… is a horrid fossil fueled vehicle necessary to get across all the fossil fuels created snow, you might just be a Warmist
The blog of the day is The Independent Sentinel, with a post on how it’s easier to open a business in Siberia than California.
Read: If All You See… »
Well, supposedly they had a good time for New Year’s Eve
(Guardian) Passengers aboard a scientific research ship stuck in sea ice near the coast of Antarctica are preparing to spend another night on the vessel after plans to evacuate them by helicopter were aborted.
The rescue mission was cancelled in the early hours of Wednesday because of hazardous weather conditions. Stranded passengers began the new year with muted celebrations aboard the MV Akademik Shokalskiy.
The passengers, about 50 scientists, academics and journalists, have been trapped on the vessel in thick pack ice off the coast of Antarctica since Christmas Day.
Several attempts to evacuate the Shokalskiy using icebreakers have been thwarted by the dense sea ice, which is up to 5 metres thick in some places.
If the weather breaks, another attempt will be made to rescue them from the really bad global warming on Thursday, which, because of the time differences, would be sometime tonight (east coast time). If they’re able to be rescued, they’ll be ferried to a Chinese fossil fueled ship, then jump back on a fossil fueled helicopter to a fossil fueled Australian ice breaker. If they can’t be rescued, a fossil fueled American ice breaker is 10 days away. Either way, they’ll eventually (we hope), make it back to New Zealand (where the fossil fueled trip started…well, except for all the fossil fueled plane rides to NZ) or Australia. Then can take fossil fueled airplane trips home. All to let us know that climate change caused by fossil fuels is Bad.
Oh, and the ice is so bad that the Chinese ice breaker has been staying away and moving constantly.
Newsbusters notes that 96% of the media outlets covering the ship fail to note why the ship was there
In fact, rather than point out the mission of the scientists to find evidence of climate change, the networks often referred to the stranded people as “passengers,†“trackers†and even “tourists,†with no mention of climate change or global warming. Chris Turney, the expedition’s leader, is a professor of climate change at the University of South Wales. According to Turney’s personal website, the purpose of the expedition is to “discover and communicate the environmental changes taking place in the south.â€
Interesting. The Guardian story in quoted also refers to the passengers in the same way, and doesn’t mention “climate change” as the purpose of the cruise.
Andrew Bolt is calling it The Ship Of Fools, and notes how the media and those trapped on the ship are trying to pretend that the cruise was both not about global warming and that all the ice shows global warming still occurring.
More: Andrew Revkin offers this hilarious tidbit
If you follow the discussion around #SpiritOfMawson — the Twitter hashtag for the project — you’ll also note how this misadventure has energized climate change contrarians, offering a distraction from serious research on the impact of climate change on Antarctica.
If they were serious then a) they wouldn’t be take massive fossil fueled trips and b) they wouldn’t be blaming snow and cold on “climate change”. Also, this “serious” cruise was actually meant to be a photo GOP, not science.
Ann Althouse further beats up Mr. Revkin.
In case you missed it, I’m a rather private person. I do not talk much about Me. I’m rather private out in the Real Worldâ„¢, as well, unless I really know someone. Even then, I tend to deflect more to the person or people I’m talking to.
Anyhow, for a first, I’ll give you my New Year’s resolutions, partly to put them out there in order to stimulate me following through.
My first is to lose weight. Over the past 2 years, since July 2012, I have been going to the gym 3-5 times a week, typically for 45-60 minutes each time. This was after years of not getting much exercise, and having a job that was relatively sedentary. I was usually standing most of the day, but not moving all that much in the stores. I didn’t do much at home, beyond some golf now and then. The dealbreaker was when pants with a 38 waist started feeling a bit tight, and walking by the windows at work, of which we have a lot. I did not like the view.
So, I have been working on losing weight over the past 6 months. I’ve gone from 205 to 187. I wanted to be at 180 by the end of the year, alas, holiday season.
