WE ALL NEED TO GET BACK TO BASICS

JUST AN OBSERVATION...OR SHOULD I SAY A SIMPLIAR LIFESTYLE?

I NEED TO EAT MORE HEALTHY FOOD...

THE ONLY PROBLEM IS THAT THERE IS NOT A GOOD FOOD PLACE NEAR MY WORK...IT'S FAST (FAT) FOOD OR NOTHING AROUND HERE...

I THINK THIS IS A BIT OF AN OVERKILL

DO WE HAVE HUNGRY PEOPLE BREAKING INTO THE DRUG CABINET FOR A HAM AND CHEESE ON RYE?

In hot seat, Bush unveils new climate strategy

I APPEAR TO BE AHEAD OF THE CROWD ON HOT TOPICS...THE PRESIDENT HAD BETTER ACT QUICK BECAUSE HE DOESN'T HAVE MUCH MORE TIME...EURO WANTS TO CURTAIL EMISSIONS BY 50% BY 2012 I BELIEVE...THE NEXT HOT TOPIC IS ILLEGAL ALIENS...ARE THEY FROM MARS? WHY DON'T WE COMPLAIN ABOUT THE ILLEGAL CANADIANS AS MUCH AS WE DO THE MEXICANS? THEY BOTH END UP IN CALIFORNIA..IF WE SEAL THE CALIFORNIA BORDER WE WOULD HAVE THEM ALL CONTAINED, THEN WE COULD TURN IT INTO A HOLDING CAMP.. HOLLYWOOD COULD MAKE A NEW MOVIE...ESCAPE FROM CALIFORNIA.

TIME FOR LUNCH

GEE! I WONDER WHAT I'LL HAVE...?

I'M OFF MY SOAP BOX NOW

LETS JUST FORGET ALL ABOUT THIS GLOBAL WARMING THINGY AND GO FOR A NICE DRIVE....

NASA's Top Official Questions Global Warming

IT WOULD APPEAR THAT I MAY HAVE BEEN PREMATURE ON MY EARLIER ASSESSMENT ABOUT NASA...LET'S GET IT TOGETHER FOLKS.

By CLAYTON SANDELL and BILL BLAKEMORE
May 31, 2007

NASA administrator Michael Griffin is drawing the ire of his agency's preeminent climate scientists after apparently downplaying the need to combat global warming.

In an interview broadcast this morning on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" program, Griffin was asked by NPR's Steve Inskeep whether he is concerned about global warming.

"I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists," Griffin told Inskeep. "I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with."

"To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change," Griffin said. "I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take."

Griffin's comments immediately drew stunned reaction from James Hansen, NASA's top climate scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

"It's an incredibly arrogant and ignorant statement," Hansen told ABC News. "It indicates a complete ignorance of understanding the implications of climate change."

Hansen believes Griffin's comments fly in the face of well-established scientific knowledge that hundreds of NASA scientists have contributed to.

"It's unbelievable," said Hansen. "I thought he had been misquoted. It's so unbelievable."

News media inquiries to NASA headquarters about Griffin's comments prompted the space agency to make the unusual move of issuing a news release late Wednesday night.

"NASA is the world's preeminent organization in the study of Earth and the conditions that contribute to climate change and global warming," Griffin said in a statement. "The agency is responsible for collecting data that is used by the science community and policy makers as part of an ongoing discussion regarding our planet's evolving systems. It is NASA's responsibility to collect, analyze and release information. It is not NASA's mission to make policy regarding possible climate change mitigation strategies. As I stated in the NPR interview, we are proud of our role and I believe we do it well."

Hansen, featured prominently in Al Gore's global warming documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," has been warning of the potential dangers of climate change since the 1980s.

In late 2005, he accused NASA of trying to improperly censor him after he warned that Earth's climate might be approaching a dangerous "tipping point."

The agency later fired a public affairs employee, a political appointee of the Bush administration, over the incident.

