I’m a member of Blog Catalog. It’s a web place to list one’s blog, and to converse with other people in the blogging hobby/business. After listing my blog there, really all I’ve done since is occasionally participate in some discussion threads on topics completely unrelated to blogging. (Coincidental to this post, this month is my one year anniversary of joining BC. I just noticed it while writing this tonight.)

Much like Facebook, other members of BC can invite you to join various discussion groups. Although I accepted a few invitations back in my first few weeks of joining BC, I haven’t really taken part in any of those groups. In fact, just a few months after accepting them, I deleted them from my list. I just don’t have enough interest in any of them to overcome the lack of time I have to participate in any of them.

Just recently I was invited to join the group titled, “Born Gay, Fabulous by Choice.”

A group for all Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered people to share their thoughts and experiences.

Be Proud!

A group where GLBT bloggers can share their blogs and discover new gems in the blogging community.

Even if you’re not GLBT but support our cause you’re welcome to join as well.

Ha! Hilarious!

(Brogrit will love to tease me about this, but I’m secure enough my my heterosexuality that such teasing doesn’t bother me. Besides, I saw what he had on his iPod.)

The blogger who invited me to this group is one that I recognize from the BC discussion forums. I’ve left some minor comments on a couple of threads he started. It was one of his topics that reminded me of my old experience at a GL bar. (All his discussions are about gay issues.)

Anyway, apparently I left some impression with him, and that’s why he invited me to this group. He sent the message through my “shout box” on Blog Catalog (so it is open for everyone to see):

You have been invited to join the group Born Gay Fabulous by Choice.

I responded back through the shout box:

LOL! Dude, you invited me to the “Born Gay Fabulous” group — I’m not gay. Gave me a good chuckle this morning. :-)

He answered:

LoL, I did it on purpose! Come on you liberal straight man, join what do you have to loose? You know it will be good for your ego ;-)

I said:

More LOL! It will be good for my ego? How, because I can say I get more vag than you gay guys? That’s not a big brag. ;-) And I’m not liberal, either. :-)

That’s where the conversation ended. Lacking a closing statement from him makes it feel a bit abrupt. I can’t help but wonder if my denying liberalism turned him off of me. He still talked to me after I said I’m not gay, but when I said I’m not liberal, zip, that’s the end of the conversation.

I guess he originally made the assumption that because I don’t have a hang up about gays/lesbians, then I must be of the liberal political persuasion. If so, then maybe my last response turned his assumption around and he decided that if I’m not liberal, then I must be conservative, and must be anti-gay.

Oh well. One should never assume (either way). When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.

Bullgrit

The talk of zero tolerance in Wednesday’s post (below) made me remember an incident when we were flying home from Florida a few weeks ago.

Calfgrit4 (turned 5 yesterday) was sitting next to me on the plane, and I got out his Leapster (hand-held video game) for him to occupy himself. This was while we were still on the tarmac, a couple minutes before we were to take off. (Calfgrit4 called it “blasting off.”)

A flight attendant, walking the aisle, looked over at us and told me we couldn’t use electronic devices during take off. I said, “OK,” and had CG4 turn it off. I commented to my mom, who was sitting on the other side of me, that rule of absolutely no electronics was ridiculous.

Mom said, “It’s so they don’t have to make a judgment call.”

I understand that, and I can appreciate the position having to make a judgment call would put the flight attendants in. But really, my problem with it is:

The airplane electronics should be shielded well enough that nothing in the passenger compartment could possibly interfere with them. What kind of rinky-dink set up do airplanes use that someone checking their voice mail at the back of the plane could potentially turn the craft into a lawn dart? I should be able to check my voice mail while nuking a breakfast burrito in a 2,000-watt microwave and running a World of Warcraft LAN party on half a dozen laptops without the pilots up front noticing any problems with their multi-million-dollar systems.

Bullgrit

I’ve been told that today is Blog Action Day ’09 — Climate Change.

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. One day. One issue. Thousands of voices.

Well, OK, I’ll blog what I think about climate change. I think most of the fears about climate change are . . . over stated, to put it politely. Here are my views on this concept of climate change:

1. I just don’t see how the way they measure the planet’s average temperature gives valid or useful information. The coldest regular temperature on earth is below -120° F, the hottest regular temperature on earth is over 130° F — that’s 250 degrees range. So it’s hard for me to see a 1.3° change in the average over a 100 year period as anything more than a statistical blip.  

2. Even if the global temperature is rising (slooooooowly), I just can’t feel the fear of of the supposed global repercussions. Each year, as the Earth revolves around the sun, the temperatures rise and drop by dozens of degrees — I mean, hell, the temperature can change in my city by 30 degrees over a 12-hour period. If a 60° change every year doesn’t cause great havoc to the planet, I’m just not worried about a 1.3° change over a century.

I pay attention to the hurricane season predictions each year (I live in the hurricane belt), and I’ve watched the professional weather and climate scientists get their predictions wrong year after year. I have no faith in the weather scientists to predict next week’s weather, much less next year’s, or the next century’s.

3. Even if the temperature is rising, and the climate change predictions are accurate, I’m not convinced that humanity has any large affect on the global situation. I’ve looked into this, through several sources, and I see just as much legitimate information saying humanity isn’t the main cause of global climate change as I’ve seen information saying humanity is the main cause global climate change.

There has always been some kind of doomsday scenario hanging over the world’s head, and they have most all been some form of man-made disaster. Nuclear war was the global bugaboo in my youth. Now it’s climate change. I fully expect there to be a new man-made sky-is-falling concept imagined within another decade. Some people are always wringing their hands and fretting over what terrible contastrophe some other people are going to wreak on the world. It’s a normal side of human nature.

I don’t want to live in a world covered in nasty chemicals and smoke, and I’m happy with the cleaning up some industry regulations have brought to our environment over the decades. I think clean energy would be a great thing, and so I would support the expansion of nuclear power plants in America.

But I just am not worried that the world is in some kind of climate crisis, in the near future or the far future. I just can’t buy into the kind of The Day After Tomorrow doomsday scenarios that most of the climate change fear mongers warn about. And I’m not convinced that mankind is the main culprit of their projected global weather disasters.

And I notice the name for this situation has been changed from “global warming” to “climate change.” I guess those who carry the banner for this concept got tired of people pointing out that 30 years ago the cry was “new ice age.”

And now, I must grant equal time to a different opinion: Rainbow conspiracy.

Bullgrit