3667

He thinks Al Gore is an alarmist

and he's been in the hurricane prediction business for two decades. Before Katrina, before Al Gore's movie, but after the 2004 hurricanes that hit Florida, William Gray, the world's most famous hurricane expert was interviewed by Discover magazine.

"A few years ago, you almost called it quits because you’d lost so much funding. What made you continue?

G: I don’t have the budget that I had, so I have cut my project way back. I am in retirement. I’m still working every day, but I don’t teach and I don’t have as many graduate students and as much financial need. I’ve got a little money from Lexington Insurance out of Boston, and I have some National Science Foundation money. For years I haven’t had any NOAA, NASA, or Navy money. But I’m having more fun. Right now I’m trying to work on this human-induced global-warming thing that I think is grossly exaggerated.

You don’t believe global warming is causing climate change?

G: No. If it is, it is causing such a small part that it is negligible. I’m not disputing that there has been global warming. There was a lot of global warming in the 1930s and ’40s, and then there was a slight global cooling from the middle ’40s to the early ’70s. And there has been warming since the middle ’70s, especially in the last 10 years. But this is natural, due to ocean circulation changes and other factors. It is not human induced.

That must be a controversial position among hurricane researchers.

G: Nearly all of my colleagues who have been around 40 or 50 years are skeptical as hell about this whole global-warming thing. But no one asks us. If you don’t know anything about how the atmosphere functions, you will of course say, “Look, greenhouse gases are going up, the globe is warming, they must be related.” Well, just because there are two associations, changing with the same sign, doesn’t mean that one is causing the other."

He notes that he lost a lot of his funding when the global warming views became popular during the Clinton administration. Go figure! You mean there's money in the politics of science? Surely not!!!!

Global warming is a hoax. Washington Post story about Gray. He thinks in about 8 years we'll be cooling again--hmmm, around the time Gore will be finishing his 2 terms launched by his chicken little platform. Long enough for him to have destroyed our businesses and industry and taxed us to the warming heavens and back.

3666

There is no evidence

Although I am a 6 day creationist, I have no problem reading and enjoying reports of millions of years for old earth, particularly if they poo-poo man's impact on global weather change. Unfortunately, there is no money in saying that humans are not in charge. Be prepared to open your wallets if you buy into this Al Gore chicken little story, or even if you don't. This one by Ian Plimer of Australia is instructive:

"For 80% of time, planet Earth has been a warm wet greenhouse planet. Polar icecaps are rare, plants have only be on Earth for 10% of time and 99.99% of all life that has ever existed is extinct. Global atmospheric CO2 and CH4 have been variable over time and have decreased over time whereas O2 has been in the atmosphere for 50% of time, has greatly fluctuated and has increased over time. There have been 5 major and numerous minor mass extinctions of complex life, extinction opens new environments for colonisation and, because former terrestrial animals have become extinct, we humans now have a habitat. Sea levels have risen and fallen thousands of time by up to 400 metres, land levels constantly rise and fall and massive rapid climate changes derived from supernovae, solar flaring, sunspots, meteorites, comets, uplift of mountain ranges, pulling apart of oceans, stitching together of land masses, drifting continents, orbital changes, changes in the shape of Earth, ice armadas, changes in ocean currents and volcanoes. There is no evidence that life has changed climates." Full report here. (Opens in Word)

The medieval warm period

"temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period (~AD 800-1100) were about 1°C warmer than those of the Current Warm Period" Article here.

3665

Parting company

Where I part company with many Conservatives.

Politics

• I'm against the death penalty. Don't let the evil scumbags turn you into a killer.
  
• I believe marijuana can be a controlled substance for medical treatment, just like other mind altering legal drugs.
  
• I believe drug sentencing is too punitive and counter-productive--at least in Ohio. 60% of our prison population is drug related (I've heard, haven't researched it). Prisons are schools for crime, and we should stop sending so many novices there, because they will graduate and return to us.
  
• I think Creationists need to stay clear of the public schools. We haven't even convinced our own folks, so why go after non-believers? No one ever got to heaven because of believing in creation, nor was sent to hell because of evolution. Plus, you're not being truthful about your motives and that hurts your witness for Jesus.
  
• Schools need to allow students the freedom to be Creationists or write or speak on the topic without fear of punishment or grade reduction.
  
