I was reading this AP article about the President’s visit to New York today and the phrase “cause for optimism” lept out at me. The article follows the MSM pattern of begrudgingly acknowledging that the economy is improving. This, of course is the standard operating procedure with a Republican in the White House. Your results would vary if a Democrat took residence there; irrational exuberance unchecked by media cynicism would likely result.

In any case, I began to think why it is that that phrase, which I hear all too often in financial reports, is so odd to me. I realize it’s because, more than being a Republican, a Conservative, a New York lawyer, a Capitalist or even an Objectivist, I am a Reaganite.

Being a Reaganite means many things to many people. To me, it is the unyielding pride I have for Americans everywhere, but especially while under arms in foreign lands. It is my love of country and my faith in my fellow man. It is my deeply rooted belief that the invisible hand of free market competition is the most powerful economic force in the history of man. I believe this to my core, more clearly than I know my own name.

I know that, so long as the government gets the hell out of my way, I, along with every other capitalist, can not only raise a tide to lift all ships, but flood the cities with gold.

Being a Reaganite means believing that no economic obstacle can prevail against the will of a true Capitalist. I have plenty of cause for optimism everyday. One of them is named Ronald and he rode a horse.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) came under fire today for her handling of the escalating hostilities in her Georgetown apartment. High ranking officials inside the Pentagon have advised Mrs. Pelosi to increase her troop presence there to more effectively combat the surging violence there.

Mrs. Pelosi, however, has refused to follow this advice and has instead decided to “stay the course.” House Republicans have bristled at her stubborn insistence on failed policies. “We need an immediate withdrawal of all Pelosis in the region and have them redeployed to California, safely out of harms way,” noted one Congresswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Mrs. Pelosi’s office responded, “The Speaker is the decider when it comes to matters of apartmental security.”

Senator Joseph Biden (D.-Del) responded today to allegations that he is a bigoted narcissistic puts. “I’m not, I just don’t know my pooper from a hole in the ground. Which is where my father used to work, in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. Wait, no that was someone else’s father.”

Senator Biden has now confirmed that Neil Kinnock, a former MP from the British Labour Party, originally uttered the racially derogatory and politically damaging words he repeated in a one-on-one interview over lunch with Jason Horowitz of the New York Observer. “I’m not a racist, I just don’t think most black people are articulate or clean. It’s Neil Kinnock that’s a racist,” said Senator Biden.

“The important thing to remember here,” noted Democratic operative and ABC News contributor, George StephanopoulosGeorge Stephanopoulos, “is that Republicans are the racists.” He continued, “I mean it’s obvious Biden expected this guy to paraphrase him, not take him word for word. We’ve got to watch each other’s backs. Are you writing that down?”

Senator Barrack Obama (D-Ill.), the subject of Biden’s unprepared remarks, noted in his best-selling book, “The Audacity of Hope” that “the arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact.” Senator Obama’s office did not immediately return calls seeking to confirm whether this statements include the arguments made by Senator Biden.

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I wasn’t as politically savvy in 1988, I’ll admit, so this Kinnock thing was relatively new to me. How can someone who (i) didn’t know he was lying when he said he father was a coal miner and (ii) lost to Dukakis, think he has any hope of ever becoming President? It also speaks volumes of the collective IQ of Delaware that this doofus is still in the Senate.

Bitterly cold in New York today. Low of 9 degrees this morning. That’s not windchill, it’s the ambient air temp. With wind chill it’s well below 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Today’s high will be just under 20 degrees, that’s about 18 degrees off the mean of 38. (Check wunderground for almanac statistics, it really is a better source).

Not three weeks ago people were screaming about global warming as a “heat wave” of 60 degree temperatures hit the city. The warmest day, was January 6, when the high was 72 degrees, setting a record and surpassing a temperature of 63, set half a century earlier. The following day was in the 60’s again, but failed to set a record. The record high for that day was set in 1907-exactly a century earlier. You’ll note that today’s record high temp of 72 degrees (matching the record set three weeks ago) was set almost 60 years ago.

Yesterday I saw a woman complaining about the price of an orange. Apparently the free market price of an orange is now $2.00 in New York. Why? Whole crops were lost when California did its impression of North Dakota last week.

