Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The Tragedy that is Dana Rohrabacher vs. the Promise that is Paul Ryan and More for Wednesday, May 20, 2009 (2nd posting for this date)


"WI: Rep. Ryan and Bruce Barr of IBT" image licensed under Creative Commons by aflcio2008



Yesterday, we hypothesized the potential (but unlikely) formation of a joint Israel-Palestine state and have a little bit more to say about it. In light of the successful Iran missile test-launch , wouldn't there be some advantage to the formation of a joint Palestine and Israel state? Would Iran dare attack such a state with nuclear weapons? Would not the rest of the Arabic and Muslim world howl in outrage if such an attack were to take place? We think they would...






A little bit on the "up-and-coming" US Rep Paul Ryan who appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe". The man gave a very smart and not-at-all boring analysis and assessment regarding the facts and data needed in developing a comprehensive US health care plan. Joe and crew instantly identified Mr. Ryan as an "up-and-coming" star in the Republican Party. Even though we were caught off guard by his "unexpected appearance" on this morning show, we think they are right. Our senior editor (who is a registered Democrat) is thinking of a sidebar link to Mr. Ryan's official website.

Image licensed under Creative Commons by woodleywonderworks







The tragedy that is Dana Rohrabacher. We witnessed Mr. Rohrabacher's arguments against global warming and climate change and putting a cap on gaseous emissions (Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC). To paraphrase that lemonade commercial, "Dana, Dana, Dana. Whooot!". Mr. Rohrabacher made the rather ridiculous argument against temperature shifts on our planet (due to global warming) are comparable (???) by/to comparing them to temperature shifts on other planets (e.g., specifically Mars and Jupiter...). We have some data for Mr. R.. A Wolfram Alpha query gave us a surface temperature range of 12°C to 22°C (284° K to 297° K and/or 50°F to 76°F) for our home planet. We know the range is much wider and are making further inquiries and adjustments to the same to the search engine...






Now, for Mars, the results were - 91°C to - 3°C ( 181° K to 271°K and/or - 134°F to 30° C), oh yes, that seems almost livable!!! For Jupiter, we have to combine the Wolfram Alpha data (a range was not given to our query - perhaps because Jupiter has no surface) with the Nasa web page on Jupiter. The results were - 108° C to - 148° C ( - 163° F to - 234°F, sorry we didn't bother with degrees Kelvin here...). Those temperatures are not livable - at least not under our current scientific definitions and understanding.






Now Mr. R. may be very smart, but the comparisons just aren't fair nor scientific. Mr. R. would have done well to have presented his hard data during his argument (following the example of another Republican, Mr. Paul Ryan, above) but he did not. First of all - he is comparing our planet with planets that are respectively 166% more distant from the Sun (Mars) and about 545% more distant from the Sun (Jupiter). And, second - their atmospheres and environments (Mars and Jupiter) are completely different from ours. (Click on the hyperlinks to more data from Wolfram Alpha on this topic...).






Now we know Mr. Rohrabacher is a degreed individual, but we don't think he has a degree in atmospheric sciences. (Our apologies in advance if he does). Hey, how about it Mr. R.? Thinking of taking a few years off to further your education? We could all benefit from it. It would have been a great sucker coup if the politically brilliant Mr. Matthews could have presented these data points out of hand at the time...






That takes us to the Michael Steele speech. Could he, too, benefit from a little more education? Is that the real issue with the popularity problem with the Republican party? Messrs. Steele, Rohrabacher, Gingrich and their kind are all very highly intelligent people. Like Mr. Ryan, could they benefit from emphasizing more on the Big E vs. the Big I? We certainly hope so - we think we could all benefit.
































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