Pluto Demoted

Seventy years after the discovery, of what everybody thought was a small planet on the outer edges of our solar system; scientists have decided to demote this thing we call Pluto, from planet, down to dwarf planet.

Just like that. After almost four generations of teaching elementary school students that our solar system has nine planets, teachers will begin teaching children there are only eight. As another comic once said, "You should go back to your grade school teacher, and demand that your test be re-scored, because you might have gotten an A." There isn't even enough time to get textbooks re-printed before the school year starts.

I didn't know that the International Astronomical Union had the authority to do this. I thought the Nine Planet Solar System was a hard rule -- more fact than theory. Nine planets are what I always imagined extra-terrestrial astronomers were observing, from their craggy faraway telescopes. In every science fiction movie I've ever seen, the aliens refer it as "A Nine Planet Solar System, full of creatures you call 'Humans'". Turns out, it was just a simple bureaucratic convention, subject to change without notice.

Astrologers are highly dismayed, since Pluto plays a very important part in Astrological charts for the Scorpios. Astrology supposedly dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, but the practitioners ascribed great powers to this planet, that wasn't even as old as Laurel and Hardy films. How powerful can it be, when it is invisible to the naked eye? (I imagine the decision to downgrade Pluto would have been different if Astrologers had a seat or two on the IAU board.)

Science is obviously a highly flexible and constantly changing group of theories. Rather than being a hard discipline like Mathematics, it is based on continual questioning, discovery, and revision. In just the past 150 years we've learned that our ancestors were monkeys, there are particles smaller than atoms, and a huge explosion started it all.

Many things that were taught just a few generations ago, are now disputed. When Pluto was discovered in 1930, Geologists still believed that the Continents were fixed and immobile; today we know that they ride around the Earth on tectonic plates. Time was regarded as a constant, until Einstein suggested that it could actually be slowed down, by traveling very fast. (Standing in stark contrast to the adage: "Slow down, you'll live longer.") Dinosaurs, were once thought to be cold-blooded reptiles like Robert Blake, but are now considered the warm-blooded ancestors of birds.

So too, will our perceptions change about Global Warming. The modern theory is that CO2 has been warming up the atmosphere. Perhaps years from now, when the current upward temperature trend reverses, scientists will change their opinions. I suspect such is the motivation to replace the term "Global Warming," with "Climate Change." The Environmentalists are all repositioning themselves, in case they have to make an abrupt U-turn.

Scientific consensus may seem slow, but it reverses quite quickly relative to Government. In 1898, back when time and continents were fixed in an eight planet solar system, Congress came up with a novel idea to fund the Spanish American War. A penny tax, was placed on each American phone call. Since only the rich people had phones back then, it was never supposed to affect the Average American, and passed through Congress, quicker than a diseased hog through a Chicago slaughterhouse.

One hundred years after that Nine Month War was over, in a Nation under Pluto, the tax was still being collected. No longer just a luxury tax, since phone ownership is practically universal, it cost consumers over six billion dollars in 2005. The tax was not rescinded until June of this year, after decades of pressure and lawsuits, from public interest groups and phone companies.

Right now, there are some who claim that scientific consensus has determined that Climate Change is a hard fact, and the government must take immediate measures to avert catastrophe. Since those measures will likely last a Century or more, perhaps, we should exercise patience. There is a very good chance that any legislation passed today, will far outlive any scientific consensus. Hence, caution demands we move at the speed of the Continents.

As Teddy Roosevelt used to say, "Remember the Maine."

Send in the Hurricanes

Hurricane season? What Hurricane season? As we approach the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, something very interesting is missing from the Headlines: Hurricanes. So far this season (which is now almost two months old) there has not been a single hurricane in the Atlantic Basin. in fact, there have only been three tropical storms -- well below average.
Most disappointed by the lack of News is Presidential candidate Al Gore, who had spent a good portion of the Spring positioning himself as an expert on Global Warming and Hurricanes. The relatively thick former Vice President, who has been spending his days out of office trying to make everyone forget that he was part of the only modern administration to be impeached, has been jetting around the planet, telling everybody else that they're destroying it.
I imagine that his press agent, thought she would have phones ringing off the hook with interview requests by now. Most probably, she has become quite adept at sinking the paper wad into the wastebasket from across the room. As lonely, as generator salesmen on the morning of January 1, 2000. she is probably busy, drafting a plan B.
This season highlights a major flaw with media: A crisis always makes news, but the lack of crises, never gets mentioned. For instance gas prices have dropped close to thirty cents in the past week or so, but unless you pay cash for gas, you probably didn't even notice. There were no news reports on generous oil companies lowering their prices. A crime interrupted by a handgun owner rarely makes the news, but a handgun accident always will. It doesn't mean that gas prices only rise, and handguns only hurt people, but if you don't read between the lines, that's certainly what you would believe. Since good news, is not news, people who pay attention to it, get a very pessimistic bias.
If you remember from last year, the Left told us, Katrina was undeniable proof that Global Warming is a reality. If that was true, then what are we to make of this year's unremarkable season? Is it evidence that Global Warming is over?
It might be. According to WeatherStreet.com: "In a research paper being published next month in Geophysical Research Letters, scientists will show that between 2003 and 2005, globally averaged temperatures in the upper ocean cooled rather dramatically, effectively erasing 20% of the warming that occurred over the previous 48 years."
Kind of takes the wind out of the mills, of those who claim that the damage has already been done, and is irreversible. Turns out, the Environmental Prophets of Doom were just guessing, and for a couple years, they guessed right.
It's nice to know that the Democrats are very unreliable prophets. We can all take a sigh of relief knowing that their predictions of re-taking the House and Senate this Fall are probably just as specious.

More Equal Than Others

While I don't pretend that the Democrats have a monopoly on hypocrisy, it certainly seems that the Left has a more difficult time avoiding it. Some of the most vivid images of the former Soviet Union was Party leaders dining on fine caviar, while workers in the Ukraine were allowed to starve to death. Premiers toasting with fine wine, while citizens were being admitted to hospitals for drinking brake fluid. These pictures of Communism captured the unachievable nature of a classless society.

By their marriage to the ideal of a egalitarian Nation, " the Left is forced into the same corner. Especially now, that the environment is becoming the major issue for the Democrat Party. It seems that Global Warming is an issue that the Democrats think they can win on, and they have been pushing it pretty hard.

Unfortunately, their solution to Global Warming is conservation, and conservation requires sacrifice. Real environmental sacrifices are completely foreign to a group of politicians who have become accustomed to riding around in limousines and private jets. It's easy enough to wag their fingers at the soccer moms and NASCAR dads, who prefer larger vehicles to haul the kids and dry wall, but when it comes to getting themselves to a speaking engagement, they like the limo warmed up, and the A/C on high. In recent posts, I've illustrated this behavior coming from unlikely Movie Star, Al Gore, to the Quivering Heroin Addict, Robert Kennedy Junior. New to the lineup of environmental hypocrites is none other than the Halle Berry of the Senate, likely Presidential candidate, Barack Obama.

According to Matt Drudge, Barack appeared at a Town Hall meeting, where he stressed the importance of driving smaller cars. After applause and handshakes, he was escorted out to an idling GMC Envoy. Made aware of the apparent contradiction by local TV News, Obama's campaign advisor said that it was an E-85 Envoy that burned mostly Ethanol. Which sounds pretty good. Except, GMC doesn't make an E-85 Envoy.

Like George Orwell stated so brilliantly in Animal Farm: "Some .. are more equal than others."