WE Blog

linky thingy

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1987991/posts

The House passed a measure this week to strengthen congressional ethics enforcement. For the first time ever, an outside board will be established made up of individuals who are not members of Congress to investigate Aleged ethics violations by representatives. Members of Congress should be held to a high ethical standard. Hopefully, this board will increase the openness and accountability of the ethics process in Congress for the American people. The independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) will consist of six members who will screen allegations of wrongdoing made against House Members and pass these concerns to the House Ethics Committee for further consideration and action.
Kansas has an independent ethics body, the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission (GEC). The commission is charged with administering, interpreting and enforcing the Kansas Campaign Finance Act and laws relating to conflict of interests, financial disclosure and the regulation of lobbying. These laws establish the public’s right to information about the financial affairs of Kansas’ state public officials, lobbyists and candidates for office. In addition, the GEC renders advisory opinions and can adopt rules and regulations under a less comprehensive conflict of interests law covering local government officials and employees. Kansas statutes, K.S.A. 25-4142 et seq. and K.S.A. 46-215 et seq. require candidates, lobbyists and state employees to file disclosure forms with the Secretary of State, which is a separate state agency and the public repository for such forms.

The simple way to avoid the problem, American Way, is to pay off your credit card balance every month. Use them like a tired whore, take every discount and airline freebie, but Never give them a late fee or a dime’s worth of interest.

By all means we must stop those silly ole Doctors who are just going around performing abortions of unsuspecting women without telling them why they are performing an abortion! Why those women must have been just walking down pass the clinic whistling a happy tune. When they Doctor comes out and offers them candy to come inside. surly these women must have misunderstood the Doctor, they thought when he said “abortion” he meant “adoption” of a puppy!

And of course they need to be shown the “ultrasound image of a fetus and the heartbeat sound if that type equipment is used“, Otherwise they must think that thing growing in their belly is a swallowed grapefruit seed.

There is a level of stupidity in this, but it is not on the part of the women! When the law is used like this, it end with the citizens no longer having any respect for the law. Compliance with the laws is voluntary, when the majority no longer respect the laws. There is not enough law enforcement within Sedgwick county or even within the entire state of Kansas to enforce any laws.

In days pasted, such attempts would be laugh at and the sponsor would go down as a wacko. But then at times it seem that one needs to be a wacko just to be elected to office.
Olathe sounds to be a good town, a good town to stay hundreds of miles away from! Sadly there is not a electric fence to keep them from invading the rest of the state.
This assumes women are stupid and need to be governed, that the people of Kansas are just this dumb that without the government we would be running off of cliffs!

“This assumes women are stupid and need to be governed, that the people of Kansas are just this dumb that without the government we would be running off of cliffs!”

Sorta like warning labels on cigarette packs?
Sorta like warning labels on gas pumps?
Sorta like warning labels on power tools?
Sorta like signing up for a subprime loan and not being smart enough to know what the adjustable rate means?

Yep, way too much government involvement in our lives.

A couple of my favorites: The warning on those sun screens that cover the entire windshield “ You should remove this devise before attempting to drive”. I read this on the box that a clothes iron came in, “Do not attempt to use this product while taking a bath”.

“Point downrange before firing” on weapons for the military.

I don’t recall seeing that label on an M16 or .45
at Edson Range, but I do recall a brute wearing a campaign hat threatening bodily harm for failure to do so. The message was literally beaten into you.

Before bush goes on television today and tells us Iraq has made us safer, let me assure everyone I won’t buy that line of BS.

bush has his opinion, I have mine.

306 days, 13 hours, 41 minutes

One night I was mopping and got some distance from the orange warning cone, a customer smarted off “I don’t see a warning cone… What ya go’n do if I fall?”. “If you are watching me mop and do not know the floor is wet…Laugh my axx off!” I replied.

Linda I am watching him right now… :> It has got to be easy being a speech writer for Bush! You need not bother to stick to facts or reality, just make it up as you go! You know I can forgive Mc Cain for his misstatement about Al-Qaeda and them crossing over to Iran to train. The terms “Al-Qaeda”, “insurgents“, “terrorists” have become so interchanged that it must be hard to keep track without a score card!

