MC

But isn't part of securing a trophy wife the expectation that you can PROVE you are still virile by spawning?

LOL. He's not THAT old! I went to college with him.

 

LOL! Well, MC, you TOO have grown kids, right? Did you know Cindy as well?

 

I didn't know either of them while I was there, but Cindy was Snow White (I think?) at Disneyland while I was a lowly food service worker. (I did get to be a gypsy at Knotts Berry Farm though - that was fun!) I think they may have started having kids earlier than I did but yes, mine are out of the house now :)

But isn't part of securing a trophy wife the expectation that you can PROVE you are still virile by spawning?

LOL. He's not THAT old! I went to college with him.

I chose Winslet. I don't think it should be about being around to get another chance. It should be about the performances given this year. I hope Sean Penn wins for Best Actor. He was phenomenal in Milk. If Rourke is in a position where nobody will give him a chance at a good role now, even after The Wrestler, then he certainly isn't the kind of actor who deserves an Oscar, in my opinion.

Well, you know what they say.... no publicity is bad publicity.

 

He's gotten more than his 15 minutes to be sure, and he made a beautiful public apology. But the "bad boy" image will linger and that's not such a bad thing if he can keep it under control publicly.

 

I certainly hope they're trying to find out who recorded it (how did they know to have a recording device available?) and who leaked it. That's just poor form. And why do people want to make someone look bad? To shoot down the competition perhaps? Granted he has a temper, but it sounds like he was provoked A LOT and he lost it. Yes, it went on too long, but still. It should have been kept private. So if someone was trying to ruin him, I think the way he handled it gave him the advantage in the end.

Source.

 

That Famous Consensus

SATURDAY, 7TH FEBRUARY 2009

 

Yet another example of the ‘research’ masquerading as science that is used to reinforce the man-made global warming fraud. One of the difficulties the green zealots have had is that Antarctica has been not warming but cooling, with the extent of its ice reaching record levels. A few weeks ago, a study led by Professor Eric Steig caused some excitement by claiming that actually West Antarctica was warming so much that it more than made up for the cooling in East Antarctica. Warning bells should have sounded when Steig said

 

What we did is interpolate carefully instead of just using the back of an envelope.

 

To those of us who have been following this scam for the past two decades, ‘interpolate carefully’ makes us suck our teeth. And so it has proved. Various scientists immediately spotted the flaw in Steig’s methodology of combining satellite evidence since 1979 with temperature readings from surface weather stations. The flaw they identified was that, since Antarctica has so few weather stations, the computer Steig used was programmed to guess what data they would have produced had such stations existed. In other words, the findings that caused such excitement were based on data that had been made up.

 

Even one of the IPCC’s lead authors sniffed a problem:

 

‘This looks like a pretty good analysis, but I have to say I remain somewhat skeptical,’ Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research said in an e-mail. ‘It is hard to make data where none exist.’

 

Well, yes. But then the invention of data that does not exist and the obliteration of data that does exist has been precisely how the man-made global warming scam has been perpetrated right from the get-go. The most egregious example of this was the piece of ‘research’ that underpinned the entire IPCC/Kyoto shebang from 2001 when it was published -- the so-called ‘hockey stick’ curve, which purported to show a vertiginous and unprecedented rise in global temperature in the 20th century.

 

The problem with pegging such a rise to the evils of industrialisation had always been the Medieval Warm Period, during which global temperatures were warmer than in modern times. So the ‘hockey stick’ study dealt with that by simply managing to airbrush out the Medieval Warm Period and its subsequent corrective Little Ice Age altogether. Some seven centuries of global history were simply excised from the data -- because an algorithm had been built into the computer programme which would have created a ‘hockey stick’ curve whatever data were fed into it.

 

This shoddy research was subsequently torn apart so comprehensively that it has been called the most discredited study in the history of science (and has been quietly dropped by the IPCC, leaving man-made global warming theory with no more substance than the grin on the face of the Cheshire Cat. Go here, here and here for a history of the titanic battle that ensued over its unmasking). The creator of this discredited ‘hockey stick’ curve was Michael Mann. And guess what? Michael Mann was a co-author of the Steig study of Antarctica.

 

‘Contrarians have sometime grabbed on to this idea that the entire continent of Antarctica is cooling, so how could we be talking about global warming,’ said study co-author Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University. ‘Now we can say: no, it's not true ... It is not bucking the trend.’

 

And now as Andrew Bolt has noted Steve McIntyre, who with Ross McKitrick uncovered the ‘hockey-stick’ nonsense in the first place, has delivered the coup de grace to the Steig/Mann Antarctica claim. Steig used data from a weather station called Harry. Bolt observes:

 

Harry in fact is a problematic site that was buried in snow for years and then re-sited in 2005. But, worse, the data that Steig used in his modelling which he claimed came from Harry was actually old data from another station on the Ross Ice Shelf known as Gill with new data from Harry added to it, producing the abrupt warming. The data is worthless. Or as McIntyre puts it:

 

Considered by itself, Gill has a slightly negative trend from 1987 to 2002. The big trend in ‘New Harry’ arises entirely from the impact of splicing the two data sets together. It’s a mess.

 

With their reputations thus disappearing faster than the snows of Kilimanjaro, the zealots have become hysterical. Mann attacks a prominent sceptic, Lawrence Solomon, for citing the scientists’ criticisms of the Antarctica study, and is in turn answered by Solomon -- an exchange reproduced in Canada’s Financial Post, for which Solomon writes, here and here. Mann repeatedly accuses Solomon of lying. In doing so, he has left himself dramatically exposed. Claiming that Solomon

 

repeatedly lies about my work

 

he cites as evidence of this that his ‘hockey stick’ study was

 

vindicated in a report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences

 

and seeks to back up this assertion by citing the way the media reported this study as

 

‘Science Panel Backs Study on Warming Climate’ (New York Times), ‘Backing for Hockey Stick Graph’ (BBC), and so on.

