Global Warming

I try not to get caught up in the hysteria that calls itself Global Warming.

I'm the first to admit that the Earth's climate is not stable. In fact, when alarmists changed the term to "Climate Change" I was much more comfortable talking about it. You see, that describes what's happening on Earth, as a matter of course, every day. We don't, and never have lived, in a static, stable environment.

And we never will. And it's MORE than possible that none of us, even acting in concert, have absolutely ANY effect, long-term or otherwise, on that environment.

So why am I talking about this today? A couple of reasons. The first is that the Twins got slaughtered last night and because of that I don't really want to talk about baseball. The second reason is a series of news reports that came out this week is now showing that we may have now entered a trend of global cooling. A trend that nearly ALL climatologists never saw coming.

A few years back (2007) a large group (the ones we hear from regularly on all the major news channels and media sources) of climatologists were convinced that by the end of THIS summer that the arctic ice would be COMPLETELY, TOTALLY melted. The buzz reached a fever pitch last summer when it was discovered that arctic ice was down to 1.3 million square miles. (That's about half of the last 30-year average.) Many thought that this WOULD be the year that the rest of the arctic ice cap would melt and that that the prediction of 6 years ago would come true.

But something weird happened THIS year. Arctic ice GREW. And not just a little bit, but by 60%!!!

In other words, arctic ice is back to within a couple standard deviations of normal 30-year averages.

At the same time, and this is the most puzzling part for all of those "experts" in climatology, it's also been acknowledged that global temperatures have pretty much stabilized worldwide for the last 15 years or so.

Alarmists are still saying that the substantial new ice means nothing, but more conservative and moderate climatologists (the ones that up until now no news services were listening to) are saying that a cooling tend is now developing and that we should expect slightly cooler temperatures over the next decade and a half.

A little MORE research, one that I don't see anyone discussing right now, has shown me that ANTARCTIC ice, you know the ice on the other pole, is at all-time recorded HIGHS. In fact, ice at the Antarctic is much higher than ever recorded for the last several years. Do you know what that means? We may have more total ice at the poles combined than we have had in the past several hundred years!

What does all of this mean? For me it means the same thing as I've always said, climatologists are not "real" scientists. There simply is not enough measurable data, in the few years we have been taking data, to make any kind of reasonable guess as to what's coming next. We may NEVER have enough data because we simply can't witness it or record it long enough.

And we can't point to mankind burning fossil fuels as a primary mover and shaker as the reason temperatures and climates change.

By my reckoning, there have been at least two major volcanic eruptions in the last three years. The ash spewed into the Earth's atmosphere disrupted world travel for weeks on both of those occasions. But let's not forget that there are always several more smaller volcanos going off around the world regularly. These volcanos put more "stuff" in the air every single year than mankind could ever hope to produce from burning carbon fuels. I don't have the numbers right now, but if you're interested, start looking this information up yourself. It's all available on the web. And it's not hard to find.

It reminds me of how we banned chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) worldwide a few years back because they were causing a gaping hole in our ozone layer at the arctic circle. And then we discovered that volcanos IN ONE YEAR, and oceans IN ONE DAY produced more CFCs than mankind had produced in their entire civilized existence. Think about that. It would be like a single child's allowance being used to pay off our $15 trillion national debt. But we banned them anyway and have not brought them back.

In much the same way that meteorologists can't successfully predict weather more than a day or two out, climatologists can not and never will be able to predict climate a few years or decades out. There are too many variables, and those variables lead to pointless guessing. Guessing used as scare tactics to change behavior.

I think there's an explanation as to why people get more conservative as they grow older. They SEE and EXPERIENCE these same type of alarmist attitudes by self proclaimed "experts" often enough throughout their lives to recognize it when it happens again.

Don't believe "experts" who are just guessing. Even their best guesses are no better than yours or mine. And always realize their jobs, their very livelihoods, are dependent on government grant money and the continual study of impending disaster. They wouldn't have jobs if everything was going to be all right.

Revisiting An Old Friend

The Twins got blown out horribly last night.

Rather than talk about that, I'd like to focus on a former Twin instead. He was consistently good before he left and he's still consistently good. His power is down a little bit this year, but his average is way up. So far up in fact, that he's leading the National League in hitting.

He's doing all of this for a salary that's less than what we paid Justin Morneau this season and less than HALF of what Joe Mauer is getting. ($10.5 million.) I frequently think that the Twins attach their rather expensive cart to the wrong horse.  He's just the latest example of that.

Wilingham!

The Twins scored all of their runs on homeruns last night. And Josh Willingham had TWO of them.