Dog, I’ll wait and read the simple words he will undoubtedly trip over. I’ve heard them before and it’s too painful to actually watch and listen in real time. I admire your bravery!

Hee hee hee fish. Chris Rock said, given the dragging of James Byrd, the killing of Matthew Shepard, church burning, etc. That he wasnt afraid of Al Quaida. He was afraid of Al Cracker…

Obama’s lead over Clinton narrows: Reuters poll

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080319/pl_nm/usa_politics_poll_dc

IMO, the longer this primary goes on, the more NECESSARY it is for both of the candidates to be on the ticket. The democrats are slowly being ripped apart by the prolonged primary. It is the nature of the beast for primaries to cause rifts in a party, but the primaries have never lasted this long. Since it has lasted this long, to present unity and goodwill for the democrats, they must decide to work together on the same ticket, they just must!! Otherwise, the democrats will lose in November. And I will pull ALL of my hair out!

No, reg, it isn’t any of that (wherever you stole it from). It’s being afraid that people with your thought processes actually is the norm for America, in which case Bin Laden would be doing us a favor for sinking so low as a society.

Don’t fall for the nervous feelings the media and Republicans want you to feel.

The Democratic Party has TWO strong candidates for the nomination and they keep one another on their toes. We the voters win!

Smile. They’ll wonder what you’re up to. Maybe they’ll even think you’re falling for their plan. ;-)

Thank God, McCain said that we’re winning in Iraq.

So . . . now that we’re winning, we can pull out, right?

“But damn it, how in the world can the Feds be cutting interest rates, driving up inflation while doing so, and it not benefit mortgage rates positively.”

Uh, because they are bailing out BANKS and LENDERS not people. They care about Bear Sterns. But about Joe Sterns? Eh, not so much.

Ditto, Farmgrrl, ditto.

Welfare for people = bad, bad.

Welfare for corporations = good, good.

There’s no gridlock in Congress when it comes to helping the rich get richer.

Obama and Edwards also said 2013 in the very same debate.

Huh, did they change their story now?

Ask again next month, I’m sure they will change their minds again.

Crowson’s been reading the blogs again.

I agree with Danae in non sequitur

Clinton is in Michigan begging for the delegates to be seated.

She conveniently “forgets” that she signed a pledge to take her name off the ballot in Michigan. Everybody else took their name off the ballot except for her!

Now she wants the delegates to be seated, and she’s going on and on about “everyone’s right to vote–the vote gives voice to the voiceless.”

This is the person that wants us to trust her enough to be President.

Yup, she’s a Clinton. No more needs to be said.

She’s a Clinton.

On the subject of the rules of the primaries: I want the DNC to stick to the rules agreed to and the consequences everyone knew for breaking the rules. Why have rules if they mean nothing? Both Florida and Michigan need to straighten out the problems they created, and they need to accept the responsibility for breaking the rules.

When the real Patriots were losing and freezing to death in Valley Forge, why didn’t they just quit?

“When the real Patriots were losing and freezing to death in Valley Forge, why didn’t they just quit?”

Hey Max, weren’t they going to quit? Until George promised them HUGE reenlistment bonuses (which had not been approved by Congress?).

Five years later, where are we? The surge is working, who could doubt it? You put a cop on every corner of course crime would go down. But what now, there is still no end game and no exit strategy. There is catchphrase about staying till we win, but what will that take? A stable Iraq, an end to the violence but in reality those too are just catchphrases. Broad undefined statements that catch everything and nothing at the same time. Iraq is a tar baby, we are stick because of our own doing. Iraq is solely our fault and it is up to us to fix it. You can argue the point of whether it was our actions that brought about 9-11. In reality there is some credence to it, in our blindness and with out intent there is some credence. But no it is NOT solely our fault for 9-11, but the mess in Iraq IS. By now we have learned that and we must accept reasonability for it. Our President right or wrong led us to do something that was totally Un-American. But never the less WE are America and what is done in the name of the country is done by all her citizens whether we agree with it or not.

So how do we get out of Iraq, what is the reality of winning there? An easy answer to the question is not there. The stain upon on us for this can not be removed, that would in reality be the only win to be had.
We will stay there until that stain can be removed, until that bell can be un-rung until once again we are truly what being America is about. Else until this country who once stood for the best of all people dies a slow death from within. It was the ideals that made this country strong and worth a merciful God’s blessings. How does the killer of the child gain forgiveness? How does he make right what he did?
How do WE as Americans made right for this greatest mistake this country has ever made?

