July 29, 2007

Marvin Zindler -- RIP

Earlier this month I noted that Houston television legend Marvin Zindler was gravely ill. Today he lost his battle with pancreatic cancer.

For nearly two generations, he's been part of Houston, never farther away than a television set.

Marvin was a product of Houston and never strayed from his home. His father was the first mayor of Bellaire. Marvin was a drum major at Lamar High School. One thing he was not was cut out for his family's clothing business. Marvin as it's said marched to his own beat.

First he took to the radio and then TV. He was fired from his first on-air job at KPRC in the 50's. Marvin claims he was told he was too ugly. So he embraced plastic surgery.

With a career in law enforcement, Marvin served warrants for the sheriff's office and started the consumer fraud division. His exploits got him noticed and in 1973, at my request, he was hired here at Channel 13.

As Marvin would say, he wasted no time in making news. First he exposed the goings on at a house of ill repute in La Grange known as the Chicken Ranch. The confrontation between Marvin and the sheriff is stuff of legend and the basis for a Broadway musical.

The bread and butter of Marvin's Action 13 though was representing the people who'd been cheated out of what was owed them or ignored by government.

And so it went for nearly 35 years. It was an unprecedented career for a man who was more than a personality. Marvin Zindler was a true character, one who will never be replaced.

I urge you to watch the videos -- they chronicle a true character, and have excerpts from the classic "Chicken Ranch" reports, which led to his being immortalized as the thinly disguised Melvin P. Thorpe in The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas.

Houston media will never be the same.

Farewell, Marvin.

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July 28, 2007

Free Speech And Pedophiles

Here's a chilling story from the New York Times -- how far does the First Amendment go to protect the speech of a pedophile about his perverse predilections?

The search for the self-described pedophile in the large-brimmed black hat commences nearly every day here, with findings posted on chat rooms frequented by mothers.

He was spotted at a fair in Santa Clarita. He recently emerged from the Social Security office on Olympic Boulevard. He tapped away on a computer at the library in Mar Vista. Warnings have gone out. Signs have been posted.

And yet unlike convicted sex offenders, who are required to stay away from places that cater to children, in this case the police can do next to nothing, because this man, Jack McClellan, who has had Web sites detailing how and where he likes to troll for children, appears to be doing nothing illegal.

But his mere presence in Los Angeles — coupled with Mr. McClellan’s commitment to exhibitionistic blogging about his thoughts on little girls — has set parents on edge. One group of mothers, whose members by and large have never met before, will soon band together in a coffee shop to hammer out plans to push lawmakers in Sacramento to legislate Mr. McClellan out of business.

“Just the idea that this person could get away with what he was doing and no one could press charges has made me angry,” said Jane Thompson, a stay-at-home mother in East Los Angeles who recently read Mr. McClellan’s comments about a festival in her neighborhood in which he seemed to be describing her child.

The sick thing here is that I see no legitimate way to shut down this sick bastard's website or limit his activities. After all, he has committed no crime, is legitimately in public places, and carefully treads a fine line to avoid inciting criminal acts.

The observation of law professor/blogger Eugene Volokh really sums up the problem well.

“It is an interesting case,” said Eugene Volokh, a law professor and First Amendment expert at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Professor Volokh cited a federal statute that bars the posting of bomb-making information on the Web, and suggested that a similar statute banning information that helps people find children to molest could be enacted, perhaps. But simply providing information about where children gather was not likely to constitute such a crime, he said.

In terms of children’s images, he said: “The general rule is pictures of people in public are free for people to publish. Now if it is without permission and the person is a child and he suggests the children are sexual targets, you can imagine a court saying this is a new First Amendment exception. But it would be an uphill battle.”

So how can we respond to a sick man like this, one who is engaged in legal activities in fulfillment of his sickest fantasies? Through vigilance and publicity.

Interestingly enough, the New York Times is behind the game. FoxNews wrote about this sick puppy in March.

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NY Times Can't Count

But what the heck -- they only misreported the number of refused shipments by 634%. And they expect us to believe any other piece of news they report?

The Food and Drug Administration refused entry to 82 candy shipments from Denmark in the last year, not 520, as The Times reported in an article in Business Day on July 12.

