A New Intellect Enters The Blogosphere

Got a comment in my post immediately below this one and it was from a blog author I didn't recognize so naturally I had to go scope it out. If his future posts are anything like his first post this is going to be an enjoyable trip. I'm adding him to my blog roll of Highly Recommended Reads... Welcome "Westword Ho!"

Filed under "Discoveries"

A New Blog

Surfing today with my knee bound up and my foot elevated like the surgeon said, I went over to Dr. Helen's blog. She in turn noted a new blog called Falling Dominoes and suggested her readers take a look. I did and this young fellow Will Conway is a right leaning young man from Connecticut who is now in the blogosphere. Go read, leave a comment or two and welcome him to the discussions. I"ve added him to my blogroll and I'll keep dropping by to check out the new kid on the block.

Welcome Will, glad to have you aboard.

Welcome Liberty Dog as New Contributor

It's my pleasure to introduce Liberty Dog as a new contributor to GM's Corner. G.M. and I recognized Liberty Dog's talent and ideas several months ago and think that you might appreciate the offering of a similar, but sometimes different, viewpoint--which remains always courteous. It is good timing and our good fortune that his schedule opened up when we most need him. We look forward to his continued participation even after G.M. returns. You can get to know Liberty Dog by reading his greeting and biography below and by reading his first post, which you can find below this entry. Until we can get a new identity set up on the system, I will post Liberty Dog's remarks under my name but with recognition and credit given to him at the end of each entry that he prepares. Please join me in welcoming Liberty Dog and make him feel welcome to our group of friends. He starts now.

Posted by Woody at 08:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Do Flame Wars Contribute To Global Warming, Are Paul and York Environmentally Sound? Tune In Beloved Readers

Flame War! Wikipedia defines flaming as: "The motive for flaming is often not dialectic, but rather social or psychological. Sometimes, flamers are attempting to assert their authority, or establish a position of superiority.?" And so it is. On the other hand, we at GM's Corner are not about to let challenges go unanswered because to do so merely encourages the scoundrels (was that necessary?... ed... Probably not, but when I have an itch I scratch it... GM)

Yes, by all means let's talk about Mark A. York's qualifications. First, he is as narcissistic as John "Do you know who I am?" Kerry. Mark brags about "endangered fisheries." This of course he means to imply that he is fighting to save, as he once published in the "DailySundial" wild salmon. But fisheries is defined as:

The industry or occupation devoted to the catching, processing, or selling of fish, shellfish, or other aquatic animals.
A place where fish or other aquatic animals are caught.
A fishing business.
A hatchery for fish.
The legal right to fish in specified waters or areas.

Hah, this guy has a bachelors degree in journalism Not biology, if he has any biology at all, it is as a minor and that requirement is only 18 hours. Furthermore, according to his book, he was a GS-4 Technician.... The lowest of the low, the least qualified of the qualified, so low that a degreed person with NO experience was placed over him in his sojourn to the ANWR and that his work was seasonal. Oh, and his lifetime of environmental work... hmmm, according to his own words (he published this remember): he spent 17 years as a construction worker going from "the kid who always got beat up to the terminator." as he protected the others in his fisheries crew from having to deal with the "tough" oil field hands.

Oh, by the way, that's from his book "Against A Strong Current and you can find an excerpt here: Chapter 7. Interesting book by all accounts... NOT!

Actually, this book is sent to an electronic publisher, not accepted for mass publication by an “accepted publisher�, but printed on order by Xlibris Corp a vanity type press and he rails against Woody and me for unsourced material but where we weren’t being humorous, we sourced just fine. Oh, and by the way, Mark has a screed against the vanity press here: July, 07 which when you read it is hilarious; this guy has more bathos than the Marx Brothers. But I digress, here is a "review" of York's Against A Strong Current:

Refreshingly objective and candid nonfiction concerning an issue at the core of our very existence-the environment.

While others turn a blind eye or are swayed by the powers that be seeking to exploit the
planet, the author is a fearless champion for the planet as evidenced also by the conditions he braves on his quest. [emphasis added, but I couldn’t help myself my gawd, this guy is overweening]

At the core of our very existence. Lion's and Tigers and Bears Oh My!!

