Found this at The Anti-Contrarian after being pointed there by GuyK.

No, it couldn’t possibly be A NATURALLY OCCURRING WEATHER CYCLE – it must be GLOBAL WARMING!!!!

“According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January “was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average.

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950. (i love that part about ‘pre-suv, pre-kyoto, pre-carbon footprint’. heh heh heh)

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its “lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts … the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

I agree, one cold winter does not mean we are headed into an ice age. But several warmer-than-normal summers does not mean we are having an affect on the global climate, either. I remember winters so cold it would hurt to breathe, and winters so mild you could play outside in shirtsleeves. I also remember summers that the snow wouldn’t melt on the high peaks until June, and snow would reappear in September; other summers where the snow wouldn’t appear at all for an entire CYCLE.

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as “a drop in the bucket.” Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to “stock up on fur coats.”

I’ve still got my parka. People here in Phoenix laugh when they see it hanging in my front hall closet. I just smile, and repeat the Boy Scout motto to them.

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

I really didn’t know what to post about today, but thankfully I ran across a warning, provided by a fellow conservative, Ozark Guru, over on the American Conservative Forum. (are you a member yet?)

Here’s the warning:

A “heads up” for those men who may be regular Home Depot customers. Over the last month I became a victim of a clever scam while out shopping. Simply going out to get supplies has turned out to be quite traumatic. Don’t be naive enough to think it couldn’t happen to you or your friends. Here’s how the scam works:

So tell your friends to be careful.
P.S. Walmart has wallets on sale for $ 1.99

No no, don’t thank me – this is a public service announcement.

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

Oh, my aching head. (link may require a bit of information from you. tell them you are male, born in 1932, and live in 86001. that should throw them off…)

At 2000 hours, on March 28th, 2008, we are told that the city of Phoenix and all Valley residents “who care to join in” will turn off their lights for one hour.

Give me a freakin’ break. The “organizers” are saying this is mostly a “symbolic gesture” meant to show that “each person” can “contribute” to “reducing” their “carbon-dioxide” “emissions”.

So will not breathing for an hour. And, if you buy into this whole “man has caused the earth to become overheated” claptrap, perhaps you, too, should join in the “not breathing” crowd. That way, the seeohtwo emissions will be GREATLY reduced, and the rest of us can continue to live on this earth without being bombarded by the media panic-du-jour. (early 1970’s – global cooling and the ice age; mid 1970’s – population boom and an overpowering of earth’s resources, which lead to 1970’s – “energy crisis” – etc., etc., ad nauseum …)

Look, I’m not saying you shouldn’t do your part to reduce your energy consumption, but for crying out loud, let’s have some common sense here. Turn off your lights when there is sufficient outdoor light to illuminate your area. Turn off lights that aren’t being used (you know, like in the room you just left). Unplug electrical zombies that aren’t being used – like the microwave, the stereo, the TV, your cell phone wall charger, your electric rechargeable razor after it’s charged – they suck power even when you aren’t actively “using” them, and that would certainly reduce energy consumption.

(nuh uh, cary – my tv doesn’t use any power when it’s “off” – that’s why it’s called “off”!)

(really? how does it know when the remote tells it to turn on? it’s called a “wait state”, when it’s just sitting there, “waiting” for a signal from the remote)

*sigh*

So, Cary – (you ask, hoping i don’t drop back into snark mode) how do you save energy?

I’ve outlined several ways above. Mostly, I try to avoid using electricity where and when possible. But, there are times when I have to use it – like on the computer, or when I’m working in the shop, or when the sun goes down. Other than that, I try to keep my use to a minimum. I do leave my DISH receiver plugged in all the time, though – otherwise the schedule doesn’t get updated, and I can’t find my favorite races…

I think the number one thing that we, as a people, can do to reduce energy consumption (notice I didn’t say anything about impacting the globe here…) is to unplug the “convenience” appliances – the chargers – that come with the mobile technology that is our life now. Just doing that will make a bigger impact than turning your lights off and sitting in the dark for an hour.

