Ultima Phule

Lake County US Senator and favorite son Mark Kirk may have changed the course of history this week. Kirk explained the facts behind global warming to the E&E News:

"We had the previous warming period, which was called the global optimum, and the best way to talk about that is when Leif Erickson went west from his home, he discovered a landmass that he called Greenland, because it was," Kirk said after Senate Republicans' first weekly caucus lunch. "And that was called the global optimum, because the planet was much warmer. By calling Greenland 'green land,' we know that the climate has been changing pretty regularly within recorded memory."
Kirk disavows climate change ahead of expected Senate vote

Your LakeCountyEye did some fact checking and learned that the Greenland ice sheet is actually 110,000 years old:

Greenland ice sheet

In comparison, if Leif Erickson (c. 970 – c. 1020) was alive today, he would be a sprightly 1045 years old:

Leif Erickson

As far as the global optimum goes, it's some mathematical thingy dealio:

In mathematics, a global optimum is a selection from a given domain which provides either the highest value (the global maximum) or lowest value (the global minimum), depending on the objective, when a specific function is applied.
Global optimum

How long has Mark Kirk been in Washington? He may be drinking the Kool-Aid. Or something.