• I don't believe in the current political race for the brass ring called global warming, but I also believe that many conservatives don't take the precautions and care they should with the environment. Clean air and clean water is good for our health and for capitalism.

Religion

• I'm not a dispensationalist Christian. Not that all conservatives are, but many that are cherry pick their way through the Bible finding end-times principles to apply to politics that aren't there.
  
• Most Biblical admonitions about sexual behavior and morality are addressed to men lusting after women, not to gay men. Pay attention to your own plank before looking for the splinter.
  
• The Biblical record is clear that Jesus intended women to have an equal role in the church.
  
• I'm fine with infant baptism and don't believe in rebaptizing, although I appreciate my anabaptist heritage. Watching an infant baptism is a wonderful reminder of our need to rely totally on God.
  
• If you've got a well written liturgy, faithfully followed, it makes up for poor sermons and unsingable hymns.

Others

• I don't believe pets are "just like family," but once you take one into your home, you have obligations and responsibilities for training, veterinary care, love and affection.
  
• I believe homeschooling is good and soundly educational, especially for the parents who will have more actual learning and support than if the children attended public or private schools, but it isn't always better for the children. There's nothing wrong with doing it for mom or dad if they become better parents.
  
• Our children come into this world as unique beings, with everything in place to be successful and happy. If they don't get there, it may not be your fault, and it definitely is not the government's. Take the blame where you deserve it, and dump the guilt if you don't.

3663

Fat Grandmothers

I had none. I'm so fortunate that I had both my paternal and maternal grandparents in my life, and my great-grandparents lived just a few doors away when I was very young. My grandmothers weren't fat, or even plump or curvy. If your grandmother is a member of my generation, you probably can't say that.

Today I was reading "Aging, adiposity, and calorie restriction," by Luigi Fontana and Samuel Klein in the March 7, 2007 JAMA. It's a very cautious and conservative review of the literature from 1966 through December 2006 in PubMed (the largest and most famous medical literature database) which concludes from all the studies done on calorie restriction in the last 40 years that calorie restriction in adult men and women causes beneficial metabolic, hormonal, and functional changes, but (and here's the cautious part) the precise amount of calorie intake or body fat mass associated with optimal health and longevity in humans is not known. And after laying out all this fabulous research (139 citations), the authors take a buy-out and decide that because calorie restriction is difficult to maintain long-term, we might have to turn to a pharmacological agent for a solution. Cha-ching. There's no money in eating less, moving more.

That's what got me thinking about my grandmothers, both of whom lived to their late 80s. One was born in 1876 and the other in 1895, young enough to be the other's daughter (my great grandmother was born in 1873), a time when life expectancy at birth was about 45. Their generations benefited from better hygiene, but I doubt that either ever had a vaccination. It's possible that very late in life they might have had an antibiotic. I don't know much about their early lives, but given the times, I'm sure they were both breast fed by non-smoking mothers. They didn't give birth in hospitals. They both lived their childhood and early married life on farms a few miles from each other, but didn't work in the fields. Housework, however, was much more physical in those days. I use Grandma Mary's pressing irons as book-ends--they were heated on the cookstove and weigh 10-15 lbs. Water was pumped outside and carried in to be heated either in the stove or on it. Grandma Mary was wealthier than Grandma Bessie and did have a German woman as household help, but they would've worked side by side. And both gardened (potatoes, carrots, cabbage, tomatoes, beans, turnips) and raised chickens for meat and eggs. Root crops could be stored, and beans and tomatoes were canned for winter, but table fare was pretty bland and boring. Both women baked their own bread. Beef was not on the table in either household. Grandma Mary rarely served meat, except chicken occasionally, and Grandma Bessie would have only had fatty pork, sausage, or a tough old chicken, too old to lay. Cows were for milk (cash crop) and butter (for cooking), and when you think about it, they were much more difficult to butcher for a single family than a pig or chicken. There wasn't even much in the way of fruit, maybe a few apples, grapes for juice or berries.