Last year, many NASA scientists were upset when reports surfaced that the agency had quietly deleted the phrase "to understand and protect our home planet" from the NASA mission statement. The scientists believe research on issues like climate change will suffer as NASA shifts priorities toward exploration missions to the moon and Mars.

"Earth has always been central to NASA's science," Hansen said.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? THE BOYS IN CHARGE JUST CAN'T SEEM TO GET IT RIGHT...

NASA: Danger Point Closer Than Thought From Warming

I'M NOT AN ALARMIST BUT... DO YOU THINK OUR (US) POLICY TOWARD OUR PLANET SHOULD CHANGE? IF WE DON'T START ACTING SOON WHO WILL SUFFER? ERROR ON THE SIDE OF CAUTION MIGHT BE AN ACCEPTABLE OPTION HERE. IT IS BETTER TO DO TOO MUCH RATHER THAN NOT ENOUGH...

By BILL BLAKEMORE
May 29, 2007

From ABC News

Even "moderate additional" greenhouse emissions are likely to push Earth past "critical tipping points" with "dangerous consequences for the planet," according to research conducted by NASA and the Columbia University Earth Institute.

With just 10 more years of "business as usual" emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas, says the NASA/Columbia paper, "it becomes impractical" to avoid "disastrous effects."
The study appears in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. Its lead author is James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

The forecast effects include "increasingly rapid sea-level rise, increased frequency of droughts and floods, and increased stress on wildlife and plants due to rapidly shifting climate zones," according to the NASA announcement.


Recent Climate Reports Underestimated How Soon
By heralding the new research paper, NASA is endorsing science that places considerably more urgency on the need to reduce emissions to avoid "disastrous effects" of global warming than was evident in the recent reports from the world's scientists coordinated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The new NASA release emphasizes the danger of "strong amplifying feedbacks" pushing Earth past "dangerous tipping points."

Scientists have been warning for several years that such tipping points are the greatest threat from manmade global warming — and what makes it potentially catastrophic for civilization.


'Potentially Uncontrollable' Feedback Loops

As the tipping points pass, "there is an acceleration, potentially uncontrollable, of emissions of vast natural stores of greenhouse gas," according to Hansen, who reviewed the study for ABC News today.

Hansen explains that dangerous feedback loops are being tracked in various regions of the planet.

Many studies have reported feedback loops already observed in thawing tundra, seabeds and drying forests.

Hansen also points out that dark — and therefore heat-absorbing — forests are now expanding toward the Arctic, replacing lighter-colored areas such as tundra and snow cover.

TWO HEARTS

I JUST LOVE BLEEDING HEARTS UNLESS THEY ARE A LIBERAL DEMOCRAT

WHO NEEDS A SAIL?

AMERICA'S CUP STARTS VERY SOON

I'M EXPERIMENTING AGAIN WATCH OUT!

IN A VAIN ATTEMPT TO ADD A LITTLE ZEST TO THE PHOTO I USED SOME SCRAPBOOK SOFTWARE...PERSONALLY I THINK THE PICTURES ARE BETTER AS STAND ALONES...

DADDY'S GENETIC CONTRIBUTION

SHE AIN'T HEAVY, SHE'S MY SISTER

THE GIRLS TOGETHER

DADDY'S LITTLE GIRLS

GREAT SNAG....HE DID VERY WELL

UNLOADING A THROW TO FIRST

JUSTIN'S PITCHER'S LOOK

I'M OFF TO WATCH THE BOYS BALL GAME

HOPEFULLY I WILL GET TO SEE A GOOD GAME...JAKE AS YOU KNOW IS OUT BECAUSE OF HIS KNEE INJURY AND JUSTIN IS SPORTING ONE REALLY RED SUNBURN FROM THE BEACH YESTERDAY...YOU KNOW THAT IS GOING TO STING...