For a team that hasn't hit many homeruns the last couple of seasons, THIS year has been a pleasant surprise. (Okay, not a surprise, I predicted before the season started that the Twins would hit a lot more homeruns this season and at the same time time may not produce a starter with 10 wins, though I finally said we'd probably have ONE starter with 10 wins.)

Perkins got his 34th save, and the Twins might be playing spoiler in the west. I'm still watching, and that was a great ending last night.

The Lighter Side

Pinto!

Between WWE Raw and Monday Night Football last night I still managed to follow the Twins game as well. They were down 3-1 early, but I kept switching back, hoping to see if the Twins could come back. Through all of that switching, I managed to see the Twins newest catcher, Josmill Pinto, get three more hits. ALL of them were doubles. He is now batting .565, 23 at-bats into his major league career.

Yes, the Twins stink, but there are some good reasons to keep watching. Josmill Pinto is the main reason right now. Joe Mauer can move on over to first any time now. The Twins have found another catcher.

Oh, and they did comeback and win 6-3.

NFL

Yesterday I mentioned that I enjoyed watching great college football games. Well prepared teams with great coaching and incredible execution make for very good viewing.

I also mentioned, late last season, that I was super excited to see The Niners bring back the quarterback option play to professional football. Colin Kaepernick had the ability to throw, but the Niners knew he could run the ball well too, so they went with more college-like sets in their option plays. With them, they came very, very close to winning the Super Bowl.

I said then that that type of offense was the beginning of a whole new era in NFL football. I was just hoping more teams would see why this type of offense works.

I was even MORE excited when I saw that the head coach of the Oregon Ducks, who engineered the most explosive offense in college football history, was hired by the Eagles to be THEIR new head coach this season. I said back then, that the NFL game would change forever because of it.

Chip Kelly introduced his offense to the NFL last night and it was every bit as unreal as I expected. I kept thinking that while I was watching this game that somehow THIS coach, in literally,  just a few weeks, had transformed his entire offense into this smooth, high octane, efficient force while Leslie Frazier, who has now been in charge of the Vikings for part of three seasons, STILL has his guys lining up wrong (and getting penalized for it) on the most basic of pro sets.

College football IS about preparation and execution and the best coaches know that. Last night, the Redskins ran into an unstoppable force of preparation and execution that also performed at unbelievable speed. The Eagles ran FIFTY-THREE plays in the FIRST HALF. Most teams don't run 53 play in an entire game.

And those plays exhausted the Washington defense. Though the final score LOOKED close, the game really wasn't. RGIII was unleashed for the Redskins in the second half, but they really didn't have enough time or gas in the tank to compete with that crushing offense of the newly revamped Eagles.

What's really amazing is that these are basically the SAME Eagle players who were so horrible LAST season. Michael Vick was so bad last season that he was fighting for his job in camp THIS season.

RGIII is a very good player. And he looked good coming back from last season's devastating knee injury. But last night, the star of the game was Chip Kelly's offense.

I sure hope it continues to roll. I want the Vikings to start shopping for a great college coach for NEXT season.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly II

I realized something else yesterday as well. I AM a Minnesota Twins fan. I didn't get to see any of the game yesterday, but I did read about it and look for highlights online.

Albers pitched ANOTHER great game, but the Twins offense couldn't score, so they ended up losing 2-0. And when I see that, it STILL bothers me. The Twins have not fielded a good team since they have moved to Target Field. Most of the problem has been inadequate starting pitching, but there is so much more wrong with this ball club than just starting pitching.

Baseball, for me, is different than football. I don't seek out good teams or great teams and watch them instead. I don't watch college baseball. Other teams and other leagues are not the same as watching MY Twins.

I may HATE my Twins right now, but they are still MY Twins.

I am looking forward to the playoffs this year because I still enjoy watching good baseball, but without the Twins being involved it's really NOT the same thing.

I still turn nearly every Twins game on and watch it at least for a little while. I like watching young players get key hits and I love watching young pitchers make great pitches. If the Twins falter early, it's easy to turn the game off and wait for the NEXT game. But I'm still going to catch that next game. At least PART of it.

Because I enjoy MY Twins. I won't waste my time on a really bad game because the same rule applies as the football game rule I mentioned last blog. I don't want to waste my time watching a bad TV show. But the next game might be a good TV show, so I'll watch that.

And I like watching MY Twins even though I HATE them right now.

That's what lets me know that I'm still a Twins fan.

Another decade of Gardy, and I may change my mind.

Another decade of Gardy, and I'll start looking at the Twins like I currently look at the Vikings.