perfidy

In light of my earlier post, this insightful article seemed worthy of mention.

While slogging through the backlog of good blogs that I haven't read in two months, I saw that Mike over at Opinion8 noticed a UK Telegraph headline:

"The truth about global warming - it's the Sun that's to blame"

The link is broken - the article was from the middle of last month - but we'll take Mike's word for it. It got me thinking about some things that I've read recently in regard to global warming. Here's the deal in a nutshell:

There are a few things that I think everyone will agree on:

1. Climate has varied over time, and varied significantly before the last 200 years, when industrial civilization started taking off.
2. If natural processes produce vastly larger quantities of greenhouse gases, we have to believe that natural processes have a larger effect on the biosphere. (Not to mention the effect of the sun.)
3. If we took a poll, and large numbers of climate scientists (not just scientist in general) thought that there is no consensus on global warming, then we'd have to agree that there is no consensus.
4. If current temperatures are somewhere in the middle of the historical highs and lows, and the ecosystem didn't crash before, we have a buffer zone before any conceivable human activity causes the ecosystem to crash.

When we look at historical climate records, we notice some interesting things. Over the last two millennia, temperatures were both much higher, and much lower than the average for the twentieth century. Temperatures were at a peak around 1000 a.d., a period referred to as the “Medieval Climate Optimum” – 2-3 degrees centigrade warmer than now. Later, around 1350, temperatures began to drop, culminating in the Little Ice Age, when temperatures were significantly lower than currently. The warming trend of the last 200 years has put us well above the lows of the Little Ice Age, but we have not yet reached the highs of the Medieval Climate Optimum.

Four thousand years ago, the climate was even nicer than during the medieval climate optimum. Temperatures were warmer still, as high above today’s as the Little Ice Age was below – so cold that trees exploded in England in the winter. Many areas now covered by desert were lush savannah and forest – notably the Sahara. Millions of years before that before the ice ages, temperatures were even higher. At none of these points did the ecosystem collapse – rather the opposite, in fact. Higher temperatures led to increased CO2 levels, and both of these factors are like crack for plant life. More plant life meant more animal life. Among the benefits we could see now are much like those experienced a thousand years ago: longer growing seasons, increased crop yields, sunnier weather, and vineyards in Ontario.

Given that the planet has successfully endured many periods of global warming, panic over a current episode seems, well, overwrought. Especially since it is not established that human activity is a major or even significant contributor to the process. People release about 30 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. That eems like a lot, until you realize that natural processes such as volcanoes, the outgassing from the oceans, and the natural functioning of the biosphere add up to 1800 billion tons. The sum of human activity adds less than two percent to the preexisting total. And further, water vapor is present in concentrations averaging at least ten times higher; and water vapor is a much more efficient greenhouse gas because it is active across the entire infrared, where CO2 is only active on two narrow bands.

The total greenhouse effect – necessary for life on earth – adds about 33 degrees to the Earth’s temperature. Without it, we’d have permanent ice at the equator. Water vapor is responsible for somewhere between 95 and 99% of this, or about 32 degrees. Human activity is responsible – perhaps – for 2% of the remaining degree. When you factor in the effects of variations in the Sun’s output due to the sunspot and other cycles, variations in water vapor levels, natural changes in the climate, that percentage is likely even smaller.

The idea that humans could single handedly wreck the biosphere is hubris, really. We’d have to try a lot harder than we are now; yet throughout the industrialized world emissions and pollution are on the decline. (The Kyoto accords would only effect the one region of the world where pollution is declining, at great economic cost, while leaving India China, Brazil and all the other industrializing nations free to pollute at will. Mike Patton calls that economic self immolation. Oprah calls it empowerment.) Panic is perhaps counterindicated.

And another thing about CO2 emissions – the bulk of the .5 degree raise in temperature in the twentieth century happened before 1940, while 80% of the increase in CO2 didn’t happen until after. You’d expect some correlation there. But the strongest correlation with temperature is for sunspot activity, which tracks almost exactly from 1800 to the present. The sun might have something to do with the weather, after all.

And yet another thing: historically, CO2 levels rise about fifty years after a temperature rise. Just as we experienced recently – temps start to rise around 1890, and CO2 starts up in 1940. While the burning of fossil fuels in the conventional explanation, before we do something drastic we should be aware that the Earth has enormous reservoirs of carbon in various forms. Some large percentage of the CO2 increases we’ve seen might still be the result of natural causes.

