Category Archive

I don’t even know how to begin this post, except to say “Oh. My. Lanta!” I can hardly believe the headline I saw yesterday, “ABCNEWS Asks: Are we living in the last century of our civilization?” As I read the story I quickly saw that this was a work of fear mongering at it’s worst. Not surprising as ABC is an entertainment company and not a group of scientists.

This story is an example of the application of questionable science by minds clouded by religion. Yes, religion. Man made global warming has become a religion. Anything that stands in the way of fulfilling the prophecies, directives and goals is willingly sacrificed to see the earth worshiped properly. You don’t believe me? Go buy a gallon of gas. The cost of a gallon is now about $4.25, for no flipping reason. And no, it isn’t because the gas companies are greedy. It’s partly because the market has driven the cost per barrel so high, speculators wreaking havoc. But notice what else is in your gas, ethanol. It’s there by order of the government. It shouldn’t be. Ethanol is corn, the edible stuff, turned into fuel. Did you notice that the cost of corn has skyrocketed? And that every other foodstuff has also become more costly? That’s because we are burning our food instead of eating it. That makes no sense.

I do not believe that anthropogenic global warming is real. At all. I do not believe it because the science just isn’t there and because the climate of the earth changes regularly. It has done so since the foundation of the earth. It always has and it always will, with or without us. I am not alone.

John Coleman, the founder of the Weather Channel sees things the way I do, as do many, many others. The sun is the source of much of the earth’s energy and heat, sunspots intensify that. Lately, the sun has been quiet. Really quiet. Back during the little ice age there was a 50 year period of low to no sunspot activity called the Maunder Minimum.

In the midwest are floods, tornadoes and destruction. I have heard the floods called 300 year floods, meaning this kind of flood only happens every three hundred years. So really, it’s not unprecedented, just unusual. Just follow the logic, if this sort of flooding happens every 300 years or so, that means that it’s got a cycle, a regular cycle, just a rather longer one that we humans tend to see because we don’t see 300 year floods everyday. (Thank God)

Do a search on “…caused by Global Warming…”, you will find everything from cyclones to shark attacks. Come on, people. That’s just crazy talk.

Here is how I see it, the climate changes regularly in long cycles that often span several lifetimes of men. Before you go blaming hurricanes and floods on global warming, go get some perspective. Nearly everything has happened before, and will happen again. We don’t need to toss virgins into the volcano to stop something that isn’t happening in the first place.

The 600 Things Blamed on Global Warming - This is a fabulously funny list of ridiculousness.

When it comes to take us, death is never pretty and always unsettling. At least it should be.

Jessica Lunsford was just 9 when she died a horrific death in the hands a convicted pedophile just yards from where she lived with a loving father and loving grandparents. Terry Schaivo is ,even as I write this, being starved to death because her husband decided that was what she wanted and the courts agreed. 10 people in Minnesota are dead because Jeff Weise decided to kill them. In other places people are dying because someone else determined that somehow, death was profitable. It’s not just money, but influence, convenience, revenge, theology and worldview all come to play in death and how it is dealt from the hands of humans. We are cruel and inhuman to each other, and most horrible of all, we are cruelest to the weakest. There is an irresistable ecomony to eliminating the inconvenient and expensive amoung us, it is even better and easier it seems if they are unable to speak for themselves.

While death is always horrible, sometimes it’s just time. I’ve personally seen two women die, one the 92 year old grandmother of a friend and the other my 70 year old mother. My friend’s grandmother had been failing for a year, her lungs were continually filling with fluid, and she was ready to go home, she said so. She stopped breathing one day, her daughter called 911, the ambulance crew inserted a breathing tube and carried her to the ER. When we got there, it was clear she wasn’t coming back, and in fact had asked not to be resuscitated. So, after a little while, her daughter asked to have the respirator removed and we watched her die. It took 15 minutes, maybe 20, but not more. It wasn’t pretty, she struggled, her breathing became ragged, it slowed, and then she stopped breathing all together. We cried, her daughter and granddaughter most of all, but at the same time, it was peaceful after. She had lived a long and full life, and then she was done. My mother’s death was different, she had pancreas cancer and was in terrible pain until the end. Right at the end of her life awful things happened in her body, excruciating painful things. But the moment she drew her last breath, an amazing peace entered the room.

