No Runny Eggs

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that responding with money to email solicitations from Mr. Morgan Smith of Nigeria, was not a good investment. In fact, I heard recently that a second person responded to Mr. Smith and she was now short nearly $400,000!

Yes, you have to be careful what you invest in.   Along with land in Florida and bridges in either San Francisco or New York, comes the next perilous investment opportunity, The Northern Passage.

McClatchy is reporting the possibility of commercializing the ice free Northern Passage. I mean gee, this is actually the third time in the last 110 years that it has become passable, must be a trend!

While commercialization of the Northern Passage would be a good thing, I wouldn’t be investing with anyone who was suggesting that they didn’t have a plan to work in really challenging, thick ice conditions! McClatchy seemed to miss a couple of details from the last few weeks like:
October 2008, Fastest Ice Growth Ever and 200 Whales trapped in Canadian Artic Ice.

Still thinking you want to get in early on the “Next Great Thing?”   You may want to take a look at one of these historical views of arctic ice coverage first.

Still think the ice is going away? Well than “Spin the wheel and take your chances!”

But don’t say I didn’t warn you!

5The Telegraph reports today  that what had been reported as the warmest October on record turns out to be not even in the top 50% of warmest! How would such a discrepancy occur? Can you say “data manipulation?”

Originally, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore’s chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen reported that while many of us had experienced unusual cold in October, areas of Russia were 10 degrees above average. However, when reviewed by a couple of official “deniers,” it was determined that GISS merely copied September’s information across into October for the Russian readings!

Oops, our mistake….or maybe not!

Instead of admitting their mistake, GISS said, “Oh no, um, that wasn’t it. There was unusual warmth in the Arctic!” The problem with this is that the Arctic has been cooling so fast that the ice (remember all the screams about the melting ice this spring?) that was melting and about to flood Florida off the map, has been reforming so fast that it is now 30% larger than last year at this time.

Again, our mistake….um nope!

I’ll just cut and paste this because it is the epitome of truth being stranger than fiction:

Another of his (Dr. Hansen’s) close allies is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, who recently startled a university audience in Australia by claiming that global temperatures have recently been rising “very much faster” than ever, in front of a graph showing them rising sharply in the past decade. In fact, as many of his audience were aware, they have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped.

Dr Pachauri, a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science, may believe what Dr Hansen tells him. But whether, on the basis of such evidence, it is wise for the world’s governments to embark on some of the most costly economic measures ever proposed, to remedy a problem which may actually not exist, is a question which should give us all pause for thought. (emphasis mine)

Huh, What?   A railroad engineer?   This guy is only smart enough to drive a vehicle on a track?   We’ve got a person who’s only qualified to  drive the Jungle Cruise at DisneyWorld telling us that man is ruining the earth?

I was thinking the other day, when I heard that Al Gore had turned down the offer to be “Global Warming Czar” from Barack Obama, “Why would he do that?”   Honestly, if the guy is as concerned as Gore claims to be about global warming, why not take the role that would undoubtedly set direction and precedent for at the the US and possibly the world?

Yeah, I thought about it for about 5 seconds and  the answer was  obvious.   If Al became the Czar he’d actually have to answer questions, come up with facts, be subject to scrutiny.   On top of that, he wouldn’t be able to charge ridiculous amounts of money as the “Johnny Appleseed” of global warming!   No, none of that would do.   Why would Gore want to subject himself to all of that when with the election of Barack Obama, he got another four year lease on fleecing of the gullible public.

Near-record cold, and mountain snow

Temperatures that are more than 15 degrees below normal for this time of year, combined with strong northwest winds, are making today uncomfortably chilly in the Charlotte metro region.

And

Expert Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson says, “This is a big storm by October standards.” More a foot of snow will fall in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania and the Adirondacks in upstate New York.

Those are the words heard echoing from the ever increasing carbon footprint abode that Al, the inventor of the Internet, Gore resides in.   Why the outburst?   Well, Al had just seen the top headlines on Newsmax.com which included:
Global Warming’s Kaput; 2008 Coolest in 5 Years
and

and

Arctic Sees Massive Gain in Ice Coverage

While Al may cling to information like this:

Added to his assertion was the WMO revelation that the first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years and that the rest of the year almost will certainly be cooler than recent years, although temperatures remain above the historical average.