By ignoring it and saying it is a part of the war on terror, its not and never has been a part of the war on terror. To say such is more to hide the reality of what it was and to excuse the un-excusable actions.
To stay till we force fate to accept OUR version of it, sorry fate is not so easily guided in its course.
No amount of money nor cost in human lives will make it so, while there our enemy the ones whom stuck us are growing and gaining far more strength then they could have if Iraq had not have happened. And that is the cost of Iraq. A win or loss in Iraq will not change that as Iraq has nothing to do with the fight against terrorism. While the building was burning, we set the trash can on fire to try and put a fire out.

We can not just leave but to stay will cause far more harm to this country than to leave. WE are in the tar baby! Covered in tar and no real way to remove it we stand in place as there seem nothing else we can do.
So five years later that is where we are, the only hope is the world did finally forgive Germany and Japan for its deeds.

Writerdog,

Only if you completely ignore the training of the Iraqi Security Forces we are doing there, the fact that the Iraqi Security Forces are constantly taking over more and more regions, and the fact that our role is becoming more of a support role and logistics role could you have the opinion you do.

You have to completely ignore all the things our troops are doing there to think we have no plan, no exit strategy, and are doing little more than playing cop.

You have become a product of the media fraud which is the Iraq war coverage. The only thing you see is every time a bomb blows up and kills someone.

Didn’t you love the way Obama sacrificed his grandmother on national television? Never mind that the woman sacrificed to raise Barry, he the audacity of hopelessness (pun intended) to compare a comment she made in private to him with one made by the hateful Pastor.

Good going, slimebucket.

Now that Obama has totally interjected race as a dividing issue in the race – it will esclate. He just opened Pandora’s box. Let’s see who flies out first.

“How do WE as Americans made right for this greatest mistake this country has ever made?”

I don’t know if I’d go that far. This country has been “nation building” since day one.

And need I post a list of the congress men and women who voted FOR going into Iraq and have voted FOR continuing operations there? Or perhaps, the candidates who will continue this war?

Don’t like the war? Fine. Join the majority of us.
But let’s quit hiding behind one political party as the resolution to it. From our founding days, Americans have been adventurists – interferring in the internal affairs and invading other countries. Our young men and women have been dying for politicans from ALL parties and both congress and the presidency for centuries.

Why? Because they keep us divided into political parties so we can blame each other, instead of the politicians who actually ACTED.

We need a national review of the Wars Power Act, and the constitutional authority to send our men and women to mortal combat. We need to examine HOW we get to the point of no return. We need to enact standards, thresholds, and PUBLIC procedures for actions by our Congress and our President to FOLLOW before committing America to war. This includes any prelude to war (funding foreign opposition parties to overthrow or win, providing war materiels,) and clear agreement on intelligence estimates. This should review should happen NOW!

But regardless, we will go to war again (I suspect straightforward capture of oil fields). American people will change their minds, public opinion will change, and politicans will become weak kneed in their resolve.

So unless we only go to war with a popular vote of the people, we will be down this road again.

ksfarmgrrl
Posted March 19, 2008 at 9:38 am | Permalink
max = scroll over territory

ksfarmgrrl, I don’t get it. Are you having a lovers quarrel with Max today? Or is there something wrong with his posts that I am not seeing? Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed? Are wheat prices down?

What’s up?

Darn it Max! Quit telling the truth about Obama!
I want him to beat Hillery!

It’s hard to tell who will steal the nomination.

It’s best to just fire at will, and let the voters sort it out in November.

If McCain keeps his mouth shut, if there is no Independent candidate to screw-up the election (the only way Clinton I won), then the Dems will continue to devour their own – with our help.

The Dem’s can’t help but be divisive, they are caught between Barock and a Hard Place.

Did our elders pay for their debt?

Passing on the burden of paying for the older generation, to the younger generation.

That’s what Social InSecurity is all about.

It’s hard to see thru Rose Colored Glasses:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3433485.ece

Obama’s friend Rezko was born in Syria.

Obama’s billionaire friend Nadhmi Auchi was born in Iraq.

