You can find photos of Lady Gaga’s fans, dressed up like her, all over the internet. I guess it’s another way of showing Lady Gaga how much they admire and adore her. Fans will be happy to know that YouTube’s premier makeup artist, Michelle Phan, has made some super simple and easy to follow Lady Gaga Makeup Tutorial Videos. Yet another way for Lady Gaga fans to emulate the pop diva.

This past May, YouTube makeup artist, Michelle Phan, posted a makeup tutorial she created after watching Lady Gaga in her Poker Face music video. The makeup tutorial for Lady Gaga’s Poker Face by Michelle Phan has been viewed a whopping 12 million times on YouTube. Either folks enjoy watching Michelle Phan work her makeup magic, or they specifically wanted to learn how to put on Lady Gaga inspired makeup.

Obviously, Michelle Phan has fun with makeup, but she often ventures a little further by adorning herself with colorful wigs and costumes for the final minutes of her popular HD quality video tutorials. Michelle is truly talented, not only with makeup, but also in front of the camera. Michelle will even include links in the sidebar showing where she bought the wigs, costumes and special makeup used during the filming of her makeup tutorials. Here is a link to the Poker Face Tutorial by makeup artist, Michelle Phan on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFMaLuI1uxc

Another Lady Gaga inspired makeup tutorial by Michelle Phan is the Lady Gaga Bad Romance Look. This makeup tutorial video is only about seven minutes long, which is rather short when compared to other videos Michelle Phan has made. I knew Bad Romance, by Lady Gaga, was a popular song, but I had no idea just how popular. I searched YouTube to find out that the music video for Bad Romance by Lady Gaga has been viewed 83 million times. Rather incredible.

You can find dozens of other makeup tutorials, made by people other than Ms. Phan, on YouTube, many offering tips on how to look like Lady Gaga. But none of them compare to the professional quality and close-up detail you’ll find in Michelle Phan’s makeup tutorials. One of the more impressive makeup tutorials by Michelle Phan is her Barbie Transformation Tutorial. Watch it if you get a chance, and would like to see how someone with the proper skills can utterly transform the way she looks. It’s only nine minutes long, yet it’s been viewed 2.5 million times in only three months.

Just in case you’ve spent your life sequestered in a dungeon 1,000 feet below a polar ice cap, UFO stands for unidentified flying object. Technically speaking, UFO sightings are quite common. When anyone looks towards the sky and sees something that can’t be readily identified, it is a UFO. Some common UFO sightings include extremely high altitude aircraft, meteorites, weather balloons and the space shuttle as it re-enters earth’s atmosphere. Frequently, people who see a UFO will quickly realize what it is – after further observation, and sometimes the aid of a pair of binoculars.

The connotation of UFO is different than what the term actually defines. The mention of a UFO instantly conjures up visions of aliens and their highly advanced spacecraft. UFO has come to mean alien unidentified flying object, as in, from another planet. The internet is bubbling over with stories, accounts, photographs and even videos of these alien UFO events.

Much of the UFO information on the internet can be quickly dismissed as an obvious form of fakery, just by looking at it. I downloaded a couple of the more popular UFO photographs and magnified them in Photoshop only to find pixel-sized evidence of fakery. Some of the UFO photographs, stories and videos, however, are not so easily dismissed. But does that make them real?

UFO materials, which include all the stories, photos and videos, have some things in common. The photographs and videos are from a distance and never very clear. The stories almost never have witnesses, and when they do, they are far from credible. And there is never any proof such as alien DNA; body fluids or parts; technology; unknown elements or composites; alien writing, hieroglyphics or anything else. UFO enthusiasts quickly dismiss the lack of proof as part of a massive cover up conspiracy. Apparently, whenever a UFO comes to earth, a team is dispatched instantly to the scene to ensure no evidence of alien visitation remains for the general public to discover.

I find few, if any, concepts more tantalizing and exciting than the thought of a UFO filled with aliens visiting Mother Earth. Even the thought of an unoccupied UFO on a survey mission landing in Grand Canyon or Central Park is electrifying. The mind reels with the possibilities for progress in medicine, science, philosophy, technology and physics. But I’m going to have to keep my excitement penned up until there is some proof. Visitation by aliens in a UFO is, after all, an extraordinary claim, and should therefore be accompanied by extraordinary proof. Certainly more proof than a blurred photo, shaky video or statement of account from one person.

