Be Afraid, Again

Hi, guys!  It's been a month since I've posted, probably because all the news has been bad and getting worse daily.  But today was different...

You've heard me previously refer to our local paper as The Washington Compost.  That's for obvious reasons due to the odor of most of its reporting.  But today it earns its name because it is The Washington Comedy Post.  

As the Queen's sister, Sylvia (the one with the megawatt smile) always says, "There's nothing like a good snake story."  Well, the Compost had one this morning that I just couldn't pass up.

The big snake depicted above is not just big, it's TITANIC!  Claimed to be nearly 43 feet long and weighing in at over a ton, this baby's fossil part (a vertebrae) was found in a coal mine in South America, where it lived about 60 million years ago.  Aptly enough, it has been named Titanoboa cerrejonensis, roughly translated from the Latin as "big snake from Cerrejon."

It is claimed to have feasted on very large turtles such as shown in the drawing as well as eating entire huge crocodiles in a single swallow.  It is said to have been able to eat a cow in one bite, although cows weren't around 60 million years ago, so how that was guessed is beyond me.

But here's the best part.  Snakes are pretty scary, right?  Well, when all the latest science is going the wrong way on Global Warming and London just had its worst snowstorm in 60 years, something is needed to get people back into their "Day After Tomorrow" mentality - where global warming caused New York to freeze over... huh?

So, cue the monster snake!  The lead scientist for the article published in Nature is a guy named Jason Head.  Based on his report, his nickname is probably "Hop."  Dr. Hop reported that the average temperature in the Colombian jungles during the time of Titanoboa was somewhere between 86 and 93 degrees Fahrenheit, about 10 degrees hotter than it is there today.  So, just fairly small changes in temperature can apparently produce things that will eat Bossy in one bite...

Wait, says Dr. Hop. 

"It is a big leap to go from a natural kind of global warming that takes place over tens of thousands to millions of years to human-induced climate change taking place over decades.   (back pedal)

(Leap anyway) That being said, it should make people pause and consider what might be the effects of heating up the equator as well as heating up the high latitudes through global warming."

Human induced climate change... If you've been following this blog for any time at all, you'll know that the Kernal is a skeptic on that.  95% of all the greenhouse gas affecting the Earth is Water Vapor (H2O) which God makes and of which man produces almost none. (0.001%)  3.618% of greenhouse gas is Carbon Dioxide of which man produces and emits 0.117%.

So Dr. Hop Head is telling us to shut down the world's economy (in the middle of a pretty serious slowdown to boot) in order that we may reduce our ONE EIGHTH OF ONE PERCENT contribution to climate change (formerly known as global warming)?  Absolutely -- let people starve and return to their agrarian roots - - - lest there be snakes...  Big snakes!  Scary snakes!  Big, scary snakes! 

Stay tuned for the next Washington Comedy Post episode of "Be Afraid - Be Very Afraid"  The expected topic will be Gargantuspidersanfranciscus.

Until then, keep fighting, Kirk!  We'll see you on the high ground!  No snakes allowed.

 

 

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