As IF Times

link Flowers losing scent due to climate change.

Ok, now it’s getting serious.  For lands to flood, habitats to disappear and glaciers to melt are bad enough.  But now for flowers to lose their scents?  An abomination.

Kudos to these scientists for uncovering yet another major calamity about to befall mankind as a result of global warming.  The discovery of this new phenomenon now edges out some others on the list of issues of urgent importance to mankind.  More specifically, it comes in at a firm 187,778th position after smelly feet syndrome and before excessive nasal hair. 

Special mention should be made of the scientists’ acuity of reasoning which enabled them to attribute the loss of floral scent directly to global warming. The confidence with which they were able to conclude this surely qualifies them for some kind of award or at the very least,  a fancy floral arrangement.

The article goes on to describe the ‘butterfly effect’ of this condition, leading the reader to conclude that massive impacts on food production will result unless science steps in to modify genes in plants to avert catastrophe.  While I’m all for the application of science to help out with issues that affect mankind, history has shown that the earth’s ecosystem has its own  order and means of working out excesses and shortages.  Amazingly this happens even without the input of humans.

Fairly recently, in Canada’s north, someone concluded that wolves were endangering the caribou population and therefore justified targeted killings to cull the wolf population.  There are those who believed that doing so would upset the natural predator/prey balance and that the caribou population would grow larger than would otherwise be naturally sustainable.  So? Well, it turns out that caribou and certain deer are carriers for parasites that are lethal to boreal growth, which of course creates a whole new set of problems. 

If we believe modern science, organisms have a way of adapting to their environments though not always in a way that is considered favorable.   If there were scientists around a few million years ago, they’d be fretting that fish were sprouting legs and were adapting to land life. If the global warming crowd were around then, they’d be panicking that all fish would evolve themselves out of existence.  In any event, with regard to the ‘defragrancing’ of flowers, maybe the scientists can work on the smelly feet problem.

link Boy Charged in Wal-Mart Bias Case in New Jersey – NYTimes.com.

Really? This is news? No less than the NY Times finds this bit of boorish behaviour national news?  Some 16 year old kid does something stupid in an ill advised stunt and just because it happens to be in a Wal Mart, it rates a national level tsk tsk?  All of a sudden, racism is running amok and Wal Mart is complicit by not having safeguards to stop it?

While no one condones this kind of boorish behavior at any age, not every slight against minorities is national news.  The media continues to push the PC agenda by this kind of selective sensationalist reportage.  Consider some of the lyrics in most rap songs, which contain much more inflammatory language directed at blacks, whites as well as vulgar misogynistic references.  This kind of stuff is celebrated as art and people make money from it.  Far from being intemperate adolescents, the artistes who inflict this stuff on society actively create this kind of crapola, the more offensive, the better. 

In the Wal Mart incident, would there have been as much outrage if the miscreant was a black teenager getting on the PA and telling all whites to leave the store?  It may have rated a mention in the Gloucester County bugler next to the bake sales ads.  It is also doubtful that the kid would be facing a year in jail as a consequence.  What if it was a gay person telling all non gays to leave the store?  Stupid and asinine behaviour of course, but hardly a federal case.