4 Years of Blogging

Recent events caused me to sort of miss my 4th anniversary of writing Random Thoughts Of A Random Guy From A Random Place Up In The Sky. A pretty good summary of the entire health story can be found here in a very good guest written article. So, allow me to crow a bit on this 4th anniversary about what I feel were pretty dang good articles and eat crow a bit about articles that failed.

Last year, I recorded a short video about writing this blog and it was 5 days before the first blood was in the urine, thus starting me down the long road that I am still walking on to this day. A lot can happen in a year. Have I pondered the health thing long enough now? OK, here are a few of the eat crow articles that come to mind.

In no particular order are the following, such as, "Riveting Testimony By Fetus", which I found funny, but has been by far the most ignored. Therefore, it is in the eat crow bin; I mean, only 8 views in four years? Maybe the counter for this one was 'accidentally' shut off. However, this next one was a definite stinker. What the hell was I thinking when writing and then publishing this one? Why didn't I just link the videos and be done with it? Then, there was this failed attempt at satire and political smugness. At least, that's what I thought I was going for, when I should have obviously been going for another bottle. Here, I'm just rehashing old opinions that have been better served and then stapling it to the cause du jour. Very eating crow-ish! Finally, I'll add this one because my gesture was NOT reciprocated and by pointing out that it was NOT reciprocated also shows I can be a bit vindictive at times.

All right, let's move on to the crow a bit articles. Again, in no particular order. OK, I'll admit I like this one because it was the very first and was largely ignored, too. "The Strange & Deadly Journey Of Navy Seal Team 6" is not only wildly popular (for my blog anyway), but I really like how it all came together in a coherent fashion. It's was strange and deadly narrative, too. What's this? More stuff about Obama? Well, for awhile there, him and his administration were a source of a lot of WTF moments. Nothing has happened since then to alter the facts written therein. Well, here is one of the several, "what the hell, this makes no sense, but is being passed off as average news that we won't examine any further" articles I have written. I will also admit I'm very pleased with this series of articles about John Lennon's songwriting and such during his tenure with that obscure rock combo from Liverpool. And just to round things off a bit, here are two more: one where I admit my guilty pleasure of enjoying "Gilligan's Island" and the still bafflingly overly popular post about Mitt Romney eating children. Baffling to me anyway why it's so dang popular. Yeah, it's funny and sort of pointed, but still...

Those are my choices and, as always, the reader is free to pick and choose their own. My biggest complaint, however, is the constant removal of links, photos and videos that can sometimes ruin an article. It's rather difficult keeping up with that and replacing said removals.

It's been an interesting four years as I went from living in Portland to making the huge leap of faith and moving to Los Angeles. Getting cancer along the way is what Mr. Spock might have called, "fascinating". Thanks again to you, kind and gentle readers, for supporting this blog, and I hope you continue to enjoy future random thoughts.

 

Third Anniversary Of Blogging

A way back in 2011, on July 26th as a matter of fact, I started this humble blog. Almost 50,000 of you have read the various articles published herein and even a few of you have seen fit to donate (see below). To commemorate the occasion I made a Vlog! What else would one do to celebrate a blog anniversary?

To donate, click on the link provided.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=CT68F55488X4Y&lc=US&item_name=Random%20Thoughts%20Of%20A%20Random%20Guy%20From%20A%20Random%20Place%20Up%20In%20The%20Sky&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted

ANNOUNCING THE FIRST EVER DONATION DRIVE

Yes, loyal readers, it is time to bump this bad boy up to the top! Another donation drive for Random Thoughts Of A Random Guy From A Random Place Up In The Sky! no donation button this time around, please use the handy link for donations:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=CT68F55488X4Y&lc=US&item_name=Random%20Thoughts%20Of%20A%20Random%20Guy%20From%20A%20Random%20Place%20Up%20In%20The%20Sky&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted

Why a donation drive you may ask? Your humble scribe needs a little breathing room as he continues not only his writing but also his acting pursuits. This breathing room involves a rather unexpectedly large power bill (due soon) and other incidentals that can keep this page (and myself) going. Please continue to read the eclectic material available on this blog post and check out the easy to access pages located right below the wonderfully odd title of this site.