Personally, I believe there are countless other life forms in the Milky Way Galaxy. Some of those life forms, I’m confident, have something akin to what we call consciousness and intelligence. Of those, I’m sure some have achieved their era of technology. But why would they come and visit earth, of all places? Our planet is in the boondocks of the galaxy orbiting an average star. Not very good probabilities for finding anything interesting. And finally, if aliens did come to earth in an interstellar-capable UFO, why would they conceal themselves and their presence so thoroughly?

Many prominent scientists (and me too) desperately want a UFO event to pan out. But until there is some real proof of a UFO and/or an alien visitation, I’ll just have to keep watching the skies and hoping. What do you believe?

Ticket promoters for Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball Tour announced today that if fans want a refund because Kid Cudi is no longer performing, they should request one at The Pearl box office before the start of the show. What a deal, especially in sin city. An official announcement came from Kid Cudi’s website, DatNewCudi.com, only a few hours later. “Kid Cudi has decided to take an early leave of absence from Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball tour, in order to balance his schedule surrounding the recording of his next album and acting commitments. Cudi does not want to disappoint his fans and will move forward with his individual show dates in December and throughout the month of January.”

All of this Lady Gaga Monster Ball Tour hoopla comes only five days after opening act rapper Kid Cudi punched a fan during a solo performance in Vancouver, Canada. That incident occurred during Kid Cudi’s fifth show in three days. His representatives are saying the stress of his solo tour may have taken its toll on him. Really?

Most die hard fans of Lady Gaga will remember this is not the first concert tour fiasco the Monster Ball Tour has experienced this year. You’ll remember that Lady Gaga’s first scheduled tour of 2009, the Fame Kills tour, was going to feature Kanye West. But that tour was quickly canceled at the last minute, actually a few days after Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards. That bombed out tour was replaced with the successful Monster Ball Tour, currently in its first month of sold-out shows.

As of this morning, Kid Cudi’s replacement on the Monster Ball Tour with Lady Gaga is going to be Jason Derulo. If you aren’t familiar with Jason Derulo, look up his chart-topping single “Whatcha Say” on YouTube. The sold out Monster Ball Tour will go ahead as scheduled. Leave it to Team Gaga not to skip a beat by replacing the warm-up act so quickly. Although I’m sure there is a long list of acts wanting to step up on stage and warm up the crowd of adoring fans for the luscious and sexy diva of the year, Lady Gaga.

Since Thanksgiving, the media has relentlessly pounded on Tiger Woods, and everything he has ever said or done. He’s been called all sorts of names including cheater, philanderer, sex addict, bad husband and bad father. The media at large seems to celebrate every time that Tiger Woods loses a sponsor, another alleged mistress appears or anything unusual at all happens at his home – such as when his mother-in-law had to be taken to the hospital late one night.

Well, the media sure did show billionaire golfing prodigy Tiger Woods that he can’t just get away with anything he wants to. And yes, that’s billionaire with a “b.” That means that Tiger Woods is a millionaire at least a thousand times over! Tiger Woods could give every single member of Congress a million dollars and still be fabulously wealthy.

So what has Tiger Woods done in response to the media full court press? He’s quit playing golf and is considering moving out of the USA, and taking his reputation, golfing skills – and money – with him. Of course he also apologized to his countless golfing fans for his ‘indiscretions.’

The world of professional golf has been dealt a massive blow with the announced hiatus of Tiger Woods. Not only is there no golfer who can take Tiger Woods’ place in terms of golfing skill, there is nobody in pro golf today that the general public really cares about. There go hundreds of golf stories the media will never get to write. A lack of interest in golf will also no doubt affect which tournaments are broadcast and which are not broadcast. I think it’s safe to say that there will be less media coverage of golf tournaments that are sans Tiger Woods.

The departure of Tiger Woods from golf, whether it’s temporary or permanent, will also dramatically affect the outcome of tournaments. That means the odds are changing. But it also means that sponsors may well reconsider footing the bill to hold some golf tournaments, especially the lesser golf tournaments. No need for media if there is not a tournament.

So Tiger Woods has had affairs with – at this writing – 14 gorgeous women. He’s made over a billion dollars playing golf. He still has a beautiful wife. He still has countless dedicated fans. He is still the best golfer in the world. Not too bad.

