Cold? Internet Al Says You Aren’t

Global warming is a huge problem and we know this because former Vice President Al Gore says so and after all, he created the Internet, didn’t he?

Gore said "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." (March 1999, CNN).

Gore supporters say that quote is out of context and Gore today says those who deny global warming "persist in an air of unreality." Having been a politician before he got the Nobel Peace Prize for his global warming work in 2007, Gore is clearly qualified to recognize unreality when he sees it.

Not everyone else is so qualified. Folks this week in Madison, Wisconsin were clearly unqualified to see 18 inches of blowing and drifting global warming for the unreality it was. They were so unqualified that they shut down the University of Wisconsin campus for an extremely rare snow day.

But that’s probably because they don’t see the bigger picture, which will be on display at Copenhagen’s climate conference. Like most other entertainment, Copenhagen will require a ticket and the one being used is a simple unquestioning belief that humans and their greenhouse gas production are making the earth warmer.

Folks like Gore will say we’ve got to stop burning fossil fuels and raising and eating so many farting cows. We must make do with less and pay more for it, Gore will say before returning to his mansion and perhaps a steak dinner.

Doing with less will be welcomed as fashionably correct by some of the 20 percent of humans on the planet who live in advanced societies. The other 80 percent won’t much care, since worrying about your next meal often distracts you from higher realities.

Still, our climate leaders are convinced that when things are properly explained, most of the world’s population will be content to live hungry in the dark because burning fossil fuels for electricity or power farming equipment contributes to global warming. And our leaders can certainly cite each other when asked to justify their claims, since they admit no higher authority.

There are skeptics. Former Alaska Governor and Chief Republican Ditz Sarah Palin strays off-message and makes sense when she notes that climate cycles are natural and adds in a Washington Post op-ed that “…while we recognize the occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends, we can't say with assurance that man's activities cause weather changes. We can say, however, that any potential benefits of proposed emissions reduction policies are far outweighed by their economic costs.”

To which Al Gore and his playmates in Copenhagen will tut their tuts and say they have solid evidence that human activity is causing global warming. After all, they have maybe 100 years of measured data from a few places on a big planet that’s 4.5 billion years old. Before my calculator got tired, it told me that’s a sample of 0.000000022 percent for any one place, never mind the whole globe.

That’s not even a sample big enough to call a presidential election, but don’t worry, former Vice President Al Gore says the earth is warming and after all, he’s the guy who “took the initiative in creating the Internet.”

That thought will probably warm hearts in Madison, Wisconsin, where temperatures will hit -2 degrees Fahrenheit at night and skyrocket to 15 in the day. Although they might feel cold they will know that in reality they aren’t cold because Al Gore and his Copenhagen playmates say the globe is warming.

Besides, Gore and Company are again taking the initiative. If you’re freezing or starving or just skeptical, be polite about suggesting where and how they should take it.

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Monkeys Talk – We Should Listen

Monkeys talk less and say more, something a human society with thousands of cable TV channels and the Internet ought to consider.

A report in the New York Times comments on a language used by monkeys in the Ivory Coast, but contains no comments from those monkeys on the language humans use in the United States. (Typical one-sided reporting job from Mainstream Media.)

Still, the Times says Campbell’s monkey is reported to say “Krak! Krak!” which announces a leopard looking for a once-only lunch partner.  We might say “There’s a possibility of a feline predator, possibly a leopard, although whether or not it is hunting has yet to be determined.”

And the hunting leopard might say “the Windbag Special looks good.”

Campbell’s monkeys have a vocabulary of only a few words, but they can have different meanings depending upon how they are put together. As the article explains, the words seem pretty much clear and to the point, aimed at survival in the bush.

Humans, on the other hand, have a vocabulary of thousands of words and seldom are clear and to the point. Our words are not aimed at survival in the bush as much as beating around it.

A monkey would call another monkey who enjoys beating on weaker monkeys a bully. I do not know how that is rendered in the actual Monkeyspeak, but I’m willing to bet it has nothing to do with “recurrent aggression management issues.”

A monkey confronted by another monkey who smells bad says “You stink!” There is probably no monkey equivalent of “social scent selection issues.”

Monkeys who steal are branded as thieves and punished if caught. There are no monkey words for “property ownership identification disorder” or “behavior modification enabling.”

Monkeys who do not wish to speak, don’t. Humans who do not wish to speak call press conferences to announce that they have nothing to say.

Monkeys have sex as they please and don’t talk about it much. Humans talk about having sex as they please, occasionally have it, and talk about it still more – especially if it’s about sex someone else had.

The Times article said more scientific experiments would be done to see if humans had correctly decoded the monkey messaging system. The monkeys were not said to have any interest in decoding the human messaging system.

Is it any wonder?

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Rules for Holes Needed

Tiger’s Practice Course

The number of holes on Tiger Woods’ Practice Golf course is expected by some to reach a dozen by the end of the week and serious golfers are talking about which golfing rules might apply.

Some of the practice-hole owners and designers are also talking about which clubs they might apply to Woods and where, but that is another topic entirely. So is the wisdom of letting the various holes run into each other, which tends to limit play.

But golf means getting the ball into the “hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Rules,” the USGA rules say, adding that for situations in dispute and not covered by the rules, the “decision should be made in accordance with equity.”

So too should it be with Practice Golf, a sport at least as widely played as regular golf and much, much older.

As with all serious rules governing behavior, it is impossible to anticipate every question, so precedent is a guide. In that spirit, some suggested rules to explore:

Playing Two Balls At Different Holes gets you disqualified in real golf; in practice play, you’re lucky if that’s all it gets you.

Playing A Ball On The Wrong Green will cost you the hole in real golf match play, two strokes in stroke play --  and a hell of a lot of money in practice play.

Golf etiquette demands safety about not hitting others with clubs; practice play demands attention to not getting hit with golf clubs by others.

Golf etiquette demands concern not to distract other players; practice play should focus on not being discovered by other players.

Golf etiquette requires covering up your tracks in sand traps; Practice Golf requires covering them up everywhere.

Real golf holes are played in sequence; Practice Golf holes must always be assured that they are the only holes truly in play.

Real golf score are often posted for all to see; scoring in Practice Golf is best kept to yourself.

Practice Golf allows for a wider variation of equipment and technique than real golf, although both forms of the game make available coaches who will try to improve technique for a fee. Performance-enhancing drugs are frowned upon in regular golf play, but may be required in Practice Golf play, especially when the player has accumulated a large number of practice holes.

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