Problem: the oceans are not warmer. There has been no global warming since 1997.
...but gee, now that "man-made carbon dioxide is forestalling the next ice age" suddenly there are benefits to global warming. See that?
By the way, it looks like Greenland and Antarctica are the only glaciers which are really melting. So global warming isn't melting all the glaciers, either.
Which makes sense considering it hasn't happened since 1997.
* * *
The guy who invented Atomic Fire Balls has passed on. I love those things. I used to buy the 1/2" ones by the pound from Buy the Weigh when it still existed. I haven't seen the 1/2" size for decades; all I've seen are the 1" size.
In fact, in 2005, my then-girlfriend bought me a BIG container of the 1" ones, individually wrapped, and I discovered that the best way to eat them was to smash them into smaller pieces with a hammer.
*sigh*
* * *
I have to thank Neal Boortz for bringing this up, because it certianly hadn't occurred to me in such a concrete fashion: "Who do the democrats blame now?"
Gas prices are slowly edging their way upwards again. The price of gasoline is up 10% on the year, yet the Democrats are utterly silent about who is responsible for this.
Okay: in 2007-2008 when the price of gas was going up, you remember who they blamed for it: George W. Bush, that's who. As if he had a computer in his office that he sat down to every day to set gas prices across the nation.
Here's how I expect they envisioned it:
"Ha ha ha!" George emitted an evil snicker as he sat at the computer and logged on. "Today I will raise gas prices another quarter!"Yeah, that sounds about right, doesn't it?
Karl Rove stood nearby, drinking his breakfast Bloody Mary, made with the blood of babies rather than tomato juice. "Well, George, how rich will you get this morning?"
"Ah, good morning, Karl! I expect this will make me another fifty million dollars. Is there one of those drinks for me?"
"Why, Mr. President, you're a recovered alcoholic! You shouldn't drink."
The two men shared a hearty laugh as Rove poured Bush a glass of his vile brew.
"Here's to oil money making us super-rich on the backs of the poor! They deserve it!" The President toasted; they clinked their glasses together and drank deeply of the blood of the innocent. While making scads of money illegally and oppressing all people of color.
So now that Obama's got control of that computer, why are gas prices going so high? After all, the Democrats were so upset at high gas prices you'd think they'd be raring to push them down any way possible, wouldn't they? Or was their campaign to blame it all on Bush merely a partisan attempt at division rather than any principled stand?
Hmm...I wonder.
* * *
Two from Advice Goddess:
An advocate of home birth dies while giving birth at home. There is a caveat to this story, one that is not mentioned.
For a while under Britain's National Health Service you were better off giving birth at home than going to one of the socialized hospitals. Infant (and maternal) mortality rates were egregiously high for a first-world nation. It's better now than it was, but I have to wonder how the statistics have been cooked to make them look even better than they otherwise would.
Example: any child born before 28 weeks (I think it was 28 weeks) in Britain is not counted as a "baby" unless it survives. If it dies, it's not counted in the infant mortality statistics; instead it's a "miscarriage" or whatever. In the United States, any live birth that even looks baby-like is a baby, and should the preemie then die it's considered an infant mortality. This is why the US infant mortality rate looks worse than the UK's does. It's an apples-and-oranges comparison.
What I do know is that home birth seems to be very popular in Canada and England and-and-and, countries which have total government control over the medical system; they seem much less popular here in the US. (Except, it seems, among people who are too stupid to know better, such as our entertainers.)
Childbirth is exceedingly dangerous. A woman has to squeeze something the size of a large grapefruit through her pelvis, and a lot of tissue has to get out of the way for it to happen. There is a hell of a lot of shit that can go wrong--and the best chances of surviving will generally be found in a modern, clean, well-equipped hospital.
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The other link: San Francisco demonstrates its hostility to small business owners. Why would anyone want to run a small business in a major city? It just seems masochistic to me.
* * *
DOOM!
Greece is apparently on the cusp of a bailout deal. It doesn't matter--even if the EU can avert disaster in Greece, can they do the same in Italy, Portugal, and Spain?
It just means that "extend and pretend" goes on longer, and the crash is harder. That's all it means.
* * *
I managed to relax more yesterday.
Somewhere along the line I thought, I want a margerita! and recalled that I had a single-serving premixed margerita in the refrigerator. So I drank it, and that made me feel a lot better about everything.
After a couple of hours I got sleepy, so I laid down; but I was feeling tense and nervous again and my heart was pounding. I just lay there trying to relax and failing. I happened to open my eyes and saw my left hand, and saw that one of my fingernails had been trimmed lopsidedly, which scared me--it was wrong!--then I realized You need to take a Xanax, son, because this ain't no low-level anxiety attack any more.
The Xanax knocked me out and when I woke up, much later, I felt so perfectly calm and relaxed that my feet and legs weren't tingling the way they normally do.
I'm beginning to think that I--after some ten years on this regime--need to see about changing it. *sigh* That means a few months' worth of experimentation, and it means seeing a shrink rather than a therapist, which is expensive--on the plus side my unemployed status should allow me to see one through the county health board; that was offered to me in June solely for the purposes of medication and I should probably look into that.
...and maybe it's just that my biorhythms are all low, or the stars are aligned wrong, or something stupid like that. Shit. WTF.
The first panic attack I ever had worked about like the thing with my fingernail, though; I saw the first-quarter moon through the trees and was alarmed by its appearance, because for some reason it didn't look right to me. Well, there was nothing wrong with the moon; it was all in my head--brain chemistry--and a few days later I had a panic attack that was even worse than that.
So here I am, thirty years later (28 or 29 anyway) and suffering the same kind of thing.
I've got therapy today, though; guess what I'll be talking about?
* * *
I'm still thinking about putting a BD player and a good video card into El-Hazard.
If I were to add a remote control gewgaw of some kind, I could use the thing as a "set top box" and not just a torrent box. It would be pretty cool.
...BD drives still cost a shitton, though. I haven't seen bare drives under $50 yet.
If I ever get a job, though....
* * *
Pig meets a bike asshole:
I love Pearls Before Swine.