Remember how Henny Penny went around yelling “The sky is falling?” Disaster was just minutes away according to her cackling. Now, flocks of Henny Penny’s are cackling that disaster from global warming is just minutes away. It is happening right before our very eyes this minute, right now, as I write. Our death is just the next breath away due to the ever increasing heat, or is it from the drowning in rising sea water? Or … fill in your preferred demise to satisfy the hysterical buffoons.

Now that the Henny Penny part of the title has been addressed, it is time to examine the expert part. Experts can be found everywhere, from the morning coffee shops to the halls of great profundity found in universities, the so called seats of all knowledge. Well … profundity might not be the correct word since it means depth and great thought. The major difference between the coffee shop “experts” and the halls of knowledge “experts” speaking profundities is that the former know that they don’t know it all and the latter …. Suffice it to say Henny Penny’s cackling wasn’t very accurate either.

   A major difference exists between the hysterical cackling of the chicken and the “experts.” She was certain and very positive that the sky was falling, but the experts are full of negativity and uncertainty; although in the case of the scientists they say that the consensus among the experts is that global warming is real so to them that is certainty. Enough of that consensus stuff. Let’s examine “expert” uncertainty. Notice that the great learned minds of the “we know it all crowd” are filled with the following words: could, would, might, potentially, and possible. Another word that they like is if. It works as follows: If the chicken crosses the road it might get hit. If the chicken would quit looking for worms there might be more worms. It’s possible the chicken won’t get hit crossing the road. Chickens might not have anything to do with a lower population of worms. Chickens could be looking for bugs. The problem with chickens has the possibility of being potentially devastating for the bugs.

Use the word uncertainty for each statement. Not one of those statements is a certainty and that is exactly the way “experts” speak. The bottom line is that they don’t know, but they sure are trying to make people think they know. Al Gore is so certain that global warming is a settled matter due to consensus he refuses to debate the issue. Now for a certainty. There is no need to use the words could, would, might, and possible in reference to Gore. If he will debate it is certain he will look less than certain. And people would think he is potentially an idiot. Let us be certain on this matter. Leave out the word potentially.

There is an old saying that identifies an “expert” as a former stream under pressure reduced to a mere drip. Another is that an expert is a man with a brief case 100 miles from home. And lastly, an “expert” is one who knows all there is to know about all those things of which he knows nothing. Those sayings are not meant to put down true experts who deal with facts, and who indeed know that the sky isn’t falling in spite of Henny Penny and a consensus among her chicken followers.

And speaking of consensus, more than a few “experts” like to jump on the Henny Penny band wagon just in case the prediction or warning might prove to be true. It will validate their “expertness” when it proves to be correct. In the early 1990s, an “expert” predicted with certainty that the New Madrid Fault near Marked Tree in Arkansas would shake, rattle, and roll and destroy everything within its zone. All sorts of preparations were made and some schools were cancelled in anticipation of the sky falling … uh the earth shaking. The appointed day arrived and sure enough things shook and rumbled. That is, the eighteen wheelers crossing the bridges that span the Mississippi River made them shake and rumble as usual. As for the “experts”, they ducked for cover saying it could have happened. The truth is they didn’t know and they proved to be no more correct than Henny Penny. But one thing proved to be certain. A lot of kids enjoyed the day off from the schools that were closed due to “educators” believing the “Henny Penny experts.”

One of the worst Henny Penny groups that ignore the facts and truth is the news media. As soon as they hear things they don’t like, they launch into negative mode to refute facts by using the words could, would, might, and possible. Don’t leave out potentially.  A former vice-president called them nattering nabobs of negativism and said they were "an effete corps of impudent snobs." Is it possible that certain of the media make Henny Penny intelligent and that the words can also apply to the “experts?”

As soon as the “experts” hear anything that counters their assertions they begin the incessant cackling of doom like Henny Penny. Well, not quite like Henny Penny. It is correct to say that Henny Penny was certain the sky was falling though she was wrong. In Sorting It Out it is certain the “experts” are both uncertain and wrong most of the time. Most of the time? That’s right. A blind hog will find an acorn once in a while. Except in Al Gore’s case, it would be a disservice to a swine’s nobility to compare him to a blind hog.

09-01-2007 DEC