A few weeks ago, I walked upstairs to our mid-level family room, which is partly a playroom for the girls and partly my wife’s office. My wife was busy typing an email, and when I started to ask her a question, she said, “Just a second, let me finish this. Oh, and you might not want to be in here right now. There’s a wasp flying around.”
She said this with the same degree of alarm you’d adopt while informing your spouse that there’s a cricket somewhere in the garage.
“Excuse me, did you say … wasp?”
“Yeah. I saw it flying around up there by the ceiling fan.” Then she went back to typing her email.
I had three immediate thoughts:
If there’s a wasp in the house, it’s going to sting me.
I must kill the wasp before it stings me, although I’ll probably be stung during the attempt.
When I do get stung, it will be my children’s fault.
I blamed my girls because as soon as school was out for the summer, they decided to occupy their days with an activity parents refer to as “running in and out.” They love to be outdoors, but apparently never for more than five minutes at a time. So, like any middle-aged dad, I’ve taken up the habit of bellowing “Close the door!” every time they run in or out. I don’t even bother to look. If they’ve just run in or out, I know the door is wide open.
My six-year-old believes every parental command must be accompanied by a detailed justification, so she’d already demanded to know why she has to take time out of her busy day to stop and close the door every time she runs in or out — especially since she’ll just be running back in or back out a few minutes later. So I told her: “There are wasps outside. I don’t them coming into my house. If you leave the door open, one of them will get in here.” Obviously, she wasn’t convinced. And now there was a wasp in the house. The enablers were, of course, nowhere to be seen.
Just walking away and hoping the wasp would eventually leave wasn’t a possibility, because I have a history with wasps, and it isn’t pretty. Wasps aren’t like bees. Bees are cute. Sure, they can sting you, but it doesn’t hurt much and you have to give them a reason — like stepping on them. (Or, in my brother’s case, believing a rumor that if you cup your hands around them, you can carry them around and they won’t mind.)
Wasps, on the other hand, are little flying sociopaths. If they’re having a bad day and you happen to be nearby, they’ll go after you. And a wasp sting hurts like hell.
I found that out for the first time when I was 12. I was watching TV when I started hearing thumps on the outside of the house. I went outside and found some neighborhood idiots throwing rocks at what looked like a dirt pancake with holes in it, stuck to the underside of our roof.
“Uh … what are you guys doing?”
“That’s a wasp nest,” one of them explained. I was just staring to reply when some wasps dropped from the mud pancake and then swooped into a V formation, with the point of the V aimed in our direction. The rock-throwing idiots ran. I was also turning to run when WHAM! — I took a direct hit in the shoulder.
If you’d asked me before this experience what a wasp sting would probably feel like, I would’ve guessed something like being pierced with a needle. Not even close. It feels more like a baseball player studded his Louisville Slugger with a nail and then swung for the fences, with your body having the bad luck to be in the way. That’s because wasps drive their stingers deep — sometimes piercing the flesh — and inject a toxin at the same time. And unlike honeybees, wasps don’t commit suicide by stinging you. They can pull out and sting you again if they’re in the mood.
An entomologist once created a pain scale for various insect bites and stings. A bee sting rates a 2.0 on his scale. A wasp sting — which he described as “blinding, fierce, shockingly electric” — rates a 4.0. Naturally, none of the neighborhood idiots who were throwing rocks at my parents’ house were afforded an opportunity to agree or disagree with the entomologist’s description. Only I was, and I agree.
At least those wasps had a reason to attack. A year later, I was stung again during a class picnic in a park. We were walking through a covered structure that was, as I found out, home to at least one wasp. Nobody was throwing rocks, and nobody was close to the wasp, which attacked from a high, beamed ceiling. Apparently it just didn’t like seeing all those happy schoolchildren missing math class and, after looking us over, said to itself, “I bet the fat kid can’t run very fast.” I was also a victim of Seventies fashion sense: that is, I was wearing hip-huggers that left the top of my ass exposed.
WHAM! Nail-studded Louisville Slugger, delivered straight to the part of the hip not being hugged. In addition to the pain, this led to the embarrassment of being surrounded by curious classmates while my seventh-grade teacher — clearly no entomologist, in retrospect — spent several minutes on her knees, searching the top of my ass for a non-existent stinger.
Those were the actual stings that made me hate wasps. I’ve also had some close calls.
After my freshman year in college, my dad gave me an extra summer job: painting the exterior of the house, which was paneled with thick, vertical planks. I could use a roller on those, but needed a brush to paint between them.
So one hot day in July, I was standing on a ladder leaned against the back of the house, holding a small bucket of paint in my left hand and a brush in my right, applying paint between the planks. I pushed the brush into a gap where the planks met the roof, and as I pulled the brush away, I couldn’t help but notice a wasp was following it. In the next half-second, I tossed the brush and the bucket, jumped off the ladder, sprinted the few yards to our backyard pool and dove in. My feet only touched the ground twice.
When I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, I came up for air. Then I decided I should probably go under again, mostly because the wasp took my emergence as an opportunity to fly straight at my head. This time I swam underwater to the opposite end of the pool, then came up slowly. The wasp was still buzzing around the other end of the pool, looking for me. Occasionally it would land on the water and float there for awhile, then conduct another reconnaissance mission.
I kept thinking it would give up soon and go away. It didn’t. And that’s why, when my older brother Jerry stepped out onto the back deck some time later and saw me more or less hiding under the diving board, he asked, “What are you doing in the pool with your clothes on?”
So I explained that a wasp had driven me off the ladder and into the pool, that I’d been there for a good part of the day, keeping everything below my chin submerged, that I was planning to stay there as long as necessary, despite being fully clothed and water-logged, because the wasp was still flying around the pool and occasionally floating on top of the water, which in fact was exactly what it was doing now, and whether flying or floating, it was clearly intent on stinging me, which was also why I didn’t want to talk about it any more, since the sound of my voice could give away my location.
I explained all this by pointing and croaking, “Wasp.”
Jerry peered towards the pool, then retreated into the house without another word. He emerged a few minutes later wearing swim trunks and a battle face. He was also armed with a large plastic canoe paddle. He crept to the edge of the pool near the wasp, raised the paddle slowly over his head, bent his knees, then sprang over the water with a cry of “YAAAAAAAAAAHH!!”
It wasn’t Olympic form, but as Jerry entered the water in a horizontal position, he managed to land a direct paddle-smack on the wasp. Then, over the next 15 seconds or so, he landed 347 more.
The end result was one slightly injured and seriously pissed-off wasp, buzzing atop the water in a furious circle. Jerry splashed to the side of the pool, grabbed the net-on-a-pole we used for scooping leaves, and netted the wasp. He dragged the net to the bottom of the pool and left it there.
