A Little Closer To Heaven

Get that thing outta my sight!

I’ve been a die-hard Snicker’s Marathon bar eater for a long time. Lately though, I’m sick and tired of the taste almost to the point of gagging! No joke. The aftertaste is getting worse and worse. I need something new that I can eat on the go while I hike without making myself sick.

The bottom line: They taste great the first 100 times you eat them. But they leave a pretty typical nasty energy bar aftertaste. Buy em’, try em’, but don’t do either all the time.

So here’s where you come in! I need a new favorite energy bar! What are your favorites? Let me know in the comments.

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I just read over at the blog, National Parks Traveler , that Lake Powell is expected to rise 50 feet this summer.

Reading this article, and others like it, has really got me thinking lately. Now, I realize everyone’s got their opinions on things, but I’ve been really bothered by this whole global warming pandemic lately.

After watching Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, I was amazed at how much it tugs at your heart. Seeing all of the changes that are occuring really can stir up fear about the uncertainty of the future. However, I was disappointed at how little scientific information was used to back up the arguments in the film. It seemed like a bunch of pictures of devastation and change followed by arguments that we need to change the way we live because we are causing all of this, however, there was little proof from the documentary that we are indeed the cause of global warming.

Stay with me here because I’m getting to my point. La Nina has hit the world very hard this year. It snowed in the middle east, it’s been flooding like crazy around here, temperatures all over the globe have hit record lows this winter, the core temperature of the Earth has drastically lowered, the snow cover over the earth is way up, the arctic sea ice has expanded to it’s previous levels , Lake Powell is on the rise, and there’s been no global warming in 10 years . To sum it up, many of the heartwrenching pictures shown in Al Gore’s movies are going back to the state they used to be in. The “after” pictures are turning back into the “before” pictures.

With all of this happening, people are still crying out about global warming and carbon footprints. The average American believes that global warming is still on the rise and doesn’t even know the facts that there’s been no change in 10 years and that this year is one of the coolest on record. When news that the Earth is cooling once again comes out, people blame La Nina and also say that the freak weather proves global warming is occuring.

Here’s what really bothers me. The global warming hype is set up so that it can never be proven wrong. It’s circular reasoning at it’s finest. If temperatures are rising and ice caps are melting, it’s due to global warming. If temperatures are declining, the ice caps are thick once again, and deserts are getting snowed on, it’s due to global warming. Is there any way to prove it false? No, because it’s a circular argument that looks like this:

A (ice caps are melting) is happening because B (global warming) is happening

B (global warming) is happening because A (ice caps are melting) is happening.

If A changes back to normal, we’ll just throw this one into the mix:

C (ice caps are thicker than ever) is also happening because of B (global warming).

Do you see what I’m saying? I know it’s a little more complicated than this, but it still doesn’t add up when you add all of the scientific data available.

Is it totally off-the-wall for me to believe that nature may have a way of course-correcting itself? I mean can we as humans assume that our little carbon footprint on the world is really gonna be the demise of our planet? I think it’s all a little proud on our part.

I want to do my part. I want to leave an amazing world for my children and grandchildren to enjoy. I want to have a small “carbon footprint.” However, I don’t want to be caught up in the latest fad called “being green.” I don’t want celebrities and politicians, the people with the biggest carbon footprints on the planet, telling me what I can and cannot drive, or which lights I have to use in my house, while they take their jumbo jets to the next global warming convention. I don’t want my favorite outdoors magazines having entire issues devoted to global warming. I want to be made aware of all of the facts, not just assume something is happening because it’s assumed. Then, let me, let the entire American public, use their own brains and decide for themselves.

I understand that I may not hold the most popular opinion right now and I’m setting myself up for a flamewar. But I think it’s time we start treating our fellow Americans with some respect. That we start letting people choose what’s best for them and the Earth they live on based on their own conclusions and convictions, not the government or celebrity opinions. People who believe in temperature cycles are not holocaust denyers and they don’t need to be treated like them. They’re smart Americans just like you. And they can figure out what’s best for themselves without being forced into it. Emission standards should not be the primary concern of the next election because of who the loudest Americans are. The primary concern should be decided by the majority opinion…we live in a democracy.

