Whiskey Fire

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I Pray

I pray the Egyptian people may soon know the bountiful freedoms that are assured by unregulated credit default swaps.

 

Trapped, Tricked, Packaged, Shipped

How unusual, a sensationalist attack on climate science in the British tabloids. Why this is a first.

Researchers have discovered that contrary to popular belief half of the ice flows in the Karakoram range of the mountains are actually growing rather than shrinking.

The discovery adds a new twist to the row over whether global warming is causing the world's highest mountain range to lose its ice cover.

It further challenges claims made in a 2007 report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the glaciers would be gone by 2035.

Uh, not really. About "the 2007 report":

In a regional chapter on Asia in Volume 2, written by authors from the region, it was erroneously stated that 80% of Himalayan glacier area would very likely be gone by 2035. This is of course not the proper IPCC projection of future glacier decline, which is found in Volume 1 of the report. There we find a 45-page, perfectly valid chapter on glaciers, snow and ice (Chapter 4), with the authors including leading glacier experts (such as our colleague Georg Kaser from Austria, who first discovered the Himalaya error in the WG2 report).  There are also several pages on future glacier decline in Chapter 10 (“Global Climate Projections”), where the proper projections are used e.g. to estimate future sea level rise. So the problem here is not that the IPCC’s glacier experts made an incorrect prediction. The problem is that a WG2 chapter, instead of relying on the proper IPCC projections from their WG1 colleagues, cited an unreliable outside source in one place. Fixing this error involves deleting two sentences on page 493 of the WG2 report.

So there is not really a "row" about this at all.

Indeed, if you do something truly wacky, something that would quite literally take "an honest person" about three minutes, you could look at the document linked to as Chapter 4 above, run a search for "Karakoram," and discover the following:

Whereas glaciers in the Asian high mountains have generally shrunk at varying rates (Su and Shi, 2002; Ren et al., 2004; Solomina et al., 2004; Dyurgerov and Meier, 2005), several high glaciers in the central Karakoram are reported to have advanced and/or thickened at their tongues (Hewitt, 2005), probably due to enhanced precipitation.

If the IPCC is trying to cover up the possibility of glaciers in the Himalayas advancing, they kind of suck at that, because they said years ago that glaciers in the Himalayas are advancing, precisely in the region this Shocking new report says they are advancing. The only news here (it seems to non expert me) is that a group of scientists have come up with a new and it seems fairly sensible explantion for why these particular glaciers are behaving as they are, an explanation the British tab article actually bothers to describe:

Dr Bodo Bookhagen, Dirk Scherler and Manfred Strecker studied 286 glaciers between the Hindu Kush on the Afghan-Pakistan border to Bhutan, taking in six areas.

Their report, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found the key factor affecting their advance or retreat is the amount of debris – rocks and mud – strewn on their surface, not the general nature of climate change.

Glaciers surrounded by high mountains and covered with more than two centimetres of debris are protected from melting.

Debris-covered glaciers are common in the rugged central Himalaya, but they are almost absent in subdued landscapes on the Tibetan Plateau, where retreat rates are higher.

In contrast, more than 50 per cent of observed glaciers in the Karakoram region in the northwestern Himalaya are advancing or stable.

In other words, these researchers have managed to explain why local conditions mitigate against an overall trend. Or, this article has nothing to say about the reality of global climate change.

What all this does prove, though, is that Don Surber is drooling halfwit hack. But we knew that.

MORE! Many more wingnut scientifical geniuses demonstrate their genius ability to gleefully not know what the hell they're talking about.

A Corner inmate gets smug, saying the report is "(yet another) reminder that global warming’s truest believers could do with a bit more humility." Bruce McQuain is proudly pig-ignorant, William Teach grunts things, and the cesspit burbles. Ann Althouse's idiot commenters rub and lick themselves publicly.

None of them, however, bother to find out anything more about the actual issue, or betray awareness of the not especially obscure fact that "the Himalayas" are quite large and contain several "regions," of which the Karakoram is but one.

So what do the scientists who carried out the survey have to say about the overall state of glaciers in the Himalayas...?

Why you'll never guess.

Bookhagen noted that glaciers in the Karakoram region of Northwestern Himalaya are mostly stagnating. However, glaciers in the Western, Central, and Eastern Himalaya are retreating, with the highest retreat rates –– approximately 8 meters per year –– in the Western Himalayan Mountains. The authors found that half of the studied glaciers in the Karakoram region are stable or advancing, whereas about two-thirds are in retreat elsewhere throughout High Asia.

Which is in line with other studies. Indeed:

While most glaciers in Asia are in recession, some glaciers have been found to advance. Some of the advancing glaciers are surge-type glaciers, which move forward more rapidly than average in a short period of time. The reason for this is being studied by glaciologists, and is likely due to unique and local conditions.

