I am sitting in my living room watching the television coverage as everyone in Hawaii is bracing for the arrival of the tidal wave generated by the earthquake in Chile early this morning.  As I sit watching and waiting, I find myself wondering how many people who are watching will be disappointed if this water surge does not even come close to the Christmas 2004 tidal wave that so many have seen in news film coverage over the past several years.  I know that sounds like a cold thing to be wondering at this time, but the longer I live, the less faith I have in people.  Believe me, some there are who will feel cheated if they aren't treated to a spectacle,

It seems that in the last couple of weeks, 20 members of the Taliban have blown themselves up while trying to lay their Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).  These IEDs were intended to kill U.S. and NATO troops.  Instead, the triggers were too sensitive, and they exploded while being planted.  The picture below is of one Taliban fighter saying adios.  

As I write this, the wind is howling outside my window.  It is holding at 21 mph with gusts to 44 mph.  It's blowing so hard that it's going right up the back of my dog's coat and folding it over his head.

Snow is dumping all over the place just 8 miles to my northwest, but fortunately I haven't seen any in my area.  For an area that's not used to more than 5-6" of snow annually, 70" this year already is enough.  Don't want any more.  We still have some deep snow left over from the last storm.   

As I look back on where the internet has taken us over the last few years, I sometimes wonder if George Washington, Abe Lincoln, John Kennedy, or anyone else could have been elected to high office if they had to live in an environment where every word they ever spoke was going to be spread around the world in minutes and would be retrievable for years afterward.  Could they have survived in a world where YouTube would come back to haunt them on a moment's notice?

I heard a poll this morning on one of the CNN affiliate stations that indicated a significant portion of the population polled believed that it was okay to breakup with a significant other via email or on a social networking site like Facebook.  In fact, 30% of those polled said they had done so.  Asked why, they responded that it was easier, faster, and left little room for misunderstanding.

Hummm.  I guess it is faster, and it must certainly be easier if you don't have to face the one being dumped.  As for leaving no room for misunderstanding, I doubt that, unless the one doing the dumping takes the time to carefully set forth his or her reasons for wanting to move on, and then only if one is careful not to use the faceless aspect of this approach as an excuse to be cruel.  Then again, maybe the dumper has misunderstood something the dumpee did or said.  Without the face-to-face opportunity to discuss the problems, one could make a serious mistake.

Personally, I think anyone who dumps someone online without one hellava good excuse is just taking the way of the coward.  Running from something that is difficult and hiding behind the cold computer is a child's approach -- not an adult's.  What say you? 

I do apologize to those who think I may be returning to this subject too much, but I really do hate the stupidity of both the scientists who issue reports before doing the tough scrutiny needed to substantiate their claims and the liberal press that blindly writes for sensational headlines rather than to report facts.  I know of no other way to defeat this stupid legislation that to keep this issue before the public, regardless of how old and trite it may seem to be.  It is for that reason that I now bring to your attention the following from an article in the Guardian yesterday. 

"Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings."  Now the different factions in the debate are disagreeing among themselves as to whether the errors represent and overestimate or an underestimate of actual melting.

Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences department at the University of Bristol, said: "It's one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science." He said there were two separate technical mistakes in the paper, which were pointed out by other scientists after it was published. A formal retraction was required, rather than a correction, because the errors undermined the study's conclusion.

The kween_of_Queens offers us a picture prompt to challenge our writing skills and imagination this week.

This week Featured_Grownups asks: "If your life had a soundtrack, what songs would be on it?  What special meaning do notes and music have in your life?"

I hate the idea of trying to identify one song that sums up my life.  From of all the songs that have ever been written, how I can I identify just one that will suggest all of the hopes, dreams, love, joy, sadness, fear, pain, hurt, depression, and tragedy that fills the life of even the most ordinary of individuals. 

That is why I liked the idea of looking for an entire sound track to do the job.  But even there, it is hard to find enough songs with the variety that can come even close to suggesting what my life has been like, because there are so very many soundtracks to choose from.  Should I select music from the classical masters, or should I go with the more modern writers.  Oh what a choice.

In the end, I find myself drifting toward one Broadway show that might actually contain all of the elements of my life.  If I had more time to review all the soundtracks I have ever heard, I might make a different selection; but for now, the one sound track I can think of that brings together most of the elements I mentioned above plus moments of triumph in the life of a single individual is the Man of La Mancha.

After years of trying to turn the world "green" - after billions of dollars spent by countries around the globe - after uncounted millions of gallons of jet fuel consumed to fly politicians, environmentalists, and Hollywood stars around the world to discuss ways to turn the corner on manmade global warming, the very professor who's research was responsible for the now famous (and debunked) "hockey stick" diagram has "lost" is original research data and can no longer support his original claims. 

He also is now admitting "that there is little difference between global warming rates in the Nineties and in two previous periods since 1860 and [he is] accepting that from 1995 to now there has been no statistically significant warming.  He also leaves open the possibility, long resisted by climate change activists, that the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ from 800 to 1300 AD, and thought by many experts to be warmer than the present period, could have encompassed the entire globe."  Certainly that period of warming was not caused by human activity.

I do hope that this is finally enough for this hoax, but somehow I doubt it.  Some governments will still try to push for unneeded action that can only transfer wealth from the richer nations to the poorer ones.

My area has seen 74" of snow so far this season, and I can still see 36" of that undisturbed snow outside my window.  Now the Weather Channel is saying that there is a chance in the next two or three days that a storm system developing in the plains states may dump some additional snow on my head.  They haven't committed to how much snow they are expecting, but at least one meteorologist has suggested a possibility of 3" to 5".

Fortunately the storm will be coming from the west.  I say fortunately because storms that come from that direction seldom ever reach me.  That's because they have to cross two separate mountain ranges to get here.  Most of the snow is dumped to the west of the Appalachian mountains.  Whatever gets over those mountains will usually get stopped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and dump the rest of its snow in the Shenandoah Valley.  What little does get over the Blue Ridge has lost all of its punch. 

That's one reason why Northern Virginia, D.C., and the Maryland suburban area get so little snow.  Another is that storms coming from the North and North West are stopped by the mountains of Pennsylvania.  That only leaves storms that come from the South.  Those are very rare, but when they occur, they really hurt us.  Fortunately, they only reach my latitude only about once ever 10-12 years.  The Great Storm of '10 was just such a storm.