The polar bears might be okay after all, and more
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A little Thursday round-up, since none of these quite merits a post all its own:
- Global warming setback: polar bears might not be dying: — The scientist who made the polar bear the unofficial poster child from manmade global warming is on leave and being investigated for “scientific misconduct,’in part over the integrity of those findings.
Not long ago, a young friend assured me that global warming was not a hoax. I didn’t want to start an argument over it, but it made me think about my position. I don’t think the whole thing is a hoax exactly, because I don’t think there’s a willful intent to misrepresent and invent facts — not generally, anyway. But I do think, to borrow Al’s parlance, that it’s a convenient truth. It came along at a time when a generation who believed that they were almost invulnerable encountered a world full of the same frightening weather and cataclysms that had terrified humans since the beginning of time. This just COULDN’T be the same as what happened to unenlightened people and peasants and cavemen! It HAD to be different. It HAD to fit into the same overall pattern of blaming rich nations and heartless industrialists. And so, almost magically … it did.
And on the more pragmatic and less Westernized side, once things got rolling, if you follow the money in the whole global warming activist front, you’ll find that the amount of money riding on global warming being true are just staggering. There are entire nations ready to pay into a fund that will be overseen by the U.N. — billions of dollars depend on global warming being true, manmade, immediately threatening and preventable. I’m sorry, but I’m just too big a cynic to think that even scientists are immune from that one-two punch of a ready-made belief AND huge, whopping amounts of grants and funds.
- Rationing healthcare: U.K. says ‘Okay!’ — The government-run healthcare system in England is running out of money, and so they’ve put those needing hip replacements, cataract surgeries and other “lesser needs” patients on notice.
It comes at a bad time in our ongoing healthcare debate, but then, it might inject a note of common sense into our rhetoric. When things were going hot and heavy about the onset of Obamacare, there were these constant assurances (and threats and accusations and whines) from the true believers that we would NEVER ration healthcare.
What nonsense! I was hoping that the public would rise up as one and say, “Baloney!” but it didn’t seem to happen. Of COURSE the government would ration healthcare. You absolutely, positively can not pay for every man, woman and child to have every possible treatment, surgery, test and whatnot. Right now, those choices are made partly by insurance companies (who seem to everyone like the baddies, but they have the ugliest end of the job), partly by doctors and partly by patients. In the proposed system, we would minimize or eliminate the insurance companies’ role and move it into governmental control.
For those who believe that the government is better equipped to handle such sensitive decisions, stand strong and say so. The choice is between a bureaucracy and a profit-oriented industry, but no matter who’s in charge, grandma might not get her new hip.
- Saw the last Harry Potter movie — and to get ready for the final installment, I rented all the others and I’ve been making my way through from the beginning. Might have more to say on that later. The only noticeable results so far is that I have been infected with the Harry Potter theme as an earworm. For that alone, Warner Bros. and J. K. Rowling should pay me a million dollars.
Other quickies via Drudge:
- Shades of Godfrey Cass! — a skeleton found in a bank chimney has solved a 27-year-old mystery. The young man went missing; turns out he might have been trying to rob the bank.
- Realistic doll makes waves — people in Dallas complained that a girl’s baby-doll was too real-looking and it was freaking them out when she’d leave it floating in the pool.
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Asteroid Edition — We’ve got stowaways! Turns out there may be asteroids hitching a ride in Earth’s orbit. The nerve!
That’s all from me today. Happy Thursday, all!
- Global warming setback: polar bears might not be dying: — The scientist who made the polar bear the unofficial poster child from manmade global warming is on leave and being investigated for “scientific misconduct,’in part over the integrity of those findings.
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I love the drawing. That is all.
Now you know what I'm up to when I'm supposed to be working.