Way too hot this week.

No camping even though we have the trailer still in the front yard.

Fran bought the most chocolately cake ever known to man for Father’s day...made us both sick it was so good and chocolately. we had to throw half of it out b/c we couldn’t stop eating it!

max is walking faster, but falling down more often. He fell into the built in bookcases last weekend, the very sharp corner catching him in a straight line from his right eyebrow down past his mouth. he woke up the next day with his first black eye! he fell later in the week on his face out in the road in front of the house and the next day had a very skinned up and red nose. So by the end of the week, a black eye and red skinned up nose. i’m surprised we haven’t been accused of abuse by the look of him. fran took him to Ft Eustis on the off chance that he might have some fluid on the ear that was affecting his balance. The verdict---no fluid, he’s just at the falling stage. we both now wince everytime he takes off running after the dog or whatever happens to catch his eye.

Morning Photo

max walkabout.mov

max goes on a walkabout (the backyard)

Qik - Mobile video by R M

Qik - Mobile video by R M

ManBearPig Watch, flashback two

Forbes article, reliving the good old days of "Climate Emergency, End of the World!!!"

The Fiction Of Climate Science

Many of you are too young to remember, but in 1975 our government pushed "the coming ice age."

Random House dutifully printed "THE WEATHER CONSPIRACY … coming of the New Ice Age." This may be the only book ever written by 18 authors. All 18 lived just a short sled ride from Washington, D.C. Newsweek fell in line and did a cover issue warning us of global cooling on April 28, 1975. And The New York Times, Aug. 14, 1976, reported "many signs that Earth may be headed for another ice age."

OK, you say, that's media. But what did our rational scientists say?

In 1974, the National Science Board announced: "During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end…leading into the next ice age."

continued at http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/03/climate-science-gore-intelligent-technology-sutton.html

What's funny is that the article goes over scientific studies of the times and who was funding the research. Science still "lives and dies" by their patrons. Well, real lives of modern scientists aren't so much on the chopping block as much as their financial and/or scientific lives, especially in light of the so-called "Climate-gate" emails released last week.

Makes you wonder WWLD? (what would Leonardo (da Vinci) do?)

ManBearPig Watch

The Ice Age is Coming!!!!

In April 28, 1975 article in Newsweek magazine.[22] Titled "The Cooling World", it pointed to "ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change" and pointed to "a drop of half a degree [Fahrenheit] in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968."

The article claimed "The evidence in support of these predictions [of global cooling] has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it." The Newsweek article did not state the cause of cooling; it stated that "what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery" and cited the NAS conclusion that "not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions."

The article mentioned the alternative solutions of "melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting Arctic rivers" but conceded these were not feasible.

The Newsweek article concluded by criticizing government leaders: "But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies...The longer the planners (politicians) delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality."

The article emphasized sensational and largely unsourced consequences - "resulting famines could be catastrophic", "drought and desolation," "the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded", "droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons," "impossible for starving peoples to migrate," "the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age."

On October 23, 2006, Newsweek issued a correction, over 31 years after the original article, stating that it had been "so spectacularly wrong about the near-term future" (though editor Jerry Adler claimed that 'the story wasn't "wrong" in the journalistic sense of "inaccurate."')

Wow...just change a few words like "cooling" to "warming" and you'd have a remarkably accurate description of ManBearPig's latest inconvenient truth, complete with dire weather warnings, trashing of government leaders for not making radical changes, general impending gloom and doom.

Imagine what would have happened if those irresponsible government leaders back then had acted "responsibly" and melted the arctic cap?

ManBearPig Watch - the Boxer diversion

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ManBearPig Watch

Taking the private jet to Copenhagen

Any celebrity flying the green flag needs glittering eco-credentials. But how do they justify the fleet of customised planes, the luxury homes and the posse of servants?

