I’m writing this column on January 9. Outside it’s in the mid-50s, perfectly in line with my prediction from November of a warmer than normal winter. My older, snowboard-obsessed son refused to believe me when I first weighed in with my Old Man Winter prognostication. “Since when did you become a weatherman,” he questioned me one morning on the way to school in early December when it was 16 degrees. “It’s still autumn,” I countered defensively. He’s at Mountain Creek this evening navigating around bare spots through the slush. Is this winter’s mild, money-saving weather the result of global warming? While I have written humorously on the topic on several occasions, later his month I’ll take a serious look in a longer article.  

After my column on intelligent design ran in several newspapers and a few well-surfed websites (the full, unedited version is currently featured on GregRummo.com), I began receiving e-mails addressed to other people with names like “Moron” and “Idiot.” Not really—but the tone was there nonetheless. I usually do not respond to e-mails based on an argumentum ad hominem, but in this case, some were too instructive to ignore. It seems the thing that got people riled up was my contention that there is science behind Intelligent Design theory. Its critic’s only weapon is to turn the Darwinist vs. ID debate into a religious one. But Darwinists cannot have it both ways: If Intelligent Design isn’t based on science; then neither is Darwinism. Neither has been, nor can be demonstrated in the laboratory according to the scientific method. But Darwinists are a tireless bunch. They redefine the terminology to suit the outcome. In a Dec. 24, Wall Street Journal column entitled “Faith in Theory,” James Q Wilson writes, “Evolution is a theory in the scientific sense. It has been tested repeatedly by examining the remains of now-extinct creatures to see how one species has emerged to replace another.” This from a former Harvard professor who two paragraphs earlier described a satellite’s motion around the earth as “rotation.” (Satellites “revolve” around the earth.) But not to pick on the man’s English—an occupational hazard for us journalists for sure—even ones like me who hold an earned graduate degree in chemistry. If Darwinism is science, then so is Intelligent Design by the Darwinist’s own definition of science. If Intelligent Design is merely a theory in the philosophical sense, then so too is Darwinism. And to those who remain obdurate and continue to characterize ID as religion, and its proponents as “fundamentalists,” they should take a good, long look at their own orthodoxy.

Earlier this afternoon, the Dow Industrials Average climbed above and closed over the 11,000 mark for the first time in a little over 4-1/2 years. The NASDAQ also closed at a multi-year high as did the S&P 500. The Russell 2,000 closed at an all-time high. For the last four years I have consistently touted the US economy on this page. I applauded the Bush tax cuts. And if you followed my stock market advice, and invested in equities on a regular basis, you should be rich by now.

So maybe it’s time to spread some of that wealth…A column I wrote about Capt. Kevin Winemiller, a US Army Reserve chaplain stationed in Kabul, put me in touch with a number of our young men and women serving with him in Afghanistan. As Democrats talk about cutting and running (John Murtha), or accuse our soldiers of terrorizing Iraqi women and children in the middle of the night (John Kerry) or simply losing the war altogether (Howard Dean) it was refreshing to read e-mails from the GIs themselves. Here’s an excerpt from an e-mail I received from Chantel: “Thank you for your support...I am glad that I get to fight for my country and I do feel that I am making it better for all those that can’t fight for themselves. I love America, and I want to make sure I fight for my freedom as well as others.” If you’d like the name of a GI to whom you could send an encouraging e-mail, or a letter or perhaps even a package of homemade cookies, drop me a note and I’ll see to it that I get you a name, an address and an e-mail of an enlisted person serving in Afghanistan. All of the GIs receive “snail mail” at an APO. The postage is inexpensive and delivery—believe it or not—is only 5-7 days from the US to Kabul. n

Gregory J. Rummo is a (scientifically degreed) businessman (with an MS in chemistry and an MBA in finance.) He is also a meteorologist, journalist, stock market guru and an all around good guy. Contact him at his website, GregRummo.com