You Can't Keep a Good Hoax Down

What would a hot July day be without some global warming hysteria from USA Today?

Today, America’s newspaper attempts to paint a nightmare scenario in that natural gem, Yellowstone National Park.

“Increasing waves of severe fires fed by climate change could shift much of the iconic forests of Yellowstone to scrub or grasslands by the end of this century, scientists say.”

Oh heavens no! Hopefully, the melting polar ice caps will move the Pacific Coast close enough to Yellowstone by then that the sea mist will prevent such a calamity.

USA Today’s article is laughable. The myth of global warming has been blown out of the water. Yet, they found some scientists who still toe the line, saying that global warming will destroy our nation’s favorite park.

Well, of course they say this. Because now, having said this, the government will hand them a Hefty 3-ply garbage bag full of money to continue studying the situation in the hopes that it will result in a recommendation for greater government control over what we drive and what light bulbs we buy.

“They ran various climate projections through computer models and got three scenarios — mild, medium and severe — of how increasing warming could impact the area's fire patterns.

OK, this might be a good time to remind everyone that to date, the number of climate change computer models that have actually proven out is the exact same number of plywood interstellar space craft I’ve launched. That would be ZERO. None of these ridiculous, garbage-in models have ever predicted anything that’s actually happened.

Ever.

None.

Not one.

EVER.

The story continues…

"Frankly, the results really surprised us," says Monica Turner, a professor of landscape ecology at the University of Wisconsin Madison and one of the authors of the paper. The researchers found ‘more fire and a more rapid rate of change than any of us had anticipated.’"

Oh puh-leeze! Yeah, the results of this garbage-in model surprised you. “Hey, let’s construct a model based on the myth of global warming that says the earth is going to get REALLY hot and way drier. Now let’s say that this heat and drought happens over a widely forested region that’s prone to lightning. Now lets say it resides inside the world’s largest caldera. Let’s see what the computer spits out here… (DING!) Fires?!? FIRES?!? UNBELIEVABLE!!!”

Hey next, let’s build a model based on an average temperature of 124 degrees Fahrenheit at the North Pole. (DING!) What?!? The ice melts?!? Holy crap! I didn’t see THAT coming!

“…cooler, wetter times seem to be going away, says paper co-author Anthony Leroy Westerling, who studies climate and wildfire interactions at the University of California-Merced.”

And if he didn’t say this, how much money do you think he’d get to continue studying “climate change?” Anthony Leroy Westerling has a vested financial interest in imagining cataclysmic climactic scenarios. If he came out and said, “You know, everything seems really pretty stable and relatively cyclical based on solar activity,” he’d have to get a real job. Aside from studying climate and wildfire interactions, I mean. He’s probably the guy who came up with the Nobel-prize winning equation:

Ignition Source + Dry Vegetation = Fire

Not to mention its wildly controversial sister equation:

Wet Vegetation + Ignition Source = No Fire

“Some climate change calculations for the greater Yellowstone area predict temperatures 8.1 to 9.9 degrees higher in the spring and summer by 2099.”

Let’s step into the Way Back machine. Hmm. Some climate change calculations said that Florida would be under water by 2010. Some climate change calculations said the polar ice caps would be virtually gone by now. Some climate change calculations said the oceans would be devoid of seafood by now. Some climate change calculations said that New York, LA, Boston and Philadelphia would be relegated to the murky depths of the greater Atlantis area.

None of these ridiculous, garbage-in models have ever predicted anything that’s actually happened. Ever.

None.

Not one.

EVER.

"’Yellowstone is fairly close to the tipping point,’ Westerling says. ‘There's no analog for this within the past 10,000 years.’"

There’s no analog within the past 10,000 years for anything as laughably ridiculous as your borderline-insane prediction of 8.1 to 9.9 degrees of warming. Because prior to the rise of the ecomarxists, you’d have been drubbed out of the scientific community for malpractice. You’d have been roundly ridiculed for being a complete joke. But today, you’re pulling a university salary.

And you wonder why more and more young men choose not to go to college. This could be one reason.

 “In 1988, Yellowstone experienced one of its most devastating fire seasons, a hot, dry year in which 36% of the park burned.”

Yeah, you know why? Because the government decided not to fight the fire and let the park go through a NATURAL PROCESS OF CATCHING FIRE EVERY ONCE IN AWHILE. I guess USA Today assumes no one remembers that particular controversy.

 “By 2075, all three models begin to falter, simply because so much of the forest would have been recently burned.” 

Well, all of these panicky models falter because their parameters are established by unscientific opportunists who profit from panic, either financially or politically. That is abundantly clear by now. 

After the humiliation of Climategate, the revelation that NOAA pulled temperature monitoring stations out of cooler climates and the resignation of Harold Lewis from the American Physical Society (calling global warming, “the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life”), you’d think that these exposed scoundrels would shut up, pack up and go away. But no. They just keep going. They seem to be clinging desperately to the philosophy that “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” 

They’ve built an entire industry on the mad rantings of Joseph Goebbels.

But hey, it seems to be working for them. We won’t be allowed to buy 100 watt bulbs come January 1. Good thing, too. Those babies get hot enough to burn down Yellowstone.

Are You Ready For Some Football?!?