According to the authors, the first calorie restriction study was done in 1935 when it was discovered that limiting calories in lab rats increased their life span by 30-60%. Food shortages during WWII in some European countries were associated with a sharp decrease in coronary heart disease, and although this article didn't mention it, I've seen reports like that on breast cancer. Again, the authors use cautious language, but say "population studies suggest that lifestyle factors, such as sedentary lifestyle, dietary intake, and adiposity, are responsible for up to 70% of chronic disease and are a major contributor to reduced longevity. . . data suggest that a BMI at the low end of normal (18.5-24.9) is associated with optimal metabolic and cardiovascular health."

Friday Family Photo

Before she was married, my grandmother Mary painted in oils. She probably had private lessons, because I think the school in Ashton, IL would have been too small to offer art. In one of her account books from the 1890s I found notations for art supplies and studio rent. This painting of iris hangs in my aunt's home. I can only remember three of her paintings framed and hanging in the farm house, but they were wonderful, so there must have been many leading up to those that weren't kept or framed.

In Grandma's little community of Ashton, IL (her family lived on a farm, but that was the school district), at 25 and unmarried, she was considered an "old-maid." Her deepest desire was to be a teacher, but not only were married women kept out of the classroom, but so were single women whose father could support them, or so she told me. Mary lived at home and worked as her father's bookkeeper and managed the house (her mother had died in 1898). The median age of women at marriage in the United States was twenty-two in 1890, but for college educated women the median was over twenty-five. My grandparents (he'd been off on an adventure in the northwest but they knew each other from college days) were married in September 1901, when Mary was 25 and Charles 27. The young couple did not see a future in Illinois managing any of her father's property and so they moved to Wichita, KS after their marriage where he had relatives.

Grandfather Charles' sister and brother-in law, Alice and J. Edwin Jay lived in Wichita where Uncle Edwin was on the Faculty of the Friends' University. Charles opened a feed store, the West Side Mill, at 811 West Douglas. They bought a house at 2007 Hancock where Mary earned money by renting rooms to students from the Friends' University (she later did this in 1934 at the University of Illinois during the Depression). She audited some classes at the University until her first pregnancy began to show and appearing in public was considered unseemly. They returned to Illinois after the deaths of their second son in 1907 and of her brother Ira in 1908 to help her father.

I like to think she may have continued her painting in Kansas, but I just don't know. She was a bit of a health nut and probably thought (correctly) the fumes from the linseed oil, turpentine and oil paints weren't safe during her pregnancies and then stopped altogether.

Poetry Thursday #14

Today's challenge has two parts. I think I've met it. I'll keep this at the top of the page, but scroll down for other important topics like the weather, fashion, recipes, and global warming.

Part I: Write a poem to, for, or about a poet.

Part II: Write a letter to a poet and then share it with the Poetry Thursday community on Thursday.

I'm writing about and to Wendy Cope, a popular British author and former teacher, who wrote a very brief poem about giving up smoking.

Oh Wendy Cope,
I sure do hope
you still can write
with such delight
and words so tart,
with poems that smart
and clever rhymes
just for our times.
Dear Ms. Cope,

It's difficult for me to fathom the cigarette addiction. When I go to that smoke-free place called Heaven, who will be left on Earth to nag my son who says he was hooked after that first cigarette? I shake my head because I don't understand how anyone could allow shredded, dried up vegetation burning right under the nose to control his life, health and finances. However, then I read the love poem that you wrote a few weeks after giving up smoking in 1985, and the last phrase said it all,

I haven’t finished yet--
I like you more than I would like
To have a cigarette

and I began to understand. And that's what poetry can do. You wrote, "People who have never been addicted to nicotine don’t understand what an intense love poem it is." Oh, and by the way, Ms. Cope, I also want him to find a love like that. Your poem's a two-fer.*

Thank you for your service,
Norma

*A two-fer is slang meaning "two for one." Sometimes it has no hyphen.

3660

Viral and Deranged--the left blogosphere

Apparently some of the biggieblogs fell for this doctored photo of Karl Rove even though it broke on April Fool's Day. Read the story. See the list of suckers.

3659

Happy Birthday

Today is my husband's birthday. This is what we looked like when we met in 1959, when I weighed more than he did. I'm wearing a girl friend's formal, which was a bit snug, and he's wearing his grandfather's jacket, which was a bit big.