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY FROM A VET

WAKE ME FOR THE NEXT MEAL

I FEEL A NAP COMING ON....BYE BYE

DID SOMEONE SAY PARTY?

THIS IS RILEY AND HER MOM CELEBRATING

DELANEY WITH HER COUSINS

DELANEY'S GOD MOTHER AND AUNT DEBBIE

DELANEY DIDN'T GET TO THE BEACH BUT...

ISN'T IT GREAT HOW KIDS CAN BE HAPPY IN A SPRINKLER?

HEY WORLD! THIS IS MY FIRST HOLIDAY

I KNOW IT IS MEMORIAL DAY BUT WHAT IS MORE MEMORABLE THAN ME?

WHY DO I ALWAYS IGNORE THESE SIGNS?

SLEEPY HEAD RILEY

DELANEY THE COOKIE MONSTER

TARA AND DELANEY SHARE A MOMENT

THIS IS THE KIND OF DAY I HAD...NICE

HAD TO TAKE THE FERRY ACROSS

THIS CUT OUT ALL THE HOLIDAY TRAFFIC

GUESS WHO I WENT TO SEE TODAY

YOUR RIGHT! I SAW RILEY DANIELLE

I WONDER WHAT IS MISSING?

TRYING TO COME UP WITH A FANTASTIC IDEA FOR THE WEEKEND, BUT CAN'T SEEM TO PUT MY FINGER ON IT!

IT IS MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

AS WE PREPARE TO REMEMBER THOSE WHO PAID THE ULTIMATE PRICE FOR OUR FREEDOM,THOSE OF US WHO LOST COMRADES IN WAR, SAY THANK YOU. TO THOSE COMRADES NOW FIGHTING FOR US IN FAR OFF LANDS. YOU ARE REMEMBERED...RETURN SAFELY TO US AND THE ONES YOU LOVE. "FREEDOM IS NEVER FREE"...

ISN'T IT STRANGE

ON OUR BLOG AS FRIENDS WE HAVE THE KIWIS, AUSSIES, YANKEES ALL REPRESENTED, BUT DON'T ANY OF US HAVE ANY ITALIAN FRIENDS TO JOIN THE FRAY?

IT'S AMERICA'S CUP AND WE WANT IT BACK!

FIRST IT WAS THE AUSSIES WHO STOLE IT, THEN THE UPSTART KIWI'S TOOK IT TWICE BUT WHO EVER LET THE SWISS INTO THE RACE? I DIDN'T KNOW THEY EVEN KNEW HOW TO SWIM...I THOUGHT THEY YODDLED AND CLIMBED MOUNTAINS OR MADE CHOCOLATE...WE ARE GETTING SOFT I GUESS...THIS IS ONE FUN RACE...IF YOU HAVE SOME SPARE CHANGE TO SPEND...LOTS OF LUCK TO EVERYONE...I REPEAT: IT'S OUR STINKIN TROPHY!

LOOKING GOOD MY MAN

IT THINK HE HAS GOT THE BASICS DOWN NOW...

BRINGING THE HEAT

OH GRADY! THE BALL IS STILL LIVE

JUSTIN'S THURSDAY NIGHT GAME

DEFENSIVELY SOUND BUT WE HAVE TO WORK ON THE BATTING...

NC MOUNTAIN CABIN

LIVING IN A LOG CABIN HAS CERTAIN ADVANTAGES

BATTERY PARK

AS CHILDREN MY FATHER WOULD TAKE US HERE TO PLAY. THIS IS ON THE DELAWARE RIVER IN WILMINGTON.

WHAT DOES THAT SIGN SAY?

GET CLOSER, YOU KNOW I CAN'T SEE A THING WITHOUT MY GLASSES.

WHY DO MY GRANDSON'S REMIND ME OF HIM?

WHERE DO THEY GET THE ENERGY?

MORNING RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC IN NYC

PRETTY AS A PICTURE

RILEY DANIELLE TAKES A NICE PICTURE TOO!