This leaves him crying about lost residuals from “An Inconvenient Truth,”

"The average of the four main temperature measuring methods is slightly cooler since 2002 [except for a brief el Niño interruption] and record breaking cooling this winter. The argument that this is too short a time period to be meaningful would be valid were it not for the fact that this cooling exactly fits the pattern of timing of warm/cool cycles over the past 400 years," Easterbrook wrote on March 1.

(emphasis mine)

Looks like Al’s income may be flattening or hopefully, decreasing in the coming years. Poor Al will be relegated may be relegated to flying commercial!

(H/T – Quaking Conservative via DPUD’s Link Pimping)

CNSNews.com reports on a study authored by atmospheric/space scientist Fred Singer that states that solar-wind variability, specifically, its effect on cosmic rays, is the primary factor in Earth’s climatic change on a decadal scale. Of course, since we can’t control either solar wind or cosmic rays, the Gorebal “Warming” acolytes are ignoring the 800-pound gorilla in the room in their zeal to return us to the 13th Century.

A year ago the King of Gorebal Warming, Al Gore himself, was reported to use energy in his house equal to that of 20 average homes.

Well, Al wasn’t going to be a hypocrite! He immediately went about making his house “green.” According to this report he went about adding…

solar panels, installing a geothermal system, replacing existing light bulbs with more efficient models, and overhauling the home’s windows and ductwork

However, instead of getting the “Most likely to be Kermit” award for his greening, something went wrong! Al’s energy usage went up 10%! Al now uses nearly 50% more energy, EACH MONTH, than the average household USES IN A YEAR!

The minute I read this article I knew exactly what had gone wrong. After changing his lighting over to the compact fluorescents I’m sure he doubled the number of fixtures so that he had enough light to actually see anything!

Better luck next year Al….We’ll be watching!

According to this article from the AP there’s no reason to pay any attention to the hurricane forecast for the coming year:

It’s a lot like Groundhog Day – and the results are worth just about as much.

is the way the AP views the forecasts.

In fact, it’s not just the AP who doesn’t think there’s much value in them:

The AP contacted the emergency management agency in every coastal state from Texas to Maine and asked whether these seasonal forecasts play any role in their preparations for the hurricane season. Their response was unanimous: They’re a great way to get people thinking about the upcoming season, but that’s about it.

The good news is that the forecasters have developed a bit of humility  about their work:

“Honestly, I think people get a lot more excited about it than I do in terms of what its usefulness is,” says CSU scientist Phil Klotzbach, who has largely taken over the hurricane work of Gray, now semiretired.

In fact, the forecasters are starting to use disclaimers and warnings that are longer than the ones on a pack of cigarettes:

NC State’s Lian Xie says in a boldface disclaimer in his 2008 forecast: “Results presented herein are for scientific information exchange only … Users are at their own risk for using the forecasts in any decision making.”

(Emphasis mine.)

The article goes on to describe the process used to develop the forecasts:

Hurricane-prediction researchers are like chefs tinkering with a recipe for the same dish, and working from the same list of ingredients: In this case, decades worth of data from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction.

Studying past seasons, scientists look for patterns that might explain why one year was more active than another. Teams have developed computer models that emphasize different conditions – everything from ocean salinity and rainfall amounts over West Africa to sunspot cycles and the influences of the Pacific warm-water current known as El Nino.

(Again, emphasis mine.)

Huh?   What?   The hurricane forecasters are using “decades worth of data from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction!   Isn’t that some of the same data that has been used to develop the “world is coming to an end” predictions resulting from global warming?   And yet, hurricane forecasters say that based on their data “users are at their own risk for using the forecasts for any decision making!”

This week the Senate is debating Warner-Liberman. The bill proposes implementing a cap and trade system to reduce our all but certain planet suicide as a result of global warming. Amongst other things, the Heritage Foundation has determined that this bill will:

• Increase average family utilities by $467/year
• Take 500,000 to 1,000,000 jobs out of the economy by 2030
• Reduce GDP by $1.7 to $4.8 trillion by 2030

Hurricane forecasters  admit that  the results of forecasting using  NOAA data should be used  with healthy skeptisim  and not as fact.   Yet  both of our Minnesota Senators along with others, are willing to bet the future economic viability of the country on models and data that should be labeled “For Entertainment Purposes Only!”

Yesterday  out of the UK’s Daily Mail…

Every adult in Britain should be forced to carry ‘carbon ration cards’, say MPs

The influential Environmental Audit Committee says a personal carbon trading scheme is the best and fairest way of cutting Britain’s CO2 emissions without penalising the poor.

Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.

What a bunch of pikers! If they were really serious about gorebal warming and truely concerned about the short timeframe we have to correct our horribly abused atmosphere, they would create and enforce carbon credits on food.

It’s a well known fact that between 10% and 30% of all flatulence is CO ².   With the dramatic over population that the greenies claim is already on the world, we must  surely be gassing ourselves out of existence.   Even Mrs. Shoe is nodding her head in agreement!

Here’s what I propose:

Every person gets a carbon credit card with an allotment of credits.   Older people will naturally get more credits each month because, well, our digestive systems need it.  

Carbon charges will be assigned to all foods.   I would envision a sliding scale with Jello at zero, baked beans and sauerkraut at 100 and everything else scaled in between.

When you go to purchase food, your card will have credits reduced based upon types and quantities of food.   If  your diet consists of lots of beef, beans and beer with ice cream  for dessert,  you’ll probably only be able to eat for a  week each month.   After that, you’ll need to either buy credits from the jello eaters or become a jello eater yourself for the rest of the month.

To ensure that no one is cheating on their card or getting black market credits, I propose we outfit vans with methane sniffers and have them comb the neighborhoods.   With all the carbon food cards connected to a central data bank, it should be easy to determine which houses have depleted their carbon credits for the month.   A whiff of methane from from any such house will result in an immediate  SWAT  engagement to remove any offending foods left in the house.   A second offense will have your family eating nothing but brown rice  for a month with aggregious offenders also requiring daily hycolonics.

Now if I could just figure out how to tax belching!

(H/T – The FReepers)

That’s right. The Department of the Interior is putting the polar bear on the threatened species list not because their numbers are going down, but because they’ve bought into the Algore Goracle sect of Gorebal Warming.

It’s time to resurrect an old favorite from the dead….

Rather-extensive revisions/extensions (4:40 pm 5/14/2008) – Mary Katharine Ham thoughfully collated some examples of heavy-hitting commentary:

• Iain Murray points out that it would take but one swipe of the pen to eliminate the very-minimal safeguards against the use of the reclassification by envirowhackos to stop energy production.
• Kevin Hassett asserts that it won’t just be ANWR that will be targeted by the envirowhackos because of the use of Gorebal Warming as the reason for the reclassivication, but potentially any item in any state that requires any sort of federal action or permit.
• The crew at Powerline discovered that nobody knows what’s happening with the polar bears, either currently or in the future.

Given that all three candidates are Gorebal Warming acolytes, this steaming pile of horseshit is only the beginning.

I wrote last weekabout a new phenomenon, FED Derangement Syndrome (FDS) and how it had many of the same symptoms as Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS). It now appears that there is a new variant of the strain, Global Warming Derangement Syndrome (GWDS).

I know, GWDS seems nearly redundant because to be an adherent of man made global warming you pretty much have to believe that every breath you take is killing the planet due to the release of carbon dioxide. However, there are situations where even a belief in man made global warming tips over to the derangement column.

Last week an unfortunate swimmer was killed by a shark off the coast of California. It was an extremely rare attack. Subsequently, there have been the usual increase in articles written about shark attacks, why they happen, how to avoid one, where the most dangers are, what to do if attacked etc.

Today I see this article  where Dr George Burgess of Florida University, a shark expert, explains along with other possibilities, that an increases in shark attacks could be Global Warming.

Some experts suggest that an abundance of seals has attracted high numbers of sharks, while others believe that overfishing has hit their food chain. ‘I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s a convenient excuse,’ Burgess said. Another contributory factor to the location of shark attacks could be global warming and rising sea temperatures. ‘You’ll find that some species will begin to appear in places they didn’t in the past with some regularity,’ he said.

So our shark expert says that an abundance of seals or overfishing are merely “convenient excuses” of why there are shark attacks but quickly adds that global warming could be a cause? That’s not a convenient excuse? Trying not to read too far into Dr. Burgess’ mind (it appears pretty murky in there), I’m guessing he doesn’t believe global warming to be a convenient excuse. Rather, he would see it as an Inconvenient Truth!

So how can you tell if your loved once has GWDS and not just a simple case of GWS (global warming stupidity?) The difference is when they can ignore or lie about factual information they should know, only for the purpose of blaming something on global warming. In the case of Dr. Burgess, we can see that he indeed has GWDS because as a shark expert, he would have knowledge of the oceans. He conveniently avoided the point that in fact, the oceans are cooling, especially in the area of the California coast line.

