind of dig on his crusty manner. For example, he recently dissed Kerry's ideas for a more sensitive war on terror:

"America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive," Cheney said.

"Those that threaten us and kill innocents around the world do not need to be treated more sensitively, they need to be destroyed."

I give that idea two thumbs up. Especially in light of the fact that Europe's enlightened and sensitive, dare I say... nuanced foriegn policy got them exactly bupkis in their negotiations with nuclear wannabe Iran. Actually, less than bubkis (double plus unbupkis?) given that the Iranians started making demands.

Naturally, the Kerry camp said that the Republicans had sunk to a new low, negative, blah blah blah. And, the best part: Kerry spokesman David Wade contrasted the vice president's lack of military service in the 1960s with Kerry's record as a decorated Vietnam veteran. Three purple hearts! Three! Threeeeee!

STFU.

Cheney went on to say:

"He [Kerry] has even said that by using our strength, we are creating terrorists and placing ourselves in greater danger. But that is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the world we are living in works. Terrorist attacks are not caused by use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness."

Loyal reader #0015 John F. informs us that there is an article up on techcentralstation (certainly one of the most awkwardly named websites around) regarding the science of global warming. Or rather, the lack of science behind the case for global warming.

Three recent, peer reviewed papers have indicated that there really has been no warming in the atmosphere, and further that much of the ground warming can be strongly correlated with economic development. That is, rich places have more warm parking lots.

Thirty years ago, many of the same people screaming that we're all going to melt now were screaming that we'd all freexze to death in a new ice age caused by - wait for it - industrialization and overpopulation. And, amazingly, the solution for these diametrically opposed problem was exactly the same: drastic reductions in energy use and industrial activity, global controls for most sectors of the economy, and general panic.

I yearn, nay quiver with anticipation for the day when this chicken little scenario will go away. Of course, it will be immediately replaced by another, but at least it will be a new disaster scenario. Maybe, if we at the Ministry along with all our loyal readers, work hard enough we can convince the professional worriers that the proper focus for their energies is to mobilize global concern for the threat posed to humanity and the ecosphere by Giant Fighting Robots. What ho?

This was on Drudge, but I have to link it myself. I have often joked about becoming one with the couch. This woman actually did.

I leave the world for two months, and look what happens. Der Komissar shows us the new lineup of Blog Stamps. Worthy of note, even in an outstanding array of filatelic art, are the following:

For Allah Pundit:

I have to say, that really kicks ass. For the USS Clueless and for Q and O, we have these:

And for the Commissar himself, this is very apropos:

I always thought that the smurfs were commies. Given that their was only one female smurf, did the workers share ownership of the means of production?

In light of my earlier post, this insightful article seemed worthy of mention.

While slogging through the backlog of good blogs that I haven't read in two months, I saw that Mike over at Opinion8 noticed a UK Telegraph headline:

"The truth about global warming - it's the Sun that's to blame"

The link is broken - the article was from the middle of last month - but we'll take Mike's word for it. It got me thinking about some things that I've read recently in regard to global warming. Here's the deal in a nutshell:

There are a few things that I think everyone will agree on:

1. Climate has varied over time, and varied significantly before the last 200 years, when industrial civilization started taking off.
2. If natural processes produce vastly larger quantities of greenhouse gases, we have to believe that natural processes have a larger effect on the biosphere. (Not to mention the effect of the sun.)
3. If we took a poll, and large numbers of climate scientists (not just scientist in general) thought that there is no consensus on global warming, then we'd have to agree that there is no consensus.
4. If current temperatures are somewhere in the middle of the historical highs and lows, and the ecosystem didn't crash before, we have a buffer zone before any conceivable human activity causes the ecosystem to crash.

When we look at historical climate records, we notice some interesting things. Over the last two millennia, temperatures were both much higher, and much lower than the average for the twentieth century. Temperatures were at a peak around 1000 a.d., a period referred to as the “Medieval Climate Optimum” – 2-3 degrees centigrade warmer than now. Later, around 1350, temperatures began to drop, culminating in the Little Ice Age, when temperatures were significantly lower than currently. The warming trend of the last 200 years has put us well above the lows of the Little Ice Age, but we have not yet reached the highs of the Medieval Climate Optimum.

Four thousand years ago, the climate was even nicer than during the medieval climate optimum. Temperatures were warmer still, as high above today’s as the Little Ice Age was below – so cold that trees exploded in England in the winter. Many areas now covered by desert were lush savannah and forest – notably the Sahara. Millions of years before that before the ice ages, temperatures were even higher. At none of these points did the ecosystem collapse – rather the opposite, in fact. Higher temperatures led to increased CO2 levels, and both of these factors are like crack for plant life. More plant life meant more animal life. Among the benefits we could see now are much like those experienced a thousand years ago: longer growing seasons, increased crop yields, sunnier weather, and vineyards in Ontario.

