punditman says...
Punditman is back from his holiday and his partial media blackout, and to his total amazement the world is still chalk full of problems. I guess ignoring stuff doesn't make it go away. My God, even
Dick Cheney is back in the news, with more of his crimes being exposed.
Back in May, Peacenik speculated that the lack of mosquitoes on his sojourn into the wilderness meant that the total collapse of the food chain was imminent. Punditman can attest to the fact that this was utter conjecture and has many bug bites to prove it. However, one thing that punditman has noticed is that his allergies occurred later this year. And they are worse. Punditman had allergies as a kid, but he had thought he had largely out grown these seasonal annoyances. Usually Punditman gets a little allergic during June and then his aversion to ragweed and pollen and grass cuttings goes away. Punditman can't recall being this allergic in July since he was a little tyke.
On top of that, we have thus far had a very cool summer (Global Warming deniers always make hay out of any unseasonably cold spells). Even though Punditman wasn't particularly hot, Punditman went swimming while at the cottage. A fellow wader bitched about the cold summer, commenting, "Global Warming? Bring it on, I say."
What does it all mean? Punditman has been developing a theory lately, as follows: the seasons seem to be pushing forwards. But first, Punditman must point out that apparently Spring is arriving early lately, as this
study indicates, which blows Punditman's theory away before he even gets started. But since this is punditman's blog, punditman will ruminate anyways. If Spring is so damn early, why has punditman freezed punditman's buttox off in late May the past few years at kid's soccer games? Sorry, Spring seems late as of late, at least when it comes to temperature. Meanwhile, summer (for what it's worth lately), does seem to go well past labour day doesn't it?
Then there is the famed Canadian winter. I seem to recall skating outdoors long before January in years past. Not anymore. Yet winter (by that I mean snow and ice and cold, not the sucky assed rain and drizel and haze that passes for early winter lately), keeps on chugging along well into where Spring should be ("When will it end"?) Not by April, that's for sure. Of course Punditman could be completely wrong and delusional. Conventional global warming theory has it that overall, summers are getting hotter and longer and winters are getting wetter, warmer and shorter. Of course there are lots of other theories out there too.
Another anecdotal question: are we experiencing more extreme, abrupt changes in temperature, rather than a gradual turning of the seasons, like Punditman recalls from Punditman's youth?
Punditman wonders if "climate change" is a more accurate term than global warming. Punditman is not a scientist and thus has nothing to back up his anecdotal observations. To be clear, for Punditman,
anthropomorphic global warming, is not even a question and it would be nice if we could move on from there, but not everyone agrees, including some that Punditman admires when they write about other things, like radical writer Alex Cockburn (surprisingly) over at Counterpunch.org.
So why did Peacenik not get any mosquitoe bites back in June? Why does Punditman have allergies in July? Geez, Punditman's head is swirling and he is starting to sound like an economist! Something is messing with Punditman's head.
Swine flu vaccine being prepared in a laboratory in Brisbane, Australia, will arrive in Britain in August. But the country already has more than 9,700 cases