 

This is, to put it mildly, disingenuous. While it is certainly true that the media reported it in this sheep-like way -- thanks in part to the manner in which the NAS chose circumspectly to spin its own conclusions -- it is nevertheless the case that in every important particular the NAS actually agreed with the McIntyre/McKitrick criticisms. Far from vindicating the ‘hockey stick’ graph, the NAS said that although it found some of Mann’s work ‘plausible’, there were so many scientific uncertainties attached to it that it did not have great confidence in it. Thus it said that

 

Mann et al. used a type of principal component analysis that tends to bias the shape of the reconstructions

 

and that they had downplayed the

 

uncertainties of the published reconstructions...Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that ‘the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium.’

 

What Mann also does not say in his diatribe is that a subsequent House Energy and Commerce Committee report chaired by Edward Wegman totally destroyed the credibility of the ‘hockey stick’ study and devastatingly ripped apart Mann’s methodology as ‘bad mathematics’. Furthermore, when Gerald North, the chairman of the NAS panel -- which Mann claims ‘vindicated him’ – and panel member Peter Bloomfield were asked at the House Committee hearings whether or not they agreed with Wegman’s harsh criticisms, they said they did:

 

CHAIRMAN BARTON. Dr. North, do you dispute the conclusions or the methodology of Dr. Wegman’s report?

 

DR. NORTH. No, we don’t. We don’t disagree with their criticism. In fact, pretty much the same thing is said in our report.

 

DR. BLOOMFIELD. Our committee reviewed the methodology used by Dr. Mann and his co-workers and we felt that some of the choices they made were inappropriate. We had much the same misgivings about his work that was documented at much greater length by Dr. Wegman.

 

WALLACE: ‘the two reports were complementary, and to the extent that they overlapped, the conclusions were quite consistent.’ (Am Stat Assoc.)

 

As Mark Twain might have put it, there are three kinds of lies -- lies, damned lies and global warming science.

She could be giving her hair a rest from all of that bleach between films. I agree, it's not a good look for her.

Anyone else having trouble searching? I did a couple of searches today for threads that I know exisit and had some probs pulling them up. I know it works much better if you search the whole word instead of part of a word, but still....

 

I know that the board is backed up and indexed once a week (and indexing should help with search feature speed/reliability), but I may do some tweaking in the next few days if others are having trouble too.

I don't know if this is considered "trouble" but say for example that I want to search the "General Chatter" forum for "Leonardo DiCaprio". I plug that in and get pages and pages of celebs that have nothing to do with him and have to sift through those to see if his thread is there. Is that normal?

But her skin looks terrible. Honestly with the things that are available today, I'm really surprised by this.

 

Everytime I saw their thread pop up before, I always wondered if it was divorce time. And now it's here!!

 

Don't they have a very tight pre-nup? If he cheats she gets more or something?

I think I read somewhere that it wasn't the first time this DP entered the set while they were filming and that he had been warned by Bale before to not adjust lights while he was filming a scene. Whoopi was talking about this today and defended Bale saying that if he'd warned him not to do it and he still did it, then going off on him would have been warranted. I suspect it had happened more than once before. Bale sounded like the dam had burst.

Definitely dropped several notches in my regard. I've never been a huge fan or anything but better that than having people think so negatively of him. Jackass. What the hell could he have been thinking? I like all the Terminator movies so far--when I see this new one I won't be able to stop myself from thinking about what a nasty piece of work he is.

I felt sorry for him when his mother and sister accused him of violence against them. Now I understand and feel sorry for THEM. I used to like him (Laurel Canyon is one of my favorites), but he certainly seems to have taken a trip to the dark side.

What a great article!! Thanks for posting it. Wow.

Something looks... different with her.

I agree. I don't know if it's the camera angle or what, but her face looks quite different.

 

Well, she was the spokesperson for Kinerase so we know she's into accelerated exfoliation. She looks like she's full of Botox to me. That can definitely change how your face looks.

Plus, I think she's using Angelina Jolie's liquid eyeliner technique.

Don't think this site has spoilers, just a TON of info on all the main characters and catchup stuff - princess

 

 

"Lost" is back baby! I found this great site that goes through 108 of the characters you need to know, they're all important to the plot in some way. If you're having trouble getting caught up (or you missed an entire season like I did) this is very helpful. Here is link to website.

This is great, thank you! I sent it to my youngest and he wanted me to tell you that he thanks you too.

I just realized, that in her acceptance speech, she totally forgot Anne Hathaway. She said, "I'm so sorry. Meryl, Kristin. Oh god, who's the other one? Angelina." She never mentioned Anne Hathaway. Did anyone else catch that?

Video on YouTube.

Sure she did. It was the first name she mentioned, right at the 2 minute mark in the video you posted.

 

Thanks. I thought she had said the "am" (em, um) like many do before they start a sentence. Thanks for setting me straight.

I just realized, that in her acceptance speech, she totally forgot Anne Hathaway. She said, "I'm so sorry. Meryl, Kristin. Oh god, who's the other one? Angelina." She never mentioned Anne Hathaway. Did anyone else catch that?

Video on YouTube.

Source

 

Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age

 

The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.

 

Ice cores, ocean sediment cores, the geologic record, and studies of ancient plant and animal populations all demonstrate a regular cyclic pattern of Ice Age glacial maximums which each last about 100,000 years, separated by intervening warm interglacials, each lasting about 12,000 years.

