2010-12-27

Climate Scientist Responds to Monckton

If you want a deeper understanding of the science, or just want to watch Lord Monckton get nailed, check this out.

Global Warming and the Sun

Cribbed from Slashdot:

"While we are well along into solar cycle 24, there remains a significant gap between the predictions of where we should be, and where we actually are in the progression of the cycle. Recently, the sun went spotless again, and the solar Ap geomagnetic index, an indicator of the solar magneto, hit zero. It is something you really don't expect to see this far along into the cycle. In other solar news, scientists monitoring the SORCE solar satellite have found that solar ultraviolet emissions have dropped significantly in the past few years. The Solar Irradiance Monitor on the satellite 'suggests that ultraviolet irradiance fell far more than expected between 2004 and 2007 — by ten times as much as the total irradiance did — while irradiance in certain visible and infrared wavelengths surprisingly increased, even as solar activity wound down overall.'"
Oh dear.  This continued minimum will continue to hide the CO2-forced temperature increases, further dooming us.  Great.

2010-12-19

Sarah Palin Hunting



She doesn't know how to load the gun. She doesn't know how much kick to expect. She can't hit the animal cleanly, ensuring a kill. That's "Real America."

Apparently it's not as easy to kill things when you're not shooting wolves from a helicopter with a shotgun, where the shot-pattern is going to be 15 feet in diameter and leave the animal writhing in agony to a slow death. Go Sarah Palin.

2010-12-12

Zakaria vs Beck

Oh, Fareed. You sexy, sexy man.



Well done.

2010-12-01

Anderson Cooper with the Definitive Birther Beatdown

Ouch. This one stings.



I ended up feeling bad for the poor crazy Birther.

The Confederate Party - Steve King Edition

Rep Steve King is one of the crazies, but this is raising the bar even for him:
"Figure this out, Madame Speaker: We have a very, very urban Senator, Barack Obama, who has decided he's going to run for president, and what does he do? He introduces legislation to create a whole new Pigford claim."

"We've got to stand up at some point and say, 'We are not gonna pay slavery reparations in the United States Congress.' That war's been fought. That was over a century ago. That debt was paid for in blood and it was paid for in the blood of a lot of Yankees, especially. And there's no reparations for the blood that paid for the sin of slavery. No one's filing that claim."
THE PRESIDENT IS BLACK! LIKE, SUPER BLACK. BLACK BLACK BLACK!

Does it even need to be said that his argument is idiotic?  He's claiming there are more claimants than there are farmers, but of course the whole point is that USDA discrimination against black farmers caused many of them to lose their farms!  And just because the class of affected people are black by definition, doesn't make it slavery reparations.  What about all the descendants of slaves who weren't farmers during the 80s and 90s?  Wouldn't they have to be included as well to make this slavery reparations?

It's like they don't even try to make honest arguments.  It's so monumentally frustrating.

The Confederate Party

The new House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, is supporting a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow states to overturn federal laws. Here's Cantor:
The Repeal Amendment would provide a check on the ever-expanding federal government, protect against Congressional overreach, and get the government working for the people again, not the other way around. In order to return America to opportunity, responsibility, and success, we must reverse course and the Repeal Amendment is a step in that direction.
They are still the Confederate Party. Hell, just call it Nullification already.