The Olympics

I've been struggling with the whole China-is-hosting-the-Olympics thing. On the one hand, they have a horrible human rights record, imprisoning political dissidents and persecuting Christians. Should we really be accepting that? And feting them, their country, their government?

On the other hand, I remember the U.S. boycotting the 1980 Olympics in the Soviet Union, and them returning the favor in 1984 when they were in L.A. What, precisely, did that accomplish?

Back to the first hand, you have this and this making pretty strong arguments on their own about why we should be upset that China is hosting the Games. They limit the very freedoms that we hold so dear here in America. No freedom of speech, no freedom of religion, no freedom to petition or protest. They are also hacking into the computers of members of OUR government, looking for the names and addresses of political dissidents who have fled that oppressive regime.

I want to support our athletes - but I want to protest Beijing. How does one square the two?

Global warming is good! No wait, bad! No wait, the earth is cooling!

Seriously, what's a girl to believe? Well, I'll tell you this much. There's enough scientists out there who don't believe in the myth of man-made global warming. And there's enough data out there that shows the earth warms and cools naturally, with no regard to man-kind. And this article shows that increases in carbon dioxide are also helping increase vegetation on the planet.

Could it be we're not nearly as important as we think we are?

But if that's the case, then what would Little Jackie sing about?