So here's what happened. The IPCC's 2007 Volume 1 report said that while glaciers on the whole were retreating, that wasn't necessarily the case in the Karakoram because of "local" factors. Further studies corroborated this. A recent study provides an explanation for what the specific local factor is likely to be. The error in the Volume 2 report (discovered by an IPCC scientist) is pretty much irrelevant to the science, the fact that lots of dishonest loonballs like to bitch about it notwithstanding.

The conclusion is of course that Algore is fat. Or else that wingnuts will gleefully swallow anything they read in the British tabloids. That Telegraph article is pretty awful, starting with the claim that this is "the first major study" since the IPCC report, which it isn't. And then there's the insinuation that Dr Rajendra Pachauri is a shyster for claiming that "global warming was melting the glaciers at 'a rapid rate,'" without explaining that this is in fact the case for other glaciers besides the Karakoram glaciers. 

Damn this nonsense is monotonous...

A Math Problem

Suppose the federal government, all branches, were tomorrow to announce a perfectly balanced budget, by whatever means necessary? They could, you know.

How many dead people would that result in?

If the government were to balance the budget tomorrow, how many people would die?

I'm just sort of curious.

MORE. Of course, earmarks are responsible for millions of American deaths annually.

Profiles in Comedy

Act 1

I think the president and his team are wrong about the public mood, but we shall see. I’m quite sure, however, that they are wrong about this moment on the merits. We have an opportunity in the next few years to avoid a truly disastrous entitlement and debt crisis and foster the conditions for vibrant growth again. We still have a chance to implement reforms that could do this without crushing austerity or terrible disruptions for seniors and other vulnerable Americans. That chance won’t last long, however, and it is profoundly irresponsible to just pretend we needn’t worry about it and can go back to the petty distractions of 1996 [! -- Thers], or (on the domestic front) 2006.

This speech was worse than bland and empty, it was a dereliction of duty. Let us hope that Republicans do not succumb to the same temptation, but rather follow Paul Ryan’s fine example.

Act 2 

He dismissed as “Democratic propaganda” the idea that Ryan’s selection was an implicit endorsement of his “Roadmap” for America – designed to deflect attention from what Ryan actually had to say. Sensenbrenner pointed out – correctly – that Ryan did not mention the ‘Roadmap’ once in his remarks.

“I think the president should be grateful that he has Mr. Ryan as a budget chairman,” he tells us. “Mr. Ryan’s tenacity is going to be able to force the president to make compromises that need to be made in order for us to cut back on spending and not borrow ourselves into national bankruptcy.”

Act 3

I don’t have a ton to say about Paul Ryan’s response speech except to note it was odd that he didn’t mention any of the proposals associated with Paul Ryan’s “budget roadmap.” He spoke at length about his desire for less spending and more limited government. But he didn’t mention which programs, specifically, he wants to eliminate. Which is particularly odd because the “roadmap” calls for, among other things, the elimination of Medicare. That’s kind of a big deal! If Ryan thinks we should do that, wouldn’t a nationally televised addressed be a good opportunity to explain it to people?

Act Pantload

The left — for good reason — is setting its sights on Ryan for the threat that he is. The first thing they will do is try to cast him as a terrifying figure, particularly among seniors.

Jesus Died for Your Stains

Just scrub your fucking dishes, candy-asses.

Oh Good

MSNBC provides a voice for a weenie centrist who nobody really likes who isn't a media insider. Finally we get to hear what Ed Rendell has to say.

Ed Rendell may be a smug mediocrity who will attract an audience of nobody, but at least he's dull!

That's some bold rebranding, MSNBC. Now they just need to can that Maddow person and replace her with, say, Joe Lieberman, who needs a new gig....

Drank a Quart of Brotherly Love

The Directors of Red State proudly announce:

We Have Drawn a Line

Well, that would explain the squiggles on the kitchen wall next to the fridge, the colorful rainbows on The Son of Erick's snout, and the half-eaten Crayola box.

Every year on this date, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we pause here at RedState to remember the fallen and renew our commitment to do everything within the confines of the lawful political process that may be done to end the greatest injustice that has ever been foisted on our society.

The greatest injustice that has ever befallen our society...? Worse than, say, taxation without representation? Because that was so awful a grievance, it justified war.

The Declaration of Independence reflects a truth held self-evident by the founders and every subsequent generation of Americans: that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Well, apparently, then, by this logic, legal abortion is at least as bad as any of the the grievances enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, which was, again, pretty much an explanation for why war was justified.

And slavery?

These principles were subsequently enshrined in the United States Constitution in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.  Twice in our nation’s history, arrogant and power-mad Supreme Court Justices have declared that certain humans are exempt from the promise of the Declaration and the guarantees of the Constitution.

Oh yes, slavery, the existence of which and the need to end same was contemplated as justifying, you know, war.

Next, the Red State Directors offer an atrocity story.

And the stirring peroration:

Here at RedState, we too have drawn a line. We will not endorse any candidate who will not reject the judicial usurpation of Roe v. Wade and affirm that the unborn are no less entitled to a right to live simply because of their size or their physical location.

