Have you noticed that we haven't heard about global warming as much in the news lately? There was a big to do in the drive by media about the scientists holding a summit about global warming...but that was before the EXTREME winter weather the nation's seen over the past month! I was surprised again this morning to wake up to find the ground covered with snow! Granted, it'll be melted by mid-morning...however,I was only able to drive 45 mph on my way to work because the snowplows hadn't plowed my side of the highway yet and it was thick slush! Sometimes I just have to laugh about this! It seems like God is saying, "You think YOU'RE the ones in control of the weather?!?!? Think again!"
Just to start a debate with some of the closet (or maybe not closet) democrats that read this blog...I couldn't help but laugh about Rush's description of Al Gore's green concert. Since I'm not a Rush 24/7 member I couldn't get the article off his website....but here's what he said (posted on a different website):
"If a tree gets planted in the forest and no one is around to give Gore credit, can it still reduce CO2?
In the press release about the S.O.S (Save Our Selves) series of concerts, Gore and company announce that, “Live Earth alone will engage an audience of more than 2 billion people through concert attendance and broadcasts.” The sponsors are hoping that 3 million people will attend in person for one of the seven concerts held around the globe. For the sake of the polar ice caps, let’s hope the event promoters are being wildly optimistic. But for the sake of showing how egomaniacally deluded Gore is, let’s assume that the numbers are obtainable.
In 2003, the Rolling Stones became the first band to undertake a “carbon-neutral” tour. To achieve this feat the band estimated that the total emissions for everything--from the power requirements for the venue to the transportation to the concert--came to 13 kg/CO2 per fan. If Gore is able to find three million people to attend in person the fans would produce 39,000 metric tons of CO2.
Then there are those who will watch it at home on a TV or computer, both of which use about 200 watts of energy per hour. Let’s also assume that everyone is a conservationist and watches only one hour of the 24 hour concert. This would reduce the amount of energy used to 400 billion watts of energy (2 billion people using a 200 watt source for one hour).
In order to convert kilowatts of electricity (400,000,000 kw) to kilograms of carbon dioxide we multiply by .43, which gives us 172,000 metric tons of carbon produced simply by the viewing of this concert. Add that to the concert goers and you have roughly 200,000 metric tons of CO2 produced by this event.
To put those numbers in some kind of perspective consider:
The concert will produce more CO2 in one day than Zimbabwe produced in any month in 2003.
The concert will produce more CO2 in one day than the total daily fossil fuel emissions for Austria, Chile, Finland, Greece, Iraq, Kuwait, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, Sweden, the Virgin Islands, and a dozen other countries combined.
The concert will produce more CO2 in one day than the entire nation of Afghanistan produces in a year.
Presumably, Gore and company will buy carbon offsets to make up for the pollution the event will create. Since it takes an acre of Douglas fir trees (and 50 years of growing time) to offset 1000 tons of CO2, Gore will need to plant 200 acres of trees to make up for his concert.
Reasonable people might ask why they don’t just skip the concert and use the money saved on logistics and promotion to plant twice as many trees? The Zen-like response: If a tree gets planted in the forest and no one is around to give Gore credit, can it still reduce CO2? Apparently, the answer is “No, it cannot.” For the inconvenient truth is that Al Gore cares more about being viewed as an eco-savior than he does about actually acting in a way that might help us 'save our selves.'"
I had a little present for her since it was her last day. Part of the present was a framed picture of Brody. It seems kinda funny to give a framed picture of your child to anyone but family...but she cried when she saw it. She told me she had a special place for it at home. 
It talked about the best ways to keep from crying while cutting an onion. This was significant because earlier in the day I cut up a whole onion and was crying so hard I couldn't see!!! It was a strong onion! The article said that the onion goggles were the only effective way to cut up an onion "tear free". Mom (being the ingenious person that she is) said that rather than spending $20 on onion goggles....maybe swim goggles would work! We were crying we were laughing so hard imagining Mike walking in from work to find me cutting up an onion wearing swim goggles!!!! (You've gotta admit it makes you laugh too!)
