A Clarification

I guess I should try to make a clarification here.

The last few posts here have been a bit "hard" on a certain "group" of people. No, not politicians, THEY deserve all that I give them and more. I am talking here about xtians. What I mean by that term are the fakes, not REAL Christians in any way.

I do my best to respect the beliefs of all other people, within reason of course. I have no respect at all for those who "believe" that sex with children is OK. I have no respect for those who believe it is OK for them to beat their wives or children either. I DO think some kids need a spanking at times, but that is not a beating.

I also have no respect for hypocrites. Here is where the xtians come in. To me, these are the folks who preach about Christ, yet do not in any way, live what they preach. They are coming out of the woodwork at this time of year. That is what we get every year around late November and on into December in particular. You all know them. They are the ones who go around talking about "peace on earth" or even "goodwill to men", that gang. They sure do talk a good one don't they? Yet they do not put their words into practice. While they are off shouting "peace on earth" they are also praying for "victory" for our troops.

They must have never been to war, actually, they probably have never even been in the military. "Victory" implies death and destruction. How is that compatible with "peace on earth"?

Peace on earth, goodwill to men implies, actually means, just that peace. It does not mean "victory" or wars or killing or making other people homeless.

I detest the hypocrites and anything they "stand for". They are just liars. They "say" they worship the "prince of Peace" yet they pray to their god for a military victory. They are NOT Christians at all, they are xtians.

I use that term in much the same way some use xmas. There is NO Christ in either. As to xmas, that is totally commercial, you can be a total atheist and enjoy xmas, no "god" of any sort there. Just like the xtians, no Jesus, no "prince of Peace", no joy, just hypocrisy.

I do respect the real, true Christians and wish them well. Same with any other true believer. I respect their beliefs. I only ask that they not demand that I believe what they believe. If my non-belief means I will spend eternity in some "hell" or other, well, that is MY choice. Thank you for your concern, now, let me live my life as I choose. I try to live my life by doing no harm to others. I do not try to convince anyone to follow what I believe. I just would like the religious folks to show me that same respect.

I don't think that is too much to ask for. Mutual respect. Now, that is a concept that could actually lead to real world peace.

Happy holidays to all.

hockey sticks?

Well, it sure looks like the meeting this week in Denmark is going to be very interesting.

The "hockey stick" graph for climate change is coming under pressure. The "leaked" emails from England have only added to the fuel against drastic, made made, climate change.

Things are so bad that Al, not my pal, Gore has backed out of even attending this meeting. He was supposed to give at least one speech on this topic. What with his now tow books, his Oscar winning movie, and of all things, a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on the man made climate change, his no show leaves many folks wondering about the whole topic.

While this "disaster" of the emails gives fuel to the "deniers", it should make any sane, rational person stop and ask questions. One thing that really needs to be addressed, from my point of view, is why have the people who have been pushing the "hockey stick" data been so very slow, if at all, in sharing their data? As I understand things, the way science is supposed to work is you share all of your data with any other researcher who asks for it. In this way, they are able to use your data and see if they came get the same results that you have obtained. By not sharing this data, or being very slow to share it, they give the impression that they may have something they wish to keep secret. By not sharing the data, or in being very slow to do so, they make other researchers wonder why they are doing this. If you are an honest researcher, you should be willing to share all of your data with any other competent researchers. That is how new discoveries are validated. The with holding of data gives the impression of having something to hide.

And, it would seem that some of the "hockey stick" people did have things they wanted to hide. At least one researcher who finally got access to the original data has not been able to confirm their "hockey stick" conclusions. In fact, he has found that the "Medieval Warm Period" was even warmer that the temperatures we are experiencing today. This does not show in the hockey stick models. In fact, the "Medieval Warm Period" drops out completely in the "hockey stick" conclusions. Amazing.

Some of the "hockey stick" data only include tree rings from 10 (ten) tree ring samples. Also, those ten samples were not random samples. Not exactly a representative sampling in any way at all.

I do not claim that there is no climate change. The climate of planet earth has been changing for the last 4 billion years. Yep, ever since the planet formed. It will continue to keep on changing until the sun burns out.

The climate has undergone many periods of extreme climate change. We know there have been more than one ice age. We also know that it has been much warmer than it has been in our life times. During the age of the dinosaurs the climate was much warmer. Humans did not drive any of the previous climate changes.

I seriously doubt that the current climate change is driven by human activity also.

That being said, I see no reason why we should not do our best to conserve our natural resources. That just makes good sense to me. The less we use of them, the more there will be for future generations. Saving energy, by using high efficiency appliances, cars and truck that get better fuel milage are things we ought to do. It will save us money in the short term and it will help to insure that those resources may be available for the next generations.

What is very worrying to me is this "idea" of "cap and trade". This sounds like another scam for the very rich to get even richer and for the poor to get even poorer. As I said, just another scam. Actually, to me, "cap and trade" is not unlike those emails you get that inform you that you have "won" some lottery or other. Sure thing, by "random drawing" you have just "won" a huge sum of money. Now, you "only" need to send the "keeping fees" to "insure" the delivery of your prize. Just another SCAM, as is "cap and trade".

Bottom line, we all need to do our part to save our resources fro future generations. What we do not need to do is to tax the poor people of the world. We do not need government mandates to force conservation. While a few nice "carrots" could be useful in this, big "sticks" of higher taxes on the poor will not make things any better for any except government tax collectors and the speculators who will get rich off the idiot "cap and trade" schemes.

Just my 2 cents on climate change.

semper fi