 

Most of the long-term climate data collected from various sources also shows a strong correlation with the three astronomical cycles which are together known as the Milankovich cycles. The three Milankovich cycles include the tilt of the earth, which varies over a 41,000 year period; the shape of the earth’s orbit, which changes over a period of 100,000 years; and the Precession of the Equinoxes, also known as the earth’s ‘wobble’, which gradually rotates the direction of the earth’s axis over a period of 26,000 years. According to the Milankovich theory of Ice Age causation, these three astronomical cycles, each of which effects the amount of solar radiation which reaches the earth, act together to produce the cycle of cold Ice Age maximums and warm interglacials.

 

Elements of the astronomical theory of Ice Age causation were first presented by the French mathematician Joseph Adhemar in 1842, it was developed further by the English prodigy Joseph Croll in 1875, and the theory was established in its present form by the Czech mathematician Milutin Milankovich in the 1920s and 30s. In 1976 the prestigious journal “Science” published a landmark paper by John Imbrie, James Hays, and Nicholas Shackleton entitled “Variations in the Earth's orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages,” which described the correlation which the trio of scientist/authors had found between the climate data obtained from ocean sediment cores and the patterns of the astronomical Milankovich cycles. Since the late 1970s, the Milankovich theory has remained the predominant theory to account for Ice Age causation among climate scientists, and hence the Milankovich theory is always described in textbooks of climatology and in encyclopaedia articles about the Ice Ages.

 

In their 1976 paper Imbrie, Hays, and Shackleton wrote that their own climate forecasts, which were based on sea-sediment cores and the Milankovich cycles, "… must be qualified in two ways. First, they apply only to the natural component of future climatic trends - and not to anthropogenic effects such as those due to the burning of fossil fuels. Second, they describe only the long-term trends, because they are linked to orbital variations with periods of 20,000 years and longer. Climatic oscillations at higher frequencies are not predicted... the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate."

 

During the 1970s the famous American astronomer Carl Sagan and other scientists began promoting the theory that ‘greenhouse gasses’ such as carbon dioxide, or CO2, produced by human industries could lead to catastrophic global warming. Since the 1970s the theory of ‘anthropogenic global warming’ (AGW) has gradually become accepted as fact by most of the academic establishment, and their acceptance of AGW has inspired a global movement to encourage governments to make pivotal changes to prevent the worsening of AGW.

 

The central piece of evidence that is cited in support of the AGW theory is the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph which was presented by Al Gore in his 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth.” The ‘hockey stick’ graph shows an acute upward spike in global temperatures which began during the 1970s and continued through the winter of 2006/07. However, this warming trend was interrupted when the winter of 2007/8 delivered the deepest snow cover to the Northern Hemisphere since 1966 and the coldest temperatures since 2001. It now appears that the current Northern Hemisphere winter of 2008/09 will probably equal or surpass the winter of 2007/08 for both snow depth and cold temperatures.

 

The main flaw in the AGW theory is that its proponents focus on evidence from only the past one thousand years at most, while ignoring the evidence from the past million years -- evidence which is essential for a true understanding of climatology. The data from paleoclimatology provides us with an alternative and more credible explanation for the recent global temperature spike, based on the natural cycle of Ice Age maximums and interglacials.

 

In 1999 the British journal “Nature” published the results of data derived from glacial ice cores collected at the Russia ’s Vostok station in Antarctica during the 1990s. The Vostok ice core data includes a record of global atmospheric temperatures, atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and airborne particulates starting from 420,000 years ago and continuing through history up to our present time.

 

The graph of the Vostok ice core data shows that the Ice Age maximums and the warm interglacials occur within a regular cyclic pattern, the graph-line of which is similar to the rhythm of a heartbeat on an electrocardiogram tracing. The Vostok data graph also shows that changes in global CO2 levels lag behind global temperature changes by about eight hundred years. What that indicates is that global temperatures precede or cause global CO2 changes, and not the reverse. In other words, increasing atmospheric CO2 is not causing global temperature to rise; instead the natural cyclic increase in global temperature is causing global CO2 to rise.

 

*******The reason that global CO2 levels rise and fall in response to the global temperature is because cold water is capable of retaining more CO2 than warm water. That is why carbonated beverages loose their carbonation, or CO2, when stored in a warm environment. We store our carbonated soft drinks, wine, and beer in a cool place to prevent them from loosing their ‘fizz’, which is a feature of their carbonation, or CO2 content. The earth is currently warming as a result of the natural Ice Age cycle, and as the oceans get warmer, they release increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.*******

 

Because the release of CO2 by the warming oceans lags behind the changes in the earth’s temperature, we should expect to see global CO2 levels continue to rise for another eight hundred years after the end of the earth’s current Interglacial warm period. We should already be eight hundred years into the coming Ice Age before global CO2 levels begin to drop in response to the increased chilling of the world’s oceans.

 

The Vostok ice core data graph reveals that global CO2 levels regularly rose and fell in a direct response to the natural cycle of Ice Age minimums and maximums during the past four hundred and twenty thousand years. Within that natural cycle, about every 110,000 years global temperatures, followed by global CO2 levels, have peaked at approximately the same levels which they are at today.

 

About 325,000 years ago, at the peak of a warm interglacial, global temperature and CO2 levels were higher than they are today. Today we are again at the peak, and near to the end, of a warm interglacial, and the earth is now due to enter the next Ice Age. If we are lucky, we may have a few years to prepare for it. The Ice Age will return, as it always has, in its regular and natural cycle, with or without any influence from the effects of AGW.