The article, which described the F.D.A.Â’s rejection of shipments to the United States of food and other products for violations of sanitary, safety or labeling standards, detailed problems with shipments from India, Mexico, Denmark and the Dominican Republic. It was based on an analysis by The Times of inspection records in an online F.D.A. database.

Because of flaws in its analysis method, The Times miscalculated the number of shipments refused from those countries from July 2006 through June of this year.

In doing the analysis, The Times incorrectly tallied the number of violations cited by the F.D.A., and reported that figure as the number of refused shipments. Because more than one violation may be involved in each refused shipment, that approach resulted in an overcount, exaggerating the export problems.

Sloppy research, sloppy reporting, sloppy editing -- that's the New York Times!

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July 27, 2007

NASA Sabotage

Since this was for a part for the International Space Station, one has to ask if this sort of thing could explain some of the other problems up there.

A space program worker deliberately damaged a computer that is supposed to fly aboard shuttle Endeavour in less than two weeks, an act of sabotage that was caught before the equipment was loaded onto the spaceship, NASA said Thursday.

The unidentified employee, who works for a NASA subcontractor, cut wires inside the computer that is supposed to be delivered to the international space station by Endeavour, officials said.

The space agency declined to speculate on a motive.

The computer is supposed to measure the strain on a space station beam and relay the information to flight controllers on Earth.

The damage would have posed no danger to either shuttle or station astronauts, said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's space operations chief.

The worker also damaged a similar computer that was not meant to fly in space, Gerstenmaier said.

When i was a kid, the space program was teh pride of this country, and doing anything o harm any element of it would be unthinkable. here's hoping they throw the book at this idiot.

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July 21, 2007

Legalize Hemp

If it was good enough for Washington and Jefferson, why isn't it good enough for American farmers today?

After receiving the first state licenses to grow hemp this year, Mr. Monson and Wayne Hauge, a farmer from Ray, on the opposite side of the state, filed applications with the D.E.A. in February.

Since then, the drug agency has not said yes or no. Given North Dakota’s growing season, it is too late to plant anything new this year. So in June, the two men— with financial help from Vote Hemp, the advocacy group — filed a lawsuit against the agency.

Mr. Robertson said in July that the agency was still reviewing the applications, but that he could not say much beyond that because of the litigation.

Like Mr. Monson, Mr. Hauge, who is 49 and farms barley, chickpeas and lentils on land his great-grandfather homesteaded in 1903, said his efforts were about economics, not politics — or drugs.

Hemp is a versatile, hearty, and useful crop -- and one which would be profitable for farmers. Products made of hemp, imported from outside the US, are legal. Why not let farmers grow this cash crop?

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July 17, 2007

In A Cyclical System, What Constitutes The Norm?

This story looks bad, if you are a believer in the notion that global warming si a man0made phenomenon and not part of a natural cysle.

At nearly 13,000 feet above sea level, in the shadow of a sharp Himalayan peak, a wall of black ice oozes in the sunshine. A tumbling stone breaks the silence of the mountains, or water gurgles under the ground, a sign that the glacier is melting from inside. Where it empties out — scientists call it the snout — a noisy, frothy stream rushes down to meet the river Ganges.

D.P. Dobhal, a glaciologist who has spent the last three years climbing and poking the Chorabari glacier, stands at the edge of the snout and points ahead. Three years ago, the snout was roughly 90 feet farther away. On a map drawn in 1962, it was plotted 860 feet from here. Mr. Dobhal marked the spot with a Stonehenge-like pile of rocks.

Mr. Dobhal’s steep and solitary quest — to measure the changes in the glacier’s size and volume — points to a looming worldwide concern, with particularly serious repercussions for India and its neighbors. The thousands of glaciers studded across 1,500 miles of the Himalayas make up the savings account of South Asia’s water supply, feeding more than a dozen major rivers and sustaining a billion people downstream. Their apparent retreat threatens to bear heavily on everything from the region’s drinking water supply to agricultural production to disease and floods.

Indian glaciers are among the least studied in the world, lacking the decades of data that scientists need to deduce trends. Nevertheless, the nascent research offers a snapshot of the consequences of global warming for this country and raises vital questions about how India will respond to them.