Given that the planet has successfully endured many periods of global warming, panic over a current episode seems, well, overwrought. Especially since it is not established that human activity is a major or even significant contributor to the process. People release about 30 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. That eems like a lot, until you realize that natural processes such as volcanoes, the outgassing from the oceans, and the natural functioning of the biosphere add up to 1800 billion tons. The sum of human activity adds less than two percent to the preexisting total. And further, water vapor is present in concentrations averaging at least ten times higher; and water vapor is a much more efficient greenhouse gas because it is active across the entire infrared, where CO2 is only active on two narrow bands.

The total greenhouse effect – necessary for life on earth – adds about 33 degrees to the Earth’s temperature. Without it, we’d have permanent ice at the equator. Water vapor is responsible for somewhere between 95 and 99% of this, or about 32 degrees. Human activity is responsible – perhaps – for 2% of the remaining degree. When you factor in the effects of variations in the Sun’s output due to the sunspot and other cycles, variations in water vapor levels, natural changes in the climate, that percentage is likely even smaller.

The idea that humans could single handedly wreck the biosphere is hubris, really. We’d have to try a lot harder than we are now; yet throughout the industrialized world emissions and pollution are on the decline. (The Kyoto accords would only effect the one region of the world where pollution is declining, at great economic cost, while leaving India China, Brazil and all the other industrializing nations free to pollute at will. Mike Patton calls that economic self immolation. Oprah calls it empowerment.) Panic is perhaps counterindicated.

And another thing about CO2 emissions – the bulk of the .5 degree raise in temperature in the twentieth century happened before 1940, while 80% of the increase in CO2 didn’t happen until after. You’d expect some correlation there. But the strongest correlation with temperature is for sunspot activity, which tracks almost exactly from 1800 to the present. The sun might have something to do with the weather, after all.

And yet another thing: historically, CO2 levels rise about fifty years after a temperature rise. Just as we experienced recently – temps start to rise around 1890, and CO2 starts up in 1940. While the burning of fossil fuels in the conventional explanation, before we do something drastic we should be aware that the Earth has enormous reservoirs of carbon in various forms. Some large percentage of the CO2 increases we’ve seen might still be the result of natural causes.

And one more thing: as I mentioned earlier, plants dig CO2. 100 million years ago, CO2 concentrations were on the order of ten times higher than now. Most plants can’t survive below levels of 50-100ppm. During the coldest parts of the Little Ice Age, CO2 levels dropped to around 180ppm. Crop failures may not have been due solely to the cold weather. If you double a plant’s supply of CO2, it increases yield by a third while reducing evaporation and doubling the efficiency of water use. Tests have shown that improvements continue at least out to CO2 concentrations of 1000ppm, nearly three times the current total. Increasing the amount of CO2 could bring enormous benefits, not just higher crop yields but even possibly reclaiming desert regions, and increased biodiversity.

And one last thing: the warm periods between periods of glaciations typically last 11,000 years. Its been 10,800. Global warming could be a very good thing, and a noble goal.

As to the idea that all scientists agree that global warming is a real and present danger, check this out:

• After the ’92 Earth Summit, 218 leading scientists including 27 nobel prize winners signed the Heidelberg Appeal condemning the irrational science and ideology behind that event. Since then, the numbers have grown to 4,000 and 70 nobel prize winners.
• After a 1995 international symposium in Germany, the Leipzig Declaration was issued, saying, “there does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of Greenhouse Warming” and “we cannot subscribe to the politically inspired worldview that envisages climate catastrophes and calls for hasty actions.” The declaration was reissued on the eve of the Kyoto conference in ’97, signed by an additional 100 atmospheric researchers and with the added statement, “we consider drastic emission control policies likely to be endorsed by the Kyoto conference – lacking credible support from the underlying science – to be ill-advised and premature.”
• Climate specialists, atmospheric researchers and other specialist – 17,000 of them – signed a petition declaring that there was no evidence that greenhouse gases were or were likely to cause disruption of the climate.
• The German Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg conducted a survey of climate researchers. 67% of Canadians rejected the notion that any warming was the result of human activity. For Germans, 87%, Americans, 97%.
• Then of course, there’s the scandal of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) executive summary – which was widely reported in the media, and which systematically misrepresented the findings of the actual report, to the disgust of many of the contributors.