 

The AGW theory is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change. The data from paleoclimatology, including ice cores, sea sediments, geology, paleobotany and zoology, indicate that we are on the verge of entering another Ice Age, and the data also shows that severe and lasting climate change can occur within only a few years. While concern over the dubious threat of Anthropogenic Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored.

 

Gregory F. Fegel

She's only 24! It sounds like she's smart enough to realize that she shouldn't have kids yet. Good for her.

That poor man! Does anyone really expect Mr. Obama to actually have the power to curb global warming? (Nevermind the fact that the planet is actually cooling- a far more dangerous thing). But seriously,how can the president of one country actually make the whole world stick to the strict regulations wanted by the environmental nazis? (Those regulations that line the pockets of people like Gore, but actually bankrupt other industries - like the auto industry). The armageddon-type of consequences that are being preached by Gore et al, make it sound like this needs to be done NOW or we're all in peril. How on earth can one man (who is faced with so many challenges as it is), be expected to get the entire planet to re-tool in time to save the earth from certain doom within 5 years?

 

Besides, scientists are now saying that man has very little, if anything, to do with climate change - that it's all cyclical, normal, natural, and caused by the sun.

 

I know that a lot of people interpreted Mr. Obama's "change" as to applying to everything each individual found wrong with the country and the world, but seriously - this goes too far. I think that Gore must have had people put this out after he met with Obama last week.

 

Obama left with little time to curb global warming

 

Dec 14, 2:07 PM (ET)

 

By SETH BORENSTEIN

Google sponsored links

Global Warming Hoax - Find out how scientists, government are fooling the public.

www.douglassreport.com

 

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) - When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid.

Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record *****have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it.

 

"The time for delay is over; the time for denial is over," he said on Tuesday after meeting with former Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming. "We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now that this is a matter of urgency and national security***** and it has to be dealt with in a serious way."

 

But there are powerful political and economic realities that must be quickly overcome for Obama to succeed. Despite the urgency he expresses, it's not at all clear that he and Congress will agree on an approach during a worldwide financial crisis in time to meet some of the more crucial deadlines.

 

Obama is pushing changes in the way Americans use energy, and produce greenhouse gases, as part of what will be a massive economic stimulus. He called it an opportunity "to re-power America."

After years of inaction on global warming, 2009 might be different. Obama replaces a president who opposed mandatory cuts of greenhouse gas pollution and it appears he will have a willing Congress. Also, next year, diplomats will try to agree on a major new international treaty to curb the gases that promote global warming.

 

"We need to start in January making significant changes," Gore said in a recent telephone interview with The Associated Press. "This year coming up is the most important opportunity the world has ever had to make progress in really solving the climate crisis."

 

Scientists are increasingly anxious, talking more often and more urgently about exceeding "tipping points."*****

"We're out of time," Stanford University biologist Terry Root said. "Things are going extinct." (And new species are emerging. Mother Nature at work.)

 

U.S. emissions have increased by 20 percent since 1992. China has more than doubled its carbon dioxide pollution in that time. World carbon dioxide emissions have grown faster than scientists' worst-case scenarios. Methane, the next most potent greenhouse gas, suddenly is on the rise again and scientists fear that vast amounts of the trapped gas will escape from thawing Arctic permafrost.

The amount of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere has already pushed past what some scientists say is the safe level.

 

In the early 1990s, many scientists figured that the world was about a century away from a truly dangerous amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, said Mike MacCracken, who was a top climate scientist in the Clinton administration. But as they studied the greenhouse effect further, scientists realized that harmful changes kick in at far lower levels of carbon dioxide than they thought. Now some scientists, but not all, say the safe carbon dioxide level for Earth is about 10 percent below what it is now.

 

Gore called the situation "the equivalent of a five-alarm fire that has to be addressed immediately." Of course he did. He needs to create more panic, especially because more and more scientists are saying this is just not so.

 

Scientists fear that what's happening with Arctic ice melt will be amplified so that ominous sea level rise will occur sooner than they expected. They predict Arctic waters could be ice-free in summers, perhaps by 2013, decades earlier than they thought only a few years ago. (No, that's from Gore's manual on scare tactics. We're especially vulnerable right now, and there is a need for someone to come in and rescue us. That's what Obama is supposed to do - with the economy especially. Now Gore wants to capitalize on this vulnerability and wave of expectations for change, so he can once again be hailed as the messiah, the savior of the planet.)

 

In December 2009, diplomats are charged with forging a new treaty replacing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which set limits on greenhouse gases, and which the United States didn'tratify. This time European officials have high expectations for the U.S. to take the lead. But many experts don't see Congress passing a climate bill in time because of pressing economic and war issues.

 

"The reality is, it may take more than the first year to get it all done," Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said recently.

 

Complicating everything is the worldwide financial meltdown. Frank Maisano, a Washington energy specialist and spokesman who represents coal-fired utilities and refineries, sees the poor economy as "a huge factor" that could stop everything. That's because global warming efforts are aimed at restricting coal power, which is cheap. That would likely mean higher utility bills and more damage to ailing economies that depend on coal production, he said.

 

Obama is stacking his Cabinet and inner circle with advocates who have pushed for deep mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas pollution and even with government officials who have achieved results at the local level.

The President-elect has said that one of the first things he will do when he gets to Washington is grant California and other states permission to control car tailpipe emissions, something the Bush administration denied.

 

And though congressional action may take time, the incoming Congress will be more inclined to act on global warming. In the House, liberal California Democrat Henry Waxman's unseating of Michigan Rep. John Dingell - a staunch defender of Detroit automakers - as head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee was a sign that global warming will be on the fast track. (Environmental "causes" are huge supporters of politicians and expect a lot in return.)

 

Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., vowed to push two global warming bills starting in January: one to promote energy efficiency as an economic stimulus and the other to create a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from utilities. "The time is now," she wrote in a Dec. 8 letter to Obama.