The media and golf, on the other hand, have lost one of their primary meal tickets. The greatest spokesman since Arnold Palmer and the biggest golf tournament draw in history. And even if Tiger Woods does come back to golf, he will no doubt change his tone with the media that so turned on him.

So in the end, Tiger Woods wins and the media and golf lose. The media really should have expected this to happen, though. After all, Tiger Woods is, if nothing else, a winner.

During the past week, Tiger Woods has had his name plastered all over the media. TV, newspapers, radio and magazines are all scrambling to make sure the name Tiger Woods is somehow their lead story. It all started with a minor one car accident that took place on Thanksgiving night. Tiger Woods was driving alone in his SUV outside of his mansion in Windermere, Florida. Apparently, he drove into a fire hydrant and a tree. Tiger Woods suffered minor injuries, and the luxury SUV had some minor damage.

From the minute his accident became public, Tiger Woods has watched as just about every news outlet in the free world misreported the initial facts of the accident, and then started to, how shall I say – embellish the facts. Within a day, the media fueled rumor mill was hard at work pumping out stories that included all manner of gossip – most of it not at all good for Tiger Woods or his sterling image. Some of the other people who were prominently mentioned in the Tiger Woods news/rumor feeding frenzy included his wife, Elin Nordegren and two alleged girlfriends Rachel Uchitel and Jaimee Grubbs.

Did Elin Nordegren actually attack her golf legend husband Tiger Woods with a golf club – or did she, as she said, use a golf club to break the window of his SUV and help him escape the vehicle? Was, or is, Tiger Woods having an intimate affair with former hostess Rachel Uchitel? Was, or is, Tiger Woods having an intimate affair with cocktail waitress Jaimee Grubbs? Who, except for Tiger Woods, his family and his closest friends, cares?

Remember now, all of this media hype and speculation began because Tiger Woods had a single car crash outside of his home in Florida, while driving alone. He was not caught in a sleazy motel with a woman other than his wife. There was no ‘other woman’ in his car at the time of the wreck. Nobody uncovered a cell phone photo of Tiger Woods and a mistress in a compromising situation. Tiger Woods simply had a minor accident. But that alone was just not enough for the media.

I say leave Tiger Woods alone. If he is having an extramarital affair, or affairs, that’s something very personal that he and his wife need to work out. If Tiger Woods is not involved in any extramarital escapades, then all of the speculation does him and his family irreparable harm. The media keeps screaming they want answers. I’ll bet Tiger’s wife wants some answers too. The sad thing is, if there’s nothing going on, Tiger Woods is going to have a hard time ‘proving’ it to his wife. After all, just pickup any newspaper and you can plainly see that Tiger Woods is cheating on his wife.

All of the media hype, speculation and rumors are no doubt altering the dynamic between Tiger Woods and his wife, Elin Nordegren. Irrespective of whether or not Tiger Woods is having an affair, his wife must surely be angered with him for her public embarrassment. It only makes sense that she would blame him. Blaming the media offers no opportunity for venting or closure. If Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren weren’t having marital problems two weeks ago, they surely are now. If Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren were having marital problems two weeks ago, those problems have been grossly amplified by an apathetic and irresponsible press.

Despite all the media speculation about possible criminal charges against Tiger Woods and/or Elin Nordegren – the Florida Highway Patrol has issued a single citation to Tiger Woods for careless driving. The ticket will cost the golf pro $164 and four points on his driver’s license. So it’s all been much ado about nothing. Let’s hope that the ancillary damage caused by irresponsible reporting and speculation doesn’t cause him too much grief.

As I said, I am not into golf or Tiger Woods. Still, I was compelled to write something in the man’s defense. Fans of Tiger Woods might want to consider jumping online and posting something supportive for him. Perhaps an apology for his horrific plight during this maelstrom of destructive speculation, or perhaps just a ‘best of luck to you and your lovely wife’ during this crisis. If you’re a Tiger Woods fan, this is the time to stand up and cheer for your man. That’s what great fans do.