Sounds alarming -- and certainly presents some challenges. But since we know that glaciation is a part of a cyclical process ranging over thousands of years (tens of thousands, in fact), exactly what point in the glacier's history constitutes the norm? What was the optimal reach of the glacier? Does its location in 1962, for example, constitute "where it should be"? Or does today's location? And since there is no clear evidence that humanity is responsible for the changes, is it proper that we make economic decision based upon that unproven (and dare I say it, unprovable) theory?

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July 11, 2007

Progress In Iraq

Not as much as one might want, but progress none the less.

The Bush administration will assert in the next few days that progress in carrying out the new American strategy in Iraq has been satisfactory on nearly half of the 18 benchmarks set by Congress, according to several administration officials.

But it will qualify some verdicts by saying that even when the political performance of the Iraqi government has been unsatisfactory, it is too early to make final judgments, the officials said.

The administrationÂ’s decision to qualify many of the political benchmarks will enable it to present a more optimistic assessment than if it had provided the pass-fail judgment sought by Congress when it approved funding for the war this spring.

The administration officials who provided details of the draft report to The New York Times, insisting on anonymity, did so partly to rebut claims by members of Congress in recent days that almost no progress had been made in Iraq since President Bush altered course by ordering the deployment of about 30,000 additional troops earlier this year.

One of the realities of war is that progress often comes in fits and starts. The fact that there has been this much progress is a positive thing, not the negative that some would prefer to spin it as. Some of the measures will require additional political progress within the Iraqi government, while other aspects will require continued use of military force. But regardless, this report puts teh lie to war opponents who claim there is no progress in Iraq -- and therefore seek retreat and surrender.

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July 10, 2007

Ditch Bitch Dreams Of Political Opponents In Gitmo

Let no one claim that Cindy Sheehan supports American values -- she wants Americans who oppose her imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay

I have a dream of the detention centers that George has built and
filled being instead filled with Orange Clad neo-cons and neo-connettes.

In other words, she wants to emulate her heroes Castro and Chavez by criminalizing opposition to her politics.

What a pity that she disgraces and repudiates the values fought for by her son, Spc. Casey Sheehan, who died a hero for the country his mother clearly seeks to destroy.

H/T Michelle Malkin

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Oops!

wreckingball.jpg

A little news out of my wife's hometown.

Alex Habay was in his Ford Taurus, stopped at a traffic light in downtown Meadville, Crawford County, yesterday morning, thinking about nothing, idly listening to a radio commercial while on his way to his summer job at the YMCA.

That's when a 1,500-pound wrecking ball smashed into the rear of his car.

"I was in complete bewilderment," said Mr. Habay, 20, of Hampton, a junior at Allegheny College. "At first I thought it was a car, but when I turned around there was no car.

"I was confused."

So were a lot of other people in Meadville yesterday.

Meadville police said the episode began around 9:45 a.m. about 3,600 feet away, near Allegheny College's Pelletier Library, where a crane was demolishing part of the building. That's where the cable holding the 3-foot-diameter wrecking ball snapped, starting its downhill tumble from the college to the town.

Police said crane operator Robby L. Boring, 28, of Meadville, was injured when he tried to stop the wrecking ball by throwing bricks in front of it.

As it gained momentum, the wrecking ball rumbled from the campus along North Main Street, pinballing back and forth across the street, hitting nine parked cars and damaging curbs with each impact.

By the time it reached Mr. Habay's car at North Main and Randolph streets, it had gained enough momentum to crush the trunk into the back seat, showering Mr. Habay with glass and pushing his car into the two cars in front of him. The fourth car in line was a Meadville police cruiser.

And here we thought stuff like this only happens in movies.

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July 08, 2007

The Consensus Is Over

Looks like the religion of global warming is losing one of its key articles of faith -- the notion of a "consensus" on the issue among scientists.

The last issue of SCIENCE is waffling like mad on the global warming fad, warning its readers that it may not be so settled a question. Under the headline "Another Global Warming Icon Comes Under Attack," SCIENCE writer Richard Kerr writes
"...a group of mainstream atmospheric scientists is disputing a rising icon of global warming, and researchers are giving some ground." ...