And one more thing: as I mentioned earlier, plants dig CO2. 100 million years ago, CO2 concentrations were on the order of ten times higher than now. Most plants can’t survive below levels of 50-100ppm. During the coldest parts of the Little Ice Age, CO2 levels dropped to around 180ppm. Crop failures may not have been due solely to the cold weather. If you double a plant’s supply of CO2, it increases yield by a third while reducing evaporation and doubling the efficiency of water use. Tests have shown that improvements continue at least out to CO2 concentrations of 1000ppm, nearly three times the current total. Increasing the amount of CO2 could bring enormous benefits, not just higher crop yields but even possibly reclaiming desert regions, and increased biodiversity.

And one last thing: the warm periods between periods of glaciations typically last 11,000 years. Its been 10,800. Global warming could be a very good thing, and a noble goal.

As to the idea that all scientists agree that global warming is a real and present danger, check this out:

• After the ’92 Earth Summit, 218 leading scientists including 27 nobel prize winners signed the Heidelberg Appeal condemning the irrational science and ideology behind that event. Since then, the numbers have grown to 4,000 and 70 nobel prize winners.
• After a 1995 international symposium in Germany, the Leipzig Declaration was issued, saying, “there does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of Greenhouse Warming” and “we cannot subscribe to the politically inspired worldview that envisages climate catastrophes and calls for hasty actions.” The declaration was reissued on the eve of the Kyoto conference in ’97, signed by an additional 100 atmospheric researchers and with the added statement, “we consider drastic emission control policies likely to be endorsed by the Kyoto conference – lacking credible support from the underlying science – to be ill-advised and premature.”
• Climate specialists, atmospheric researchers and other specialist – 17,000 of them – signed a petition declaring that there was no evidence that greenhouse gases were or were likely to cause disruption of the climate.
• The German Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg conducted a survey of climate researchers. 67% of Canadians rejected the notion that any warming was the result of human activity. For Germans, 87%, Americans, 97%.
• Then of course, there’s the scandal of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) executive summary – which was widely reported in the media, and which systematically misrepresented the findings of the actual report, to the disgust of many of the contributors.

This is not to dismiss any solid research that supports or indicates global warming, but I think it demonstrates that we don’t have a consensus, or in fact anything close to it. Think about it for a minute – when, in your experience, has the media gotten right anything that you know something about? Whether it’s rose gardening or military history, the media screws it up, distorts and misrepresents the facts and in general gives anyone who doesn’t know what you know a completely inaccurate picture of what’s going on. Why should we imagine that they got this right?

Given all of the above, I think it’s safe for us to do the wise thing, which is to say nothing beyond what we’re already doing. We are getting better at being cleaner, and we will continue to get better. The third world will eventually (hopefully) become cleaner as they get richer, just as we did. Assuming that we get no worse at polluting (a conservative prediction, I think) we are not going to press the ecology destruct button anytime soon. The world can take a five degree centigrade change in either direction, and has done both within the last five thousand years and yet survive. That gives us a comfortable margin of error, and breathing space to do some careful research to see whether anything really needs to be done.

And who knows, given the timing of Ice Ages, the answer might come back to give up the clean burning sissy cars and start using coal fired dragsters to keep the glaciers off your lawn.

Last Sunday, the family unit was up in Hagerstown, MD where Mrs. Buckethead's band was playing a festival at a city park in that fair burgh. The weather was perfect, an excellent night for listening to bluegrass in thte great outdoors. And I was completely unprepared for the deeply emotional experience I was soon to undergo.

From my youngest days, my favorite candy (and I am largely lacking a sweet tooth, confections I actually liked were rare) was the super rope. Three feet of red (super ropes would never discriminate against any particular red fruit) licorice goodness, available at most gas stations in Northeastern Ohio. Up until about five years ago, I took the super rope for granted. Super ropes will always be there for me, I thought. Months would go by where I didn't even think of them, only to catch a glimpse of slender, plastic wrapped fruity delights hanging from the corner of an end cap at the Speedway. Bliss regained! The longer they had lingered in the back of the station, the better they got. Some might call a five year old super rope stale, but to me it was perfection. Oenophiles might have some inkling of my transports of ecstacy drinking a Chateau Rothschild '52, but somehow I doubt that even they could appreciate the subtle evolution of flavor in a super rope over years of careful aging.

