Can the words Dubya and science really be put into the same sentence? Sort of a bad joke, I know. But like or not, at the worst of times for Dubya’s popularity, he is once more being harassed with that annoying critter known as Global Warming. Poor George just keeps hoping that it will disappear, but it just keeps popping up like a bleeding hemorrhoid that just won’t quit.

Even Dubya’s own hand-picked group of scientists turned against him. They were sent out on a mission to disprove the theory of Global Warming, to disprove the very idea that soccer moms driving gas guzzling SUVs might be disrupting our climate–and instead of telling him that gas emissions and toxic chemicals were good for the environment, they threw it back in his face No can do, George, they said.

So now, in the wake of hurricane Katrina, one of Dubya’s most colossal blunders to date and the mess that he just can’t erase away with photo-ops and nonsensical speeches or prayer days, here comes another attack.

Global warming. Again.

An increase in the ferocity of hurricanes around the globe over the last 35 years may be attributable to global warming, a new report states.

“I’m heading towards being a little less cautious,” study lead author Peter J. Webster, professor at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, said at a news conference Wednesday. “I think [rising] sea surface temperature is a global-warming effect and I think the change in [hurricane] intensity, which is a universal thing, is following sea surface temperature.”

You can read the rest of the article on Red Nova.

One point that the study emphasizes is that while the total number of hurricanes has actually dropped since the 1990s, the number of powerful catastrophic category 4 and 5 storms has increased. In fact, the number has doubled in the past 35 years. I hardly think that’s a coincidence. In the North Atlantic, the number of hurricanes has actually gone up, along with the number of powerful storms.

Category 4 and 5 hurricanes in the North Atlantic have increased at an even faster clip: from 16 in the period of 1975-89 to 25 in the period of 1990-2004, a rise of 56%.

Read the rest of this article at the Center for Atmospheric Research.

How long is it going to be before the Atlantic and Gulf coasts get hit with these monsters several times a year? How many times can you rebuild? Are these regions just going to become deserted?

Have an answer for us, George Bush? You’ve destroyed everything you’ve gotten your hands on thus far, save for the bank accounts of your rich friends. So why should you care about our coastline. Greed before life, that seems to be your motto.

A new face? Yes, it’s on the horizon. I know many of us look in the mirror and wish we could exchange our face for an improved model. And many of us try, considering the soaring rate of plastic surgery.

I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with improving one’s appearance, and I personally can’t stand listening to the “but it’s not natural” and “you should work on your inner beauty” crowd. Or the “but wrinkles give a face character.” Please. I think plastic surgery can be overdone, or done for the wrong reasons, but in most cases, people just want to look better.

Anyway, for right now, the complete face-over is something that is being examined for those who have suffered extreme disfiguration from burns, accidents, illness, etc. We transplant organs like kidneys and hearts, and we graft skin onto burned areas, so why not transplant a face?

It is this: to give people horribly disfigured by burns, accidents or other tragedies a chance at a new life. Today’s best treatments still leave many of them with freakish, scar-tissue masks that don’t look or move like natural skin.

These people already have lost the sense of identity that is linked to the face; the transplant is merely “taking a skin envelope” and slipping their identity inside, Siemionow contends.

Siemionow is Dr. Maria Siemionow of the fabled Cleveland Clinic, who wants to try to give these patients a new lease on life. Inner beauty be damned, these people have suffered through severe trauma, and are disfigured. A face transplant is not for everyone, but there are many who would love the chance to look normal again.

Of course, there is always the chorus of naysayers. They show up everytime something new is about to be tried. And they may be right, it may be a disaster, but then, I guess we would still be using candles and torches to light our homes and dying from strep throats if no one ever stepped out into the unknown and took a chance.

But her critics say the operation is way too risky for something that is not a matter of life or death, as organ transplants are. They paint the frighteningly surreal image of a worst-case scenario: a transplanted face being rejected and sloughing away, leaving the patient worse off than before.

Ultimately, it comes to this: a hospital, doctor and patient willing to try it.

If the patient is in sound mind, and completely aware of the risk, and willing to take the chance, why not? If technology has advanced to the point where this can be a possibility for someone who has lost their face, then why deny him the opportunity?

Read the AP story.

Last night was another one of those “maintenance attempts,” from Fatcow, which put my site out of service from 1am to 9am ET today. I just checked and it seems to be counting visits again, a good sign. Generally Fatcow maintence outtages screw things up, and it’s like starting from square one again. But my blog seems to be up and about, and it even looks like the sun will make an appearance in Seattle.

So, all quiet on the Western front for now. I’ll check my visit tallies later and see if it is working. Hopefully it will be, so I don’t have to deal with semi-brain dead humanoids–the people who staff Fatcow’s customer service.