The story about the pope saying atheists can go to heaven too — and the happy reaction from atheists — is kinda weird.
On the one hand I guess it’s nice when somebody decides you don’t necessarily deserve to spend eternity in torment, but OTOH, if somebody tells me Thor won’t punish me after all, it doesn’t mean very much.
The Obama administration desperately wants to deflect attention away from the growing scandals. How’s it going to do that?
I expect somebody’s going to leak a sex story. Not Obama or Biden or anything like that, of course. But you know the opposition research has files on lots of politicians, and they’re just waiting for an opportune time.
What kind of story is more likely to divert the media than a juicy sex story?
The Boy Scouts of America voted on Thursday to end its controversial policy banning gay kids and teens from joining one of the nation’s most popular youth organizations, ditching membership guidelines that had roiled the group in recent years.
… I remain skeptical about the majority view on anthropogenic global warming.
In this video Allan Savory argues that desertification through mismanagement of land is a much larger issue for global climate change.
His basic premise is that the “experts” have been wrong about the effect of livestock on land. He says livestock actually prevents desertification.
I have no idea if he’s right, but if he is right, the “experts” have been wrong for a very long time.
I remain skeptical about AGW because I think the world is a far more complicated place than the models assume, and because the world operates on very long-term trends, but we only have short-term data.
It’s interesting to watch how the pro-Obama media is trying to spin all the scandals. Some of them have gone past “there’s no story, move along” and are trying to make the story “Are Republicans overplaying their hand?”
Meanwhile, drip by drip, backpedal after backpedal, more and more damning evidence comes out.
I suspect that at least one of the current scandals (IRS/Tea Party, Benghazi, or AP phone taps) will implicate Obama. Maybe not, but I think at least one of them will.
The first two are not new and should have been covered and investigated more aggressively before the 2012 election. It’s transparently obvious to me that the mainstream media did not report these stories because they didn’t want to hurt Obama’s chances at re-election.
Now imagine — just for giggles — that one of those two scandals takes off and gets the White House in serious trouble.
Doesn’t that have the potential to create a fourth scandal — the scandal of the media? Isn’t it at least possible that the public will get very upset with the lapdog media and their tendency to cover for Obama?
The Washington Post has a good editorial on the need for objectivity and fact-based policies when it comes to energy and climate change.
… there is a great amount of uncertainty associated with climate science. These uncertainties undermine our ability to accurately determine how carbon dioxide has affected the climate in the past. They also limit our understanding of how anthropogenic emissions will affect future warming trends.
Exactly. Which is what some of us have been saying for decades.
I’m wondering if this is the beginning of the left starting to walk back their outlandish rhetoric about climate change.
Further confusing the policy debate, the models that scientists have come to rely on to make climate predictions have greatly overestimated warming. Contrary to model predictions, data released in October from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit show that global temperatures have held steady over the past 15 years, despite rising greenhouse gas emissions.
Wait a minute. I thought it was only anti-science, right-wing lunatics who say that sort of thing.
But … but … but …. Aren’t we having more super storms and tornadoes and derechos and bad hair days because of climate change? Don’t we all need to drive electric cars and recycle and eat organic food so we can save the planet?
[There is an] IPCC report stating that there is “high agreement” among leading experts that trends in weather disasters, floods, tornados and storms cannot be attributed to climate change.
Far be it from me to say that agreement among “leading experts” is Gospel, but … hey. Live by the expert, die by the expert.
I really, really hope that somebody is memorializing all the hyped, inflammatory, “only crazy people say that” talk coming out of the “scientific left” so they can shove it back down their throats in a year or two. Of course I already know how the left will respond. “Oh, we didn’t really say that. No competent scientist would ever have said such a thing.” etc. etc. etc.
Tea Party Congressman Rep. Joe Barton from Texas was introducing a male speaker at an “ultimate male power lunch” and said “humanity is at a crossroads” and “our survival as a species depends on men taking power.”
Outrageous, right? He’ll probably be driven out of office by the scandal.
Uh … . Wait. Sorry. Hold on a second. I got that wrong. It wasn’t a Tea Party guy.
Joe Barton said no such thing.
It was actually Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois, Democratic Vice Chair of the bipartisan Women’s Caucus, who said “Our survival as a species is dependent on women taking charge.”
When the story on the increase in sexual assault in the military came out I was certain there was more to it. For example, bad data, redefined terms, phony accusations, etc.
Attack of the Tinkers, and Other Hidden Village Stories
This is a collection of short stories based around the concepts in The Hidden Village, an (as-yet) imaginary game for city dwellers to play in their off hours -- at lunch or happy hour, or as they wander the city streets. The participants join a guild and compete with one another for members, points and territory. But there’s a secret purpose to the game that the players don’t know about. Get it now on Smashwords or on the Kindle.
(Yes, that's a new cover.) The hi-tech gamer clan has become the mortal enemy of the elf clan, and the first elf war begins in The Underground Escape -- the exciting sequel to The Hidden Village. Geof Franklin and Jennifer King have become entangled in clan business and find themselves right in the middle of a deadly conflict. Loyalties are tested and alliances are formed as other clans take sides Kindle: $2.99
The Hidden Village
Geof Franklin gets the late-night phone call every parent dreads and discovers that his son has been missing for weeks. As he relentlessly searches for his only son, he gets pulled into the orbit of a cult-like sub-culture of clans that live by their own rules and think nothing of killing anyone who stands in their way. Kindle: $2.99
The Intruder
Jeremy Mitchell is a refugee from a separatist, anti-technology community who is a fish out of water in the high-tech society of the 21st century. He recklessly plunges himself into his new environment and finds himself caught in a confusing web of technology and intrigue. Powerful forces try to make him a pawn in a contest between rival intelligence organizations, but he doesn't play along with their game and makes his own rules. His loyalties are tested by a budding love affair with a young college student, who, along with her computer geek girlfriend, are unintentionally pulled into the conflict. Paperback: $9.99 Kindle: $2.99
This was going to be a long blog post, but it got out of hand, so I made it into a small book. It's a review of the Hitchens v. Craig debate on the existence of God. Paperback: $5.99 Kindle: $0.99
