Category Archives: Snack Sack

Feelings wounded in Genesee Dam melee

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The bitter conflict over proposed Genesee Dam erupted into fresh hostilities, last week, as several units of the Bear Creek Provisional Army staged a daring mid-morning raid on strategically-vital Ralston Valley.

Fighting turns discourteous

At approximately 10:15 a.m. on Thursday, two regiments from Idledale’s Tactical Assault Command attacked northward up Cold Spring Gulch, blanketing the valley with a heavy barrage of independent geological studies and legally-ambiguous petitions and forcing defenders to abandon their well-fortified but lightly-manned positions.

“We weren’t ready for them,” admitted Genesee Home Guard commander Alexander DeGroot. “Tony Danza was interviewing Dr. Phil on TV, so our line was stretched pretty thin.” Nevertheless, DeGroot was able to rally his forces to make a last-ditch stand at the valley’s north end until reinforcements could be brought up from Genesee Towne Center, where they were sipping flavored coffee and thumbing recent copies of Conde Nast. “It was touch and go for awhile,” DeGroot said. “There was a virtual hail of documents coming down on us. It was the most legally-precarious situation I’ve ever experienced.”

Replenished Neighborhood Watch formations broke out southward in Battalion strength at about 10:45, covered on their southern flank by withering indignation and firing volley after volley of 88 mm long-range meteorological projections.

“We hadn’t anticipated the ferocity of Genesee’s counter-attack,” said Roman Scipio, commanding Idledale’s ground forces. “Their scientific data was clear, concise, and very hard to repudiate.”

At 11:05, just as it appeared that Bear Creek’s forward elements would be forced from Ralston Valley completely, two companies of Kittredge’s elite Troublesome Gulch Brigade swept in on DeGroot’s northern flank, hurling charges of economic imperialism and bombarding Genesee troops with environmental-impact cluster munitions.

“They nearly broke us with their explosive rhetoric,” said Genesee infantryman Bernie Montgomery, sipping a robust Chablis and working through a plate of scallops in cream sauce Thursday night at the Chart House. “They were more like animals than men.”

After nearly 20 minutes of violent oratory and general confusion, a neatly-groomed young couple appeared driving a VW Bug and distributing copies of “The Watchtower,” forcing both warring factions into full retreat. “I barely had time to get home, put my car in the garage and close the drapes,” Scipio said. “No amount of strategic planning can anticipate every contingency.”

Go dog, go – local mushers and their pets race for the joy of it

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In spite of last weekend’s stormy weather – or perhaps because of it – thousands of Coloradans flocked to the high country to play in the snow. Sure, the great majority went to ski, but there’s more to winter in the Rocky Mountains than standing in lift lines and paying way too much for poor rations. On Saturday and Sunday, there was also the Silver City Sled Dog Classic, the last major dog sled race of the year and one of the season’s best-kept secrets.

Despite the sport’s visual appeal, precious few spectators turned out for the Classic – somewhat surprising in light of most Coloradans’ fondness for winter activities and the love all right-thinking folk have for dogs. On the other hand, the sporting grounds are a bit off the beaten track.

Tradition places the Classic in the long, narrow valley at the entrance to Camp Hale, which is often a busy place in winter, though not obviously so. Once home to the illustrious 10th Mountain Division, it’s now primarily a domain of deer, foxes and solitude resting in grand isolation amid the peaks and pines of White River National Forest about halfway between Leadville and Minturn. Nordic skiers, folks on snowshoes, even a handful of snowmobiles can do little to disturb the peace in that alpine fastness. Incredibly, neither could the 200 cheering people and at least twice that number of tightly-wound and extremely vocal dogs who traveled to Camp Hale from all over the Mountain West.

Though it’s not generally known, the region between Bailey and Evergreen is a hotbed of mushing activity. “We hide well,” says Debra Su Stephens who, with her husband Mark, has been driving huskies for 15 years. “There’s probably 30 mushers living within 20 miles of Conifer.” In the interest of clarity, it should be stated here that dog sled racing is referred to as “mushing” by its practitioners, a term linguists believe derives from the French word “marche,” which means something like “march” or “onward” or “move your tail, you lazy mutt.”