Well the blessed news just arrived over Twitter that the NFL players and owners have reached an agreement, thereby avoiding a badly needed shutdown of America's most gaudy five-shows-a-week television program. From today (which featured an NWS Extreme Heat Warning) until the second week of February (which will feature an NWS Blizzard Warning), we can look forward to endless coverage of the season to come, the season that is, and the season that was. This will be followed by the free agency season, combine season, draft season, spring voluntary (or you're fired) workout season and training camp season, interspersed with run-in-with-the-law season, FBI investigation season, serious allegations of (INSERT FELONY HERE) season and "marvelous story of redemption after prison" season.

Thankfully, we needn't worry another minute that our late summer, entire fall and three-fourths of winter will be devoid of life-enriching fare the likes of ESPN's NFL Prime Time (ten time winner of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Jackassery). Cities like Pittsburgh, that desperately need revenue to fund vital graft, will reap the benefits of ticket sales, merchandise sales, parking taxes and public urination fines. And the makers of impotence drugs and impotent beers will once again find a forum to raise public awareness during the three-hour commercial marathons known as NFL telecasts.

Cue the exploding helmets! The gladiator music! The FOX dancing robot! Celebrate the storied rivalries such as Carolina vs. Atlanta, played on 100 yards of plastic and ground up tires under an inflated roof, just like Johnny Unitas and Bart Starr used to do! Savor the drama of waiting four minutes for a referee to decide whether the video replay conclusively shows that, a) that really was a catch or, b) that the receiver bobbled the ball upon landing out of bounds, even though both feet were clearly in bounds, because after all, he didn't make a "football move," aside from having control of the ball while both feet were in bounds, and even though the ground can't cause a fumble, it certainly can cause an incompletion, even if that ground is out of bounds. (It's clearly spelled out on page 964 of the official NFL rule book.)

So get ready to once again cheer the action, the collisions, the blind-side sacks, the bone-jarring, ball-loosening hits! And don't forget to join the NFL in observing a moment of silence for (INSERT FORMER PLAYER HERE) who succumbed to pugilistic dementia at the age of 43.

It's time for Air Force fly-overs, smoke machines, indoor pyrotechnics, and the National Anthem performed by a teeny bopper who doesn't know the words and is only vaguely familiar with the tune. Get ready for a halftime extravaganza featuring the animated corpse of Jimmy Page, followed by the insightful analysis of Shannon "What The Hell Did He Say?" Sharpe. And be sure to check Twitter after the game to see who's gonna wake and bake tomorrow morning!

Yes, the NFL is back, baby. And it's never going away.

Never, ever, ever.

The Idiot-Proof Cash Register

During high school, I worked in a neighborhood corner store called Paul’s Market. It was a great little store, one of the last non-cookie-cutter convenience stores in Altoona, back in the days when virtually every middle class neighborhood featured a couple of homes that were converted into little businesses. A far cry from today when you can count on middle class neighborhoods with a couple of homes converted into meth labs. Both are entrepreneurial, yet hardly interchangeable.

Paul’s had a cash register that pretty much left change-making up to the cashier. After ringing up the item and taking the cash, some quick math in the head told you the change the customer received. Even though I’ve never been a mathematical wizard, only once or twice did I miscount. But these were the days when customers could do math in their heads too, so mistakes were quickly corrected and followed by accusations of attempted grand larceny.

One day, someone must have decided that mental math was too much to ask of the average cashier, and such registers were replaced with machines that tell you how much change a customer receives. No more thinking required. Just tell the machine what something costs, tell it how much money the customer gave you, and voila! It tells you exactly how much money to give back. How simple can you get? These new registers were 100% idiot-proof.

It appears I underestimated idiots.

Which brings me to Busy Beaver.

Actually, what brought me to Busy Beaver was a never-stop toilet that needed a new whatever that thing is called that makes a toilet flush and refill. After finding it, I made my way to the cashier, paid with a $20 bill and waited for my change.

I chanced a glance at the electronic register/supercomputer that most stores have now and noticed that it not only told the nice cashier what my change should be. It actually told her which coins and bills were required to make up that change:

1 — $5

1 — 5¢

2 — 1¢

Now, the only thing one can surmise from this is that somewhere along the line, there was an epidemic of cashiers who couldn’t convert a monetary figure into actual money.

“Your change is five dollars and seven cents. Um… OK… wait… so… here’s 12 of these guys with white wigs… and here’s a tube of nickels.”

Either that, or they just stood there looking blankly in the drawer for a few minutes before saying, “You know what? Why don’t reach in there and get it yourself.”

Are there really people who can’t convert “$5.07” into five actual dollars and seven actual cents? And if so, why are they in charge of money? Shouldn’t you have them outside sweeping the sidewalk? Or better yet, traveling the world looking for landmines with their toes? These are people who probably shouldn’t be working inside a building that’s stuffed to the rafters with hack saws, razor blades, power tools and some of the most lethal chemicals known to man. 

You know why? 

BECAUSE THEY’RE DUMB.

But in Busy Beaver's defense, they can't be the only ones encountering this level of dumbth in their prospective employee pool. There must be demand for these cash registers or no one would be building them.

When you think about it, that's not a comforting thought. After spending hundreds of billions of dollars on education over the last 20 years, our schools are turning out graduates who have to be given the recipe for change.