Stand up at your cousin’s wedding reception, raise you glass and ask: who likes sex? You’ll likely see a few blushes, quite a few smiles, some chuckles and a vast number of hands being raised. In the same situation, replace the word sex for the word pornography. No more smiles or chuckles – several angry faces, maybe even one or two guests coming at you with rage in their eyes – and no hands will be raised. As a culture, we’ve become much more comfortable with the perceived connotation of sex. Not so much with pornography. In fact, not at all with pornography.

Pornography is big business. Really big business! For example, every second of every day $3,075.64 is spent on pornography. It’s hard to nail down the exact annual revenues generated from sex and pornography, but available figures show revenues ranging from $10 billion to over $13 billion – and that’s just for the United States. Pornography is popular all over the world. China is the leading consumer of pornography, with an estimated revenue of over $27 billion per year. The number 2 pornography consumer is, oddly, South Korea. South Korea generates over $25 billion per year in pornography revenues. Globally, the sex and pornography industry generates over $97 billion annually. If there was any doubt in your mind that sex sells or that pornography is popular, it should now be gone.

In these trying economic times, the media is attempting to give people as many pieces to the economic crisis puzzle as possible. Sex and pornography are, as shown by the figures above, important elements of our economy. And while it’s clear that essentially nobody wants to publicly admit they have any interest at all in pornography, it is just as clear that many people purchase pornography, and also that the sex and pornography industry employs a great many people. The sex and pornography industry also contributes to the chain of revenues in this country through outlets, advertising, shipping, printing, taxes, etc.

Recently I watched a weekly TV newsmagazine produced by Current TV called Vanguard. The episode is entitled: Porn 2.0. You can watch the episode by clicking on the Hulu link attached to this article. Don’t worry, the program is PG13, not XXX. In that program, the powers-that-be in the sex and pornography industry express a clear concern that all the free pornography available on the internet is diminishing ‘legitimate’ industry incomes and revenues, and will ultimately lead to the demise of the sex and pornography industry.

Many people know how to copy protected materials today. The anti-copy protection on VHS tapes, CDs and DVDs is no match for today’s growing army of savvy computer users. Add that fact to the presence of the internet and you have everything needed to duplicate protected materials and make them available to hundreds of millions of people around the world – almost instantly. And that’s what the sex and pornography industry leaders are worried about. The music industry has been screaming bloody murder about this same thing for years.

Sex and pornography industry leaders report that the availability of so much free pornography on the internet is substantially reducing their revenues. Revenues, they say, which are required in order to maintain ‘quality’ standards of production and content. If they don’t make enough money, they won’t be able to continue to produce new pornography. Or at least not ‘high quality’ new pornography. And after that, they assert, there will be nothing to illegally copy and dispense free over the internet.

Having spent the last couple of days researching sex and pornography, I must heartily disagree with the assertions of sex and pornography industry leaders. My first reason for saying this is that sex and pornography industry revenues tripled between 1992 and 2006. My second reason for saying this is that, despite the fact that nobody will ever admit to watching pornography, sex and pornography remain highly sought after and eagerly watched.

The sex and pornography industry will no doubt go through changes because of the growing availability of free internet pornography. I can’t argue that. But essentially all businesses have had to evolve due to the various impacts the internet has had on them. Imagine how the envelope industry has had to change since email came along, not to mention stationery companies and the Postal Service. And look what online news is doing to printed newspapers and magazines.

I believe that sex and pornography industry leaders will find ways to cope with free internet pornography and still make their profits. Those that can’t will fall by the wayside – which is the natural way of capitalism in the age of the internet.

The numbers simply don’t paint a picture of a failing sex and pornography industry. Quite the contrary, in fact. This leads me to question why sex and pornography industry leaders are so adamantly saying that if free internet pornography is not halted, there will be no more [new] pornography produced. I can only assume that they are attempting to scare (or perhaps shame) pornography users into paying for all their pornography – and skipping over anything free they find on the internet. It’s an interesting ploy, but one that I am sure is doomed to fail.

Will free internet pornography kill the pornography industry? No – I am quite sure that it won’t. In fact, I believe something along the lines of the opposite will happen. To survive, I believe the sex and pornography industry will evolve more rapidly than it would have otherwise. I also believe they will cultivate new markets with new products – many of which will not be of the variety that can be copied and dispensed free of charge. Perhaps membership-based, interactive 3-D websites or live telephone activities – who knows. The point is, the sex and pornography industry is not in any danger of being killed off by the presence of free internet pornography.

