Mark Bossingham

Why they call it 'Climate Change'

Global Warmist acolytes have stopped calling it "global warming" because there are simply too many stories like this that make them look like morons. Many have said that 2008 will be the Warmist's Waterloo and it is hard to disagree. Incidentally it is cold as hell here in Tokyo, they old dog has peed on the carpet twice, count 'em twice this morning and I won"t even mention the other stuff she has gotten up to. What the hell, she's entitled.

DENVER (AP) -- Santa brought just what America's ski resorts wanted -- the best nationwide snow conditions in several years.
From New England to California, the snow dumped in the days and weeks before Christmas. Even Taos, New Mexico. in the desert southwest, had a 60-inch (152-centimeter) base.
"This is our best opening since 1977," said Adriana Blake, marketing director for Taos. The resort couldn't open for Thanksgiving, but later got 68 inches (173 centimeters) in a week. "This is crazy. It never snows like this."

Jiji is getting tired

JIJI HAS had more trouble walking over the last week or so. It hasn't been pretty for years, but now she is pretty much a three-legged dog. Regardless, she is still giving it her best. Here she is on the river walk behind the IBM building masquerading as a duck a few weeks ago. She'll be 14 soon.

Weather report

IT’S BRISK, 8 degrees or so. Driving to Chiba today to trade in lease cars, a twice-a-year procedure. Today the car is blue, tomorrow it will be black. The dog will attend--she likes car rides.
So far OSX Leopard is working fine, better than Tiger. The usual suspects have reported problems with their install/upgrades, but if you load your computer up with a lot of crap, expect the worst. I did a clean install, migrated user data manually and reinstalled all new program versions. Even Time Machine, Apple’s much-hyped backup solution works as advertised. Mostly of use to people who inadvertently toss out a file, delete it and then want it back, something I probably haven’t done in years. I can restore the entire drive via the install CD and Time Machine or so they say. I have also never had an irreversible drive failure.

Fly the friendly skies

HAD MY first flying dream last night. No wonder the Greeks considered them good omens--it was a blast. No Superman, I was only able to stay aloft (flapping my arms!) for a few hundred meters but it worked for me. And then I woke up and had to go to work. I’d rather be flying than editing, I think.

A bit of a ramble

THIS IS a test of the Leopard version of MacJournal. So far I don’t see any problems. The good thing about this is I can send stuff to the blog without all the hassle of opening TypePad on the Web. The problem is, so far I haven’t figured out a way to send a photo to the blog and have it imbed. And I am pretty sure I never will. Then again, some could have and some not, yes?
On another totally unrelated topic. What’s up with the Huckster? A Bill Clinton charlatan, also spawned in Arkansas, he is actually pulling a lot of support among Republicans. Sucks big time. A populist and a phony, he resembles Clinton in that I don’t think there is any position he wouldn’t take to get elected. The hardcore pro-lifers are big on this guy; the national defense republicans (me) are not. He won”t get my vote under any circumstances.
What to do? If the Huckster is nominated I sit on my hands; any other Republican gets my vote. The closest we have to a conservative are Romney and Thompson.
Huckster, aside, all are better than Mrs. Bill, Obama and the Ambulance chaser.

'Golden Compass' on the ropes

MAYBE THE producers of the "Golden Compass" should say a prayer or two for a better box office; doesn't look like the Nicole Kidman-starring flick is doing too well too despite a budget of $180 million. The reviews are mediocre and the audience turn-up is about the same. I have received email from people upset with the author's anti-god message. Rightly so, but the real problem is that when you set out to write propaganda as atheist Phillip Pullman did, art always suffers. While I found his message irritating, it was the form that was repugnant--constantly returning to torture, so much so that one began to suspect that it held an unwholesome attraction for Mr. Pullman.
"Golden Compass" is the least offensive of the three books, the baby-step into his creepy world. It's hard to imagine New Line cinema making the final two books and staying even partially on-message. U.S. audiences do not want to see their friends or children portrayed as monsters in "Redacted," and most don't want sit through a trilogy in which the payoff is the murder of God.