The goal is a mere $400 and when it is met, watch the donations link magically disappear. Thanks everybody!

UPDATE #1
Now a video with Joe!



(photo credit: Tammy Harrel-Fraley)



 

Forget The First Amendment - Jail Climate Change Deniers!

More and more, Anthropogenic Climate Change proselytizers are resorting to calling for either death, jail or lawsuits for so-called ACC deniers. Think about that, it is a slippery slope indeed. The latest outcry for "justice" comes in the form of jail time and lawsuits for ACC deniers on the site Gawker in a "rant" penned by Adam Weinstein. He says, "it's time to punish the climate-change liars".

The author of this inflammatory piece relies heavily on an equally disingenuous article written by Lawrence Torcello who attempts to compare ACC deniers to the scientists convicted in Italy following a devastating earthquake. He points out these scientists were not convicted for manslaughter for failing to predict an earthquake, but for supposedly signing off on a government official's message that after studying a week's worth of tremors the situation looked favorable. This is a major apples and oranges argument to be sure. The scientists were corrupt as opposed to creating ACC models that don't measure up to observation, or conversely, speaking one's opinion that ACC is unlikely.

As I've mentioned before, this crazed idea about jailing and executions is not a new trend, but it does seem to be picking up more steam lately. There is a caveat to Weinstein's condemning "denialists" to, "face jail. They should face fines. They should face lawsuits from the classes of people whose lives and livelihoods are most threatened by denialist tactics". The caveat includes a crudely drawn character, "I'm not talking about the man on the street who thinks Rush Limbaugh is right, and climate change is a socialist United Nations conspiracy foisted by a Muslim U.S. president on an unwitting public to erode its civil liberties. You all know that man. That man is an idiot." Nor does he want to jail, "scientists who must constantly hypo-test our existing assumptions about the world in order to check their accuracy". No, he wants lawsuits and jail for the corporate run denialists campaigns, but included in that he does list, "I'm talking about public persons...for whom denying a fundamental scientific fact is profitable...". There's that slippery slope, because with that remark he is talking about jailing me, and I don't take to being threatened with jail lightly.

For you see, since I've written a few blog posts on this site in which I make clear I don't believe in ACC, but conversely, do not say we should chuck every environmental law out the window, and my site has accepted donations and even makes a few nickels from advertising, yep, that's a threat of jail against me! That's the long haul when someone so blithely sweeps aside the pesky First Amendment. The author of the "rant" also uses some twisted logic by saying he's not stepping on anyone's First Amendment rights because the First Amendment is not absolute. He misstates the famous "you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater" to bolster his jailing ACC deniers argument. Actually, you can't falsely yell 'fire' in a crowded theater. You see the difference?

The final egregious alarmist "statistic" that both he and Torcello use is the over 150,000 people die annually around the world because of ACC. Cripes! That does sound a bit bad. It comes from the reliable folks at the World Health Organization and upon closer examination, the 150,000 people that they claim die annually around the world from "climate change", actually die from weather related causes. Goodness knows I have been on the receiving end of that counter argument, "don't confuse climate with weather" on more than a few occasions. So, here, turnabout is fair play.

Do you really want to go down this slippery slope? Do you really want to jail so-called "deniers" because of what amounts to scientific dogma? Because when you preach the "debate on climate change is over", or the ever popular "97% of all scientists agree" to counteract an opinion or argument against the idea of ACC, you are being dogmatic when you start threatening with the tangibility of lawsuits, jail time and/or executions. If your faith or belief in ACC is so embedded in a bedrock of scientific observation, the notion of someone disagreeing with you should be no more than water rolling off of the duck's back.

Besides, these ranters are also making money off of ACC. So, is Al Gore. They should be thrown in jail using that logic. But they're not "deniers" so it is OK for them make a profit from ACC.