As IF Times

link UN process in danger unless world agrees on climate change – Telegraph.

Talk about flogging a dead horse.  Someone is paying too much money for these guys to continue pushing an agenda that has been entirely discredited.  This is reminiscent of the penultimate scene in the classic movie Trading Places with Eddie Murphy when a scheme to manipulate markets is exposed and the two manipulators are undone.  In the movie, the two individuals are screaming and pleading to have the traders come back after the markets have closed and their personal financial doom is sealed.

How pathetic that money is still being funneled into an agenda that has been exposed to have no merit, dubious science and shrinking public support.  However, closer inspection will reveal the real reason this charade continues to live.

The wives want to go shopping.

Yes, the real reason that these junkets are held is so that the wives can visit new and exotic places.  Copenhagen isn’t the hottest of places to shop and undoubtedly, the spouses complained.  “Why don’t you have the next conference somewhere warm and tropical.  If global warming is so pervasive, take me somewhere warm!’

By sheer coincidence, the next great summit of intellectual hand wringing (talk about mixed metaphors) is planned for Cancun Mexico because Palm Springs was sold out.  Really? Not Greenland or Inuvik?  For that matter, why not just do a skype teleconference? It’s a bit more credible to bleat about global warming if you’re  not using barrels of jet fuel, gasoline for limos, paying for fancy hotels and eating cows, which as we’ve discovered, don’t contribute to warming.  I’d be more convinced if the poobahs came to a conference via viking rowboats wearing only hemp garments and meeting in a public square under candlelight.

I’m not really sure who this crowd is catering to when they issue dire and dark warnings, as if the public will continue to take them seriously.  This plea from Yvo de Boer, the head of some goofy committee at the UN,

“… the world cannot afford another failure.  Copenhagen was the last get-out-of-jail-free card and we cannot afford another failure in Cancun,” he said.  “I think if we see another failure in Cancun, that will cause a serious loss of confidence in the ability of this process to deliver.”

How could Copenhagen be the last stand if they have to go to Cancun for the final, final last stand?  I think after Mexico, the wives will want to go to Hong Kong for the final, final, final last stand.  What would be nice is if they at least not call these meetings Climate Conferences but Climate Frauds, or CF’s.  There has been suggestion that they be really called Cluster…. well, never mind.

Update, December 2014  Carbon Footprint in Lima

link Mickelson leads Masters; Kim and Westwood 3 back – Yahoo! News.

The right guy won.  Of course, it’s only golf and it’s only a game, but given the drama surrounding the playing of this year’s Masters tournament, the victory was indeed special and emotional for Phil Mickelson whose wife Amy is recovering from cancer.  It was hard not to join into the emotion as the couple embraced after the victory.  It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, a class guy and a credit to the game.

On another note, the other guy who drew so much attention to this tournament gave a pretty terse assessment of his game in post game interviews:

“…That’s not what I wanted,” said Woods, playing for the first time in five months since a sex scandal severely damaged his reputation. “I wanted to win this tournament. As the week went along, I kept hitting the ball worse. It was not very good.”

and,

“…I only enter events to win,” Woods said. “I didn’t hit the ball good enough and made too many mistakes around the green. As a result, I’m not there.”

A particularly arrogant remark given the depth of talent in the field.  It’s as if he dismisses them all as mere background fillers for the Tiger show.  While Woods certainly is possesed of great talent, humility is certainly not in in his makeup. This fact alone may always tarnish his legacy as much as his interesting personal adventures.  After all that’s happened in the past 5  months, the entitlement and petulance still shows through.  Noticeably absent were any congratulatory words to the winner as a minimum  matter of graciousness, but certainly expected at a place like Augusta.  There very much is an I in Tiger.  By the way, he did shoot a 69; maybe just a coincidence.