Extra seal meals or lack of other natural foods i.e. natural phenomena aren’t news worthy reasons. A reason driven by GWDS, now that’s news worth reporting!

When the Washington Times starts reporting  problems with the Gorebal warming science, you know it’s bad!

Amongst the highlights:

However, several studies cast doubt on the accuracy of the hockey stick, and in 2006 Congress requested an independent analysis of it. A panel of statisticians chaired by Edward J. Wegman, of George Mason University, found significant problems with the methods of statistical analysis used by the researchers and with the IPCC’s peer review process. For example, the researchers who created the hockey stick used the wrong time scale to establish the mean temperature to compare with recorded temperatures of the last century. Because the mean temperature was low, the recent temperature rise seemed unusual and dramatic. This error was not discovered in part because statisticians were never consulted.

Huh? Statisticians weren’t consulted when doing a statistical analysis? I suggest we force these morons researchers to do appendectomies on each other without consulting surgeons! (more…)

“Smart” people fall into two categories.   There are “smart” people who find answers to problems, find creative solutions and can navigate through the challenges and nuances of everyday life; these people are know to have “Common Sense.”   There are also “smart” people who are able to recite text books verbatim but don’t have enough sense to wear a heavy coat when it’s 50 degrees below outside; these people are known as “Book Smart.”   The latter of the two are running the National Climatic Data Center.
(more…)

(H/T – Gateway Pundit, who I really need to get in on the next roll bloat)

Lorne Gunter of Canada’s National Post has some rather interesting numbers and stats about this not-yet-over winter:

Guess Gorebal Warming isn’t as “real” as the socialists shoveling the bullshit would want us to believe.

(H/T – Michelle)

There is some good news for those of you in California. The nannies that run your state have gone from requiring thermostats you wouldn’t be able to override in a power “emergency” to allowing you to override those new thermostats to now dropping the requirement entirely (technical issues prevented me from getting the link to the story as of the writing):

But the agency backed off even more this week by announcing that the proposed remote-controlled thermostats would be dropped entirely from the 2008 edition of the building-efficiency standards.

Of course, the voluntary plan to stick these PCTs will continue unabated.

Revisions/extensions (7:57 pm 1/18/2008) – Missing link found.

(H/T – Charlie)

I probably should’ve jumped all over this piece from The American Thinker yesterday, but California is proposing taking ultimate control of one’s home temperature away from the homeowner or renter by requiring either a central energy management control system or a programmable communicating thermostat control any new or re-fitted central HVAC system (Section 112(c), p. 63-64). Of particular note is the section regarding what happens during an ’emergency event’ – “Upon receiving an emergency signal, the PCT shall respond to commands contained in the emergency signal, including changing the setpoint by any number of degrees or to a specific temperature setpoint. The PCT shall not allow customer changes to thermostat settings during emergency events.”

Who determines what constitutes an ’emergency event’? Why, the state of California, of course (specifically, the California Independent System Operator).

For those of you who think that 60-degree indoor winters and 85-degree indoor summers will never come to Wisconsin, Peter has a dose of reality for you:

…(L)et me remind you that less than a year ago, California came up with the idiotic idea to ban the incandescent light bulb and force consumers to buy those crappy, expensive bulbs that cost thousands of dollars to dispose of if they break.

Guess what? It’s now the law of the land, as the zealots in Congress passed bipartisan legislation banning the incandescent light bulb and forcing us to buy those crappy, expensive light bulbs. The man Grumps refers to on occasion as "President Rain Man" signed the legislation making it the law of the land.

(H/T – Jon Ham)

The “scientists” that are still pushing human-caused Gorebal Warming are admitting that a natural cyclical flow of atmospheric energy headed toward the Arctic Circle is warming things up there. Somehow I doubt they took into account the cyclical increase in solar energy that is coming to a close when they claim that natural causes are a secondary reason for temperature changes.

Right on cue, here’s tonight’s predicted low temperatures:

Milwaukee – 6 degrees (8 degrees below average)
Raleigh, NC – 19 degrees (12 degrees below average)
Tampa, FL – 29 degrees (24 degrees below average; oh, and they’re under a hard freeze warning tonight)

Yep, a whole lot of Gorebal Warming going on out there.