So my resolution is to get into a 34 waist or less. I’m able to get into a 36 now. I’d like to get down to 150-160 by the end of June. I’ve always had big hips from swimming and soccer, so a 34 would be about right.
My other resolution is not as important, namely, playing more golf. Which is more about being outside (though I am outside a lot at work). It’s not bad that I rarely play (played maybe 6 times the whole year), I’m usually going to the gym instead. But, hey, I live at a golf course.
BTW, last years was to seriously cut back on smoking. I have done that, mostly by switching to e-cigs. Down to a half pack or less daily. I ordered a better e-cig, I’ve been using Blu. The new one is more for “vaping”. Some of the flavors make it easy to not grab a real cigarette.
What are your resolutions?
PS: since someone DM’d me, I have replaced lots of fat with muscle. I’m lifting generally at least double what I had been able to lift when I first started. I also feel really bad when I don’t go to the gym.
Read: New Year’s Resolutions »
Happy New Year’s! Welcome to 2014, and the 4th year of my prediction challenge, which virtually no Warmists will take. And one year closer to End Of Life As We Know it. 2150 and 2200 are fast approaching, the primary dates that the climate alarmists always want to use to denote when Earth is going to burn, baby, burn in fire, dan dan daaaan, fire, dan dan daaaaan. 2013 saw historically low numbers for wildfires and tornadoes. There were no landfalling U.S. hurricanes. Still no major hurricanes making landfall since 2008. There were only 13 named Atlantic storms, with only two hurricanes (the average since 1980 is 12.1 storms and 6.4 hurricanes, with 2.7 major hurricanes). The two hurricanes were just category 1 storms. Only two storms made US landfall, and only one was still a tropical storm at landfall. Thousands of cold temperature high temp records were set. There was barely a spring across the US and much of the northern hemisphere. In other words, the weather just didn’t cooperate with Warmist predictions.
No child born over the last 17 years has seen statistically significant warming, and no child born this century has seen any warming.
New Year’s is usually a time when we make resolutions which we abandon when we realize that chocolate, bacon, and beer are great (and bacon cooked in beer and covered with chocolate!) In the blogosphere, we often make predictions for the New Year. Instead, how about a challenge?
For a long time, the alarmists have been making predictions as to what the climate will do. They say in 10 years, 50, 100. Instead, why not, say, make predictions for……2014! What I want for them to do, from the biggest of big climahypocrites, such as Al Gore, James Hansen, Barack Obama, and Leonardo DiCaprio, to the smallest climate dupes, is tell us exactly what the climate will do this year. For some of these questions, I’m using the USA, but, alarmists from around the world can use their own country/region, if they like:
There are many, many, many more questions that can be asked, but, I know what the alarmists are thinking: “Teach, that is weather, not climate! I refuse to participate!†Ah, but, what, exactly, is climate? Let’s pull a couple good definitions
Notice, “long term predictable.†Weather and other natural forces create climate. And right now the alarmists are saying “but, Teach, one year is not considered to be a “long period of time!— Well, you have plenty of data available for the long term, and, with all your vast knowledge of what the climate is doing, due to man’s release of greenhouse gases, surely you alarmists can make predictions for 2014 based on that long term data, and be mostly correct, right? Surely, you aren’t afraid to make predictions for this year, and tell us what the climate during 2011 will do, right? But, you have to make your predictions, and can’t go back and change them up as the year goes on, the way many organizations, like NOAA, the Met Office, and the IPCC do. And at the end of the year, we will see how well you have done.
Of course, if you use any of the models from Warmist groups, you’ll be bound to fail
There’s your real “97% consensus”, though we can substitute the squishy feelings based word “consensus” with that sciencey word “data”.
Any alarmist up for the challenge? And no cheating be reading the Farmer’s Almanac, which tends to be right way more than the Met, NASA, UN IPCC, and other alarmist groups are. Forget about your PR blitzes, “spreading awareness†campaigns, your advocacy, your stunts, and tell us what will happen. If you’re correct, for a change, maybe people will start to believe you again.
