Early birthday party

Yesterday we had a birthday party for Sul. It was a few days early, but he didn't mind. I'm sure that the ice cream cake helped him get over the fact that it wasn't really his birthday.

We had quite a crowd of 8-9 year old boys at our house. They went on a treasure hunt that required disguises and a lot of running around. After this they alternated between jumping on the trampoline and playing basketball. There was also a pretty crazy silly-string war. I think that a fun time was had by all.

Dukes of Dixieland

Friday night we went out (without the boys, yahoo) to see the Dukes of Dixieland in concert. This was another in our old-timer concert series, where once again we felt really young next to the other concert-goers. As their name suggests, this group played a lot of New Orleans Jazz. Some examples of their music can be found here. We had a fun time and enjoyed a night out by ourselves.

Images - Play Ball

I took this picture of Dec a few years ago, but it was cute. After church he wanted to play baseball in the front yard and wasn't happy that I just wanted to take his picture. (taken 06/06/04, Lakewood, CO)

Pain at the dentist

In January we finally got access to dental insurance. It has been over 10 years since I've been to the dentist for a real checkup and things don't look good. I have five cavities, four of which are under previous fillings. One of these is getting very near the nerve and the dentist isn't sure if it will require a root-canal or not. Ouch. I mean the pain in my pocket-boot. I can deal with the pain in my mouth, but if this requires a root-canal it will really be expensive. While the insurance covers most of the cost of normal fillings, it doesn't pay anything toward major repairs (i.e. root-canals). Add my work to Dec's eight cavities plus the dental insurance premium and I'm really wishing that I had followed my childhood goal of becoming a dentist. If you need the X-ray crystallographic structure of your favorite protein, I'm your man, but currently that seems to be far removed from any practical real-life application. Can I start over in this whole career thing?

Images - Purple Flower

(taken 06/20/04)

More unspun info on global warming

No time now for a full post, but I wanted to link to a couple of good bits on global warming. Dennis Prager interviewed University of Pennsylvania professor Bob Giegengack (Gieg) about global warming. Gieg is a political lefty and is convinced that the earth is warming, at least partly due to man's activities, but says the hype is all unfounded. He predicts that it would take 1700 years of continued warming to reach the catastrophe state predicted by Al Gore. Doesn't sound like the sky is falling very fast.

Link to an article about Gieg and his views.

Aha, Crash Team Racing works on the PS2

Crash Team Racing (CTR) used to work on our original playstation, but quit working some time ago. I'm sure this may have something to do with all of the scratches all over the optical surface of the disc. Since it quit working, I've had to suffer through my boys wiping the floor with my carcass every time they challenge me at Crash Bash. Can does a great impression of the opening segment of the game, by the way. I'll have to record and post it sometime. It used to be that I could school the boys at any game we owned, for some reason, I just can't seem to compete at this game. It is really sad when Dec, who is only five, trounces me like I wasn't even trying, and believe me, I was trying hard on Saturday afternoon. So I had this brain flash, "hey, maybe CTR works on the playstation2." Hooray, it worked. Now it was my turn to do the trash talking. I blew past him like he was standing still. I even beat Sul (8), who is the best in the neighborhood at Crash Bash. It must have only been a bad day for him, because we had a tournament tonight for family home evening and both Mads (10) and Sul beat me. But I still kicked Dec's little behind. Take that you kindergartner.

The Rush to Peace - Why don't we stop and think about it!

I caught a few seconds of 60 minutes yesterday while waiting for the new Amazing Race season opener. I was privileged to see and hear Andy Rooney barf his lack of thought on the public airwaves. He was lamenting the fact that our governent is not a true democracy where every citizen gets to vote on every issue that comes along. His lament was a thinly vieled cover for his opinion that we are now stuck in Iraq because George Bush, with the help of his unamed advisors, took it upon himself to start a war that we (the American people, whom he feels he speaks for) would never have accepted had we been given the choice to vote on the issue. He dismisses the fact that in voting for George Bush, we, or at least the majority of we (who don't really count because he wasn't part of the we), chose the war. He ignores the fact, yes fact, that the majority of the members of congress, whom we also voted for, voted to give the President authority to do exactly what he is doing now, fighting a battle to prevent the larger war on terror from reaching our soil. He tries to muddle the issues by ignoring the fact that most Americans supported the war based on the information (which all of us, including the President, thought was valid) we had at the time, with the current national misgivings about how the war has been handled and what it is costing us in lives and dollars.

In typical modern liberal thinking, Mr. Rooney dismisses most of the facts in order to boil a complicated issue down into a yes or no issue. For instance, he lists a number of issues which could be put to the vote of the people, one of which is:

Iraq: Take all of our troops out of there immediately. Yes or no.