In a sprawling fenced compound on their 36 wooded acres off Pleasant Park Road outside Conifer, the Stephens see to the safety, health and happiness of no fewer than 41 purebred Siberians and 6 Alaskan huskies. If that sounds like a lot of dogs, consider that the number is down from the 72 they owned a few years back and a fraction of the hundreds that have passed through their lives in the last 15 years. “The average around here is probably 20 dogs,” Debra Su says, “and I’d like to get it down to about 30, which would be plenty for racing.”

It could take a while to reach that goal. While many of the dogs are effectively retired from racing, they can look forward to several years of graceful retirement and, when they die, they’ll be buried on the property beneath hand-painted stone markers. Though bred and trained to pull a sled, they’re pets, plain and simple. “I always keep the older ones in the house at night,” Debra Su says, “and when it’s cold, I’ll bring in some of the younger ones, too.”

Always dog-people, the Stephens weren’t always mushers, or especially husky-happy, for that matter. “I accidentally bought a husky in 1985,” says Debra Su, by way of explanation. Immediately charmed by the creature’s intelligence, spirit and good nature, by 1990 she and Mark had several more of the variety, a sled, and a new reason to look forward to the season’s first snow.

Inside their home – an original frontier log cabin dating to 1868 – the walls are virtually papered with everything husky. A skillful Siberian breeder, Debra Su proudly displays pictures of both her award-winning show dogs and particularly successful racing animals. Such is the reputation of the Stephens’ kennel, “Snow Runner Siberian Huskies,” that 25 of their dogs are now in the hands of Alaskan mushers preparing for the sport’s main attractions.

Racing at the Stephens’ level isn’t cheap, though. Providing a high-protein diet to 47 dogs costs 600 bucks a month. Add to that the price of nutritional supplements, veterinary bills, travel expenses, contest entrance fees and equipment costs and their hobby – make that passion – sets the Stephens back in the neighborhood of $17,000 dollars a year. The Stephens are fortunate that their business, Stephens & Co. Building Services, provides the wherewithal to keep their animals in kibble. “We sponsor ourselves,” Debra Su said. “We’re lucky, that way.”

Given the price tag, one might think bringing home ribbons and trophies is job-one. In fact, for the Stephens and the other members of Colorado Mountain Mushers – one of two principal mushing leagues in the state – the animals are top priority. “It’s all about the dogs,” Debra Su says. “I love each and every one them, and all the mushers I know are the same. Some people think we beat them; that we’re mean to them. But nobody takes better care of dogs than a musher.”

And not just their own dogs. When the High Meadow and Snaking fires threatened homes and lives throughout large areas of the foothills, the Stephens put their dog truck to work transporting hundreds of domestic animals out of the fire zones, and recruited many of their fellow mushers to do the same. In the process, they founded Animal Evac Volunteers, a nonprofit group composed largely of sled dog racers and dedicated to keeping animals out of harms way during emergencies. “Because we’re already equipped to move and board large numbers of animals,” Mark says, “mushers are the logical ones for the job.”

The truth is, Colorado’s top mushing purse wouldn’t buy breakfast for a decent sized kennel. The real attractions are the excitement of the race, the camaraderie of fellow mushers, and the majestic beauty of Colorado’s wild places. “It’s a very family-oriented sport,” Mark says, “and mushers are the best group of people you’ll ever want to meet.” And, while the Stephens’ operation runs into money, a person can easily break into the sport on a shoestring. “All you need to get started is one dog and a pair of skis,” he says, “or three or four dogs and a second-hand sled.”

Just ask Dick Nichols of Bailey. His 6-dog team is composed entirely of older animals he rescued from local animal shelters. “They’ll never win anything,” Nichols said, “but they like to race and it’s a lot of fun for me, too.”

Next time: It’s soooo on…

My Awesomeness Revealed

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When used as intended, Facebook is not unlike a globe-spanning Freshman rush party.

As I remember them, barely, rush parties were noisy and chaotic affairs marked by skunky beer, sticky furniture, boorish guys, even more boorish chicks, shameless posing and transparently bogus biographical embroidery.

That’s Facebook.

In the second instance, of course, the skunky beer comes in a 12-ounce aluminum can instead of a 7-ounce plastic cup, the furniture is sticky because the garden hose isn’t long enough to reach your desk, and you can massage your curricula vitae as vigorously as you like because there’s exactly no chance your boorish online associates will catch you in an apron and hairnet serving steamed peas and carrots in the dorm cafeteria and deduce you’re not really on a full-ride lacrosse scholarship. Then again, fiction is generally more interesting than truth, and if everyone knew you actually drive an ’87 Plymouth Reliant and how you really spent last New Year’s Eve you’d have no friends at all. What makes Facebook work is that everybody’s so busy pretending to be that fascinating white-bearded rogue in the Dos Equis commercials they don’t have time to notice that everybody else is, too.