Then, super ropes disappeared. I wasn't even aware of their passing, so blase was I. But one day I looked for a super rope, and none were to be found. Speedways, BP, Exxon, Texaco, Sunoco, Shell all barren. Candy stores had no idea of what I wanted. I grieved, but moved on. I moved to Northern Virginia - and made a desultory effort to find my lost love in the gas stations of the Commonwealth, but to no avail. Even Google, that finder of the unfindable, was no help. Typing "super ropes" into the magic box yielded no matches.

Sir John of the Nine Teeth was feeling peckish and uninterested in mommy's singing, so I wandered over to the park's concession stand. Bought a soft pretzel and a soda. And there, off to the side in an unassuming display, a box full of super ropes. I doubted the evidence of my senses. My world view rocked, I nearly fell to the ground in thanksgiving for this unsought boon.

I bought twenty of them. And now, I have a link that will allow me to purchase more super ropes through the magic of the interweb whenever I so desire.

Earlier, I mentioned that my son slept while Rome burned. I mean, while I blogged. This is what it looked like:

My two boys. Bodhi will always be my eldest, but at fifteen months, John is already vastly outperforming on the intelligence and common sense scales. They're duking it out for loudest though, a contest I am devoutly hoping will be resolved soon.
 

One thing that did briefly flicker in the corner of my awareness recently was the fact that John Kerry received none of the expected bounce in the polls following the recent convention. It is a normal for a candidate to jump a buit in the polls after several days of the intensive and generally favorable coverage attending the nominating convention. Kerry didn't get this, and received the lowest post convention bounce of any candidate since McGovern back in '72. Why is this, I wondered? When I've talked to my liberal friends, they are unifrormly lacking in enthusiasm for Kerry. While they are unified in their dislike for Bush, they have no passion for putting Kerry in the oval office.

Kerry on display for the nation apparently aroused no passion in the electorate, either. I saw very little of the convention, but all three times that I glimpsed it, I saw Kerry talking about his service in Vietnam. While military service is certainly not a bad thing, it is far from the only thing. The recent "This Land is My Land" parody from Jib Jab highlighted this perfectly, and could have stood for the entirety of the democratic convention - "I won three purple hearts, and Bush is a jingoistic moron."

Charles Krauthammer cuts right to the chase, dismissing the stylistic and "the people have already made up their minds" defenses out of hand:

Hardly. The explanation that respects the intelligence of the American people is that Kerry had nothing to say. Well, one thing: Vietnam. His entire speech, the entire convention, was a celebration of his military service. The salute. The band of brothers. The Swift boat metaphors. The attribution of everything -- from religious values to foreign policy wisdom -- to Kerry's five-month stint in Vietnam 35 years ago.

This jibes well with what I've observed. Later, Krauthammer observes,

The convention gave no bounce because it consisted of but two elements: Vietnam, plus attacks on the president. The press swallowed the claim that the convention, following a directive from on high, was not negative. In fact, that meant simply that Al Gore was not to repeat his charges that the Bush administration is allied with "digital brownshirts" and running a "gulag." And that Bush was not to be attacked by name.

But the themes were transparently negative: We are not the party that misleads you into war. We are not the party that trashes the Constitution. We are not the party that acts unilaterally. And my favorite, because of its Escher-like yogiism: We are not the party that divides the country -- as opposed to those lying, Constitution-trashing, unilateralist Republican cowboys.

For the last half decade at least, and really since about '92, the Democrats have not really stood for anything at all. They are the party of negation, the party of denial. What those nasty Republicans want, well, we're agin it! Social Security is collapsing - but no suggestions from the left for how to fix it, just rote opposition to any Republican plan. The war on terror - against the patriot act, the war in Iraq, and most other measures the administration has taken. Not that these choices are beyond debate, to be sure, but the Democratic party has nothing to say except that the choices were ill-considered, in poor judgment, damaging to America and its interests, likely unconstitutional if not outright immoral and by the way, Bush is a liar. But no alternatives except for vague platitudes about involving the international community and more funding for local fire departments.

