According to the National Climatic Data Center, 2008 will be America's coldest year since 1997, thanks to La Niña and precipitation in the central and eastern states. Solar quietude also may underlie global cooling. This year's sunspots and solar radiation approach the minimum in the sun's cycle, corresponding with lower Earth temperatures. This echoes Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist Sallie Baliunas' belief that solar variability, much more than CO2, sways global temperatures. But AP writer Seth Borenstein still says Global Warming is a "ticking time bomb" that Barack Obama can't avoid. Borenstein claims the cooling trend, "actually illustrates how fast the world is warming." Which certainly makes perfect to us. Cold is hot. Up is down. Slavery is Freedom.Economist Bruce Bartlett in The New York Times gives a broad explanation of how the Federal Reserve can get the economy started again. If you understands that sort of thing, it's here. Thomas Friedman says America is doomed, yet also the greatest country in the world. Nobody says less more eloquently than Friedman.
Dahlia Lithwick in Slate as amusing look at what Christmas TV fare makes good watching in a Jewish home. Lithwick, raising Jewish kids in a largely Christan country is asked by her 5-year-old boy, "Mom, if Santa and Judah the Maccabee got in a fight, who would win?"
