Random Nuclear Strikes

What the hell am I talking about, you may ask? It is the middle of June, fercrssakes!

Well, just an FYI for those living outside the Puget Sound region: It is the middle of June and I do not need all the fingers on my right hand to count the number of days we’ve have had locally which were above 70 degrees so far in 2011.

Hell, I fired up the wood stove again last night.

The answer?

Some unusual solar readings, including fading sunspots and weakening magnetic activity near the poles, could be indications that our sun is preparing to be less active in the coming years.

The results of three separate studies seem to show that even as the current sunspot cycle swells toward the solar maximum, the sun could be heading into a more-dormant period, with activity during the next 11-year sunspot cycle greatly reduced or even eliminated.

The results of the new studies were announced today (June 14) at the annual meeting of the solar physics division of the American Astronomical Society, which is being held this week at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

…..

“If we are right, this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades,” Hill said. “That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”

I’ll be waiting around here for the gullibles, telling me “B-b-b-but the sun has nothing to do with the Earth’s climate! AlGore told me so!”

I read this today, about a young girl who was forcibly sent to a “re-education” camp for gay teens, and while I completely agree with the post & the advice given at the end, it gets me thinking.

I’m very libertarian, and therefore I tolerate (grudgingly at times) a very wide array of behaviors from others that I personally find objectionable even though they don’t cause me any direct harm, and that includes bad parenting. Sure, most bad parenting causes some harm, in some way or another (we are all a bit damaged because our parents weren’t perfect), but for the most part it’s no more damaging than living with a smoker.

But where do you draw the line? When does bad parenting cross over from being standard human error into “you need to be not allowed to raise your own kids”. I know some people who think us gun owners should have our kids taken away unless all of our guns are fully disassembled and locked in a vault (preferably off-site from the home), and clearly I think that is a bit extreme. However, what about the parent who owns guns, doesn’t lock them up, and is negligent about teaching firearms safety? Is the parent who spanks equal to the parent who punches, bruises, or breaks bones? Some say yes. Is the parent who is emotionally damaged (& thus passing on that damage to their kids) as bad as the parent who gets off on destroying their kids emotionally? How do we tell the difference? What about the mom in the linked article? Is she being a good, although misguided parent, or is she outsourcing her abuse?

How do we objectively qualify what is abuse & what is just life not being fair?

From Victor Davis Hanson, leading a military-history tour group in Europe:

Go to Europe and see the left-wing desired future for America: dense urban apartment living by design rather than by necessity; one smart car; no backyard or third bedroom; dependence on mass transit; political graffiti everywhere demanding more union benefits or social entitlements; entourages of horn-blaring, police-escorted technocrats racing through the streets on the hour; gated inherited homes of an aristocratic technocracy on the Mediterranean coast, Rhine, Danube, etc., exempt from much socialist and environmental law; $10 a gallon gas; sky-high power bills; racial segregation coupled with elite praise of illegal immigration and diversity; and unexamined groupthink on green issues, entitlements, and the culpability of the U.S. Drink it all in and you have the liberal agenda for an America to be.