The problem is that it is not really a simple yes or no issue. I'm sure that every American would love to have our troops com home immediatly. However, anyone who takes half-a-second to look beyond his misleading question can see that there are so many more issues that are involved in this decision. One that comes to the front of my thoughts is, "what would be the consequences of immediatly pulling our troops out?" There is plenty of room to argue about what might occur in Iraq, the middle east and the rest of the world, including here at home, if we just left, but there is also plenty of evidence to suggest that the decision might come back to haunt us.

This is just another example of why I think that if the left would stop and think about what they say instead trying to rush to peace it might be easier to take them seriously.

You'd never know the rest of us are freezing

OK, so it's not truly cold here in NC like it is elsewhere in the states, but since we set our thermostat at 65 degrees it feels as cold in the house as if it was -20 degrees outside and we set our thermostat at 65 degrees. Why, you ask, do we keep the temperature so low if we are all freezing? Of course, anything we can do to try to slow global warming is worth the sacrifice :-). OK, its really more about slowing the financial drain on our checking account, but I can pretend to be as global warming conscious as those in the ivory tower in which I spend most of my time.

Yesterday Can decided he wanted his summer Winnie-the-Pooh pajamas on for his nap. When pressed about the cold, he finally made the concession of putting on his sleevless fleece vest, but spend the day wandering around like it was the middle of muggy summer. What you don't see is that the rest of us are in sweats and fleece jackets, with the occasional stocking cap, to keep us from succombing to hypothermia.

Could the models predicting global warming be wrong?

Imagine that, a recent article titled "Antarctic temperatures disagree with climate model" discusses data from professor of atmospheric sciences, David Bromwich, that demonstrates a different reality than that predicted by climate models. It seems that I blogged on this issue just a couple of weeks ago. A couple of highlights from the article.

A new report on climate over the world's southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models.

This comes soon after the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that strongly supports the conclusion that the Earth's climate as a whole is warming, largely due to human activity.

It also follows a similar finding from last summer by the same research group that showed no increase in precipitation over Antarctica in the last 50 years. Most models predict that both precipitation and temperature will increase over Antarctica with a warming of the planet.

"The best we can say right now is that the climate models are somewhat inconsistent with the evidence that we have for the last 50 years from continental Antarctica .

"We're looking for a small signal that represents the impact of human activity and it is hard to find it at the moment," he said.

Images - Pause in Flight

I need to get out and get some more new pictures. I've had to resort to the archive for this one. I took this at the Duke botanical gardens a couple of years ago. (Taken 09/04/04)

Global Cooling

In a surprising reversal of its recent report that higher levels of SUV use and cow flatulence are leading to increasing global temperatures, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced new scientific evidence that unequivocally demonstrates a link between increased atmospheric carbon levels and overall worldwide cooling.

The EU was quick to accept this new evidence, and at a rally in Paris this afternoon the French President, Jacques Chirac, chided the US for its sluggish response to the UN's demand that the wealthiest nation in the world needs to begin immediately stockpiling food and supplies to support the rest of the world through this immanent global freeze.

Update: OK, it was just a joke, if not a very good one. If you clicked on the links and listened to the sound clips you will probably recognize them from the movie Ice Age. What struck me was how much these clips sound like the kinds of things being said by the global warming crazies. The movie is obviously mocking the do-do birds, but the world today embraces the far out hysterics being spouted about global warming. For instance, that we've altered the earth's temperatures for hundreds or thousands of years to come or that if we change or actions today we can avoid the worst of the catastrophes that are otherwise immanent.

Images - More Fungus

This is another in my series of fungus photos. (taken in my backyard 01/13/07)

Victory Caucus

Hugh Hewitt pointed me to a a new website/newsource/blog called The Victory Caucus that aims to amplify the voices of those who support our victory in the war on terror. Hugh is one of the site governers and I consider that a strong endorsement. I would recommend taking a read and consider signing up as a member if you like what you see.

Images - Memories of Youth

It has been a while since I put up an Image photograph. This one reminds me of our swamp growing up in Michigan. We used to play down there, trying to catch frogs and snakes. (taken at Harris Lake, 01/15/07)

Tolerance of everything is not good

A very good Victor Davis Hanson article about how the decline of religiosity in the west and the sometimes misused principle of tolerance have lead to a situation where we do not take ourselves and our values seriously and neither do the Islamic jihadists.

Can's Breakfast

Can chose to have a butterscotch pudding pack and a flour tortilla for breakfast this morning. Mostly we're just happy to see him eat any thing so we said OK to his request, but this was a strange combination.