Whether or not you use, or even like, pornography is moot. Pornography is here to stay, and if the numbers are any indication, it will only get more popular and more available. While some may not like the statement this makes about our global culture, it is a fact. Just like death and taxes, sex and pornography are sure things. And they’re here to stay.

I completely understand why so many Americans are not convinced that man made global warming is real. Both sides of this controversial topic have scientists in their corner touting that faction’s point of view on global warming – and backing it with copious ‘scientific data.’ Heck, it’s all but impossible to even wade through all of it, much less understand it. I am the proverbial layman – as most of you are. And like you, I really want to know the truth of global warming. Take heart, I figured it out for us – in laymen’s terms – and now I’ll share my inescapable conclusions.

Man made Global warming is indeed really happening. Here’s how I know this to be so. Earth is contained within an envelope that we call our atmosphere. The atmosphere (air) is held to the earth by gravity. There are no vents in the atmosphere, no windows and no doors. It’s sealed. Down on earth we have a huge air filtration system in the form of vegetation. Are you with me so far? Nothing too complicated about these facts at all. So let’s make a global warming comparison that’s easier to see and work with than the entire planet and its atmosphere.

It’s the dead of winter and you’re hosting a wedding reception at your house. According to the guest list, there will be four cigarette smokers attending the event so you rent an air cleaner and centrally locate it in your home. The doors and windows will have to remain closed due to the cold weather. The guests all arrive and sure enough, four of them light up cigarettes right away. Despite the efficient and hard working air filter, the guests throughout the entire house soon smell cigarette smoke. But the air filter keeps the odors and visible smoke to a minimum.

An hour after the reception kicks off, three guests stroll into the smoking area and light up cigars. Ten minutes later, five people who were not listed as cigarette smokers light up. Ten minutes after that, two more cigars get fired up, and now three pipe smokers join the smoky festivities. The entire house now fills with the acrid smells of tobacco smoke. Fifteen minutes later, visible smoke hangs in the air halfway to the floor from the ceiling. Non-smokers start to have difficulty breathing, and even the smokers are starting to be bothered by the ever thickening smoke. Everyone’s eyes start to itch and water.

Like the sealed house with an air filter, our sealed earth atmosphere will indeed fill up with our waste gas products, and eventually our filters won’t be able to handle it. We’ve been at the point where earth’s filtration system can no longer handle the amount of greenhouse gas we pump into the atmosphere every day for some time now. And yet, more and more smokers keep entering the room: factories, refineries, cars, trucks, aircraft, etc.

To add to the now clearly demonstrated problem, we are constantly shutting down air cleaners on earth. Every time we clear vegetation, we reduce earth’s ability to filter our air and thus promote global warming. So, while we keep increasing the amount of greenhouse gas we produce, we also continuously reduce earth’s ability to properly filter it out of our precious air. It would be like turning down the air filter in the smoky house, even as more and more smokers lit up.

The only remaining question is: do greenhouse gasses (gasses which trap heat between the earth and space) affect the earth’s temperature? To answer that, you need only sit inside a sealed car on a sunny day – without the air conditioner running. Even if it’s only 80°F outside, the temperature inside of the car will rapidly rise to over 100°F. That’s because the sealed car, like greenhouse gasses, stops the hot air from escaping. It’s global warming on a tiny scale.

So, a) man made greenhouse gasses do in fact collect in our atmosphere and b) greenhouse gasses cause warming (check out the climate of planet Venus if you’d like to see how bad global warming can get). I really don’t believe there’s any way around this. But I still understand if you’re a skeptic, what with so much scientific global warming mumbo-jumbo being flung around by the media.

In closing, I’d like to add my predictions for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Some things will be done to slow greenhouse gas emissions, but those steps will not make the necessary difference – by a long shot. On the high end, I’ve heard that a 30% reduction of greenhouse gasses by 2025 is on the table. That may have been okay 25 or 30 years ago, but our air is already filthy and heavily laden with greenhouse gasses, and our filter is already way overloaded, filthy dirty and being made smaller and less efficient every day.

I believe that if we are to actually put an end to global warming, let our filters rejuvenate and get our air clean again, we need to do something like reduce greenhouse gasses by 80% by 2015. At the same time, we need to quit destroying our natural air filter and start supplementing it by a concerted effort to plant trees and other vegetation around the world.