 

Mother Nature, of course, is oblivious to the federal government's machinations. Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

 

The average global temperature in 2008 is likely to wind up slightly under 57.9 degrees Fahrenheit, about a tenth of a degree cooler than last year. When Clinton was inaugurated, 57.9 easily would have been the warmest year on record. Now, that temperature would qualify as the ninth warmest year.

---

Associated Press writer Dina Cappiello contributed to this report.

-------------

 

Um.... it's cooling but we're supposed to believe that the cooling illustrates how fast the world is warming? Who believes this bs? A certain faction of "scientists" are so worried about protecting their own credibility, and wealth, that they stay this kind of garbage and some people actually believe it. Amazing.

 

I"m so sick of Gore's gloom and doom mantra. It has become a religion of sorts. Save yourselves!! Go Green! Don't worry if the rest of the world doesn't do it, you can die knowing that YOU did the right thing for the planet. :rolleyes:

 

 

***** = flat out lies.

Personally, I'm sick of her cyclical self flagelation about her weight. Its boring. With all she has accomplished in her life, can't she work on accepting her body type and stop with the shame based confessionals? If not, she can do something (yet again) about the weight if she wants, but please stop talking about it already. Its this crap that further perpetuates the body loathing garbage and societal pressure that we women have to deal with. With all that she has achieved, you would think Oprah would be a solid and credible spokesperson about how women's value is not tied into their weight. Too bad that opportunity is squandered.

Bravo! Very well said!

 

This could be her chance to change the world (so to speak) by getting "experts" to tell the truth about weight, genes, body type and health. Too bad she's not quite there yet because she doesn't seem to accept herself at all. Either that, or she is still swayed by the media who seems to expect everyone to be healthy and thin. (And the thin ones often aren't healthy!)

 

As long as Oprah continues to berate herself for her "emotional eating", while not actually figuring out why she does it and either accept it or change it, she's not doing anyone any favors by redirecting the attention to some major campaign. While the campaign itself does have some merit, you're right - she is squandering this opportunity.

Surprise flurries warm Houston hearts

Fluffy flakes bring delight to some, consternation to others — and tie a 64-year-old record

By ERIC BERGER,, JENNIFER LATSON and JENNIFER LEAHY

Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Dec. 10, 2008, 11:09PM

 

 

Falling snowflakes glimmered in streetlights, so wide that they billowed to the ground like parachutes, and so tantalizing that even awestruck adults reached out their hands or stuck out their tongues to catch one.

By Wednesday evening, the flakes were big enough to hold their shape for a moment on the street before melting into the pavement, and a dusting had collected on parked cars in some parts of town.

The flurries tied a record for Houston's earliest snowfall ever and warmed the hearts of winter weather lovers who have pined for snow since it last made an appearance on Christmas Eve 2004.

"I've got a pot roast in the Crock-Pot, and I'm going to go home, change into my warmest pajamas and eat pot roast and enjoy what may be the only real winter day we have all year," said Tina Arnold, an Illinois native who took advantage of the wintry backdrop to pick up Christmas presents Wednesday at The Woodlands Mall.

Since 1895, records indicate, snow has fallen this early just once — on Dec. 10, 1944.

Ali Ahly had been cooped up in an office all day when he stopped to gas up his white Mercedes-Benz near the corner of Hillcroft and the Southwest Freeway at 7:30 p.m.

The 43-year-old, wearing jeans and a leather jacket, stepped out from under the gas station canopy and looked up as the downy flakes sifted toward him. Then he stretched his hand toward the sky.

"This is real snow," he said. "I feel like I'm in Lake Tahoe."

Ahly's 9-year-old daughter is the family's true snow aficionado, he said. She went running around a mall parking lot that afternoon when the flakes began to fall.

"She's going nuts," he said.

Across the street from the gas station, a line formed for lattes and hot chocolate at the Starbucks drive-through window. There was no wait at the cash register inside, however.

"People just don't want to walk inside," said a barista.

Outside, 18-year-old Ingrid Mejia beamed in the brisk night air as her 10-year-old brother shivered in cargo shorts.

"I'm excited," Ingrid said. "I just hope it stays overnight, so it's on the ground when we wake up."

The Lamar High senior wasn't holding her breath for a snow day, though. She couldn't think of a time when winter weather had delayed school.

"I don't think so, unless it gets to be a blizzard," she said hopefully.

Late Wednesday, there were no reports of school or business closings Thursday morning in the Houston area.

Patrick Trahan, a spokesman for the city, said the icy weather was expected to taper off overnight and was not expected to disrupt morning traffic. He added that if conditions did not improve, the Public Works Department would clear the roads this morning.

Forecasters at the Houston/Galveston office of the National Weather Service said clouds and precipitation should give way today to sunshine and temperatures in the upper 50s.

Overnight lows for all areas but those north and west of Harris County were expected to stay above freezing tonight, said the weather service's Paul Lewis.

Snowfall in the metro Houston area Wednesday caught forecasters somewhat by surprise. A significant chance for snowfall didn't show up in computer models until about 9 p.m. Tuesday.

"The midnight crew adjusted the forecast at that time," Lewis said.

Because the ground in the Houston area was relatively warm — 77 degrees as late as Tuesday afternoon — neither snow nor ice was expected to stick and cause major transportation problems for long.

Still, because a freeze was expected to overnight, a winter weather advisory was issued Wednesday evening for much of Southeast Texas, including Harris County, because of the potential for slick, icy conditions north of Interstate 10 on bridges and other exposed areas.

By 9 p.m. Wednesday, the overpass on the Eastex Freeway at the beltway had frozen, authorities said.