In a bold spirit of glasnost, let me take this opportunity to state, here and now, for the record and for all time, that I am not “the most interesting man in the world”, although I’d like to think that if I ever find myself in a Bangkok casino I could bench press two native beauties if I felt like it. But if I’m not James Bond, James Dean, James Joyce, Jesse James and Susan St. James all rolled into one irresistible package, it’s because I don’t have to be.

I’ve got people for that.

A few months ago I got a friend-request from Steve Knapp. I assumed, as would anyone who can still remember the Blue Screen of Death, that it was a mistake; a little glitch in the system; the World Wide Web having one at my expense. I would have ignored it all together except the idea of friending myself momentarily tickled my funny bone. Sure, I thought, I’ll play along. I extended the cold hand of online friendship to myself, and quickly found out that I wasn’t me. I was Steve Knapp of Manchester, England, England, across the Atlantic Sea.

Steve Knapp

Turns out the estimable Mr. Knapp (since we’re like brothers, I call him Steve, or Steve-O, or Dr. S, and sometimes K-Dog) has been on a mission to friend everybody in the world who shares our proud and mellifluous moniker. He’s run onto 62 of us so far, every one a titan among men, and each equipped to supply one or another of my few and minor deficiencies.

 

 

Case in point:

I don’t know anything about cars, up to and including how to safely operate one. Steve Knapp, 23, works at Shuls Express Lube and Tire in the town of Olean, NY, where he spends 40 hours a week expressively lubricating and tiring automobiles. So if Steve Knapp couldn’t grease his car with a lard cannon at 10 paces, Steve Knapp could do it in 30 minutes or your next service is free.

 

See where I’m going with this?

Steve Knapp

If I’ve got two bucks in my pocket, it just means that some online novelty gimcrack purveyor is about to make two bucks. After graduating from Whitefriars College in 1971, Steve Knapp has risen to become executive director of the Mawson Group, a financial services powerhouse in Melbourne, Australia. Thus, if Steve Knapp can’t handle his money, Steve Knapp can.

It’s Nature’s symmetry, I tell you.

Steve Knapp

There’s a Steve Knapp in Mannheim, Germany. Herr Knapp, 32, graduated from Geschwister-Scholl-Schule Hauptschule mit Werkrealschule Vogelstang. His favorite quotation is “das kurzeste zwischen zwei menshen is ein lacheln.” In Manchester, that means “the shortest distance between two people is a smile.” Now, Steve Knapp would never utter such a syrupy saccharine sentiment, and will now try mightily to forget he ever heard it. But Steve Knapp isn’t afraid to let his love light shine.

A warm people, are the Germans.

On a related note, Stephen Knapp, a student at Edison High School in Huntington Beach, Calif., plays on the JV baseball team, says “i no a place were the grass is greener oho”, and claims fluency in English, French, German and Portuguese. Where Stephen Knapp has grown too cynical and indifferent to bother lying about his attainments, Stephen Knapp is willing to make the most transparently outrageous claims without apparent shame.

Steve Knapp

Here’s one for the books – Stephen Knapp of Detroit bills himself as an “Author of Books.” He’s authored 22 books at last count, all of them long-haired explorations of Hindu spiritualism, Vedic traditions, and how to achieve enlightenment in just 22 books. I consider myself more of a Reader of Books, provided the books are really movies and they don’t have any tedious subtitles, distracting dialogue, or confusing plots. What Stephen Knapp’s personal philosophy lacks in depth, insight and illumination, Stephen Knapp’s amply supplies by sheer volume.

Make that volumes.

It’s true. Steve Knapp isn’t a professor of astronomy in New Hampshire. He doesn’t spend weekends flat-boating on Lake Ponchartrain. He doesn’t run his own electronics company, or go to Romania twice a year, or guide raft trips out of Talkeetna, AK, or paint imaginative (and oddly masculine) female watercolor portraits.

Maybe Steve Knapp isn’t the most interesting man in the world.

But Steve Knapp is.

White and Wrong – A kindly indictment

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Anybody who knows me will tell you I’m totally Mr. Christmas.