Oh, and a second challenge: live your life in 2014 in the manner you tell everyone else to live. Go “carbon neutral”. Give up your fossil fueled vehicles.
Read: 2014: Annual New Year’s Prediction Challenge For Climate Alarmists »
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HHS Head Kathleen Sebelius thinks it’s going to be a great year for the “Affordable” Care Act….because she kinda has to
(Fox News) Sebelius acknowledged there could continue to be hiccups going into 2014. “There always are,” she said. “People change plans every year.”
But she predicted a relatively smooth transition and said she doesn’t see more delays in the future.
Perhaps she should have talked to Justice Sonia Sotomayor
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor late Tuesday halted a birth control mandate in ObamaCare for a Catholic group, one day before parts of the health care law are set to go into effect.
In her order, Sotomayor said the government is temporarily prevented from enforcing contraceptive coverage requirements against the Denver-based group, Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged, and must respond by 10 a.m. Friday.
Because a group of nuns needed a contraception mandate. This sets an interesting mandate: the Constitution requires that everyone be treated the same under the law. It also states that the federal government shall not pass any law that restricts freedom of religion. If Sotomayor is willing to give an emergency injunction for this group, shouldn’t all the other groups who object be given the same injunction?
Then you have the big tax on insurers kicking in this year. The White House is now stating that the 7 million signups by March 31 was never their goal. But they won’t say what the new goal is.
Oh, and then there’s the notion that only 50% (at best) of signups in 17 non-federally run states have actually paid (I’m giving you the Hot Air link since the Wall Street Journal article is behind a paywall)
Normally, insurers require payment for coverage before the coverage begins. They count an enrollment as complete only when the first month’s premium has been received from a customer. As of Monday, however, only about half of enrollees billed for plans offered by more than 100 insurers in 17 states had paid their first month’s premium, said Mark Waterstraat, chief strategy officer at Benaissance, a third-party billing firm that works for those insurers…
Yet Team Obama expects the insurance companies to cover the people who haven’t paid as of yet.
There are all sorts of taxes that will kick in this new year because of Obamacare. Then we have the huge number of companies with 50+ employees which will start doing all sorts of fun things, like moving employees to part time, hiring replacement employees at part time hours, and dropping their health insurance offerings. Some that will continue offering insurance will be offering plans that are much more costly, especially for the deductible, this year or for 2015. I can tell you that the plan at my company is changing. Open enrollment starts near the end of January. And the company will be hold 3 separate 45 minute forums on the plans, something they’ve never done before. I’m expecting my deductible, currently $400, to skyrocket to $6,600, which is the normal deductible for the lowest cost Exchange plan in Wake County, NC.
Let’s also not forget the huge number of lawsuits pending against Obamacare in various forms. You have the contraception mandate ones, but another massive one regards subsidies for those who obtain insurance through the federal exchanges. The Law as written only allows subsidies for those in states with state run exchanges.
So Happy 2014, Obamacare: now that the rubber is actually meeting the road, things will work as well as a compact car driving over a backwoods dirt road after a 9.1 earthquake.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
USA Today tells us how technology can halt the weather
In the 1890s, New York City was swamped — not by a storm but something smellier, horse manure.
Horses, the primary mode of transportation, dropped more than a million pounds each day, causing a sanitation crisis. No one found a fix, and some estimated the streets would eventually be buried several feet deep.
Then, “shift happened,” says Harvard chemist Daniel Nocera. The automobile arrived, and almost overnight, it replaced horses and cleaned up the streets. Hailed as an environmental savior, it solved a seemingly insurmountable problem.
What a difference a century makes. Cars are now known contributors to the modern-day scourge of climate change. Their heat-trapping emissions have helped warm the planet beyond its natural variability. So sea levels have risen, and drought, heat waves and hurricanes have intensified — as USA TODAY explored in a year-long series, “Weathering the Change.”
“Scourge”. How, exactly, do they know it’s beyond the natural variability? The Modern Warm Period is not as warm as the previous warm periods during the Holocene.