False Prophets

I should not let it get to me, but last night I was really upset at all of the global warming lemmings. Drudge linked to a poll showing that 95% of Congressional Democrats are convinced that global warming is the result of man-made problems. On the other hand, only 13% of Congressional Republicans buy into the myth (13% of Republicans are gullible). I am not sure why it got to me, but I was thinking about the whole argument and how much time and money are being spent on it. I thought about how much more time and money will be wasted on this issue over the coming years, especially since the Dems are behind the wheel and I just got really ticked-off. What bothers me is that some of that money will be mine. I will end up having to foot the bill for their lunacy.

This morning while studying the Book of Mormon I came upon these verses in the 13th chapter of Helaman.

26 Behold ye are worse than they; for as the Lord liveth, if a prophet come among you and declareth unto you the word of the Lord, which testifieth of your sins and iniquities, ye are angry with him, and cast him out and seek all manner of ways to destroy him; yea, you will say that he is a false prophet, and that he is a sinner, and of the devil, because he testifieth that your deeds are evil.

27 But behold, if a man shall come among you and shall say: Do this, and there is no iniquity; do that and ye shall not suffer; yea, he will say: Walk after the pride of your own hearts; yea, walk after the pride of your eyes, and do whatsoever your heart desireth—and if a man shall come among you and say this, ye will receive him, and say that he is a prophet...

38 But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head.

Maybe many people do not see the connection between global warming and the iniquitous world that we live in, but it struck me that there is a connection. We live in a world where those who teach the goodness of sin and those who peep in worldly looking glasses and make secular predictions of doom are lifted up as prophets, while those true prophets who could truly lead the world to safety and protection are scorned as madmen or naive idiots. If Satan can connvince the world that the biggest problem in the world is the supposed threat of man-made global warming, then they will not be worried about the degredation of our society around us. The destruction of the family and all moral values can and will continue until we recognize that the true great threat to our happiness lies not in the mostly fictitious harm of driving an SUV to work, but in discarding the teachings of past and modern prophets of our Heavenly Father.

Happy Manuscript Day! :-)

After months of work, last Friday I finally turned a draft of my article manuscript over to my boss. I have really been working hard to get this together and I began to wonder if I would ever get it done. It took me so long that I was feeling down on myself and my ability to organize my thoughts and write about my research. After staring at it for so long and struggling to get it written I could not look at it with an objective view, so I was worried about how it would read. As of this morning, the boss still had not read it and I was dreading what he would say. Then, this afternoon he sent me the following email.

You have made my day/week/month. Read over your draft very quickly. Entire manuscript is excellent. There will be very little to change. Keep doing exactly what you are doing.

Oh boy, can I tell you the relief that this brought me. When he came out into the lab I thanked him for his comments and compliments. Then he said, "I don't want this to go to your head but in the ten years since I have been doing this job, this is the best manuscript I have received yet."

I have written a number of grant applications since I have been in this lab and my boss has been very happy with these so it shouldn't be a surprise that he is happy with my manuscript. I just had such a hard time getting it to sound good to myself and it took so much longer than I thought it should have that I was worried about it. Tonight I'll sleep with a lighter feeling on my shoulders.

"The greatest deception in the history of science"

This is what Dr. Timoth Ball (Ph.D in Climatology from the University of London, England) said of the idea that global-warming is the result of human produced carbon dioxide. This is good article from someone looking at the science and not the agenda-driven media hype. I liked the following quote.

"I was accused by Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki of being paid by oil companies. That is a lie. Apparently he thinks if the fossil fuel companies pay you have an agenda. So if Greenpeace, Sierra Club or governments pay there is no agenda and only truth and enlightenment?"

In the article, Dr. Ball also points to Dr. Richard Lindzen, atmospheric physicist and a professor of meteorology at MIT, as another scientific authority who often speaks out against the myth of man-made global warming.

Dr. Ball is the Chairman of a Canadian based Natural Resources Stewardship Project., which is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that is trying to provide a more reasonable voice to counter ideologically-driven environmentalist groups.

Update: I heard another good global warming discussion between Dennis Prager and Bjorn Lomborg, who is an adjunct Professor in the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy at the Copenhagen Business School and the director of the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute. A couple of key points. Al Gore's film wildly exaggerates. For instance, they report sea level rises of 20 feet, while the latest UN report has revised their numbers down from ~2 feet to ~1-1.5 feet. Tubby's film also likes to give one sided statistics. For example, it says that there will be 2,000 more heat related deaths each year due to global warming. It neglects to mention that 20,000 less people will die each year due to cold as a result of global warming. There was also some talk about how little real effect on total carbon dioxide levels would actually occur if all of the cars, trucks, boats and airplanes in the US were to be taken out of use. Dennis' blog links to an LA times article that reports on this from the point of view that the carbon-dioxide levels are so high that there is no way we could bring them down to a globally acceptable level, even if we cut out ALL of our emissions. Some people may buy into this idea, but what it tells me is that the idea that we are causing the global warming is ridiculous. Maybe if we try really hard we can stop the earth from spinning and get it going the other way around.