Given the hatred for Bush in a significant part of the left, distaste for Bush in the remainder, and doubts in the middle; and the deeply troubling events in Iraq - Kerry should be riding high. Even Dukakis, who eventually went down to a humiliating defeat, was leading in the polls early on. Kerry has never had a lead significantly beyond the statistical margin of error in most of the polls over the last six months. The Bush administration has been facing some of the most difficult domestic and foreign policy challenges of the last fifty years, with moderate success. I think the polls show that Bush has already taken about as much political damage from the recent unpleasantness in Iraq as he's ever going to - and Kerry doesn't have much room to move except down.

Fig Newtons are really, really tasty.

Just stretching the fingers, remembering how to google, and kick starting the rusty, two cycle, 2.5hp motor that is my noggin.
 

The wife is in Maryland, doing the band thing for some conspicuously consuming stingy yacht monkeys. The boy is asleep on the couch, preventing me from being asleep on the couch. The railing is replaced on the stairway, the taxes are done (just in time, my extension was running out), the laundry is washed and folded, and I have no desire to enter the jungle that is my garage. I have finished the book proposal, except for editing. Resumes are sent. Email answered. I have no choice but to blog.

For the first several weeks of this hiatus, I was insanely busy and had every excuse to not blog. I didn't watch the news, because I was fixing the house or burying my face in some stripper's tits in Vegas. Good excuses. But as time went by, I wasn't even reading the blog. Not so much for lack of time, but for shame, guilt and remorse.

As a cofounder of this blog, I have responsibilities. Not large ones, granted, but responsibilities nevertheless. And I had been shirking them. And the longer I went without posting, the harder it was to face my shame, read the backlog and start posting again.

I can now tell you that I have faced my fears, conquered my guilt, and sent my shame to its room to sulk. I'm back! Not that that will do you, my esteemed reader, any good because I have absolutely no idea what's going on in the world. I might have noticed if terrorists nuked DC, but only because I'm in the fallout zone downwind of the city. Short of that, for me its still late May.

While my son slumbers, I will read the news and see how much piquant and incisive commentary I can serve up before he wakes.

This is from a couple days ago, but I always enjoy a good Michael Moore bitchslap. Better than average banner image, as an added bonus.

My favorite aunt and my mom went to see the film last weekend. My dear mother is liberal, and my aunt very liberal. Neither were terribly impressed with the quality of the reasoning in this little bit of black propaganda. Yet fatso is staring at me from the cover of two major magazines in the supermarket. I should be so lucky.

My already light posting habits will be further reduced, as the Buckethead clan heads north to the birhplace of liberty, Massachusetts. Or was that the birthplace of witchburning? I can never get that straight. There, we will join with Johno, and hopefully Geeklethal for a convivial evening of drunken excess, world takeover planning, and maybe some vegetarian food. Johno and his lovely wife will no doubt have a full itinerary of educational, instructional and enlightening activities laid on board as well.

In other news, I may soon rejoin the working week. More on this potentially kickass job later, but my return to the world of regular schedules should also herald the return of regular posting habits. Be warned!

A brief political note: my favorite aunt says that John Edwards is cute, and this will be the controlling factor in the election. I hereby renounce all connection to conservatism, and the GOP; and will henceforth only vote for those candidates approved by Aunt Susie. (But Susie, what if they're both ugly?)

If you have need to use a laptop in a sly, sub-rosa fashion, here is the perfect accessory for you:

A laptop-holding protective pizza box. Hand made in London! 

Loyal reader #00012, Guitarpicker, alerts us to recent developments in lethal autonomous robots. USA Today is reporting that the Air Force is testing several new robotic vehicles intended, according to Air Force claims, to "detect the enemy first, will receive any of the initial hostile acts," Meana said. "If you shoot the robot we don't care. We know you're there, you're hostile, and we can keep our forces in reserve to move tactically against the enemy. The robots will save our troops' lives." Staff Sergeant Miguel Jimenez, displaying a stunning lack of concern of the future survival of his own species, said Tuesday, "If somebody wants to spend the money and send something like that out there instead of my life, I'm all about that."

The Air Force is testing two different robots for perimeter security. The first and more expensive is the Mobile Detection and Response System, or MDARS. Looking curiously similar to "Number Five" from the movie "Short Circuit," this robot can be equipped with automatic weapons and pepper spray. It will use radar, TV and infrared to detect and destroy its human prey.

But that's not all. Like Voltron, MDARS can also split into several smaller robots. Okay, only sort of. Here is a snap of MDARS launching Matilda, a mini robot designed to allow inspection under vehicles and into areas too small for the jeep sized MDARS.