Death isn’t the way we were supposed to end. In fact, we weren’t supposed to end at all. We were supposed to live forever, enjoying God and enjoying the world he created for us for all eternity. Sin entered the picture and with it the consequences of sin, which is death. We will all die eventually, but how we die depends largely on the people around us. That isn’t just our families, but the people nearest to us, the ones with access. .

Playground Rules are those rules that you knew intuitively as a child, and if you didn’t you got your butt kicked by the other kids. Things like “Never cut in line at the slide, unless you won’t get caught” (rule #25) or “General Alarm sounds the moment the Ice Cream Man is sighted” (#12) were rules we lived by as children. We had rules for siblings, rules for neighbors and rules for kickball. These rules were in effect all the time with specialized rules for every location, not just in the playground, but at home, at school and on vacation when you run into new children. These rules enabled us to play effectively and safely with children all over the country when our parents took us on cross-country road trips.

The number one rule applied all the time: All things must be fair. Defining fair was left to the situation or who had the biggest and strongest older brother, but one thing we all agreed on, if your Mom was bringing cupcakes to class for your birthday she had better bring one for each child, OR ELSE! This is a good rule, and every parent with a 6 year old knows they had better get an accurate head count and prepare extra in case of tipping and disaster. Only an act of God, and it had better be a doozy, could be an excuse. And even then, it’s better that Mom doesn’t show up at all.

Apparently no one informed St. James and LaDonna Davis that this rule also applies to Chimpanzees. Last week the couple were bringing a cupcake to their chimp, Moe, for his 39th birthday. Two other chimpanzees freaked out when they didn’t also get cupcakes, broke out of their cages and severely mauled Mr. Davis. Mrs. Davis also sustained injuries. Analysis of this attack by an animal expert in the Washington Post confirmed what any six-year old could have told you, Buddy and Ollie were ticked because they didn’t get any cake. Mr. Davis lost his nose, testicles and one foot in the attack. Apparently Chimpanzees have a highly defined sense of fairness. You would think that after living with one for all those years they might have understood that.

(Their pet, Moe, had been confiscated in 1999 because he bit off part of the finger of a neighbor, BTW)

So now you know. Remember your playground rules, they may save your life, and your nose, feet, fingers…

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/04/chimp.attack.ap/

My cat Poonie is nearly 20 years old. She’s 137 in cat years. She’s deaf and skinny, but still she’s a wonderful snuggly cat. She meows in my face in the morning because she’s hungry. Sometimes she screams loudly because she can. I don’t really know why, unless she is getting louder and louder because she can’t hear herself, or if, like Kiki says, that she’s got Alzheimers and just gets confused and scared. She still likes to scoot close at night and sleep right next to me. I like that.

But as I looked at her the otherday I realized that she will never learn to speak. She’s 20. She’s been alive years longer than most cats and she doesn’t add to her skills. It’s such a weird thought, but as I watched her doing cat things, I just thought, Come on, you’re old enough to vote and to drive, the least you could do is tell me which cat food you want BEFORE I open the can and feed you, before you vomit it up in the doorway I am about to walk through barefoot. But no, you are still just a cat. Nothing more.

When she was younger I trained her to jump and catch cards I threw at her. She was good, she could jump pretty high and she would catch them between her front paws. After a number of tosses she would walk away expecting me to play 52 pick-up all by myself. As she’s gotten older she’s gotten crankier, thinner and more demanding. Like most of us will I suppose. She still wants my attention as soon as I get home, follows me into the bathroom and beats a hasty retreat when she realizes the shower’s on. When she was little she used to sit at one end of the tub on one of the ledges just watching and playing with whatever water got sprayed on her.

I know Poonie will die someday soon, every now and then her sleep is so still I think she’s passed. But she’s always responded with a little “prrrrup?” when I touch her. I will miss my kitten when she goes, but I will get another. She’s special and sweet, to me anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever be tempted to fork over $50,000 for a cloned kitty. Half the fun of a new pet is finding out who they are. Half the fun of $50,000 is never worrying that it will get eaten by a hawk or run over by a car.

I read a bit about a woman in Texas who cloned her favorite cat for $50,000. I am awed by just how profane that is.