Their "physical location" is, as an aside, inside a human being. These "physical locations" do not, as per the Red State Directors, get to say anything, as is appropriate, since when was the last time you had a conversation with a warehouse?

Those who wish to write on the front page of RedState must make the same pledge.

That, and you make like a young Kevin Bacon, grab your ankles, and shout "thank you sir may I have another."

The reason for this is simple: once before, our nation was forced to repudiate the Supreme Court with mass bloodshed. We remain steadfast in our belief that this will not be necessary again, but only if those committed to justice do not waiver or compromise, and send a clear and unmistakable signal to their elected officials of what must be necessary to earn our support.

Well, that's a bit of a threat, isn't it? It hardly takes the "mass bloodshed" otion off the table, anyhow, whatever about the guff as to "lawful political processes" in the first paragraph.

And if you follow the pompous logic of the line-drawing, it shouldn't. If Roe really is worse or even on a plane with the grievances that justified the Revolution and the Civil War, well, there is no legitimate moral argument whatsover against anyone who takes the law into his or her hands and shoots an abortion doctor. And also every woman who has ever had an abortion is at best on the same moral plane as someone who hires a contract killer.

And if you take this line of thinking seriously, if you disagree with the Directors, you're a Tory or a Confederate apologist, meaning, essentially, a traitor.

Now, do I think the Red State Directors are actually calling for war? Nah. They're just posturing blowhards whose response to moral complexity is to preen themselves on how saintly they are. They're far too stupid to understand what they're saying, much less contemplate its consequences. If they were capable of understanding what they are saying, they would either not say it, or else they'd be shooting people.

Interesting also that the "physical locations" are in this telling as voiceless as the unborn. But that's just standard.

In a Hallway, In a Highway

Brian Cowen is an astonishing ass. It is all very sordid, but get a load of this passage:

When questioned about his thwarted effort to effect a mini reshuffle, he defended the decision and denied it was cynical.

“I felt that it was my duty to put in place the best possible team…. It was not a cynical move by me. It was a political act to put in place those people.”

He said that there was a view before the decision – within his party and in some media quarters – that it was a logical and practical step.

He said that view had been hastily revised by those commentators the next day.

The chief executives of sovereign nations should not come across as pathetically easily fucked with.

Barrage of Little

One of the powerpoop twits:

The Left's attempt to link the Tucson shootings to angry rhetoric (not theirs, of course) was stage one of a broader strategy--what both military men and political strategists refer to as preparing the battlefield. The movement to feign nonpartisanship at the State of the Union address by seating Republicans and Democrats together is another aspect of this stage. At the same time, the Left is moving on to stage two--an effort to cash in on battlefield preparation by attacking specific figures on the right and trying to shut down speech that the Left finds inconvenient.

Who is The Left?

The Left is someone in charge of how to discuss shootings in Tucson. Also the Left is in charge of where elected officials sit at the State of the Union address. Also the Left mixes metaphors to profit and is in charge of speech shutdowns.

The paragaph I have quoted is gibberish. To have written it is to be an ass.

But it is nevertheless followed by other paragraphs.

At the moment, the second most-read article at the New York Times site is this one: "Spotlight From Glenn Beck Brings a CUNY Professor Threats."

On his daily radio and television shows, Glenn Beck has elevated once-obscure conservative thinkers onto best-seller lists. Recently, he has elevated a 78-year-old liberal academic to celebrity of a different sort, in a way that some say is endangering her life.

 

Frances Fox Piven, a City University of New York professor, has been a primary character in Mr. Beck's warnings about a progressive take-down of America. Ms. Piven, Mr. Beck says, is responsible for a plan to "intentionally collapse our economic system."

Let's pause there for a moment. First of all, Ms. Piven is not a "liberal academic." By her own description, she is a radical, a leftist and a Marxist.

Let us look at those last two sentences. The "leftist" is interesting. That has the same valence why? As to the other charges... so? She has ideas!

Let's remember that the reason Beck is targeting her is that she wrote something in 1966, and that his fans have issued death threats.

The powerpoop twit says: "It is Ms. Piven, not Glenn Beck, who explicitly defends violence, and comes perilously close to advocating it," and as evidence posts a video where she does not do that.

Then she says that peope who are unemployed should be angry at rich people.

Stone the witch.

Look, the real problem with what Beck is doing is that he is whipping up loons in order to convince them that obscure writers for the Nation Rule the World.

Meanwhile the real Rulers of the World are robbing Beck fans blind, and in return, Beck fans are lining up to blow them.

It's the blowjobs, not the nutjobs, that matter ultimately.

MAS. Oh, I take that back. Here is a chart I found for True Reals that shows how elderly women who write occasional articles for The Nation rule your world.

Not actually joking.

I suppose the loony left flowchart would show some sort of wacky interchange between current & former Goldman Sachs & Citibank executives and crucial government executive positions... but how silly hahahaha it is obscure 78 year olds and The Nation what run everything. I mean shit just look at that chart...