Our days as the dominant lifeform on this planet are numbered, as this model will go into production next year. As always, I would like to be the first to welcome our new robotic overlords.

Other cool links:

Here is another, more detailed, story on the robot from the National Defense Magazine.

Globalsecurity.org has pages for MDARS and a related project, REDCAR.

And of course, you absolutely must check this out.

Christopher Hitchens flays, dices, and juliennes Michael Moore's new propaganda flick. In related news, the New York Times Review of Books crucifies Bill Clinton's tell little memoir.

Ross emails from the great white north:

Weird little DNS errors prevent me from entering this, so I'm just forwarding it to you...

I am currently engaged in some serious R+R on the west coast, up in that Canada place. My gracious hosts have provided me with living quarters that are possibly larger than my house...I've been out on the water, over to the mountains; I've sat on docks watching birds, listened to locals asking for a birthday joint, seen the place where a local grower tragically crashed his harley two nights ago and killed his wife...been on a sailboat at 10:30pm, still in the light, trolling over a reef, catching nothing...i marvel at what my cousin and husband have been able to do out here...it occurs to me that we are all total pussies compared to him ;) i mean, i am typing this in the house he built by hand, a 3000 sqare foot house with beautiful hardwood floors on five acres with its own orchard and swimming hole and five hundred fee of split rail fence, two workshops, a sawmill (that made the lumber for the house)...and i have trouble just organizing my mail. ouch!

people out here just DO things. they do things a lot of people have forgotten how to do. there's ocean and water, children with bikes instead of video games, and everything has to come here on the ferry.

i'll be coming back in two days...

It has been a busy few weeks for the Buckethead family. When I was laid off almost a month ago I dreamed that I would have a period of rest; a time to gather my scattered mental faculties into a pile, give them a light dusting and polishing, and sort them into neat ordered rows. I would do the job search, obtain remunerative and rewarding employment, and rejoin the working week. But as my personal savior John Belushi said, "But nooooo!"

Once I no longer had the excuse of going to work, I was expected to increase my participation in the management of the household. I was able to get several days' respite by "reorganizing the garage," but my wife soon saw through my cunning ruse. But even Mrs. Buckethead had to defer to my new master, the townhouse.

Long time readers will be aware that the townhouse has been something of an albatross for me. While it held out the hope of gleeful capitalist windfalls, it mostly was a black hole of time, effort and money. (Well, let's be fair - it was only a neutron star.) We had finally reached the point where we could rent the damn thing, when the dark clouds started gathering at the workplace. So, we did what any sensible people do when faced with uncertainty - grab for the cash.

But the process of selling our spare house, begun just before I was pink slipped, has proved to be just as much a burden as trying to rent it ever was. Fascist homeowner's associations, recalcitrant plumbing and the prejudices of others have kept me working until my fingers are nubs. One particularly egregious example: just yesterday Mrs. Buckethead and I disassembled our fence, and then immediately reassembled it six inches lower to satisfy an obscure codicil of the association covenant. All the while, my son sat in purgatory, or what toy sellers like to call the Megasaucer. A thousand minor details must all be attended to, so that weeks later, you (cross your fingers) get the cash. I'll need to get laid off from being laid off, just to recover from this harrowing experience.

Then there was the trip to Vegas. Naturally, the first thing one thinks of when one is unemployed is, "Hey, I need to go to Vegas!" What better use for now scarce funds than to buy an airline ticket a week in advance and fly to an entire city scientifically and methodically designed to devour every cent you have, or can easily borrow or steal? Normally, my common sense and prudence (also known as my wife) would preclude such a journey. Thank god for extenuating circumstances! My dear friend Jeff (an actual rocket scientist) had decided after seven years of dithering that the right time to get married was right after I became a government jobless statistic. I met Jeff in 1972. I was born in 1969. I have quite literally known him as long as I can remember. And he asked me to be in the wedding party. I had little choice but to take the hit. I had to go to Vegas.

I got up at 5:30 on Thursday to get to the airport. Arrived at 10:30 Vegas time. Goofed off, found the bachelor. Went to the bachelor party at eight in the evening. Met some fascinating women with wonderful personalities and lucrative careers in the arts. Got back to my hotel at 4:30am, twenty six hours after waking the previous day. Got exactly three hours of sleep before waking to a phone call from Mrs. Buckethead, who apparently didn't think too much about time zones.