As in the 1890s, society is once again looking for the Next Big Fix — whether high-altitude wind kites, “plug and play” nuclear reactors, giant synthetic trees to absorb carbon dioxide or sulfate aerosols to cool the planet. Next week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, two concepts will be on display: Toyota’s hydrogen fuel-cell car, which emits no greenhouse gases, and Ford’s hybrid, powered partly by renewable energy.
Yet will technology deliver this time? Or will inertia push the planet, already struggling with higher temperatures, to a cataclysmic breaking point?
Good grief, hysteria much? Anyway, here’s the difference: someone came up with a big idea for the automobile as an awesome idea, and wanted to make some money. They weren’t trying to be environmental saviors (and poop all over the streets was not an environmental issue, but a health issue. Poop, in case Warmists missed it, is natural). With Hotcoldwetdry, market forces are generally not driving any new tech, the wacko groups and government busy-bodies are. Often by legislation, regulation, and coercion.
Still, change is bubbling up. Dozens of states now require that a portion of their electricity come from renewable sources.
That’s what I mean: government requirements. Which, by the way, artificially increase the cost of living for citizens.
There’s not a lot of time to make changes, says climate scientist David Archer of the University of Chicago. He says research suggests dire changes could occur if the Earth warms 2 degrees Celsius (or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) this century.
“We’re halfway there,” Archer says, adding the planet could reach that mark as soon as 2040 if carbon emissions continue their current climb. “This is just the fire alarm. This is not the fire,” he says, adding it will become costlier to cut emissions the closer the flames come.
More hysteria.
At some point someone will come up with a super awesome idea that actually works, because they want to make money. Right now, it’s all nags nagging away.
Read: Like, Technology Can Totally Solve Hotcoldwetdry Or Something »
…is an awesome recommendation to exercise, because fatties are bad for climate change, but exercise causes excess CO2 output, which causes the seas to rise hundreds of feet, you might just be a Warmist
The blog of the day is Ned Hardy (who you should be checking out every day), with realistic New Year’s resolutions.
Also, to campaign on the issue
(Washington Post) The New York Times reported this morning (echoing the reporting of Greg Sargent and others earlier this year) that Democrats plan to campaign on raising the minimum wage during the election season.
Wait, I thought they were going to campaign on Obamacare?
Aside from being good economic policy, raising the minimum wage is quite popular, even among moderates and conservatives. Democrats also hope it shows the party is focused on improving the economic fortunes of Americans and not getting bogged down in Beltway bickering.
Essentially, they want to manufacture a diversionary populist wedge issue using Other People’s Money.
Anyhow, writer George Zornick thinks it would be super swell if Barack would issue an executive order forcing federal contractors to increase their pay to some vague number, starting at $10.10 an hour or something
Every good argument for raising the federal minimum wage exists here: The existing minimum wage is inadequate and exploitative, and the fact these workers are doing work for, and being paid by, U.S. taxpayers makes it all the more troublesome. The economic lots of federal contract workers would be improved, and more money would end up going into the economy.
Two points: first, this seems to be highlighting trickle down, where people with money spend it. Second, and more important, jisy because they are paid by Los Federales doesn’t mean their pay should be jacked up artificially, especially not at the whim of a dictator. On the contrary, Los Federales should be frugal with The People’s money.
Oh, and 3rd: liberals should be careful in pushing for legislation by executive fiat. They won’t always hold the office of the presidency.
Read: Liberals Really Psyched For An Executive Order On Minimum Wage »
Why yes, yes, these people are bat guano insane
(WCSH) Mainers are jumping into the frigid ocean to raise money to support the state’s largest environmental advocacy group’s fight against climate change.
The Natural Resources Council of Maine is holding a 5-kilometer race on Tuesday at 11 a.m., followed by a cold-water ocean plunge at Portland’s East End Beach at noon.
The group says about 200 Mainers are expected to attend. It’s encouraging participants to wear polar bear costumes and will be handing out prizes for the best ones.