clarification: leaving your phone plugged into the charger after it is fully charged is when the electricity is vampired. any electronic item that can be controlled by a remote control device sits in a “wait” state; that is, it uses electricity while scanning for the signal that tells it to turn on. while I have some cfl bulbs in use, i have been reading nasty things about these bulbs – it can take up to ten minutes to reach the brightness of the incandescent it replaced, they contain amounts of mercury so if they break you have a hazmat situation on your hands (according to federal regs, anyway – i remember playing with mercury in science class), also when they break they can send shards farther than an incandescent will, simply because instead of the vacuum in the incandescent the cfl bulbs are pressurized. just thought i’d clear a few things up. thanks for listening.

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

UPDATE: Both races will run today, 2/25. starting at 1100 MST. Still, no mention anywhere of which network might be carrying the races… I think NASCAR and their broadcast partners need to work on this aspect of the show.

I have Dish Network. The only reason I am paying for this premium service is to be able to watch all of the NASCAR races – the Cup series, the National series, and the Truck series.

Normally, I have no problem at all, no matter when the races are scheduled. I have timers set up to catch the races on FOX, ABC, SPEED, ESPN, ESPN2, the Alternates, and wherever else NASCAR tries to hide them. The timers I have set up start 3 minutes before posted race time, and run an hour (the maximum allowable) past the scheduled end of the race. Like I said, normally it’s not a problem.

Tonight I am a little perturbed. Through no fault of NASCAR, I will most likely miss the Cup race, and will be highly likely to miss the National race. The National race was postponed from Saturday due to the rains southern California is getting right now. The original plan was to run the National race an hour after the Cup race completed. That’s not going to happen now, because the Cup race was first rain delayed, and then after it got started a crash involving Casey Mears, Dale Jr, Sam Hornish, and one or two others caused the race to be stopped (red-flagged) when Mears’ car ended up on it’s side with Hornish’s car tucked under it and on fire. After and hour and ten minutes or so, the race resumed, and about forty laps later the rain stopped the race again.
I just checked NASCAR.com and they are saying the race will run tonight, with a restart at 0100 EST. That’s about 11:00 here, but they failed to mention which channel the race will be run on. There is still no mention. I did find out that the National race will be run on Monday, but again, no mention of the channel.

DISH DVR does not do schedule updates often enough to catch the timers and the new times – so I can either stay up until I find it, and manually record the Cup race, or read about it in the paper tomorrow. Or not, since it’s not basketball and there is no way the Arizona Birdcage Liner will hold the delivery for an auto race.

*sigh*

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

My cousin, the one who sent me last Friday’s funny, sent me this one this week:

=+=+=+=

What? Too many shakes?

UPS – 1, FedEx – 0

Just one – that’s all I ask – just let me touch one of them…

Hmmm, let’s try spelling first, and then move on to more complicated subjects…

I think it was the FedEx driver:

This wouldn’t happen to be by the school that teaches Arithetic, would it?

Sometimes, a name change would be a good idea…

Hey, take me to the cleaners!

Don’t rush me – this is a very important decision…

Turns out I can’t there from here, anyway.

Little known fact: CMT’s new series, My Redneck Wedding, was inspired by this sign:

Oh, the Joys! Oh, the Blessings! Oh, the College Tuition!

Uhm, logic check, lane one …

Actually, kind of a relief, wouldn’t you say?

Take two languages, both with idiosyncrasies, idioms, and a tricky sentence structure, and mix goodly:

The cow jumped over the what?

Hay, Martha! Feed ’em some burritos, and let’s go!

I think I know what happened to Mr. FedEx here…

Oh, the shame of not knowing how to react…

I – I – I just don’t know what to say here…

Grass? What grass? Oh, I get it – it’s one of those preachy, “artsy-fartsy” anti-drug messages, man…

Now, I don’t feel so bad for failing physics…

Now hiring for what? Short term employment?

Don’t drink and make road signs, you mean…

It must have been the FedEx driver!

=+=+=+=
Have a safe weekend, and come back soon!

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!