"We are asking drivers to be careful on the roadway, mindful of the danger," said Harris County Sheriff's Office spokesman Lt. John Legg.

Daytime highs should return to the 70s by Sunday. Early next week, possibly Monday night, another cold front is expected to reach Houston, but it isn't expected to pack the punch of this week's chilly frontal system.

Wednesday's brush with winter left some Houstonians less enamored with the snowfall, including those stuck in delays of up to three hours at local airports. Drivers unaccustomed to snow encountered difficulties on the roadways, and even getting into their cars.

Paul Ramirez spent several minutes digging through his truck Wednesday evening outside the Fry's electronics store on West Road, trying to find something he could use to scrape the ice and snow from the windshield of his truck.

"It's really coming down," said Ramirez, 33, as he tried dragging a large envelope across his window. "This is crazy. It's Houston — we shouldn't need to keep ice scrapers in our cars."

Chronicle staff writer Bradley Olson contributed to this report.

Source

 

UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims

December 10, 2008

 

Posted by Marc Morano – 9:36 AM ET - Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.GOV

UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims

 

Study: Half of warming due to Sun! –Sea Levels Fail to Rise? - Warming Fears in 'Dustbin of History'

 

POZNAN, Poland - The UN global warming conference currently underway in Poland is about to face a serious challenge from over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe who are criticizing the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore. Set for release this week, a newly updated U.S. Senate Minority Report features the dissenting voices of over 650 international scientists, many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN. The report has added about 250 scientists (and growing) in 2008 to the over 400 scientists who spoke out in 2007. The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.

The U.S. Senate report is the latest evidence of the growing groundswell of scientific opposition rising to challenge the UN and Gore. Scientific meetings are now being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists. The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists' equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices and views of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. [see Full report Here: & See: Skeptical scientists overwhelm conference: '2/3 of presenters and question-askers were hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC' ]

 

Full Senate Report Set To Be Released in the Next 24 Hours – Stay Tuned…

 

A hint of what the upcoming report contains:

 

“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.” - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical.” - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”

 

Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.

 

“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists,” - Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.

“The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity.” - Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico

 

“It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.” - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.

“Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.” – . Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.

 

“After reading [uN IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet.” - Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.

 

“For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" - Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.

 

“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.

 

“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.” - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.

 

“Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning.” - Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.

 

“CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another….Every scientist knows this, but it doesn’t pay to say so…Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver’s seat and developing nations walking barefoot.” - Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.

 

“The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds.” - Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata. # #

 

In addition, the report will feature new peer-reviewed scientific studies and analyses refuting man-made warming fears and a heavy dose of inconvenient climate developments. (See Below: Study: Half of warming due to Sun! –Sea Levels Fail to Rise? - Warming Fears in 'Dustbin of History')

 

The Senate Minority Report is an update of 2007’s blockbuster U.S. Senate Minority Report of over 400 dissenting scientists. See here: This new report will contain the names, quotes and analyses of literally hundreds of additional international scientists who publicly dissented from man-made climate fears in just 2008 alone. The chorus of scientific voices skeptical grow louder as a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses and real world data challenge the UN and former Vice President Al Gore's claims that the "science is settled" and there is a "consensus." The original 2007 U.S. Senate report is available here: Full Report Set To Be Released in the Next 24 Hours – Stay Tuned…

 

Meanwhile, while the UN climate conference is in session here in Poznan, the bad scientific news for promoters of man-made climate alarm just keeps rolling in. Below is a very small sampling of very inconvenient developments for Gore, the United Nations, and their promoters in the mainstream media. Peer-reviewed studies, analyses, and prominent scientists continue to speak out to refute climate fears. The data presented below is just from the past week.

#

Peer-reviewed study: Half of recent warming was solar! - December 10, 2008

Excerpt: In this dose of peer-reviewed skeptical climatological literature, we follow Climate Research News. The blog was intrigued by a new article in Geophysical Research Letters that was accepted on Friday, December 5th. Eichler, A., S. Olivier, K. Henderson, A. Laube, J. Beer, T. Papina, H. W. Gäggeler, and M. Schwikowski: Temperature response in the Altai region lags solar forcing - Recall that the Siberian Altai Mountains are found at the intersection of Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. The authors looked at 750 years worth of the local ice core, especially the oxygen isotope. They claim to have found a very strong correlation between the concentration of this isotope (i.e. temperature) on one side and the known solar activity in the epoch 1250-1850. Their data seem to be precise enough to determine the lag, about 10-30 years. It takes some time for the climate to respond to the solar changes. It seems that they also have data to claim that the correlation gets less precise after 1850. They attribute the deviation to CO2 and by comparing the magnitude of the forcings, they conclude that "Our results are in agreement with studies based on NH temperature reconstructions [scafetta et al., 2007] revealing that only up to approximately 50% of the observed global warming in the last 100 years can be explained by the Sun." Well, the word "only" is somewhat cute in comparison with the "mainstream" fashionable ideology. The IPCC said that they saw a 90% probability that "most" of the recent warming was man-made. The present paper would reduce this figure, 90%, to less than 50% because the Sun itself is responsible for 1/2 of the warming and not the whole 50% of the warming could have been caused by CO2 because there are other effects, too. Note that if 0.3 °C or 0.4 °C of warming in the 20th century was due to the increasing CO2 levels, the climate sensitivity is decisively smaller than 1 °C. At any rate, the expected 21st century warming due to CO2 would be another 0.3-0.4 °C, and this time, if the solar activity contributes with the opposite sign, these two effects could cancel. Even if you try to stretch these numbers a little bit - but not unrealistically - you have to become sure that the participants of the Poznan conference are lunatics.