When I was convinced the wasp didn’t have a Houdini routine its in repertoire, I finally hoisted myself out of the pool and went inside to put on dry clothes. A half-hour later, after we’d spent the intervening time relaxing on the back deck, Jerry retrieved the net and dumped the drowned wasp on the patio near the pool. A half-hour after that, the drowned wasp buzzed angrily a few a times, then flew away. We didn’t stick around to see if he planned on returning.
That’s how tough wasps are. People who say cockroaches would be only survivors of an all-out nuclear war are at least one species short in their estimate.
Now that I think about it, my near-misses with wasps always seem to involve water, because the next one occurred in a shower. My wife and I were living in Los Angeles at the time, renting an apartment where the bathroom window was on a wall inside the shower stall. I opened the window about a half-inch one morning before showering, and as I was shampooing my hair, I noticed something squeeze under the window sill, pause for a second, then fly towards me. Wasp. The only reason I wasn’t stung immediately is that a stream of water from the shower knocked the little bastard off course.
This led to what was eventually known as the Scream Like A Girl Incident, which featured me scampering naked and wet to the opposite end of the apartment, arms flailing, eyes stinging from the shampoo sliding into them and — as the incident’s title suggests — screaming like a girl. (I recall something more like a manly yell, but my wife named the incident, and her memory of it is probably more accurate, since my brain was occupied with whatever hormones are produced during moments of primal terror.)
There was something of a repeat a year later, after we bought our first house in Burbank. Despite living together for two years, I didn’t yet realize that when my wife loses strands of hair while shampooing, she rolls them up and sticks them to the wall of the shower. (I didn’t realize this because she usually removes them on her way out.) I also didn’t realize that the steam from a hot shower can cause a hairball to un-stick itself from the wall and float in the air.
So I stepped into the shower one morning just after she’d finished — without my glasses, of course — and, after rinsing my face, opened my eyes just in time to see an out-of-focus black fuzzy thing emerge from the fog and float towards my chin.
This led to what was eventually known as the Scream Like A Girl Incident Sequel, which ended with my wife inquiring as to why I was beating a hairball to death with my shower brush and — as the incident’s title suggests — screaming like a girl. At least it wasn’t a real wasp. I never found the wasp that came at me in the original Scream Like A Girl Incident, and I spent days worrying that it was still somewhere in the apartment.
So, given my experiences with wasps, I wasn’t about to just hope the one flying around our ceiling fan would go away. In fact, it soon landed on the fan and seemed be to considering whether the metal housing, with those nice air slots, might make a good home. I could already imagine it flying out of there someday, heading towards one of the girls.
I considered going after it with a flyswatter, but then thought of a line from The Usual Suspects: “How do you shoot at the devil? What if you miss?” And missing was a definite possibility, given my batting average with the flyswatter.
The only other option was to spray it with insecticide — the shotgun approach. So I retrieved a can of Raid Ant and Roach Killer (Country Glade scented!) from the laundry room and started up the stairs … then realized this operation could end with the wasp driving a Raid-soaked stinger into my body. I needed armor. I needed to wear more layers than a wasp’s stinger can penetrate.
By the time I returned to the family room, I was wearing jeans, a tee shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, a sweatshirt with a hood, a windbreaker with a hood, a scarf, and thick winter gloves. Both hoods were pulled tight, leaving only the area around my eyeglasses exposed. I would have to stand on a chair to get up near the ceiling fan, and my biggest concern was that if the Raid didn’t kill the wasp immediately and I had to run, I could fall down and find myself unable to get up … sort of like Ralphie’s little brother in A Christmas Story.
In that case, the wasp might not even sting me right away. It might strut around me for awhile, baggy pants hanging halfway down its little wasp ass, calling me a biatch. Then it would drive its stinger into my hamstring through my jeans.
I slowly pulled a chair to the area below the ceiling fan, climbed aboard, and stood up even more slowly. Son of a @#$%! I couldn’t see the wasp. Not high enough. I asked my wife to go to the top of the other stairway, which leads to the second-story bedrooms. She did.
“Can you see it?”
“Yes. It’s walking around on the top of the motor.”
I raised my chemical weapon slowly. “Okay … am I pointing the can of Raid at the wasp?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
PHHSSHHHHHHHHT!! I sprayed for at least 10 seconds, eyes locked on the housing of the fan, waiting for the wasp to swoop down at me. Then I jumped off the chair and ran up the stairs.
“Did I get it?”
“I don’t know. I lost it in the spray, and now I can’t see it anymore.”
“Damn.”
“Good lord, that stuff smells awful.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Right now I’m more concerned with knowing whether the wasp is dead or just really pissed off.”
“I’ll go see.”
My wife went down the stairs and, to get a properly elevated view, climbed on top of the table she and the girls use for art projects. It occurred to me that if the wasp flew out of the fan and stung her, I’d feel like a moron … even though it would give me a chance, for the first time in the 13 years we’ve known each other, to hear her scream like a girl.
“It’s dead. I’ll get it.”
She grabbed a paper towel, stood on the chair I’d abandoned, and swiped at the top of the fan’s housing. The wasp fell to the floor. She crumpled it inside the paper towel and headed downstairs.
“Use the garbage can outside. I’ve seen those things come back to life.”
“Okay.”
And that was The Great Wasp Hunt of 2010. Meanwhile, another one has taken up residence in an area beneath the roof, just outside our kitchen door. I don’t use that door much anymore.
The New York Times is upset about injustice and inequality in America again. (When aren’t they?) This time the outrage was prompted by a death that was unaccompanied by taxes:
A Texas pipeline tycoon who died two months ago may become the first American billionaire allowed to pass his fortune to his children and grandchildren tax-free.
Dan L. Duncan, a soft-spoken farm boy who started with $10,000 and two propane trucks, and built a network of natural gas processing plants and pipelines that made him the richest person in Houston, died in late March of a brain hemorrhage at 77.
Had his life ended three months earlier, Mr. Duncan’s riches - Forbes magazine estimated his worth at $9 billion, ranking him as the 74th wealthiest in the world - would have been subject to a federal tax of at least 45 percent. If he had lived past Jan. 1, 2011, the rate would be even higher - 55 percent.
The guy starts small, works his whole life to become a huge success, pays income taxes on what he earned for several decades, and now — horrors! — the federal government won’t be allowed to confiscate 55 percent of what they didn’t take in the first place. You can almost hear the New York Times editors tsk-tsking around the water cooler: “Man, if only the guy had hung on a few more months …”
The bonanza in tax savings for Mr. Duncan’s descendants is sure to be unsettling to those who have paid estate taxes on more modest wealth - until Jan. 1 of this year, it applied to any estate valued at more than $3.5 million, taxing only the money exceeding that threshold, or $7 million for a couple’s estate.