Then we gambled. And drank. And drank and gambled. We saw the fountains at the Bellagio, the miniature Statue of Liberty, the smoked glass pyramid, the lions at the MGM, and the Venetian, which would have embarrassed even a Sforza. Outside, it was Times Square - old and new together - on crack. Hispanic street buskers handing out hooker's business cards. Silicone. Elvis. Inside, all the wonderful and clever cheese that is a thin disguise over some rather merciless interior design. Every path leads to gambling. It's uncanny. Free drinks as long as you're playing. Silicone, Elvis.

Then there was the wedding. I could tell you that it had a Brazilian carnivale theme. I could tell you that the minister was a transvestite Carmen Miranda and a Cuban accent. But you wouldn't get it. This picture will give you some idea of what was going on - this is the happy couple perhaps ten minutes into the holy and sacred institution of marriage:

The reception lasted until the wee hours of the morning. I had so much to drink, I even danced. I apologize to all those who had the misfortune to witness that. No one was permanently injured though, which makes it one of my more successful forays into interpretive dance. (By this series of movements, the white male shows his alienation both from soceity and himself. He demonstrates that even his body cannot be a comfortable home for his soul. Here, this movement satirizes the conventional notions of grace, aesthetics, and athleticism.)

In my spare time, I have read exactly one and a half books. All on the plane to and from Vegas. I have pursued the job search thingy - In fact I have a lead on what would be a stupendously fantastic job; failing that, there are still several other attractive options before me. All I have to do is survive until next Monday (when the deed is recorded and I get my cash) on $6.00 and the change under my couch cushions. Then, big money. And I apologize to all four of my loyal readers, who may have noticed my absence and suffered for the lack of a useful reason to say, "Jeebus, what a deranged mongoloid fuckwit!"

So that's what I've been doing on my summer vacation.

I had the singular pleasure, last Friday, of being invited to drive two hours through DC traffic to my company's headquarters in lovely Herndon, hard by the Dulles International Airport, to be informed that I was laid off. There were no positions in the company matching my skill set, and sadly, I must be let go. But hey, we loved working with you! And you're high on our recall list! Stay tuned!

For the last couple weeks, I had been uneasy about my situation. The project that I was working on had run into difficulties, as a result of the client's unwillingness or inability to realize that you can't provide a complete picture of a software system until after it is built. The purpose of a design document is to show the path forward, giving a general idea of how problems will be solved, and what methods will be used to instantiate business rules and processes in code. Naturally, many details will not be known until the code is actually written.

So, two weeks ago, after the system design document was rejected for the fourth time, higher powers within my company sacked the PM in order to save the contract. I was concerned at the time because the problem centered on documentation, and I am a technical writer. But when I wasn't fired immediately, I began to feel somewhat safer. That was mistaken, and it does seem that I had been blackened with the same brush that painted the PM out of the picture. Needless to say, I think this is a bit off base, as the government didn't have issues with the grammar, style or format of the document - all of which were within my purvue - but rather with the content and direction of the design.

After a long drive home, half a pack of cigarettes, and some well chosen words, I was home. And I found that I was not really as upset as I might have been. My son was in the backyard slowly learning how to move rapidly over uneven terrain. My wife had a beer for me. Life ain't bad. Over the weekend, I have already developed several leads on jobs. But if any of our gentle readers is aware of any job openings in the field of technical writing or editing in the DC metro area, I would be pleased and grateful to hear of them.

The question, asked over at MSNBC, is, "Can ‘Star Wars: Episode III’ be saved?"

Read the piece, and I'll think you'll find that hope is fading. Not that we had a lot of hope going into it. The first two movies as well could have been done by chimps.

China has pulled the plug on its moon mission planning, citing excessive cost as the reason. They are still intending to erect a space station, though.

This should be right up Ross' ally - software and economics. A fascinating read.

Found this over at Phil's. It's well worth a read. The studied indifference of the beautiful people to the very real suffering of any Cuban who dares speak against Uncle Fidel is an abomination. Where is their support for those who speak truth to power, and subvert the dominant paradigm, when that power is a communist? People who fall over themselves saying America should be a pariah among nations for our pragmatic alliances with unsavory types during the cold war gush at the thought of meeting Castro. Sick. But read this piece, to get another angle on the sickness.

How do I know this? Because Dr. Jack Hyles tells me so.