Armory House Spring Dance, 1959

I see you're still dreaming
there's still so much to do.
Helping and guiding,
painting and traveling.
Isn't it great
to be you.
He's in the process of retiring, but met today with a client who he says is one of the nicest people he's ever worked with, but I think he usually says that. He brings that out in people. Calm, reassuring, and confident. Pretty much the same easy going, quiet, thoughtful guy I met in 1959. He stays busy.

• Design Review Board at Lakeside
  
• member of two Christian men's group that meet weekly for breakfast
  
• member of a couple's group at our church, UALC
  
• mentors a child at an urban school
  
• teaches a drawing class at the senior center and Lakeside in the summer
  
• Head of the Visual Arts Ministry at our church
  
• handles all the arrangements when we travel
  
• communion server at our church
  
• usher at our church
  
• 15 years teaching VBS children
  
• member of a group of watercolorists that meets monthly
  
• keeps an active painting schedule--completes about 10 a month
  
• member of two community art groups, founder of one, past president of both
  
• Condo association president
  
• leads a women's aerobics class
  
• takes me out to eat every Friday night

The ethics of corn ethanol

We were told by the TV reporter last night that Easter eggs will cost $.34 more a dozen this year. Corn ethanol is the reason, but reporters probably don't want to look on the down side of Al Gore's movie theories. Such as, China has now caught up to us in emissions (a decade ago we were told it would be 2025), so we could burn water in our automobiles and it wouldn't make a bit of difference in the global temperature, assuming that emissions are causing warming, which many scientists say is a bunch of cow poop. Being Americans, we not only think we are God, but that only what we do to the atmosphere matters, and the only hurricanes that hit land, are the ones we see here.

But let's look at the ethics of ethanol.

" . . . about 29% more energy is used to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy in a gallon of ethanol. Fossil energy powers corn production and the fermentation/distillation processes. Increasing subsidized ethanol production will take more feed from livestock production, and is estimated to currently cost consumers an additional $1 billion per year. Ethanol production increases environmental degradation. Corn production causes more total soil erosion than any other crop. Also, corn production uses more insecticides, herbicides, and nitrogen fertilizers than any other crop. All these factors degrade the agricultural and natural environment and contribute to water pollution and air pollution. Increasing the cost of food and diverting human food resources to the costly inefficient production of ethanol fuel raise major ethical questions. These occur at a time when more than half of the world’s population is malnourished. The ethical priority for corn and other food crops should be for food and feed. Subsidized ethanol produced from U.S. corn is not a renewable energy source." Abstract, "Ethanol Fuels: Energy Balance, Economics, and Environmental Impacts Are Negative," Natural Resources Research, Volume 12, issue 2 (June 2003), p. 127-134.

And he doesn't even mention the bioterrorism of a well placed fungus that could wipe out the Americans' dependence on corn for fuel the way the potato blight sent the Irish running for a new country in the 19th century.

and the CO2 emissions of corn ethanol

"Proper mass and energy balances of corn fields and ethanol refineries that account for the photosynthetic energy, part of the environment restoration work, and the coproduct energy have been formulated. These balances show that energetically production of ethanol from corn is 2–4 times less favorable than production of gasoline from petroleum. From thermodynamics it also follows that ecological damage wrought by industrial biofuel production must be severe. With the DDGS coproduct energy credit, 3.9 gallons of ethanol displace on average the energy in 1 gallon of gasoline. Without the DDGS energy credit, this average number is 6.2 gallons of ethanol. Equivalent CO2 emissions from corn ethanol are some 50% higher than those from gasoline, and become 100% higher if methane emissions from cows fed with DDGS are accounted for. From the mass balance of soil it follows that ethanol coproducts should be returned to the fields." "A First-Law Thermodynamic Analysis of the Corn-Ethanol Cycle," Natural Resources Research, Volume 15, issue 4 (December 2006), p. 255 - 270

ethanol

3657

Send Swank to Syria

Maybe she'll put some clothes on. Nancy Pelosi's garb in a Muslim country (intended to show submission to men and decrease their sexual impulses) makes a lot more sense than what I saw Hillary Swank wear on the Jay Leno show last night as she plugged her new movie, "The Reaping." She had on a light blue denim strapless mid-thigh length dress, with about the same coverage as an Esther Williams swim suit from a 1950s movie--maybe less.