Funny how people at the New York Times believe if you’re allowed to keep what’s already yours, it’s a “bonanza” … you know, like winning a lottery. Of course, we’re talking about people who believe that if the IRS confiscates less of your income this year than in previous years, you’ve received a “giveaway” from the government. I haven’t stolen from any of my neighbors in years, and they constantly send me little notes thanking me for the gifts.
I’m sure seeing a billionaire’s estate go untaxed is indeed unsettling to those who paid death taxes on smaller estates. The smaller estates shouldn’t have been hit with death taxes, either. But to the left-wing dingbats at New York Times, the only fair solution is to continue the grave-robbing so everyone is victimized equally. Heaven forbid we just admit that estate taxes are a bad idea … which they are.
I’ve had people try to convince me that high taxes levied on the families of wealthy dead people are necessary to prevent the gap between rich and poor from becoming too wide. (These are people known as “boobs,” “economic illiterates,” or “Democrats.”)
First off, let’s tackle the whole notion that a “gap” is inherently bad. The New York Times certainly thinks so:
Advocates of the tax say it is unconscionable that Congressional leaders have allowed the richest Americans to reap a new tax break at a time when deficits are soaring and the income gap between wealthy and poor citizens remains near historic levels.
(Notice once again that if the federal government doesn’t take your money after you’re dead, your family is “reaping” as opposed to merely “keeping.”)
When my wife was in the Peace Corps, she spent two years living in a village where the income gap was pretty much non-existent. That’s because everyone was poor. If an industry had moved into the area, within years there would’ve been an income gap. Some of the villagers would’ve become employees and perhaps doubled or tripled their annual incomes. (In left-wing parlance, this is known as “being exploited.”) Others would’ve become managers with even higher incomes. Some of them might have eventually invested in other businesses, or even saved part of their salaries as capital to start their own businesses. They might have even become rich by local standards.
And at that point, the boobs, economic illiterates and Democrats would be outraged: Egads, look at the income gap! Something must be done! We don’t care if everyone is better off — some are doing way better than others, and that isn’t faaaaaaaaaair!
That’s exactly what happened in the 1980s, by the way. Remember all those media stories about how the rich got richer and the poor got poorer? They were pure hogwash. What the actual data show is that average income levels rose among all groups. The poor became moderately wealthier, while the wealthy became a lot wealthier.
How exactly is that a bad outcome? If my income goes up by 20% and my neighbor’s goes up by 200%, I am not worse off — despite what boobs, economic illiterates, Democrats and reporters for the New York Times believe. I may begin developing a serious case of pecuniary envy, but other than that, I’m better off.
The large increase in the supposed gap between rich and poor in the 1980s was partly an illusion anyway. Before Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts, the “rich” were subject to a tax rate of 70%. At that level, the smart thing to do is to avoid reporting a high income. So instead of investing in productive businesses, the rich invested in tax write-offs. But when tax rates were reduced to 28%, they went back to focusing on making money instead of hiding it. Boom … a sudden explosion in high incomes, at least as far IRS records were concerned. But much of that was simply income being reported instead of shielded.
So a “gap” is, in and of itself, meaningless. Reducing my neighbor’s income doesn’t increase mine. In fact, if my neighbor is a customer of the business that employs me, reducing his income could end up reducing mine as well. I don’t want my rich neighbor’s money going to the federal government. I want him to spend his money hiring me, buying my product, or investing in a business that will eventually do business with my business.
In professor Stephen Hicks’ lovely little book Explaining Postmodernism, he explains why there’s been so much emphasis on the “income gap” in recent decades: it’s because socialism failed to produce the wealth its early proponents predicted. A hundred years ago, the Marxist True Believers insisted that socialist and communist economies would out-produce capitalist economies — all those happy, empowered workers of the world united would really crank out the goods, you see — thus providing enormous increases in wealth to spread around.
Whoops. Didn’t exactly happen that way. Nobody in West Berlin was trying to escape to the East to enjoy a better life.
So the post-modern Marxists had to change tactics. They decided they’d best stop talking about how much wealth socialism would produce and instead accuse capitalism of creating a “gap,” then foment as much class resentment as possible. This strategy was hugely successful among boobs, economic illiterates, losers, Democrats and reporters for the New York Times.
Yes, we have a gap. But as my wife once noted as we were driving through a poor section of Los Angeles, if anyone from her village in Africa had been riding along with us, he would’ve thought he was looking at rich people. (”Look, they have televisions! They have more than one pair of shoes! THEY HAVE CARS!!”) In her village, you were “rich” if you owned a bigger a jug of cooking oil than your neighbors.
Even if you do find a large gap between rich and poor (or what we call “poor” in America) unacceptable, high estate taxes aren’t going to fix it. Check out the assets the billionaire’s family will inherit:
In addition to personal effects bequeathed to his descendants - boats, jewelry, automobiles, shotguns and a 5,500-acre Texas hunting ranch stocked with wild game - he passed on his holdings in EPCO and Dan Duncan L.L.P., two entities in the natural gas and pipeline empire he built. The stock involved includes more than 100 million shares in Enterprise GP Holdings, which closed at $43.23 the last trading day before Mr. Duncan died. That asset alone could have resulted in a $2 billion estate tax.
So thanks to what the New York Times characterizes as a “lapse” by Congress, the billionaire’s kids and grandkids won’t be paying $2 billion in estate taxes. Now … you just inherited all that stock, and the feds hand you a bill for $2 billion. How are you going to pay the IRS? Simple: sell off the stock. And who is going to buy $2 billion worth of stock? Poor people? I don’t think so. What was a family-owned business will no longer be a family-owned business. It’ll be owned by rich investors.
Maybe it doesn’t bother you when billionaires have to sell off the family business. So let’s try this scenario: Your parents established a furniture-making factory 50 years ago, which, because of the capital equipment and established market base, is now valued by the IRS at $12 million. When your parents die, you don’t have anything close to that amount in cash or annual income, but the IRS has handed you a death-tax bill for, say, $3 million. So, after crunching the numbers, you realize the smart move is to sell the business. Once again, who’s going buy a $12 million business? Probably a $100 million business. The estate tax didn’t reduce the income gap; it just pushed a family-owned business into the hands an even bigger business. (This is known in left-wing parlance as “recycling economic opportunity.”) Meanwhile, millions of dollars have left the private economy, which is based on voluntary interactions, and gone to the government economy, which is based on confiscation.
