Just in case you forgot, are in denial, or have been off-planet for the past 1,400 years, this from the Miami Herald (story includes links to video reports):

Authorities discovered two suspicious 55-gallon containers in the back of a truck operated by an Iraqi man who sparked a national security investigation after he was stopped from entering the Port of Miami-Dade on Sunday morning.

Full story....

Last time I checked, Al Gore had not been born 300 million years ago.

What else had not yet occured way back then? Here's a short list:
- The wheel had not been invented
- The industrial revolution was still about 300 million years in the future
- Oil had not yet been drilled for
- SUVs were nowhere to be seen
- Norman Lear had yet to build his twenty-plus car garage
- Rachel Carson had not yet written "Silent Spring"

That's just a sampling. And yet - here's the challenge to your world view, comrade - and yet, the climate was crazy. "Global warming" occured, and rather severely at that. A recently released study from the University of California at Davis demonstrates this (with a big "duh" factor for those of us who occasionally read something).

An excerpt from the story in Friday's edition of SFGate.com:

The ancient Earth has seen its global climate come and go -- a few million years of ice-covered cold at times, and long epochs of dry, ice-free warmth at others, all due to the vagaries of nature.

Then there are danger times like today, when after thousands of years of relatively cold temperatures around the globe, planet Earth is warming measurably as greenhouse gases of the industrial age spur an ever-faster rise in worldwide thermometer readings.

Folks, this is something most of us learned in, uhm, grade school. Glaciers once covered much of the Earth. How and why do you think those mile-high glaciers went away? Duh. But the weird part of the story is not any kind of exotic scientific discovery or realization; as I just wrote, we've known about the glaciers for thousands of years. What's weird is the way this is being spun. Re-read the excerpt above and the second paragraph there should strike any thinking person as more desperation. Desperate to spin inevitable climate change in a way favorable to an anti-capitalist, anti-Western, anti-US, anti-business agenda.

Now hold on. I am not a Denier of global warming. Seems to be happening, yes, but what is the causes or causes? Is Humankind contributing? Maybe. Is that contribution significant? Maybe, but I doubt it.

It's too bad we can't ask the animals that became extinct back then what happened.

More spin, this from the Sun-Sentinel:

No one knows the reason for so much variation in carbon dioxide levels 300 million years ago, but as modern industrial activity continues to pump greenhouse gases into the air at rapid rates, the unpredictable climate changes that took millions of years to unfold naturally could be compressed into a few centuries or less today, several experts said.

"No one knows," the Sun-Sentinel writes. but as modern industrial activity continues to pump greenhouse gases into the air....unpredictable climate changes that took millions of years to unfold naturally could be compressed into a few centuries or less today." Well, yes, it could happen rapidly. But WHY? And it's misleading to bring in "modern industrial activity" (was there prehistoric industrial activity?) as a significant factor. The lead researcher of the UC Davis team herself said the ancient warming and cooling cycle was wild.

"It was a real yo-yo," said UC Davis geochemist Isabel Montanez, who led researchers from five universities and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in a project funded by the National Science Foundation. "Should we expect similar but faster climate behavior in the future? One has to question whether that is where we are headed."

Okay, it was a "yo-yo," and we need "to question whether that is where we are headed." Yes, question it. Explore it more. Have discussion groups. The point here is that new discoveries are being made, new evidence is constantly being uncovered. Not only is the jury still undecided, the jury should not even have been called yet. We don't have enough evidence yet, to stick with the metaphor, to even call the police to investigate an alleged crime.

But perhaps the most telling part of the story is this, from the Sun-Sentinel:

Still, the transformation of ancient Earth documented by Montanez and her colleagues makes the current spate of extreme weather events — extended droughts, killing heat waves and powerful hurricane seasons — appear mild by comparison.

Today's climate swings are "mild by comparison" to the ancient climate swings. This must be a terribly inconvenient truth for Al Gore and his sycophants, so eager to ban SUVs and dismantle the modern industrial infrastructure. How inconvenient it must have been when, in the 1970's, scientists who swore that the next ice age was upon us were proven wrong. How inconvient that we have not yet had a "silent spring," how inconvenient for doomsayer Paul Ehrlich ("The Population Bomb") that England was not under water by the year 2000 as he predicted, how inconvenient that a massive school of fish were recently discovered off the coast of New Jersey, numbering some 20 million and said to be the size of Manhattan, with the same study finding "More new than familiar species on Antarctic seafloor."

