I've posted before, and got bruised a bit as if I were an apologist for the current industrial/technological evolutionary dead end that H. sapiens is currently exploring, that the idea that humans are responsible for the current climate change reminds me of the image of the boy mouse climbing the lady elephant's leg with rape on his mind.

(Actually, last time I compared it to biblical fundamentalism, which is pretty much the same proposition.)

In the current cycle, the icecaps have been in pretty much continuous and precipitous retreat for the last 18,000 years or so (think Lascaux), and they aren't yet done regardless of what humans might do or have done. That said, we are doing a dandy job of greasing the rail down which those of you with children are sliding your issue to hell in a hand basket.

In the last couple of hundred years, less than a sneeze in the history of the earth, less than a flash snapshot of sneeze droplets hanging against a black background, we humans have learned to dig carbon out of the crust of the earth and use the released energy to let us reproduce like fruit flies. We're well on the way to making the skyscrapers of New York and San Francisco (if the latter are still standing), all made since the sneeze droplets were pending, the subject of the next generations's Ozymandias. (Strictly Strunk & White, myself. Not to mention Harvard Blue Book.)

Because of my hobbies, I lurk on some car and bike sites. They seem to be overrepresented with 19th Century (i.e., stupid) types, and the climate deniers have already picked up on Broad's piece, in the liberal NYT MSM, don't you know, as proof that Al Gore is a wuss and that there will be nothing amiss in Casandra's box if we will just open it.

To the climate deniers, as with the evolution deniers, the proof that anyone agrees with them is proof that there is a "controversy," that the issue is not yet settled, and that they may yet be proved to be right. They are incapable of perceiving that no one who makes a legitimate living in climate science denies change, and no one who makes a legitimate living in earth history denies evolution. They can't see that the contrarians who comfort the deniers are nibbling on their ear lobes and waiting to stick something in them.

Perhaps Broad can next bring his neutrally balanced form of American journalism to the intellectual giants at www.fixedearth.com. He will generate more comfort for the stupid.

What was it that Bush said about Rumsfeld back just before the last election? Gonzales had better be calling the movers.

There are only two positions available in the abortion debate. Either you are in favor of legal abortions, or you are in favor of illegal abortions. There is no third alternative.

Hillary Clinton is highly intelligent, basically decent, and she knows damned well that the gay community contains some of our best citizens. But she has foolishly let herself be persuaded that by mouthing inoffensive platitudes, in her East Coast college English, let alone the (suffering Jesus) universally embarassing effort to sound black, that she can somehow make herself palatable to The Stupid Vote that has dominated American politics for the past quarter-century.

It ain't gonna happen, and Hillary needs to get better advice. The gay-bashers and the fetus-worshipers won't be voting for Hillary in this lifetime. She needs to find the courage to call them stupid, and give those who are not stupid a reason to get out and vote for her.

E-mail is the new audio tape. Isn't technology wonderful?

Plus ca change...

Can you imagine how our Republican friends would have been howling at the moon, ten years ago, if someone in the Clinton administration would have outed not just a genuine, nonofficial cover (i.e., go to a foreign prison if you're caught), CIA spy, but every foreign national that ever dealt with her?

Impeachment would not have been enough. Firing squads on national television in prime time would have been the minimum acceptable retribution.

Why not now?

Until just now, every U.S. attorney who has been fired at the pleasure of the President has been replaced by a U.S. attorney who has been confirmed by the Senate, after a public hearing, with due deference given to the home-state Senators.

These low-life hacks have taken my old grey lady of blind justice, dressed her in the whore's clothes of partisan politics, and thrown money on their side of the scale for the sole purpose of affecting the outcome of elections. It will take a generation for the federal judiciary to recover the respect of the citizens it presumes to judge.

Ever since the days of Phi Slamma Jamma, I've been sick to death of the tired old parade as the teams march back and forth to the free-throw lines, and take 25 minutes to play out the last 2:00 on the clock.

King's advice is of course correct for the rules as they exist, and a leading team throwing bricks from the line will occasionally lead to the highlight reel, at least for the team coming from behind, but most of the time it's just a reason to surf for another channel. There has to be a better way.

Here's a modest proposal. How about we give the team which has been fouled the option, in the last 2:00, of either taking foul shots or taking the ball out of bounds? That would give the team which has played the best first 38 minutes, like Xavier, a better chance to win the game, and should give the game a better chance of finishing without two more trips to the fridge, or a rerun of Stargate.