Hypocrisy is the vice we find hardest to forgive, but it’s also the one we most enjoy discovering in others. And nothing piques our interest more than eco-hypocrisy as practised by the “green” celebrities who have been spouting green virtue but spewing out hundreds of tons of carbon from their private jets or multiple holiday homes around the globe.

(later in the article)

At the end of the film An Inconvenient Truth, the unbearably earnest former presidential candidate Al Gore asked his audience: “Are you ready to change the way you live?” His own huge Nashville mansion consumed over 20 times the electricity of an average American home. Indeed, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, it burnt twice as much power in the month of August 2006 than most American homes do in an entire year. Another inconvenient truth revealed that the former senator spent $500 a month just to heat the indoor swimming pool in his lavish domestic establishment. The 100ft houseboat he bought in 2008, on the other hand, was said to be powered by biodiesel.

Gore gave the usual response of the green celebrity caught not practising what they preach. He said he made up for his consumption of electricity and production of carbon dioxide by buying carbon offsets — some from his own offset company.

the best part?

The Copenhagen summit next week will generate vast quantities of hot air. It will see 16,500 people coming in from 192 countries. That amounts to 41,000 tons of carbon dioxide, roughly the same as the carbon emissions of Morocco in 2006. Also, the organisers will lay 900 kilometres of computer cable and 50,000 square miles of carpet.

A convention on Global Warming producing more carbon that an entire country?

Talk about your "inconvenient truths"

Euro Goracle Watch

Speaking of Orwellian!

Everyone in Britain should have an annual carbon ration and be penalised if they use too much fuel, the head of the Environment Agency will say.

Like with a bank account, a statement would be sent out each month to help people keep track of what they are using. If their "carbon account" hits zero, they would have to pay to get more credits.

Those who are frugal with their carbon usage will be able to sell their unused credits and make a profit.

Lord Smith will call for the scheme to be part of a "Green New Deal" to be introduced within 20 years when he addresses the agency's annual conference on Monday.

Newthinkers bellyfeel much goodest!

Euro Goracle Watch

Netherlands to levy 'green' road tax by the kilometre

The Dutch government said Friday it wants to introduce a "green" road tax by the kilometre from 2012 aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent and halving congestion.

"Each vehicle will be equipped with a GPS device that tracks how many kilometres are driven and when and where. This data will be then be sent to a collection agency that will send out the bill," the transport ministry said in a statement.

A GPS device to track citizen movements? On behalf of the environment?

The Ministry of Truth approves. Newthinkers bellyfeel much gooder!

Goracle Watch

I have been remiss in keeping the Goracle watch up to date....there have just been too many Non-Global Warming related headlines lately for me to keep track of.

Here's just an example:

For the nation as a whole, it was the third coolest October on record. The month was marked by an active weather pattern that reinforced unseasonably cold air behind a series of cold fronts. Temperatures were below normal in eight of the nation's nine climate regions, and of the nine, five were much below normal. Only the Southeast climate region had near normal temperatures for October.

State of the Climate | National Overview | October 2009

What? The third coolest October, on record, ever? Very very dire circumstances indeed. Clearly evidence that we are facing a catastrophe of epic and unprecedented impact and if we don't act now...what's that? Oh, you said coldest...well that changes things a little. Cancel the "catastrophe" headlines, this is just an unexplainable event in the geo-record not worth mentioning. Call me when we break a hot weather record.

Goracle, I hope you've been stashing away all that Global Warming money for a not all that hot, but rainy day.

Goracle Watch

NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - NOAA: Summer Temperature Below Average for U.S.

NOAA: Summer Temperature Below Average for U.S.

The average June-August 2009 summer temperature for the contiguous
United States was below average – the 34th coolest on record, according
to a preliminary analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. August was also below the long-term average. The analysis is based on records dating back to 1895. 

Goracle save us from the impending Global Cooling.  Please advise us what products we should buy and what investments we should make to avoid the impending Man Made Global Cooling that is upon us. 

Can you gin up some snazzy trend analysis slides and sad pictures of baby animals that will die if we don't act now!