Totally.

I’m jolly, for one thing, and, as a “winter”, I look sharp in red. I also drink deeply from the cup of human kindness when thirsty, love getting free stuff, and harbor no fear of reindeer such that are properly restrained.

True, nobody who knows me ever calls me Mr. Christmas to my face, possibly because they also know I’m uncomfortable with praise, being subject to so very much of it, but that doesn’t mean they don’t apply that tender title to me outside of my hearing. It just fits, because I love everything about Christmas.

Okay, so I’m not crazy about unloading precious monies better spent on myself obtaining gifts for people who’ve possessed everything they could ever wear, watch, read, hear, and play since I gave it to them at least a dozen Christmases past.

And sure, I could do without the herd of relations flying in from all Creation, looking for a weeks-worth of sit-down suppers, messing up my guest beds and persistently trying to “catch up” in the middle of my favorite television shows.

For that matter, it kind of sticks in my Craw of Peace and Brotherhood that the networks routinely dump all of my favorite television shows each December, replacing them with syrupy seasonal fare that invariably looks cheap and canned in reruns.

And I admit to feeling a twinge of Grinch everytime some Kringle-Come-Lately throws on a free-with-your-fill-up Santa Hat and carries on like they’re Mr. Christmas, when anybody who knows me will tell you they couldn’t muster a fraction of my legendary cheer on their best day.

And then there’s the weather, which usually stinks.

On the other hand, I love Christmas lights.

A lot.

Maybe too much.

Christmas lights are the reason for the season, as far as I’m concerned. Inexpensive to purchase and to operate, the smallest string transforms the blandest landscape into a glittering realm of beauty and wonder. The monotonous paths of our lives are made splendid, the everyday enchanting, the dreary delightful and the mundane marvelous.

I will flatter myself to say that I put on a pretty decent display, myself. I do it in part for myself, because it makes coming home after dark even more agreeable than usual, and partly because Peter, my brother and Cohort in Christmas, wouldn’t hesitate to flay my hide clean off if I didn’t, but mostly I think of dressing up the house in its holiday finest as my own little gift to the neighborhood. It pleases my generous heart to think of the grateful smile that must touch my neighbors’ pursed lips as, wending their weary way home after a long day of drudgery and disappointment, they spy my fanciful handiwork through its encircling veil of trees and spontaneously recommit themselves to Charity and Good Works, and – then and there – decide to bite the bullet and pay for the costly and life-saving medical treatment so desperately needed by whomever passes for Tiny Tim in their impoverished household.

It’s my gift to the world, really, because Tiny Tim could grow up to invent some boon to all Mankind, like bacon-flavored toothpaste, or self-applicating toilet paper. You’re welcome in advance.

I confess that, driving down my street of a December night, I feel a warmth and solicitude toward those of my neighbors thoughtful enough to cheer my passage, and take disapproving note of those so dim of spirit or black of heart that they can’t be bothered. But there’s a third group on my street, and on every street, and they’re the ones to whom I direct this impassioned epistle. I’m talking about you white-light people.

Wrong

One month a year you get to wreath your colorless hovels in sparkling splendor, and you choose white lights. For 31 too-short days you can illuminate your benighted lives in every shade of joy, and you put up white lights. After feasting upon the incandescent banquet that I have laid for you, you go home and plug in a string of white lights.

How is that right?

I mean, don’t you white-light people get enough undifferentiated visual stimulation every other day, hour and minute of the year? Every lamp in your house is white. The flourescent bulbs at your office are white. Car headlights are white. Streetlights are white. Flashlights are white. Your Coleman propane lantern burns white. Even the sun – the sun – is little more than a koo-koo-kajillion-watt, thermo-nuclear yard light bathing the Earth in an inexhaustible stream of radiant vanilla pabulum and keeping the solar system up at all hours.

Show some imagination, is all.

In my book, white lights aren’t properly Christmas lights at all. They’re just really tiny reading lights that you can’t possibly read by. They’re an affront to the concept of Christmas decoration. A broken promise. A cheat.

“Icicle” lights? Who do you think you’re trying to kid? They don’t look any more like icicles than Cindy Lou Who looks like a Bumble.

“Star” lights? Last time I checked, stars come in a variety of designer colors like blue giants, red dwarfs, and green clovers. Truly, you mock the very Cosmos.

Right

Look.

I’m not trying to make trouble.