Obama has been bought. A $2.6 Million house on a US Senator’s salary? Hmmm……

Salary for a US Senator is $169,000 per year.

Obama must be one of the victim’s of the sub-prime loan scandals to be able to afford a house that is 15 TIMES his annual salary.

How many average Joe’s out there making $30,000 per year are living in a $450,000 house?

There goes the Jewish vote….for Obama.

Jews Now Drawn Deeper Into Racial Politics
As Obama surges, new round of e-mails raises specter of Farrakhan, Jackson, Sharpton.

by James D. Besser
Washington Correspondent

With Sen. Barack Obama surging in his drive for the Democratic presidential nomination, a Jewish community that remains liberal on civil rights issues — but is also affected by black anti-Semitism, concerns about Israel and what one analyst called “latent racism” — is getting drawn deeper into bitter racial politics.

http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c39_a4619/News/International.html

Palestinian people suffer-but from not recognizing Israel
Q: You said recently, “No one is suffering more than the Palestinian people.” Do you stand by that remark?
A: Well, keep in mind what the remark actually, if you had the whole thing, said. And what I said is nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people from the failure of the Palestinian leadership to recognize Israel, to renounce violence, and to get serious about negotiating peace and security for the region. Israel is the linchpin of much of our efforts in the Middle East.

Source: 2007 South Carolina Democratic primary debate, on MSNBC Apr 26, 2007

http://www.issues2000.org/2008/Barack_Obama_Foreign_Policy.htm

So I’m guessing by now that Brownlee won’t implement a sign-in for this Blog.

It is ridiculously simple to do and there is zero reason (in my mind) not to do it.

They have sign-ins on all the other Wichita Eagle blogs.

Guess that is your answer Hank – silence from Brownlee.

He simply can’t be relied upon.

I guarantee if I was the Blog Monitor, there would be less attacking and harassing of posters. :)

…or there would be far fewer posters…

Well, Regular, count me as one who is well pleased you aren’t a Blog Monitor.

Why is that lindainks55?

I’ve never seen anything you’ve posted that would count as harassment.

People like J R who constantly threaten people with real life information need to be booted from the blog.

A perfect example of this was his harassment of Econ101 last night.

Personally, since Brownlee hasn’t provided a solution, I think Hank should ‘leak’ JR’s information on this blog and see if he can handle having his real life information posted on this blog – on a daily basis like he has done to others.

Then the Capn would be next. I want to see them squirm and squeal.

Dennis,

I do some online buying – maintenance prescriptions, travel needs, some gifts… I don’t like using my debit card for online purchases as it is tied to my bank accounts. I’m still leery of this new way of doing business. I use the credit card and pay it off monthly ensuring they never get a penny more than I spent. No annual fees either.

Regular
Posted March 19, 2008 at 10:48 am | Permalink
I guarantee if I was the Blog Monitor, there would be less attacking and harassing of posters.
===========================================

Pot meet kettle LOL

Rage — Max always rants ROFL!!

Aw, c’mon, Chas, you can’t call this ranting:

Obama’s friend Rezko was born in Syria.

Obama’s billionaire friend Nadhmi Auchi was born in Iraq.

C’mon, don’t think–react! SYRIA!! IRAQ!! SCARY ARABS!!! BOOGITY!!

Rage — And one of Bushie’s best buddies is King of Saudi Arabia… LOL

I went back as far as last Sunday’s paper without finding your letter. When did the Eagle staff finally get smart enough to publich your letter, Steven?

I saw it online today, Linda!

Hey, does everyone remember the non-stop media frenzy over the McClurkin incident?

Me neither.

It’s depressing, but the fact is that supporters of gay rights don’t have that much clout (at the national level anyway), and the corporate tabloid news won’t think it’s an issue unless we make it one. This is 1964, and the official segregationist party will be seated, Hubert Humphrey’s tears notwithstanding.

Barack Obama has a good record, actually, going back to the Illinois Senate. But I think it’s incumbent upon Obama supporters– especially gay Obama supporters–to gently remind the man of the positions he’s taken on gay rights, should he become president, and be willing to defend him vigorously when he gets the heat.

I’m thinking of Bill Clinton. He was the first successful presidential candidate to really reach out to the gay community. His first week of office, he kept a promise–and was roundly pilloried, and caved in.