And as far as those soaring deficits … yes, they’re soaring. But it’s the deficits that are unconscionable, not the lapse in estate taxes. The federal deficit has tripled in the past two years. It’s now running at about $1.5 trillion. Does anyone actually believe estate taxes can ride to the rescue? Let’s see:
The Treasury collected more than $25 billion in estate taxes in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available.
Yeah, let’s tax the families of dead people a few billion more. That’ll put a serious dent in the deficit.
However, last week my wife and I started catching up (via Netflix) on the excellent Showtime series “The Tudors,” about the reign of King Henry VIII. Yes, that King Henry … the guy who split from the Catholic Church when the pope wouldn’t grant him a divorce. The guy who started the Church of England. The guy who showed his displeasure with wives that didn’t bear him sons by having them made about a foot shorter.
And you thought John Edwards was a lousy excuse for a husband.
Anyway, it’s fun to watch historical characters brought to life, and seeing all the rivalries and political backstabbing that went on. If not for the fancy clothes, you could almost believe it was a drama about modern Washington. Henry apparently got around as much as Bill Clinton. There was even an episode in which a lawyer threatened to produce some stained sheets, although he was directing his accusations at the queen, not Henry.
Curious as to how historically accurate the series is, I looked up some information about Henry’s life online. This paragraph from the Wikipedia entry gave me a chuckle:
Financially, the reign of Henry was a near-disaster. After inheriting a prosperous economy (augmented by seizures of church lands) heavy spending and high taxes damaged the economy.
What the heck is wrong with those Wikipedia writers?! Haven’t they been paying attention to the media stories about how President Obama and Congress fixed our economy with all that heavy spending? Don’t they know high taxes are the key to prosperity?
So apparently Henry VII not only started a new church, he was the first head of state who understood the benefits of a good stimulus package. I suspect if I do some more digging, I’ll learn the British economy was never better than after Henry primed the pump with all that heavy spending.
Life as an independent contractor: in one month, you wonder when (or if) the next job will come along; the next month, you wonder how you’ll get all the work done and still find time for leisure activities such as eating and sleeping.
I was up most of the night and probably will be tonight as well … partly to do the work, and partly because when there’s work to be done, my brain has a bad habit of refusing to stop thinking about it even when I try to sleep. I guess that’s good in a way. I’ve solved some tricky problems while staring at my bedroom ceiling. (I’ve also seen cartoon characters up there offering me their own suggestions, but that’s a different story.)
So I’m not feeling especially gabby tonight, but I did gather some additional grammar-grump annoyances submitted by readers:
Affect vs. Effect
Affect is the verb: High taxes affect business decisions. Effect is the noun: High taxes have a negative effect on investment.
Okay, effect is usually a noun. It can also be a verb meaning “bring about.” He used a disguise to effect his escape. But pretty please … the disguise would never have a negative affect on his appearance.
And while we’re on affect, I’d like to point out that it’s an effective verb, so there was no reason whatsoever to take a perfectly good noun like impact and make a verb out of it. How does that impact the bottom line? Yeeeeuck. Even worse is impactful. Every time I hear that bastard of a word, I think it sounds stupidful.
Back in the 1970s, around the same time that someone thought disco was a good idea, someone else thought it would be cool to start making verbs out of nouns. So now people talk about how to parent a child. I prefer to just raise my girls. If I start parenting them, I’ll probably just screw them up. And I find it suspicious that parent became a verb at roughly the same time the divorce rate began skyrocketing and a lot parents decided it wasn’t personally fulfilling to parent full time.
A friend of mine (also a grammar grump) once spent several minutes expressing his outrage after attending a meeting in which his boss emphasized that the current project was for a major client so “we really need to effort this one.” I hate it when people in positions of power stupid the language.
Then vs. Than
Than is for comparison: He’s taller than I am. Then is for time or logical sequences: If it happened back then, then it’s history.
Loose vs. Lose
You can loosen your belt, but you don’t loose weight. You lose weight … well, if you ignore the standard advice about the impactfulness of low-fat diets and jogging, that is.
Infer vs. Imply
If you’re speaking in a roundabout way, you might imply something. But if I think I’ve picked up on the meaning, I infer it. I once heard congressional tax-writer (and tax cheat) Charlie Rangel, after being buttonholed by a reporter, get all huffy and puffy about people making statements inferring he didn’t pay his taxes on purpose. No Charlie, they implied you’re a tax cheat. Shame on them … they should’ve just come out and said it.
I love it … A few weeks back, the city council in Los Angeles decided to boycott the state of Arizona for trying to prevent future Democrat voters — sorry, I mean illegal immigrants — from crossing the border and living in Arizona. Today an official from Arizona fired a return salvo. It sounded like this:
“Hey, Los Angeles … as long as we’re not doing business together anymore, I guess we should shut off your electricity.”
Or more specifically:
If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation.
I am confident that Arizona’s utilities would be happy to take those electrons off your hands. If, however, you find that the City Council lacks the strength of its convictions to turn off the lights in Los Angeles and boycott Arizona power, please reconsider the wisdom of attempting to harm Arizona’s economy.
By boycotting Arizona, the politicians in Los Angeles were, of course, expressing their outrage over what they consider to be a racist law. Now, I have to admit I haven’t actually read the law, mostly because reading legalese makes me want to rip my own head off — even more than when I read Curious George to my daughters. So I’ve only read about the law. What I’ve read is that the law
empowers local law enforcement to check the immigration status of suspects they have stopped for other reasons if there is a reasonable suspicion they are in the country illegally, but specifically bars police from racial profiling.
Will cops use the law as an excuse to hassle Mexican-Americans? I don’t know. I hope not. But the point is, the laws that Arizona decides to pass are none of the L.A. city council’s or Mayor Villaraigosa’s business. Given the red state / blue state divide in this country — not to mention the outsized egos of politicians in general – if states and localities start boycotting each other over laws in other jurisdictions that don’t meet with their approval, it’s going to get really silly, really soon.
It already has. A school administrator from Highland Park, Illinois decided to yank the girls’ high-school basketball team from a tournament in Arizona. Yes, a school administrator is getting into the outraged-politician act. This was after the team won its first conference championship in 26 years, and after the players worked to raise their own funds for the trip — oh, and by the way, it was also over the objections of many parents.
Of course, any parents who happened to share the little dictator’s outrage — sorry, I mean the school administrator’s outrage — could have simply pulled their girls from the tournament. But nope … the school administrator decided to make a statement on everyone’s behalf. When exactly did school administrators decide that imposing their politics on student activities was okay? I suppose it was shortly after college professors decided that lectures in business administration and organic chemistry should begin with 20 minutes of left-wing political indoctrination.
