It's Cold (even if they say it isn't)

With record low temperatures there was no real opportunity to get outside and enjoy bicycling. Or was there? How about heading down to the Winter Games in Fish Creek, WI. Even with temperatures dipping to minus 3 ambient and minus 25 with wind chill a few brave souls battled the elements by entering the Bicycle Toss competition. Elvis could only handle a few minutes outside on the frozen bay but he did see a guy toss a bike 52 ft. 3 inches.





Elvis' youngest will not be in school tomorrow. Why? Wind chills are dropping to 35 degrees below zero. I've been on the planet for a long time and never did I get out of school because it was too cold. And aren't we being told that it's getting dangerously warmer? All of this makes Elvis question the intelligence of the global warming fear mongers who decided to release their major report in the dead of winter. Wouldn't this get better play in the dog days of summer? I mean it, can they really be that smart if they're that stupid?

____________________________________________________________________

Create Fear and Panic and Get Rich At The Same Time

The scientists who stand to get rich with the global warming scare released a report filled with loose deductions, dire predictions and blatant fear mongering. Why would these scientists do this? Easy. A recent report showed that 57% of Americans are "concerned over global warming". Why are we concerned? Because the media has been pounding this issue for years now. It seems as if you can't have a conversation about anything these days without someone shrugging their shoulders and saying, "global warming". Weather, fuel prices, food prices, earthquakes, vacations, salaries, kids behavior, Da Bears Super Bowl loss (rain), whatever. 57% of us might be concerned but less than 1% of us understand global warming (it also proves the theory that once you've got an anecdote you can throw away the data). This is a major disconnect and one that will lead Congress to appropriate large sums of money to the institutions and universities where these scientists reside. The scientists will get higher pay, better offices, cuter lab assistants, better equipment, cool electronic stuff, worldwide travel and their names front and center in newspapers, on television and in books. (Scientists on both sides of this issue are playing the same 'get rich quick' game. Go HERE to read how they disagree, and in fact admit to not understanding what the implications are of the increasing ice in the middle of ice sheets and the decreasing ice on the edges.)

We like to think of scientists as benevolent workaholic lab rats whose lives are dedicated to making society a better place. But the fact is, the scientific community is as cut-throat and competitive as Wall Street. Getting a major grant can make a career. Getting a cushy tenure at a swanky university can make you rich. And global warning is doing both for a lot of these people. These are also the same people that predicted global COOLING in a 1975 Newsweek report, HERE (Funny thing about the article referencing the Newsweek report. The author's been so jaded by the global warmers that he even states that the 1975 article isn't 'wrong' it was only a miscalculation, something that surely couldn't happen today)

If the world is becoming warmer, and no one knows for sure, Elvis Kennedy believes that it is due to natural sources like, say, the Sun. The Sun, with it's solar flares, dark spots and radiating heat and emissions have a huge impact on our world. In fact, our world wouldn't exist as we know it today if not for the Sun. Ice ages, warm periods, life and death are all a result of the Sun's watchful glare. Only human beings would be so audacious to suggest that their puny little activities could somehow significantly impact our planet or solar system. And secondly, none of the possible effects of such warming will be felt by you or me. It'll be centuries before any significant changes will occur to our climate or sea-levels. And by then humans will have adapted - like we always do.

So it's shameful for the greedy and self-serving scientists to toss out dire predictions such as; world wide famine, riots, unbearable heat, drought, flooding (take your pick), and so on when the truth is that they are taking bits and pieces of information and then running them together in computer models to show the worst possible outcome.

And don't forget; many of these people are meteorologists. You know, the same guys and gals that will pontificate with their 10-day weather forecasts but in reality have no idea what tomorrow's weather will be. Even if we remove competition from the equation the scientific community is only as good as what they can observe and understand. Thunderstorms and lighting are created by angry gods, the sun (and everything else) revolves around the earth, acid rain will end life on earth, you will die of SARS, mad cow and/or avian flu, sticking leeches on your skin will cure any disease. Oh, and the world is flat.

_________________________________________________________________

Notes on the Super Bowl

- Bears Coach Lovie Smith, lauded all week as a genius for sticking to his beleaguered quarterback, Rex Grossman, looks like an idiot today.

- After the opening kick-off was returned for a touchdown the Colts screwed around by using the squib kick on kick-offs which resulted in the Bears average starting position being the 38 yard line. Why not just kick it out-of-bounds and give them the ball at the 40? Then there is no chance of a return.

- With a little over ten minutes left in the game and down by 12 points the Bears were still in their normal huddle offense and took their time about it. How many chances did they think that they were going to get? Why are you letting the clock run down? Additionally, the Bears offense had shown little signs of life and maybe a no-huddle offense would have woken them up. Grossman was tentative all game and this could have been the spark for him.

- Conversely, with about nine minutes to play Indy, instead of running the clock out, choose to go pass-wacky. Starting at 9:08 remaining; incomplete pass, sack, short run on third and eighteen, punt. Time off the clock? 1:22, and that included a delay of game as Indy wanted better punting position. Had they gone run, run, run they would have taken at least 3:25 off of the clock. That's two extra minutes the Bears had to work with. Luckily for for Indy the Bears were just as ineffective. If the Bears had made a run for it those two minutes would have loomed large.

- With fourth down on the Bears 16 yard line the Colts choose to hand off to the half-back instead of kicking a game icing field goal. Indy was up by 12 and two Bears touchdowns would have stolen the game. With Indy up by 15 the Bears chances were much slimmer. Sure, the Bears had shown nothing on offense up to that point but it was still possible. Indy coach Tony Dungy likes to win with grace and that's a good thing, especially in this era of flash and dance. It was a foolish decision nonetheless.

- The ads were lackluster. This makes Elvis long for the days when Cindy Crawford was in two of every three Super Bowl commercials (or so it seemed but in any event a good excuse to run her picture (below)).

- CBS did a terrible job with the broadcast. The sound levels were constantly going up and down, the music or crowd noise was often louder than the announcers. And why-oh-why didn't your $500K HD cameras have $99 hoods on them to keep the rain off of the lenses?

- 53 men make up the active roster of the Indianapolis Colts and yet CBS kept the cameras (yes, multiple camera angles) on one guy, Peyton Manning during the entire post-game show. Yes, he was the game's MVP but he didn't do it alone.

- Is there a more fortunate NFL player than Indy kicker Adam Vinatieri? Five Super Bowls and four rings in only eleven years. His only Super Bowl loss coming at the hands of the 12-time Word Champion Green Bay Packers in Vinatieri's rookie year. Will he join Jan Stenerud as the only other placekicker to be enshrined in pro football's Hall of Fame? He has had two game winning kicks in Super Bowls and in both of those games glamour boy Tom Brady received the game MVP award instead of Vinatieri. Will the Hall of Fame, just like Super Bowl MVP award voters, continue to over-look kickers in favor of glamour positions like quarterback and running back?

- The Bears still suck