I’m not proposing that Congress enacts laws criminalizing the sale, possession and use of white “Christmas” lights, and if they did anyway I would be among the first to call for moderate sentencing guidelines for persons convicted on such charges.

It’s Christmas, after all.

I’m not asking for Peace on Earth, or a 92-inch plasma, although I wouldn’t turn my nose up at the plasma. I’m just asking for a shade more creativity. You’ve got the whole spectrum to choose from. Be the rainbow.

I’m begging you.

Color my world.

With All Due Respect

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So the other night I’m watching TV.

I watch TV in the evenings because it’s easier than learning to play the banjo and more relaxing than trying to teach myself Mandarin Chinese.

Mike Nelson was on. Mike Nelson is a weather-guy for Channel 7 News. He’s the highest-paid television news personality in the market. Mike Nelson teaches kids to do the “Tornado Dance” whenever a camera is within range. It’s an uncomplicated step. The kids spin in place, and howl like a gale, and spin and spin, and then fall down like a trailer park. The Tornado Dance is Mike Nelson’s signature contribution to education and the arts.

But Mike Nelson wasn’t demonstrating the Tornado Dance. He was being interviewed by a pretty young Channel 7 news correspondent. She was asking him questions about recent Colorado flooding. Mike Nelson said the floods were “extreme”, and that we could expect more “extreme” flooding in the future, and well as extreme drought, and extreme winds, and extreme calm, and extreme snowfalls, and other weather-type phenomena of frightening extreme-ness. All that extremity, said Nelson, was our punishment for stuffing the atmosphere full of carbon dioxide. It was Nelson’s opinion that catastrophic “climate change” is our doom and we are the architects of our own destruction.

“What,” the doe-eyed beauty asked in conclusion, “is your biggest concern about climate change?”

Mike Nelson was ready for the question. I mean, really ready. Almost like he knew it was coming.

“I think what bothers me most is the lack of respect for scientists,” he said, earnestly.

My Hot-Pocket slipped from my fingers and into my lap, leaving small streaks of tomato sauce on the front of my Snuggie. If I’d heard right, Mike Nelson was predicting meteorological Armageddon, but was principally “bothered” that “scientists” weren’t getting their due props. Who, I wondered, choking on outrage and bone-dry Hot-Pocket crust, wasn’t giving scientists the respect they deserved?

Scientists are aces in my book. From anti-lock brakes to colonoscopy to GPS, scientists have made life in the 21st century an impossible dream of comfort, safety and convenience that would have been unimaginable even 100 years ago. Scientists have made it possible for me to research anything and everything in excruciating detail without ever getting up from my ergonomic chair, and to waste a few hours playing Spider Solitaire when even that stupefying expediency becomes too burdensome. Via the Internet I can discourse at length with people from Denver to Djibouti without having to shave first. The World Wide Web is science as magic, and I’ve never met anybody who didn’t benefit substantially from its creation, or who wasn’t, at the very least, impressed by the quantum leap forward it represents.

No scientists are more deserving of admiration than agronomists. Agricultural sciences have made it possible for Mankind to feed itself. Yes, people still starve, but not because there’s nothing to feed them, but invariably because political scientists have diverted the bounty to other, political, uses. Drought- and pest-resistant strains, improved farming techniques and technologies, and better fertilizers and crop-management strategies have combined to produce annual yields sufficient to the dietary needs of 6.5 billion mouths. While agricultural scientists may often go unsung, I’ve never heard anybody speak ill of them.

Cataracts used to spell the end of sight. Now they’re just an unpleasant afternoon. Both of my parents would be dead right now if not for the stents given them in simple out-patient procedures. For that matter, one in three people of your acquaintance might be dead right now without a helping hand from medical scientists. Ticker gone bad? They can give you a new one. Blood pressure slowly killing you? There’s a pill for that. Cancer – just about any cancer – used to be a death sentence. These days, folks with colon cancer have a 70 percent chance of beating it, and, if detected early, nobody dies of breast cancer anymore. If anyone’s been beefing about medical scientists, they’re not doing it where I can hear them.