This is not to dismiss any solid research that supports or indicates global warming, but I think it demonstrates that we don’t have a consensus, or in fact anything close to it. Think about it for a minute – when, in your experience, has the media gotten right anything that you know something about? Whether it’s rose gardening or military history, the media screws it up, distorts and misrepresents the facts and in general gives anyone who doesn’t know what you know a completely inaccurate picture of what’s going on. Why should we imagine that they got this right?

Given all of the above, I think it’s safe for us to do the wise thing, which is to say nothing beyond what we’re already doing. We are getting better at being cleaner, and we will continue to get better. The third world will eventually (hopefully) become cleaner as they get richer, just as we did. Assuming that we get no worse at polluting (a conservative prediction, I think) we are not going to press the ecology destruct button anytime soon. The world can take a five degree centigrade change in either direction, and has done both within the last five thousand years and yet survive. That gives us a comfortable margin of error, and breathing space to do some careful research to see whether anything really needs to be done.

And who knows, given the timing of Ice Ages, the answer might come back to give up the clean burning sissy cars and start using coal fired dragsters to keep the glaciers off your lawn.

Anyone who follows baseball knows that pitcher Jose Lima has always been maddeningly inconsistent-- for instance following up a stellar 21-10 season in 1999 with a, erm, less stellar 2000 performance, going 7-16 with an ERA of 6.65.

So far this season, he's been good, fine, great for the Dodgers, but as King Kaufman points out writing for Salon.com, even his good seasons aren't without their low points. Lima was pitching last night against Cincinnatti whe Reds outfielder Adam Dunn hit a home run off Lima so hard that it

left the stadium, bounced in the street and rolled all the way into the Ohio River, where it came to rest on a stationary piece of driftwood. Based on where a security guard said he saw the ball bounce, the homer was estimated at 535 feet.

Dunn didn't want to talk about his clout after the game because his team lost. But it looks like it wasn't just an ordinary tape-measure shot. As reader Jeff Mathews of Lexington, Ky., points out and the U.S. Geological Survey confirms, the Ohio-Kentucky border at downtown Cincinnati is the north bank of the river. If you stick your toe into the Ohio, you're in Kentucky.

As of this column's posting time, the Hall of Fame had not been able to confirm that Dunn's shot was the first home run in major league history to have crossed a state line, but I think it's a pretty good bet that it was.

You know you've really given up a home run when there are only 48 states it hasn't traveled through.

Ouch. Every season has its share of funny-sad stories, whether it's some marginal hitter in a slouch fighting to stay above the Mendoza Line (which I personally count as a batting average of .188, because it's just so pathetic), a pitcher chasing 20 losses, or a team chasing 120 losses (see previous link; the Tigers can't get no respect). It's part of what makes baseball so beautiful.

Last Sunday, the family unit was up in Hagerstown, MD where Mrs. Buckethead's band was playing a festival at a city park in that fair burgh. The weather was perfect, an excellent night for listening to bluegrass in thte great outdoors. And I was completely unprepared for the deeply emotional experience I was soon to undergo.

From my youngest days, my favorite candy (and I am largely lacking a sweet tooth, confections I actually liked were rare) was the super rope. Three feet of red (super ropes would never discriminate against any particular red fruit) licorice goodness, available at most gas stations in Northeastern Ohio. Up until about five years ago, I took the super rope for granted. Super ropes will always be there for me, I thought. Months would go by where I didn't even think of them, only to catch a glimpse of slender, plastic wrapped fruity delights hanging from the corner of an end cap at the Speedway. Bliss regained! The longer they had lingered in the back of the station, the better they got. Some might call a five year old super rope stale, but to me it was perfection. Oenophiles might have some inkling of my transports of ecstacy drinking a Chateau Rothschild '52, but somehow I doubt that even they could appreciate the subtle evolution of flavor in a super rope over years of careful aging.

Then, super ropes disappeared. I wasn't even aware of their passing, so blase was I. But one day I looked for a super rope, and none were to be found. Speedways, BP, Exxon, Texaco, Sunoco, Shell all barren. Candy stores had no idea of what I wanted. I grieved, but moved on. I moved to Northern Virginia - and made a desultory effort to find my lost love in the gas stations of the Commonwealth, but to no avail. Even Google, that finder of the unfindable, was no help. Typing "super ropes" into the magic box yielded no matches.

Sir John of the Nine Teeth was feeling peckish and uninterested in mommy's singing, so I wandered over to the park's concession stand. Bought a soft pretzel and a soda. And there, off to the side in an unassuming display, a box full of super ropes. I doubted the evidence of my senses. My world view rocked, I nearly fell to the ground in thanksgiving for this unsought boon.

I bought twenty of them. And now, I have a link that will allow me to purchase more super ropes through the magic of the interweb whenever I so desire.

Thanks to loyal minion #0004, Ming-Syu, for this glimpse of a cuckolded future.