It would be better if you now accept the problem of global warming as a reality. You could join the growing number of voices pleading for solutions. But as I said, I understand if you don’t believe in global warming. I’ll patiently wait for you to change your mind. I’m confident that by 2015 enough horrific things will have happened that global warming skeptics will be as rare as clean, fresh air.

Google owns YouTube, which it purchased for a hefty $1.7 billion. YouTube is the number one video sharing facility in the world. That puts Google at the top of that heap, also.

Google Maps, most specifically their satellite views, are regularly used on cable and network TV news shows. Chalk up one more arena in which Google leads the pack.

Google has dozens of free, useful programs for computer users; its own browser, Chrome; free Gmail that includes more storage than anyone could possibly ever use; and popular programs allowing website owners to share in Google’s advertising profits.

Even those who don’t much care for Google will admit that the search engine giant has managed to stay slightly ahead of the curve in all things internet, and most things computer related. Even Google’s approach to employee treatment and relations is bordering on legendary, and is the envy of tech workers everywhere.

The point is that Google is gigantic, and absolutely leading edge when it comes to technology – especially technology online. Their army of high tech specialists includes divisions of engineers, designers, programmers, code writers and more. Their intellectual property secrets are better guarded than the formula for Coke. Despite all of these things, Google is not able to defend itself against cyber-attacks. Whether or not you use Google, this should be a matter of some concern to you.

The recent, sophisticated cyber-attack on Google, which allegedly was initiated in Taiwan, has had a great deal of fallout. The most talked about is Google’s announcement that it might stop doing business in China. Getting less mention is that Google may have had some of its intellectual properties stolen. And getting almost no mention at all is the most obvious reason for concern: if Google can get hacked, what other businesses and companies can be attacked?

If someone hacked my Gmail account, well, I might suffer a few moments of embarrassment regarding personal correspondence, but no harm done, really. Hackers may have even gotten into the documents I’ve written on and stored in Google’s free word processor. Again, no harm done – not really. But what if these same “sophisticated” cyber-attacks are directed at my bank, or my credit card companies?

It’s hard for me to believe that my bank has the technological wherewithal that Google possesses. Of course I use a small, local bank with rather antiquated and cumbersome online banking facilities. Hardly a prime target for high level hackers. But my credit cards are with larger banks. Banks that might well appeal to hackers with the proper skills and resources at their disposal. Again, I refuse to believe that these mammoth banks have anywhere near the tech support of Google. That said – I am increasingly concerned for the safety of my banking information.

There’s not really very much I can do to allay my concerns. I did go around and change all my passwords, ensuring to use very strong new passwords. Thanks to Roboform Password Manager, that was pretty easy. But other than that, all I can do is wait and watch – and hope that my financial institutions are not targeted. That’s about all any of us mere mortals can do about such things. It’s the downside of technology: we’ve put ourselves at the effect of a whole lot of things we cannot control, and that we do not understand – at all.

The mission, or objective, of the Copenhagen conference, also referred to as COP15, is best summed up by the Danish government in their welcome package to participants in the Copenhagen climate conference:

“The world is facing a major challenge. We cannot continue using fossil fuels the way we do today. Scientists have laid out the risks we face and it has become clearer than ever that now is the time to take serious action on climate change. If we do not act today, the opportunity will not only slip out of our hands but it will also become much more expensive to carry out the necessary low-carbon transition in the future.

As the host of COP15, we, the Danish Government, will do our utmost to create common ground for a coherent global response to this challenge. The task is daunting – but our mission is clear. We need to agree on an ambitious, global agreement in Copenhagen that meets the challenge set by science.”

Today is December 18^th, 2009. President Obama just delivered a special address to the participants in the Copenhagen climate conference – the ones who are still there, that is. The reason the president spoke was because thus far, the Copenhagen climate conference has gone nowhere and done nothing. The president’s intent was to jumpstart the conference, again, for the final day of discussions. At this writing, the president’s speech, like the Copenhagen climate conference itself, has been a dismal failure.

I shouldn’t really say that the Copenhagen climate conference has done nothing and gone nowhere. A lot of leaders of countries have managed to severely irritate the leaders of other countries. Perhaps most notably, President Obama roiled Chinese officials with his remarks about monitoring greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). And the Copenhagen climate conference itself has left a Sasquatch-sized carbon footprint.