"Robert Charlson of the University of Washington, Seattle, (is) one of three authors of a commentary published online last week in Nature Reports: Climate Change. ... he and his co-authors argue that the simulation by 14 different climate models of the warming in the 20th century is not the reassuring success IPCC claims it to be."

(IPCC is the supposed international scientific consensus document on global warming - JL).

"... In the run-up to the IPCC climate science report released last February ... 14 groups ran their models under 20th-century conditions of rising greenhouse gases. ... But the group of three atmospheric scientists ... says the close match between models and the actual warming is deceptive. The match "conveys a lot more confidence [in the models] than can be supported in actuality," says Schwartz. [....]

"Greenhouse gas changes are well known, they note, but not so the counteracting cooling of pollutant hazes, called aerosols. Aerosols cool the planet by reflecting away sunlight and increasing the reflectivity of clouds. Somehow, the three researchers say, modelers failed to draw on all the uncertainty inherent in aerosols so that the 20th-century simulations look more certain than they should." [Italics added]

What? "Somehow" they missed the biggest unknown factor in climate prediction?

Highly qualified climate scientists have long warned that warming estimates have at least one giant question mark: Water vapor and other tiny particles in the atmosphere. By failing to include reliable estimates of such "hazes" (not necessarily pollutants, as the article says), global warming models are likely to err wildly on the side of warming. It's the unseen elephant in the living room.

Not only that, but the scientific data used to support global warming does not meet the usual standard of proof for scientific publications -- having a 90% confidence rate rather than the standard 95% confidence rate expected of rigorous scientific studies. In other words, not only is the science sloppy, but so is the standard of proof the acolytes of global warming are willing to accept in the name of consensus.

So much for consensus, dudes.

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July 06, 2007

Just the Facts

It must suck to have to bad-talk the American economy when you have to combat these facts.

Today, The Bureau Of Labor Statistics Released New Jobs Figures – 132,000 Jobs Created In June.  Since August 2003, more than 8.2 million jobs have been created, with more than 2 million jobs created over the twelve months ending in June.  Our economy has now added jobs for 46 straight months, and the unemployment rate remains low at 4.5 percent. 

Americans Are Working And Taking Home More Pay

  • Real After-Tax Per Capita Personal Income Has Risen By 9.9 Percent – Nearly $3,000 Per Person – Since President Bush Took Office.
  • Real Wages Rose 1.1 Percent Over The 12 Months Ending In May.  This is faster than the average rate during the 1990s, and it means an extra $729 in the past year for the typical family with two wage earners.
  • The Economy Has Now Experienced Over Five Years Of Uninterrupted Growth, Averaging 2.9 Percent A Year Since 2001.  Real GDP grew a strong 3.1 percent in 2006.
  • Since The First Quarter Of 2001, Productivity Growth Has Averaged 2.8 Percent.  This is well above average productivity growth in the 1990s, 1980s, and 1970s.
  • Purchasing Managers Reported Manufacturing Expansion For The Fifth Consecutive Month In June.  The Institute for Supply Management manufacturing index rose to 56 in June. 

Still, the Democrats still badmouth the American economy and try to engage in class warfare for cheap partisan advantage. The statistics prove that they are the "out-of-touch-with-reality"-based community.

H/T Blogs for Bush

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July 05, 2007

Prayers For Marvin

If you have never lived in Houston, you may not have heard of Marvin Zindler, who is something of an institution down here. He is, however, known to millions of folks around the world for the character based upon him (Melvin P. Thorpe) in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas".

Zindler has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer which has spread to his liver.

Legendary Houston newsman Marvin Zindler is suffering from inoperable pancreatic cancer.

Zindler, who turns 86 on Aug. 10, said in a report filed for Channel 13's 6 p.m. newscast Thursday that he has pancreatic cancer that has spread to his liver.

"I don't want anybody to feel sorry for me because I'm almost 86 years old," said Zindler, who looked wan and tired in the report.

Despite the news, the consumer affairs reporter — who has worked for KTRK for 35 years and has a lifetime contract with the station — said he planned on filing reports as usual, beginning Friday with his weekly "rat and roach" restaurant report.

Rest assured that there are many prayers for him this evening -- though at 86 the prognosis is clearly not good.

They really don't make them like Marvin any more. For a couple of tastes of Zindler's style, you can look his restaurant report and his trademark sign-off. They are not to be missed!

