The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
Here’s the NWS prediction for today’s weather in my zip code:
Note that, according to the NWS, there was a “100%” probability of rain by 8AM.
It’s almost 11 AM. While the clouds are moving in, it’s still sunny and I can see plenty of blue sky. Not a drop of rain yet (though it’s coming.)
But the NWS says it’s supposed to have been raining for THREE HOURS at least.
And they can tell us what the climate will be in 100 years!
UPDATE: 1:10PM, it’s finally starting to rain.
I think I’ve found my next T-shirt purchase:
Available from RangerUp.
UPDATED:
I may have to get this one, too!
Kudos to Obama
And I mean that seriously.
Fed Loan Guarantees May Boost Nuclear Power Return
$8B loan guarantees for Ga. plants may spur nuclear comeback 30 years after Three Mile Island
More than $8 billion in new federal loan guarantees to build two nuclear reactors in Georgia could be the first step toward a nuclear renaissance in the United States, three decades after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident halted all new reactor orders.
With the nuclear industry poised to begin construction of at least a half dozen plants over the next decade, President Barack Obama announced the first loan guarantees Tuesday, casting them as both economically essential and politically attractive. He called nuclear power a key part of comprehensive energy legislation that assigns a cost to the carbon pollution of fossil fuels, giving utility companies more incentive to turn to cleaner nuclear fuel.
“This is only the beginning,” Obama said in designating the new federal financial backing for a pair of reactors in Burke County, Ga., to be built by Atlanta-based Southern Co. Obama’s budget would triple — to $54.5 billion — loan guarantees available for new nuclear construction.
Of course, he killed the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage program, but . . .
I wanted to wait a couple of days and see what the liberals had to say about Obama’s announcement, and I’ve been surprised. Eminent nuclear physicist Michael Douglas (star of 1979’s The China Syndrome) now supports nuclear power. “(P)ioneering environmentalist Stewart Brand, the founder and editor of the Whole Earth Catalog” – for years an opponent of nuclear power – is now on board.
Hey, the religion of Anthropogenic Global Warming does have an upside!
But I still want my backyard nuke.
Obama Said . . .
. . . during his Primary victory speech,
“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow . . .”
And he was RIGHT!
Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels
Study claimed in 2009 that sea levels would rise by up to 82cm by the end of century – but the report’s author now says true estimate is still unknown
Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.
The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience, one of the top journals in its field, confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century.
Between 7 and 82cm? Those are the limits of the error bars? And we’re supposed to strangle the economic output of Western nations on data not even good enough to produce results THAT bad?
Quote of the Day – Global Warming Edition
(T)he movement to stop climate change through a Really Big and Comprehensive Grand Global Treaty is dead because there is no political consensus in the US to go forward. It’s dead because the UN process is toppling over from its own excessive ambition and complexity. It’s dead because China and India are having second thoughts about even the smallish steps they put on the table back in Copenhagen.
Doorknob dead.
As the Post story shows, the mainstream media is now coming to terms with the death. Environmentalists are still trying to avoid pulling the plug, but the corpse is already cool to the touch and soon it will begin to smell. As the global greens move from the denial stage of the grief process, brace yourself for some eloquent, petulant and arrogant rage. Tears will be shed and hands will be wrung. The world is stupid, uncaring, unworthy to be saved. Horrible Republicans, evil Chinese, demented know-nothing climate skeptics have ruined the world and condemned our grandchildren to lives of sorrow and pain. Messengers will be shot; skeptics will be blamed for asking questions and the media (and the internet) will be blamed for reporting the answers.
— Walter Russell Mead, How Al Gore Wrecked Planet Earth
Should be fun!
Letting the Cat (farther) Out of the Bag
Fascinating headline in the Washington Post this morning:
Series of missteps by climate scientists threatens climate-change agenda
No mention in the piece of the revelation by University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit director Phil Jones’ revelation that there has been there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming in the last FIFTEEN YEARS, but that headline . . .
Science isn’t SUPPOSED TO HAVE an AGENDA.
But the media sure does.
More news from the “Global Warming” front:
Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995
By Jonathan Petre
Last updated at 5:12 PM on 14th February 2010* Data for vital ‘hockey stick graph’ has gone missing
* There has been no global warming since 1995
* Warming periods have happened before – but NOT due to man-made changesThe academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.
Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.
Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.
The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.
Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.
And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.
PHIL. JONES. The center of the controversy since the CRU email release, JUST. ADMITTED. IT. ISN’T. REAL.
Read the whole thing.
All the News That Fits the Agenda
I really get a kick out of Matt Drudge and his skill at arranging (and titling links). Example:
The authoritative New York Times tells us that all this cold and snow we’re getting may be the result of Global Warming! (Which even the high priests of Global Warming have admitted has been on a ten-year hiatus and they don’t know why: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” Kevin Trenberth from the East Anglia computer hack/leak.)
But the philosophy cannot be wrong!
However, there’s this interesting bit of continuing fallout concerning the “Paper of Record”:
UPDATE 3-New York Times ad outlook dim, shares fall
Print advertising declines to continue in first quarter
* Q4 adjusted EPS $0.44 vs $0.38 average analyst estimate
* Q4 revenue down 11.5 percent to $681.2 million
* Shares down almost 9 percent
NEW YORK, Feb 10 (Reuters) – The New York Times Co (NYT.N) warned on Wednesday that print newspaper advertising will continue to decline, sending shares down nearly 9 percent, even as the company slashed costs to reach a higher-than-expected fourth-quarter profit.
The results, like that of other U.S. newspaper publishers, show that revenue declines are easing as the economy improves and advertisers are taking ginger steps back into the market. Even so, they are reducing what they spend on print media anyway, keeping newspapers’ long-term futures uncertain.
Obviously this is yet another of the myriad of problems we’re told that are caused or worsened by Anthropogenic Global Warming!
Getting Your Priorities Right
This photo is one of a series ostensibly taken in Quebec City, Canada. They’ve had a bit of snow this year. This woman has her priorities straight, however:
Word of the Day
Gorewellian
That is all.