How inconvient the truth can be.

Related:

2006 Census of Marine Life

Hugo Chavez, hero of the people. Right? Wrong. Like any other tin hat strongman, he's messing things up terribly.

The stench of sulphur still lingers in New York City, from El Diablo's visit. Hugo "El Diablo" Chavez, that is. He was keen on bragging about cheap gasoline for poor Americans. But what's he doing for his own people?

This from the Miami Herald:

''All price controls, after a few years, become perverse for production,'' said Gustavo Moreno, president of the Venezuelan Agriculture Association. ``If there isn't a periodic price increase to take inflation into account, controls create more problems than they solve.''

The 52-year-old Chávez, who was reelected to a six-year term Dec. 3, has used controls to combat inflation since 2003, when he froze the price of basic foods, such as rice and meat, after a two-month national strike.

Since then, he's capped phone and electricity rates and most recently set prices for 45 construction materials, said Irwin Perret, president of the Venezuelan Construction Association.

Read the rest of the story...

The plate glass window of the Foot and Ankle Clinic at 1405 W. Morse Avenue was smashed on the morning of January 1, 2007. A couple days earlier, the front window of Charlie's Bag - few doors west - was smashed.


Angry Doctor


On January 1, RPB got a tip that Dr. Blyumin's window at the Foot and Ankle Clinic had been broken. I walked over and took the photo of the window, then waved down a police officer. He pulled his squad car over and told me there was nothing the police could do "until the owner calls" them. I then called the doctor to let him know his window was broken. His assistant Janet called me the next day to thank me, and let me know that it is their understanding that the police have their contact information on file and, by her understanding, are supposed to contact them in this type of situation. Janet said she will be at next Monday's CAPS meeting to ask why they did not fulfill this obligation.


Regarding CAPS: It is interesting to note that in the past the usual modus operandus is to flier the entire neighborhood with bright paper notices, taped to every door and fence gate for a good week before a meeting. But this time there are virtually none to be seen, with the exception of a handful (ironically) on Morse Avenue. RPB can't help but wonder: Is the looming aldermanic election a reason why the CAPS meeting this month is being kept so low key?

This is a touching piece by comedian Chevy Chase, who brutally mocked mocked President Ford during his presidency in the early 1970's as a member of Saturday Night Live. (I confessed I laughed every time I saw Chase do the routine.) Read it here, in the New York Times.

Preface: The ACLU fights hard to protect my right to say or write this kind of stuff. So before you write in to say "shame on you," let me be proactive: You'd be a hypocrite. We don't like hypocrites, do we?

Last night I saw a hip-hop act at a local club, which I won't name because I (still) like the club. I didn't like what I heard, however.

I was getting into the show, enjoying the act when suddenly the two performers felt compelled to scream "Fuck Bush!" into their microphones. It had nothing to do with their act, as far as I could tell. It couldn't have been electioneering, that ended two months ago.


It was hate speech. Unexpected, irrelevant and unadulterated.

When was the last time you were at a live show and the performers shouted "Fuck Pelosi!" or "Fuck John Kerry!"?

Senator Robert "KKK" Byrd (D-W.VA) is a revered and long-time Democrat in the US Senate. He's also a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

He has referred to some people as "white niggers."

He regularly references (gasp!) God and Jesus and "the Lord" while doing official business, often on the floor of the Senate.

If this vile creep was a Republican, most of the media would condemn him. But as a Democrat, he is mostly ignored. Democrats, you see, get a free pass when they use hate speech, refer to God, use the word "nigger" or head up a regional chapter of the KKK.


Take this, for example (found here):

This from the Washington Post's account of the opening of the new Congress (or was it senate?)

The attention quickly shifted -- to Robert Byrd. The 89-year-old West Virginia Democrat, beginning his ninth term, wore a red-white-and-blue tie and punctuated the opening prayer with shouts of "Yes!" and "Mmmhmmm!" and "Yes, Lord!" and "Yes, in Jesus's name!" When he was sworn in, he twice cried out "Hallelujah!" and then "Amen!" Minutes later, he was installed as Senate president pro tempore, the majority party's most senior member. "Yeah, man! Yeah, man!" he shouted. "Hallelujah!" "I do, so help me God!" he shouted when the oath was administered. "Yeah, man!"