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July 04, 2007

Gore Arested For Drugs

The son, not the father -- but I wonder he was carrying dad's stash. It would explain some of the former VP's behavior.

Al Gore's son was pulled over for speeding on a California freeway early Wednesday and arrested on suspicion of possessing marijuana and prescription drugs, authorities said.

Al Gore III, 24, was driving a blue Toyota Prius about 100 mph south on the San Diego Freeway when he was pulled over by sheriff's deputies who said they smelled marijuana, said Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino.

The deputies searched the car and found less than an ounce of marijuana along with Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and Adderall, which is used for attention deficit disorder, Amormino said.

"He does not have a prescription for any of those drugs," Amormino said.

Gore was being held in the men's central jail in Santa Ana on $20,000 bail.

It isn't the younger Gore's first incident involving illegal drugs. Maybe Daddy Gore needs to stop trying to save the world and start trying to save his on.

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Post Writer Doesn't Get It

The headline sounds ominous.

Justice Is Unequal for Parents Who Host Teen Drinking Parties

Or it does until you actually read the article.

When police showed up recently at a Walt Whitman High School graduation party, three young people were drinking in a vehicle parked outside the Bethesda home. Then three more teenagers walked up with a six-pack in a bag. While the police were dealing with them, the mother came outside, saw the officers and ran back in.

Montgomery County police wrote dozens of citations against the minors who were found to have been drinking at the party. The party-hosting parents were given two civil citations each, carrying fines of up to $1,500 per infraction.

The outcome for the Bethesda parents was considerably less severe than for a Charlottesville area mother and stepfather who recently began serving 27-month jail sentences for hosting an underage drinking party. In Virginia and the District, parents who host such parties can be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a misdemeanor that can carry jail time. In Maryland, hosting an underage drinking party is punished with a civil penalty, payable with a fine, even for multiple offenses.

Oh, it isn't the unequal application of the laws -- it is that the District of Columbia and the two states that surround it each have different laws dealing with the same offense. That makes a world of difference in how this story should be presented, don't you think?

Unless, of course, the Washington Post is angling for the notion that all laws should be identical in all 50 states, under the notion that we should be the United STATE of America, not the United STATES of America

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July 02, 2007

A Houston Tragedy

So many people were pulling for David Ritcheson -- first for him to recover from the brutal attack which was perpetrated against him, then in his quest for justice. Sadly, the ghosts of the events that took place some in April of 2006 appear to have been too much for David to cope with.

A Spring teen who survived a brutal beating with a pipe last year apparently jumped to his death from a Cozumel-bound cruise ship on Sunday.

An 18-year-old was observed by "a bunch of people" jumping over the railing of the upper deck of Carnival Cruise Lines' Ecstasy around 7:35 a.m. Sunday, said Coast Guard spokesman Adam Eggers.

A written statement from the cruise line also said an 18-year-old appeared to jump from the ship.

Carnival Cruise Lines officials would not confirm his identity, but Rick Dovalina, head of LULAC in Houston, said Sunday night that he learned through the family's attorney, Carlos Leon, that 18-year-old David Ritcheson has died.

"Carlos said that the family confirmed it, that it was true," Dovalina said. "The family heard from the captain of the ship. He went overboard."

The ship's crew pulled the body from the water and he was pronounced dead at 9:10 a.m. The ship had departed Galveston on Saturday and was a "couple of hundred" miles out, Eggers said.

Ritcheson's death comes less than three months after he testified before Congress about how two teens nearly killed him on April 23, 2006 by repeatedly kicking a patio umbrella stand into his rectum while shouting "white power!"

I grieve with the Ritcheson family for their loss. I only wish that some further retribution could be taken against the scum who nearly killed him last year and whose actions make them morally, if not legally, responsible for David's death.

Predictably, Ritcheson's death is already being used to promote federal hate crimes legislation.

Jackson Lee said the tragedy of Ritcheson's death could draw attention to the need for the hate crimes bill, as well as one she drafted that focuses on educating teenagers involved in hate groups. She said she intends to amend her legislation, nicknamed "David's Bill," to include funding and counseling support for the victims of hate crimes.

