Cougars spotted. Flamingos escaping from the zoo. Alligators in the ditches. Kansas is getting wilder and scarier by the minute. Where is Marlin Perkins when we need him? Now if we can just get that Buffalo Commons out in western Kansas, this state will be an honest-to-goodness Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
While many were distracted by school funding and gay marriage, Kansas legislators quietly passed the “cheeseburger law” last session, shielding food manufacturers and restaurants, as of July 1, from being sued by customers looking to hold them accountable for their obesity and other illnesses. For some, this may count as substantive tort reform, but it seems a time-wasting solution to a nonexistent problem in Kansas’ courts. And immunizing industries from legal accountability should be done with caution, if at all.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The government classified 15.6 million documents last year, almost double the number in 2001, according to the federal Information Security Oversight Office. If that makes you feel safer, it shouldn’t. As Thomas Kean, chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, has warned, more secrecy results in less security: “The best ally we have in protecting ourselves against terrorism is an informed public.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Mike Smith, founder of WeatherData, a leading private weather forecasting service, recently shared his views with me on global warming. He wasn’t convinced, he said, that the warming taking place was quantifiable enough to justify expensive remedies.
He said meteorologists are the “most skeptical” group among climate science professionals about the evidence for global warming. The problem, he says, is that future dire global warming predictions are “entirely based on computer models,” and working meteorologists who use computer modeling to make short-term forecasts know how often those models are wrong.
Still, for all their shortcomings, we use such computer-modeled forecasts to plan our days and activities, don’t we? Does it make sense to bet on global warming threats being wrong, or to take precautions?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