If the school administrator’s decision seems like a reasonable protest, then pretty please, try applying the same principle elsewhere. I now live in one of the most conservative counties in the country. Plenty of people around here are more than a little angry about the bailouts, the “stimulus” package, and health-care “reform.” If our school administrators announced they were canceling all class trips to the blue states to punish them for putting Obama in the White House, do you think perhaps that might raise a media ruckus? (And that would actually make more sense than boycotting Arizona. People in Illinois aren’t affected by Arizona’s immigration law … but we all get to pay for ObamaCare.)
Personally, I’d love to see Arizona pull the plug. It might be good for an arrogant politician like Mayor Villaraigosa to remember that he’s not the president or even a governor … he’s the mayor of Los Angeles — a city whose location defies geographical common sense and whose existence has therefore always depended on other regions. L.A. not only has to import electricity, it had to steal water from other regions of California in order to become a major city in the first place. (If you’ve seen “Chinatown,” it’s actually true-ish.) I once met a old codger from a dried-up valley region of California who, when I told him I lived in Los Angeles, blistered my ears about the great water ripoff, apparently thinking perhaps I’d been involved.
It would also be fun to see how super-glitzy L.A. adjusts to living by candlelight. I lived just outside of Los Angeles when the state’s power shortages produced blackouts in 2003. Rumor had it that dozens of Hollywood producers and directors woke up after the blackouts and realized they’d just slept with women their own age. Some of the women even had natural breasts.
But as long as the lights remain on, if the Los Angeles politicians are so concerned about racism, perhaps they should stop carping about laws passed in other jurisdictions and repeal their own ban on new fast-food restaurants in South Central. The population in that section of the city is nearly 100% minority, and the L.A. city council was oh-so concerned that too many folks living there are obese. So they decided limiting the number of fast-food restaurants was the key.
Yes, there are plenty of fast-food restaurants in South Central – but not as many per square mile as on the more prosperous, mostly white west side. And yet for some reason, the L.A. politicians aren’t concerned that people living on the west side will become obese simply because they have easy access to fast food … hmmm, I wonder what that reason could be?
Sounds like a case of racial profiling to me. Time to boycott Los Angeles.
This is hilarious … as a condition for bailing out Greece, the IMF has told the government to look into privatizing more of its economy including (drum roll, please) the state health care system.
Greece was told that if it wanted a bailout, it needed to consider privatizing its government health care system. So tell us again why the U.S. is following Europe’s welfare state model.
The requirement, part of a deal arranged by the IMF, the European Union and the European Central bank, is a tacit admission that national health care programs are unsustainable. Along with transportation and energy, the bailout group, according to the New York Times, wants the Greek government to remove “the state from the marketplace in crucial sectors.”
This is not some cranky or politically motivated demand. It is a condition based on the ugly reality of government medicine. The Times reports that economists — not right-wingers opposed to health care who want to blow up Times Square — say liberalizing “the health care industry would help bring down prices in these areas, which are among the highest in Europe.”
Of course most of the media have been largely silent about the health care privatization measure for Greece, as it conflicts with their universal, single-payer health care narrative.
Man, imagine how our freedoms will be enhanced when we end up begging the IMF for a bailout 15 or 20 years from now. “Yes, America, we will be happy to give you 20 trillion dollars … but there are a few conditions, including adopting a new world-wide currency …”
Afghanistan is a mess, Iran’s hell-bent on becoming a nuclear power, our economy is barely staying afloat, Europe’s economy may be sinking thanks to overspending by Greece, there are still billions of dollars in “toxic” loans just waiting to go bad, the boomers are retiring and finally draining all those Social Security “reserves” that were never actually saved in the first place, and we’re running deficits that are so gargantuan, we can’t even grasp the numbers.
Faced with these emergencies, some members of Congress have courageously rolled up their sleeves and gotten to work on solving one of the most pressing issues of the times:
Men may still be left holding their peanuts at the ballpark while waiting for their dates in the ladies room, but a House panel on Wednesday may rectify the disparity in wait times for the loo in federal buildings.
The article was linked in an email, and when I read the headline and first paragraph, I assumed I’d navigated to The Onion. Nope. Real news story from a real news site … despite the belief among my liberal friends that the only “real” news organizations are those that openly cheer for Obama.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held hearings Wednesday on the “Potty Parity Act,” a bill that seeks to address the unequal number of restroom facilities for women in federal buildings by requiring at least a 1-to-1 ratio for toilets, including urinals, in women’s and men’s restrooms.
Okay, considering the hearings will no doubt lead to a new federal law, they need to be very careful about the language. “A 1-to-1 ratio for toilets, including urinals, in women’s and men’s restrooms” will probably be interpreted by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California (known as the Ninth Circus Court among lawyers) to mean that men’s restrooms and women’s restrooms must have an equal number of urinals. Then they’ll rule that the “penumbra of the Constitution” would further require an equal number of tampon-disposal boxes.
Supporters of the bill say women forced to wait in long restroom lines are at risk of health issues, including abdominal pain, cystitis and other urinary tract infections.
That would explain the alarming rate of abdominal pain, cystitis and other urinary tract infections among female federal employees. As I said in my documentary Fat Head, rule number one when you’re competing for taxpayer dollars is to wildly exaggerate the size of the problem. Unless the average wait time for a seat in the women’s room exceeds the average wait time for a trough in the men’s room at Wrigley Field, I’m guessing the cystitis epidemic is somewhat less real than the H1N1 epidemic.
“A lot of times people, when I dealt with this bill, called it ‘potty parity.’ They made jokes,” said Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., who proposed similar legislation as a state lawmaker that was enacted in the 1990s.
Gee, we’re sorry we didn’t take you seriously, Representative Cohen. But the thing is, when you go on TV and compare people who oppose a new trillion-dollar health-care entitlement to members of the Ku Klux Klan, you’ve got to expect people will assume you’re joking every time you open your mouth. And by the way, since you helped enact similar legislation at the state level, would you mind providing some data on the impressive reduction in abdominal pain, cystitis and other urinary tract infections?
“The fact is, it’s not a joke. Not only is it not a joke to women, it’s not a joke to men who go with the women who have to wait while they’re standing in line,” he said. “It’s also politically very popular. It’s the right thing to do and it’s catching up with the cultural lag in our society.”
Yes, it’s truly a sign of enlightened progress when, after massively expanding the number of people working for the federal government, we prove we’re willing to spend whatever it takes to make sure the female government employees don’t have to wait too long for a tinkle.
Others who testified at hearing included Kathryn Anthony, an architecture professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Sharon Pratt, the former mayor of Washington, D.C.
