Let’s try to simplify this.

If the planet’s temperature goes up a few degrees, that means more water evaporates from the ocean. The ocean covers 3/4ths of our world, so that’s a lot of water. When there is a storm then, it is often gigantic. Hurricanes can be much worse than before, and snow storms can be huge.

Will this happen every single time? Of course not. But when you look at enough numbers, the answer is clear.

It’s like tossing a coin. If it comes up heads 90% of the time, it’s probably a trick coin or something is unbalanced. You don’t look at the 10% of the time it comes up tails and say “Aha! Look, it came up tails. That proves you’re wrong. The coin is balanced.”

We’ve had record heat the last few years, with summers pushing the temperatures to record levels. In fact, it was just a few weeks ago that we had record warm December days, remember? Further, in Australia, where it’s summer now, they are experiencing record heat waves. Despite all this, at no time has a climate change denier said, “Wow, I guess I was wrong.” But have a cold spell and suddenly they’re all saying, “See? There’s no global warming!”

Ridiculous. If you bring up the record heat, they say “Well, that’s one example; it doesn’t prove climate change.” Then they turn around and use one example to try to deny it.

Sorry, guys, but I’m going to believe the vast majority of climate scientists as opposed to a bunch of people who have no experience in it and who claim that all the scientists are part of some huge conspiracy. Apparently, they believe that the scientists are operating under Underpants Gnome logic:

Step One: Make up data to make people think there is climate change.

Step Two: ????

Step Three: Profit!!!

Editorial cartoon of the day: Hypocritical Democrats

January 5, 2014 by Michael A. Ventrella

Poetic justice for Republicans

A few days ago, I wrote about how the GOP is trying to get rid of the Tea Party crazies that are driving the party into the ground. They’ve lost a bunch of races they should have won because the party has nominated people so far out of the mainstream that even Republican voters couldn’t stand them.

But it’s their own fault, and they should have seen it coming.

Support for the GOP is at an all time low, partially because they are associated with these people who refuse to compromise, spout nonsense as if it were facts, and whose sole purpose is to get people to hate our own government as much as they do. Admittedly, support for both parties and the President is at an all-time low, but it’s not surprising that support for government is at its lowest when a large segment of one of the parties has “hate the government” as its goal. These people should realize that hatred for the government includes them.

The Republicans only have themselves to blame for their condition, because of gerrymandering.

Over the past fifteen years or so, the GOP has managed to redraw the state lines in the most ridiculous way to create as many safe districts as possible for them. By diluting Democratic votes, they were able to guarantee majorities in states where they did not hold the majority. Here in Pennsylvania, for instance, more people voted for Democrats in the last election yet more Republicans were elected because of the strange way the districts were drawn.

So if you are a Republican politician in a district that is safely Republican, you shouldn’t have to worry, right? Wrong.

The problem is with primaries. Hardly anyone votes in primaries, where the parties choose their candidates. You’re lucky if you get a 20% turnout in a primary election. That’s 20% of registered voters, not 20% of the eligible voters.

And who votes in primaries? Just those people who really really care about politics. And if you really really care about politics, chances are you are much more conservative or much more liberal than the average voter.

So primaries give us the more extreme members of each party. Then if you gerrymander to remove even the moderates of your own party, you end up with a voting electorate that is at the very edge of political thought — the extremes of the extremes.

These extremes on the right are represented primarily by those who identify themselves these days as “Tea Party” members. And they think that anyone who does things like compromise in order to accomplish anything are traitors and not Real Americans — even very conservative members of their own party.

So they run “Real Americans” against the incumbents. Incumbents get scared and refuse to challenge them and sometimes take their extremist views in order to stay elected. And ultimately, the extremists win the primary either by electing their own favorite or by forcing the incumbent to come to their side.

However, once the fall election comes around, their numbers don’t increase. Moderate voters (that is, the majority of Americans) turn away from these extremists and elect Democrats instead.

In some districts these extremists still get elected in the fall election, and then they go to Washington and shut the government down, which hurts the reputation of the rest of the Republican party. It drives their poll numbers down and ultimately hurts all of them.

And it’s all their own fault for gerrymandering districts in the first place. Unfortunately, we are all suffering because of it.