Four years later, he was signing the Defense of Marriage Act. Principle gave way to political expediency.

I don’t believe for a minute that Barack Obama is a bigot, but the Jeremiah Wright business is more relevant than we might think. There is a nasty strain of hatred in some black churches out there (even if the UCC isn’t neccesarily one of them). We saw that in Kansas.

Obama stuck his finger in the water at Martin Luther King’s church–with a single sentence–but I suspect his relatively muted response was, once again, due to not wanting to poke them in the eye–love ‘em or hate ‘em, his people– too hard .

His amazing rise in politics aside, on this issue, it sucks to be him. No doubt his political advisors are telling him to be low-key about gay rights. Unfortunately, there’s some wisdom in that approach.

But since politics is the art horse-trading, I think the real issue is not whether he personally supports gay rights (I’m convinced he does), but rather the amount of value he will assign to that particular horse, when the deals are being made. It’s a concern.

He has already shown that he can deal with these kind of “hot-button” issues in a thoughtful and surprisingly frank manner. He needs to do that, before something happens (say, he deeply offends some homophobes ), that is deemed worthy of discussion by the tabloid media, and he’s forced to address it then.

And I think, despite the electoral backlash we’ve seen in recent years, America is finally ready.

Limbaugh’s Electioneering scam, Operation Chaos, sure looks like inter-state racketeering to some extent… Wonder if anybody has thought about charging him with something??

We need to resurrect the Hippies… to help us put on a huge old-fashioned War Protest march!! The Hippies knew how to do that!!

Bring back Hippiedom… Make Love/Not War!!

I’m for that Chas.

I’m too young to remember the 60’s. From what I can gather, it was the high water mark for this country. Pretty much downhill since then.

JR, i have to admit, the 60s was riding on the coattails of the 50s. Ike did a fair job for this country before Kennedy did his li’l bit (all told, I don’t think he really did THAT much for the country ‘cept for the space program). It’s just a good thing Nixon didn’t get in the 12 years earlier than he did.
Then again, that dozen years of youth and HE may have been a decent president.

I wouldn’t be unique.” To which she said, “Trust me, Grandma. You would be!”

That’s a good thing, Linda.

Don’t you wanna be a non-conformist just like everyone else?
*ducks*

And, in a reflective mood, I return to work, recalling these words attributed to David Crosby: “We were right about the war, we were right about civil rights, but we were wrong about drugs”.

In 68 I was still in Jr High. Participated in a few ’school walkout’ demonstrations against the war. I never felt like part of a political process, just kinda felt it was the right thing to do. Plus it was a quasi-sanctioned ditch day LOL

Then I fell for the ‘Kill a Commie for Mommy’ rhetoric and joined up in 73, going active in 74 right after HS grad. Btween swearing in standing on the yellow footprints I wondered whatever I had gotten myself into. Luckily the whole thing fell through while I was in boot camp.

Through this whole time I never gave a thught at all about political ramifications–only doing what I felt to be correct at that particular time. I’ve thought most of the world was this way–apolitical–and just did what they felt was right. Some do what’s right for themselves alone, and others do what is right for the world in general.

I’ve heard David Crosby disparage something else from the flowerful 1960s: His and other musicians’ prodigious usage of groupies. “We were all over them – like sharks on sheep,” he said.

That being said, I have a lot of fondness for the former Byrd-man and Crosby, Stills & Nash frontman. I’ve seen him interviewed by Larry King and others, and his newly-drug-free self is endearing. He talks copiously about love and tolerance. And here’s something else……

Remember the immortal “Turn! Turn! Turn!” from 1965? Crosby’s was the shimmering voice heard on these words: “A time for p-e-a-c-e…..I swear it’s not too late.” He had that special “something” in his voice – and on that song – and other Byrds offerings – it was in full abundance.

When I remember the sixties – I remember the wondrous music. Not the rampant, mindless gutterf–king. The sexual orientation, in the words of a liberal Catholic theologian (Richard Sipe), was and is a “very mixed bag.” I agree heartily with that statement.

But the music………oh, the music……..its beauty will endure forever.

Songbird, I don’t recall who said this, but “David Crosby was put on this earth for one purpose: to sing harmony”. I could not agree more.

