The United States has recently been experiencing some of its worst droughts in history, including in the Southeast and Southern California, which has helped drive record wildfires in this country.

Last year we had a drought in Southern California, true. We only had four inches of rain in LA, true, and it was close to a "perfect drought" -- true. And it is also true that a scientist from JPL has predicted we're looking at another ten years, possibly, of drought in the West.

But he based his prediction of widespread drought in the West not on global warming but on the cyclical change in ocean currents called the decadal oscillation that occurs every decade.

On the other hand, last year we still had over 230 inches of snow at Mammoth. And that was hardly a bad year by Mammoth standards.

The worst droughts in our history -- if you measure them by snowfall at Mammoth -- occurred back in the 1970s. If you look at Mammoth snowfall, you don't see that the last five or ten or twenty years have been been drought years. You see the exact opposite - they've been very wet years -- much wetter than the seventies and eighties.

The winter 2005-06 saw the largest amount of snow ever recorded at Mammoth. And the year before that, they had over 600 inches.

Before 1992, there were zero years when over 600 inches of snow fell on Mammoth. Since 1992, there have been three such years.

I think that's kind of interesting.

We had one dry year last year. Let's wait before we call that a pattern for Southern California.

I'm not a global warming denier. I just wonder why people are trying to make it look like Southern California has been gripped by a pattern of drought when we've only had one dry year (so far) after a pattern of very wet ones.

We told them to stop selling rotten beef to people (Upton Sinclair anyone?) -- again they refused and fought like demons to keep selling rotten meat to people! But the Progressives kicked their asses and won (thank God!)

And then you got the bright idea to ban alcohol and made Al Capone a rich and powerful man and lots of police were corrupted and killed, and lots of kids were inducted into gang life and organized crime got the seed money it needed to expand into the powerful force it became after WWII.

Aren't you going to take credit for Alcohol Prohibition as another great Progressive triumph?

That's okay.

I care about global warming but you have to admit, the Progressives really screwed this country over when they got their hard on to ban alcohol.

So take it down a notch. It's not ALL good.

The one that didn't even happen, according to your publication.

Oh wait, then you must not even know about it!!!!

And of course since you don't know about it, you can't POSSIBLY ask candidates for their opinions!!!

That's so convenient. Isn't it?

You know what -- it's exactly this kind of thing that makes this secular Democrat feel like we really are heading towards a secular version of the "End Times."

Yes -- the time when political journalism stops working -- because the political journalists have decided to try to control the outcome of the election.

By tightly regulating the kinds of issues the reading public is allowed to consider.

So we don't have the Antichrist to worry about.

Just plain old political paternalism.

Daddy Joan.

How convenient.

However, I do not trust Salon to cover any topic honestly.

Look at how they covered that big Supreme Court decision on Monday.

NOT!!!

No, they disappeared that decision right out of their version of American politics.

They disappeared it because there is no clear advantage for Democrats in covering it.

So that's show how much you can trust Salon.

But "The Kite Runner" isn't as implausible as you think. The villain reads like a composite of two very real men, each of whose armies had control of Kabul at some point during the nineties.

Our national security and economic prosperity depend upon leadership that looks the truth squarely in the eye, and makes decisions informed by the facts and the best scientific counsel available.

Oh right and our national marijuana policy is going to be determined by solid science any day now.

Ha ha ha.

I have to go now -- I hear Santa Claus on the roof.

I am sick and tired of seeing people bullied just because they use marijuana.

Even sick people get bullied for this.

And let's face it -- the Clintons were most effective bullies of marijuana users in American history. Tripled the national arrest rate.

Oh yes and now I remember -- they did it by shamelessly lying about peer-reviewed, published science.

And Bill signed that amoral law where a pothead can't financial aide that any alcoholic can get just fine.

Yes yes yes -- the alcoholics have all the rights! The alcoholics have all the rights, and their victims don't matter. Their victims can just go fuck off and die.

Thanks for reminding me, Hillary campaign worker.

I was all ready to support Hillary because I like her health care plan. I was ready to forget the past.

Now that I'm being forcibly reminded of it, I'm not so sure.

That's a great book about women in Ireland. After reading that book, I think a cheesecake calendar sounds like progress.

One of the problems for women in Ireland is that Ireland is a very sexually repressive country.