The water temperature per NOAA for Portland is a balmy 42.3 at the time of posting. Other sources have it as low as 38. Either way, we’re right at average. Nothing says “spreading awareness of climate change” like a bunch of people freezing their, well, everything off.
ABC News notes what happens to the human body during a “polar bear dip”. Apparently the very notion of doing a plunge causes people to link it to stupid notions like “climate change”.
* Photo from the Niagara Falls Review about a different plunge.
Read: What Say To A Dip In The Frigid Atlantic To “Fight Climate Change”? »
Is there anything domestically that the NSA isn’t bugging, other than carrier pigeons? Maybe the NSA is just into selfies?
(Zero Hedge) Following up on the latest stunning revelations released yesterday by German Spiegel which exposed the spy agency’s 50 page catalog of “backdoor penetration techniques“, today during a speech given by Jacob Applebaum (@ioerror) at the 30th Chaos Communication Congress, a new bombshell emerged: specifically the complete and detailed description of how the NSA bugs, remotely, your iPhone. The way the NSA accomplishes this is using software known as Dropout Jeep, which it describes as follows: “DROPOUT JEEP is a software implant for the Apple iPhone that utilizes modular mission applications to provide specific SIGINT functionality. This functionality includes the ability to remotely push/pull files from the device. SMS retrieval, contact list retrieval, voicemail, geolocation, hot mic, camera capture, cell tower location, etc. Command, control and data exfiltration can occur over SMS messaging or a GPRS data connection. All communications with the implant will be covert and encrypted.”
Tyler Durden then provides some of the documentation of how this all works, then notes
Either way, now everyone knows that their iPhone is nothing but a gateway for the NSA to peruse everyone’s “private” data at will. Which, incidentally, is not news, and was revealed when we showed how the “NSA Mocks Apple’s “Zombie” Customers; Asks “Your Target Is Using A BlackBerry? Now What?”
How ironic would it be if Blackberry, left for dead by virtually everyone, began marketing its products as the only smartphone that does not allow the NSA access to one’s data (and did so accordingly). Since pretty much everything else it has tried has failed, we don’t see the downside to this hail mary attempt to strike back at Big Brother and maybe make some money, by doing the right thing for once.
Congratulations on your choice of iPhone. What’s even worse is that there seems to be a national collective shrug after a brief period of being mad over all the extent to which the NSA is spying on American citizens. It matters zero as to whether they are doing anything with our data: it’s that they are collection our data in violation of the 4th Amendment.
Hey, how about bugging computers? (via Instapundit, who wonders if this explains all the late Christmas deliveries)
(Der Spiegel) Take, for example, when they intercept shipping deliveries. If a target person, agency or company orders a new computer or related accessories, for example, TAO can divert the shipping delivery to its own secret workshops. The NSA calls this method interdiction. At these so-called “load stations,†agents carefully open the package in order to load malware onto the electronics, or even install hardware components that can provide backdoor access for the intelligence agencies. All subsequent steps can then be conducted from the comfort of a remote computer.
These minor disruptions in the parcel shipping business rank among the “most productive operations†conducted by the NSA hackers, one top secret document relates in enthusiastic terms. This method, the presentation continues, allows TAO to obtain access to networks “around the world.â€
Ace isn’t certain we should be worried about this one, and ends with “what did everyone think we were paying them (the NSA) to do, exactly?” I assume he’s referring to the Der Spiegal story, since he mentions both of the same articles. If the laptop one is being done in a targeted manner against specific individuals/entities with court approval, no, we shouldn’t be worried.
The problem is who the NSA is using all this against. American citizens who’ve done nothing wrong or illegal.
There’s also a device called Nightstand, which can hack a WiFi signal up to 8 miles away. This one I’m not concerned with, as it is doubtful that there are devices covering the country listening in. The NSA has plenty of other methods to gather our data.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
Read: Good News: NSA Bugs Your iPhone »
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