I also could not agree more with your observations on the music of the 1960s.

“I guarantee if I was the Blog Monitor, there would be less attacking and harassing of posters”

You mean, like the attacking and harassing that YOU do?

Nathan I would actually be the last to admit we have not done some good there, I am a firm believer in the old adage of “All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing!”. Our military is the best ambassadors this country has had since Ben Franklin in Paris. That said, you and I will whole heartedly agree on this point. We have to prevail! We have to leave Iraq in the very best shape it can be and in a sense better then the United States! But where we may part ways is, it is this country’s penance and our only atonement for having done such a thing without cause and without justification. AS I said the cost of this action is that our real enemy the ones whom attacked us are now stronger and gained more power with the invasion and the occupation of Iraq by us. The media does not tell me that, hell the media is pretty pointless and there is not one that will give the total honest truth about the good or the bad that has happen!

I know enough people in my everyday life to know how those whom have been there feel about it. All the good that occurs that they get angry because the media is not reporting it. Just in passing I have come to know many who served in Vietnam. To the man everyone of them could tell you much what one told me.
He hated the war and hate the government for sending him there. Until he had been there and seen the outrages done by the V.C. He knew that someone had to take a stand and he felt good that he could be someone! over ten years later he still hated the Vietnam war but felt honor to have done his part.
But what I am saying is that is the way our soldiers are and it is what they do.

If it had not been that the fight was about protecting America from those wanting to destroy her. Than perhaps the morality of Iraq would not be the issue. Saddam was a bad man there is no doubt.
But its like the neighbor to the South is shooting at your house and you shoot and kill the neighbor to the North whom was not the threat at the time. Not only is it madness it is morality wrong and as such you are damned for doing it. We need to stop doing a holding action and bring right that which we wronged.

And yes, I have thought we owed the Iraqis this morally for some time. The Kurds were slaughtered because we told them if they upraised we would back them and we failed to. Same with the Shiites and both were slaughtered by Saddam. But not this way, we have failed them again by being in the wrong at the wrong time. By trying to be nation builders instead of allies and friends, why would not most Iraqis have a love/ hate for us. WE went in to depose a dictator and then told them we know best and they must do as we say. And all the time the Terrorists have been gaining because of our folly.

Hair! It must be long hair that made the difference!

Ya’ll need to read the actual legislation that the House just passed. Basically it says that IF the parents, HUSBAND, or anyone else disagrees with the woman’s choice for her abortion…THEY can press charges on the doctor on her behalf, even if SHE doesn’t want them to.

So imagine, I go in for an abortion, and my husband finds out after the fact and is angry. He can turn around and charge my doctor.

Why this passed is beyond me, it’s a completely utter disregard for a woman’s right to choose.

If they can’t take away HER right, they’ll go after the doctor and make him pay for her choice.

This is SUCH bs. Someone needs to kick a whole lot of people out of the senate. They’ll do this, but they won’t even consider giving equal rights to women under the constitution.

Now I know why, they want others to be responsible for our actions.

Political_mama-

Does the father of the child have no rights? It take two to make a baby, I think the father should have a say whether it is aborted or not.

Until the father can carry the child and take the risk, then NO, he has no right to say what the woman does with her body. There is no better way to keep a woman ‘in her place’ than to take away her rights to her own decisions.

A GOOD father and good marriage, this wouldn’t be an issue, now would it?

PMama — that law sounds eerily similar to laws governing women in Saudi Arabia!! Well, except for the beheading part –

Cosmos, thats because many Americans dont understand that Islam has “denominations” (factions) much like Christianity, Hinduism, and even Judaism… Ya just cant lump them all together and call it one…

Outlander!

Now Cosmos will launch 10,000 posts!

Heading to the shelter, it be raining BS for the duration of the evening.

outlander

What is to lose by addressing global warming proactively?

It looks like Brownlee won’t do anything with this blog, so I’m whipping out blog mayhem and torture.

Be prepared to get ugly spilled upon you.

Brownlee wants this blog to be amateur hour, well here it comes.

You’ll never know when it strikes.

Nothing to lose JR.

Just as long as we don’t get silly about it.

What was it you used to say about the Great Experiment Ben?

See outlander? Your post here is self defeating.

You present something that can be explained or not by any number of variables.