Only in Congress would it require testimony from a professor of architecture and a former big-city mayor to clarify the complex issues involved in pee-pee wait times. It’s getting to the point that if someone turned on a TV and saw Monty Python’s Meeting of the Royal Society For Putting Things On Top Of Other Things, he could be forgiven for thinking he was watching C-SPAN.
The legislation would cover most federal facilities in Washington and across the country, including all properties managed by the National Parks Service, the Defense Department, the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Bureau of Prisons … yup, I predict that when all is said and done, federal prisons for women will be required to have as many urinals as federal prisons for men. But here’s what I don’t get: why does the federal government need to hold hearings and pass a law to require the federal government to provide equal access to toilets for employees of the federal government? Are they afraid the federal government will ignore the federal government’s advice on the matter?
And more importantly, how will the federal government force the federal government to comply with this federal law? Will the federal government levy fines against branches of the federal government that ignore the federal government? Or will they send federal government employees who ignore the federal government to a federal prison, and then fine them if it turns out the federal prisons don’t prove equal toilet access for federal employees?
None of this seems to make any sense. Then again, we’re talking about people in Congress who believe The Founders added an amendment to the Bill of Rights solely to ensure that the government would never take away the government’s right to own guns.
“Today, women still lack equal access to restrooms in many places of employment, education, and recreation,” said Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., chairman of the committee who authored the legislation. “The fact that many federal buildings do not provide as many restroom facilities for women as they do for men is simply unfair,” he said in his opening remarks. “It’s time for that to change.”
Women in Muslim countries must see this stuff on the news and wonder just how in the hell American women can stand living in such a backward society. The unequal access to restrooms in many places of employment, education and recreation makes me ashamed to be an American.
“I believe that there are a number of serious health and fairness issues related to restroom gender parity that we can address in newly constructed, acquired, and leased federal buildings, or in existing buildings undergoing major renovations,” Issa said.
Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and restroom gender parity for the millions of people who live off our taxes: those are the natural rights Jefferson held so dear.
Look, I don’t have any problem with ensuring that female federal employees have the same approximate pee-pee wait time as male federal employees, but they’re going about this all wrong. Forget about all those newly constructed, acquired, and leased federal buildings … just fire half of the federal workforce. That’ll bring the wait time down to zero.
Remember the big budget battle in the 1990s, when all “non-essential” federal employees were sent home (but still paid)? The country didn’t fall apart. We missed a golden opportunity back then: we should’ve passed a law that no federal employee could return to work without a petition signed by at least 100 citizens who don’t work for the government. (That will be tougher in the future, since the number of citizens who don’t work for the government is dwindling.)
Or here’s another way to achieve restroom gender parity: destroy half the men’s restrooms in federal buildings. That would fit perfectly with the socialist agenda of making everyone more equal even if it reduces wealth overall in the process. Think of the economic stimulus that will be produced by hiring all the plumbers and construction workers required to turn bathrooms into new offices for whichever federal employees are in charge of fining young people who don’t buy health insurance.
The Congressional Budget Office has not put a price tag yet on the legislation.
Oh, I’m sure Congress can tackle this problem for no more than $300 billion.
I was never a big fan of Weird Al Yankovic’s videos, but I love this one:
YES!! Go, Weird Al! We may not have much in common, but we obviously share a fundamental trait: we’re both grammar grumps. Every time I see 15 Items or Less at the grocery store, I’m nearly as annoyed by the sign as I am by that person in front of me stacking 187 items on the conveyor. I’m triply annoyed if one of those items is a box of food with a label advertising 1/3 Less Calories!
In case you didn’t already know, less and fewer have different meanings. So do number and amount, although a surprising number (not amount) of intelligent people use them interchangeably. It drives me nuts when I hear newscasters talk about “a large amount of people” showing up at some public event. I’ve been known to yell grammar lessons at the TV during such moments.
For the record, if you’re talking about something you can count, the proper words are number and fewer: A large number of people attended, but fewer than last year. If you’re talking about something you would measure — or can’t count – the proper words are amount and less: A large amount of manure passing for debate comes out of Washington, and I don’t expect any less of it this year.
Not sure if you’d count or measure? Well, here’s the convenient way to think of it: if the word is plural, you’re counting. Fewer calories. Fewer people. If it’s not plural, you’re probably not counting. Less fat … but fewer grams of fat.
Perhaps in the scheme of things, the difference between less and fewer seems trivial. I don’t care; it’s not trivial to me. Language matters. Precision matters. Clarity matters, and clarity isn’t possible without precision. Sloppy language honks me off.
Yes, I admit it: I’m the guy who emails newspaper editors to complain when reporters can’t distinguish between it’s and its. Again, for the record: it’s means it is or it has.Its is the possessive form of it … his, hers, its. So the dog most definitely does not wag it’s tail.
I see its and it’s mixed up all the time in emails, blog posts, tweets, Facebook updates, etc. I cringe a bit, but hey, we’re talking about individuals who probably didn’t major in English or journalism and aren’t working with an editor.
Newspapers are another story. Now we’re talking about people who are supposed to be language professionals, and whose work isn’t published until it’s been reviewed by at least two or three other language professionals. Maybe it’s because media organizations are now staffed by people who grew up watching TV instead of reading books, but I’m stunned by the number (not the amount) of errors I see in newspapers, magazines, advertisements, online news sites, and even in title graphics that appear on network news and sports programs. It’s a tough old world out there for a grammar grump like me.
I’m not sure why I grew up to be a grammar grump. My mom taught high-school English, but not until I was nearly finished with high school myself. In fact, she recalls sending my dad love-letters while she was in high school and he was away at college … and then receiving them back in the mail with the misspellings and grammar errors circled in red ink. (Amazingly, she married him anyway.)
So perhaps I inherited grammar grumpiness from my dad. He majored in business administration and ran his own company after a career in sales, but he had a professional writer’s way with words. He would occasionally ask me to proof a business letter for him, and I was always impressed with his clear sentences, the logical flow of his paragraphs, and the fact that I never — and I mean never — found a misspelled or misused word.
If I did inherit grammar grumpiness, it was honed when I wrote for the campus newspaper in college — thanks mostly to Harry, our faculty adviser. A retired newspaperman from the era when journalists drank at their desks, Harry read each day’s edition cover to cover, marking all the errors in red ink. Then he dropped the “Harry edition” on our editor’s desk.
We usually crept over to pick up the “Harry edition” as if it were a live bomb, each of us hoping our own articles would be red-ink free. That was rarely the case. Occasionally, Harry would even scribble a helpful note in the margin:
Tom - you stated that this technology will likely be adopted in “a couple of generations.” A generation is approximately 25 years. Do you really expect it will take 50 years to be adopted? Aren’t we looking at something more like 20 years?