"Now we have a greater reason to move this bill as fast as we can," she said of the main hate crimes bill, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. "We will have a full press forward to have the president change his mind. Maybe he will rethink his position."

I hope this attempt fails, for the reasons I cited in April of this year, when Ritcheson testified before Congress.

The problem with his position? The facts of his case show that a federal hate crime law is not necessary.

Tuck, 19, and Keith Turner, 18, both of Spring, eventually were convicted of aggravated sexual assault for attacking Ritcheson in the backyard. Tuck was given a life sentence, Turner 90 years.

Life in prison. Ninety years in prison. Excuse me, but it does not strike me that there is anything more that can be done, unless you simply want to take these two mutts out and put a bullet into the base of their skulls. It is rather like the call for a hate crime law here in Texas after the James Byrd dragging in Jasper -- where two of the three perps got the death penalty and the one who cooperated with authorities got life. How would you "enhance" those sentences?

Don't think perpetrators of hate crimes are getting punished sufficiently? Fine, I'll agree with you -- but the solution is not a hate crime law. The solution, instead, is to enhance the penalties for the underlying offenses, across the board, so that actions like theirs are punished harshly. Because after all, what is it we are out to punish -- the crime or the motive? The thoughts or the actions? I hope and pray that the answer is obvious.

At a time like this, there are many who want to make some good come out of the torment suffered by this young man. Unfortunately, the proposal in question is not the correct solution.

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July 01, 2007

A Solution To Global Warming

You have to love it when Vin Suprynowicz gets on a roll.

If these Chicken Littles really believed this, what would they be doing? They'd be looking for proven ways to really cool things down, of course.

How about examining the historical record for the approximately 200 years for which we have reliable weather data? Look to see if there was a period when the weather cooled down, all of a sudden, and what caused it.

Google "Year Without a Summer." From April 5 to 15, 1815, Mount Tambora on the island of Sumbawa in the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia) blew up, ejecting 40 cubic kilometers of volcanic ash (more than twice as much as the 1883 explosion of Krakatoa) into the upper atmosphere.

Other volcanoes -- La Soufrière on Saint Vincent in the Caribbean in 1812 and Mayon in the Philippines in 1814 -- had already built up a substantial amount of atmospheric dust.

That stuff stayed up there, in the jet stream, for more than a year. Sunlight was reflected off that orbiting cloud of crap and had trouble getting through. The "Year Without a Summer," known colloquially as "Eighteen hundred and froze to death," was 1816, in which severe summer climate abnormalities destroyed crops in Northern Europe, the American Northeast, eastern Canada and even China.

In May, frost killed off most of the crops that had been planted. In June, two large snowstorms in eastern Canada and New England resulted in many human deaths. In July and August, lake and river ice were observed as far south as Pennsylvania.

In Europe, food riots broke out and grain warehouses were looted. A recent BBC documentary tallied up 200,000 deaths.

Clearly, if anyone believes Earth is warming catastrophically and that we need to do something, the only proven solution is to start throwing as much crap into the atmosphere as we possibly can, right now.

Clean nuclear and natural-gas-fired power plants must be shut down and immediately replaced with coal plants burning the softest, dirtiest coal -- peat would be better -- that can be found. "Smog inspections" will take on a new meaning as our cars will be checked regularly to make sure each is pouring out the densest possible cloud of carbon particulates and lifesaving black soot.

Since every little bit counts, we may also have to make tobacco smoking mandatory for everyone above the age of 10.

Now is not a time to hesitate, to refuse to make the minor sacrifice of breathing some slightly less healthful air. Global warming is a crisis, baby! It's time we all set aside our selfish desire to keep our yard furniture free of drifting soot and share the sacrifice! Think globally; act locally. Do your part!

Pollution -- massive, smoky pollution -- is the only answer!

Which really exemplifies the problem with current global warming theory -- too much pollution in the atmosphere is held to cause the temperature to rise, except when it causes the temperature to drop. As I've noted in the past, the backers of man-made global warming are less about science and more about a cult-like faith.

UPDATE: Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Jeanette's Celebrity Corner, Webloggin, The Amboy Times, Cao's Blog, , Pursuing Holiness, CatSynth.com "catback" weekend, Right Celebrity, Walls of the City, Nuke's news and views, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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