24/7

Check out this piece Roger Federer. If this guy wasn't so low-key, he would be as big a name in sports as say Tiger Woods. The dude is only 24 and has already 7 Grand Slams. And oh by the way, he's 7-0 in Grand Slam Finals.

He's a helpful graphic showing the all time winner's list. He's already tied for 9, and with one more title will tie Andre Agassi in 6th place. Petey Sampras holds the men's singles record with 14. The only question it seems now is whether Roger can be the greatest of all time.

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In other news, apropos of envrionmentalism, see the lead story in today's NYTimes. The story is about a prominent NASA scientist who claims he was censored by the Bush administration for speaking publicly about the reality of global warming and the need for the reduction of burning of carbon-based fossilized fuels.

Now, probably a couple things to sort out here. You have to dig in the article a bit, but you discover that, for example: "White House officials were interested in his findings showing that cleaning up soot, which also warms the atmosphere, was an effective and far easier first step than curbing carbon dioxide." How often have you heard the line that we should start cleaning up soot to stop global warming?

On a sidenote, some scientists believe that reducing smog has actually lead to an increase in surface temperature. Smog apparently blocks and diffuses incoming solar rays, and now since the developed world has the cleanest air since pre-industrial times, more rays are beaming in directly, unobscured by the cleaner air.

Second, its the NYTimes, which means it is inherently anti-Bush. I'm not pr0-Bush by any stretch, not by a long shot. But the NYTimes unfortunately is daily growing more and more exclusively deconstructist--at least Maureen Dowd is good at it I guess. I still read Tommy Friedman and David Brooks' op-eds, but otherwise the paper is going downhill I think. It relishes in negativity and gives an overly dismal view of the world.

Third, you'll also learn by digging in the article that Hansen in a public forum said that he was going to vote for John Kerry. Now, he's a citizen and he can vote for whoever he likes, and certainly he is free to express his opinion, but given that's his pockets are lined with the money of us taxpayers, I wonder how appropriate such a thing is to say. Given that he was ostenibly at the public forum to give his scientific findings. Its a fuzzy line from scientific research to making policy recommendations and political statements--he is an expert on one and not likely on the other.

Obviously the idea that the Bush administration tried to silence him however is not surprising. They've done that repeatedly with everybody. That's how Karl Rove operates.

Unforuntaely I am no longer amazed by the short-sightedness of just about anyone in our world, especially on both sides of this debate--the enviros and the industrios. The thinking is so linear/black&white. Carbon: bad, Carbon make warm, less carbon=good.

And given the naivety of such a view, the whole otherwise important issue of environementalism is tossed out the window by people like Bush.

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And lastly, on a note of humor. Give props though to the NYTimes for running this book review by the great Garrison Keiler. The book in question is by a Frenchman traveling and scouring America. And Keiler blows him to bits. This might be my favorite punch:

You meet Sharon Stone and John Kerry and a woman who once weighed 488 pounds and an obese couple carrying rifles, but there's nobody here whom you recognize. In more than 300 pages, nobody tells a joke. Nobody does much work. Nobody sits and eats and enjoys their food. You've lived all your life in America, never attended a megachurch or a brothel, don't own guns, are non-Amish, and it dawns on you that this is a book about the French. There's no reason for it to exist in English, except as evidence that travel need not be broadening and one should be wary of books with Tocqueville in the title.

Now, in all fairness, slicing and dicing the French these days is easier than the women at the American brothel our froggie author attended. Still, Keiler does a masterful job.

I have this theory, its probably a tad prejudiced, but its served me well in life. It goes like this: Rich white people with too much time on their hands are usually wrong about alotta s--t. (Not all s--t, just alottta of it).

Evidence:

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

Avec M. Levy (The Author in Question)

The Environmental Movement

The Editorial Board of the NYTimes (There might be some non-white people on that).

And that list was just culled from the articles cited.