Saturday, July 2, 2011

day 2: my last-ever global warming post (unless, of course, it's not)


believe it or not, i'm not a global-warming denier; rather, i'd call myself a healthy skeptic.

not just because of the recent exposures of shoddy science, cover-ups, conflicts of interest and outright fraud within the movement.

and not just because the movement's disciples keep moving the goalposts as the planet stubbornly refuses to warm on schedule per their vaunted computer models (thus requiring the awkward branding shift from global "warming" to global "climate change").

and not even because of all the high-living fat cats at the top of the movement preaching austerity to the rest of us as they position themselves to reap huge fortunes from the carbon-offset schemes they've devised to save us from ourselves.

no, my skepticism goes beyond all that--in fact, a wall street journal article from back in february summed up my feelings on the subject in a couple well-written paragraphs:

We do know that carbon dioxide and other gases trap and re-radiate heat. We also know that humans have emitted ever-more of these gases since the Industrial Revolution. What we don't know is exactly how sensitive the climate is to increases in these gases versus other possible factors—solar variability, oceanic currents, Pacific heating and cooling cycles, planets' gravitational and magnetic oscillations, and so on.

Given the unknowns, it's possible that even if we spend trillions of dollars, and forgo trillions more in future economic growth, to cut carbon emissions to pre-industrial levels, the climate will continue to change--as it always has.

as it always has.

oh, and speaking of "solar variability",  get this:  scientists who had up until very recently been convinced we were heading into a period of intense solar activity have--as scientists frequently do-- suddenly changed their tune.

According to three studies released in the United States on Tuesday, experts believe the familiar sunspot cycle may be shutting down and heading toward a pattern of inactivity unseen since the 17th century.  

and how did the sun's "inactivity" affect us here on earth back in the 17th century?  glad you asked, because i was curious about that too.

Experts are now probing whether this period of inactivity could be a second Maunder Minimum, which was a 70-year period when hardly any sunspots were observed between 1645-1715, a period known as...

wait for it--here it comes...

the "Little Ice Age."

got that, folks?  according to the scientists over here, the planet's warming--unless, of course, the scientists over there are right, in which case we're about to get our collective asses frozen off.

see where i'm going with this?

*     *     *     *     *

whenever i'm drawn into a discussion with a global-warming fanatic, i always end it with some variation of the following:

"ok, hotshot, i've just appointed you king of the world, given you carte blanche.  solve global warming--you've got 5...4...3...2..."

and, of course, they can't.

because what it comes down to is this:  the world is not gonna give up its cars, its chemicals and its concrete.  no civilization in the history of humanity has ever voluntarily regressed, and we're not going to, either.

and despite all the pie-in-the-sky bullshit to the contrary, there isn't a green option on the horizon with even a snowball's chance in hell of supplanting oil and/or coal in our lifetime.

is mankind a cancer on the planet?  are we fouling our own nest to the point of engineering our own extinction?  yeah, and yeah.

so let's expend our energies on mitigating our impact where it's practical--like accelerating the development of green technologies, curbing the birth rates of the third-worlders and maybe cleaning up the oceans, for instance--and leave the weather to the gods where it belongs, ok?

Friday, July 1, 2011

day 1: zen and the art of the chopped salad

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enough with the current events--let's kick off the month with something truly important.



it seemed like a lot of money--$50 for a few crappy pieces o' plastic with metal teeth--but what can i say, i was desperate.

having tried everything else, including this monstrosity,


great if you need to make coleslaw for the russian army--but otherwise, fahgettaboudit

i'd pretty much given up on my quest to produce the perfect restaurant-quality chopped salad for my quotidian consumption, until somebody turned me onto the borner v.

a mandoline--seriously?  another one of those cheap plastic pieces o' crap?

"seriously," she said. "this one's different.  but make sure you also order the kevlar gloves, because the holder that comes with the thing is useless--otherwise you're gonna shred your fingers."

and damned if the bitch wasn't right on both counts--you gotta get you one of these things.



[btw:  the true zen of the chopped salad is that there is no art to it--this is truly the sausage of vegetarian dishes.  trust me, push whatever you've got left over in the vegetable bin through the borner v, and it's instant magic.


today's masterpiece:
a base of equal parts shredded iceberg and romaine lettuce
half a cucumber
one roma tomato
a quarter medium red onion
two stalks celery
one medium carrot
four radishes
half a jonathan apple
a few crumbles of bleu cheese
some chopped-up salami
half a can of garbanzo beans




i'd give you the recipe for the dressing i whipped up to go along with it, but i'm holding that back in case i run short of posts before the month runs out.  you understand, right?]

i know i'll regret this later

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but in the here and now (i.e., basking in the warm, benevolent glow of my first mkf cocktail in well over a week), the idea of publicly committing to the production of no less than one blogpost a day during the upcoming month of july suddenly seems like a damned fine idea.

and i'm not gonna let the fact that even back in this blog's drunken heyday i never even approached such prolific output deter me from my new goal for even a second.

[having said all that, i totally reserve the right to resort to youtube videos and cute puppy photos if i have to.]