But perhaps Mike Nelson was talking specifically about weather scientists. True, weather-wonks take a lot of heat, but mostly because they’re sticking it out there every night at 5 and 10 and their mistakes are so easy to see. And that’s unfortunate, because they perform a helpful service, thanks in large part to the extensive network of weather satellites designed by aerospace scientists that allow them to see weather coming from much farther away than you or I can by poking our heads out the kitchen window. Do I condemn weather-folk for their frequent miscalculations? Absolutely not, and if people tend to grumble when they get caught in a thunderstorm without umbrella and galoshes, they’re typically grateful for a timely heads-up when the morning commute is apt to be on the slickery side. No, if there’s rampant disrespect for weather scientists, it’s news to me.

 Then again, maybe I misunderstood Mike Nelson’s lament. Maybe when he said “lack of respect”, he meant “lack of obedience.” Maybe he meant that we, the great unlearned, should be more compliant to the commands of our scientific betters. If so, then Mike Nelson and I may have a problem.

 The thing is, being smart doesn’t make you wise, and sometimes it doesn’t even make you smart. Scientists, for all their education, for all their insights, for all their focus and knowledge and ability, are wrong precisely as often as, well, anybody else. For every ballyhooed triumph of science, like mapping the human genome, or the Higgs boson, there’s an equal and opposite failure, like Einstein’s static universe, or Windows Vista. Whatever Mike Nelson may think, a science degree doesn’t confer infallibility, and a Nobel Prize in science doesn’t come with a Bat-Phone to God.

And I have to believe that Mike Nelson isn’t suggesting that scientists are somehow more virtuous than we dullards. Any good scientist in the marvelous field of robotics will assure you that most scientists are not artificial beings, but rather are reg’lar folks like thee and me, and subject to the same weaknesses, lapses, and personal, philosophical, political and financial predilections as any other creature of flesh and bone.

Billions of dollars worth of crops are still destroyed each year. It’s not for nothing that about 10 cents of every dollar spent on health care goes to pay malpractice insurance premiums. My computer is still a sitting duck for every worm that comes winding down the Inter-pike. Do I really have to remind anyone about the ill-starred Mars Climate Orbiter? And yes, Mike Nelson and his well-groomed TV colleagues are quite capable of some pretty spectacular prognostic blunders. Right about now a lesser person would bring up the Ice Age scare of the 1970s. But I won’t.

It wouldn’t be classy.

Do the weather-heads deserve our scorn for missing the daily high by almost 35 degrees? Heavens no. If I know anything – and that’s certainly debatable – it’s that the study of weather is, like all natural sciences, hideously complex and only poorly understood. I recall a very interesting feature that appeared in the Denver Post awhile back. It involved the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the handful of hard-working scientists who spend 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, dreaming up complicated weather-predicting models on their computers. It’s their goal that, by plugging all known weather data into their ingeniously devised models, their computers will spit out an accurate picture of the weather to come. It’s a miserable, painstaking, and very cutting edge discipline, and I have only admiration for the people who undertake it.

Here’s the interesting part – every time one of those talented nerds comes up with a new climate prediction model, it has to be tested for accuracy. They test it by picking a recent day – yesterday, for example – then turning back the calendar a week, or a month, or whatever, and applying the model based on previously documented weather conditions. If the model is correct, it will accurately predict yesterday’s weather. In a fit of journalistic competency, the reporter asked how often they get it right. In a fit of surprising candor, the climate scientist told him.

“So far, we’ve never had a model that got it right,” he said. “There’s obviously some factor – or possibly several factors – that we’re not taking into consideration.”

Now there’s a scientist worthy of respect. More than most, the beaker and Bunsen set hate to admit that there’s anything they don’t know. Would that Mike Nelson – who clearly counts himself among that useful class – could muster such humility. Because if I interpret the subtext of Mike Nelson’s statement correctly, and I think that I do, it’s his position that anybody who doesn’t automatically and utterly accept the scholarly conclusions  about climate change reached by Mike Nelson for no better reason that because It Is He Who Hath Sayed It is guilty of disrespect at best, and at worst of willful ignorance.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a scientist, nor have I ever been credited with the invention of a vomit-inducing dance for pre-adolescents. On the other hand, I don’t believe I’m more stupid than my fellows, and if the foremost scientists working in the field of weather prediction can’t accurately foresee weather that’s already happened, then I can’t in good conscience get behind an economy-crushing carbon tax, or paying Third World countries for permission to turn up my thermostat, or henceforth riding my bicycle to the grocery store, purely on the say-so of an engaging on-air personality whose chief professional responsibilities are reading from a teleprompter and looking good in a suit.

No disrespect intended.