Perhaps the most embarrassed editor ever to work at our college paper was the one who put this headline over a story: English Department Opens Grammer Hotline For Students. Harry’s note in the margin: They’ll be delighted to know they’re needed.
What a pleasure it was to discover that Weird Al has some Harry in him. I’m not ambitious enough to go the video route, but in Weird Al’s honor, I’m going to put on my official grammar-grump hat and list some of the all-too-common errors that would probably drive Harry to drink … or least stock up on red pens.
Don’t be jealous, but please be possessive … or plural … just make up your mind.
I understand the confusion with its and it’s. We’re used to adding apostrophe-s to make a word possessive. The dog’s tail was wagging. But I don’t understand when I go to a store and see that onion’s and apple’s are on sale. Or that there’s a managers special. (A special on managers? How many per customer?) And if I see one more mailbox telling me The Robinson’s live there … well, I won’t be outraged if some teenagers decide to play mailbox baseball. I’ll just assume they’re grammar grumps in a convertible.
They’re grammar needs work
They’re over there, and their car needs a spare. Okay? It’s not they’re car, or there car. It’s their car. And it’s over there. They’re sitting in it, planning a game of mailbox baseball. The Robinson’s better beware.
Your an Idiot
There’s nothing quite so satisfying as being called an idiot by an idiot. A couple of years ago, I made the mistake of participating in an online political debate with someone who believed insults trump logic and facts. We had an exchange that went something like this:
Thats not true! Your an idiot!
Yes, it is true. You can look it up. And it’s “You’re an idiot,” genius.
I am not. Your an idiot!
You’re. Not Your. You are an idiot. Not “belongs to you” an idiot.
No, YOUR THE IDIOT!
You’re missing the point. It’s a grammar issue. You’re, not your.
@#$% you, theres nothing wrong with my grammar! Your an idiot!
In a comedy club in Minneapolis some years back, I noticed an ad on the men’s room wall: A hot-model babe wearing sunglasses (and not much else), along with the logo for the brand of sunglasses, plus the words: When Your Ready For The Look!
I couldn’t help myself … I wrote down the name of the ad agency. I called them the next day and, after managing to convince a couple of gatekeepers I wasn’t a complete nut, got the account manager on the phone.
“I’m sorry, what exactly are you calling about?”
“Your ad, the one for the sunglasses. When your ready for the look. Y-O-U-R.”
“Yes? I don’t understand, is there something wrong with it?”
“Y-O-U-R! That’s like your dog or your car. It doesn’t mean you are. See the difference? You’ve got a huge mistake there in a big display ad that’s probably all over the place.”
“Oh, my … holy @#$%!! Thanks, man!” (click)
This was an expensive, poster-sized advertisement, you understand. That means at least a half-dozen people approved it … writer, art director, account manager, typesetter, printer, and of course the clients. Nobody caught the error. Amazing … and sad.
The last time I saw this particular error, a radar-activated highway sign in Illinois told me Your speeding! Yeah, I’m speeding … and your an idiot.
Don’t feel badly about it.
I feel great. I feel awful. I feel healthy. I feel sick. I feel strong. I feel tired. I feel optimistic. But I never feel badly, because my fingers are in working order. If they go numb, then I’ll feel badly. In the meantime, if I’ve insulted anyone, I might feel bad about it.
Sort of unique, really unique, pretty unique.
You can’t be sort of dead, and you can’t be sort of unique … or even really unique. The word means one of a kind. It’s an absolute condition — no modifiers need apply. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard newscasters talk about “a relatively unique situation.” No, if there’s relativity involved, it would be unusual or perhaps even rare. But it’s not unique.
Between you and I, if it’s up to you and I, it’s really up to you and me.
Okay, so as kids, we’d run home and say, “Mom! Me and Billy went to the creek and –” and before we could explain that Billy was last seen slipping under some seriously muddy water and frantically waving for help, Mom would immediately interrupt to say, “Billy and I! Billy and I!”
So now whenever there’s another person sharing any part of a sentence with us, it’s I, I, I … even when it’s wrong. It seemed to my wife and I that … between you and I … if it’s up to you and I, we should … Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Billy and I went to the creek. Yes, that’s correct, because you and Billy together are the subjects of the sentence. But you and Billy can also be considered objects together, even if you never move to California and visit the sex clubs.
Subject, object … let’s not get into diagramming sentences. Here’s the shortcut: remove Billy from the equation for a moment. It’s up to I? I’m pretty sure even people who slept through grammar classes wouldn’t say that. It’s up to me. Ahh, that sounds better. Now put Billy back where he belongs: It’s up to Billy and me.
As for between, remove Billy once again and substitute under for between. It’s under I? I don’t think so. It’s under me. And it’s between Billy and me, too.
Ain’t got a brain between them
Years ago a comedian I worked with had a funny bit about being arrested for drunk driving and then becoming belligerent with the cops when they took him in. (Don’t try this at home.) I’m paraphrasing, but part of the bit went something like this:
So I’m all stupid and drunk, and I turn to the cops and yell, “@#$% you, you damned cops! Yeah, you got the badges and guns, but you ain’t got a brain between you!” They all look at each other, and then the biggest, toughest-looking cop comes over, gets right in my face and says, “Look, punk. There are three cops standing here, see? So if you’re real smart, you’ll change that to Ain’t got a brain AMONG you.”
Between is a bicycle built for two. ‘Nuff said.
I realize that by picking this topic, I’ve pretty much invited everyone to point out every typo, every missing word, and every (egads!) misused word in any post I’ve ever written. Go for it. I can take it. I learned long ago that while I’m good at proofreading other people’s work, my brain sees what it expects to see when it’s my own text.
And if you’re a fellow grammar grump, chime in with examples of your own grumpiness. Maybe I’ll post another list.
Hmmm … interesting reactions to Arizona’s new immigration law, or anti-illegal-alien law, whichever term you prefer. Not surprisingly, politicians from my old state of California are up in arms about it. That’s because they prefer a different term for illegal aliens: future loyal voters — if only they can push another amnesty bill through Congress someday. Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, has called for a moratorium on city-related travel to Arizona, and several members of the Los Angeles city council have proposed that L.A. stop doing any business with Arizona.
Mexican government officials are also up in arms, labeling the immigration law “abominable,” “a violation of human rights” and “discriminatory.” (Hard to argue with that last one; we do tend to treat criminals differently in America.)
Given all the hubub, I think the only fair course of action is to scrap the Arizona law and replace it with a new national immigration policy. Here are the provisions it ought to contain:
Foreigners will be admitted into the country according to their ability to contribute to our national progress.
