Sunday, December 30, 2007

Another Christmas behind us!

christmas

There are somethings about the season I will not miss!!

Even (illegal?) Aliens get in on the political frey!

My friend Leo has posted a commentary by what I am assuming is an illegal alien. I doubt he (perhaps she) has a green card.

The Attack Ads Must Stop!!!

They have gone too far!

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Patriots: Undefeated! An exciting evening of sports...

Tonight both presented excitement coupled with a dilemma. On one hand I could watch the New England Patriots make history or I could watch the Red Wings continue on an extra-ordinary season.



On one channel I watched as the Patriots rallied from a 12-point second-half deficit and scored 22 straight points beating New York 38 to 35.



On another I watched Pavel Datsyuk score with just over four minutes remaining in the third period to break a tie and help the Detroit Red Wings to a 4-2 win over the Phoenix Coyotes.



On one channel I witnessed the first NFL team to finish the regular season 16-0. They're the first undefeated team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins. The 1934 and 1942 Chicago Bears also finished undefeated in the regular season.



On the other I am witnessing the Red Wings probably have the best season ever.

It was a great night of sports!

Monday, December 24, 2007

Merry Christmas

I want to share something that Max Lucado wrote. And then something Linus had said.

An EXTRA-Ordinary Night
Today your Savior was
born in the town of David.
He is Christ, the Lord
LUKE 2:11
An ordinary night with ordinary sheep and ordinary shepherds. And were it not for a God who loves to hook an "extra" on the fornt of the ordinary, the night would have gone unnoticed. The sheep would have been forgotten, and the shepherds would have slept the night away.
But God dances amidst the common. And that night he did a waltz.
The black sky exploded with brightness. Trees that had been shadows jumped into clarity. Sheep that had been silent became a chorus of curioustiy. One minute the shepherd was dead asleep, the next he was rubbing his eyes and staring into the face of an alien.
The night was ordinary no more.
The angel came in the night because that is when lights are best seen and that is when they are most needed. God comes into the common for the same reason. His most powerful tools are the simplest.





Merry Christmas everyone!!

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Happy Festivus Everyone!!

Festivus is an annual holiday that was made popular by Reader's Digest writer and editor Daniel O'Keefe. It was Daniel's son, a writer for Seinfeld that intorduced this "holiday" to most of us by way of a Seinfeld episode that was air on December 18, 1997.

By December 2004, when Allen Salkin's article about Festivus as a real holiday appeared in the New York Times, thousands of people around the world were celebrating Festivus with parties, grievance-airing, pole-erecting, beer-brewing and the invention of new Festivus rituals.



What I take from this particular episode is how far the Christmas season has moved from it's true meaning. In many ways, the entire season has become as meaningless as this fictional holiday. As soon as Halloween is over, many stations start playing "christmas" music (I put it in quotes because most of the songs don't even mention Christ) non-stop.

Like it or not, this season is about the birth of Christ. When God became man. It all happened in a most remarkable moment. God became a man. Divinity arrived. Heaven opened herself and placed her most precious one in a human womb.

He gave up his place with God and made himslef nothing. He was born to be a man and became like a servant. -Phillipians 2:7

God had come near!!

Merry Christmas!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

The 12 Days of Christmas



This was very fun and different!

Merry Christmas!!

It depends how you define Consensus


I have to concede that there exists a consensus concerning man made global warming. I have to face facts. If we discard over 400 prominent scientists, the remaining scientists form a consensus

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Evil Corn Syrup


The mayor of San Francisco wants to levy a tax on Pepsi and Coke and other products that contain high fructose corn syrup. Just another illustration of how government knows better.


With New York City banning trans-fats in resturants, San Francisco taxing soft drinks, other places banning smoking in cars, I feel healthier and safer already! I just wonder what other decisions should be turned over to the government?

More global warming?



















David Deming wrote an interesting piece in the Washington Times. David is a geophysicist, an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis, and associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma. I would say he has some credibility in the area of global warming and science in general. I do realize he is not a Nobel Peace prize recipient who is also an acomplished film maker, author and former Vice President, but never the less, I think he may have some insight.

Acccording to Dr. Deming, the global mean temperature has increased 0.7 degrees Celsius. "This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn't increased significantly for nearly nine years. Antarctica is getting colder. Neither the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S."