Pumping ever increasing amounts of the global warming gas CO2 into the atmosphere at LEAST merits serious consideration. It is a variable.

Continental drift,erosion, weather and tectonics also affect sea levels in certain areas. It’s not always about co2 and warming.

Spring keeps coming earlier for birds, bees, trees

By Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON — The capital’s famous cherry trees are primed to burst out in a perfect pink peak about the end of this month. Thirty years ago, the trees usually waited to bloom till around April 5.
In central California, the first of the field skipper sachem, a drab little butterfly, was fluttering about on March 12. Just 25 years ago, that creature predictably emerged there anywhere from mid-April to mid-May.

And sneezes are coming earlier in Philadelphia. On March 9, when allergist Dr. Donald Dvorin set up his monitor, maple pollen was already heavy in the air. Less than two decades ago, that pollen couldn’t be measured until late April.

Pollen is bursting. Critters are stirring. Buds are swelling. Biologists are worrying.

“The alarm clock that all the plants and animals are listening to is running too fast,” Stanford University biologist Terry Root said.

Blame global warming.

The fingerprints of man-made climate change are evident in seasonal timing changes for thousands of species on Earth, according to dozens of studies and last year’s authoritative report by the Nobel Prize-winning international climate scientists. More than 30 scientists told The Associated Press how global warming is affecting plants and animals at springtime across the country, in nearly every state.

What’s happening is so noticeable that scientists can track it from space. Satellites measuring when land turns green found that spring “green-up” is arriving eight hours earlier every year on average since 1982 north of the Mason-Dixon line. In much of Florida and southern Texas and Louisiana, the satellites show spring coming a tad later, and bizarrely, in a complicated way, global warming can explain that too, the scientists said.

Biological timing is called phenology. Biological spring, which this year begins at 1:48 a.m. ET Thursday, is based on the tilt of the Earth as it circles the sun. The federal government and some university scientists are so alarmed by the changes that last fall they created a National Phenology Network at the U.S. Geological Survey to monitor these changes.

The idea, said biologist and network director Jake Weltzin, is “to better understand the changes, and more important what do they mean? How does it affect humankind?”

There are winners, losers and lots of unknowns when global warming messes with natural timing. People may appreciate the smaller heating bills from shorter winters, the longer growing season and maybe even better tasting wines from some early grape harvests. But biologists also foresee big problems.

The changes could push some species to extinction. That’s because certain plants and animals are dependent on each other for food and shelter. If the plants bloom or bear fruit before animals return or surface from hibernation, the critters could starve. Also, plants that bud too early can still be whacked by a late freeze.

The young of tree swallows — which in upstate New York are laying eggs nine days earlier than in the 1960s — often starve in those last gasp cold snaps because insects stop flying in the cold, ornithologists said. University of Maryland biology professor David Inouye noticed an unusually early February robin in his neighborhood this year and noted, “Sometimes the early bird is the one that’s killed by the winter storm.”

The checkerspot butterfly disappeared from Stanford’s Jasper Ridge preserve because shifts in rainfall patterns changed the timing of plants on which it develops. When the plant dries out too early, the caterpillars die, said Notre Dame biology professor Jessica Hellmann.

“It’s an early warning sign in that it’s an additional onslaught that a lot of our threatened species can’t handle,” Hellmann said.

It’s not easy on some people either. A controlled federal field study shows that warmer temperatures and increased carbon dioxide cause earlier, longer and stronger allergy seasons.

“For wind-pollinated plants, it’s probably the strongest signal we have yet of climate change,” said University of Massachusetts professor of aerobiology Christine Rogers. “It’s a huge health impact. Seventeen percent of the American population is allergic to pollen.”

While some plants and animals use the amount of sunlight to figure out when it is spring, others base it on heat building in their tissues, much like a roasting turkey with a pop-up thermometer. Around the world, those internal thermometers are going to “pop” earlier than they once did.

This past winter’s weather could send a mixed message. Globally, it was the coolest December through February since 2001 and a year of heavy snowfall. Despite that, it was still warmer than average for the 20th century.

Phenology data go back to the 14th century for harvest of wine grapes in France. There is a change in the timing of fall, but the change is biggest in spring. In the 1980s there was a sudden, big leap forward in spring blooming, scientists noticed. And spring keeps coming earlier at an accelerating rate.