So what message have the leaders of our world’s countries sent to the people of their countries? If nothing else, they have definitely signaled that the global warming problem is not so bad after all. Of course, this seems a clear contradiction to the comments made by the Danish government in the statements above. And it is also in denial of some pretty substantial science.

Before the Copenhagen climate conference, people could be put into one of three categories regarding global warming: 1) I believe it! 2) I’m just not sure about it. 3) No way! Something else I’m sure the Copenhagen climate conference has accomplished is to shift many of the I’m just not sure about it group over to the No way group. No telling what affect the Copenhagen climate conference fiasco has had on the I believe it! group.

We’re told that global warming will mean, essentially, the end of civilization and life as we know it. Flooded coastal areas and islands, drought, severe storms, famine – the list of the horrendous consequences of global warming just goes on and on. We’re also told that if corrective action is not taken immediately, it will be too late. Yet the Copenhagen climate conference has fully failed to accomplish anything productive.

I think the message we are being sent by the failure of the Copenhagen climate conference is perhaps that this whole global warming issue/concern has been trumped up to cause fear and facilitate further, greater controls on world populations.

Closing note: It has just been announced that the delegates are now leaving Copenhagen and the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference behind – with no useful agreements achieved.

Here, I’ll show you what I mean. You are riding on a train. The train is traveling east at 60 mp/h. You stand up and start running east at a speed that you know (from countless hours on a treadmill) to be 3 mp/h. What is your speed? Now, suppose you turn around and run west. What is your speed? When you are running east, is your speed 3 mp/h or 63 mp/h? And when you run west, is your speed 3 mp/h or 57 mp/h? But wait, we’ve only just begun.

Remember the train you started running on? Well, if it was located at the equator, then even if it is parked at the station, it is traveling at the speed of the earth’s rotational spin, which is over a 1,000 mp/h in the equatorial regions. Conversely, if the train was at one of the poles, the earth’s rotational spin speed would be only a fraction of that. It’s like a merry-go-round: the spindle turns at a steady rate, but the rotational speed on the outer edge of the carousel is much greater than at its center.

Next comes the speed of earth as it orbits the sun. The average orbital speed of earth is well over 66,000 mp/h. So then, if you are standing on the equator, you are traveling at a speed well in excess of 67,000 mp/h. Think that’s fast – just wait.

Now we get to add in the speed at which the sun, with the earth in tow, orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. There are different methods used to compute this speed, I’ll just pick one at random. The sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy at around 1,409,040 mp/h. I wonder why my hair isn’t blowing around…

Of course we could go on to the speed at which the Milky Way Galaxy scurries through the universe, but since we’re already traveling at around 1.5 million mp/h – I better stop and move on to other perplexing matters of speed.

Does one determine the speed of a rocket ship by using its point of origin in the calculation, or its intended destination? When a rocket is launched from earth in the same direction which the earth travels around the sun, it won’t pull away nearly as fast as when it’s launched in the opposite direction. The same principle holds true for its destination.

From the above, it’s easy to see why Einstein knew we absolutely needed a standard for speed. According to Einstein, light sets the bar for speed in our universe. And his theories have held up well under almost a century of intense scientific scrutiny. In the beginning of his work, The Theory of Special Relativity, Einstein establishes a cosmic speed limit: nothing can travel as fast as light: 186,000 mp/s. Now we’re getting somewhere! But then later comes the troubling matter of time dilation.

Time dilation refers to the phenomenon: the closer you get to traveling at the speed of light, the slower time passes – for the traveler, that is. Everyone else is stuck in ‘real time.’ What this boils down to, by way of example, is simply this: if you board a spaceship that is capable of achieving .9 the speed of light, and depart earth headed for the center of the Milky Way Galaxy – you’ll arrive in what you perceive to be about 20 years or so. But to the folks back on planet earth, almost 30,000 years will pass during your trip. So would you calculate .9 light speed using the tempo of time on the spaceship, or using an earthbound tempo?

Discussions on time dilation usher in the debate over the possibility of time travel. If one manages to defy physics and travel at speeds greater than light speed, will one go back in time? But that’s another story.