Wow…that’s about as philosophical as you’ll ever see me. I have a headache. I need to go to bed.

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Well, Time Magazine is on the hunt for it’s person of the year and the excitement is killing me. Let’s see who the nominees are…Bill Cosby…James Crosby…Britney Spears…Mother Earth. MOTHER EARTH? Are you kidding me? I’m all about the environment…but this is just ridiculous. I’m pretty sure the ex-NBC Nightly News Journalist is going senile. What is this world (excuse me for using your name in vain, Mother Earth) coming to when an imaginary being is even considered for “person of the year” from an influential magazine? Maybe I’m overreacting, but it’s pretty humorous to me.

You can read about it all at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1689222,00.html

My vote for Time’s person of the year? It’s a tie between Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Both have been very influential in shaping who I am.

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I am so outraged with my neighboring county I could scream! They voted yesterday in a meeting to declare elk in the are a nuisance animal and are allowing “necessary measures” to stop the nuisances. In other words, they’re giving permission to shoot an elk that gets into crops or harrrasses animals. Normally, I would be all for it, but there’s less than 500 elk in Arkansas and most of them reside in Newton County. I can’t speak for the crops, but every time I see elk in a cow field, they’re grazing right beside the cattle.

They should be ashamed of themselves. I don’t think they realize the can of worms they are opening up. Where is the accountability? This is a state protected animal and now it is okay to shoot them with no consequences. It opens up the chance of dishonest slayings of the elk and so much more. Not only that, but these elk herds congregate by the masses…it’s not a single elk problem and it won’t be taken care of by killing a single elk. It took years to get the population up to where it is now and they are jeopardizing all of that for the sake of a few grumpy farmers.

There are other ways to deal with this problem! Use your brain instead of your trigger-happy fingers, people! I guess the good news is this…though the county has okayed the killing of elk, the state forest service has not. Therefore, the first person to shoot an elk is almost surely headed to the supreme court. I just hope the trigger happy hillbillies from Newton County think about that before they decide to take out the “biggun” that’s eating their crops.

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Hopefully all of my faithful readers will forgive me for taking a week off from posting. My life was getting really crazy for a while and I needed a little time to sit back and collect my thoughts. Doing so has helped me greatly. I have a lot of new things to talk about and a fresh excitement about posting again.

That being said, I learned from the Great Outsmores that today is environmental action blog day (I think…). Here’s my environmental rant. I was watching the news the other day and apparently the Arkansas Conservation department is trying to decide what to do about the wild elk in Arkansas. Apparently, these guys have been giving a lot of property owners fits by destroying fences and eating crops. I understand their frustration. I mean I’d be upset if I was losing money too. However, their proposed solutions are even more irritating.

One group is trying to get a bill passed that would make it okay to shoot problem elk. Here’s the problem with that. It’s not one elk…they travel in enormous herds. You can’t kill all of them. Another group is asking that we fence an area off and make an elk zoo. Are you kidding me? People have payed taxes so that elk could be repopulated here in Arkansas so we can have them in the wild…not so we can go to a zoo. Besides, the revenue brought in to Arkansas by tourists and others who want to see the wild elk every year far outweighs the cost of a farm land. My proposal…give the farmers a tax break and possibly help them monetarily for the damages caused by elk.

Here’s what you can do. If you are in Arkansas, write your local congressman and tell them how much you appreciate the elk herd. Let them know that you don’t want to see them killed or put in a zoo. I’m not too worried about the fate of the elk because most people in Arkansas are behind the elk and are excited about their presence. They’re not going to allow anything to happen to them. There’s an uproar every time one is illegaly poached. I was just so upset about the proposed elk control that I could have thrown my tv.

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