Thermostat or Calendar?

My Dad had always said that one must use the right tool for the right job.  He did not like it when, for example, I got a wood-burning set for my birthday, and used the wood-burning tool to melt solder (even though it was constructed like, and operated on the same principle as, a soldering iron).  And with Dad, you didn't even think of using any heavy implement other than a hammer to drive in a nail.

Seems that the folks at the college where I teach are using the wrong tool for the job of climate control.  In the New York City metropolitan area, including my own hamlet on Long Island, we have a freeze watch up, with ambient air temperatures considerably below the norm.  But at the College, they cannot turn on the heat because it is already past first day of April, when the heating system is shut down, but before the air conditioning system is fully up and running.

This wouldn't be so bad, except that in one of the buildings where I happened to have had classes two semesters ago, the internal climate control system (term used very questionably) was actually pumping cold air into the classrooms.  This, of course, elicited complaints from students and faculty alike.

But one of the faculty members whose English classes were so affected happens to be a flaming global warmist, and (at least heretofore) is very quick to inject it heavily into her lectures and assignments.

I only hope that at least a few of her students have not surrendered their thinking and reasoning functions (which seems to be more and more the norm at America's institutions of higher learning), and have the courage to question her when she starts again with this global warming pap.

As for me, I have not yet shut down the pilot to my furnace, so, if need be, I can flick the switch and have my heating operational almost instantaneously.

 

It is Wrong to Gloat over Someone Else's Misfortunes

And so, I am not gloating over someone else's misfortunes.  But sometimes, the act of not gloating presents some formidable challenges.  Like when the person who is now incurring the misfortunes is (A) a soapbox global warmist who, not too many months ago, dressed me down and called me a stupid ignoramus for believing that the fears of global warming are grossly exaggerated and that the anthropogenic component of any supposed changes in weather and climate is minimal; and (B) this person lives in Boston, which is now on the receiving end of some very, very frigid winter weather, the likes of which have not been visited upon the city in many, many years.

So no, I am not gloating over my wife's Cousin Diane being stuck in Boston and getting her buns all frozen by weather conditions that are the antithesis of global warming.

Diane, I know that Long Island isn't all that much warmer than Boston (though we have gotten much less snow these past weeks), and it certainly isn't the tropical paradise of Miami.  But if you and Marc and the kids want to visit us on Long Island for whatever respite it gives you from the cold weather in Boston, we would certainly be pleased to have you as our guests.

And if you don't mention anything about the ambient outdoor temperatures, then neither shall I.

 

Politically Correct GPS

 We are, as always, having a wonderful and meaningful time during our stay in Israel.  We have rented a car, which we drove from the airport.  For $5 a day we added on a GPS device (with an English option), which all in all has been extremely helpful.  We were able to go visit my wife's plemenitza last night, who had some of her brothers and sisters and their families over; about 25 persons, mostly below the age of 10.  Religious Jews, making lots of kids, to catch up on that setback from Hitler's failed master plan.

Proportionately speaking, there seem to be a lot less shmucks on the roads of Israel than in America.  Not that there are zero; not by any means.  But the drivers here know that they are driving in order to get to some place, and that there are others with whom they share the road.

Okay, so we did encounter a shmuck last night on a narrow Jerusalem street, who was going in the opposite direction from us, and who refused to pass us so that we could proceed, even though he had clear road ahead of him beyond the constriction his car occupied.  While my Hebrew comprehension is good when I read the written word, my conversational Hebrew leaves much to be desired.  This particular driver sounded as though he was from somewhere in the former Soviet Union.  So I spoke to him in Italian.  Well, I didn't actually speak to him, I just gave him a hand gesture used by my Italian-American friends to indicate disgust and dissatisfaction.  Then, the drivers of the cars that had lined up behind him began to grow impatient, and they all started hitting their horns.  Eventually he moved, thereby unblocking me and the cars behind me.  I suppose that a shmuck driver level of zero percent is, as a practical matter, unachievable.

Some of the traffic circles in Israel (which the GPS people call "roundabouts," and which in Hebrew are called "kikarim") no longer exist, and, conversely, some of what were ordinary intersections have been made into roundabouts, and the GPS has not yet been updated.   These are but minor glitches, which we are able to surmount with a small dollop of common sense.

EXCEPT …

Except that political correctness has really, really made bollixed up our routine today.

This morning, we checked out of our hotel in the Holy City of Jerusalem, and proceeded to visit my wife's friend (whose late mother was a client of mine), who lives in an area considered the Jordan Valley, which Kerry and Obama are pressuring Israel to give to the terrorists in the so-called peace process.  The GPS informed us that the location was out of its range (though it did get us there).

That wasn't so bad, at least not at that point.  We had a delightful visit with our friend until noon, when she had to leave for her job.  We then proceeded to visit our son, who currently is based out of a locale in the north of Israel.  Instead of taking us up the usual road that parallels the Jordan River (which is in the politically incorrect territory), the GPS routed us out west through Tel Aviv, then up the coastal highways, and then back inland near Haifa, easily adding more than an hour to our trek. 

Actually, I sort of understand this.  I can easily envision some attorney for the GPS manufacturer sending out a memo expressing concern that some American tourist who gets routed to an Arab village will sue the GPS people.

[I shall not now comment upon the number of carbon debits the global warming apostles should claim from the GPS people on account of the increased fuel consumption from the politically-correct GPS.].

Is this anything Earth-Shattering?

There seems to have been an upsurge in seismic activity over the past few weeks, what with the big earthquake in China, a minor earthquake in Israel, earthquakes in Spain, Baja California, Sumatra, the Andaman Islands, Solomon Islands, Chile, et cetera.

And, the volcanoes are erupting. In addition to the one in Iceland that has disrupted transatlantic travel, the Redoubt Volcano in Alaska has erupted, as has Mt. Etna, and volcanoes in Indonesia and Japan.


Queries:


1. Might G-d be sending us all some sort of message? Or, conjecturing to the extreme, might the effective shutdown of aviation traffic be part of G-d's plan to thwart terrorists who now actively seek to come to America to do mischief? Perhaps we'll never know.

2. Regardless of whether and to what extent this affects global temperatures, and what greenhouse gases are or are not released into the atmosphere, what is the official party line from the global warming priesthood and its acolytes? Is this upswing in seismic activity due to human activity? Might the proper legislation and international treaties have prevented it and/or control it in the future?

Just wondering!