Are You a But Head?

I have started this blog to track the number of articles I read written by a "But Head". But not just writers can be a But Head. Nope, anyone can be a But Head.

How can I be so insensitive as to refer to people as But Heads you ask? Hold on a minute, I am not the one with my thoughts in the sewer. Well, keep reading and let me explain.

A "But Head" is not what you are thinking. In the simplest terms, a But Head is anyone who hears or writes about great news, but adds a "but" into the story to make the overall theme of the story negative. A simple example might be, "I found $100 dollars, BUT it sucks because now I have to pay back my little sister." See, it really is not what you thought, is it.

Now how would someone like myself ever even think of this? It is quite simple. I follow the debate regarding "Global Warming" or "Climate Change" very closely. I read thousands of articles and I even categorize them for future use. Now personally, I have yet to find any scientific evidence that humans are causing the climate to change. And scientific research seems to continually demonstrate that humans are not the problem. BUT, many of these articles, which spend the first page describing how their experiment does not support the theory, or how they just discovered a wonderful positive effect, then make broad non-supported accusations about how Global Warming is really bad, and worse things will happen. But the bad things never happen now, but in the future. Thus, we are left with a feeling of impending doom.

To be a But Head, you do not have to be a journalist or scientific writer. You can be anyone. If you hear a good upbeat story, but feel compelled to add a doom and gloom scenario, you are a But Head. For example, people have been talking about peak oil for quite some time. This theory states that we are running low on oil, or have reached maximum capacity and supplies will for now and ever decrease. if this were true, it would really suck. We rely on oil each and every day. If the oil producers were unable (nothing to do with unwilling) to find more oil to meet demand, this would be very bad. Some people have been crying peak oil for several years and are always claiming that tomorrow we will start to run out. Of course, then some huge new find of oil is discovered. But of course, our But Heads can never be happy, so they then tell us that the new discovery is "so little as to mean nothing", or "the oil can not be reached" or any other doom and gloom scenario. These people are grade A But Heads. they take a positive discovery, and instinctively turn it into a negative.

So I ask you, are you a But Head?