Life is better today. Everything is basically the same, it's just my attitude has changed. Work is OK. I'm on graveyard so I don't see anyone and most of the equipment is behaving. It's been busy enough that the night passes quickly, but I'm not having to constantly circle the site looking for what crapped out in the 30 minutes since I checked last.

I'm getting interested in politics again which has probably helped my mood. Watching Shrillary and Obama self destruct while trying to destroy each other has amused me quit a bit.

Yesterday I got to teach my boy how to jack up his car and check his brakes. He needs new pads in the front, so tomorrow I get to show him how to replace them. It's one of those Father/Son moments that are getting too infrequent these days.

Read a few news items last night that I'd like to pass on.

Climate facts to warm to

Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.

Duffy asked Marohasy: "Is the Earth stillwarming?"

She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

Duffy: "Is this a matter of any controversy?"

Marohasy: "Actually, no. The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ...

Jeez...You mean the debate isn't over?

Duffy: "Can you tell us about NASA's Aqua satellite, because I understand some of the data we're now getting is quite important in our understanding of how climate works?"

Marohasy: "That's right. The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that, when you've got warming from additional carbon dioxide, this will result in increased water vapour, so you're going to get a positive feedback. That's what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite ... (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they're actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you're getting a negative rather than a positive feedback."

[Emp-Mine]

In other words, the models that the Global Wormering proponents have been using to predict them imminent demise of life on Earth do not work in the real world.

I'm not against cleaning up our mess on the planet, but it seems we may have a little time to correct our mistakes without shutting down our economy.
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This is out of Britain, but I think it is relevant to the U.S.

Meet the families where no one's worked for THREE generations - and they don't care

Known as the "Shameless" family among horrified neighbours, the McFaddens "boast" three generations of adults who are not working.

All ten members of the clan share a council house and live off benefits amounting to around £32,000 a year. And very happy they are, too.

Matriarch is grandmother Sue McFadden, 54. "Our neighbours are so snobby - they call us the "Shameless" family and say that we ought to go out to work. But how can we work when we have all these children to look after?

"The only problem is," she says without a hint of irony, "that we're living in a three-bedroom council house, which is ridiculous.

"I'm asking the council for a ten-bedroom home for all of us. We need more space. It's awful sometimes when all the children are squabbling. Still, we do have a big TV with Sky, but we need some relaxation."

My G-d, they don't work, get a gov't subsidized house and an income and it's not enough...they need a bigger house. I wanted to have a second kid, but the money we made at the time just wasn't enough, so we made a choice.

... Grandmother Sue is divorced and has three daughters, Theresa, 34, Debbie, 32, and Tammy, 24. None of the adults living in the house in Ellesmere Port, near Chester, has a job, and there are also six grandchildren living at home - Kyle, 18, Clayton , 12, Tyler, nine, Courtney, eight, Jodie, seven, and Lucas, six.

I guess if you don't have a job to go to you have to find something to do with all those hours. Notice there are only women and children living here, no "Dads"

The one thing that kept coming up in the article on the families covered in this acticle that really struck me was:

"It's my right to claim benefits. We're all entitled to do what we want in life".

"I don't like the idea of having to be bossed around at work and I don't want to go to college or anything because I like to stay in bed in the morning. In the meantime, it's my right to claim benefits. One day I'd like a council flat."

[emp-mine]

It's their right? They contribute nothing towards their welfare or the welfare of their children, but they have the right to expect to be fed, housed and clothed because they just don't like to work.

This is a good time to take a good look at what we consider "rights" and set some hard rules as to what they are.
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I wanted to close this on a light note so I'll pick B# above middle C.