Unlike sea ice in the Arctic, the way climate change is tinkering with the natural timing of day-to-day life is concrete and local. People can experience it with all five senses:

• You can see the trees and bushes blooming earlier. A photo of Lowell Cemetery, in Lowell, Mass., taken May 30, 1868, shows bare limbs. But the same scene photographed May 30, 2005, by Boston University biology professor Richard Primack shows them in full spring greenery.

• You can smell the lilacs and honeysuckle. In the West they are coming out two to four days earlier each decade over more than half a century, according to a 2001 study.

• You can hear it in the birds. Scientists in Gothic, Colo., have watched the first robin of spring arrive earlier each year in that mountain ghost town, marching forward from April 9 in 1981 to March 14 last year. This year, heavy snows may keep the birds away until April.

• You can feel it in your nose from increased allergies. Spring airborne pollen is being released about 20 hours earlier every year, according to a Swiss study that looked at common allergies since 1979.

• You can even taste it in the honey. Bees, which sample many plants, are producing their peak amount of honey weeks earlier. The nectar is coming from different plants now, which means noticeably different honey — at least in Highland, Md., where Wayne Esaias has been monitoring honey production since 1992. Instead of the rich, red, earthy tulip poplar honey that used to be prevalent, bees are producing lighter, fruitier black locust honey. Esaias, a NASA oceanographer as well as beekeeper, says global warming is a factor.

In Washington, seven of the last 20 Cherry Blossom Festivals have started after peak bloom. This year will be close, the National Park Service predicts. Last year, Knoxville’s dogwood blooms came and went before the city’s dogwood festival started. Boston’s Arnold Arboretum permanently rescheduled Lilac Sunday to a May date eight days earlier than it once was.

Even western wildfires have a timing connection to global warming and are coming earlier. An early spring generally means the plants that fuel fires are drier, producing nastier fire seasons, said University of Arizona geology professor Steve Yool. It’s such a good correlation that Weltzin, the phenology network director, is talking about using real-time lilac data to predict upcoming fire seasons. Lilacs, which are found in most parts of the country, offer some of the broadest climate overview data going back to the 1950s.

This year, though, it’s the early red maple that’s creating buzz, as well as sniffles. A New Jersey conservationist posted an urgent message on a biology listserv on Feb. 1 about the early blooming. A 2001 study found that since 1970, that tree is blossoming on average at least 19 days earlier in Washington, D.C.

Such changes have “implications for the animals that are dependent on this plant,” Weltzin said, as he stood beneath a blooming red maple in late February. By the time the animals arrive, “the flowers may already be done for the year.” The animals may have to find a new food source.

“It’s all a part of life,” Weltzin said. “Timing is everything.”

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Buffalo too ROFL!!

Hey dude who broke into a house and had sex with the rottweiler, was sentenced today to 6 months jail (the max) and ordered to undergo a psych eval. Gee ya think???
Why wasnt’ that ordered the FIRST time around.

Political_mama,
Your eyeball does not have a heartbeat, a spinal cord, a brainwave, fingerprints, or a soul. But don’t pluck it out, even if it offends your right to control your own body.
(Psalms 94:8-9; Matthew 5:29)

“The only politician not getting laid in New York is Hillary Clinton”

Jay Leno

One never knows around here… might be an imposter!! LOL

Well ……..

Good night; Good luck; and
God bless, whatever you conceive
God to be!!

Blessings All!!

Blessed Holy Week!!

Chas,

Please show me these radical Christians who even come close to making death threats and that you compare to Bin Laden. Stop speaking in generalities and give me a real example of what Christian group you are talking about.

Making such a comparison is absurd.

Further proof that you are no Christian.

Take your blasphemy elsewhere.

And then there is James Dobson, and his attempts to stop Passion of the Christ 4 years ago… And back before that, when groups wanted to BAN Last Temptation of Christ… And more recently, Dobson and others, trying to ban showings of Golden Compass…. What more do you want, man??? And you call ME nuts??? And you claim to know nothing of these kinds of people???

“Chas.” –

Don’t get that upset with “Nathan’s” postings.

As soon as he gets his come-uppance, he claims ignorance.

Given his usual postings, it’s a valid defense.