A little piece of advice:

Always be yourself. Don’t act differently depending on who is present or absent. It makes life a lot easier, and many people would benefit from doing it. Same with always telling the truth. Even if they’re “little white lies,” it’s just too much of a pain to keep track of who you told what story, and it’s not worth it. Secrets and private info sometimes need to be withheld in certain instances, but that’s not usually as difficult, unless you’re one of those people who absolutely has to gossip.

And don’t forget to relax. Stress kills.

Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, has shown himself (in my opinion) to be a great example of someone using his head. When he doesn’t know the answer, he admits it, and he tries to think logically about the problems in front of him. He wrote an article on June 13, and after an overwhelming response, he has responded to some of the questions. Here are a few selections from his responses:

Because of the incredible complexity of variables controlling climate, programs based on empirical data cannot predict weather for a fortnight; so how can programs based on far less finite information accurately predict global warming?
William Bluhm, Bella Vista, AR

Vaclav Klaus: This is exactly my argument. It is impossible to seriously predict global weather, not to speak about climate. But my argument is less about eventual variations in global climate. My doubts are mostly about the impact of human activities on global climate. This connection seems to me – after having read hundreds of books, articles and studies – very weak. This weakness is a problem. Because of this weakness, we should not make drastic, far-reaching measures.

(more…)

Read the sunspots

The fact that science is many years away from properly understanding global climate doesn’t seem to bother our leaders at all. Inviting testimony only from those who don’t question political orthodoxy on the issue, parliamentarians are charging ahead with the impossible and expensive goal of “stopping global climate change.”

***

Climate stability has never been a feature of planet Earth. The only constant about climate is change; it changes continually and, at times, quite rapidly. Many times in the past, temperatures were far higher than today, and occasionally, temperatures were colder. As recently as 6,000 years ago, it was about 3C warmer than now. Ten thousand years ago, while the world was coming out of the thou-sand-year-long “Younger Dryas” cold episode, temperatures rose as much as 6C in a decade — 100 times faster than the past century’s 0.6C warming that has so upset environmentalists.

One of the most frustrating things about discussing the climate is the perception created by the media. Practically every story about the climate uses the word ‘consensus’ or otherwise implies that the science is “settled” on the issue. That bias has forced its way into the minds of far too many people, and it makes it hard for anyone to say different without being branded a stooge of the energy industry, or worse.

(more…)

It is a sad day for science. Mr. Wizard has died.

I remember learning physics, chemistry, and all sorts of other things from him, like how to cut a hole big enough to jump through in a piece of paper. It’s sad that good programs like his have been replaced by garbage.

Thank you, Mr. Wizard. You will be missed.

Take a 10-question quiz, and our troops can call home

It only takes a minute or two, and for each quiz taken (no minimum score), they’ll send an AT&T pre-paid calling card to our troops in Iraq through Operation Shoebox.

Saw this at SusiePie and had to chuckle, after I hid under my desk out of sheer terror.

“What I came in time to believe is that the great shortcoming of this White House, the great thing it is missing, is simple wisdom. Just wisdom–a sense that they did not invent history, that this moment is not all there is, that man has lived a long time and there are things that are true of him, that maturity is not the same thing as cowardice, that personal loyalty is not a good enough reason to put anyone in charge of anything, that the way it works in politics is a friend becomes a loyalist becomes a hack, and actually at this point in history we don’t need hacks.”
-Peggy Noonan

Unfortunately, this White House isn’t the only place where simple wisdom is lacking, and wisdom isn’t the only deficiency. I’d say common sense, honesty, and ethics are other big voids in Washington, and that isn’t something that’s likely to change soon.