Foreigners will be banned from interfering in our country’s politics.
Immigration officials must ensure that all immigrants have the necessary funds for their own sustenance and for the sustenance of their dependents.
Foreigners may be barred from the country if 1) their presence upsets the equilibrium of the national demographics, 2) they are deemed detrimental to our economic or national interests, 3) they do not behave like good citizens in their own country, 4) they have broken any of our laws, or 5) they are not found to be physically or mentally healthy.
Immigration authorities must keep track of every single person in the country and assist in the arrests of illegal immigrants.
A National Population Registry must be established to keep track of every single individual who comprises the population of the country and verify each individual’s identity.
A national Catalog of Foreigners must be established to keep track of all foreign tourists and immigrants, and assign each individual with a unique tracking number.
Shipping and airline companies that bring undocumented foreigners into the country will be fined.
All foreigners with fake papers, or who enter the country under false pretenses, may fined or imprisoned.
All foreigners who fail to obey the rules of the country will be fined, deported, and/or imprisoned.
All foreigners who fail to obey a deportation order are to be prosecuted and possibly imprisoned.
All foreigners who are deported and attempt to re-enter the country without authorization will be imprisoned for up to 10 years.
Foreigners who violate the terms of their visas will be imprisoned for to up to six years.
Foreigners who misrepresent the terms of their visas — such as working with out a permit - will face prosecution and possible imprisonment.
Citizens who help illegal aliens enter the country will themselves considered criminals and face prosecution.
Any citizen who marries a foreigner with the sole objective of helping the foreigner live in this country will be subject to up to five years in prison.
Yes, yes, I know … it’s not exactly send me your huddled masses yearning to breathe free kind of stuff. Some of those policies come off as racist, classist, or downright harsh. So how can I possibly call them fair?
Simple: those are Mexico’s immigration policies. If Mexican officials think our laws are abominable and discriminatory, let’s adopt theirs instead.
With Earth Day coming up tomorrow, millions of American schoolchildren have no doubt been commanded to write an essay on global warming to prove they’ve been properly indoctrina– I mean, educated on the topic. And, kids being kids, I’m sure many of them procrastinated and are now scrambling to find enough information to put together the required thousand words or so.
Fear not, kids. I’m here to help with a Global Warming Q & A. Feel free to plagiarize at will.
What does “global warming” mean?
It means the planet is slowly getting warmer. According to some scientists, it’s happening because of something called The Greenhouse Effect. Here’s how it works: human beings are emitting a lot of carbon dioxide, so it’s building up in the atmosphere and trapping heat. It’s a bit like when your car sits in the sun with the windows up.
So carbon dioxide must be at record levels.
Absolutely. The current concentration is 385 parts per million, which, as Al Gore pointed out in An Inconvenient Truth, is the highest it’s ever been … except for when it was a lot higher.
A lot higher?! What are you talking about?
I’m talking about the periods in earth’s history that Al Gore doesn’t talk about. Actually, that would be most of the earth’s history, at least if we’re talking about the last 600 million years.
CO2 was higher than 385 parts per million for most of earth’s history?
Heck, yes. We’re talking about crazy-high concentrations: 4500 parts per million in one era, 3000 parts per million in another, etc.
Wow! It must’ve been hotter than blazes!
Nope, not always. Sometimes it was hotter than today, and sometimes it was colder. Sometimes the earth’s temperature plummeted even while carbon dioxide was going way up.
But how can that be? You just said carbon dioxide produces heat.
No, I said some scientists say that. But as for an explanation, apparently the laws of chemistry and physics changed over time.
That doesn’t seem possible.
Well, let’s try this, then: Carbon dioxide and the earth’s temperature dated for a long time, often breaking up and going their separate ways. But they decided to get married several thousand years ago and now travel together.
Okay, so at least in relatively recent times, when carbon dioxide goes up, it caues the temperature to go up.
Actually, the temperature goes up first, then carbon dioxide goes up. Carbon dioxide is so powerful, its heat-producing effects can go backwards in time.
But … uh … so is higher CO2 causing warmer weather in modern times or not?
That’s what some scientists say. However — and it’s very important you grasp this — it’s also causing record-cold temperatures like the ones we’ve had for the past few winters. So if you sit in your car on a sunny day with the windows rolled up, the interior of the car will become very hot, but also very cold now and then. And you’ll get more snow.
In the car?
No, on the earth. You see, according to Al Gore, the record snowfalls we saw all over the northern hemisphere this winter were caused by global warming.
I don’t understand.
Not to worry; Al explained it to everyone in an editorial a few weeks back. Global warming is increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, you see, so there’s more moisture in the atmosphere, which means we’re getting more rain and more snow.
But I thought global warming was going to create more deserts.
That’s correct … more rain and snow, but also more deserts. You see, if you mix higher temperatures with more moisture, you get a desert, just like in a greenhouse.
I thought the purpose of a greenhouse is to grow more plants, like in a jungle.
No, no, no. The earth is a special kind of greenhouse. According to the IPCC, global warming is making the dry areas on earth drier, but also making the wet areas wetter … except in really wet areas like the Amazon rainforest, where global warming is causing the jungle to dry out.
Wait, let me get this straight: the dry areas are getting less rain because of global warming, and the wet areas are getting more rain because of global warming, except for the wet areas that aren’t getting enough rain because of global warming?
You’re catching on.
But at least we know it’s getting warmer, right?
That’s right. The temperature has been rising steadily, except for when it hasn’t. But those are just decadal variations.
What’s a decadal variation?
It’s what global-warming scientists call a long period of time when there’s no rise in temperature.
Decadal … so that would mean 10 years?
Yes. Except there was a decadal variation from 1945 to 1975, and the current decadal variation has lasted for 15 years now. See, if the temperature rises for 21 years, that’s a long-term trend. But if the temperature holds steady and then starts dropping over a period of 15 years, that’s a decadal variation.
But what if the temperature goes down again for, say, 20 or even 30 years? Wouldn’t that be a long-term trend?
Of course not. That would be two or three decadal variations strung together. Totally different thing.
This is getting kind of confusing.
No, it’s simple. Let me summarize: carbon dioxide is higher now than it’s ever been except for it when it was several times higher, and that’s bad because carbon dioxide traps heat and makes the planet warmer, except for when the temperature goes down anyway. Meanwhile, the rising temperatures are making wet areas wetter and dry areas drier, except for the wet areas that are becoming drier. Is it all clear now?
No. That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
Well, I’m afraid you might have a logical mind. It’s mostly a good thing, but it’s not going to help your academic career. Good luck with that paper.
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