Flashback: New scientific analysis shows Sun “could account for as much as 69% of the increase in Earth's average temperature” (LINK) & (LINK)

 

Dr. Bruce West, A U.S Army Chief Scientist, Says Sun, Not Man, Is Driving Climate Change – June 3, 2008 – (LINK)

 

21 spotless days and solar magnetic field still in a funk – Meteorologist Anthony Watts Excerpt: We are now at 21 days with no sunspots, it will be interesting to see if we reach a spotless 30 day period and then perhaps a spotless month of December.

 

New Arctic ice analysis reveals ‘No clear evidence of a delay in the start of the later summer/early fall freeze up or the start of the late winter/early spring melt’ – Excerpt: Based on analysis by William Chapman, author of The Cryosphere Today website, graciously prepared an analysis of the dates of the minimum and maximum Arctic sea ice coverage since 1979.

 

Oscillation Rules as the Pacific Cools – December 9, 2008 Excerpt: A cool wedge of lower-than-normal sea-surface heights continues to dominate the tropical Pacific, ringed by a horseshoe of warmer waters. The continuation of this long-term cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation stacks the odds against a wetter-than-average winter/spring in the southwestern United States. The latest image of sea-surface height measurements from the U.S./French Jason-1 oceanography satellite shows the Pacific Ocean remains locked in a strong, cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a large, long-lived pattern of climate variability in the Pacific associated with a general cooling of Pacific waters. […] Sea-surface temperature satellite data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration mirror Jason sea-surface height measurements, clearly showing a cool Pacific Decadal Oscillation pattern, as seen at: http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/sst/sst.anom.gif . "This multi-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation 'cool' trend can cause La Niña-like impacts around the Pacific basin," said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. […] This cool phase will likely persist this winter and, perhaps, beyond.

 

Report: Sea Level rise 'has stumbled since 2005' – Meteorologist Anthony Watts – December 5, 2008 Excerpt: We’ve been waiting for the UC web page to be updated with the most recent sea level data. It finally has been updated for 2008. It looks like the steady upward trend of sea level as measured by satellite has stumbled since 2005. The 60 day line in blue tells the story. From the University of Colorado web page: “Long-term mean sea level change is a variable of considerable interest in the studies of global climate change. The measurement of long-term changes in global mean sea level can provide an important corroboration of predictions by climate models of global warming. Long term sea level variations are primarily determined with two different methods.” - Yes, I would agree, it is indeed a variable of considerable interest. The question now is, how is it linked to global climate change (aka global warming) if CO2 continues to increase, and sea level does not?

 

Peer-Reviewed Study: Recent worldwide land warming' NOT 'a direct response to increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) over land' - WorldClimateReport.com – December 3, 2008 ‘Rethinking Observed Warming?’ Key quote: “Evidence is presented that the recent worldwide land warming has occurred largely in response to a worldwide warming of the oceans rather than as a direct response to increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) over land.”

 

Alert: 2008 will be coolest year of the decade!- December 5, 2008 Excerpt: This year is set to be the coolest since 2000, according to a preliminary estimate of global average temperature that is due to be released next week by the Met Office. The global average for 2008 should come in close to 14.3C, which is 0.14C below the average temperature for 2001-07. [Note: For evidence of the panic apparently gripping the promoters of man-made climate fear, read the quotes in the article from the warming partisans absolutely assuring everyone that cool temperatures are “absolutely not" evidence that global warming is on the wane. Those same voices are usually absent when it comes to linking heat waves to global warming. ]

 

Flashback: Global Cooling? - 'Thirty years of warmer temperatures go poof' - National Post – October 20, 2008

 

Report: NASA’s James Hansen "adjusts" a cooling trend into a warming trend - December 9, 2008 Excerpt: "[H]ere is what the data looks like before and after NASA GISS adjusts it. These are the USHCN “raw” and “homogenized” data plots from the GISTEMP website. The before and after is quite something to behold. ... What was down, is now up." "How not to measure temperature, part 79"

 

Geophysist: ‘It is time to file this theory in the dustbin of history’ – ‘Alarmists are in denial and running for cover'- Washington Times

 

By Geophysicist Dr. David Deming, associate professor of arts and sciences at the University of Oklahoma who has published numerous peer-reviewed research articles. Excerpt: Environmental extremists and global warming alarmists are in denial and running for cover. Their rationale for continuing a lost cause is that weather events in the short term are not necessarily related to long-term climatic trends. But these are the same people who screamed at us each year that ordinary weather events such as high temperatures or hurricanes were undeniable evidence of imminent doom. Now that global warming is over, politicians are finally ready to enact dubious solutions to a non-existent problem. […] To the extent global warming was ever valid, it is now officially over. It is time to file this theory in the dustbin of history, next to Aristotelean physics, Neptunism, the geocentric universe, phlogiston, and a plethora of other incorrect scientific theories, all of which had vocal and dogmatic supporters who cited incontrovertible evidence. Weather and climate change are natural processes beyond human control. To argue otherwise is to deny the factual evidence.

 

Climate Chancellor' No More – Der Spiegel Excerpt: Angela Merkel is facing withering criticism for remarks she made on Monday that seemed to back away from her earlier commitment to tackling climate change.