She looked absurd sitting beside a male comedian wearing baggy jeans and sweatshirt and across from Leno who had on a business suit and tie. It's probably cold in those TV studios. She was pale, pasty and plain as pudding in an outfit no self-respecting prostitute would prance in. Excuse my preposition at the end of a sentence.

It truly grieves me that women, whether Granny Pelosi who spouts one message at home and another abroad or Sister Swank are such terrible role models for young women and an embarrassment to mature women. If women still rock the cradle, they seem to be losing their grip on the clothes closet.

3656

Global warming and Ohio

We're all back in our winter clothes and coats today (it's below freezing). Isn't it interesting that those banging the warning bells the loudest about global warming have chosen to live in sunny climes or along the coasts where they prefer constant danger from storms which have been ripping up the sand and rocks for centuries, eating away the cliffs where they want to build their mansions and summer homes? Except Al Gore from Tennessee, who inherited his money for high living from tobacco sales, simultaneously stripping the land of all nutrients while killing thousands.

Then after they've polluted the air and cut off everyone else's view through punishing regulations which closed down industries that then moved to Asia, they want those of us who live in the "heartland" to fritter away our inheritance of good soil and water resources on even more acres of corn (which has already made the nation fat as a cheap sweetener). Corn to burn in our gas tanks as ethanol, taking more inputs to create a profit than coal or oil ever did. They've barely started this scheme and already food prices are inching up.

Way to go liberals--you've found yet another way to hurt the poor. Are we Americans insane, smug or just shameless--or all three?

Fact sheet comparing ethanol inputs.

ethanol

3655

Old trucks are popular

I saw this old Ford parked between cottages at Lakeside yesterday. Seems to be in the middle of restoration.


Then at Florida Cracker (a librarian), I saw this truck, apparently new, for about $58,000, made by Southern Motor. But you can choose your color.

"For our daughters and granddaughters"

Granny Pelosi speaking in January 2007 about how far American women have come now that she is Speaker of the House. She can sure run for cover and go all traditional and quaint for the Muslims.



If she visits the Old German Baptist Brethren in California, I wonder if she dons a prayer covering?

Lakeside in the spring is waiting

For the perch to bite off the dock
and the Sunfish to launch from the shore
for the restaurants to offer specials

and the Methodists to fill the bookstore

3652

Let's face it, Harry

When I look at the pinched and angry face of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) I see in every line and wrinkle all that's wrong with the United States. I'd like to blame it on boomeritis, but he was born the same year I was, and we're not boomers. But he's overstayed in the Senate, having been there over 20 years, enough to buy and sell a lot of government real estate.

The face of the new America
1) First, we're an aging nation. Being old isn't bad, but we're tossing the common sense and wisdom that usually come with age to dance to the tunes of the 60s and 70s, and abandon our allies to please the war protesters and home-grown Communists who are trying to relive their glory days of smoking weed and frying their brains. Millions of Vietnamese were slaughtered or sent to camps for "reeducation" when we ran out on them, and now we want to leave the Iraqis to the same fate.

2) Second, Reid's mouth is perpetually pursed with the tortured and convoluted reasoning that if you tell your enemy your plans in advance, he'll be cooperative and just wait until you pull out run out to kill any more American soldiers.

3) Third, His beady, narrow, yet strangely puffy eyes, glint with his new found resolve to make a name for himself globally--an old American tradition, if we can believe all the anti-war left tells us about our motives.

4) Fourth, his skin is the ashen color of a man slowly dying from, not too much CO2, but from too much hatred for the Bush administration, so much so he's willing to not just sink the Iraqis, but American soldiers as well.

I know from reading left-wing bloggers that they aren't thrilled with him, but they should be. He be them.

3651

My new Wal-Mart scoop

Yesterday I bought a long sleeve light-weight t-shirt at the Port Clinton Wal-Mart. It has a scoop neck, and is just about the most poorly made item I've ever found made in China. But at $5, the price was right, and our weather indoors and out is so changeable, I thought the sleeves were a good idea. This morning I put it on with my $1 loden green jeans I bought at a yard sale in 2001. Looked nice. Then I took a second look. You know what? This is the same design as long underwear, I kid you not. Oh well.