Comments from Power Line: "Byrd's Democratic colleagues seemed more amused than upset by the old fool's "Christianist" display. Senator Kennedy pretended to tilt a bottle into his mouth. Either he was suggesting that Byrd was under the influence or Kennedy himself was ready for a drink."



Or if you head up a hugely popular blogweb called the "Daily Kos." Kos is a blatant racist and regularly hosts postings that use the N word and anti-semitic content. Again, the mainstream media give Kos a pass. Why? Because Daily Kos is anti-Republican, that's why.


Hate speech comes in many flavors. The Democrats don't like any of them, unless they're the ones serving up a cold bowl of hate.

The slanderous poster of Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice (left) is taken from Daily Kos.

Recently, when President Gerald Ford died, I was at the Red Line Tap. Several non-Republican types immediately laughed and cheered at the news. One said, "Tomorrow it's George Bush." Nice. Such Democrat Love Speech is just overwhelming.

For more Love there's "Three Minutes of Democrat Hate Speech," (found here). The audio is chilling, straight out of Orwell's 1984. Again, the speakers are not Republicans.

Democrats are slowly but very surely moving to ban certain types of speech that they find offensive. "Politically correct" speech has become a joke, but it's easy to joke about speech that has not been officially banned. What I'm talking about here is speech that Democrat legislators at every level want to ban. They want to muzzle you. (And you thought George Bush was taking away your rights?) "The End Of Free Speech In America?" is a fine posting that you should take a look at - before it's banned.

Or removed from the internet, as has been threatened.

An old tactic of Democrats is to accuse people of racism or bigotry if they dare to question one of their own, no matter how legitimate the question may be. Dems love to mock George W. Bush for his Christian beliefs. Yet a Muslim Congressman can tell an audience that in regards to future legislative decisions, "I'm not here to be a preacher, but in terms of political agenda items, my faith informs these things."

Huh? What would the reaction be if any Republican said "my faith informs these things?" The reaction would include - although not be limited to - plenty of hateful invenctive.

We are seeing this played out now in the case of newly elected Congressman Keith Ellison, a Muslim. From World Net Daily, the following:

"When the first Muslim congressman in U.S. history, Keith Ellison (Hakim-Mohammed) of Minnesota, won the 2006 election and was making the regular thank-you-to-my-supporters speech, he allowed his fans to shout, "Allahu Akbar!," the same phrase allegedly used by the 9/11 suicide pilots.

Since November he's addressed various different Islamic groups and organizations, and he's used the Quran to be sworn into office. He's also been linked to Islamic organizations with questionable agendas." Full story...

More reasonable questions in "Keith Ellison's Friends, Our Enemies" found here.

Let us not forget Iran's recent Orgy of Holocaust Denial, either. Read this brief and insightful report from Daniel Schorr. Boy, talk about a big hate fest, but did you hear Democrats decrying this? No, they chose for the most part to overlook it, or rather, look away and pretend it wasn't there. Why? Because the Iranians are not Republicans, you see, and better yet the Iranians present a problem for a Republican president currently in office.

I love Marathon Pundit, bloggin' with his noggin. He's a man with mission, and he files daily reports on his observations.

MP is currently reading Barak Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope" and yesterday posted part three in his multi-part book report.

As you read this, remember that Obama's wife sits on the board of Wal-Mart.

Fascinating stuff. Here's the link.

This is a short version of the video that proves Chicago Alderman Joe Moore, 49th Ward, blatantly lied about the way alcoholic beverages are sold in Rogers Park, specifically at El Mexicano on N. Clark Street, where this video was taken.

Whatever's going on here, it's bizarre, UFO or no UFO. Some United Airlines employees reported seeing something strange over O'Hare on November 1, 2006. Watch the VIDEO below and you decide for yourself.

O’Hare UFO Controversy: Witnesses Say Yes, Feds No

UFO at O’Hare Experiences Heavy Delays

Related:

French Space Agency to Publish UFO Archive Online

TCV news exclusive:

January 3, 2007 - "Duke University students and former Lacrosse team players Colin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann were reinstated by the college, on Wednesday. The students had been suspended by Duke after Durham County D.A. Mike Nifong filed rape charges against them."

Full Story...

I must thank Alderman Joe Moore for inspiring me to think about the environment in Rogers Park.