So what does this all mean? Does it prove or disprove global warming? NO. It’s weather! Weather fluctuates, it’s fickle. There are all sorts of cyclical variations superimposed on each other. The average temperature of the Earth may be cooling or it may be warming, but the temperature you see on a daily basis does not, cannot and will not tell you anything about global climate.

Anyone who tells you differently believes that the plural of anecdote is data. It isn’t.

The next time you hear someone talking about weather and linking it to global warming, remind yourself of a “psychic” and his cold reading techniques. They throw out 100 shots, but you only remember the one that hits. “I’m thinking of a man, his name has an R or a J…” Don’t be a sucker.

Unlike the terrorist group with the similar name, Wunderground, or the Weather Underground, does not have any political aims. Nor does it, like it’s flashy, mainstream competitor, have any desire to censor your thoughts. Nope, all it does, and it does this very well, is provide information on the weather

It is not burdened by liberal guilt, a need to be relevant or delusions of self importance. It knows its place in the world: giving you the weather. If you’re inclined to check the weather, from now on, go there.

If you sign up for a $10 membership, not only will you get added benefits with no ads, you will also be embracing the entreprenuerial spirit that makes this country great. They may not have a 24-hour cable channel with which to hawk crappy tires and golf carts in car clothing, but they’ve got the weather, and that’s enough.

Plus, they’ll probably never threaten your job if you disagree with them.

Censorship is the coal miner’s canary of fascism. When you hear people advocating the censorship of others with whom they disagree, you should be forewarned: (i) their senses have surrendered to some base defect in their psyche; (ii) God himself could not convince them how wrong they are; and (iii) they are fanatics about their cause and it won’t be long before they come for you.

Global warming is fiction, much like an Oliver Stone film. Man-made global warming is Keanu Reeves playing a nuclear physicist.

My apologies for the delay in posting. In late October, my appendix burst. Fortunately, my table of contents is still intact, but the treatment was complicated and, at times, even controversial.

When the problem first arose, I was vomitting uncontrollably and shaking and shivering. My entire body was near collapse. My wife and I (she’s British, so I can always count on her in a crisis), went to the hospital. Nobody likes going to the hospital, but that’s where you go when your sick.

The doctors told me that my appendix, which apparently contained a lot of nasty crap, had burst and they would have to remove it. Only two weeks earlier, I was in the hospital to have a mass removed. The doctors feared it might be malignant, but luckily we caught it in time. But I was worried about recovering from two surgeries so close to each other. Nonetheless, I went ahead and did the right thing.

After the appendix surgery, all manner of vile fluids started collecting in my abdomen. Because I was in the hospital, they were able to manage it so that only my abdomin was affected. The rest of me was okay, no vomitting, no fever or cold sweats.

The vile fluids had always been there, though more had joined from other parts of me, but the appendix rupturing had released them and they now had free reign over the region. One doctor, my lead physician, first suggested an aggressive, triple-threat regimen, with intravenous antibiotics, a steady diet of vitamins and minerals and plenty of fresh air.

Another doctor, who had hoped I would choose him as my lead physician, said that we should just leave things as they are, and let nature take its course. This second doctor also wanted me to focus on the prior problem and try to find the individual cell that had caused it. Of course, that problem had been neutralized. It was the bile and waste running free that was my immediate concern.

The problem was, the antiboitics were not strong enough. My lead physician acknowledged that he was using less than the historically recommended dosage, but had he used more, my health might be put at risk and the medicines had been transformed in recent years. We decided to keep trying with the lower dosage.

Well, it became obvious that I needed stronger medicine. My lead physician consulted with the second doctor who originally said we needed more antibiotics. Now that doctor said we should stop treating me all together and that adding more will just waste the antibiotics. Then he said I never should have come to the hospital in the first place, though I’m not sure how I could’ve avoided it–my appendix having burst on me. Finally, he called the antibiotics “stupid.”

Well, to make a long story short, I decided to stick with the first doctor, even if he is a bit unethical at times, and sometimes he forgets why he went to medical school in the first place. In the end, it was a long road, but I made it home okay. The nice thing about having your appendix burst on you is that, if you fix it right, you don’t have to worry about it ever again.

Al Leggory assisted in the draft of this post.

In all seriousness, I owe my life to the folks at Greenwhich Hospital. Thank you.