I am not suggesting that this is evidence that anthropological global warming does not exist, but it does merit that true scientific investigations be conducted to answer these questions. The idea of "scientific" consensus on anything is dangerous. It is especially dangerous when skeptics are ostracized.


Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Chuck Norris Endorses Huckabee



Maybe Obama has Oprah, but Mike has Chuck!

Friday, December 14, 2007

Here is one way not to leave a kid behind..or is it?

I used to feel bad about not doing well in geometry back in high school. Sure I did not try to memorize the theorums and proofs. I usually did not even bother doing the home work. Even still, I felt bad.

But now I don't. What I did not know is that the teachers had high expectations that were unrealistic. They expected me to do my home work, study, and be prepared for exams. What were they thinking??

That is what Principal Bennett Lieberman told his teachers at Central Park East High in East Harlem.

In a memo he has ordered his teachers to lower the standards to increase the rates of passing grades. After all, this is exactly how you prepare the youth of these cities to be prepared for college and the work force.

If only Wayne State did not have those silly rules and expectations....I would be a medical doctor right now.

Moral Imperitives versus sound Science


I think Al Gore is showing some true colors ranting about ignoring the United States and urging the world to pursue a "new global regime" base on a "moral imperitive". Never mind science.

As usuall, the only solution governments can ever come up with is to tax it and hope the issue goes away. But as we have seen in the United States over our history, increase taxation does not eliminate hunger, poor education or poverty, if anything, it makes them worse.

For the record, I am not suggesting that the planet is not increasing in temperature. What I am suggesting is we do not know if this is a natural cycle or if humans have contributed to it. Based on studies I have read, I see a powerful arguement for natural cycles over man made emissions. Having said that, though, I would like nothing more than to see us become independent from oil and to do better for our enviroment. But we must do it in a scientifically sound manner rather than the folly displayed by Gore and his ilk.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Thoughts on Global Warming


Baby Tax need to save planet

Eco-Friendly Kangaroo Farts could help global warming



These article cracks me up!! It truly amazes me the hysteria generated from books like An Inconvienient Truth. I say hysteria because the defenders of the catastrophic global warming models completely reject any form of skeptism and denounce those that do as stupid and ignorant.

Supporters of global warming ( and truly what I mean is warming caused by the activity of people) say that there is a large consensus that it is, infact, occuring. They will point to the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC). It is important to point out that the IPCC is itself an arm of the UN and therefore part of a political organization. Its panel members are selected by politicians and it has an agenda of its own. Several polls of professional opinion indicate that widespread scientific scepticism exists with the IPCC orthodoxy. The published science that the IPCC draws upon to make its recommendations is mostly authoritative and widely accepted but, at the same time,
many distinguished and well qualified scientists, including myself,(you are supposed to laugh here) disagree with some of its findings.


Nowhere does Mr. Gore tell his audience or readers that all of the phenomena described in AIT fall within the natural range of previous environmental change on our planet. Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change. This is not surprising, for no such evidence has been identified. Nor – remarkably, in view of its importance to his overall thesis - does Mr. Gore mention that global average
temperature shows no greenhouse warming at the earth’s surface since at least 1998, and none in the lower atmosphere since 1979. Because of such egregious selectivity, AIT presents as propaganda for a global warming cause rather than as a balanced and well-made documentary about climate science reality.


When you have trouble making sense of your observations, check the fundamentals behind your basic premises; in this case, those behind the prediction of global warming.

When I hear predictions based on averages and standard deviations, I can tell without knowing the details of any of the various models that the person making the prediction is using the mathematics of closed, random systems. Because the phenomena being modeled are open, chaotic systems for which no good mathematics have yet been devised, the output of such models should be suspect.

In addition, the predictions and measurements to support those predictions are expressed in temperature of the atmosphere. When predictions and measurement refer to heat, the appropriate unit is calories. To translate calories into atmospheric temperature requires knowledge of each component of the system, because the specific heat of the atmosphere varies markedly with its moisture content.

The first and second laws of thermodynamics should also be considered. They require the interconvertability of all forms of energy, and the trend toward maximum entropy (disorder or chaos). Thus, radiant energy from the sun is absorbed as thermal energy that is converted in part into the dynamic energy of wind and wave, the latent energy of water vapor in the atmosphere, and the electrical energy accumulated in clouds. Combined in this chaotic mix is the thermal energy from Earth’s core and the kinetic energy of the tides, which is created by the momentum of the moon. This is a picture of multiple inputs and interlocking energy cycles-chaos indeed!!





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