That review is a little over the top and I have absolutely no doubt that York himself wrote it using a fake ID for the purpose. However there are two other reviews which kind of put York in his place:

Sorry Mark, but this book needs some first aid. I decided to read it after reading the author's comments in a Rick Bass review. It reads like a stump-filled hillside, slipping, tripping, and falling all over the place. There is no sense that it was edited; there are misspellings, frags, story lines smashed to bits. Descriptions of the beautiful areas are adjective-free. There is also a lot of what I sense as " doesn't play well with others." I'll stop here.............

and

this book lacked any sort of editing on the author's part. seeing as the book was published with Print On Demand technology, he had no editor. It seems like he wrote this in a week -- maybe two -- tops, then just handed it in. Couldn't believe the horrible editing.

Editing makes a book hard to read, skimming over all those errors. Sigh.

Hey, i tried to read it. But... it was just so bland and awful - and that's editing aside.

Atta boy York, slammed twice for your hubris. However, our intrepid enviro-warrior doesn't quit, I'll give him that. Take a look at the sites he has been banned at beginning with mine (yet, he continues to come around). Also here (Roger Simon) and here (Done Deal) here (Press Think - 2 times no less). He claimed to be a "pen pal of sorts" with Bill Clinton He was kicked out of Yahoo Groups. Lastly, and then I'll quit because I really hate having a battle of wits with York when it is so obvious that he is half armed; York was banned from my blog for the use of foul language. He claims he didn't use anything stronger than "ass" and, unfortunately I deleted all the really vile language and York knows it. Unfortnately for York, the net is full of his postings and he typically and usually gets frustrated (low frustration tolerance is a hallmark of lefty trolls) and posts something like this [WARNING - strong language follows]

How pathetic do you have to to (sic) fixate on one website to get control for your sick ideas you ignorant shithead. I’ll tell you what Timo if I could get a hold [of] your sick neck it would be broken. Now that’s a promise you fvcking (sic) ad hom (sic) machine. Is it true because the credential-less tim-troll says it? LOL! What a dickhead. You scared little twit.

with all those misspellings this guy purports to have a degree in journalism? "Ass" indeed! "... doesn't play well with others." I couldn't have said it any better myself.

Which brings us to Randy Paul’s entry in the flame wars. Paul advertises his blog as “A Proud Member Of The Reality Based Community.� Oh my! He congratulates York here:

I thought that I would comment on this bizarre post attempting - with the aid of a right-wing think tank no less - (talk about aiming low and still missing your target) to refute claims that global warming is real, but someone beat me to it and did it well.

Paul goes on to say “here’s a little something about their source� and references a coal baron (one would assume) by the name of S. Fred Singer. Only one problem Paul, I didn’t reference Singer in a realistic post or any other post that I could find so I have no idea where you came up with it. And your reference of York’s post was in reference to my post. Paul, you really need to get a real life. Further, if you were really going to debunk the articles I posted on, then by all means do so, but be sure to cite your sources, not your fevered imagination.

OK, let’s go on to Paul’s qualifications in this little bit of byte-drama. Paul has a … are you ready… degree in F….I….L….M! There you have it boys and girls. A degree in film and a good deal of knowledge about south and central America. That’s it. OK, not quite it. In his next sentence he “proves� that Woody is all wet regarding the cost of removing CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels with that paragon of scientific journals (you know, the one that York always champions) THE … again… ready… here it comes…. a NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL…. Well, I’m sure castigated. Gawrsh as Goofy would say!

Well, the editorial does in fact say that removing CO2 would only be “$1.00 per ton� Only one problem, and that is the number of tons produced worldwide in a ten year period from 1994 through 2003 (and we are using those figures because that is what we will have to pay over the next 10 years if we start on Jan. 1, 2006… let’s see… it’s about 465,528.69 MILLION METRIC TONNES at one dollar per ton (and remember, a metric tonne weighs 2, 200 pounds whereas a ton weighs only 2000 pounds, so a metric ton is about 10% larger. Having said that, and even converting metric tones to standard tons we are talking about $512,081,559,000.00 we are talking about 512 billion dollars; you don't think you will feel that in your pocketbook?. Oh, and Paul, York, that figure is from YOUR guys… the ones that you say BELIEVE in GW.

Paul’s parting comment is “If you can't get the truth behind them they just make things up.� Paul, I propose that reducing the cost to only one ton and hiding the total number of tons is making things up.