Today I saw another "expose" about Wal-Mart scoop. This time about how it investigates threats to its business. In the old days, retailers just sent shopping snoops into the stores of the competition, or restaurants send spy customers into the restaurants of its rivals to check on the menus or even to its own stores to check on quality and service. The stakes are a bit higher now, and being the biggest retailer in the world, saving Americans billions and single handedly financing the governments of third world countries, Wal-Mart gets tough. So here's my poem about the latest Wal-Mart story in the WSJ in which some of its own snoops gave scoops to the media on the inside security poops.

Tell me why
Wal-Mart can't spy
on the workers it pays
to sleuth in ways
to snoop
for its Threat Research and Analysis Group.

3650

The Amish Vault

Returning from the lake yesterday, my husband stopped in Bucyrus to take a photo of the mural to use in his perspective drawing class which starts in two weeks. I assured him I already had it, but since the van was parked I hopped out and went across the street to see what the store Amish Vault was all about. Lovely store! Wonderful Amish made furniture, accessories with delightful gift items and artificial flowers with a coffee shop inside. Within 2 minutes I saw it. A headboard for our headless bed. In 1963 we bought a bedroom set, contemporary in oiled walnut, that we still love and wouldn't dream of giving up. But we didn't buy the bed--good thing too, because in those days there was no queen size. About 10 years ago, we bought something, but I really have never liked it. It's impossible to find a match--I haven't seen oiled walnut anything in years, and besides 1960s modern is collectible, but not in fashion. However, elm in a honey sugar stain is close, and mission style will work with modern, so I flagged down my husband who couldn't figure out where I was and he came in and looked. Within another 2 minutes, we'd grabbed the saleswoman and were talking about how we'd get it to Columbus. We've spent more time deciding which gas station will save us five cents a gallon on a ten gallon fill-up.

We made a down payment to hold it, and will come back with our Explorer on our next trip to the lake and hope it fits. The delivery charge was reasonable ($1 a mile) but we're about 60 miles from Bucyrus, so that would be $130 just to deliver it.

The matching dresser and chest had been purchased by someone else--and they didn't want the bed. Forty-three years from now they'll be sorry.

3649

Two bumps on a log

We are driving up to our summer home in Lakeside on Lake Erie today. There will be lots of yard work, so I hope the warm weather we're having in Columbus extends that far north. Seems there's been a bit of storm damage. A neighbor called and took some photos. Our trees are probably over 100 years old, and because the early community had no zoning or plan (started as summer tents on platforms for chautauqua), they are often too close to the homes or street. Still, they provide beauty and shade, and I would hate to lose them.

As we get closer, you'll see that two of the "bumps" are alive.


I haven't a clue how we'll cut this up and get it out of the road. We pay huge taxes to the county (which provides no services) and dues to the association (which owns the land), but we're a private community and when something expensive turns up, all fingers point to the home owner who gets very little return on taxes and dues.

3648

Get the clean hands habit

This was one of a series of instructional images used by the Minnesota Board of Health in the 1930s used to train the state’s public health workers. The purpose of these images and the appropriate training was focused on protecting food supplies from bacterial contamination.

Many people do not think about food safety until a food-related illness affects them or a family member. While the food supply in the United States in 2005 was deemed to be one of the safest in the world, CDC estimates that 76 million people get sick, more than 300,000 are hospitalized, and 5,000 Americans die each year. Text and photo courtesy of PHIL, Public Health Image Library.

3647

We be God

As we flee from any worship of the true God, let's pretend we are great and powerful, that we are stronger than the sun or the tides, that there never were climate cycles before the automobile, and that we hung the moon*. Let's just legislate ourselves out of the world markets, incrementally, and turn it all over to our friends the Chinese.

In this case Massachusetts v. EPA, [also known as Bush v. Gore Movie], the Court ruled that the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has existing authority under the Federal Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. Greenhouse gas pollutants, such as carbon dioxide, cause the warming of the earth’s atmosphere.

As Massachusetts Chief Priest and Attorney General Martha Coakley says: "As a result of today’s landmark ruling, EPA can no longer hide behind the fiction that it lacks any regulatory authority to address the problem of global warming." From the Massachusetts AG site.

Clean air is good. Good for us and good for business. But tying it to humans controlling the temperature of the earth's atmosphere, is ludicrous.


*Wasn't there a full moon last night?