GorT has been a bit busy with the whole time traveling thing (summary notes on the most recent trip to the future are forthcoming) but here are a few random thoughts while I’ve locked onto our internet connection – this sometimes proves to be difficult when ‘Puter starts his grenade fishing in the moat.

1.  Climate Change.  First, if you get a chance, pop over to PetitionProject.org and do some reading.  I think you’ll agree that we’re far from consensus and we need to improve the scientific process behind the advocacy for economic impacting changes.  A few nuggets for you: CO2 is only 385 parts per million of the Earth’s atmosphere and man-made CO2 from the use of fossil fuels is only 3 percent of that total.  Nature is a “big thing” and it amazes me when people think that a change of 0.000012 percent of the atmosphere is *the* cause for climate change while ignoring a larger factor (the Sun).  We could always follow the money: federal grants for climate change research amounts to more than $33 billion since 1989 – a figure that is significantly larger than the oil and gas funding towards it.  Finally, another data point worth noting is the solid research provided at SurfaceStations.org.  There, the U.S. surface stations temperature measurements are qualified and shown with an error factor.  One will immediately note that 69% of the stations have a greater than 2degC error (warmer) and 8% have a greater than 5degC error (again, biased to the warm side of the scale).  The data is there and open for examination (unlike some of the other climate data being bantered about).

2.  A Government Shutdown.  I work in a field that will directly be impacted by this so it is front and center on my radar.  I will say that on a news-talk radio program in DC this morning, the hosts brought up a submission by a listener (not GorT) that supports my previous position: the failure of the previous Congress has caused (or at least is a significant contributor) to the current situation.  The listener went one step further to suggest that we, as a country, have basically accepted that our elected leaders are “allowed” to turn in work late.  There are mandated deadlines for the budget and they continually miss it and we have been aceepting of the behavior.  Therefore, he suggests, we should impose a penalty – much like a student would have in school – for turning in late work.  Possibly the budget should default to the budget approved two fiscal years prior.  Yes, TWO years.  The idea is to make the penalty severe enough to serve as a deterrent to failure to complete the assigned duties and responsibilities.  I’m liking the idea.  Maybe we can also thrown in 10 lashes before the mast for each work day past the deadline.  Here in DC, a group is advertising at a major subway stop (Union Station) the facts that we are $14T in debt and we need to trim spending.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.