But you see, radical out in left field lefties like Paul and Mark are all about that; scare, fear mongering and popular pablum; about purporting theory as fact (actually, to the amusement of all and sundry, that fellow York actually said "A theory in science is indeed fact." I'm surprised he graduated with that kind of thinking... all of my professors would have flunked me if I held that view. Then again, I went to a real university. and have more than 60 graduate hours with a 3.75 GPA, I'm a member of a national honor society as well. York on the other hand, maintained that grades of well, mediocre at best ) and their proposed solutions are the only hope of mankind. Well, remember global winter, the next ice age, how silicone implants caused all kinds of medical problems, how electric transmission lines caused cancer and other dire threats from magnetic currents (which is all the rage now, wearing magnets that is), how cell phones would give you brain tumors in a relatively short time… all debunked, but all part of the fear mongering and the cost of finding out that it was fear mongering was staggering. Dow Corning went bankrupt and spent over 3 billion dollars for the privilege, we spent well over 25 billion on powerline research, money that could have helped an awful lot of kids who were hungry, or a lot of treatment for aids victims in Africa or even on honest climate research. Reality based community indeed.

Update: Some of my readers have gone to leave comments at York's site. He banned them! Bwahahahaha!!! Oh Mark, you are such a dweeb!

A Women's Group - Looking Twice and It Looks Nice

Last week, a women's organization offered a $5,000 prize in a college essay contest that is limited only to female college students and asks "what you think it means to be an independent woman in the year 2005." My first impression was, "Oh, boy. Another man-hating feminist group brainwashing young women." Well, mark it on your calendars, because today I am admitting that I am wrong. I did a double-take and found that it is a feminist organization, but in the good sense, and one in which parents could be proud of their daughters' participation. The group is the Independent Women's Forum (IWF).

In viewing their list of issues, I was surprised to see that they accept that men and women develop differently because of biology rather than society. What a concept! Then, they have a section on the rewards of dating and romance rather than just "hanging out together." There is another section on rights for the women of Iraq. They take positions on a broad spectrum of matters--from judicial appointments to balancing work and family.

This organization has strong common-sense women who can help properly teach young women and further their needs in life and business--without being radical and hating men. How refreshing! You may want to read some of their studies and refer them to others. In fact, suggest to any college women whom you know to enter their essay contest about being an independent woman. There's nothing wrong with that and the way they approach it.

I'm glad that I was wrong today. It's nice to see examples of women being strong without being filled with hate and bitterness. Now if we can just train them to cut the grass...okay, okay--I'm just kidding. Now, go read about them.

The Party Is Just Beginning!

I have asked Woody to continue to post and be a part of GM's Corner. He has accepted... Let the games begin!

Welcome aboard Woody, really glad to have you!

Warning to Criminals - Don't count on Henry Fonda

If you are an accused and your trial is set in the State Court for Fayette County, Georgia during the week of June 13 - 17, 2005 and if you are guilty, you better hope that I'm not on the jury. On the other hand, if you are innocent, you better hope that I am. That's right; I have received a jury summons for that time, and I believe in justice. (Quiz: Define "justice." Answer later.)

Perhaps, there's no danger to those on trial either way. The attorneys never pick me. The last time I was interviewed one attorney asked me if I had any preconceptions of the case, so I pointed to the judge and yelled, "He did it." That'll get you off the jury really fast!

The clerk of court sent me a list of reasons for getting out of serving. Maybe they have already made up their minds on me. However, I feel that it my duty to serve my community and uphold the sixth amendment in the Bill of Rights.

I watched an old movie the other day about juries. It is titled "12 Angry Men" and was made in 1957. One of the stars is Henry Fonda, who is the do-gooder. The story is about a jury of twelve white men (when is the last time there was a jury like that?) who heard a case about a young man's crime. Eleven of the jurors "know" he's guilty from the evidence and are ready to go home to fire up the grills and cook some steaks. But, do-gooder Henry Fonda holds out and, one-by-one, convinces everyone to switch to an innocent vote. He talks about reasons like the kid has had some bad breaks and comes up with suppositions and conclusions totally absent from the evidence presented. I saw some reviews about how good it was, but those reviewers were suckered in by the "feel good" aspect of it rather than the legal aspects. A "Henry Fonda" better not be in my group. I'm planning on cooking out that week.

Now, I remember a good court scene in which Jack Nicholson tells off Tom Cruise in "A Few Good Men" and shouts "You can't handle the truth." I have to say that to liberals a lot.

Does anyone have any tips or stories for me in case the attorneys slip up and select me for their jury? In the meantime, I'll be getting up to speed by watching "Court TV" and watching re-runs of "Matlock" and "Jag." (I had a relative star in "Jag" this season. Impressed?) If Ben Matlock is the defense attorney, the real guilty person will break down and confess before we even get to deliberations.

Just in case, I know I have along way to go, because I thought that O.J. and Robert Blake were guilty when it turned out that they were innocent. With your advice and the examples from California juries, I'm going in prepared.

Play Ball!

Play Ball!