The Battle of Raleigh

At the Raleigh Airport today, a young woman sat several seats away from me and began an intense, animated, 10-minute battle with her badly misbehaving left breast. She was wearing a sun dress, and as she sat down, ol’ Lefty made a break for it. She started wrestling with it, trying to stuff it back in its nest, pulling up her strap with her left hand while pushing her breast down with her right, like a magician trying to stuff a stubborn white rabbit back into an undersized top hat. Just when it seemed like the situation was under control, she bent down for her laptop and, seeing a fresh opportunity to escape and nothing but unimpeded floor beneath it, her bosom ran to daylight once more.  The battle began afresh, the lady’s elbows flailing like a faith healer trying to hold down a possessed teenager. She grabbed at it with authority and with a look on her face that clearly expressed what she was thinking: “I’ve had about enough of you, young lady! Now you settle down and stay in your room and don’t let me see you again!” After several more minutes of pushing, squeezing, strap-yanking and adjusting, Lefty was back in place. Temporarily. As she sat there, it began creeping back out. Like a kid trying to sneak down the steps without getting caught, Lefty was on the brink of another jump and run when the young lady caught it. This time, she gave it one good, authoritative push, reached into a bag and pulled out a denim jacket which she buttoned up to her throat. “There. I locked your door. You’re not going anywhere!”

NOAA's Threepeat of Deceit

Having just returned from a beach vacation, I’m happy to report that the ocean is still within its boundaries. The beachfront hotel remains… well, beachfront. This is good news, given that global warming alarmists have been warning for years about rising waters that would leave the Island Vista several miles out to sea by now.

You would think that this admittedly unscientific observation technique (looking at something) might be the kind of thing that would make the global warming geniuses stop and say, “Hmm. Wait a minute. This isn’t rolling the way we thought it would.” But no, they’re still at it. Now they’re claiming that June was the “warmest on record.”

Well of course it was. And here’s why:

NOAA's cut back on recording temperatures in colder parts of the planet.

Back in January, Joseph D’Aleo (the first director of meteorology and co-founder of the now-decidedly ecomarxist Weather Channel) and a colleague reported that NOAA has pulled weather stations out of cooler locations around the world.

That’s right. NOAA has removed temperature-measuring weather stations from the world’s coolest locations. Lots and lots and lots of them. Since 1990 they’ve slashed the number of cooler-location weather stations from over 6,000 to less than 1,500.

And… Surprise! Their remaining weather stations, skewed heavily in warmer regions, indicate higher global temperatures.

This is the “sound science” of global warming. Do not question it.

If this isn’t proof that global warming is a diabolical hoax, I don’t know what is.

Oh wait. Yes I do! This:

NOAA says that this past June was the warmest on record, primarily because of how warm it was in the Arctic region. They got this data from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).

A note here about GISS: Even though they say this warming was driven by high temperatures in the Arctic region, guess what? THEY DO NOT HAVE A SINGLE THERMOMETER IN THE ARCTIC REGION.

No, they simply extrapolate the numbers from a thermometer south of the Arctic region, a technique that is highly susceptible to personal bias. In other words, it’s a SWAG (Scientific Wild-Assed Guess). Maybe they think we shouldn’t question scientists who are so brilliant they can measure exact temperatures without a thermometer, but who in their right mind wouldn’t when billions of dollars and a slew of individual liberties are at stake?

If that isn’t proof that global warming is a diabolical hoax, I don’t know what is.

Oh wait. Yes I do! This:

Seems there’s a NOAA satellite that detected temperatures in northern Lake Michigan of over 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

(Oh, and look how precise their satellite is: it has a key for "Probably Cloudy.")

After this was revealed, NOAA denied it. Then admitted it. Then said it was no problem. Then admitted the satellite’s readings were degraded and would no longer be used for temperatures. After, of course, they were used to help bolster the myth that the globe is getting hotter by the second. Full story here:

http://www.climatechangefraud.com/climate-reports/7479-us-government-in-massive-new-global-warming-scandal-noaa-disgraced

Again, this is the sound science that none of us are supposed to question in the slightest.

Every time NOAA has been caught cheating the numbers, they simply move on to promote the next set of false data. And their "findings" are echoed and amplified by the lazy and/or complicit left-leaning media.

Which might explain why fewer people are taking either very seriously. 

Headstoned

One of the drawbacks of growing older is finding yourself in graveyards more and more often. This, of course, beats the alternative of finding yourself in a graveyard permanently, but still… it’s not a terribly pleasant part of the aging process to visit increasing numbers of your all-time favorite people in such places.

If these visits weren’t bad enough, there’s now something else that makes them even more unpleasant:

The appalling trends in modern headstone design.

These things are atrocious. What once were simple markers of the last mortal remains of our fellow human beings have been transformed into mind-boggling orgies of poor taste: gaudy displays of tackiness shaped like teardrops, hearts, books, flames, angels holding hearts, mountains, wings and animated ogres. Think I’m kidding?

But it's not just the shape that's changed. It used to be that the copy on a headstone was limited to the name and lifespan of the deceased. But this has tragically morphed into a verbose screed that features several lamentations and a list of unofficial titles that all start with the word “beloved:” Son, dad, cousin, brother, nephew, uncle, neighbor, hunting partner, business associate, tipper, drinking buddy…

They read less like headstones and more like resumes for passage into heaven.

“Says here on your stone you were a square dancer and avid fisherman who was beloved by everyone. No kidding, everyone? Dang. You’re in.”

In fact, according to modern headstones, everyone who’s died this year was a humanitarian who would have put Mother Theresa to shame. Just once, I’d like to come across a stone that indicates the interred was a miserable bastard. Or a grump. Or a lazy, cheap-beer-swilling, do-nothing, two-timing louse whose lone contribution to the betterment of this world was the departing of it. But I guess if that were true, they’d just list his name and lifespan.

Worse than the verbose headstones are the ones that take advantage of the latest visual reproduction technology. 

These are stones that feature a laser-engraved collage of what the deceased enjoyed in life, such as ocean scenes, motorcycles, fishing ponds, airplanes, and even tree stands for deer hunting. You can just imagine a nightly herd of deer laughing at that. “You don’t look so bad now, do you Mister Buckmaster.”

Yet another trend is to include actual photographs of the dearly departed, presumably to let future generations know where their ugly gene came from.

Frankly, I don’t want someone a hundred years from now knowing what I looked like. I want them to see my headstone and think, “That there was the handsomest sonofabitch that ever lived.” Which is why my stone will look like this:

Handsomest AND happiest.