Editorial cartoon of the day: Damn teachers

January 4, 2014 by Michael A. Ventrella

Outing politicians

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the loudest opponents of gay rights are often closeted themselves.

And while I think it should be a personal choice as to whether someone should come out of the closet or not (because, really, it’s nobody’s business), there are times when hypocrisy needs to be exposed. I don’t like preachers who warn us not to violate the Ten Commandments while fathering out-of-wedlock children while married to someone else (Looking at you, Jesse Jackson), and I don’t like politicians fighting to keep gays from having rights while being gay themselves.

Congressman Aaron Schock is the latest example. He’s been outed by gay journalist Itay Hod for being a hypocrite. Schock is a Republican who hides his identity from his constituents. Hod argues that the media has an obligation to report this — not because being gay is wrong, but because the congressman is a hypocrite, lying to the voters, in the same way you would report a politician who fights against illegal immigrants while knowingly hiring them.

Schock will join a long line of outed people who fought against gay rights, and will probably lose his seat because of it. After all, Republicans don’t like politicians who are gay.

If only he had merely cheated on his wife while claiming to be hiking the Appalachian trail. Or had been caught with prostitutes while wearing diapers. Or divorced his wife while she was in the hospital for cancer so he could marry the woman he had been having an affair with. Those sorts of things don’t bother Republicans, as we know. Mark Sanford, David Vitter, and Newt Gingrich are still respected members of the party.

But being gay? Well, that’s unforgivable.

Editorial cartoon of the day: Droning On

January 3, 2014 by Michael A. Ventrella

Good news for Republicans … and Democrats

The always entertaining Matt Taibbi reports that the GOP establishment is taking action to prevent the party from being completely taken over by idiots.

“No fools on our ticket” is their mantra, and I mean that literally. They are literally saying that they’re “tired of being the Stupid Party.”

This is good news for Republicans who are tired of losing elections in red districts when they nominate people so crazy that even their own supporters vote for the other guy (or stay home).

I may disagree with most Republicans, but the majority of them aren’t stupid idiots. I have many friends who used to consider themselves Republicans who have seen the party taken over by religious fanatics, conspiracy theorists, evolution deniers, and radicals who refuse to compromise or do the job they were elected to do. They just can’t support the Sarah Palins, Ted Cruzes, and other crazies that are identified with the GOP these days. And who can blame them?

So this change is good news for the party. Maybe they can rid themselves of these people who cheer when the government is shut down, boo heroic soldiers who are gay, and clap when one of the leaders say it’s better for people to die than to give them health care.

This is also good news for Democrats in two ways:

1. It will split the GOP and cause an internal war. This will make it easier for Democrats to get elected in the short term.

2. If it is successful, we may end up with a GOP of reasonable and intelligent politicians who understand that adults get things accomplished through compromise.

And therefore, in the long run, we all win.

Editorial cartoon of the day

January 2, 2014 by Michael A. Ventrella

Not all charities are equal

Libertarians don’t like welfare because they think the free market can solve all our problems even though that has never been the case anywhere in the world at any time. I guess it gives them the ability to say no to things like unemployment benefits, food stamps, and social security disability without feeling guilty or selfish when they say “But private charity can solve all those problems” even though that has never been the case anywhere in the world at any time.

No, what really bugs me is when they say, all superior-like, that conservatives give more to charity than liberals. While that is true, the key question is who the charity benefits.

Conservatives give more to religious-based charities. If you only count non-religious-based charities, then liberals give much more. New York state jumps from #18th most generous to #2, and Pennsylvania goes from #40 to #4.

While some religious-based charities certainly help the poor (soup kitchens and homeless shelters are a great use of charity funds), churches also spend a lot of money on churches. Take the Mormons.

The Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City

Have you seen their religious monuments and churches? All from “charity” and all tax-free. Those things don’t help the poor at all, but are included when people talk about “charity.”

And then the Mormons (and the Knights of Columbus and other religious groups) spent millions over the last few years in politics — filing lawsuits, buying ads, and campaigning against gay marriage. All of that was considered tax-free “charity” (while those of us on the other side had to consider our contributions as “political” which the IRS does not consider “charity”).

Not all charity is equal, and no one should say, “I give to charity so therefore I don’t have to worry about homeless children.” Your contributions may protect the kids against the horrors of two people in love getting married, but it won’t protect them against starvation.