 

Alert: Under the Weather: Internal Report Says U.N. Climate Agency Rife With Bad Practices - Fox News – December 4, 2008

 

Excerpt: As more than 10,000 delegates and observers gather in Poznan, Poland, to discuss the next phase in the battle against "climate change," a U.N. agency at the center of that hoopla badly needs to do some in-house weather-proofing. […] But the WMO, the $80 million U.N. front-line agency in the climate change struggle, and the source for much of the world's information in the global atmosphere and water supply, has serious management problems of its own, despite its rapidly expanding global ambitions. The international agency has been sharply criticized by a U.N. inspection unit in a confidential report obtained by FOX News, for, among other things, haphazard budget practices, deeply flawed organizational procedures, and no effective oversight by the 188 nations that formally make up its membership and dole out its funds. The inspection was carried out by a member of the United Nations Joint Inspection Unit (JIU), a small, independent branch of the U.N. that reports to the General Assembly and is mandated to improve the organization's efficiency and coordination through its inspection process. […] WMO did not respond to a series of questions from FOX News regarding its future programs, sent on the eve of the Poznan meeting.

 

16-year-old suggests sheep dung can help save planet Card business has really dung good - Daily Post North WalesExcerpt: The company makes its products at the Twll Golau Papermill in Aberllefenni Slate Quarry using sustainable fuel and materials. Every sheet of paper is made from recycled materials, including sheep dung, waste paper and discarded rags, using processes designed to affect the natural environment as little as possible. […] Katie 16, from Tal-y-Bont, Conwy, was appointed to help spread the word on how Wales can reduce its carbon footprint and is urging other North Wales businesses to follow Creative Paper Wales’ example and adopt innovative approaches to the design and manufacture of products and the delivery of services.

 

Lord Christopher Monckton: 'Companies could be sued over climate change' Excerpt: The alarmist faction knows that, if it were to bring a case against a corporation whose executives were not minded merely to believe in the extremist presentation of "global warming" just because it is temporarily in fashion, they would lose. The case of Dimmock v. Secretaries of State for Education and for the Environment in the UK in 2007 was a very clear warning. The UK Government threw all of the resources of the taxpayer and of the Meteorological Office at the case, attempting to defend Al Gore's sci-fi comedy horror movie against the plaintiff's allegation that it was serially and seriously inaccurate. The Government failed and was humiliated. The judge, having heard both sides, said bluntly of Al Gore, and particularly of his unscientific allegation that sea level was about to rise by 20 feet, that "the Armageddon scenario that he depicts is not based on any scientific view". A few more judgments like that and the "global warming" fantasy would rapidly collapse. End of scare.

 

OOPS, We Forgot Siberia! (M4GW) - Weather Stations in Coldest parts No Longer Reporting

Excerpt: The thing that these skewed chart never take into account is that when the Soviet Union fell in 1990 the number of reporting weather stations went form a high of 15,000 in 1970 to 5,000 in 2000. This takes some of the coldest places on the planet out of the equation like Siberia. # #

 

Related Links:

 

UN Data shows ‘Warming has Stopped!’ – Climate Fears Called ‘Hogwash’ – ‘Global Carbon Tax’ Urged - December 3, 2008

 

‘Planet Has Cooled Since Bush Took Office’ & Global Warming Theory has ‘failed consistently and dramatically’ – November 20, 2008

Being hypothyroid can make it darn near impossible to lose weight. Your metabolism, your entire body is slowed way, way down. When I was hypothyroid, I was consuming fewer than 800 calories per day (I counted them) and forcing myself to exercise vigorously daily, yet I continued to gain weight. I have to call Oprah on "afraid to exercise," though. Your thyroid does not make you fear exercise. An underperforming thyroid will make you sluggish and will make you feel too tired to exercise, but there is no fear involved at all. I do wish she would stop spreading incorrect information about thyroid disorders; thyroid problems are so common, and Oprah could be disseminating useful information instead of "fear of exercise."

excellent, Empress!

 

I'm hypothyroid and on medication, I'm just about Oprah's age, I'm doing the menopause thing (EEK) and I am pretty active. Exercising does nothing for weight loss for me. Nothing. In fact, a few years ago, I started power walking. I'd go 5-6 days a week and do 2-3 miles per day, mostly on hills. I gained 2 pounds over 2 years! I eat very modestly - haven't seen a brownie or a cheeseburger for a long time now. All this and I gain about 5 pounds a year. My doctor says that's pretty normal (even without being hypothyroid) - that women at this age, if they do nothing different (don't reduce calories and don't increase their exercise) gain from 5-10 pounds a year. It's disheartening, especially when people think that everyone can be thin if they'd just eat the right things and exercise. It's soooo not true.

 

So while I applaud Oprah for owning up to her weight gain, I wish she'd go a bit further and have a doctor explain menopause and it's weight gain issues. I think doctors don't want to say it publicly because they don't want to be seen as giving people an excuse to gain weight and not continually try to take it off.

She never had the abs that were painted in (the white suit picture). She never had those slim hips either (except for after the liquid diet, but only for a few days). I know that television adds 10 pounds, but so does photography. I do have to give her credit for at least owning up to the weight gain. (I do think she weighs more than 200 though). Once again, it's all about her. What better way to kick off a new year than to be the focus of another scheme to get people involved. But hey, if people do get healthy... I'm all for it.

I always laugh at Oprah's show..she does all these shows with her doctor and trainer and she's standing there so obviously overweight.

 

I mean come on...did she have to issue a statement saying she's fat? It's OBVIOUS girlfriend.

I know, it was really starting to get to me. She'd sit in chairs with solid sides, wear full skirts, be filmed from the neck up. Her magazine covers were always airbrushed to make her look thinner. I think she finally was forced to make a public statement about it.

 

If you take our genetic factors, add menopause AND her thyroid condition.... I think we're seeing the result of that with her. Not everyone is destined to be skinny and not everyone who is overweight is unhealthy. In fact, those who are really skinny are sometimes more unhealthy than larger people.

 

I wish we would really focus on health and not just the what we think is the outer manifestation of health.